"Rebels With a Cause": Kid Activists Make Wingers Cry
By Bill W. Tuesday Nov 13, 2007 3:11pm
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We at C&L couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised to find our very good friend Ava Lowery of Peace Takes Courage being spotlighted as one of America's "Rebels With a Cause": remarkable youths committed to "changing that which they feel needs changing." This clip we put together is just the part focusing on her, but we highly recommend you check out the full segment online. What makes this 20 minute documentary all the more special is it's actually a Nickelodeon Nick News segment that apparently has been causing quite a fuss among wingers who think it's an effort by the network to brainwash our children into becoming activists. (h/t to our angry friends) It's so nice to see Ava still knows how to drive the right-wingnuts bats**t crazy. You go girl!
How sad it is that the so-called news networks for grown-ups could actually use a few pointers from a channel perhaps best known for bringing us Spongebob Squarepants? 
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First!!
OMG now I'm officially a blog-nerd since I just did that.
Children should speak openly and be heard but activists? Really??
Excuse me while I laugh and grieve at the same time.
My Grandfather was a kid activist.
http://shop.mnhs.org/web_assets/depression_f.jpg
Actually, I find Nick News more informative than any network newscast--THEY'VE GOT Linda Ellerbee!
And, Clancy Brown is Mr. Crabs.
No Child Left Behind
http://www.oph.gov.au/images/upload/soup-kitchen-lg.jpg
Lookout, michlle (gri)malkin and rash limpballs are after you!
Who needs the booger man?
I hate when adults exploit the cuteness factor of kids to advance their political agenda.
Stop using kids to protest the war in Iraq.
Stop using kids to protest the horror of abortion.
Sound for WMP download isn't working for me....
mrogi @ 7:
What about kids who grasp the concept better than their adult counterparts and sincerely disagree with policy? Are you saying children are second class citizens who don't deserve the right of free expression?
Not the first time, either. Dobson went apeshiat over the aforementioned Spongebob saying that maybe we should actually not persecute people that might be a little different or are not quite the norm that Daddy Dobson wants.
mrogi @ 7:
Thank you!
Her parents deserve some credit too because they have raised a hell of a great kid. Good for them and good for her. She isn't afraid to speak up when she feels she needs to. Not every kid has the support and background at home to have been given that ability.
mrogi @ 7:
Yeah, and don't forget to stop using the troops to hide behind your profiteering.
I'll take that kid and spongebob over the entire political population of washDC, pundits, press and politicians.
mrogi @ 7:
so kids should be seen, not heard?
I guess you and those that agree with you haven't grasped the concept that they're the ones who'll be inheriting this mess... I think it's high time they were heard...
Ronin Tetsuro @ 9:
The point is kids (and most adults sadly) generally lack the wisdom it takes to step in the political arena. They are parrots of everything their parents preached.
mrogi @ 7:
You try to stop mentioning the word kids to promote your agenda while your at it.
Joe for Unity08 @ 16:
And this is different from many adults HOW?
mrogi @ 7:
A large percentage of the people killed or maimed in this illegal invasion were un the age of 25. Still kids in my book.
mrogi @ 7:
So, you are saying that this kid does not have a mind of her own and isn't doing this herself to make a difference? Or are you saying she is incapable of such action on her own?
Provide some backing that this is a snow job by adults behind the scenes please.
I ♥ Ava for all she's done.
That kid is not being "used," wingnuts.
A handful of committed people can change the world. True, and not always for the better. And a handful of people who ought to be committed (institutionalized) can change the world too. Such as Bush, Cheney, Kristol, ....
Symes @ 20:
No he's/she's trying to change the subject to abortion.
The thing is, she made the decision to speak out against the war. No group or organization "used" her or forced her to do it. She used her feelings and determination to make a statement. If she were my daughter, I would be proud as hell.
Turk Meister @ 23:
It's always a simple matter to . . . never mind.
Yellow Elephant Safari @ 19:
And another thing.
I was 16 years old when I marched in the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago and I knew EXACTLY why I was there.
Oh, and my parents were the kind of people who thought that protesters should have been machine gunned to shut them up so Joe @16 you're argument is crap.
Wingnuts are reactionaries. They visualize these kids parents hovering over them saying, "okay we want you to bash the war and bush and here's how your going to do it. And if you don't! We're cutting off your $200 a week allowance for two years!"
It is high time for the crown ups to take charge of the White house. Bush and his crownies keep repeating were not doing it, you are. You are the terrorrist....... Bush and his daddy are the biggest criminals of 21 century.
Stop using kids to protest the war in Iraq.
Compared to this, how acceptable is using Iraqi children's lives for political and financial gain?
Less or more?
mrogi @ 7:
Not to pick nits, but these aren't equal comparisons.
First of all, the "kids" that are usually used to protest the "horror of abortion" are fetuses. They're not kids. They don't have opinions. Period. Sorry. Better luck next time.
Second of all, the kids in these spots, by virtue of their activism, are not being used. If anyting, it's a mutually sumbiotic relationship, as those kids are now using the media to get a point across they feel needs to be made.
Now, if you're talking about child actors being hired to look forlornly into a camera and say "war is bad, vote for my daddy, he'll bring the mommy and daddy soldiers home," if those kids are having their opinions written for them and they're just parroting back a script, then, maybe, you'd have a point. But they're not. So, you don't.
When neocons say "I hate when adults exploit the cuteness factor of kids to advance their political agenda," what they really mean is "I hate that kids understand the fustercluck that is this war better than we do."
And when your a reactionary the only tool in your tool box is getting others to react and become reactionaries.
Symes @ 20:
This girl is bright for her age so there are exceptions.
But when I hear something like "kid acvists" an imagery of pervesley indoctrinated children, like the minions of that wretched pyschotic hag in Jesus Camp, floats about.
Ava is a precious gift to all of us, but especially to her peers if they care to listen to/watch her videos. This young woman has a great spirit, dedicated to the betterment of all. May all of her endeavours be successful in bringing home her dedication to humanity.
"The point is kids (and most adults sadly) generally lack the wisdom it takes to step in the political arena. They are parrots of everything their parents preached."
Some kids, yeah, but not all. If we simply parroted what our parents preached, we'd still be living in caves. It's the ones like Ava Lowery who veer away from the herd. She's wonderful!!
Until Congress passes a law saying you must be 18 to speak or have strong feelings about something, then let the kids speak. It seems to me that part of the American way has to be suppress what others try to say, instead of supporting someones right to say even if you represent the other side of the argument. What Ms. Lowery does for someone of her age is nothing short of incredible. Loving your country is seeing something wrong with your country, and having the guts to say what is wrong with it inspite of what suppression you may encounter. Our country is screwed up, to be honest and its going to take people saying it to fix it. I only hope that we are not to late in speaking up about this, and that we do it loud enough.
So the attack is not on the message, but instead on the young messenger? Probably, because everyone, except maybe some people under a rock somewhere, know that everything she is saying is true.
L.A. Confidential @ 24:
The discussion is about using kids for political purposes. The anti-Abortion movement is sure as hell in line with that subject.
It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes ... reach the light of day? — From the first leaflet of the White Rose.
Sophie Scholl
L.A. Confidential @ 39:
Since the conquest of Poland three hundred thousand Jews have been murdered in this country in the most bestial way ... The German people slumber on in their dull, stupid sleep and encourage these fascist criminals ... Each man wants to be exonerated of a guilt of this kind, each one continues on his way with the most placid, the calmest conscience. But he cannot be exonerated; he is guilty, guilty, guilty! — From the second leaflet of the White Rose.
Since the South gets bashed so often here, I love it that she's from Alabama. See, not all us southern people are idoits. ;)
cristalyn @ 1:
Get out while ya can! Save yerself! It's not too late!
And, whatever else ya do, don't get involved in a conversation with Stanley Rosenthal*, 'cause then ya will have passed the point of no return!
*Nothin' personal, Stan. I could just as well have typed xoites, tyree, ysbadadden, Andy K, BaScOmBe...hope ya get the point.
mrogi @ 7:
Ironically, it's you who's now usin' kids.
pissed off patricia @ 25:
Very well said. Ava is my hero for not being afraid to speak out, when we are being conditioned in our society to not question the actions of our government. Ava gives me hope for the future.
I saw an anti-abortion ad that featured an adorable little girl. Just before she blew out the three candles on her birthday cake she looked up and thanked her mommy for not having an abortion. I almost put my foot through the gattdam TV set. Stop exploiting children for political gain.
Good for Ava.
Speaking personally, I have little doubt that the war in Iraq is immoral, illegal and astonishingly foolish. But I hate Ava's little movies. Some day she will be an adult with a more developed capacity for aesthetic judgment and she will realize that she pretty much wasn't making anything but kiddie war porn; that is, much of what informs the creative generation of pornography is the taking delight in the forbidden. That's not to say that it is an equivalent sort of transgression as actually killing and maiming people, but to assert that absolute moral superiority permits or forgives transgression is a pretty childish notion and one that adults are responsible for correcting.
roninkokoro22 @ 8:
Works for me. You might want to ditch wmp anyway and go for something much better.
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PC World VLC Media Player review
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You kid-haters are all kidding me. Wingnut a-holes. I am thirteen. I have hated Bush, his corruption, and everything the wingnuts stand for since I was about ten. I am precocious, sure, but I don't care. It is a sad day indeed when I know that this man is f-ed in the head, but a bunch of adults cannot grasp this.
P.S. I am fully aware of all of what's going on in Iraq, abortion, the wage gap, corruption, GLBT rights, (I'm bi), and everything else adressable. I have my opinons on these subjects, all of which lean quite far left. I have made these decisions for myself, and nothing any of you shrieking wingnuts can change my mind. I make those decisions for myself. As for everyone who's on my side with this, thanks!
mrogi @ 44:
If I had know this country would end up in the sad state of affairs of where it is today I would have encouraged my mother to get an abortion.
I swear, Stet, I just don't know what to make of your comment (45) I really don't.
Linda Ellerbee!? Whoa, how long has it been since I heard THAT name! Good for Nick News, but boy her talents could sure use a wider audience...
Okay, I'll agree liberals use kids to hide behind for certain issues if conservatives admit to use kids for some hey-hey now!
Joe for Unity08 @ 16:
Kids generally lack the wisdom? HA!!! that's funny 'cause the first thing that came out of my 14 year old son's mouth in 2000 was if that man wins the election we will go to war. He'll be 21 this year. Kids aren't as dumb or dimwitted as most people make them out to be.
mrogi @ 44:
Isn't there an obvious difference between a 3 year old readin' a script and a teenager who starts her own blog and creates her own media content? Hey, I see that difference, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who does.
AngryTeen @ 47:
You Rock!
Welcome Angry Teen. Speak up loud and often.
Dont be dissin Spongebob, I too started out suspicious of what I believed to be a poorly drawn get rich quick disney package, Till I understood the Tao of the Sponge.
This little yellow character does not have a mean bone in his body (thats why he is an invertabrate).
He absorbs the abuse and insults of his peers, accepts them for what they are, and in a world of sludge, drudge, and bottom feeders, he always wipes the slate clean, and start out anew.
He's a goofy goober yeah,
I'm a goofy goober yeah.
We're all goofy goobers yeah.
AS a matter of fact I have a bumpersticker right next to my "anyone but bush" and G WTF sticker that says WWSBD
(What would spongebob Do?)
AngryTeen @ 47:
Calm da fuck down, junior. You're only 13. You dont even have pubic hair. The biggest challenge you need to confront at your age is getting to the 9th level of Halo 3. Jeezus Christ, don't be in such a rush to grow up...there's nothing up there.
Maybe the wingnuts can show us one thing Bush is exporting that is the best of what America is able to offer to the world.
Besides threats, death and destruction.
God, I love Linda Ellerbee. I still miss Overnight after almost 30 years. Loved the books and loved Our World. This story about kids caring about world events is fabulous. There could be another segment. Hey kids. Look and listen to Linda Ellerbee. She's one of the last of a nearly extinct group: professional, talented, engaging, honest journalists. We used to have loads of them. Now, you kids have Ms. Ellerbee and we have Bill Moyers once a week for a blissful hour of honesty and integrity on PBS.
mrogi @ 57:
Just because you rode the short bus as a teen- and I suspect that ya still do- doesn't mean everyone else did.
AngryTeen @ 47:
Wow, a 13 yr old with fully developed sexual identity to figure out he or she is bisexual. Kids really grow fast these days do they? Or people trying to pass as kids. You know how the saying goes, every chick in the internets is a supermodel, every old male fart is a young stallion, and every 13 yr old is a cop...
pissed off patricia @ 49:
???? neither me.
mrogi @ 57:
There's rude and then there's rude asshole. This comment is completely unwarrented and you should apologize for your nastiness.
When I was 13 I was still building forts in the backyard where my sister and I would play. Jezz, I probably couldn't have told you much of anything about the government. Kids do grow up fast these days. I guess they have to sometimes, but I'm kinda glad that I didn't. Things were simpler then and so were we. I don't regret being a little kid as long as I was. Being an adult has its sucky moments today.
mrogi @ 44:
It's not the same mrogi and you know it.
Ava is doing this on her own as a statement of her own beliefs.
That girl in the ad was a paid actress reading a right wing fundie script.
Don't be so disingenuous as to try to confuse us about the two, they are quite different things.
mrogi @ 57:
Well mrogi, it would appear that I was far more advanced than you at 13.
I agree with ignoranceisnotbliss (63) It's one thing not to respect adults but when you stoop to be rude to kids or young adults, that says a awful lot about you, and none of it is good.
Dr. Who @ 61:
That's a pretty F'd up thing to say. I have a nephew is 15 and he's been openly gay for years now. And he is most definitely gay and has known so since well before middle school. I wish he were more politically aware though because he has no idea how much his sexuality has become a political football.
It's not that surprising. I knew damn well I liked girls when I was in frickin kindergarten, and was certifiably girl crazy by like second grade. Waaaay before puberty I was aware of my sexual identity.
Dr. Who @ 61: Wow, a 13 yr old with fully developed sexual identity to figure out he or she is bisexual. Kids really grow fast these days do they? Or people trying to pass as kids. You know how the saying goes, every chick in the internets is a supermodel, every old male fart is a young stallion, and every 13 yr old is a cop...
Actually my daughter came out to us when she was 13. Got to high school, noticed that she was noticing the Senior Girls, realized she was gay. Fortunately her mother and I have been Indigo Girls fans since the Eighties, so it wasn't a big deal.
stet @ 45:
Okay, it's pretty well established that mrogi's a troll. And yer probably not, but I'll reserve judgement on that...But "...kiddie war porn..."?!?! Like this is Hostel 3: Bloody Bar Mitzvah? Get a grip. Of the millions of hits that video received, how many were from pedophiles who also happen to be necrophiles? 2? 3? Are the rest of us bein' softened up so that when Bushco blows the hell outta thousands of Iranian kids we'll all be horny and droolin'?
You should seek professional help. That imagination of yers will getchya into a lot of trouble if left unchecked. Yeesh!
L.A. Confidential @ 40:
Just a quick note, almost as many god fearing Catholic poles were killed in the concentration camps as Polish Jews were. And before Jewish people started to be "dissapeared" plenty of German political figures on the left started to take "extended vacations." By the mid 30s Hitler had made political purging a national sport, and most Germans were A-OK with it...
Most people in Germany knew damn well what was going on, and they did nothing... and Americans will do the same apologetic act when the shit done by the Bush regime comes to bite them in the ass: "We didn't know... Poor us... We would never have allowed that if we had known." Bullshit, just as the Germans were looking the other way, because at the end of the day Hitler had brought prosperity, the autobahn, food, and every train ran on time. So do most Americans who rather have other people put up with some "inconvenience" as long as it doesn't interfere with the broadcast of American Idol. That is why there will never be any sort of upheaval or revolution, because at the end of the day most Americans are complicit in this bullshit.
Most people tend to think that regimes establish themselves by terrorizing the general population, and being generally evil. The truth is that for the most part, they offer something to the general population so that they will shut up while they do their deeds. It is easy to play dumb later on, than to tackle the current evil. Just like most Argentineans played the victim card once they got their asses handed to them by the Gurkhas on the Falklands, but they quickly forget that there were one million of them cheering in front of the presidential palace when their dictator bluffed Thacher.
Americans are no better, so long there is convenience, the American public will put up with this shit. In fact, Boosh could crown himself king and most people would be A-OK with it as long as gas remains relatively cheap, and they have the right to stuff their faces with shitty food.
Hell, I got detention and a paddling (back when public schools didn't have a problem with breaking out the paddle) in 3rd grade for getting caught playing you show me your and I'll show you mine with a girl in the band equipment room. I think I knew for sure my sexuality before I could multiply and divide.
Yes... but we all know that Spongebob is blatantly homosexual (according to James Dobson), so therefore Nickelodeon is obviously indoctrinating our children to become terrorist loving Jesus hating baby killing feminazis.
Dr. Who @ 71:
Wurd.
I mean, this is happening right now. Gitmo. The FISA amendment. The suspension of habeas corpus.
One lesson I took away from the end of the Soviet Union was how much misery a population will tolerate without rebelling. The flat 'growth' of real after-inflation wages across the past thirty years just shows that America has population management down to a science: narcotize the population with TV, support the Horatio Alger mythology, and you can string the population along indefinitely...
Lets keep it real. Stop pretending that lil Ava presented a cogent, compelling, researched, persuasive, nuanced exposition of the political, economic and military causes and ramifications of the Iraq War. The only reason Ava gets any notice at all is the novelty of a child's commentary about grown up stuff. Ava's callow grade school term paper approach to a complex political topic would be laughable in an adult setting.
[deleted - feel free to write to John or the Sitemonitor e-mail address. They are posted at the top/left of the C&L homepage.]
Catholic Poles or Catholic poles?
justabill @ 68:
Well, when I was 13, I was definitively aware of my sexuality, and I was mildly interested in politics. Yet, I knew enough to figure out all by myself that bringing my sexuality in any way shape or form, as a non sequitur, did not add validity to my point, nor immunized it from criticism.
Also, all of my close friends who consider themselves to be bisexual, without exception, took far longer than the early stages of their puberty to figure out and assume the extent of their sexuality. Heterosexual identity is relatively easy to absorb, as it is the social norm. Homosexuality is a bit tricker, but it is still facilitated by the black and white nature of the sexual attraction. Bisexuality, due to its gray nuances takes a while to master... Alas, maybe I grew up before the MTV generation which made hot insecure chick on hotter and more insecure chick sexuality after a few tequila shots to be the norm these days...
L.A. Confidential @ 26:
I hope mrogi reads that.
Wordsmith@ work @ 77:
Polish People of the Catholic persuasion :-), not the name of the strip club outside The Vatican. Sorry for the confusion, not enough coffee...
mrogi @ 75:
Political, economic and military causes? Hmm...Bush knew he'd get a huge bump in his numbers when he invaded Iraq to control the world's supply of oil- benefitin' his buddies in both the petroleum and military contractin' businesses- and because he was in control of the world's most technologically advanced military ever- fightin' a country that didn't have a navy(to speak of), air force(to speak of), or WMD's- he'd have troops well entrenched before people got wise.
Occam's Razor, pal. It doesn't take a round-table of MENSA members to figure it out. Ava figured it out. Why can't you?
Last Saturday a watched a girl in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit work the pole at my local strip club. It was a religious experience.