Wednesday, 3/5/97
Students must fight stifling of thought
Cutbacks in funding for education designed to quash knowledge,
keep status quo
Please indulge me in a bit of fantasy as we step into the
future.
"Please lift your right hand and re-Pete after me."
"I, Pete Wilson, do solemnly swear to support and defend the
Constitution of the United States of America."
"Put your hand down. I, then, by the powers vested in me,
pronounce you, Pete Wilson, president of the United States of
America, and MAY GOD BLESS THIS GREAT COUNTRY."
At the tender age of 9, I sat with my grandfather looking at the
TV as America celebrated the inauguration of her 46th president.
After watching President Wilson announced the demolition of
affirmative action, the imprisonment of single mothers on welfare,
exclusion of legal immigrants from any social services, the
elimination of all federal financial aid programs and increased
police on the streets for the incarceration of the "darker elements
of society," I asked my grandpa,"How could this day have come?"
"It all came to pass quite simply," Grandpa said. "Doctor
Charlie White created it in his basement laboratory at the National
Science Institute: Rx 22, known to the world as Tooty Fruity
Kool-Aid.
"Rx 22 was designed to cause inactivity, passivity,
disorganization and unconsciousness. It was created for the
explicit purpose of countering the progressive efforts to empower
the oppressed. Rx 22 would be mentally addicting by rendering its
victims unable to think and act for themselves, thus dependent on
others for direction."
Tooty Fruity Kool-Aid was marketed as the super drink. It could
help if you wanted to lose 10 pounds, get a guy or a girl, dunk
like Jordan, or remember all nine weeks of your chemistry class six
hours before the final. All you needed was water, sugar, and
bottoms up.
Needless to say, it worked. Years of home shopping,
info-mercials and "976" and "900" numbers had Americans willing to
try anything once. And that’s all it took; just like the TV,
earlier, it had the masses hooked.
Immediately people became disinterested in politics and more
concerned with partying. Formerly political and academic
organizations became more social in nature. Those unable to make
the transition faded from the scene.
Seeing the defenses down, the people in power began making more
blatant attacks, first from the media. Television shows like
"Homeboys in Outer Space," "Martin" and "Cops," depicting the most
negative stereotypes of a people, perverted the airwaves. Instead
of standing up and fighting these deplorable images (as they would
have had they not been put to sleep by Tooty Fruity Kool-Aid), they
loved it and could not get enough. As the effects set in there were
more direct assaults; news and opinion articles spreading lies went
unchallenged by the progressive media.
Next came reactionary legislation designed to further prevent
empowerment of the oppressed. First, they put forward
anti-immigration legislation and said,"It is because of them that
you don’t have jobs." They enacted "get-tough-on-crime measures"
which advocated modern-day slavery. For those they could not keep
enslaved they created Jim Crow laws disguised as "civil
rights."
Disgusted by what I was hearing, my mind searched for a
solution. When I turned to Grandpa, he said,"The answer is very
simple: Liberate your thinking."
Back to reality.
I wrote this story one night when I found myself (as I often do)
frustrated at the state of progressive politics. There just had to
be a sinister reason this country was taking such a conservative
turn for the worst. Progressive ineffectiveness must be due to
uncontrollable and unnatural factors. What beside Rx 22 could be so
powerful as to stifle a counteroffensive to America’s conservative
assault? Yet the solution is very simple and easy to control.
Our ability to constantly challenge our thinking is the most
important weapon we have. The people in power are afraid of us as
students. Throughout time and around the world, from Berkeley in
the ’60s to South Korea today, to South Africa and Cuba, it has
been students that have sparked and led movements of great social
change. Why is it that education is the first state program to be
attacked when money is short? Because it behooves the status quo
and the power elite to have the masses uneducated.
Education leads to social action and revolution, so to close our
minds and not challenge our thinking is detrimental to our
survival. When there is a vacuum in learning there is no effective
expression of thought, and no thought leads to mindless action.
Once stagnation sets in, we lose our ability to move forward
progressively.