The Eagle Scout and the Prom Queen

In high school the Eagle Scout vied with the Prom Queen for Class President. Their joint mission was to amuse, entertain and distract us. They left the issues to the class nerds who rarely voted anyway.
The high school remains our single universal social institution. As it goes, so goes the nation. The elitist is the student who achieved a ninth grade reading level.
Print is out. The image is the rage. The traditional facts to form opinion is an outdated process. The first soundbites to reach the ears 24/7 dictate cognition. Talk radio plants the seed during the commuting hours. The only way to lessen the influence is to increase unemployment.
The corporations control the media and the message. The general term for this is information control. In the old days brainwashing was the staple of science fiction. We called it “far out” in those times. It was outlandish to think of nations marching to their doom as unresponsive robots in lock step. The far out has become common place.

Brainwashed Children

Brainwashed children are a self-fulfilling prophecy. School teachers maintain their self-respect with a dictum. If one generation matures without any knowledge of history, philosophy and fine arts, we lose our culture and our civilization forever.

Since 1947 Palestinian and American children have been inflicted with increasingly clever programs to alter their mindsets. That’s three generations given to mindless jingoism, rampant racism and perpetual war.

The leaders of both countries have denounced the aim to negotiate in order to reach peaceful agreements. It is high treason to talk to a perceived enemy. Each leader realizes that compromising with a foreign power could destroy his local support and perhaps lead to his assassination.

All the 1947 kids have grown up many of them nasty.

They say that revolution is a long term proposition. If that is true, the wingnuts have certainly paid their dues. I wonder if progressives are willing to pay the price to reverse the process.