My Sept. 29 commentary dealt with the current dismal state of our educational system. Im sure that to some of the readers it was simply an intellectual exercise, just an assemblage of numbers. Yes, numbers are bloodless things and dont relate to the workaday world. But over the last couple of weeks we are beginning to see how those numbers affect our lives.
The Occupy Wall Street revolution is an excellent illustration of what our educational system has wrought! To be sure, there is a minority among the marching, chanting mob that are dedicated Marxists and want to destroy the capitalist system and replace it with a tried and true communist dictatorship which, by the way, has been tried at least four times around the world and always fails. But the majority are those that Lenin would have referred to as useful idiots; those who are blind to the threat that will eventually destroy them. The Occupy Wall Street revolution is manned primarily by high school and college age kids. There is the sprinkling of aged hippies and the red-diaper doper babies, but the foot soldiers are those young useful idiots. I have been listening to the interviews, reading their signs and analyzing the manifesto.
These are not yet the mobs weve seen in Greece, France, London or Spain. Those rioters were protesting the loss of the unsustainable governmental welfare they had come to expect. No, our children are protesting the fact that they do not have those freebies. I use freebies because that is what they think they are: free. Our educational system, either accidentally or on purpose. has not explained the economics of a free society.
A reading of their manifesto should be instructive.
Demand 1: Trade tariffs on all imported goods and a $20 per hour minimum wage should be imposed.
Demand 2: Ban all private insurers and impose a universal single-payer system.
Demand 3: Guarantee every one a living wage whether working or not.
Demand 4: Guarantee everyone a free college education.
Demand 5: End fossil-fuel economy and fast-track alternative energy.
Demand 6: Spend one trillion dollars on infrastructure now!
Demand 7: Spend one trillion dollars on ecological restoration and the decommissioning of Americas nuclear power plants now!
Demand 8: Institute a racial and gender equal rights amendment now!
Demand 9: Open borders so anyone can travel and work anywhere!
Demand 10: Americas elections must be brought up to international standards by instituting paper ballots and independent party observers.
Demand 11: Abolish all debt everywhere, banks, homes, stock market; all debt anywhere on the planet!!!!
Demand 12: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies!
Demand 13: Allow workers to sign a ballot at any time.
Now, some of these demands dont deserve the ink to discuss them, such as demand 8. Apparently the drafters of this manifesto are not familiar with the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution wherein these rights are protected. Critical thinkers should question the source of the trillions of dollars and the energy needed to accomplish the goals of 6 and 7 while simultaneously destroying the fossil fuel industry and nuclear power plants. Universal single-payer and abolition of private insurance companies has been the SEIUs dream ever since they put Obama on his fast track to the presidency.
These useful idiots on the march in cities across the country could never have been duped into participating in these demonstrations had they been given a thorough exposure to basic math, science and our founding documents. Math was never my favorite subject and the math teachers were not too concerned about my self-esteem. I kept getting my papers back all awash in red ink. But I somehow survived the battering and learned about our economic system.
The basic lesson was: Money is not found on trees, in the gutter or in envelopes from the government. Money is a means of exchange and is earned by trading something of value; either hours of labor or a commodity. It is not a product of the printing press. The useful idiots display a major deficiency in their education. Im fearful that our Wall Street occupiers may soon become the American version of Greece, England and Frances rioters.
Larry Tradlener lives down McElmo Canyon.
