I recently rented the movie Idiocracy, having heard from several people that is was hilariously funny and, from a few others, that it would make me weep. As usual, the few were closer to the mark.
Idiocracy is the latest film from Mike Judge, who also brought us the biting satire of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and Office Space. Clearly, the man has a fascination with the less cultured side of what is known as 'American culture'. He has however found a rich comic niche for himself that others have left largely untouched. It isn't that others haven't dealt with the less palatable side of American life, it's just that no one else has done it with such verisimilitude. The characters in this movie are not caricatures. They are real. Far too real.
The premise of Idiocracy is simple. The most average man in the world - the guy at the very middle of the bell curve, literally - and a prostitute are put to sleep in a military cryogenics experiment. Like Planet of the Apes, our cryogenically frozen heroes awake much later than anticipated, finding themselves on a drastically altered, future Earth. Unlike Planet of the Apes, in which the dominant species were apes that had made the evolutionary leap to human-like intelligence, the world of Idiocracy is run by humans who've gone a long way down a devolutionary slide toward ape-like intelligence. And wackiness ensues. I suppose I would've found all that wackiness a lot funnier if it weren't so depressingly close to modern day reality.
While I can't be sure about the plot of Planet of the Apes, I can assure you we are in no danger of ever facing a world like that of Idiocracy. There will never come a time when there are only idiots left in charge, as portrayed in this movie. Maybe that sounds like optimistically good news. It isn't. What is happening is far worse.
I used to teach inner city kids. I taught at one of those technical "colleges" that caters to the underprivileged and poorly educated. As it turns out, this particular school was really only interested in using these kids to suck money out of the Pell Grant program and SallieMae via student loans that almost none of the students intended to pay back. In order to qualify for these grants and loans, these kids would have to pass a test of their basic skills. The school, wanting to get as many loans as possible going, would hedge things in favor of each entrant passing by allowing certain "testing aids." For example, students were allowed to use calculators for the arithmetic portion of the test.
Sadly, I would see kids coming out of those testing rooms each week beaming with pride at having passed. They were proud that they'd just passed an arithmetic test using a calculator! For some of them, this was quite possibly the first time in their lives that they had a feeling of accomplishment and acceptance. I found their excitement pitiful, heartbreaking and sweet all at the same time. Emotionally and intellectually, they were still small children.
The problem isn't that these kids are black, Hispanic, poor or were descendants of slaves. These populations did not become how they are today because they have simply been disenfranchised or were dealing with the wounds of their past.
They have been mercilessly manipulated by a government that is anything but compassionate.
Ignored, perhaps they would've created a subculture that met their needs with what they had available to them. But, they have not been ignored. They have been the target of an ongoing campaign of abuse and psychological warfare with the specific goal of keeping them under the thumb of law enforcement and trapped in an economic prison.
Consider, as an example, The Black Panther Party. The Panthers were, without a doubt, a revolutionary organization. Were they anti-white, as has often been claimed? Two of the original Panthers had white wives. Were they violent? They were not opposed to the use of force in defending themselves, but they did not promote the use of force as part of a revolution against the tyranny of an oppressive government. While the Panthers did march to the California capital building fully armed to protest the legislatures attempt to outlaw the carrying of loaded weapons in public (a cause since taken up by the largely white National Rifle Association), their only action on that day was the reading of a statement of protest by Bobby Seale.
What the Panthers did was far more radical than carrying guns and calling for political reforms. Instead, they took positive action to address the problems of the inner city. In January 1969, they began the Panther's Free Breakfast for School Children Program at St. Augustine's Church in Oakland, California. By the end of 1969, the Panthers were feeding over 10,000 children across the country, for free.
Just what were the Panthers trying to achieve through this program? According to the article To Feed Our Children in The Black Panther magazine of March 26, 1969:
"The Free Breakfast for School Children is about to cover the country and be initiated in every chapter and branch of the Black Panther Party. This program was created because the Black Panther Party understands that our children need a nourishing breakfast every morning so that they can learn."
"It is a beautiful sight to see our children eat in the mornings after remembering the times when our stomachs were not full, and even the teachers in the schools say that there is a great improvement in the academic skills of the children that do get the breakfast. At one time there were children that passed out in class from hunger, or had to be sent home for something to eat. But our children shall be fed, and the Black Panther Party will not let the malady of hunger keep our children down any longer."
In response, then head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, called the Panthers the "greatest threat to the internal security of the country." What is it about poor children receiving adequate nutrition so that they can learn that bothered him so? It does make one scratch their head in wonder, doesn't it? Could it be that our government wanted these children malnourished and poorly educated?
It is easy to look at the chaos of our inner cities today and assume that they brought it on themselves or that they are simply weak. In fact, many put up a valiant fight. The Panther's Free Breakfast program was begun the year following the killing of unarmed 17 year-old Bobby Hutton (one of the original Panthers) by Oakland police and the assassinations of both Martin Luther King (just two days before Hutton's death) and Bobby Kennedy. It would've been easy to let anger overtake them, but they didn't. Instead, they organized in a peaceful manner to feed children. A threat to the internal security of the country?
My greatest passion is understanding what is really going on in the world today and helping others understand...if they want to. That last part is critical. I have no interest in beating anyone over the head with what I think is correct. It is up to each of us to determine what is correct.
I hope to inspire those who yearn for truth to do the hard work of finding it.
M. Branson, I have to concur wholeheartedly. In my second year in this country I taught in the Upward Bound Program for the kids of Appalachia. I was supposed to teach Physics and Math. It took me about an hour to understand that those kids ( most of them 16-17 years old) were:
1. Hungry and malnourished or sick
2. Abused in several different ways
3. Deceived about their abilities
4. Pitted against each other.
5. Brainwashed.
6. Otherwise- perfectly normal and only if we do the things right... but we don't.
I got a student's reward from those kids. And when I had a parent's day and the farmer asked me how his kid could excel in science I said,
'You buy him a notebook. Tell him to study your machinery, the stuff you have. Tell him to write in the notebook how it works, what it does, what are the parts, what the parts do, why oil, why coolant. Let him go research in the library all those things until he would be able to explain on his own those things to you. And when he does, he would know science.'
Boy, I hope that works. But of course, the kid must be not hungry.
by
Mark Sashine (53 articles, 19 quicklinks, 250 diaries, 3574 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 9:16:19 AM
This piece is an important contribution to the dialog, if there is a dialog. One hope I have left is that there are actually intelligent people on the right who have good intentions. What they lack is good information. This means that if they could be inspired to do their own research in order to discover how things are in places other than where they live, and if that information were available (such as the information offered in this article) that maybe, just maybe...
by
Mark A. Goldman (81 articles, 2 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 243 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 11:03:33 AM
Unfortunately Mr. Branson has a very good point. Our education system has been purposely destructured to insure our children get anything but. Actual education would lead to our realization of past mistakes, and then naturally questions about those mistakes.
Eventually this chain would lead to the conclusion that a powerful elite have been managing the United States for a long time. They've killed, manipulated, threatened, lied, stole; virtually done anything to maintain the status quo.
Wake up before its too late.
by
Brent Kopenhaver (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 12:43:45 PM
this is an extremely important article! thank you for helping to dispel the myth of the Black Panthers being a violent group...more people should know the truth.
also, the Black Child's Pledge should be embraced by EVERYONE, regardless of race, wishing to make a difference in the quality of life on the planet! excellent article!
by
anechoic (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 51 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 12:50:50 PM
I'll agree the public education system for the most part is a pathetic sham. One of my biggest pet peeves was I never understood the point of homework. Most of it was busywork which I refused to allow cut into my time outside school. This of course led to me getting B's instead of A's but it was a trade off I made happily. What about projects that have practical objectives and tangible results instead of busywork nonsense? I had two classes that did fall into the latter category and I excelled in them: a business class where we organized and processed the participants in a regional marathon/walk, and yearbook class.
There's seems to be little wiggle room for good teachers to actually instill critical thinking skills and to find inventive ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge while keeping them interested at the same time. My saving grace is I've always had an intense curiosity of all things but others aren't so lucky. I've always felt that if I were in the right environment, I could have been so much more than I am now. There seemed to be so many more possibilities that were slowly smothered to death. Part of that may be that I lack the "will to succeed" and despite everything, I've done well for myself. But I guess it really comes down to the education system and I just don't mesh well.
by
Grazing Gazelle (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 8:22:41 PM
For anyone who is not familiar with Gatto, I would highly recommend visiting his website and buying a copy of his book. He knows what he is talking about from the inside.
Another book I would highly recommend is Political Ponerology. You can find a copy at http://www.qfgpublishing.com. It is another account from the inside of the process of a government turning against the best interests of its people. The man who wrote it lived in eastern Europe during the Nazi occupation. Amazing work!
by
eyesopen (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 13 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 10:47:16 PM
I am an old white guy. I graduated from San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo (Marin County, west bay of San Francisco) in 1968. I was ordained as a Presbyterian minister and was awarded a post-graduate urban intern position by the Board of National Missions. My ministry was with the Southeast Oakland Parish in Oakland.
After driving my moving van across the Richmond-San Rafael bridge to my apartment in Oakland, before unloading that van, I participated in my first act as a Presbyterian minister. I went to stand on the steps of the Oakland City Hall, joining other ministers, priests, nuns, and rabbis in a daily noon prayer vigil to protest against the Oakland Police Department and their violent practices.
The Southeast Oakland Parish was an organization of 11 churches, Catholic and Protestant. I was on a staff or four and our job was to represent those 11 churches in their outreach to the community. In other words, rather than 11 churches collecting food and clothing for the poor, we organized it for them. I believe there were five such parishes in Oakland at that time.
We did a lot more than collect food and clothing. We supported the candidacy of a black woman for the Oakland Board of Education. We also worked with the Black Panthers to find churches where they could hold their breakfast program. The Panthers were certainly not hostile to whites at that time.
When the California National Guard invaded Berkeley, we collected bandages for the protesters.
I went to San Francisco State to observe the demonstrations there. I saw the lines of cops on the roof tops with high powered rifles. They also had cameras with powerful telescopic lenses so they could pick out demonstrators who tended to show up frequently at such demonstrations. When the lines of officers on the ground began to march toward the demonstrators, you could see them separate out certain individuals for a beating and then for arrest.
Things haven't changed. In fact, they have gotten worse. The Oakland Police Department is just as bad today. Anti-war groups are still being spied on and people are being put on Bush's enemies list just as they were under Nixon. The same people are in charge. They are just wearing different bodies.
People in large groups making a lot of noise can still make a difference, but we need some new heroes. We need some new voices to rally the troops. The kids in Oakland looked up to the Panthers. They were heroes. They used to look up to the pimps and drug dealers because they were the only images of success that they had. We need some new heroes, women and men who can inspire us to overcome our lethargy and our fear and take back our country before it is too late.
Perhaps each of us needs to be a hero and find the courage to answer our own personal call to heroism. The Berlin wall came down. The Bush wall will come down too if we have enough heroes.
by
Bob Trowbridge (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 49 comments)
on Monday, February 12, 2007 at 11:58:41 PM
8 comments
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