[updated 5/5/07 - Admin]

This is a bit of lighter reading, well, sort of. I remember fights in 1973. We didn’t shake hands afterwards though, we avoided each other from then on.

Read the above link first (it’s short) and then my take on 1973 .vs. 2007 and beyond, below:

1973: Jimmy draws a picture in art class, its got tanks, guns, bombs and blood on soldiers. The art teacher comments on technique and style. Jimmy receives an “A” for the art project.

2007: The principle is called, who then calls the cops. Jimmy is arrested and suspended from school for the rest of the year. His drawing is confiscated and shown on national television. Talking heads around the country decry the epidemic of “school crime” with millions spent on prime time.

If Jimmy’s really unlucky, he’s sent to a school for delinquents after he gets out of jail. Jimmy’s parents are investigated by CPS and even raided at 2:00 am by SWAT. Jimmy’s parents are handcuffed, thrown to the floor and tazed. Jimmy’s dad suffers a heart attack from the tazing and is transported to the hospital after his heart stops. He suffers irreversible brain damage and can never work in his field again. A lawsuit is brought against the cops but is thrown out by the courts. The cat is stomped to death while Jimmy’s older sister stands half-naked before a group of leering men who refuse to allow her to cover herself.

If even a whiff of “child abuse” is suspected, perhaps no television in the home, Jimmy and his sister are taken from his parents and handed over to separate foster parents. Jimmy’s parents go to jail and after selling off everything they own, declare bankruptcy, barely managing to stay out of prison. Jimmy is never seen again by his real parents. Jimmy’s sister eventually runs away from her foster home after being repeatedly raped and winds up as a stripper on drugs. This keeps her alive until age 23 when she dies of an overdose.

Jimmy’s real parents lose their jobs and their retirement benefits, their friends and their futures because of the stigma surrounding their arrest. They take jobs with Wal-Mart and McDonald’s with other undocumented workers for minimum wage, going from job to job for years. They fail to overcome the secret files kept on them by their creditors, bankers and government agencies.

After multiple attacks by his new “guardian”, Jimmy is passed from foster home to foster home. This goes on for years as Jimmy ages and develops a history of psychosomatic disorders and prescription drug dependencies. Jimmy has to meet his therapist twice a week, who doesn’t listen to anything Jimmy says. Jimmy hates him and abuses the drugs he’s prescribed. Jimmy eventually drops out of school entirely, joins a gang and starts selling drugs. Six months later, Jimmy’s dead, age 16, shot by a rival.

Jimmy’s real parents eventually reach old age, tired, worn and broken. There’s no grandkids to comfort them, no children to take care of them, nor any inheritance to pass on. They die alone, homeless, destitute and forgotten, surrounded by dog food cans. The state declares cause of death “congenital heart failure”. They join the ranks of millions and millions of others just like them, abused by the system under which they labored. The IRS tries to collect back taxes for the next 12 years.

The system congratulates itself on a job well done. Bigger budgets are demanded and received to fight similar “crimes”. Standards are lowered to basement levels for more foster parents to handle the huge upswing in “abusive families”. Prostitution is up, teenage suicide and runaways skyrocket. More kids take prescription drugs. A new underground economy develops of drugs and crime. The courts are overloaded and mandatory sentences are enacted. Prison population swells and legislatures declare a crime epidemic.

Pharmaceutical companies are happy and so are their stockholders. New drugs are rushed to market. Inner city crime runs rampant. The middle class abandons the cities for safer environments. Bureaucrats and administrators dream up more new laws which are added to the books. Prison populations swell even more. Homeless teens and parents increase 600%. Bankruptcy and foreclosures skyrocket with factories closing due to a lack of “qualified workers” with dubious personal histories. Jobs and factories are exported overseas. Predatory capitalism becomes the new mantra. Suburban America collapses.

Military recruitment reaches an all-time high throughout America. High schools become recruitment centers by federal decree. Particular attention is paid to the inner city “disaffected youth”. Gang members enter the military ranks and predatory rape and violence among soldiers increase. Military officials deny the reports. Torture becomes permissible and new “enemy combatants” are declared around the world. Pictures are shown on the Internet of prisoners in black capes and electrical wires tied to testicles. A smiling female soldier points to a prisoner in a black hood, she looks a lot like Jimmy’s older sister.

Dissenters are outlawed and imprisoned for a whole new host of “crimes”. New prisons are built by government contractors like Halliburton. Mercenary firms like Blackwater swell their ranks and their pockets. Government abuse and corruption runs rampant as kickbacks, payoffs and bribes work their magic. Politicians promise an endless stream of empty rhetoric and the war on crime, terror, drugs, gangs, anything to get elected. Education achievements drop precipitously. School shootings become commonplace. Michael Moore achieves notoriety for a documentary video.

Americans, bone weary and tired beyond words of the entire, sordid mess, vote one more time on machines rigged in advance. The outcome defies all explanation. Nothing changes. Diebold keeps it’s promises.

The media proclaims “victory” and a new era. The President declares a mandate from God. Foreign lands are invaded, hundreds of thousands die. Babies are born with deformed limbs by the thousands. Oil prices skyrocket. Airlines and manufacturers teeter on the brink of bankruptcy and truckers go on strike. Enemy combatants are found everywhere. Food prices jump, oil companies declare gargantuan record profits. Protesters are rounded up by the thousands. Journalists are harassed, shot, jailed or never heard from again. The world inches ever closer to the brink of collapse.

Life goes on. Elementary school art is now outlawed. Cameras, satellites, wire taps and Internet surveillance and warrantless searches are now commonplace throughout the land. Schools become war zones with metal detectors, drug dogs, armed cops and more mass shootings. Child sex offenders get their pictures posted on the Internet. Parents are forced to comply with every demand made of them. The few that complain are harassed, investigated and imprisoned.

Oil, food, water and energy prices skyrocket. Billions are lost as millions face foreclosure. Global drought creates famine and nations scramble for relief. Regional wars erupt in a desperate bid for oil, water and food. Arable land becomes more and more scarce. A mass migration from the cities suddenly erupts all over the world. Rural land becomes ruthlessly defended from the invaders.

Chip implants are heralded as the “solution” to all the problems. Grandstanding politicians become the first candidates. Prisoners follow. The chip implants become mandatory at birth for reasons of “safety and security”. The President declares enemy combatants of all who refuse. New draconian laws are passed, Americans wish for the former days of the Patriot Act and airport strip searches. Unemployment reaches 45% as the nation collapses in on itself. Gasoline is $18 a gallon. Billions die from hunger and drought. Jobs at McDonald’s can still be had, but only by prisoners. Wal-Mart becomes a defense contractor and hires tens of thousands to protect it’s supply lines.

Global warfare erupts as China, Russia and the United States battle for water, oil and food. Over two billion die from malnourishment in the first year. Radiation sickness and fallout poison the world’s crops. Billions more die. Entire nations collapse into anarchy and chaos. Politicians promise resolution and a world dictator emerges. The shell of the world’s surviving nations merges into one. Food, water, fuel and heat are globally rationed and nationalized. Mass migration and climate change brings catastrophic diseases and plague to every corner of the globe. Humanity collapses and the survivors move to the Far North. They eke out an existence on lichens, moss and a few birds. Art returns as they paint on the walls of their huts and caves.