SDF: Perhaps, but please consider why radicals such as Martin Luther King Jr. chose "mainstream society" as their public-speaking audience -- approaching the mainstream is the only way of confronting these "typical aspects" of society head-on.DADDIO: Yes, yes, agreed. But we're talking about vulnerable young beings here, not OUR jaded hard asses. I just have grave doubts about the effects of using our kids in the front lines. You can stuff your kid chalk full of all kinds of good values and revolutionary sentiments, but handing him over to the "machine" at that point objectifies him as a weapon of revolt and, I'm speaking first hand here, can put him in tremendous psycho/sociological perril when he discovers that everyday is battle for control over his mind.
SDF: NOTE TO YOUNG STUDENTS READING THIS MESSAGE: go out and actually read the words of Martin Luther King Jr., if you can actually find them. There's also a really good CD with parts of his speeches, BUY IT if you can find it. Every January the public schools take a day off in celebration of this guy, and sometimes they tell you a little about who he was, but they always tell you some bland mushy nonsense about how he was a great guy like Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or those other guys who have holidays in their names. Find out what he actually said, as much of it as you can -- it's the sort of stuff the authorities don't want you to hear, and don't want you to think, because what he said ultimately can threaten their sense of power over your minds.
DADDIO: Ditto. Great advice. Then ask your parents about alternative schooling.
SDF: The kids I see each day are "already integrated" into mainstream society. One of them attacked me today as I was substitute-teaching his class -- I found it interesting, in this regard, the regular teacher was foolish enough to put, in plain sight on her desk, a standard form for "reporting suspected child abuse" with this kid's name penned in on it. Don't you think kids like the one I mentioned ought to be "integrated" into a society with better, less abusive parents?
DADDIO: Yes, if by "better and less abusive" you mean better and less abusive than mainstream parents.
That's a wierd story by the way. What was that kid attacking you for and what in the hell kind of a person would leave a form like that in plain sight with one of the students' name penned in. Sounds like you gotta pretty desperate situation going on there. I haven't visited a public school in a while. Do you find that this is pretty typical of the bullshit that goes on there?
SDF: The problem of the "trenchcoat Mafia," as I understood it, was that they had this opinion of themselves that they were outcasts who were going to solve their social problems by killing everyone else. No?
DADDIO: Yes. Outcasts trapped in a valueless system that serves the status qou and despises nonconformity and independent thought topped with parents that obviously didn't give a flying fuck WHAT beliefs or motivations they had. Couldn't we, as better informed adults, raise nonconformists revolutionaries with deeply instilled values of love, compassion, and humility? And can we do so when they spend all day in the wretched public school system?
SDF: The urgent task-at-hand is to make mainstream society less dangerous, don't you think?
DADDIO: Not at all. The urgent task at hand is to raise the level of awareness of mainstream society. This involves a great deal of deprogramming, which, just like the rescue of cult victims, can be extremely dangerous, not only to the victims and the deprogrammers, but more importantly, to the cult itself, which in this case would be mainstream society as we currently understand it. Public school is where much of the state cult programming is done. Its very difficult to work 9 to 5 then deprogram your child every evening after dinner. Its a losing battle for most. Withdrawal is essential and, I believe, inevitable as more events like Columbine take hold in the collective psyche.
SDF: Camping is fine -- I did it, year-round, to avoid the "crap and confusion" myself, on and off for about three years. Eventually I had to confront the monster out there.
DADDIO: Keep fighting the good fight. I'm behind you. But let's not raise our kids on a battle field. What chance of revolt does humanity have with a bunch of shell shocked POWs at the helm?
