In 1883 an anarchist congress took place in Pittsburg Pa. A few of its phrases sound antiquated but the facts, frustrations and feelings on the people back then come through loud and strong. It could have been written yesterday because nothing has changed much in the interveneing 130 years, the rich still rule by fear and division, the poor still drool because of their inability to unite against the common foe. ...All laws are directed against working people....Even the school serves only the purpose of finishing the offspring of the wealthy with those qualities necessary to uphold their class domination. The children of the poor get scarcely a formal elementary training, and this, too, is mainly directed to such branches as tend to producing prejudices, arrogance and servility; in short, want of sense. The Church finally seeks to make complete idiots of the mass and to make them forgo the paradise on earth by promising a fictious heavan. The capitialist press, on the other hand, takes care of the confusions of spirit in public life....The workers can therefore expect no help from any capitialist party in their struggle against the existing system. They must achieve their liberation by their own efforts. As in former times, a privileged class never surrenders its tyranny, neither can it be expected that the capitialists of his age will give their rulership without being forced to do it.... - The Anarchist Manifesto
Working class children still get the education they can afford. A Liberal Arts degree and schooling in the classics is for the children of the elites as it counts for next to nothing and qualifies you for a low wage job at Starbucks. The rulers read Plato, the droolers learn which button to push. The Church, well the church's job is still the same too, keeping the masses docile with lies about the big payday in the sky for good little peons [pee-ons].
If anything has changed it would be that the capitialists and their spawn the corporations now threaten the very circle of life [where are you Simba]. Our common air is used as a dumping ground, our Mother Earth is buckling under the relentless attack, the real quality of our lives diminishes daily, the existance of our offspring is in doubt. And just like 130 years ago, none of this will begin to change until 'we the people' riseup and overthrow the tyrannts.
