(The part of your instructor will be played by Mr. Schuler. For best results, please be up-to-date on the latest news) Okay, class. Today we're going to discuss that ubiquitous social hazard that hangs over each one of us like a gunslinger with Tourettes. That's right, we're talking about POLITICS. No, not the election results, the forces BEHIND the scenes. The subtle yet efficient engineers who confidently orchestrate total chaos. The ones who studied hard, went to school like you, did their homework, and succeeded. And if they didn't, they made stupid statements and looked like total morons. You see, students, people today desire excitement. And the news media desires people who desire excitement. They want you to buy their information. Or buy the products of the people who insert those advertisements in between the information. So they find stories. And all of that prepackaged gook is what brings us... POLITICS. How, you ask? How does the media's lust for money bring you POLITICS? Simple. You see, stories about how America is the most prosperous nation on the planet may be good for the national ego, but you'll never see them in the news. That just doesn't carry the excitement of POLITICS. The Dow breaking records and an economic boomlet? Pff. Page 17. Below the classifieds. We, the people of the United States of America, want to hear, day after day, about how miserable we are. We want to be told more about how George Bush is actually bent on destroying your peaceful way of life, and how, by this time next year, Global Warming will have the Next Generation Of People spontaneously combusting in their SUV's, and sometimes, more information on why Homosexuality is a perfectly reasonable method of birth control and why we should love them for it. That is what spawns... the P-word. The SAME issues, day after day! And the news will steadfastly report a lack of progress! And they will be paid for it by their favorite politicians! Re-elect me. My opponent is a wife-beater, (eighteen of them, all under 12), a drug-dealer, a thespian, and he sold his soul to Benito Mussolini for 22 Italian Lira in 1938! Of course, I approve this message. Unless you don't want me to. Then I did approve it, but only before I voted against approving it. Nobody accomplishes anything useful... because nobody has any reason to. They consistently worry about when to give Iraq the boot, whether or not telling the world they're gay will get them into at least page two, and whether or not the guy across the hall has made any insignificant mistake worthy of plastering across your TV screen. All the more votes for them. The system isn't "For the people", anymore, it's "For money and influence". And most of the major networks will keep telling us about how G.W. is stealing your credit card records, and how if you're a member of the largest ethnic group in the country, you are worth less to your local university than somebody who couldn't connect the dots if you let them look at the answers... just as long as they were "historically underrepresented". That's politics. Somebody holds sway with the media, they get the favors from the guys in power. Our country IS blessed. It's a shame that the ones who have the power to let us know that are more interested in personal gain. Class dismissed. Test on Thursday. | 
