Circumstances have coalesced and provided me a chance to impress the editors of the school newspaper, to offer my best words and statements in hopes I make it into this week’s publication. Upon reading my submission, some editors smiled upon recognition. They said to themselves, this is the voice we’ve been missing! “Our readers will be shocked!” “We’ll go up in stock!” “He challenges conventions!” “I like it a lot!” Under what section do we put this new style of writing? It’s been a while since we’ve included something so edgy, exciting! It’s like those newspapers from back in the day, the ones known for inciting and inviting the audience to rebel and think new, to sift through the general, accepted, mainstream point of view….Upon hearing some of the fervor and buzz among the staff, the editor-in-chief decided to have a look at the submission that had caused such commotion. Fearing that the whole thing was too risky to print, the staff was consulted and it was decided: The article he sent us was too harsh for the public, but we did manage to include a sample taken from it:

...Here’s a bit of truth that you’ll never hear in class: everything that we assume to be knowledge is the past. I’m searching for something a teacher can’t give me. I’m tired of classes where they just try to quiz me. Multiple choice, a, b, c or d. If I fail this test, what will my GPA be? (That’s what I used to say) Until I realized that school isn’t the only way we can learn. And that life is not all about how much you earn. It must be so much more than that!

Played the board game called the Game of Life over the November break and realized we are told what to do from such an early age, put on a track and told to get paid. As the wheel spins like the world revolves, each player takes turns moving their car along the same path. Forward and onward, on the track of Life, buying and selling, getting a husband or wife. The winners are the ones who make the most cash, the more money you make the more, it seems, you are the living embodiment of the American Dream! Consume! Make more, it’s all about accumulation. Material goods and island vacations! Embrace capitalism, be ruled by corporations! (God forbid you don’t pledge allegiance to the world’s greatest nation, the playing board has paintings of the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore for inspiration). If the Game of Life seems to depict your reality, the way you chase wealth, I question your ability to think for yourself.

Have you never wondered whether there was ever more? Let’s start with asking if there is more to the story behind the Iraq War? As a matter of fact, how many troops does the government have on foreign soil? What will we do when we run out of oil? What do you know about oil, the so-called “bloodstream of the world economy?” I’ll tell you the most important thing you need to hear: it is running out. Oil is a non-renewable energy source, most of it formed 100 million years ago, and scientists have coined a term called “peak oil” to describe our current situation of depleted mines and declining rates of production. Combined with the increasing needs of consumption, due to industrialization and rising populations of developing nations, the oil crisis is very real, yet for some reason it is kept quiet. Maybe people will start thinking about it when gas prices reach six dollars a gallon; some might even start a riot.

Speaking of riots, protests and rebellions, have you been reading the news lately? 2011 (the year of Revolution) has been crazy! Tunisia, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Sudan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain, Libya, Kuwait, Morocco and Syria saw the birth of the Arab Spring. What did September bring? The Occupy Movements spreading throughout America and out to the world; a collective unrest is forming that no one can deny. Journalist I.F. Stone once said that all you need to know is that “governments lie.” One thousand cities and 100 countries saw marches this year, mostly peaceful demonstrations. Now I ask you this, where do you get your information?

Think about it. Your two main sources: the media and education. Well, the media is controlled by only five major corporations (General Electric, Viacom, Disney, Time Warner and News Corporation) who all want to keep their stock prices high. The PR teams ask one question: what can we sell that people will buy? Celebrity gossip and terrorist tales, economic reports and big business bails. They fill you all nonsense with no real meaning, keeping the public American dreaming. Now on to education: a practical joke. (Like thinking you are political just because you can vote). The schools today are manufacturers for normalcy: standardization factories training students in conformity. How many of you have been encouraged to question authority? Education reform is a theory, but not a solution: what we really need is education revolution!

Now for the conclusion...

OK, that’s it, we can’t include any more of his contribution. The readers will have to pick out the themes for themselves. I’m afraid if we included the rest, our paper would be taken off the shelves. Questioning American ideals, exposing the peak oil crisis, showing how people around the world are revolting against power structures, and then insulting our media and education institutions! What gives a writer the right to be so disrespectful of the popular dominion, with such flair? Oh yeah, we told him, “Just give your opinion on current affairs.”