I believe something I will call the "teenager plus 30 year" theory that says that whatever sensational non-sense is being taught to rebellious annoying teenagers when they are in the 6th grade will be what their political agenda is 30 years later when they are stuffy, pig headed, even more annoying, and finally capable of turning the non-sense they learned into reality. My generation is almost there, so all the annoying global warming non-sense we were all taught by our recently ex-hippy, cutting edge, idealistic young teachers is now turning into actual political action since we are all old enough to cause real trouble now. Think back to when you were in the 6th grade and try to remember all the crap you were learning, then fast forward 30 years and tell me what the politics of the day were.
Ten years before us it was the late 50's and early 60's teenagers, what were those people learning in the 6th grade that they later turned into reality in the 90's ? Go back ten years before that, the late 40's early 50's, what were those people doing in the 80's ? Defeating communism of course, because when those teenagers were in the 6th grade in the late 40's and early 50's the topic of the day was communism. Go back ten years before that, teens of the late 30's early 40's, what were they doing in the 70's ? Yes, screwing everything up with their FDR era dreams of a government utopian society that takes care of everyone, because that's what they were listening to on the radio and learning in school from their idealistic teachers in the late 30's and early 40's.
I still remember being in the 6th grade, I had a World Geography teacher who was fired up about everything, she went on for hours about global warming, the dangers of advertising, commercialism, and all the other stuff she "discovered" when she was in college just a few years earlier. My Physics teacher a few years later was totally convinced then that carbon dioxide was ruining the world, and he was just as much of an activist, there were plenty of activists teaching in the public school system then, and we have inherited their common beliefs about the world through the children who were in school at the time, and now those kids are old enough to influence politics and move those agendas forward, to act on beliefs they take for granted because they were learned at an impressionable age from the passionate young teachers of the time.
How many political "mission accomplished" speeches start with the words, "It's taken us 30 years of hard work to realize this day ...."
