Paul Krugman, "America’s Unlevel Field": A Marxist Diatribe

And you thought that Pravda, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party until 1991, was dead?

In his latest New York Times manifesto entitled "America’s Unlevel Field" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/krugman-americas-unlevel-field.html?ref=opinion), Paul Krugman declares that America is the advanced country where it matters most who your parents are, and that the US government has failed to create equal opportunity. Krugman contends:

"The failure starts early: in America, the holes in the social safety net mean that both low-income mothers and their children are all too likely to suffer from poor nutrition and receive inadequate health care. It continues once children reach school age, where they encounter a system in which the affluent send their kids to good, well-financed public schools or, if they choose, to private schools, while less-advantaged children get a far worse education.

Once they reach college age, those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds are far less likely to go to college — and vastly less likely to go to a top-tier school — than those luckier in their parentage.

. . . .

And if children from our society’s lower rungs do manage to make it into a good college, the lack of financial support makes them far more likely to drop out than the children of the affluent, even if they have as much or more native ability."

Goodness gracious, what a horrible country the US has become! How can we possibly begin to remedy this self-perpetuating socioeconomic tragedy engineered by nefarious Republican toads?

Poor nutrition and inadequate health care? Let's make certain that "low-income mothers and their children" are given multiple vitamin pills. If they are not swallowed, both mothers and children will either be whipped or subjected to a three-hour long upbraiding from Michelle Obama. Given the choice, I would opt for the whipping.

Let's also prevent MacDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Domino's Pizza, Cap'n Crunch and Coca Cola from advertising on television. Cigarette advertising is banned from the airwaves, so let's also do away with junk food commercials, and that means Kristy Kreme doughnuts, too.

If the children become too fat or too skinny, let's take them from their mothers and send them away to federally funded nutrition farms, where their weights will be carefully monitored, and they will only eat organic vegetables. Mothers, of course, can visit after a strip search for offending chocolates.

Private schools? Let's eliminate them, or at least require that their student bodies reflect US demographics within a percentile. If a child is half African American and half Jewish, his or her identity will also be divided equally for purposes of meeting this new quota.

Top tier universities? No more! I propose a draft system similar to that found in professional sports, whereby the best new professors will be send to the worst schools, thereby raising their academic standards to those of Harvard, Yale and the University of Chicago. (Yes, Paul, you forced it out of me: I graduated from the University of Chicago, and I'm ready to be sent away to a gulag.)

Finally, given that talented college students from poor families are more likely to drop out than dumb children from affluent families, let's provide the poor families with a stipend in addition to that being received by their children.

And when these rich and poor students finally graduate with bachelor degrees in English literature and contemporary history, and they migrate to Zuccotti Park and mingle with others unable to find jobs, Paul Krugman will visit in order to proffer comfort as all rage in unison against the inequality of the system.