Indoctrination: It takes a village

President Business

Kristi and I both had our chances to work for government. At one time in the early 1980's I thought I was headed back to NMSU to get a Master's degree in education. My plan was to teach school and do some coaching. However, after looking at some of the absurd course work required by academia, my investment broker convinced me to go to work in finance instead. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'd like to think I would have made a good coach and teacher, but at the moment of truth, I just could not bring myself to jump through all of the silly hoops laid out by bureaucrats in order to get "qualified" to teach. Even today with two grown children raised, two years of coaching experience, and thirty-five years in finance, I would be considered "unqualified" to teach basic finance to high school kids, though I do so as a courtesy to my client's kids and grand kids frequently.

After our children were both in school, Kristi had a chance to complete her degree work. I was encouraging her to become a school teacher back then. The wages were quite good, especially considering the number of hours of work. There were ever-increasing non-cash benefits and she could have had the holidays and summers off!

Kristi chose accounting instead and went to work for businesspeople when she graduated. Eventually she became a business person too.

Our career path choices were personal decisions. We made them based on our preferences. Over the years as our skills have improved, our incomes have mushroomed. So too has the level of contribution we make each year towards the support of our local, county, state, federal governments, and charities.

Lord Business

Little did we know there would be very troubling emotional downside to becoming business people.

The political divide in our city, county, state, and nation (read the WSJ today for a summary of it) has magnified. We, as business people, have come to recognize a gradual, but often startling shift in how businesspeople are portrayed in our society. It happens every single day in schools, movies, books, television shows, and music.

I ran across perhaps the greatest example of how we as businesspeople, have become targeted for very negative stereo-typing, just this week.

It seems that the recently released Lego movie is now available on DVD. We have never seen the animated children's feature. However, after doing a little research, I learned a little bit more about the film's horrible villain, President Business and his even more evil alter-ego Lord Business. No, I am not making this up.

The attaching of the word "business" to a children's movie villain though sinister, comes as no surprise at all. Pop culture, ironically egged on by people in the entertainment "business," has been increasingly bashing people who decide to make their careers in business. The evil metaphors are all around us. Recently the "1 percent" comes to mind. Corporate greed is another more generic term. In fact, the term "corporation" itself is uttered with scorn by most progressive Democrats as a matter of routine.

Some may wonder where the roots for the idea of creating anti-business indoctrination propaganda come from. Not us.

The trend has been exacerbated by our Lecturer in Chief, Mr. Obama. Sensing an decent appetite for an, "Us versus Them" mentality, and through virtually all of the speeches he makes, Mr. Obama has suggested repeatedly that American businesses all tend to short-change workers, cheat customers, and con borrowers. Only his cronies scarfing billions in green subsidies seem to get a pass.

We have seen a marked increase in the hunger and thirst to redistribute what we earned, saved, and enhanced through risk-taking. "You didn't build that," is the accusation. The mobs lap it up.

Anti-business attitudes have been lingering within the minds of progressive Americans for decades. You can trace the hatred and contempt for businesses back to FDR. These days Hollywood is the alter-ego of Mr. Obama. And the public education system has become little more than Mr. Obama's personal army of propaganda foot soldiers. Public education is now training grounds for the next generation of Americans. Each kid is taught to be on the lookout for "Lord Business" every single day when school is in session. And the already indoctrinated news media (except Fox) are the buglers in this conscripted Marxist army.

Not to worry, Democrats, the war on business won't last forever. Pretty soon practically zero young people will want to take the risk of being perceived as Lord Business.

No doubt Chairman Mao, Lenin, and even Joseph Stalin are smiling in their respective  graves. They know they are finally winning just as Orwell predicted.