To graduates I offer my sincerest condolences. The real world holds many truths, many of which will hit you square in the face as politico-economic realities intrude rudely upon academic paradigms. I need speak no further of these truths as you cringe and wilt into the corner of your humble abodes like the shrinking, unemployed, debt-ridden violets that you are.

To students with a brighter future, if you’re still around for more blissful semesters you should check out the Drummer as both an opportunity to hone those communication skills and a chance to engage in a critical debate of epic proportions. What debate? That’s for you to decide. The Drummer has won awards from the Campus Alternative Journalism Project for design and reporting in 1996, and has received certificates of recognition from the Iowa Senate and Iowa House in the past two years. Student writers, artists and graphic designers are encouraged to contact The Drummer for applications at 294-2651, or e-mail [email protected].

So the Drummer is not your cup of java or can of brew, you say? Then check out the Daily, ethos, The Iowa Agriculturist, The Veterinarian, STV-9, KURE or any other campus media. No matter what your major, take advantage of the campus media while you can. I ask you: When again will you have your own newspapers and magazines, TV station and radio station?

After graduation you’ll be subjected to one-way forms of communication in which your only power is to switch the thing off or put the paper down (the information super toll booth is overrated, by the way).

On another note, go forth among the people, ye graduates! You’re told to go out and “get ahead.” Ahead of whom and what? Get ahead of others and your own present material status, of course.

Don’t trouble yourself with pesky injustices on the university, state, national, or worldwide levels. Get a good “education” (an Orwellian term that now means career training) and go get what you can for yourself. Don’t be too troubled by the problems faced by others, be an “individual” and join the rat race alone. This attitude, considered inhuman in some societies, is labeled “ambition” in our own and is treated as a great value to have.

Whether this “individualism” and “careerism” allows you to have control over your own life is another story. The decisions about the quality of the food you eat, the goods you buy, the air you breathe, the prices you pay, the wages you earn, how the work force is managed, how and where capital is invested, what news and opinions are fed to you by the media and many more decisions controlling the realities of your life — are usually made by people other than you. In short, you can’t escape the larger societal power relations.

We are often admonished to “think for ourselves,” but we might wonder if our process of socialization allows us to do so. The worst forms of tyranny are those that are so subtle, so deeply implanted, so completely controlling that they aren’t even consciously recognized.

Along with indoctrination into the orthodox values of the dominant corporate culture are the economic sanctions designed to punish dissent and reward conformity. To “get along by going along,” one learns to avoid behaviors and views which conflict with the dominant economic interests of one’s profession, institution and society.

So go forth and sell your labor as a commodity, ye graduates. We’ve reached the End of History. There’s no alternative to state-supported capitalism. It’s time to privatize it all. It’s time to drastically cut back on such luxuries as education, medical care, libraries, mass transportation, and other publicly funded human services, so people will be given the “freedom” to take care of themselves.

It’s time to eliminate unions, business regulations, minimum-wage laws, occupational safety, consumer safety, environmental protections and taxes on investment income. The haves don’t like these things because they cut into profits. Every dollar that goes into the public sector is one less for the private sector, and the haves want it all.

But wait. Maybe there does exist at least one alternative social order for open minds to consider. It’s called Economic Democracy, a form of democratic market socialism developed in David Sweickart’s book “Against Capitalism.” Is this the beginning of history rather than the end? That’s for you to decide.

Drew Chebuhar is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Muscatine.