Eleven Rules for Kids' Growing Minds
Bill Gates' vs. Mike Ballard's
BG's Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
MB's Rule A: Why not ask why life isn't fair? Are you afraid of critical thinking? Isn't it the case that capitalists like Bill Gates are engaged in an unfair trade: wages in return for all the wealth workers produce for Gate's coporation? Aren't you just justifying your position of power over your hired producers?
BG's Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
MB's Rule B: Listen to your bosses. They expect their hired producers to create wealth for them. Your self-esteem should be found in the knowledge that you're part of the producing class and not part of the parasitic class.
BG's Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
MB's Rule C: You might make $60,000 a year, if you actively participate in union with your fellow workers. Be realistic: most of you will NEVER be a vice president of a corporation. You will produce the corporation and serve it though and as long as you refuse to organise, you will never make $60,000 a year.
BG's Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
MB's Rule D: Because the employing class can deprive you of your means of making a living, even though your labour is what creates the wealth which makes the boss a power over you. Again, a worker has no security except in union solidarity with fellow workers.
BG's Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
MB's Rule E: Better you should remember that your Grandparents were in the class struggle to provide their grandchildren with a decent standard of living, including the right to retire in security. Better you should be conscious that the labour you do for the fast food corporate giants makes them richer and richer while you struggle to pay rent on the wages you get from them and pass on to a greedy landlord class.
BG's Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
MB's Rule F: Learn from your parents' mistakes, especially the mistake they made of thinking that the employing class and the working class have interests in common.
BG's Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
MB's Rule G: Remember that you are not just a narrow individual with narrow interests which only concern your tiny personal world. There are corporations out there raping and pillaging the planet to the extent that your Earth's climate is being made to change. Sure, clean up your room. But don't stop there: make the people responsible for fouling the human nest, clean up their mess.
BG's Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
MB's Rule H: Correct the mistake of your parents' generation: organise to abolish wage-slavery and the system which puts people like Bill Gates in charge of large portions of your life and nature itself. Learn what democracy is and practice it.
BG's Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
MB's Rule I: Under the rule of capitalists, like Gates, remember that as a part of the working class, you'll be producing enough wealth in the first hour or two of your eight or more hours of employment, to pay for your wages. Make your employers give you more time for yourself. You and your workmates deserve it. Organise for shorter work time for yourselves, your family and your friends; it's the key to happiness and well being.
BG's Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
MB's Rule J: Again, an individual employee has no security. In real life under the rule of Capital, workers have to produce wealth for their employers or be sacked. Be afraid of your bosses and remember that the only way you can confront them with power, against the power they lord over you, is in courageous union with your fellow workers.
BG's Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
MB's Rule K: Classwide solidarity is a must. Nerds are workers too! Gates was a nerd who now employs thousands of nerd workers to produce his wealth. Chances are that nerds will continue to do this until they organise One Big Union with their fellow workers and get what they are entitled to: control and common ownership of their collective product of labour.
BG's Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
MB's Rule A: Why not ask why life isn't fair? Are you afraid of critical thinking? Isn't it the case that capitalists like Bill Gates are engaged in an unfair trade: wages in return for all the wealth workers produce for Gate's coporation? Aren't you just justifying your position of power over your hired producers?
BG's Rule 2: The world doesn't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
MB's Rule B: Listen to your bosses. They expect their hired producers to create wealth for them. Your self-esteem should be found in the knowledge that you're part of the producing class and not part of the parasitic class.
BG's Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
MB's Rule C: You might make $60,000 a year, if you actively participate in union with your fellow workers. Be realistic: most of you will NEVER be a vice president of a corporation. You will produce the corporation and serve it though and as long as you refuse to organise, you will never make $60,000 a year.
BG's Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
MB's Rule D: Because the employing class can deprive you of your means of making a living, even though your labour is what creates the wealth which makes the boss a power over you. Again, a worker has no security except in union solidarity with fellow workers.
BG's Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
MB's Rule E: Better you should remember that your Grandparents were in the class struggle to provide their grandchildren with a decent standard of living, including the right to retire in security. Better you should be conscious that the labour you do for the fast food corporate giants makes them richer and richer while you struggle to pay rent on the wages you get from them and pass on to a greedy landlord class.
BG's Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
MB's Rule F: Learn from your parents' mistakes, especially the mistake they made of thinking that the employing class and the working class have interests in common.
BG's Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
MB's Rule G: Remember that you are not just a narrow individual with narrow interests which only concern your tiny personal world. There are corporations out there raping and pillaging the planet to the extent that your Earth's climate is being made to change. Sure, clean up your room. But don't stop there: make the people responsible for fouling the human nest, clean up their mess.
BG's Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
MB's Rule H: Correct the mistake of your parents' generation: organise to abolish wage-slavery and the system which puts people like Bill Gates in charge of large portions of your life and nature itself. Learn what democracy is and practice it.
BG's Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
MB's Rule I: Under the rule of capitalists, like Gates, remember that as a part of the working class, you'll be producing enough wealth in the first hour or two of your eight or more hours of employment, to pay for your wages. Make your employers give you more time for yourself. You and your workmates deserve it. Organise for shorter work time for yourselves, your family and your friends; it's the key to happiness and well being.
BG's Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
MB's Rule J: Again, an individual employee has no security. In real life under the rule of Capital, workers have to produce wealth for their employers or be sacked. Be afraid of your bosses and remember that the only way you can confront them with power, against the power they lord over you, is in courageous union with your fellow workers.
BG's Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
MB's Rule K: Classwide solidarity is a must. Nerds are workers too! Gates was a nerd who now employs thousands of nerd workers to produce his wealth. Chances are that nerds will continue to do this until they organise One Big Union with their fellow workers and get what they are entitled to: control and common ownership of their collective product of labour.
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