Editor’s Note: This was submitted to the Lumberjack as a satirical piece.
Thank heavens HSU is doing away with Applied Technology. It was an unpleasant reminder of an old America—one based on industry and manufacturing. An America that is so…passé.
Industrial America was a place where men worked in factories, producing things—stuff—while their wives and children were confined to the home. Thankfully those days are behind us. Now, husbands and wives can work together in airy Wal-Mart, or quick-serve restaurant, and both can contribute to the maintenance of the nest.
These days, the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans do the industrial work for us. And thank heavens for that! Let them build the ships, the sewing machines, the televisions. Let them sully their hands making solar panels, tires, and toasters. Let them make computers, stereos, and telephones. We’re past all that.
This is the Information Age. We deal in ideas—and clean hands. Today America produces hedge funds, mortgage backed securities, and credit default swaps. We do leveraged buy-outs and real-estate investment trusts. Today a bright young Wall Streeter can make millions of dollars without producing any tangible product, or ever getting his hands dirty.
The best part is that we no longer need industries. No longer do factory smokestacks irritate our sensitive noses. Those wonderful Asian nations provide their marvelous manufactures and all they ask in return is our dollars. What could be better?
Sure, some old fools warn that no country can survive like this. They worry because the foreigners are using their dollars to buy our farms, our remaining factories, and our properties. They claim that the manufacturing countries are building skyscrapers at home, while American bridges are collapsing. They are so 20th Century. We live in One World, and it doesn’t matter who holds title to the land. Nationalism is over.
The old fools talk fondly of our days as a manufacturing giant. They claim that our industrial power let our soldiers sweep the Nazi jackboots from the throats of oppressed Europeans, and that our productive prowess let Americans walk on the moon. But so what? We’re beyond all that. We’re idea people now.
So, for heavens’ sake get rid of the industrial programs at Humboldt. Let us all join our clean hands together and dance. The industrial witch is dead!
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