A Pop Quiz

[Reader Rabbit]

Try the questions before you scroll down and peek at the answers!

Question #1

“...popularity is based on fear and control...”

“...commonly bully and silence {others} to forward their own agenda.”

“Any challenge to the powers that be is seen as an act of disloyalty...”

“...those in positions of power won’t take responsibility for their actions, and those not in positions of power fear the consequences of speaking out in public.”

“...has an eye-for-an-eye worldview.”

“...is extremely secretive.”

The source of the above quotations is a publication which investigated:

a) Corporate CEOs
b) The Bush Administration
c) Those mean girls in school who were somehow the most popular, despite being heinous bitches

Question #2

“...will do anything to be in the good graces of {those in power}...”

“...security depends on doing... ‘dirty work,’ such as spreading {rumors} about a target.”

“...status immediately rises when...in active duty as a messenger...{and therefore}...has a self-interest in creating and maintaining conflicts...”

The source of the above quotations is a publication which investigated:

a) Middle managers looking to climb the corporate ladder
b) The mainstream news media
c) Less popular girls who suck up to the mean girls in the hopes of garnering some residual popularity

If you answered “a” for either of these questions, you’ve probably been following the Enron case in the Business Section of your local newspaper. Good for you! But your answer is wrong.

If you chose “b” for either of these questions, you’ve definitely been paying close attention to what’s been happening in the American political scene over the past six years. Way to go! But you’re still wrong.

If you answered “c” for either of these questions, then you’re probably a woman who remembers her adolescence well, you’re a middle or high school teacher, or you’re the parent of a teenage girl. Oh yeah, and you’re right.

Each of the statements listed above were taken directly from Rosalind Wiseman’s Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence. If you have a teenage daughter, or a daughter who is thinking about becoming a teen, I strongly advise you to read this book. Improving your parenting skills is not, however, the purpose of the quiz.

The purpose of the quiz is to point out the frightening similarity between the people currently running our country and the savage girl groups that populate every school in America. According to Wiseman, “Our best politicians and diplomats couldn't do better than a teen girl does in understanding the social intrigue and political landscape that lead to power.” Given that the book was published in 2002, Ms. Wiseman obviously hadn’t had enough time to see the Bush team in action. If she had, she’d probably have noticed that when George Bush told Americans that “the adults are in charge,” he not only got it ass-backwards, he was wrong about the implied gender of those taking over.

For those of you who’ve actually been paying attention to the political scene—as opposed to watching American Idol or Survivor—you only thought you knew the catastrophic nadir to which our once great nation had sunk. The Hurricane Katrina debacle, going to war under false pretenses, the dismantling of the Bill of Rights, secrecy, torture, the wholesale auctioning off of our country to corporate interests: Yeah, those things are all pretty bad, but the ugly, underlying truth of the whole situation is much, much worse.

Ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America is currently being run by teenage girls.

I don't mean to trivialize all the crap that's going on in our country, but a recent re-reading of Wiseman's book smacked me upside the head with some really creepy similarities between girl cliques and how the Bush Administration maintains control with the help of the mainstream media and the cowardice of too many Democrats.

[crispini]

1. Good post!

Pretty freaking funny!

Did you write it? It looks like an excerpt but you don't provide a link? :shrug:

[Reader Rabbit]

2. No, it's mine.

Aside from the quotes, that is. They're all from Wiseman's book, as stated.

This is the introduction for a more detailed article I was thinking about submitting for publication. With the recent censure issue, however, it seemed very topical now, so I figured I'd float the idea here.

Well, that and no publication has accepted any of my submissions yet. :P

[crispini]

3. Nice job, very well written!

I guess if you can't publish it elsewhere you can always publish it here.

Have you passed it by Lakoff's institute? It sounds like it might be a fit?

[Reader Rabbit]

4. Thanks!

I checked the Lakoff Institute, but it doesn't seem as if they accept submissions. The publications I've been considering so far are Adbusters, Mother Jones, The Sun, CIA-Citizen in America, and Creative Nonfiction. Obviously I'd love to submit it to The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, or The Nation, but I figure it's less likely to generate interest with the big guys. (Particularly when it doesn't seem to have generated much interest here! :-( )

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. That's it!!

from now on, I will be referring to the B*sh Administration as simply "The Heathers".

Excellent post!

[NMMNG]

6. Which one gets to wear the red scrunchy?

:scared: