How to Eat Our Children, A Manual from Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and the State’s Institutions of Higher Education

Illinois House Representative Terri Bryant (center) braising babies in sugary BBQ Sauce.
This photo was taken soon after Rep. Bryant voted against funding Illinois higher education,
but voted for opening a work camp, and proposed a new work camp citing the jobs it will bring to Southern Illinois.

How to Eat Our Children, 

A Manual from Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and the State’s Institutions of Higher Education

by Jacob Juntunen

It is a melancholy fact that this, the great state of Illinois, suffers a $40 billion debt, a disproportionately high tax rate, and an increasing income disparity between those who never hunger and those who go to bed wanting. Surely no one desires this suffering to continue. Many years have brought many proposals from politicians, activists, and educators. But, only recently, have leaders emerged that can solve Illinois’ problems. These emissaries are Governor Bruce Rauner alongside his allies in the state’s institutions of higher education. Together, they have provided a guide for the rest of America. With much modesty, then, I propose that we must once again accept that the unpleasant prospect of eating our children is the most prudent action to take. The budget impasse that Rauner has created paves the way to our child abattoir.

Since July 1, 2015, the state of Illinois has operated without a budget because Rauner cleverly holds it hostage over business-friendly reforms, like union busting. Eight months with no funding to higher education has superbly hurt Illinois’ most vulnerable students and the teachers’ union. Rauner has exploited the lack of budget to shave fat from university populations—that is, to trim students that can’t pay their way and to fire otherwise secure, tenured professors of useless subjects. In so doing, the governor is providing important new sources of nutrition for the rest of us. Let me provide two concrete examples so readers in other states may carry out similar actions.

In Illinois, a MAP Grant provides funds to about 130,000 of the state’s poorest students, the type who couldn’t attend college without assistance. Because of the income inequality in our country, these students tend to be women and/or people of color. Rauner has ingeniously not released any funds to these young people—our children, if you will. In fact, he vetoed a bill devised by the divided Illinois Congress to fund these students. This is why you need an ex-CEO with no political experience like Rauner running the state. The career politicians from both sides of the aisle came together to “help,” but luckily their efforts were thwarted by our long-sighted governor. Without MAP Grants, our children won’t be attending college and receiving false notions of equality, useless critical thinking skills, or, worse, hope for a better future. We must all agree that hope, without opportunity, is nothing short of cruel. Governor Rauner understands this, and, by refusing to fund MAP Grants, he kindly returns our children to lives of poverty. There, instead of having false notions of a good career, our children can serve as cheap labor. They may even be locked up for profit in the state’s large prison industry, which, in the Governor’s proposed 2016 budget, would receive a $100 million budget increase. Not funding MAP Grants is a win-win-win for Illinois: colleges loose students, the state gains business-friendly cheap labor, and we can warehouse the extra children for profit.

Similarly, by refusing to provide funds to all public institutions of higher education, Rauner is breaking the backs of the powerful teachers’ union with the help of higher education itself. Some results have been immediate, such as Chicago State’s fiscal crisis: without state funds, it sent pink slips to its entire staff. But the governor is also capitalizing on decades-long efforts to reduce college from education to mere labor force training. Take, for example, the types of cuts colleges and universities throughout Illinois are suggesting for survival: departments purged, retiring faculty not replaced, irrelevant programs like early childhood education axed. And, of course, raising tuition is always a good way to balance a college’s books. All these steps help demoralize higher education, and can even turn the public against it. But how is higher education helping the governor along?

It has done so for years by increasing the numbers of administrators instead of faculty—plus increasing administrator salary. For example, the president of a public university in Illinois makes more than a sitting Supreme Court judge, but of course no one speaks of cutting administrative salaries. Our CEO governor and business-minded university presidents understand that well-paid and ample administration is necessary to run a corporation. Likewise, an efficient company has as few low-level laborers—such as professors—as possible. To that end, since the 1990s, universities have increased spending on administrative salaries by 61% while faculty spending only rose by 39%. In some cases, such as Arizona State University, the number of administrators increased by 97% and faculty actually decreased by 2%. That is exactly the type ratio we need to set to prepare our children for consumption. With decreased faculty, and, especially, a lack of tenure-track faculty, we can save public education and reduce to a minimum the number of students enrolled.

For instance, many departments in the humanities are almost entirely staffed by non-tenure-track faculty whose jobs hang by a string. They are the first people downsized since their contracts are only for a semester, or, at best, an academic year. Cutting adjuncts wholesale would neuter pointless departments like English who require them to teach introductory courses. Literacy and literature only provides students false ideals; English won’t help our children in the types of jobs for which we are preparing them. Indeed, we are benevolent reducing college to fit the narrow futures of our children. These educational trends fit perfectly into Governor Rauner’s budget plans.

And so, since we elder statesmen and women do not want to see these dark economic times affect us, we must let them affect our children, who luckily are still fat and succulent. Times have not yet become so hard that our children are starving in the streets as they once did in Ireland when other modest proposals were made. To make sure we do not reach such a state, we must follow the lead of Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner and Illinois institutions of higher education. Follow them and we will never starve ourselves, for our children will keep our bellies full.

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Float On

Float On

by Jacob Juntunen

WOMAN IN THE FOREST: A woman of indeterminate age
COURTNEY: A teenage girl
MARIA: A teenage girl

Setting:
Empty stage

(All three characters onstage. A long silence.)

                                                            COURTNEY
Did that one move?

                                                            MARIA
Dios mio.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
I don’t think so.

(Pause.)

                                                            COURTNEY
I thought it moved.

                                                            MARIA
We should keep going.

                                                            COURTNEY
If some of them are alive, it might be okay to drink.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
It’s just the current.

                                                            COURTNEY
There’s not much current.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Not like there used to be. You used to be able to hear it crashing over these rocks for miles. Now it’s like a lake in a river bed. What did they do to destroy the current?

                                                            COURTNEY
How long have you been here?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
A hundred years? Maybe two hundred?

(Long pause.)

                                                            MARIA
It’s going to be freezing out here once the sun goes down, we need to keep hiking, find some kind of shelter—

                                                            COURTNEY
There! That one!

                                                            MARIA
I don’t think so.

                                                            COURTNEY
I’m pretty sure—

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
If it’s floating on the surface, it’s dead.

                                                            MARIA
We need to go further downstream, find ones that are still swimming, fill our bottles, and keep going. Find a ranger station or something.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
There’s one at the edge of the park.

                                                            COURTNEY
I can’t keep going without taking a drink.

                                                            MARIA
This will kill you. It’s brown.

                                                            COURTNEY
Dad took me and my sister here every summer, I can’t believe all the fish are…

(Silence.)

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
I think the mushrooms are still okay to eat.

                                                            MARIA
Chingate.

(Silence.)

                                                            COURTNEY
When Congress was in recess, we’d camp and catch more than we could eat.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Your parents died with the rest of them?

                                                            MARIA
Obviamente.

                                                            COURTNEY
Dad was in DC.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Maybe he’s okay then.

                                                            COURTNEY
Then why didn’t he come back for us?

(Pause.)

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
What about your mom?

                                                            COURTNEY
She didn’t come home from work. I couldn’t find her. But I think they’re both okay, somewhere.

                                                            MARIA
Then why didn’t you stay in Rockford? How are they going to find you? Huh? Estúpida muchacha blanca.

                                                            COURTNEY
I ran out of water… And the mobs… I had to…

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Your sister?

                                                            COURTNEY
The men… They started taking the girls somewhere… When we ran out of water to give them…

(Long pause.)

                                                            COURTNEY (cont)
I had to leave.

                                                            MARIA
And now we’re going to freeze to death in this forest unless we keep going.

                                                            COURTNEY
How do you keep warm?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
I sleep under the dirt.

                                                            MARIA
She can’t help us.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
What happened to your family?

                                                            MARIA
They were drinking the water the whole time, so they died. I tried to bury them in the back yard but I couldn’t get the holes deep enough.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Why aren’t you with them?

                                                            MARIA
Once the mierda from the sink started smelling like rotten eggs, I just drank bottled, even if I went thirsty. I’m no idiot.

                                                            COURTNEY
I saw the brown water from people’s sinks on the news, but our water never got like that.

                                                            MARIA
Why do you think the mobs went to your neighborhood, tonto?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Where did you two meet?

                                                            MARIA
I saved her culo on Route 2 when she ran out of water.

                                                            COURTNEY
She showed me how to start the abandoned cars and get condensation from the air conditioners.

                                                            MARIA
Now that the electricity’s gone, though, we can’t pump any more gas. That’s why we need to keep going. Find some water that isn’t killing the fish.

                                                            COURTNEY
What do you drink?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
I drink from the river here.

                                                            COURTNEY
Even though it’s killing everything?

                                                            MARIA
It’s killing the grass on the banks! It’s poison! We can’t drink it.

                                                            COURTNEY
She does.

                                                            MARIA
She isn’t like us.

                                                            COURTNEY
We had to read this play in school where everything was at war, everything took sides—dogs, cats, clouds, wind, light, darkness… even water. Do you think the water is at war with us?

                                                            MARIA
We need to keep moving, find some flowing water. The current will clean it.

                                                            COURTNEY
I don’t think water’s at war with me. I think it’s okay to drink this.

COURTNEY drinks from the river. Lights fade down, then back up.

COURTNEY and the WOMAN IN THE FOREST sit comfortably. MARIA paces, cold.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
You should get going if you’re going to make it to the ranger station before the sun sets.

                                                            MARIA
Aren’t you cold?

                                                            COURTNEY
I feel fine.

                                                            MARIA
You don’t feel sick?

                                                            COURTNEY
I feel fine.

                                                            MARIA
My sisters puked their guts out from the water.

                                                            COURTNEY
I feel fine. Why don’t you drink some of the water and stay with us?

                                                            MARIA
What did the water do to her?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Why did you save her?

                                                            MARIA
She was so pathetic, out there on the highway, out of water—

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Didn’t you meet lots of people on the highway?

                                                            MARIA
Not who were still moving.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
If the highway was as dead as this river, why didn’t you just let her go?

                                                            MARIA
Courtney, come on, we need to get going before the sun sets.

                                                            COURTNEY
I’m not cold.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Why didn’t you just let her find peace?

                                                            MARIA
Dying from thirst isn’t peaceful.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Well, she’s peaceful for now.

                                                            COURTNEY
I’m fine. You should go.

                                                            MARIA
I’m not leaving you.

                                                            COURTNEY
Then have some water.

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
The ranger station has cots, blankets, everything you’ll need. Even a hotplate to boil the water, if you think that will help.

                                                            MARIA
Then why can’t she come with me?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
You can see she doesn’t want to.

                                                            MARIA
What if I go to the ranger station and come back in the morning.

                                                            COURTNEY
I don’t think we’ll be here by then.

                                                            MARIA
But I can’t keep going alone!

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Why not?

                                                            MARIA
It took me days of walking through all those cars, with crows eating what was left of the people, and the smell, and not knowing if I’d ever see another human again, and… You’re not coming, are you?

                                                            COURTNEY
--

                                                            MARIA
Are you even here?

                                                            COURTNEY
--

                                                            MARIA
Did you take her from me?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
--

                                                            MARIA
Well, I’m not staying here. This isn’t how my story ends. I’m going to find people. We’re going to figure it out. We’re going to survive. We’re going to undo whatever your dad did out in DC. There could be millions of people left. Out there. Somewhere. And I’m going to find them.

                                                            COURTNEY
Thanks for getting me off the freeway, away from the crows.

                                                            MARIA
Chingate tu madre, guey! You people destroy everything!

(MARIA leaves, alone.)

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
We should get under the dirt before the sun goes down. We don’t want you to get cold.

                                                            COURTNEY
Will the fish come back?

                                                            WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Come on. I’ll show you where our holes are.

(Fade to black.)

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