The world can’t wait … for your children

No matter what the cause, there’s nothing more unseemly then attempting to enlist children to join in, especially without the knowledge of their parents. When the cause is a front for a radical socialist group whose advisory committee includes Lynne Stewart, a member of the loathsome Workers World Party and a convicted terrorist, the recruiting of children is not just unseemly, but dangerous.

The World Can’t Wait! organized a rally on October 5th largely through Internet outreach, and specifically with their MySpace page. MySpace has, perhaps undeservedly, gained a reputation among parents and concerned adults as a hunting ground for predators, and the thought of adults secretly forging relationships online with teens is disturbing to say the least. When the adult arranges a meeting with the teen, we are rightfully concerned and act swiftly.

Unless they meet at a protest apparently.

On both their web site and their MySpace page, the assumedly adult members of The World Can’t Wait! encouraged minors to skip school to attend their rallies held in several cities. Many children, with their parents believing they were safely in school, attended these rallies surrounded by complete strangers who were made aware that unsupervised minors would be participating in these protest. The World Can’t Wait! arranged an en masse meeting between minors and adults without regard to the consequences.

It is common for organizations whose message is too radical to attract any but the fringe to market themselves to young people who lack the experience or knowledge base to understand how out of step these groups are. With the growth of social networking on the web, these groups have unfettered access to children without the knowledge of parents. The organizers of this protest have already proved to be irresponsible and put every child who walked out of school to join them at risk, and they continue to recruit these same children to attend “mass meetings” next week. Now they are asking them to wear orange so as to be readily identifiable. All sane adults can see the potential tragic outcome of these acts.

We would ask the organizers to be more responsible and only recruit adults for their protest, but they wouldn’t. Easily manipulated, children are more ready to believe the outright lies and fabrications this organization uses as its platform. Instead, Red Alerts will contact the appropriate authorities about what is an egregious lack of ethics on the part of organizers at best, but could just as well be criminal behavior.