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It started back in 2003, when I was taking a course in college called 'Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,' which dealt with urban outcasts. During one of the discussion sections, a privileged white girl who came from Westchester in New York shared with us a bit of divine wisdom. See, I went to college at Johns Hopkins University, in the city of Baltimore, and every student knew that going to 'Greenmount' (the actual name of the neighborhood was Waverly) at a certain time by yourself was tempting fate. However, this girl expressed that if SHE were a big black guy, she wouldn't feel awkward about going to Greenmount after dark at ALL. Another girl (also white, also rich), chimed in that she was offended that there were groups for people of Indian descent and for black folk, but where was the group for white people??
I remember being astounded at the stupidity of these remarks. I had grown up in a small town, surrounded by ignorance and small minds, but naively expected something more when I went away to college. How silly of me. This restless feeling grew last year, when I was listening to the radio one morning on the way to work. The morning guys at the time (Reno and Frankenberry at 101.5 WPDH) were interviewing a couple of interns, asking them questions about current events. The two interns were both college students from either Marist or Vassar. This was around the time that Porter Goss resigned as director of the CIA. They were asked to name the retiring CIA director was, and they could not do it. They were asked who his replacement was, and they could not do it. They were asked WHAT FRICKIN' CONTINENT IRAQ is on, and they couldn't answer the question. However, when asked the name of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' baby, they knew right away.
I think I almost swerved off the road at that point. These are COLLEGE STUDENTS, supposedly educated and intelligent people, and they didn't know jack about the world they lived in. As I listen to the radio, I hear so many people call in spouting opinions about Iraq and terrorism that they were fed by the media that were either slightly wrong or really, really tragically wrong. Even the hosts themselves (I've heard 3 different morning teams so far), sometimes spout these lies with absolutely NO AWARENESS of the truth. They have no idea of what is really going on in the world around them, but when it comes to celebrities, they know everything.
Welcome to America in the 21st century. The rise in power of the corporate media (aided by Reagan's de-regulations in the 80's), combined with the doublespeak of the Bush administration and Fox News, has produced something wondrous strange in our country. The truth is not made readily available to Americans...the news that they are exposed to is only what the corporate media wishes them to see. Yet, the myth of the media being 'liberal' still persists and refuses to die...a clever tactic that has allowed Fox News to gain so much of its power as a 'Fair and Balanced' network.
This lack of truth in reporting contributes to the ignorance of the populace. We are fed, again and again, tons of gossip news about celebrities, as if we are expected to care about their lives. Their existences become drama for us to consume, and we devour it greedily, just as we devour stories about missing white girls. Everything the media does is designed to manipulate our emotions and our thoughts...we are given the drama to distract us from what is really going on. We are being given bread and circuses, and most Americans consume it with alacrity.
Our world is filled with celebrity, fast food, mass media, fast living, and decadent wastefulness. We have become, in our power, a fat, contented nation too lazy to challenge ourselves or seek the truth, but rather perfectly satisfied to digest what is given to us without question. From childhood, we are fed on a steady diet of garbage, and the result is the America we see before us. Small towns are being consumed by developments for the privileged, small businesses are being muscled out by mega corporations, more and more strip malls are erected and our country's beauty diminishes bit by bit. The threat of global warming looms large on our horizon, yet still we purchase gigantic gas-guzzling SUVs and consume our natural resources with wild abandon.
This year, in November, we finally succeeded in triumphing over the GOP and voting in a Democratic majority to Congress, giving us full control for the first time since the 90's. However, why did we win? I doubt we would've won if not for the Iraq War. Plain and simple, it was a single issue election. Never mind all of the corruption, the violation of the constitution, the raping of our environment...people care about Iraq, and that's all. Of course, it doesn't apply to us DUer's...but for most Americans, it's simply all that really mattered to them. They developed this perspective because of what the media told them...but even there, they are not getting the full story, they are unaware of how bad it truly is.
The only thing that REALLY bothers us is how American troops have been killed. We don't REALLY care about all of the dead Iraqis, unless the media tells us to. Stalin once said that one death is a tragedy, while a million is a statistic. The death of one American soldier is weighed much more heavily then the dozens, even hundreds of Iraqis being killed each day. Yet, it's so easy to ignore even the dying American troops, just as long as we're getting a steady dose of news about TomKat or Brangelina.
They sent you off to school as a child, to be indoctrinated as a patriotic little citizen, given a whitewashed propagandized version of our history. If you are raised in a strict Christian family, and further indoctrinated with a healthy respect for being obedient, complaint, and unquestioning of authority, then so much the better. Children are inundated with commercialism, mind numbing television shows, and fast food, fed garbage from the moment they can process what they are seeing and experiencing.
As they grow, boys are taught to take advantage of women, be strong and domineering, authoritative but unquestioning of the authority that governs them. Women are taught to be obedient and submissive, and told what their body image should be, and how they should value themselves, by a shallow mass media with no concern whatsoever for the psychological damage they inflict on young minds. As they grow older, the damage leads to eating disorders, objectification of the opposite sex, and worse.
The final straw for me was reading the article in Rolling Stone about the factory farms. We consume, we pollute, and we cause such suffering to the environment and to the animals that we devour. We think we're so big, so important, but the world doesn't exist just for us. Ann Coulter said that God told us to take the world and rape it. We certainly are. I don't know about all of you, but I've been having an ominously warm winter up here in upstate New York. We haven't had so much as a lick of actual snow so far, and that worries me. Cause it's happening all over the world...and we, America, are the world's biggest contributor to the problem.
Not only do we consume a steady diet of garbage, but we produce it as well. Our factory farms produce tons of toxic pig excrement, our cars belch tons of pollution into the atmosphere, and we as individuals produce tons of waste, filling more and more landfills with the fruits of our great society. The world is our victim, and we are sheltered from its effect by a largely indifferent media that wants us to stay uninformed.
An informed society is dangerous to its leaders, because they will be held accountable for their actions. Due to the controls enacted by a corporate media and the rising power of fundamentalist mega churches, we are a largely uninformed society. We have begun to make steps in the right direction, but there is still so much misinformation out there. The first step you can take to free your mind is to turn off your damn television.
I haven't regularly watched tv since 2004, and let me tell you, it's a wonderful feeling. Just turning on the tv these days make my mind ache, I can hardly believe I used to watch that garbage. If there's something from the Daily Show or Countdown that I really want to see, I can find it on You Tube or Comedy Central's website, usually.
In addition, we should do our best to inform those that do not know that the truth is out there if they seek it out. The government WANTS us to be ignorant, and little by little, we are breaking that down...but we haven't won a total victory yet. The media is still corporate controlled, and they will be against us...so we must find other ways to reach the people.
Also, we need to be stewards of the earth...when we take control of Congress in January...we need to start pushing...and pushing hard...for changes in our environmental policy. We can't afford to wait to meet the threat of global warming head on.
Finally, do yourself a favor...if possible, do not shop at Walmart. Try to stick with smaller local businesses. Support small businesses, clean farms, and independent media outlet. The only way to put an end to our steady diet of garbage is to cut it off at the source.
If we want America to survive for much longer, we must take up this burden, for it was the time of bread and circuses which preceded the downfall of Rome...
(sorry for the length, I could've gone on forever, but I decided to stop there...hope everyone enjoys this posting)
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