More Power To The People
There is so much wrong with the political landscape these days. I see the wave of craziness, and it’s not like we knew it wasn’t coming, we’ve been hearing it for years - how the evangelical contingent of Christianity was systematically training up its ‘army for Christ’. I have no problem with Christ. It’s his followers that I have the issue with. Issue(s) that is. So much of what is wrong with the current political landscape can be traced right back to the idea of a “Christian Nation”. The idea of ANY religion controlling the government of a nation is frightening in so many ways I don’t have words to describe all of them. There are countries in the world that we can observe and understand that oppression of any kind especially that based on religion is so distasteful to me that, again, description is impossible.
While I have usually been able to distinguish between people and their viewpoints, I will admit it doesn’t hold so fast with friends of friends, to use a Facebook term. I try to assume that most everyone I come into contact with has some semblance of intelligence, even if that intelligence doesn’t match my worldview. I try to give most folks the benefit of the doubt that they have used common sense AND intelligent discernment to come to the conclusions they have. But let some MAN say how ‘wrong’ he ‘knows’ my viewpoint to be about how much of a friend to women a political candidate is…well…first of all…he’s a MAN…who can ‘know’ nothing of being a woman. He can ‘know’ nothing of the humiliation women go through just to maintain their health, both reproductive and sexual. Being a woman, being informed about laws and policies that affect women, and thinking of them from a woman’s point of view is not something a MAN can do. If you don’t have a uterus, or never have had one, you don’t have a dog in this race. I cannot bear more children. But I have grandchildren, a granddaughter and I cannot abide the idea of leaving this world in the turmoil it is in and leaving her and her sisterhood to deal with something that happened on my watch as far as women’s rights is concerned. So my online time is more and more taking the form of activism in boosting other’s signals on these subjects, commenting on them myself and generally sharing topics I find interesting in that vein.
We are beginning to see what a fabulous tool the internet is. It is going to be so much more powerful than television or radio because it’s interactive. People anywhere can talk with other people anywhere about anything they have an interest in. I am sure that the powers that be will act accordingly to try to rein in this new method of contact with like minds. Indeed the House and Senate both had their own versions of censorship bills that were soundly defeated. Gone are the days when your Senator or Representative can freely vote on a bill that a peer has submitted just out of respect for that peer. They are being held accountable for actually READING the bills they are voting for. Imagine that! People are beginning to understand the magnitude of the illicit deals going on in Washington. Big Oil deals for pipelines, Big Ag deals for pink slime in our beef, Big Beverage methods of suppressing sweeteners as unsafe when nothing could be further from the truth. People are demanding accountability.
All I can say is, it’s about time. I look forward to seeing more media personalities held accountable for their racist, sexist, homophobic and divisive methods of earning their ratings. From Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh, and hopefully on down to Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Savage and any number of others who are earning their living through their controversial opinions and their hurtful methods of expounding upon them. We now live in a world where a mother can create a petition and share it on her Facebook account and garner national support for her cause. We live in world where the people of other nations can tell the world what is going on in their countries without the interference of their governments…sometimes. Often at their peril, they can document their revolutions, the moments when the tides of history turns for them, and for their children and children’s children. What would the world be like now if we had had this ability several hundred years ago? Who knows. But I can guess what it will be like going forward. We can look for more ‘interference’ on the part of our government. Indeed they already have made peaceful assembly in public areas a felony. What good would peaceful assembly in a private area do? The very nature of peaceful assembly is to be seen and heard, to interrupt the normal course of everyday events and be seen and heard and perhaps supported - perhaps to create change. The Occupy Movement has done quite a lot to bring a face to the ‘idea’ of protest, of injustice.
And now we have this kid in Florida, killed by a ‘neighborhood watch volunteer’. Regardless of what the kid did to him, what he said, it doesn’t matter. This man took a life and was released as though that life did not matter. And now, thanks to internet media, the world, well the fifty U.S. States knows about it. As much as it contributes to the uncertainty of fact, somewhere in there is the truth, and it will be known, no matter what anyone there in that little Florida town says about it.
Maybe ‘internet media’ does more harm than good. But I don’t see how being more aware of what is going on in the world, what is going on in the oceans, what is being put into our food without our knowledge for reasons that make no sense other than to boost a bottom line - how is that bad?
I don’t think it is. I don’t think it’s bad that our political candidates have a more level ‘playing field’ for this election. I don’t think it’s bad that a mom has a voice about something that affects her life. This IS the land of the free…and if the Internet has it’s way, more of these people will stand up , and be answered by more people on the street and this country will once more become also ‘the Land of the Brave.’
And that, I think, is a VERY good thing.
While I have usually been able to distinguish between people and their viewpoints, I will admit it doesn’t hold so fast with friends of friends, to use a Facebook term. I try to assume that most everyone I come into contact with has some semblance of intelligence, even if that intelligence doesn’t match my worldview. I try to give most folks the benefit of the doubt that they have used common sense AND intelligent discernment to come to the conclusions they have. But let some MAN say how ‘wrong’ he ‘knows’ my viewpoint to be about how much of a friend to women a political candidate is…well…first of all…he’s a MAN…who can ‘know’ nothing of being a woman. He can ‘know’ nothing of the humiliation women go through just to maintain their health, both reproductive and sexual. Being a woman, being informed about laws and policies that affect women, and thinking of them from a woman’s point of view is not something a MAN can do. If you don’t have a uterus, or never have had one, you don’t have a dog in this race. I cannot bear more children. But I have grandchildren, a granddaughter and I cannot abide the idea of leaving this world in the turmoil it is in and leaving her and her sisterhood to deal with something that happened on my watch as far as women’s rights is concerned. So my online time is more and more taking the form of activism in boosting other’s signals on these subjects, commenting on them myself and generally sharing topics I find interesting in that vein.
We are beginning to see what a fabulous tool the internet is. It is going to be so much more powerful than television or radio because it’s interactive. People anywhere can talk with other people anywhere about anything they have an interest in. I am sure that the powers that be will act accordingly to try to rein in this new method of contact with like minds. Indeed the House and Senate both had their own versions of censorship bills that were soundly defeated. Gone are the days when your Senator or Representative can freely vote on a bill that a peer has submitted just out of respect for that peer. They are being held accountable for actually READING the bills they are voting for. Imagine that! People are beginning to understand the magnitude of the illicit deals going on in Washington. Big Oil deals for pipelines, Big Ag deals for pink slime in our beef, Big Beverage methods of suppressing sweeteners as unsafe when nothing could be further from the truth. People are demanding accountability.
All I can say is, it’s about time. I look forward to seeing more media personalities held accountable for their racist, sexist, homophobic and divisive methods of earning their ratings. From Ann Coulter to Rush Limbaugh, and hopefully on down to Bill O’Reilly, Mr. Savage and any number of others who are earning their living through their controversial opinions and their hurtful methods of expounding upon them. We now live in a world where a mother can create a petition and share it on her Facebook account and garner national support for her cause. We live in world where the people of other nations can tell the world what is going on in their countries without the interference of their governments…sometimes. Often at their peril, they can document their revolutions, the moments when the tides of history turns for them, and for their children and children’s children. What would the world be like now if we had had this ability several hundred years ago? Who knows. But I can guess what it will be like going forward. We can look for more ‘interference’ on the part of our government. Indeed they already have made peaceful assembly in public areas a felony. What good would peaceful assembly in a private area do? The very nature of peaceful assembly is to be seen and heard, to interrupt the normal course of everyday events and be seen and heard and perhaps supported - perhaps to create change. The Occupy Movement has done quite a lot to bring a face to the ‘idea’ of protest, of injustice.
And now we have this kid in Florida, killed by a ‘neighborhood watch volunteer’. Regardless of what the kid did to him, what he said, it doesn’t matter. This man took a life and was released as though that life did not matter. And now, thanks to internet media, the world, well the fifty U.S. States knows about it. As much as it contributes to the uncertainty of fact, somewhere in there is the truth, and it will be known, no matter what anyone there in that little Florida town says about it.
Maybe ‘internet media’ does more harm than good. But I don’t see how being more aware of what is going on in the world, what is going on in the oceans, what is being put into our food without our knowledge for reasons that make no sense other than to boost a bottom line - how is that bad?
I don’t think it is. I don’t think it’s bad that our political candidates have a more level ‘playing field’ for this election. I don’t think it’s bad that a mom has a voice about something that affects her life. This IS the land of the free…and if the Internet has it’s way, more of these people will stand up , and be answered by more people on the street and this country will once more become also ‘the Land of the Brave.’
And that, I think, is a VERY good thing.