(no subject)
People are afraid of what can change. What if I lose my job and I live on the streets? What if I grow old and my significant other doesn’t want to fuck me? What if the world blows up tomorrow and we all live in a nuclear winter until everyone dies from radiation sickness? To keep jobs, we join labor unions, which are weak and have been virtually disappearing over time. To fight old age, we buy expensive clothes, accessories, hair products, etc… and none of us look any better. None of us embrace aging and death, which according to some world religions, is a sacred necessity - while in the meantime we try to stay afraid of God. Our country’s reaction to the atom bomb entailed one of the greatest outbreaks of paranoia and fear in our history, and the hysteria continues today with the current “War on Terrorism.” We're a culture of fear, and it's sickening.
Why do we choose to be afraid of things we know nothing about? Why do we sense that a man on the sidewalk - just because he looks angry or suspicious, or perhaps because he happens to be black - intends to mug us? The answer is that our nation’s media is dedicated to reminding us of this possibility. The show Cops, which shows violent crimes exclusively, I think is a good example of media paranoia. We see simulated deaths on television everyday, and we barely react at all, because we call it fake. We call it television, where nothing actually happens.
Meanwhile, we harbor a fear of death in our day-to-day life, because we are exposed to the possibility of violence in television. If it happened on television, why can’t it happen to us in real life? This is our line of reasoning. This is our fear. Instead of becoming more educated and outspoken about violence, we internalize the fear, and we place the trust in our “democracy” to protect us from violence, when it is the American government which commits the most heinous acts of violence in the world!
Sometimes we fight back. We make laws. We make guns legal. We put criminals into prison, sometimes truly bad ones. Yet, prisons are not full to brim as they are because of violent people. Prisons are full of nonviolent dopers, drivers, and deadbeat dads. The majority are drug-dealers, the criminals who direct all this federal spending toward prisons. Then you consider a little thing called “The Defense Budget” and we need to think to ourselves, this is costing us our health-care and a decent education system (I know I didn't learn anything in high school). Wait, these geezers in congress our ripping us off! If we do not have health-care or a decent education system, and meanwhile, we go into debt, just because of a little plastic card that has our signature on it, where does that leave us? Life shouldn’t be such a huge risk.
The corporations and the banks are well-off because we are in debt, and we are in debt because we think money buys security. The truth is that security does not have a price. It’s a state of being, an attitude. The phrase “national security” should be used to describe a relaxed and open minded American people. It means we are secure, self-assured, and confident. Most of all, it means we are not afraid.
Why do we choose to be afraid of things we know nothing about? Why do we sense that a man on the sidewalk - just because he looks angry or suspicious, or perhaps because he happens to be black - intends to mug us? The answer is that our nation’s media is dedicated to reminding us of this possibility. The show Cops, which shows violent crimes exclusively, I think is a good example of media paranoia. We see simulated deaths on television everyday, and we barely react at all, because we call it fake. We call it television, where nothing actually happens.
Meanwhile, we harbor a fear of death in our day-to-day life, because we are exposed to the possibility of violence in television. If it happened on television, why can’t it happen to us in real life? This is our line of reasoning. This is our fear. Instead of becoming more educated and outspoken about violence, we internalize the fear, and we place the trust in our “democracy” to protect us from violence, when it is the American government which commits the most heinous acts of violence in the world!
Sometimes we fight back. We make laws. We make guns legal. We put criminals into prison, sometimes truly bad ones. Yet, prisons are not full to brim as they are because of violent people. Prisons are full of nonviolent dopers, drivers, and deadbeat dads. The majority are drug-dealers, the criminals who direct all this federal spending toward prisons. Then you consider a little thing called “The Defense Budget” and we need to think to ourselves, this is costing us our health-care and a decent education system (I know I didn't learn anything in high school). Wait, these geezers in congress our ripping us off! If we do not have health-care or a decent education system, and meanwhile, we go into debt, just because of a little plastic card that has our signature on it, where does that leave us? Life shouldn’t be such a huge risk.
The corporations and the banks are well-off because we are in debt, and we are in debt because we think money buys security. The truth is that security does not have a price. It’s a state of being, an attitude. The phrase “national security” should be used to describe a relaxed and open minded American people. It means we are secure, self-assured, and confident. Most of all, it means we are not afraid.