America Unraveled

As the holidays approach, it should be time for unity and community; getting together with those you appreciate, those you love, those you don't see so often. The holidays are a time to purge all the bad of the year and come together to enjoy the cold season with loved ones, family, and friends.

Unfortunately, this years black friday sales were anything but loving (but then when are they?); consumerism eats this holiday in a single bite as many even skip Thanksgiving to sit for a day or two in the cold to buy an inexpensive big TV or laptop or whatever. The deals are good but your time is more precious; what good is being out there verses being with your family, enjoying the time with them? You buy two big TVs so you can spend quality time with your kids? Of course not, you buy them to get away; you encourage your own distraction away from them.

What's worse, if you don't give a crap about your holiday, fine but employees were forced to come in for some stores' insane, midnight openings; these employees were made to miss Thanksgiving because they had to work that night. It's unfair but people just hark on that it's lucky they have a job; sure it is, unfortunately we are getting close to the analogy of the men and women in single color overalls on the factory line doing some meaningless task everyday of their life, toiling away for those with money to afford cheap toilers. We all have families, we all deserve to be with them regardless of our economic strata. I know a father that works all the time; he's a work-a-holic but his kids have zero regard for him because he doesn't feel like a father to them, they have no respect for him; he's a stranger in his own home because he chooses work. Those employees were not given a choice unless that choice was work or be fired. Scrooge has come home and Crotchet is going to be working this Christmas; fuck that cripple Tiny Tim. That's the message of America today.

The holidays aren't the only onslaught of peace and good-will towards man; a personhood amendment in Mississippi that sought to, eventually, fight abortion rights, a racist town in Montana collecting more racists and weaponry, statements from politicians like "gay marriage would make our country fall," the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wants the right for religiously affiliated hospitals, charities, elementary and secondary schools, as well as colleges and universities to refuse women birth control, plus let's not forget all the police violence as Occupies around the country were brutally broken up. These are all examples of our willingness to do atrocious harm to each other; few give any care or regard to anyone outside their household and that's not what society is; that's not what it means. We ought to be closer than ever but we are more divisive now than ever before; lines are drawn deep and thick, separating us from those who spread their butter-side down.

Newt Gingrich recently declared that "child labor laws are stupid," and said that schools should have a master janitor (getting rid of all unionized janitors) and the kids could do the work and get a little money for their efforts. It sounds like an okay plan (crappy for those who are employed as janitors) but why do we want to instill that mindset in our kids? The world is already cold and revolves around money, there is no reason to taint our children by saying, "Here, you work, you get money...that's America." Kids should help (not work) around their school because they have a pride in it and for it; because the teachers are good and make the lessons informative but also fun so you encourage socialization and participation along with learning, because the class sizes are small and you get the help you need, and other such idealistic thoughts about the educational system. Kids shouldn't be working for money; what of the lesson that sometimes you just do good things to be good, maybe to feel a little warmer, feel connected to people and the community; be apart of something bigger than yourself that isn't the Almighty God but people, beautiful community; neighbors working together. It's a dead dream but hold it; I know I will.

Question EVERYTHING! Get Involved! Care!

I think only now are people beginning to realize you can't just leave politics to the politicians because they (like any person acting without an active, responsible base) will vote for what they want and what best suits them, especially if the people represented by them appear to not really care. But maybe it's just me, maybe I'm getting more active so it seems like the world is with me when, most likely, it isn't.

We are still too comfortable holding up our news anchors and politicians up as experts when really they both look after their own interests more than appeal to the people and provide facts. If you do not seek them out, there will be stories you aren't hearing because you think mainstream media will cover you. Mainstream media and politics have become a theater performance and many people are just now starting to walk out of it. But still many people watch and are engaged in watching highly paid television personalities disparage the concept of higher taxes on the wealthy.

This is not the America we know and love anymore; the great majority think you can still work your way to success but there exists now too many factors to keep the working class from achieving this and even if they do, the middle class is not really comfortable right now either. Our country is now divided into two on the basis of having money and not having money. The only other group, but perhaps the largest, is people who think politics, as it stands right now, is still relevant and fair. Government and politics need a complete overhaul before they can actually take credit for doing anything useful today.

We are not questioning enough; we are not looking at the people who give us information and thinking about their lives as hypocritical to what they spew out their mouths. So many of us just take their words and apply it down our now non-existent concept of party lines. Republican, Democrat; all of that is irrelevant in our lives because the two have merged into a corporate interest decider and, if the American public, continues to stand idly by, they will take it from us.

If we remained unemployed long enough maybe they will convince us or we will accept having to take what were considered migrant jobs for unchanged migrant wages; the working class (with the non-existent middle-class) will live the 1984 or Visioneers reality of toiling away for Big Government (but really Big Corporations) for the betterment of 'all' even though worker advancement is a concept of the past and not for us peons. And government will get on our screens and scream at us to buy this new item, from our favorite government-sponsoring corporation, because it is the path to happiness.

Tea Party politicians, like Michele Bachmann who recently claimed HPV vaccines may cause mental retardation, are lying to gain support because they believe God will forgive sins used to gain influence which is then used to spread God's will to a heathen population. Not only does she, or politicians like her, not care about what anyone outside her faith wants but she also will do anything to attain power (for God) and, in her mind, her version of Him will forgive her for that. Just as radical Muslims and radical Israelis; radical Christians are just as dangerous.

You don't have to vote for or agree with Tea Party politicians but people are out there right now who ARE listening to them, believing their falsehoods, and will vote for them. That's scary! We have to be as engaged and enraged as they are!

The media; we watch the news and take what they say but what of the current occupation of Wall Street by protestors aimed to hold bankers accountable? Why has that not graced the outlets with any force; that's big news and yet they treat it like a footnote or, worse, non-existent. The media gets to pick and chose what we hear and what we don't; the networks chose the anchors you see on TV. Nothing of what exists as it does now, had to be this way, it was all choice; someone picked this anchor over that and that shapes history; shapes what we know but we must always question that. We cannot continue to just be pawns of our government and our media; we are the people, we have the control if we choose to flex it but we must flex it collectively, as a unit; as a nation.

What of Jose Padilla; never charged of being a 'Dirty Bomber' yet crucified by media outlets as such? It was a choice by the media; such statements are not consistent with the facts. To say he was convicted as such is misleading to a generally gullible public who now forms an opinion on Padilla based upon that. It's not the people's fault we are gullible; we hold our news media and our politicians to a high regard and expect them to do what's best, what's right, and what's fair; we believe they can hold themselves accountable but they can't. In today's society, it's hard to find anyone doing any of those things let alone all three.

College campuses, and the general American opinion, usually have a positive opinion of alcohol, a substance with known dangers to self and others but pot impassions people into a frenzy of anti-drug buzz words. But why is alcohol okay; why did it get the green light? Choice; alcohol, through lobbies or public interest, has become our acceptable, or 'right,' drug for 'partying' and pot something we refrain from, now, in the interest of productivity (but people who smoke pot are neither inherently stupid nor lazy). We hold alcohol up as okay, despite its dangers, but pot we can easily vilify and the government has that side defended. Why can't those who drink have have their drink and those who smoke have their pot? I don't drink usually but I'd never vote for anything like a return to prohibition because other's drinking does not effect me; why do they seek to prohibit us and our drug of choice?

The drug war, itself, started as a matter of choice, someone said do it and they did for thirty years but that doesn't mean it was the right thing. Even the fact that it's been in effect for thirty years does not justify it or make it 'good policy' for Americans. We arrested many Japanese-Americans during World War II and held them in prison camps; I don't think anyone agrees that was right, but it's our history and we do make mistakes. Question policy, question authority because it doesn't always know all; in fact, it rarely does nor does it employ reason or compassion, only a perverted concept of justice and self-righteousness.

If 100% of people are in agreement, then something has been missed; we should not have such a majority lest we've lost our sense of individual thought and personal experience. We all come into this world and experience things differently than our peers; we need to be open and accepting of those differences that shape us rather then condemning or interfering with them if personally unaffected. To fight for freedom, to fight for the rights of others (that is no real benefit or gain to you) is truly a show of love and compassion to your fellow man (as the Bible dictates to those who so often forget); to condemn the freedom of others can only been seen on the opposing side as odious discontent and hatred of those who are different and do things against what they think is 'right.'

But 'right' is subjective; there is no 'right,' there is no 'wrong.' All that exists is our founding Constitution which is used to settle issues of 'right' and 'wrong' fairly, justly, and with equal representation of every person in this great nation. But it is skirted and changed as convenient; 'right' and 'wrong' becomes further convoluted.

We need to get personally involved or, at the very least, inform yourself beyond the scope of what the TV spits out at you. We are at a point of strength; we are so low as a nation that we now have the unique opportunity to build our country back up in a different way, a progressive way, but it will only be through pressure from the people that it will happen.