It would be really funny..
It would be really funny..
If it weren’t so sad that we have become this jaded. This article in The Onion is best read aloud in a news announcer-type voice. Warning: it might make you more cynical than you were. It’s sad that news coming from the Middle East has come down to this. After reading this article, I’m appalled, at myself and at the rest of humanity. Yes, this is how it sounds to me. We’re numb to all of this, and we don’t even get to see it because of the tight control of the media surrounding our current wars. When I was a kid, we got daily video footage of soldiers getting killed in Vietnam. Eventually people stared marching in the streets, protests, rallies, etc. and eventually we stopped what was probably a bad idea in the first place. I was too young to really get why we were there in the first place, but by the time Nixon came around, we as a country said enough was enough. We didn’t “support the troops” as perhaps we might have, Many people a few years older than me came away really messed up. Many of those dudes are on our street corners holdign signs and being ignored. Now we have the best video technology which can deliver better, clearer images of horrible things, but as far as possible, we’re being prevented from seeing much of it. “embedded” means “co-opted”, and anyone who wants to really make a big issue of protesting is labeled “traitor”, “unpatriotic” and “threat”. Our government has unprecendented ability and willingness and technology to track our every move. What the government doesn’t have is being created outside the purview of checks and balances by any sort of restraint. Private industry knows more about us than the government, but that kind of information is only a subpoena away from use by the government. The results have been seen in China where a blogger was essentialy turned over by Yahoo just because the Chinese government asked (realy nicely, I’m sure) for the informatoin to finger him. Do you really think that ours would restrain itself in the name of “national security”? The constitution and bill of rights has been systematically gutted in the name of “security”, but at what cost? The real question is whether it’s too late already. There are many articles out there that describe the proces in which a democracy becomes a totalitatrian state, and it seems like we’re several steps down the road. So, I ask you.. Is it too late? If not, what is there to do? “protests” have been maringalized into “free speech zones”. No one really pays attention to these I have personal experience of this around the drumcirlces I participated in or helped to organize around the Columbine killings. The first year, the week after it happened, I brought some drums up to Clement Park and we had a circle that had some 20+ people in it, and it was clear that it made a difference. the following year, at the “remembrance”, anyone who didnt make some kidn of muster got sent to the ’free speech” zone. This was far from where the media was; in fact there was really no reason for anyone to show up where we were because we were at the other end of the park from where the “real” event was happening. We weren’t trying to make a fuss, just to provide a chance for ppl to have a healing musica experience. I suspect that since drums were used in the in the late 80’s early 90’s to make a big noise during Gulf War I, they have been viewed as suspect by Those In Charge. I’m sure that my participation in them figures prominently in my FBI file, but while I probably could take a look at that mythical file, my request would add one more thing to it: this one’s smart enough to want to see it,better keep an eye on him.