By: The David
It seems as though this world just spins faster and faster. Part of it has to do with the fact that it is growing older. (As are we) Part of it has to do with the wealth of events out there, and part of it, maybe the biggest part has to do with the way those events are presented to us and how we are diverted from them. Our world is embroiled and mired in the most dangerous state in recorded history. There are events happening that are so momentous that they could lead to the alteration of the planet and of our lives. Incredible events are going on around us, and for the most part, their importance flies over our heads as we ignore them or practice a fostered sense of denial. We are diverted. We are diverted and the medium that is supposed to bring us the awareness of those things around us has not only neglected their duty, but papered the truth with such falsity, such diversion, such fiction. And we…. we know we are being diverted, but instead of demanding truth, insisting on relevant and important information, we dance along the yellow brick road like some stumbling scarecrow. Only this yellow brick road leads to neither Oz nor a happy ending.
Our economy has tanked and the effort and sacrifice necessary to correct it are not presented to us. Instead too many still insist on getting theirs, and to hell with the rest. We don’t get angry at this, we just dance along.
We despoil the planet. We have treated our home so badly, with such lack of deference that the signs and the results of our disrespect are everywhere. All we have to do is look. All we have to do is stop our ignorant, uncaring dance and really look for ourselves and see what is happening. We need to look at our world and stop allowing ourselves to be mind-fucked by a media that has its own agenda. But no, we swallow the pablum we are being fed, and we dance along.
The oil spreads itself over the Gulf of Mexico, smothering countless fish, contaminating the shrimp and the oysters. It is murdering the birds whose home-place is on that water, on that shore. Those creatures are paying for all of the corporate and political greed that we, as consumers and as voters should never have allowed. We give lip service to our concern for these creatures, for what is happening to the Gulf, yet we continue on our way, driving our big cars, living our wasteful life-styles and never really seeing the connection between what we are doing and that murderous black gelatinous mass that is suffocating the inhabitants of those miles of ocean and befouling the marshes and beaches. Still there are voices that shout the need to continue the off-shore drilling, saying that one accident does not mean its continuation would be unsafe. After all, the economy needs it, the environment be damned! These foolish, greedy voices of selfish desperation shout it out. We hear them, we know they are wrong, yet we slip and slide our way and still, we dance along.
Our environment has been put at risk on a global basis. Those of us who read are very aware of the ramifications of our 20 to 21st century life-styles. We are aware that the Arctic temperatures are being raised. We are aware that the glaciers are disappearing. We are aware that the oceans are rising. We are aware the permafrost in the tundra is disappearing as it thaws, and we should be aware that the existence of such marvelous creatures as the polar bear is being threatened as never before. We are aware, but the noise from our cable “news” networks becomes louder, we allow our heads to be turned away, and we dance along.
What we are ignoring there is just another example of how we imperil ourselves and the generations that are to come. The ramifications of the way we have chosen to live need to be told to and by us over and over again. The news media have an obligation to pound it into our heads, and we have an obligation to insist that they do it. We do not need diversions in our news. We do not need reinterpretation to make us feel good while we choke on our own pollution. We do not need to be influenced to buy more. We do not need louder more insistent noises. We should be tired of it all and yet through our exhaustion, we dance along never voicing our recognition that most of what passes as news is really just a noisy diversion like the rattling of garbage cans.
We are presented with: Bulletins regarding Tiger Woods’ woes, the latest pending divorce from the movie starlet of the moment, and who is to get what in today’s big lawsuit. It is a diversion that keeps us from hearing what is important in the world, and it is a tune we can dance to.
Interpretations of the bible by religious fundamentalists who tell us the only way we can preserve our society and keep marriage safe is by stamping out homosexuality and curtailing rights to “those people.” And the media panders to the purveyors of this trash-talk and makes stars of such people as Rick Warren and Franklin Graham… even soliciting their take on political candidates even to the Presidency, as if the faith of the candidate (or the lack of it) is important to the success of their decisions as Representatives, Senators, Governors or President. There is a campaign going on in my state for the Republican nomination for Senator. All of the ads, all of the news about these candidates have to do with whether they are Pro-Life and whether they support and foster “illegal” immigration, Not one word is being said about the problems that are truly effecting this poor world of ours. No one is asking the hard questions. Instead of protesting this lack of important information that could help one decide for whom to vote, we accept this noise masquerading as news, put a tune to it, and continue our mindless dance.
This is the problem: We could list page after page detailing how we are diverted with lies and trivia. There are so many occasions when our emotions are skewered so that our intellect is not brought into play. Think about genuine war heroes who are made to seem like cowards and cowards who are made to seem like war heroes even though they fought their war in Texas and in Georgia. Lies are made into truth, and truths become lies. We believe it all because it is reported as fact. We are the most willing mass of deluded people in the history of our country. It is much easier to believe the lie than to question the liar. Where are our balls?
It is our responsibility as citizens to question, and that responsibility is strong and it is real. We should not abdicate it. The results of such abdication are too serious, as we are now seeing. It is time for us to admit that along with those who are in charge and along with those in the news media we share the responsibility for our own delusions because we have allowed ourselves to be put into that state. That means we also share in the responsibility for the damage that has been and is being done.
The cacophony continues, and some of us are tired of dancing along, and we want to stop. It is time for us to let it be known that we want the truth, we want honesty. We no longer wish to be diverted. We want to be told what sacrifice we need to make to help correct some of the damage…. if it is not already too late. The yellow brick road on which we have been dancing is now chipped and cracked….. If we keep dancing along, we will trip and fall……
David, I’ve seen this movie before – not in person, but in history classes through my formative years; I know how the film ends – and I don’t like it one damn bit.
I think it’s time we looked for the exits. The theatre’s already on fire….
everyday I cover my eyes and shout “I can’t hear you” ….. but the world is what it is, human-kind as un-evolved as ever …. we are weak and easily lead and basically uncaring .. our problems are eons old, have been repeated thousands of times .. we keep doing the same things, I guess, hoping for a different result .. how stupid is that .. I fear we are going into a NEWS Dark age .. there is no investigative reporting and challenging of the status quo anymore, not that gets very much attention … politics is a game .. Glen Beck is listened to by millions who hang on his every word .. he knows nothing .. cares about nothing except his ratings .. will say anything and work to make sure the world remains as volatile and hateful as he can make it, it is good for his ratings … I am rushing towards the exit as we speak. No one seems to care about life beyond what it can provide in excess .. the poor are poor on purpose, blacks don’t want to work, and Mexicans are only good for the harvest and green lawns, like any American kid today would work that hard for less than minimal wage … I hate the world I see anymore … the lack of compromise and compassion stuns me .. I mostly hate the intervention of religion in it’s most hateful and judgmental absolutism, that covers the actions of the few so that no one speaks up, afraid to risk the wrath of God .. or at least God’s chosen ones, or more exactly, those who have found that God is an easy way to everything they covet … I have to honestly believe that heaven is a “sparsely” populated place .. that vast majority of us who do not do enough can not hide from our shirking of responsibility …. no action, no involvement is a “positive and accountable” action, I think we forget that …..
The David, our society has become so fractured, i think it’s developing multiple sclerosis. The ocean has a gaping wound only nature can cure. Our miserable efforts to become gods has turned us into mad men and demons. Let me re-phrase that. We aren’t a collective us. There is an opposition, even as there was opposition to the torture chambers of Hitler, but this opposition cannot grow stronger until enough people suffer under the tyrants of greed and ambition to turn against drunken dictates of media power.
A year from now the oil spill will probably be glossed over, although its affects will remain. There will be no livelihood for the fishermen. There will be no tourism for Florida, no beautiful coastline to contemplate, no everglades to marvel at. The dance will move to a new floor, the music even more artificial, the beat more frantic, until finally the dancers realize they’ve run out of space and the party has ended.
If there is a next year. We haven’t even begun to feel the repercussions of this oil spill, and it’s still flowing. Earth isn’t bleeding; it’s hemorrhaging. While i don’t believe in total annihilation; history has shown us that Earth has its own determination to preserve life; i do believe our present dance is leading us to the large scale destruction of humankind. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you may die. The words of a barbarian, which shows how very little so many of us have progressed beyond our base desires. If we have a next year, i hope scientists will learn a lesson from this one and never place advanced technology in the hands of a barbarian pretending to be civilized.
I’m with W.D. Noble on this one – the proverbial theater is burning and there’s little or no hope of putting out the fire, so instead let’s focus on just surviving the disaster and rebuild from the ashes.
Someone recently told me that I was an alarmist, that nature will repair herself “in no time” and that I was “dumb” to be concerned. I could not convince him that the repair that nature might be able to perform would not include the people who have died, the countless birds, fish and animals that are sacrificed to our greed, and the earth itself can only absorb so many insults, that it’s capacity is not infinite.
I could not convince him. He prides himself on being a Conservative and is of the ilk that follows Limbaugh and Beck.
Enough said.