Gross

Between 1979 and 1997, income for families in the middle class rose 9 percent. Income for upper class families in the top one percent of the population rose 140 percent. Why has the response to rising inequality been to reduce taxes on the rich? Because we’ve settled for “panem et circenus”: our bread and circuses, and have unwittingly complied with short-term government palliatives offered in place of a solution for significant, long-term problems. Our baseline necessities and entertainment have become the only entities the broad masses long for and are satisfied with. Meanwhile, George Bush has packed the Labor Board with his cronies serving corporate bigwigs at the expense of workers, after FDR passed the National Labor Relations Act to protect workers. Adolph Hitler said, “The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force.” It worked to his advantage once in history, and this same ideal is very likely to follow through at our expense on such a massively catastrophic scale once more if we continue to be inactive, sleeping pawns. Standing idly by, settling with complacency goes against the idea that to be a productive human on this earth means to be a nonconformist. What we need is a healthy media system to counteract the natural tendency to seek power, which reinforces the notion of protecting your interests by paying attention. Why is this imperative? In March 2003, the gallop poll asserted that 51 percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was personally responsible for 9/11.
Enough said.

Blind Acceptance Can Be Hazardous

People aren’t stopping to think and reflect once they realize that they are on the side of the majority. The human race has been brainwashed to think that we’re on pedestals when I feel that so many of us have become useless ecosystem-destroying carbon based wastage.

But alas, in a society where the media system is a pure subsidiary of corporate America, we are conditioned to lead completely unbalanced lives. There is a frighteningly weak democracy in this country and an ever increasing rate of depoliticization that propels tyrannical governments around the world to envy our vegetated population. Our media system trivializes or sensationalizes news rather than making an earnest attempt to educate us in a culture where information is supposed to be the currency of democracy. However, the illusion of choice is maintained when we can have 100 cable channels, magazine stands, movies, and a plethora of music at our fingertips, when really it’s all just the products of 5 or 6 multinational corporations that serve as Big Brother.

It aggravates me when my peers hold the mindset of “these problems aren’t affecting ME, someone else will get around to fixing them...,” which has never worked throughout history; much like when I’ve heard people say that they’re fine with the war because they don’t have to go and fight it. Or, despite the HUNDREDS of discrepancies that I alone have found and publicized in regards to the 9.11 Commission Report, people still settle for the official story because it’s not directly affecting their lives. (All the while I see grieving families at Ground Zero every day desperately yearning for real answers.)

 

Question the official story.