Not Newsworthy
Thursday, June 30
I used to be very engaged in the news, I get the Washington post every day, Peter gave me the nightly highlights, and Newsweek was something I looked forward to seeing in the mail. But in the past 6 months, I've stopped listening, and I've tuned it out, and I don't know when I'll be able to tolerate it again. I took the election in stride, I knew before hand that Kerry wasn't going to win, and I'd resigned myself to well, you voted for him, your stuck with him. I live in an area that is booming with federal dollars so things aren't bad financially at home, I live with a bunch of upper-middle class folks so no one has kids over in Iraq, and in my day-to-day life things are pretty ok. But I can't watch the news and I can't read the paper because everything I hear and see pisses me off to much and I feel powerless to fix it; moreover I don't see anyone with power stepping up to confront it. I just can't believe this country isn't in an uproar over the bullshit that's going on. I think we've all tuned out, turned off. How many people watched that press conference the other night? I made sure it wasn't on, I don't have the stomach to hear it, hell I don't even know what he talked about. So where is the outrage going to come from? God damn Bono and Brad Pitt are all we got? I know I'd start watching again, paying attention if some of the news was about someone in power saying Fuck This, I'm calling a spade a spade and we're going to get conversations out in the open.
I keep wondering where I live, what country I'm really in. Here's a clue, there is no liberal media anymore, they've been shut off and shut down. There is no liberal voice, they don't know what to say. There is no one in a federal leadership role who is willing to stand on the courage of their conviction. Fuck, John McCain was called crazy by his own people because he actually tries. He must see that he needs to be quiet now if he wants any chance of winning the nomination. So whose going to do it? The only people getting fucked are the poor, working poor and military families (who are mostly working poor). The white rednecks don't seem to care that they're taking it up the ass because at least they got god in the schools, guns in houses and gays of the marriage roles. So there is no check and balance. This is truly the tyranny of the majority.
A civics lesson - John Stuart Mill was British philosopher and economist in the 19th century. One of his most famous essays is "On Liberty". In it he talks about the tyranny of the Majority and says this:
I wonder who will step up to balance this, to prevent this from going farther? I used to believe in the supreme court and it's role of this - not anymore. Counting on our federal leaders to do it seems unlikely. The majority has acquiesced to this tyranny, so I dont know where in the public this will rise up in outrage. There will be some catalyst that pisses people off enough to see what's happening, how the social rules have become federal laws and soon will look more like a muslim state than a free one. Good help us that we find someone who can 'splain this to us in common terms, not polysci geek speak so that bubba down the road will understand. Until then, to keep me from becoming one of those people you see standing on the street with wacky handpainted signs in downtown dc, I'll just keep the news off.
This concludes your lesson for today, next week we'll be discussing Machiavelli's The Prince and it's relevance in Bush Politics and the Iraq war.
I keep wondering where I live, what country I'm really in. Here's a clue, there is no liberal media anymore, they've been shut off and shut down. There is no liberal voice, they don't know what to say. There is no one in a federal leadership role who is willing to stand on the courage of their conviction. Fuck, John McCain was called crazy by his own people because he actually tries. He must see that he needs to be quiet now if he wants any chance of winning the nomination. So whose going to do it? The only people getting fucked are the poor, working poor and military families (who are mostly working poor). The white rednecks don't seem to care that they're taking it up the ass because at least they got god in the schools, guns in houses and gays of the marriage roles. So there is no check and balance. This is truly the tyranny of the majority.
A civics lesson - John Stuart Mill was British philosopher and economist in the 19th century. One of his most famous essays is "On Liberty". In it he talks about the tyranny of the Majority and says this:
Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
I wonder who will step up to balance this, to prevent this from going farther? I used to believe in the supreme court and it's role of this - not anymore. Counting on our federal leaders to do it seems unlikely. The majority has acquiesced to this tyranny, so I dont know where in the public this will rise up in outrage. There will be some catalyst that pisses people off enough to see what's happening, how the social rules have become federal laws and soon will look more like a muslim state than a free one. Good help us that we find someone who can 'splain this to us in common terms, not polysci geek speak so that bubba down the road will understand. Until then, to keep me from becoming one of those people you see standing on the street with wacky handpainted signs in downtown dc, I'll just keep the news off.
This concludes your lesson for today, next week we'll be discussing Machiavelli's The Prince and it's relevance in Bush Politics and the Iraq war.
posted by Amy's Working @ 9:43 AM
