My wife likes to watch crime shows. I listen to them while I blog sometimes. Today, I'm listening to an old musical, Holiday Inn, but am reminded of the words of the lead character from NCIS New Orleans. After giving people their assignments, the boss turns them loose with the admonition, "Learn things". What I like most about listening to that crime show is that they almost always have some good music as part of the show. Beyond this, it is always a rush to imagine having a group of people that could be discharged for the sole purpose of learning things. I can think of several issues I would turn their eyes and ears to solving. Instead of fictitious crimes, perhaps we could uncover the truth about why we are lied to by both the tee vee news and the papers. But we have already known that for decades. The rich people own them and don't want to tell us the truth.
Oh, oh, some may say, "You didn't specify that the "things" we were supposed to learn needed to be true!" That may be, but the lies are thrust on all who sit back in their easy chairs becoming tee vee glotzers (from the German) The American version is couch potato. The passive act of "learning" involves letting the media induced ignorance wash over you like pebbles on the beach. This can take off your rough edges and impart a certain luster as long as you remain wet with the dewy-eyed naivete of the surf rolled pebbles, but when push comes to shove, there is little for life to cling to without at least a tiny fissure. The rock polisher of the media makes pretty but useless souls, incapable of standing up for themselves.
If we were to draw a map of the ideas that permeate the publicly mediated discourse, it would have several large territories. They would be broken down into areas that have some substantial overlap. this map is not as clean as one that delineates nations or territories within nations. "Security Issues" would perhaps be the largest in area. The reason i enclose the term in quotation marks is because the security issues that are portrayed are as close to falsehood as you can get. for instance, you never hear on the news about the fact that more Americans were killed by toddlers getting hold of a parent's gun than by terrorists. Huge psychic territory filled with lies and deceit. "Food" seems to be taking over a larger and larger part of our awareness. The territory devoted to that powerful idea and impulses surrounding it, is growing, but if we are willing to step in close, and study carefully, a vast conspiracy to deny information is also at play here, making the territory a minefield of deceit and falsehood.
Other major territories of our mediated mental landscape are, "Them", you know, those people (this changes slightly based on audience and how small a minority we can cleave off to ostracize) virtually nothing is said about personal responsibility, ethics or morality as long as there is a them to blame things on. We are not told the truth of matters along the Southern border of the U. S. of A. More Hispanics have fled our nation than have arrived here in El Norte since the crash. Now, Mexico and other South and Central American nations are saying no to the Drug War mentality that fueled lawlessness and civil strife. It seems hard for anyone who has actually met a Muslim to single them out as "people to fear". Even those who have been convinced to hate the poor are shocked to realize that CEO pay is frequently three hundred times higher than the "average" worker earns. If there is a discreet population that we should rally against, it would be the ones skimming off the rest of us, not trying to feed their children. CEO pay , just for the top 100 "earners" is more than 26 billion 731 million dollars, which would eclipse the earning power of the bottom 1/3 of the workforce.What must those hundred people do to be worth more than the labor, blood, sweat and tears of over one hundred million individuals can produce?
A recent meme stated that if hard work were capable of producing wealth, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. Since childhood I have always wondered about disparity of income and have seen dozens of calculations that attempted to reconcile the true value of women. Many estimates have run into the six figures because from the time womyn are young, they are taught to care for others. Cleaning up saves the cost of a maid. Cooking and shopping, if hired out have definite costs. Laundry is not cheap. Many women are the accountants and tax people for their families. they are the taxi drivers and lawn care specialists, pool cleaners and babysitters, teachers, nutritionists and keepers of the datebook, making sure that their executives (men) get where they need to be when they are supposed to be there. We often assume that they will be nurses and dog catchers, hostesses, waiters and family documentarians. All of these things are expected, yet none come with commensurate pay.
We have to seriously question why we continue to allow motherhood to fall through the cracks of our civilization and the most common way we repay these vital multi-taskers is with abuse and neglect. We are always rushing to point the finger outward, blaming others for the failings of our culture, but we often forget that when we point our finger at anyone, there are three more pointing back at our selves.
Oh, oh, some may say, "You didn't specify that the "things" we were supposed to learn needed to be true!" That may be, but the lies are thrust on all who sit back in their easy chairs becoming tee vee glotzers (from the German) The American version is couch potato. The passive act of "learning" involves letting the media induced ignorance wash over you like pebbles on the beach. This can take off your rough edges and impart a certain luster as long as you remain wet with the dewy-eyed naivete of the surf rolled pebbles, but when push comes to shove, there is little for life to cling to without at least a tiny fissure. The rock polisher of the media makes pretty but useless souls, incapable of standing up for themselves.
If we were to draw a map of the ideas that permeate the publicly mediated discourse, it would have several large territories. They would be broken down into areas that have some substantial overlap. this map is not as clean as one that delineates nations or territories within nations. "Security Issues" would perhaps be the largest in area. The reason i enclose the term in quotation marks is because the security issues that are portrayed are as close to falsehood as you can get. for instance, you never hear on the news about the fact that more Americans were killed by toddlers getting hold of a parent's gun than by terrorists. Huge psychic territory filled with lies and deceit. "Food" seems to be taking over a larger and larger part of our awareness. The territory devoted to that powerful idea and impulses surrounding it, is growing, but if we are willing to step in close, and study carefully, a vast conspiracy to deny information is also at play here, making the territory a minefield of deceit and falsehood.
Other major territories of our mediated mental landscape are, "Them", you know, those people (this changes slightly based on audience and how small a minority we can cleave off to ostracize) virtually nothing is said about personal responsibility, ethics or morality as long as there is a them to blame things on. We are not told the truth of matters along the Southern border of the U. S. of A. More Hispanics have fled our nation than have arrived here in El Norte since the crash. Now, Mexico and other South and Central American nations are saying no to the Drug War mentality that fueled lawlessness and civil strife. It seems hard for anyone who has actually met a Muslim to single them out as "people to fear". Even those who have been convinced to hate the poor are shocked to realize that CEO pay is frequently three hundred times higher than the "average" worker earns. If there is a discreet population that we should rally against, it would be the ones skimming off the rest of us, not trying to feed their children. CEO pay , just for the top 100 "earners" is more than 26 billion 731 million dollars, which would eclipse the earning power of the bottom 1/3 of the workforce.What must those hundred people do to be worth more than the labor, blood, sweat and tears of over one hundred million individuals can produce?
A recent meme stated that if hard work were capable of producing wealth, every woman in Africa would be a millionaire. Since childhood I have always wondered about disparity of income and have seen dozens of calculations that attempted to reconcile the true value of women. Many estimates have run into the six figures because from the time womyn are young, they are taught to care for others. Cleaning up saves the cost of a maid. Cooking and shopping, if hired out have definite costs. Laundry is not cheap. Many women are the accountants and tax people for their families. they are the taxi drivers and lawn care specialists, pool cleaners and babysitters, teachers, nutritionists and keepers of the datebook, making sure that their executives (men) get where they need to be when they are supposed to be there. We often assume that they will be nurses and dog catchers, hostesses, waiters and family documentarians. All of these things are expected, yet none come with commensurate pay.
We have to seriously question why we continue to allow motherhood to fall through the cracks of our civilization and the most common way we repay these vital multi-taskers is with abuse and neglect. We are always rushing to point the finger outward, blaming others for the failings of our culture, but we often forget that when we point our finger at anyone, there are three more pointing back at our selves.
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