This is another topic I’ve been meaning to write about.
Spurred this post in response from Siouxrose, whose posts I have always appreciated reading:
-
Siouxrose May 9th, 2008 6:13 pm
What’s really tragic about this is that INTELLIGENT PEOPLE are often clueless. I have friends who are attorneys and heads of businesses and when I see them and we have lunch together and I start going down the checklist of WHAT’S GOING ON they think I am speaking in deluded hyperboles. The LIES have so saturated so many arteries of the MSM that people have TAKEN them to be true. Many do not have the time or inclination to seek our alternative media.
My best female friend refuses to read the majority of commondreams articles I forward her. Others have also asked me to stop! There is an aspect to the “New Age” spirituality camp that makes existence into a merely personal matter, as if each person has the OPTION to choose their “reality,” and which perceptions they intend to focus upon. A woman I otherwise admired asked me to PLEASE NOT SPEAK of these things (newsworthy events), and for Iraq blithely dismissed the agony of its citizens as “just some karma playing out.” This idea that we are FREE to enjoy OUR lives and OWN no responsibiity to others is a dangerous extension of an advertising/PR concept that has managed to sell to the lowest common denominator: the single digit consumer. How to re-weave the WEB of humanity will become the great challenge. However, communities that have been hit by dangerous weather events often DO work together. It may take hits of this and other nature to rouse the necessary compassion to rebuild the body politic, one far more HUMANE.
There are so many points in this excellent post.
First, is the ignorance organic or willful? That’s a big question. And what Siouxtrose is dealing with here are supposedly intelligent people who are supposed to know what is going on.
I’ve been of the opinion that most people aren’t really as clueless as they seem - they know in their gut there is something very wrong. But they are scared of speaking the truth for fear of losing their jobs or friends or landing up on some no fly list.
The true kool aid drinkers - the Limbaugh listeners, we’re not considering here. They have enthusiastically drank the kool aid and they like it just fine.
I found Siouxrose’s comment about friends refusing to read articles she sends them to be revealing. This has also happened to me. In my case, the people in question have pretty much given up all hope of any positive change and just want to have a little fun before they die. The longer I live the more I can understand and sympathize with that position. It just isn’t in me to do that.
But her comment on new agers is very telling. As I have written before, many people get into new age practice and philosophy as an escape from the real world. They also believe they can tap into some kind of ‘force’ like power in which they can somehow psychically separate themselves from the real world and work on their own perfection while everything around them goes to hell.
The comment from one of Siouxrose’s friends about the situation in Iraq as “some karma that is just playing out” is sadly too common. For many people, new age philosophy (increasingly an upper class affectation) is a convenient excuse to do nothing. It is the flip side of fundamentalist Christianity, which also does nothing to save the planet because the Lord will take care of everything come Armageddon time, which is always drawing near.
And of course, the average American, as she correctly surmises, doesn’t want to know because they don’t want to have to face the truth about the nation that they pledge allegiance too. AND they don’t want to be reminded of how powerless they are or cowardly, to stand up and speak out. They wish to live in their own private bubble until they die.
It can make those of us who are aware feeling quite mad. Many other CommonDreams posters feel like alien beings walking among the remnants of the body snatchers as if they had been transported into some kind of weird science fiction movie or Twilight Zone episode.
In any case, we still have CommonDreams, other lefty sites and the Internet to communicate with each other. At some point in the future, I expect the Internet to be a lot more carefully policed than it is even now.
And when that happens I’m sure there will be many who will try to save themselves and their sanity by repeatedly typing:
This is a free country
This is a free country
This is a free country
This is
4 responses so far ↓
deepseas // May 13, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Thank you for this enlightening and frightening comment. I have had similar experiences as Siouxrose with my contacts. Most people can’t handle the truth and deny it to keep from looking within, which means accepting responsibility for the horrors created in our name.
Not to worry…the very thing Americans worship - money and the things it buys - is soon to be of little value. The masses will be paying attention very soon.
kegbot1 // May 13, 2008 at 5:20 pm
deepseas - thank you for your comment and I fear you are entirely correct.
But really, it’s amazing the people I meet on a daily basis who are like Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes: “I see nothing, I hear nothing and above all, I know nothing - NOTHING!!”
Willful ignorance. But then again many of them are Republicans/conservatives.
lynette // May 14, 2008 at 10:10 pm
jiminy christmas, ain’t it the truth? a woman i was becoming friendly with pulled out her keys and attached to the ring was a photo of the bush family. barbara, I, shrub and all the rest. wtf? when i asked why, the answer was “because he’s a christian.”
i have a sister who has just in the last couple of months become politically aware. she is 53 years old and has voted twice. she is becoming radicalized just by listening to the filtered information available on MSNBC. imagine if she could read / understand / be exposed to the truth of what has happened in the last eight years.
i can’t block it out and go on with my life. i wish i could. i can only assume that those who can are the same folks who would pass by someone in desperate need, thinking to themselves that it was not their problem.
for some reason, i get emails . . . from republicans. relatives. they infuriate me beyond reason, so i’ve begun responding.
to the email singing the praises of cindy mccain and noting that she would be sooooooo much better than either obama or clinton, i sent a note back wondering what kind of woman she could possibly be who would stand for her husband calling her a cunt. some lines cannot be crossed. that’s one.
to the one pointing out that taxes have been the destruction of the middle class, as everything was perfect and american life was rosy 100 years ago when we had a vast middle class, the response was wtf? who writes this stupid shit? 100 years ago? the income disparity was as great then as it is now. the middle class thrived for years after the institution of income tax . . . and on and on.
but lately, i think what’s the point? they don’t read, don’t listen. at last i got a message back, which began “dear, dear lynette,” the very address which assured me that the woman would be taking me to task for my radical views.
some days i think that i just can’t bear it any longer.
kegbot1 // May 15, 2008 at 6:24 am
Lynette, you know you rock, right?
By the way, do you know your fellow Sooner Sheila Samples? You remind me a lot of her in some ways. She, surprisingly like me, was once a media relations specialist for Army Recruiting. I think you really don’t get quite the sense of the whole problem until you see the sausage made first hand.
In any case, denial is a powerful thing. So is brainwashing. But this is what happens to a nation that turns its back, nay ridicules, the idea of attaining a higher education. Now anyone with more than half a brain, regardless of a degree, is called an ‘elitist.’ Hell Lynette, you’re probably an ‘elitist!’ I have been painfully aware since I was a kid, how much this society denigrates those who think for themselves. It’s sad. And I think to quote the bard: a hard rain is gonna fall.
And as for your last line - I know just how you feel. Which is why it’s important to keep in contact with like minded people.
By the way, do you read Joe Bageant? I’m sure you’d love his writing?
Leave a Comment