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By Griffith Fuller
By Griffith Fuller
Welcome all into 1984.
When some people think of revolution, images of rioting, looting and other maleficent occurrences come to mind. When I hear the word “revolution,” I think about Public Enemy, System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine, the Berlin wall, Pink Floyd, George Orwell, protesters in the street, young people involved with politics and so much more. We live in the age of technology and information, yet so many people turn down the opportunity to inform themselves.
It is haunting to think that Americans are comfortable with being programmed electric sheep. We live in a country that is controlled by imperialistic war mongers that are interested in sacrificing as many naïve young people as possible to get what they want. The message couldn’t be clearer. The reality that we live in is grimmer than Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Donald Rumsfeld worked in the Nixon administration. Is this the man we can trust as the Secretary of Defense? This is the same man that allowed the Abu Ghraib prison scandals to go on under his watch.
It seems as if mankind is obsessed with perpetuating its own genocide, manufacturing its own fate. It’s time for the sheep to lift their heads up from the grass and look at what’s going on around them. The propagation of fear is used as a device to set the public in a particular frame of mind. Paranoia is embedded in the mind of the people that buy the hype!
Americans can no longer be dependant upon the corporate owned news stations for their source of information. Alternet.org and moveon.org are alternative Web sites to attain news and information.
Fifty-six percent of 1,006 adult Americans polled by CNN from April 29 to May 1 said that they do not believe that it was worth going to war with Iraq. Forty-one percent believed that Iraq should have been invaded, a 7 percent drop from a February poll.
Where do your tax dollars go? According to the National Priorities Project the average household in California in 2004 spent $2,317 on military and defense out of federal income taxes. Apparently we don’t need to contribute more money to education or energy conservation; we can spend money on bombs and weapons of destruction that are used to kill people in a war that most Americans don’t support.
And don’t we all love the recruiters on campus? They never fail at trying to snatch up another poor student (preferably of color) to serve as another automaton to fill a body bag soon. According to Pentagon spokesperson Ellen Krenke there are over 11,500 young Latina women serving in active duty, and an estimated 47,000 women of color currently in the military. So not only are “minorities” being targeted for recruitment, but women as well. Over 1,500 dead Americans (and rising) don’t sound very comforting or optimistic.
I think it’s time that we start saying “God bless the world” instead of “God bless America.” America has been blessed enough. According to the Program on International Policy Attitudes France was polled as having the most positive influence in the world. Twenty out of 23 countries desired to have Europe be more influential than the United States. The U.S. and Russia were seen as the most negative influences in the world.
Yellow ribbons and “Support the troops” bumper stickers are like polishing the shoes of George Bush. There should be “bring the troops home” bumper stickers instead. Saying “support the troops” is like saying “support the war.” They shouldn’t be there in the first place. Do we live in a fascist nation? Why is it that Americans who question the “support our troops” bandwagon are nearly sentenced to a firing squad when doing so?
We can make a difference, we can change the world. We can bring the power into our hands righteously by voting (and voting for the right people), taking offices, and educating ourselves and others through alternative media. There are many more ways that we can take power into our hands. A shootout with the police might give some people pleasure, but we must think logically. Let’s revolutionize this country, the smart way.
