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Originally Posted by Open Eyes
Thats a good question, I think about that as well. I used to pay more attention to things that were going on until my own personal battle became a real issue for me. I really had to be careful about what I watched and read about the condition of the US and even things going on in the world. It wasn't that I didn't care, I did care and I had to be careful because I was already battling so many anxiety issues already.
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I was taught, from junior high school on, that it was our duty as Americans to pay strict attention to all the news of the day and participate in national issues. I didn't go to any "activist" kind of school system. It was just a regular public school system with no one even "liberal" in it. So way back when they announced "Sputnik" and our guys going up there these were very, very big deals that the whole school paid attention to. And then there was the civil rights campaigns and we all joined into those. I went on those marches in the early sixties, while I was in high school. Heard Martin Luther King in Washington on the Mall. Thought this was what we all had to do. And it probably was, considering we were high school students.
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Other than writing letter and voting there is no way on a grand scale to make a difference, I have seen the younger crowd often getting overwhelmed by it all and quite frankly I can't blame them. The only way to personally make improvements is to start in places you can make a difference on a small scale and by doing that, it can form a wave of people that add to that contribution where a postive change can take place.
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That I agree with. We all have to start small. Start at home. Start with the people in our home towns who are in need. Whether it's Meals on Wheels or helping out at the senior center or the pantry for poor people or help with the homeless, that kind of thing. I don't really mean not to participate in such home town things. I'm really wondering about worrying about these national and global things.
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I often think of the troops that come home so weary and all the breaucracy they deal with and how their needs don't often get met and I really think that is sad and totally unfair to them. Often these men are afraid to make their needs known and continue to suffer the system that does not meet their needs. So the only way there can be any improvement is to have them find courage to speak up and be heard so that many civilians also know and finally something get don e, some of that has already taken place, but continues to become an issue that still carries a lack and still should be addressed.
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Yes, of course, but how to "we" do that? Do you think that "we" really have any more input on that than calling or emailing our "elected represen-tatives"? I don't think so. It's all begging. Really. Pleading with people in power. I'll make my views known (I send emails to Obama everyday), but I'm not going to beg or plead. No one should have to.
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And the other issue that one has to consider while reading the news is that much of the news is an opinion and often things occur and different people/news media/ politicians to just name a few, give these conspiracy therories that are really based on hypothesis more than reality. Often that lends to accusations of a group of people verses the few that are corrupt and create bad situations. I tend to be very careful when it comes to those situations because often the whole point is that a few bad people want many people to grow angry and hate another country or those who truely do not have anything to do with the decisions or actions that created a very bad situation.
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You're absolutely right. Those media people are just manipulating us. And people who believe in conspiracy theories are out of their minds, much more so than folk here on PC. And the ones perpetrating such conspiracy theories are indeed, as you say, "evil people."
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When someone talks to me like I am a bad American and Americans think and to this and that I get upset because on my level of existance I have little to do with some of the very poor decision making that effect that other person or their country. And I don't just assume the same of them either. However, I am well aware that when someone does do that, they are only falling into a trap, that is often how we end up having a group of common citicizans hating another group. That is was often is needed to create a war. After all, where would one get the troops to fight that war? I have always hated war personally. Open Eyes
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No one should ever call you or anyone like you a bad American. Nor should anyone dictate to you just what a "good American" has to do or say. You will make up your OWN mind on that, as a free American. Don't let ANYONE push you around! And you're right, that's how we wind up with so much hate. Enough war! Enough killing! Haven't we had enough since 2001? Do you really think it was such a good idea, just flailing out after 2001? I think it's time to stop. After all, we don't even have enough money to keep going in the way of war. We blew the national treasury on Afghanistan and Iraq. So okay, most of us are poor again. What's going to happen if we keep going?
Well, I guess we got sidetracked. Moved over to issues that aren't central to PC and what we're trying to do here. I started this thread not to discuss non-PC issues, but to point out that people with concerns such as we deal with here on PC shouldn't really feel obligated to act as if they were deputy Secretaries of State or Assistant Attorneys General of the Justice Department. That's all. Nothing political. Nothing activist on any side of the line. We have enough to deal with and shouldn't feel obligated to do more than the minimum when it comes to national or global issues. That's all. Take care.
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We must love one another or die.
W.H. Auden
We must love one another AND die.
Ygrec23