A rant from one of my homies....
When speaking of his desire to peace out the US for the goodness of Canada, another friend claimed he'd be running and teaching his child to run from a challenging problem. The response from The Good Doctor: Your definition of "challenging problem" is clearly miles away from mine.
What we have in this country is not a challenging problem. We have a failing democracy on the verge of becoming a corporate consumerist police state where the middle class is dissolving, poverty and joblessness is rising, health care is out of reach for a huge percentage of the population, celebrity has reached godlike status and products/technology/consumption/entertainment/tv are taking the place of meaningful human relationships and true social interactions. This nation has become a cultural and intellectual vacuum where ignorance, greed, and narrow mindedness have become "cool." We are now and will continue to be in a perpetual, self-created state of "war" against whatever the government tells us we are supposed to be fighting, be it drugs, terrorists, liberal thinking or obesity. Remember, this is a nation where a huge percentage of the population doesn't even believe in evolution! (40-some percent at last
poll) That's enough to make me move right there--religious fundamentalists who take the bible literally. What the fuck?! Try to govern ME and my family with your fucking religious mythology instead of rational humanism?
Fuck that. And these people now have HUGE lobbying power with the Govt.
Separation between church and state is dissolving fast and will continue to do so. These are people who can't be reasoned with and thus they are people I don't want to be around. I plan to encourage my child to be a global citizen and a rational humanist. These days those types of people happen to be few and far between here in America--they're plentiful in Canada and in many other countries with the obvious exceptions (i.e., the middle east and any place where too many obsessed fanatics, afterlife seekers/sky godders dwell). The conservative religious right corporate greed heads are clearly running the show here. Why would I want her to be part of that or to live under its influence? If you lived in a place you thought sucked would you go somewhere better or stay there so your daughter could absorb all the shitty influences under the guise of claiming you were developing her character by teaching her how to not "run" (i.e. avoid) fucked up people and fucked up situations? Sounds like sacrificing someone else's development for the sake of one's own misguided ideals to me, kind of like purposefully staying in a ghetto when you have the chance to leave just so your child could build her "character" by "rising above" it. Why would I want her to hang around the kind of people I see this culture creating: arrogant, self-entitled, materially obsessed, historically/culturally/socially ignorant self-righteous religious zealot idiots? I suppose she can choose to be part of that kind of thinking later if she wants, but when I see a festering pile of shit, I'm not the kind of parent who'll set his kid into the middle of it so she can learn how to face with the "problem" she didn't create, doesn't need, and shouldn't contribute to. That's not good parenting, that's taking the history of this nation's fuck ups and throwing their consequences into her face. And I will do everything I can to avoid that. Positive environments equal positive feedback which leads to positive thinking which leads to a well-rounded human being. If she wants to fight for social justice when she grows up, more power to her--but first she has to have been raised in a way that makes her see the world for what it is, with it's injustices and inequities, not through the bullshit of American indoctrination--otherwise she'll become just like what far too many americans are: pathetically mis-informed sheep struggling to simply make
the bills. Rational humanism, man. Objectivity. Opinions based on facts
and evidence. Social responsibility. Respect for self others and nature.
That is what I am charged with showing her through example--and that kind of thinking/action is scarce here.
I'll put it simply: I plan on continuing to live in such a way that I am constantly detecting, calling out, and avoiding assholes and the ideas/attitudes that create them while doing things the right/responsible way within my own sphere of influence. You can call it teaching my kid to run away, but I call it creating your own solution and leading the way to a better future by example. When she's old enough, my daughter will judge this approach, and my character, for herself and choose her own path accordingly.
What we have in this country is not a challenging problem. We have a failing democracy on the verge of becoming a corporate consumerist police state where the middle class is dissolving, poverty and joblessness is rising, health care is out of reach for a huge percentage of the population, celebrity has reached godlike status and products/technology/consumption/entertainment/tv are taking the place of meaningful human relationships and true social interactions. This nation has become a cultural and intellectual vacuum where ignorance, greed, and narrow mindedness have become "cool." We are now and will continue to be in a perpetual, self-created state of "war" against whatever the government tells us we are supposed to be fighting, be it drugs, terrorists, liberal thinking or obesity. Remember, this is a nation where a huge percentage of the population doesn't even believe in evolution! (40-some percent at last
poll) That's enough to make me move right there--religious fundamentalists who take the bible literally. What the fuck?! Try to govern ME and my family with your fucking religious mythology instead of rational humanism?
Fuck that. And these people now have HUGE lobbying power with the Govt.
Separation between church and state is dissolving fast and will continue to do so. These are people who can't be reasoned with and thus they are people I don't want to be around. I plan to encourage my child to be a global citizen and a rational humanist. These days those types of people happen to be few and far between here in America--they're plentiful in Canada and in many other countries with the obvious exceptions (i.e., the middle east and any place where too many obsessed fanatics, afterlife seekers/sky godders dwell). The conservative religious right corporate greed heads are clearly running the show here. Why would I want her to be part of that or to live under its influence? If you lived in a place you thought sucked would you go somewhere better or stay there so your daughter could absorb all the shitty influences under the guise of claiming you were developing her character by teaching her how to not "run" (i.e. avoid) fucked up people and fucked up situations? Sounds like sacrificing someone else's development for the sake of one's own misguided ideals to me, kind of like purposefully staying in a ghetto when you have the chance to leave just so your child could build her "character" by "rising above" it. Why would I want her to hang around the kind of people I see this culture creating: arrogant, self-entitled, materially obsessed, historically/culturally/socially ignorant self-righteous religious zealot idiots? I suppose she can choose to be part of that kind of thinking later if she wants, but when I see a festering pile of shit, I'm not the kind of parent who'll set his kid into the middle of it so she can learn how to face with the "problem" she didn't create, doesn't need, and shouldn't contribute to. That's not good parenting, that's taking the history of this nation's fuck ups and throwing their consequences into her face. And I will do everything I can to avoid that. Positive environments equal positive feedback which leads to positive thinking which leads to a well-rounded human being. If she wants to fight for social justice when she grows up, more power to her--but first she has to have been raised in a way that makes her see the world for what it is, with it's injustices and inequities, not through the bullshit of American indoctrination--otherwise she'll become just like what far too many americans are: pathetically mis-informed sheep struggling to simply make
the bills. Rational humanism, man. Objectivity. Opinions based on facts
and evidence. Social responsibility. Respect for self others and nature.
That is what I am charged with showing her through example--and that kind of thinking/action is scarce here.
I'll put it simply: I plan on continuing to live in such a way that I am constantly detecting, calling out, and avoiding assholes and the ideas/attitudes that create them while doing things the right/responsible way within my own sphere of influence. You can call it teaching my kid to run away, but I call it creating your own solution and leading the way to a better future by example. When she's old enough, my daughter will judge this approach, and my character, for herself and choose her own path accordingly.
posted by coolbreeze at 11:39 AM
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