dystopia
incredibly clear. NRA types are putting the death of babies, police officers, and even American leaders up against their own right to kill people. Period. Dorner’s rant was revealing to me in this way. His statement about it being too easy (to the point of being pathetic) to get his weapons made me realize that the only reason things haven’t changed, the only reason people are still debating this tired issue, is because a certain cross-section of our population doesn’t care who dies as long as they get to keep their right to kill people – and do it efficiently and quickly. Joe Biden’s call for change on the gun control issue, the right wing resistance to that change, the division, as usual, between right and left, it all comes down to one thing. There are hateful people in America and those hateful people are voters. Those voters represent power. And the people that want to keep their power have no intention of going against their constituency, no matter what the moral implications might be. Change will never come from the top because the top is too busy pandering to the lobbyists and voters that are resistant to that change. My point is, if we are ever going to get a safer America it won’t happen in the White House, it will happen when Americans put aside the hate in their hearts and demand that we do a better job for the sake of our future, our children, and our posterity. This leads me to another angle on this political division. You’ve probably been hearing talk about the sequester. “Sequestration.” And the current gridlock that’s brought about. The White House has proposed radical cuts in the military budget and a tax increase on the rich. Which, in even more blunt terms, is basically saying, “We want to save money by trying to kill less people overseas and we want to earn some extra cash by asking that the wealthy in America actually start contributing.” There is intense resistance to this, of course, because the counter claim to this statement is basically, “We want to keep killing people so we can keep feeling safe and keep earning the profits of war, and we don’t want to pay taxes because that’s what poor people do.” The point is, this sucks. And the reason it sucks, to go back to Dave Renton’s words, is we are a hateful, violent nation and our entire infrastructure is built on that hate. Hatred of the enemy, hatred of “the man,” hatred of each other, hatred of the poor, hatred of the rich... We can’t move forward politically, financially, or even peacefully because all
of our legislation, thought processes, and motivations are based on hate, selfishness, greed, and fear. The only way to save America is to let these things go, but that would mean more dramatic change than we are prepared to make as a people. Hate is easier. It is more comfortable. And, I daresay, it even comes with its own kind of satisfaction. It can feel good to hate. It makes you feel powerful. It’s no wonder then that the power grab in this country is so mean, is it? Think on that. But one thing is certain, if we’re going to evade Dystopia we are going to have to start placing value on completely different things, otherwise our socalled national values will lead us straight to the gates of destruction. I mean, hell, they already have. Kids are dead, countries hate us, our economy is crippled, our government is gridlocked, the people are angry or apathetic, and there is only one thing at the center of it all – national bloodlust. We have to be better. We. You and me. You want to know where change begins? It’s when we start deciding as a people to be better and stop waiting for our leadership to do it for us. They’re in the business of telling us what we want to hear so we keep voting for them. So do the math. It means it’s time we start telling them different things or nothing’s gonna change. Change starts with us. We’re the system, so when we hate on the system, we’re really hating on ourselves. And, I’ll be damned, there’s that word again. pp
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Trip Markham believes that a r t w i l l save the world faster than sci e n c e . Art is the true he ritage of any c iv ilization and outlasts the scie n t i f i c achievments of any ancient cu l t u re . He is a student of art and lite r a t u re at the Univ e rsity of Te x a s .