Poetry

SELECTIVITY

What we watch and listen to, shapes our consciousness and voluntarily or involuntarily determine our behavior. I was watching the Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC and listening to his guest Matthew Simmons, a man with substantial knowledge of oil well drilling and the environment. The man insisted that the BP company along with our government was not giving us the full scoop about the leak in the Gulf.

According to Simmons, there is another hole leaking much thicker crude some 5 miles from the one we have been witnessing on TV. This thicker oil was dispersed by BP and lies in a plume of brown gunk the size of NJ on the ocean floor.

A few moments later President Obama came on the air to announce the passing of the Financial Reform Bill. Proud as a peacock, he explained that the taxpayer would no longer have to bail out the banks – period… Trouble with this was that he conveniently left out the fact that the Bill allows the Federal Reserve to bail out the banks without bothering the Congress about it.

This was disturbing and to find others in my neighborhood to talk about it was not easy.  It seems our society has developed a system which promotes apathy through good education.  A subject few approach as the root of our indoctrination. The educational system has produced specialists with very little selective ability, since the subjects we learn are not of our choosing.  In fact we make very few choices, but rather follow a course strictly enforced by others to graduate. The result is a public not equipped to ask the proper questions of authority.

Consequently, with very little selective ability and time,  we have a population which never hears alternative views, falling prey to the fluff,  99% of what the news media produces. Instead of an informed community we have one that feels safer leaving it up to the spin doctors to discuss. All this, makes a person like me appear to them to be an interloper, disturbing their plans for the weekend.  It is the lack of conversation that drives me to write this piece and has been behind what I write for the last 35 years.

There is no wonder why so many feel isolated and alone in this society.  Reflection is viewed as a waste of time by many and the Big Picture, too big to question. Being selective in what we wish to read, listen to, or watch is not promoted, and people seem more interested in diversion then thinking about what is going on. So in an effort discern some programs of value amidst the glut, I recommend the site Common Dreams on the internet and Democracy Now on the radio. All the best to those who are curious, you are not alone.

July 16, 2010