We all have them. We all want to think that ours are the best or the only right ones, but really? Do any of us REALLY know if what we think is right actually is right? Of course not! I feel a mixture of amusement and irritation at Facebook friends or people in the news or even my own family when they so doggedly spout their own opinions, and then point the finger at someone with a differing point of view and say "They are biased."
No kidding. They are biased. So are you. So am I. We all look at the world through a filter of our own experiences layered on top of the indoctrination we received from our families as we grew up. None of us has an opinion that hasn't been influenced at some point by someone else's bias. Teenagers would probably be shocked and offended to realize how much of what they have to say is simply a regurgitation of Mom or Dad or a favorite teacher....restated in their own, different words, of course.
So our job as adults is to analyze our opinions and be aware of our filters. To think about who and what those influences are on our opinions, and consider whether we believe something simply because we want to. I think many of us hold beliefs because they make us feel better about ourselves in some way without combing through the truth. (Is it easier to believe that one is out of work because those darned Mexicans are taking all the jobs...or because one refuses to clean toilets, which is the job a high school dropout qualifies for? )
I know, I know. I'm being radical. Suggesting we think, and acknowledge our own failings, and be self-aware, and quit blaming. That's my opinion.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Thursday, September 23, 2010
My OCD has surfaced
We joke a lot in my family about the OCD, "anal" traits some of us have. I have one sister, for instance, who has certain knives to cut certain things, or a sponge just for wiping the counter. My father has a garage floor you could eat off of, it's so clean, and he washes and separates all his recycling. For years, I have labored under the delusion that I, and I alone, was the one who escaped this weirdness. That I am the "normal", laid back one. My belief was destroyed this week. By an odor.
You see, I have an inordinately strong sense of smell and because of this, bad smells or smells that are out of place make me a little crazy. Two days ago, I walked into my office to a smell...a musty, fetid smell, not quite bad, but NOT an office-y smell. I became a woman possessed. I emptied my trash, my boss' trash...and then the trash in the bathroom down the hall. No help. I then took the bag I had emptied into, and carried it to the dumpster outside (which incidentally REEKS TO HIGH HEAVEN, but that smell is not "out of place" for a dumpster, so it does not bother me). The smell persisted. I narrowed its location to my trashcan, where I found a piece of an ancient peach pit stuck to the bottom. A-HAH!! The culprit! I disposed of it.
The smell would not go away. Lacking any other cleaner, I took my trashcan to the bathroom where I squirted anti-bacterial hand sanitizer all over the inside, let it sit for a minute, then wiped it out with paper towels. I then drove to the Dollar General to buy air freshener. It was only there, while standing in the aisle, spraying sample after sample of different air fresheners, neutralizers, and sanitizers, that I realized I was perhaps, just a little bit, OCD about this issue.
I guess you can't always escape crazy.
You see, I have an inordinately strong sense of smell and because of this, bad smells or smells that are out of place make me a little crazy. Two days ago, I walked into my office to a smell...a musty, fetid smell, not quite bad, but NOT an office-y smell. I became a woman possessed. I emptied my trash, my boss' trash...and then the trash in the bathroom down the hall. No help. I then took the bag I had emptied into, and carried it to the dumpster outside (which incidentally REEKS TO HIGH HEAVEN, but that smell is not "out of place" for a dumpster, so it does not bother me). The smell persisted. I narrowed its location to my trashcan, where I found a piece of an ancient peach pit stuck to the bottom. A-HAH!! The culprit! I disposed of it.
The smell would not go away. Lacking any other cleaner, I took my trashcan to the bathroom where I squirted anti-bacterial hand sanitizer all over the inside, let it sit for a minute, then wiped it out with paper towels. I then drove to the Dollar General to buy air freshener. It was only there, while standing in the aisle, spraying sample after sample of different air fresheners, neutralizers, and sanitizers, that I realized I was perhaps, just a little bit, OCD about this issue.
I guess you can't always escape crazy.
Debate?
After surfing the web for many months, and reading/watching much of what passes for "political debate" out there, I think I've figured something out. I've had a growing concern about the tone of these discussions, among both politicians and ordinary citizens, and I've been chalking it up to people's tension about the economy, and fear of the "other", whoever that "other" might be. However, I've come to believe it's something else.
I believe that our educational system is letting us down. For how many years now have the public schools deteriorated into child care institutions that are required to train kids to regurgitate information for specified tests...instead of actually teaching students critical thinking? When you are not taught to think critically, to analyze information and come up with reasoned opinions, your only recourse is to regurgitate...whatever thoughts or ideas or rhetoric stick in your brain. Then, when someone disagrees, the only response you have is anger and name calling and trying to draw others to your side. You haven't been taught how to think and reason out a response, you haven't been taught how to DEBATE in a respectful, reasonable way that addresses the issue at hand.
For example, if I were to say that I think that the working poor in this country deserve reasonable access to healthcare, how many people would just respond that I'm a LIBERAL in that tone of voice that insinuates one has just stepped in excrement?
I crave reasoned debate, but despair of the ability of America's citizens to have that anymore. When our leaders don't model it, and our schools don't teach it, I fear that such an idea is doomed.
I believe that our educational system is letting us down. For how many years now have the public schools deteriorated into child care institutions that are required to train kids to regurgitate information for specified tests...instead of actually teaching students critical thinking? When you are not taught to think critically, to analyze information and come up with reasoned opinions, your only recourse is to regurgitate...whatever thoughts or ideas or rhetoric stick in your brain. Then, when someone disagrees, the only response you have is anger and name calling and trying to draw others to your side. You haven't been taught how to think and reason out a response, you haven't been taught how to DEBATE in a respectful, reasonable way that addresses the issue at hand.
For example, if I were to say that I think that the working poor in this country deserve reasonable access to healthcare, how many people would just respond that I'm a LIBERAL in that tone of voice that insinuates one has just stepped in excrement?
I crave reasoned debate, but despair of the ability of America's citizens to have that anymore. When our leaders don't model it, and our schools don't teach it, I fear that such an idea is doomed.
We're all being duped...
I saw Robin Hood this weekend, and it spurred some subconscious pondering. What has bubbled to the surface is that, in modern politics, we are all being duped. Deceived. Taken advantage of. And we're lapping it up like dogs.
Let me elaborate. At the turn of the 12th century, it was very obvious that the tyranny being perpetrated was by the rich over the poor, the powerful over the lowly. The enemies of the people were easy to see. In modern times, our tyrants have mastered the art of distraction; they have learned like magicians and circus performers and carnies how to make us focus on only that which they wish us to see.
America was founded to try to avoid the tyranny of lifetime power brokers. Congress was not intended to be a career, but a duty, like serving on a committee at work, from which you would return after a short while to your real job. But power corrupts, and it was not long before those who sought power moved to change the structure to keep power. Once the power was kept, the Congress began to do things like vote themselves raises and lifetime insurance, to levy an income tax to keep the coffers full, and to make bribery of public officials legal by calling it "lobbying".
The "lords" and "kings" and "robber barons" of 21st century America are the giant corporations: the banks, the insurance companies, the energy producers, the mega maufacturers and the politicians that are in their pockets. Make no mistake, no matter what a politician trumpets in public that his beliefs are, no matter what "issues" he waves about, it is all the smoke and mirrors of a grand con artist. He is the front, the distraction...the Great and Powerful Oz who scares you and thrills you and entertains you and stirs your blood and your imagination while the rich and greedy and powerful behind the curtain rob you blind.
The corporations own the media and pay the politicians, and our voice, our votes, our POWER as American citizens is being eroded. We have given up our free thought to buy into the magic show. And the evil genius of what has been done to us is that the power brokers have us seeing EACH OTHER as the tyrants, as the enemies. Our Achilles' Heel is that we actually care about the issues that they use as a game, and we care enough to fight about those. And while we, ordinary middle class Americans, fight with other ordinary middle class Americans about things like abortion, gay rights, racial injustice, the corporate lords and robber barons are controlling the system to make more money and power for them. And every time the focus of the American people turns to the wrongness of what the corporations and politicians are doing, someone invokes the Words of Power...you know, the bugaboos of Socialism or Communism or Facism or Liberal or Conservative...and gets us all whipped into a frenzy of fighting with each other again.
What current power brokers fear the most is exactly what ancient kings used to fear: that people would look at each other and say "Hey! There are a lot more of us than there are of them. And if we all agree to work together despite our differences, we are stronger." Once a people realize that, the few in power are in serious trouble. So they make us fight with each other. They tell us that skin color or language or sexual orientation differences are insurmountable evils that divide us. They want us to fear. They want us to be ignorant. They want us to be sheep.
Please don't do it. Please think. Please stop hating someone over a label (those Power Words). I realized this weekend that in reality I have far more in common with many tea partiers than I do with my Congressmen, simply because we share socio-economic status. I don't have to agree with them politically in order to work together to build a stronger country, BUT we both have to realize that the enemy is not us and stop fighting each other first.
Let me elaborate. At the turn of the 12th century, it was very obvious that the tyranny being perpetrated was by the rich over the poor, the powerful over the lowly. The enemies of the people were easy to see. In modern times, our tyrants have mastered the art of distraction; they have learned like magicians and circus performers and carnies how to make us focus on only that which they wish us to see.
America was founded to try to avoid the tyranny of lifetime power brokers. Congress was not intended to be a career, but a duty, like serving on a committee at work, from which you would return after a short while to your real job. But power corrupts, and it was not long before those who sought power moved to change the structure to keep power. Once the power was kept, the Congress began to do things like vote themselves raises and lifetime insurance, to levy an income tax to keep the coffers full, and to make bribery of public officials legal by calling it "lobbying".
The "lords" and "kings" and "robber barons" of 21st century America are the giant corporations: the banks, the insurance companies, the energy producers, the mega maufacturers and the politicians that are in their pockets. Make no mistake, no matter what a politician trumpets in public that his beliefs are, no matter what "issues" he waves about, it is all the smoke and mirrors of a grand con artist. He is the front, the distraction...the Great and Powerful Oz who scares you and thrills you and entertains you and stirs your blood and your imagination while the rich and greedy and powerful behind the curtain rob you blind.
The corporations own the media and pay the politicians, and our voice, our votes, our POWER as American citizens is being eroded. We have given up our free thought to buy into the magic show. And the evil genius of what has been done to us is that the power brokers have us seeing EACH OTHER as the tyrants, as the enemies. Our Achilles' Heel is that we actually care about the issues that they use as a game, and we care enough to fight about those. And while we, ordinary middle class Americans, fight with other ordinary middle class Americans about things like abortion, gay rights, racial injustice, the corporate lords and robber barons are controlling the system to make more money and power for them. And every time the focus of the American people turns to the wrongness of what the corporations and politicians are doing, someone invokes the Words of Power...you know, the bugaboos of Socialism or Communism or Facism or Liberal or Conservative...and gets us all whipped into a frenzy of fighting with each other again.
What current power brokers fear the most is exactly what ancient kings used to fear: that people would look at each other and say "Hey! There are a lot more of us than there are of them. And if we all agree to work together despite our differences, we are stronger." Once a people realize that, the few in power are in serious trouble. So they make us fight with each other. They tell us that skin color or language or sexual orientation differences are insurmountable evils that divide us. They want us to fear. They want us to be ignorant. They want us to be sheep.
Please don't do it. Please think. Please stop hating someone over a label (those Power Words). I realized this weekend that in reality I have far more in common with many tea partiers than I do with my Congressmen, simply because we share socio-economic status. I don't have to agree with them politically in order to work together to build a stronger country, BUT we both have to realize that the enemy is not us and stop fighting each other first.
Definitions
So I looked some things up:
LIBERAL: not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms; of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives (doesn't sound too scary, does it?)
CONSERVATIVE: of or constituting a political party professing the principles of conservatism: as advocating support of established institutions; tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions. (doesn't seem too "rogue" or "maverick", does it?)
SOCIALISM: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state (no mention of healthcare here at all...)
IGNORANCE: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness (from IGNORE: to refuse to take notice of)
Just sayin'.....
LIBERAL: not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or traditional forms; of or constituting a political party advocating or associated with the principles of political liberalism; associated with ideals of individual especially economic freedom, greater individual participation in government, and constitutional, political, and administrative reforms designed to secure these objectives (doesn't sound too scary, does it?)
CONSERVATIVE: of or constituting a political party professing the principles of conservatism: as advocating support of established institutions; tending or disposed to maintain existing views, conditions, or institutions. (doesn't seem too "rogue" or "maverick", does it?)
SOCIALISM: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods; a system of society or group living in which there is no private property; a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state (no mention of healthcare here at all...)
IGNORANCE: lack of knowledge, education, or awareness (from IGNORE: to refuse to take notice of)
Just sayin'.....
America
I love my country. A lot. I grew up spending most weekends visiting various historic sites in Virginia and Maryland, learning history at the source, standing on the ground where things happened. I've been in all but about 12 of the states at one time or another during my life, and have seen first hand how blessed we are in this country to have the variety of climate and habitat and bounty that have allowed all of our agriculture and industry to thrive.
I love my country. I love it like family...the way you can look at your sibling and see all of their warts and faults and annoyances at the same time you see their beauty and uniqueness. You see, America is not perfect, but I love it. Deeply. It was started as a step in the right direction. It started because of the idea that all human beings deserve liberty and the right to have a say in how they are governed. That all ideas are worth hearing, and that no one should be punished for their opinions, for speaking their minds or worshipping their gods. It started from the idea that no king, no lord, no government should tell its citizens what to think or believe. That the liberty of the mind and soul was a right of being born human.
But because we are humans with all the faults and weaknesses of humans, America struggles to realize that promise from which it was started. Right now, there are people who have said in public that those who disagree with their party's point of view do not deserve to live. These same people call themselves "real" Americans and patriots. Really? They would deny me my right to speak, my right to LIVE, because I disagree...there is NOTHING more un-American that that. Nothing. It is the fundamental idea and root of what we're supposed to be about.
I love my country. I know my history. I know and understand that the original Tea Party in Boston was about protesting the Tea Tax, a tax levied upon the colonists of America without granting those people representation in Parliament. The current co-opting of that term to protest the outcome of legally held elections and the decisions of those representatives by the fairly represented citizenry shows monumental ignorance on the part of those citizens. To those people, I would say: stop getting your "history" from inflammatory political entertainers and educate yourselves. Take part in the processes of our government in a constructive way. Stop screaming about your rights in the absence of taking any responsibility. And if you're gonig to call yourself "patriot", learn the truth about what America is really about.
I love my country. I love it like family...the way you can look at your sibling and see all of their warts and faults and annoyances at the same time you see their beauty and uniqueness. You see, America is not perfect, but I love it. Deeply. It was started as a step in the right direction. It started because of the idea that all human beings deserve liberty and the right to have a say in how they are governed. That all ideas are worth hearing, and that no one should be punished for their opinions, for speaking their minds or worshipping their gods. It started from the idea that no king, no lord, no government should tell its citizens what to think or believe. That the liberty of the mind and soul was a right of being born human.
But because we are humans with all the faults and weaknesses of humans, America struggles to realize that promise from which it was started. Right now, there are people who have said in public that those who disagree with their party's point of view do not deserve to live. These same people call themselves "real" Americans and patriots. Really? They would deny me my right to speak, my right to LIVE, because I disagree...there is NOTHING more un-American that that. Nothing. It is the fundamental idea and root of what we're supposed to be about.
I love my country. I know my history. I know and understand that the original Tea Party in Boston was about protesting the Tea Tax, a tax levied upon the colonists of America without granting those people representation in Parliament. The current co-opting of that term to protest the outcome of legally held elections and the decisions of those representatives by the fairly represented citizenry shows monumental ignorance on the part of those citizens. To those people, I would say: stop getting your "history" from inflammatory political entertainers and educate yourselves. Take part in the processes of our government in a constructive way. Stop screaming about your rights in the absence of taking any responsibility. And if you're gonig to call yourself "patriot", learn the truth about what America is really about.
No Free Press?
No Free Press
by Jill Hoffmann on Sunday, September 12, 2010 at 5:12pm
I've come to the realization that we no longer have a free press in this country. It used to be that members of the media were observers and journalists, more words on paper than celebrities in their own right, reporting in a hopefully unbiased way on the things people were already interested in. Slowly but surely, these journalists became entertainers, enjoyed their own celebrity, and integrity in the media gave way to money. Corporations with political agendas bought up news organizations as corporate geniuses realized there was huge money in controlling the information people were given.
The media no longer observes, it directs and orchestrates where our attention is paid. They (along with our politicians, as I've said in previous notes) participate in the circus to divert our attention away from real issues, and onto the latest inflammatory drama. The danger in the loss of our truly free press is that we as a society have lost the ability to exert any kind of "peer pressure" on members who behave wrongly because the sleaze in question is bombarded with attention, cameras, and "journalists" from around the world, making their idiocy into a career. We cannot ignore the offender because they are shoved into our lives by the press. They attention they get reinforces their behavior to them and thousands of others who will do ANYTHING to get attention, even if it is negative attention.
One of the most powerful tools in parenting is the ability to ignore and turn our backs on a child's bad behavior, so as to give a clear message that this is not okay. The Amish culture practices shunning to this day to achieve the same results. Our press, bought and paid for by special interest corporations and money hungry moguls, no longer lets our society have that choice. Our American culture is becoming one of increasingly bad acts and negativity because we cannot turn our backs and show that this is NOT okay.
The media no longer observes, it directs and orchestrates where our attention is paid. They (along with our politicians, as I've said in previous notes) participate in the circus to divert our attention away from real issues, and onto the latest inflammatory drama. The danger in the loss of our truly free press is that we as a society have lost the ability to exert any kind of "peer pressure" on members who behave wrongly because the sleaze in question is bombarded with attention, cameras, and "journalists" from around the world, making their idiocy into a career. We cannot ignore the offender because they are shoved into our lives by the press. They attention they get reinforces their behavior to them and thousands of others who will do ANYTHING to get attention, even if it is negative attention.
One of the most powerful tools in parenting is the ability to ignore and turn our backs on a child's bad behavior, so as to give a clear message that this is not okay. The Amish culture practices shunning to this day to achieve the same results. Our press, bought and paid for by special interest corporations and money hungry moguls, no longer lets our society have that choice. Our American culture is becoming one of increasingly bad acts and negativity because we cannot turn our backs and show that this is NOT okay.
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