We torture people.
We execute children.
We execute retarded people.
We execute mentally ill people.
We take people's private land and give it to corporations.
We cut aid to children while we increase weapons spending.
We start wars.
We allow companies to profit off of them.
We put profit in front of people's health.
We lie to the public.
We lie to our soldiers.
We lie to their mothers.
We lie to ourselves.
We cover up the most obvious crimes.
We apologize for the incompetents who have led us here
We give Canadians inexpensive medicine but charge our own people full price.
We spy on our neighbors
We refuse to say we're sorry.
We refuse to hear dissenting voices.
We have more people in prison than anyone in the world, including China...
We mistreat our own prisoners.
We give the smallest percentage of our Gross Domestic Product as foreign aid than all of the Group Seven Industrialized Nations.
We place the science of Evolution and the metaphors of the Bible on the same level on truth.
We create games that glorify violence and make it cool in ways a GI Joe or a play rifle never did.
We sleep soundly in our beds while millions of Americans go to bed hungry, or in the streets.
We wonder why things are so screwed up.
Pass the fries, please.
We see everyone else's problems but are blind to our own.
We weren't always like this. I remember when we were the good guys. It's time for us to reflect on ourselves, and to lay down the platitudes about how great we are. The leaves have dropped off the laurel wreaths that we wrap our pride in. We are like the Dallas Cowboys, arrogant, cocky, even when we're not winning. And we've won so much and in so many theatres and arenas that we just say "Hey, we're America. Anything's possible here." That notion is certainly true. Anything is possible, including our failure. Anything is possible in America, including a junta by religious fanatics. Including a military defeat by third world insurgents. Including a monetary meltdown. Including the coming days when we squander freedoms that others around the world die for, and instead, replace that freedom with fear and superstition.
One of the great works of art and satire and politics of all times is the body of TV we knew as the original Twilight Zone series. The censors wouldn't let Rod Serling write about bigotry and small mindedness and torture and rape and retribution because like the weak-minded monitors of our day, it was just "too sensitive". So Serling created a mythical place. In the fantasy science fiction world of the Twilight Zone, you could make your point and allow people to draw their own conclusions. In the Twilight Zone, you could personify a dictator and you could speak out against any form of government, or against conformity. One of the best of these post-scripts came at the end of an episode called The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street. In this episode, invisible invaders wreak havoc in a small town simply by turning on and off lights, creating power outages, and otherwise fueling only paranoia about what's actually happening. In the end, with little more than their own inner demons to guide them, these scared residenst turn on each other. Then-
Serling says "The tools of destruction do not necessarily come with bombs and missiles and fallout. For the record, thoughts can kill, suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all its own..."
In 1975, I heard Rod Serling speak at Georgia State University. He commented-
"we cannot allow someone to show two people making love on the screen, but we rarely hesitate to show killing. Think about that for a minute. The face of evil we often run after and try to destroy is the one we see in the mirror every morning."
Rod Serling Helped usher in the era of human rights and liberal and more humane policies. He helped create an intelligent discourse about science and superstition and how to recognize the difference between the two.
Two weeks after that speech, Rod Serling Died. I'm glad glad he didn't have to see this.