America: A Nation of Swiftian Yahoos (?)

“The virtues that sustain a nation-state and build community, from honesty to self-sacrifice to transparency to sharing, are ridiculed each night on television as rubes stupid enough to cling to this antiquated behavior are voted off reality shows.”  Chris Hedges does a phenomenal job of articulating my own fears and anxieties about American culture; these fears and anxieties are some of the reasons I started this blog.  Even the title of this post I worried over–worried how many people knew Jonathan Swift and how many would confuse the word Yahoo for an internet provider.  I worry we live in a dying empire that privileges wealth and celebrity over substance and care.  We support tax cuts for the wealthiest 2% of our nation and are glued to our television sets because Oprah Winfrey cried for Barbara Walters, but we don’t seem to worry that we are fighting wars that seem interminable and costly.  We do not worry about the ever increasing homeless population, or the hypocrisy of politicians with health care plans we pay for and they vote against health care for all.  We listen to bigots vote against civil rights, but we ignore the cries of the poor.  My holiday wish is for Americans to wake up out of the fugue state and think about humanity, education, creating a better quality of life for ALL.  Here is the fantastic article by Chris Hedges.  I hope people will have the attention span to read through it all.

About these ads