Buzz words

There is something incongruous in modern culture. Okay, more than just one thing. In a world filled with time saving devices and an internet that provides all he information available in the world at our fingertips, people still choose to use abbreviations and buzz words rather than conveying information. I could never understand why, in an internet conversation, someone will say “google it” instead of providing the information, or at least a link to the information. And while I find some people’s idea that they need to question everything when they are dealing with a reliable source annoying, the tendency to believe everything presented by unknown or disreputable sources is astounding.

I understand the desire to “believe what you want to believe”, but why try so hard to deny what is obviously correct? When did it become more honorable to believe than to know?

I know there are countless examples, but the one that always stands out in my mind is Janet Reno‘s explanation for the Waco tragedy, “We did it for the children“. Hillary Clinton had made “for the children” an excuse for everything, but killing eighty people, including twenty one children “for the children” is rather difficult to swallow.

The new buzzwords are “fighting terrorism”. Anything is acceptable if it is for the cause of fighting terrorism. As long as you can define anyone as a terrorist, they have no rights. If you refuse to call someone a terrorist, whatever they do is acceptable. Picking up on this cue, both sides of the conflict in Egypt call each other terrorists.

Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying “They who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”. Those should be our buzzwords. Presently we have abandoned several amendments to our constitution for that “temporary safety”, in order to “fight terrorism”.

We sit idly by as the government violates the first amendment, the second amendment, the third amendment, the forth amendment, the fifth amendment, I could go on, but the point is if you can’t see another violation of the constitution every day, you’re just not paying attention. Most of this started with the Patriot act, and once the snowball started rolling down the hill it just grew. All in the name of “fighting terrorism”, fueled by “what can we get away with”. A recent case exposed the existence of “secret courts“, in which the accused was ordered to comply or visit Guantanamo bay. This is how the government causes people to disappear. Pick them up, charge and try them in secrecy, and when found guilty off they go to Guantanamo bay as a terrorist, all in secret.

This is not to suggest that governments are the only ones asking you to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. The recent crises in Egypt resulted in this meme from unifying groups.

Some people on the Occupy Wall Street page (which has become simply radical Muslim) posted a different image, with the top portion removed. These same people are the first to claim “media bias”, although during the Egyptian crises they have attacked Al Jazeera, both figuratively and literally. Al Jazeera has always been the media source used to refute American media outlets, the only trusted source in the Arab world. Someone has managed to remove the anti-Al Jazeera satirical cartoons and dissenting videos from the internet, so some exceptionally powerful forces are at work here. Interesting that Al Gore is doing business with Al Jazeera lately.

There are over one million words in the English language, There is no excuse for not explaining issues, particularly issues that directly affect our safety and freedom, in their totality. Unless of course, you’re lying about what you’re doing. Lately though, they’re not even bothering to lie, we just accept it “because it’s for a good cause”.  Like “for the children” or “to fight terrorism”.

Someone else did that, uniting a country towards a common cause, building that country from near ruin to a world power.

“Mother fight for your children!”

As you read this, you are sitting in front of a computer. Use it. Listen to people you don’t agree with. Sift through the propaganda and find the truth, it is out there.