June 27, 2004
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Offended by the Truth
It's always amazing to me, how people (including myself) are being taught to be offended when someone speaks the truth. Some say, "They are being taught to be critical and speak their minds," but of what exactly are they being critical? Anything that goes against the norm? Teaching kids in schools to chant "Four legs good. Two legs bad" has the ring of fascism to me.
These are the same people who would ban books like Animal Farm, Huckleberry Finn, Clockwork Orange, or anything by Kurt Vonnegut. . . because what those authors have to say isn't pleasant, and doesn't fit with what American educators want the world to be -- a kind of pleasantly silly Dr. Seuss book.
It's also amazing to me that my younger relatives seem to be learning more about gay rights in high school than history. And the history that they are learning seems to be from movies made by a white man who doesn't know much about Asian history at all, if he thinks that America is the most violent country in the world.
My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March
So many countries have long histories of violence -- in Asia, Europe, the Middle East. It's something that humans have and have always had, and always will have. Insane people do insane things. Desperate people do desperate things. That's the way it always has been, and the way it always will be.
If you're depressed and suicidal (as many academics are), you can ignore that there are people who don't care that you "don't believe in God because religion causes wars" -- people in the world who care nothing for peace and goodwill to all men.
"If we just listen to them. . . let them know we understand, and that we're on their side." You cannot change people's opinions if they are angry. People can only change their own when they are able to see without the red. Until then, my guns are cocked for the "insane" and the "desperate."
Yesterday, Matt and I watched "Kelly's Heroes," and I marveled again at the all-wood sailboat that was stolen/rescued from destruction by the next air raid.
Comments (2)
Very Animal Farm. But I don't think its so much people are taught to criticise the truth, more the opposite, they are being taught not to criticise the party line, the spindoctoring. At the very root of the American way of life is the belief that one vote every four years that only changes the top management board and leaves everything the same, otherwise, actually is freedom. Best for everyone to take their soma through the TV screen (1984?) and those who matter can go on making money and playing with soldiers.
I've just read your profile. I know the BVI well, I used to charter there, when I worked on boats.
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