I would hazard a guess and say that almost all of us are
against things like war, greed, corruption and other goods and services
provided by our governments. I think,
if someone were to conduct a poll, the number of people against that stuff
would be pretty darn high, and yet oddly enough we don’t really care all that
much or do anything about it. Don’t get
me wrong, I’m just as indifferent and lazy as everyone else, it’s just that I’m
using up a tiny bit of energy to write about it and that will ease my
conscience.
It’s all about priorities.
I mean, sure it’s sad that entire villages somewhere are getting fire
bombed and babies are dying and old rich white guys are getting older and
richer and (for some reason) whiter all the time. But if you compare that stuff to say,
television shows that I really like, it’s not like I have all the time and
energy in the world. Something has got
to be ignored and gosh, my apologies to those babies on fire. Sincerely.
Imagine if we said something like, “Hey, our government
shouldn’t be making deals with evil corporations and using our tax dollars to
bail out billionaires or buy a bunch of tanks that we wouldn’t use unless we
were in a foreign country doing stuff that we have no business doing in the
name of democracy or something.”
And then someone said, “You should contact your member of
parliament and tell them how mad you are and how you’re going to vote them out
in the next election.”
And then we kind of mumble, “Well, I didn’t think I’d have
to write a letter or anything… I mean, I’ve got a lot of stuff to do and I’m
pretty tired right now and really, what are you gonna do? That kind of stuff will always go on, there’s
nothing I can do about it.”
“To start with, you could spend 10 minutes and write a letter.”
Then we reasonably respond, “Why don’t you fuck off?”
So obviously, us hating something won’t motivate us to do
much. It’s the same if we really,
really love something, like the Earth and yet we allow certain companies to
pollute water supplies but the news doesn’t report on it, because apparently
Kim Kardashian is getting married or divorced or is pregnant or just bought a new purse and really, things like
that are quite a bit more important that women and children getting blown up
because they happen to live in a desert hell hole with oil rigs.
ANYWAY, my point is that even though we hate stuff like that
(burning villages and greedy bastards and what not), we still won’t do anything
about it because we’re distracted or lazy or whatever. But I do however have an idea on how to make
people care. I’ve observed that I tend
to put more energy into getting rid of things that irritate me than things that
I care deeply about. I think this is
true of most of us. Sure our righteous
indignation can be a powerful thing, but it just doesn’t prompt us into
action. So someone needs to invent
something that will make us care. I
don’t know what it would be, but I know how it would work:
Every time someone was killed in a war zone, we would get a
tiny electric shock, like when someone rubs their feet on a thick carpet and
touches your ear lobe. One or two of
those wouldn’t be bad, but if you were in the middle of making supper and that
happened about a dozen times in a minute, you would get annoyed enough to write
a letter or call your congressman.
“Seriously, my pie is ruined because I kept getting shocks! Can you PLEASE stop killing civilians?!”
Each time a shady deal was made between a politician and
some corporation, the government would no longer be able to just print money to
cover the cost. Now your portion would
be directly withdrawn from your bank account along with an explanation of why
it was deducted. “$3.94 was removed so
the distinguished gentleman from Connecticut could get a new yacht. He made a deal with Mr. So and So of Rape the
Environment R US.” And then you could
scream, “That’s the fifth time today!!
All these crappy deals are costing me a fortune!” You would probably want them to go back to
the old way of just running up debt for these things, but that isn’t allowed
because you have to properly annoyed enough to voice your discontent.
Other examples might be Drone Attacks = 20 minutes in a
traffic jam. Election fraud = upset
stomach resulting in diarrhea. News
Outlets all pushing the same nonsense to keep you ill-informed and kind of
stupid = chronic dandruff and your household internet goes down. Politicians who start out making $50,000 a
year and retire multimillionaires = runny nose and oh, I dunno, let’s say foot
cramps.
The point is, if every time
some injustice was done we suffered something irritating, I bet we would all be
a lot more inclined to work for real hope and change.
Oh, how about this last one: Every time the government lies to us, you
have to read one of my essays.
