Dissent in A Fear Society

In his book THE CASE FOR DEMOCRACY, Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet political prisoner released from prison by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986 wrote “A society is free if people have a right to express their views without fear of arrest, imprisonment, or physical harm.”  He also added, “A society that does not protect dissent will inevitably be based on fear.” Although it is clear his perspective is based on his personal experience growing up as a Jew in the former Soviet Union, it strikes me as if he is writing about America today.

Since the start of this century, the focus of the US federal government, in all aspects has been directed toward encouraging uniformity and conformity, in view, belief and idea of all its citizens, specifically by playing on the emotional projection of being either “with or against us.”  This mentality gained its maximum utility of expected outcomes when the U.S. began its famed “war against terror.” Terror being singularly contrived from emotion representing in its basic understand an extreme fear. I say this because no two individuals, let alone all humans for that matter are the same.  Some may have an extreme fear or water, others may not; some may have an extreme fear of snakes and insects, others may not. However, this is the desire of the powers that function in the highest capacity of both political and corporate leadership in America. 

Now there are many that would argue against my thesis, however, they would most be those individuals that consider themselves progressive and would in the same sentence disavow the historical truth that their views are rooted in socialism, specifically cultural Marxism. They will also in the same sentence admit that no one has the same identical experiences, backgrounds, views, preferences and/or intelligence, yet cannot accept that others may not agree with them based on the aforementioned. The point being, the notion of a complete and uniform homogenous society defined by a severe ideological commitment to uniform collectivist values, ideas, views and beliefs is as realistic as the Easter bunny.

The reality of individual differences I speak of is a social pariah in today’s America. Dissent, even based on fact or personal view is currently equated to being the enemy. And there are many examples to this. Let’s us take global warming for example, which has been conveniently changed to climate change. Now from my experiences and readings, I understand that even before the Wurm glaciations (before man existed), there has always been climate change on the Earth – this is a scientific fact. However, with this said, if I don’t accept it is due to man, or that no single factor has ever been the sole cause of any phenomena, I am ridiculed by the majority; and instead of being disproven by discourse and data, called names and ridiculed.

For me, not relying on the words of a politician, specifically that carbon is a pollutant and man is the SINGLE cause of these changes, is my death nail. Why because in my argument I include the sun and its recent periods of strong coronal mass ejections and solar radiation storms, stronger solar flares and increased UV radiation of the past few decades, in formulating my perspective. I also include the observation that these events we experience Terrestrially cannot be caused by man or “carbon pollutants” alone if it is well documented they are occurring on Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto (Pluto is undergoing global warming, as evidenced by a three-fold increase in the planet’s atmospheric pressure during the past decade plus), Mars, Triton (Neptune’s largest moon), and other celestial bodies which don’t have SUVs or humans driving them. 

And don’t ask them to compare the Carbon dioxide rates of Venus to Earth in terms of Carbon dioxide density, then they only curse more for you having dissenting and differing ideas of your own. Especially if you ask, if Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and Triton all "appear" to be warming, how can we be sure that Global Warming is man-made let alone a function of carbon dioxide emissions? The only response one in my experience would get are vehement attacks on charcter but not facts, simply because I trust physicist and MIT over Al Gore and Barack Obama.

Like the war on terror, this entire man-made carbon is a pollutant (when carbon is organic and not inorganic) is fatuous and typical of a fear based society just like the war on terror. This is also observed even with regards to basic beliefs. If you do not agree with gay marriage or homosexuality one is called a homophobe simply for not believing in the practice.  Personally it is like saying because I hate the Dallas Cowboys (which I do); I am a footballphobe – complete and utter idiotic nonsense. The way I see, one can believe what they want, and I can listen or accept or disagree, but just because we have different views don’t make me think you are stupid or less than those who agree with me.

See America, we are not as free as we think in this constitutional republic. Whether folk can see it or not, this nation is teetering on the brink of tyranny. Yep, I said it. If one is chastised for not accepting what others say you should accept, or believe what the middle of the normal distribution say you should, and you are punished for such, that my friend is tyranny of the fascist order. Don’t take my word, recently a former vet was arrested and called mentally ill  for voicing his views against the government on Facebook, and now, The Obama Administration via Eric Holder will be implementing a program designed to punish and imprison folk for thought that they see and deemas disagreeable.  And this isn’t from Orwell’s 1984. 

We have these behaviors now because most folk do not think for self and have instead been indoctrinated into what to believe. As such, when they do think, it is merely an amalgamation of generalizations and stereotypes which are not grounded in research or fact, but rather due to their learned irrational natures and simple mindless. Consequently, when their beliefs are questioned and/or challenged, if they cannot ignore you, they take it as a personal attack to defend the status quo, they call you intolerant and prejudice just because they don’t understand specific distinctions or nuance or from a personal point of view, they just hate to be wrong, because that in their minds such makes them feel as if they are not important.

 

This is what happens in a fear society, when you do not agree you are the bad person - the enemy. All that matters, even if they know they are being controlled and their thoughts are not their own, is that those they acknowledge the power that makes them feel important, correct and even worse – knowledgeable.

America from this perspective is moving away from a free society because dissent and differing views and beliefs are no longer tolerated or accepted. And the folk who accept this would never dare to accept or think that their government, like the intellectuals under Stalin, or the scientific class of Iran in the early 1980s, would ever think of doing such. But that is how it is done, it isn’t call TV programming by accident, nor is by chance that major news outlets glorify the masses on behalf of the corporate and political class.

So if you did not know, now you should, but I suspect most will ignore the wisdom in this tractate and cut on their idiot box and talk about shit they don’t know what the fuck they talking about as if they really know. And I have no problem with saying what I believe, for as it was once written, you make enough laws we all can be criminals and this my friend, is a risk I can live with as a free thinker.

Fundamental Zealotry and other Nonsense

I have come to the realization that the lack of the ability of the majority of citizens of these United States, in particular we African Americans, t think critically is intentional and have taken a turn for the worse. It like clear that the main reason for this is that the power that be know and accept that a lot of money is made when folk do not have the ability to think critically.
 

Over the past two weeks, two specific events have drawn me to conclude of such, as that distractions seem to garnish more attention than events and occurrences that actual merit our focus the most: the Donald Sterling Saga and the skit on Saturday Night Live written and performed by Leslie Jones.

Seems that the only thing we black folk get up in arms about is our skin color, confederate flags and the n-word.  It as if we only have our antenna out to pick up what bigots say but can't see the forest for the trees.  The issues that are destroying our community go unattended and are pushed back in our collective unconscious, in particular for this generation in which they believe that just because a politician is black and a democrat you can’t say anything wrong about the person policies, not the man I mind you but policies. If we were in tune to other issues, we would likely in the case of Sterling attend to his message about institutional racism in America and abroad, specifically alluded to by what he stated pertaining to the real manner in which Israel treat blacks and Africans.  But no we do not.  If we had our ears to the ground, we would attempt to address and discuss the bigger issue of how and why owners get public support through stadium subsidies & even antitrust exemptions in cities where the urban areas are mainly African American and Latinos, whom tax monies build the large stadium complexes but is not poured in the despondent and deplorable public education systems the vast majority of us send our kids too.  No we don’t dare address such.

On the real, why are we concerned about multi-millionaires that play professional sports when the quality of life for most black men in America is mostly negative? It seems that the only place black men are over represented where they display a modicum of success are in the sport and entertainment industry, and frankly, I am frequently more offended by the lyrics of rappers like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, 2 Chains, and Future than by what Donald Sterling said or Leslie Jones performed.

 

The truth is that all that is negative, pessimistic, gloomy and associated with failure is where we as black men are vastly and disproportionately over-represented. Nationwide we account for more than 50% us dropout rate and maintain  the lowest college enrollment than any other group by ethnicity and gender in the nation. In   Mississippi, Michigan, Louisiana, Indiana, Georgia,Florida, District of Columbia, California, Arkansas, Alabama and many other states 10% of less of black males in high school read above an eighth grade level.

Personally I think mass incarceration deserves more attention that a television comedy show or a NBA owner. Those who kill non-Latino whites are over three times more likely to be sentenced to die as those who kill African-Americans. The killer (no pun intended) is that for the same crimes, the odds of receiving a death sentence are nearly four times (3.9) higher if the defendant is black.

Then there is the lucid observation that we as African American men are more likely to be unemployed, under employed, trapped in low wage jobs, have higher rates of job instability, lower wages, and extremely longer bouts with unemployment; which may account for why nearly 49 percent of black men are arrested for non-traffic offenses by the time they turn twenty-three.

I can’t comprehend why a whole bunch of us black folk more concerned and vocal about millionaire slaves and racist owners, or a comedian when, most of us are living from paycheck to paycheck, have suffered huge financial setbacks and are still scared about the future. The cold, hard truth is that we have one microscopic group of folk who have resources, are making loot and continue to enhance their financial position and a president that has increased their wealth. But we do not dare address this, specifically that the economic conditions of African Americans has gotten worse over the last five years more than any time in modern history.

None of this gets us mad, just old outdated bigots that allow us to show our support for political correctness and other cultural Marxist beliefs. Even Ebony magazine chimed in on this by unleashing their racist watch dog extraordinaire Jamila Lemieux on a comedy skit, on the same weekend in Chicago (Ebony’s own backyard) in which 4 people were killed and 24 others are injured in shootings. The same weekend in which Donnell Flora, 25, who uses a wheelchair took a bus to deliver a gun to his niece to shoot a 14 yr. old girl over a Facebook post over a boy. Then there is the fact that in Chicago, 92 percent of African American men are unemployed. But none of this was exciting enough, no racism involved, therefore again pushed deep back in the recesses of the black mind. Maybe they need to talk about the issues that would make folk write books with titles like “Food Stamp Bitches,” or why maternal deaths are on the rise among African American women in the United States, but I doubt it. Even going back to look at Richard Pryor’s slave sketch he did on his show when I was a teen in the 1970s, seems would upset black folk today, which makes me think his comedy would be viewed as inappropriate currently. But these same folk yell free speech when it is Beyoncé, Lil Boosie or some other subject-verb challenged miscreant. 

As a community we rarely write about our deep issues and concerns like we once did, nor are we black writers interested in such, because to do so would mean looking at the mirror and accepting that a lot of our problems are not and cannot be singularly attributed to racism. How many of US would hold our kids to the standard of nothing less than a 95% being acceptable to bring home as a grade as Kwasi Enin parents did? Parents? How many of us will cut the TV off and sit with our kids and do homework and read to them instead of watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta? How many of us take our kids to the library weekly or even own library cards. Small things can and do make a difference.

Sometimes being distracted by thing we cannot change does our community more harm than good, by taking our attention from what we CAN address and deal with in our own backyard. Truth is, it was Abraham Lincoln who said and wrote: “Free them [black slaves] and make them politically and socially our equals?  My own feelings will not admit of this" (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II, p. 256). A man clearly who doesn’t or couldn’t deserve the right to own a NBA team in today's, world of intolerance and impracticality.