oceans rise. empires fall.

[xaara]

There are a couple of things that mystify me about my country.

One of them is casserole.

The other one is how we manage constantly to maintain the most hypocritical attitude towards...everything. We'd like the world not to die, but we don't want to set concrete goals in order to provide for sustainability. We apparently don't want people from Mexico to cross the border, but our environmental choices are some of the main causes of Mexico's imminent uninhabitability. We get pissed off when other governments spy on and torture people, but we, y'know, spy on and torture people. We hold equality as one of our highest ideals, but we provide very few resources or education options to minorities and the poor. And I can't really figure out why.

Are we just oblivious? Do we think that we're better than everyone else? More deserving? Are we complacent? Do we not have enough charismatic leadership? Are we too preoccupied with concerns about war? Terrorism? Have we become too entrenched in our elitist meritocracy?

It's interesting. And it used to make me really angry, to the point where I couldn't even articulate my feelings, but recently it's gone so far beyond that as to be simply bemusing. The thing is, I think I could get behind a strong movement for change. But I know enough about myself to understand that I'm not the voice of that movement. I'm not charming or charismatic or science-y. I'm reasonably smart, but I know a lot about dead British poets and Medieval verse, not really the now.

Is that voice out there? Have you heard it? Is there anything but old men talking about nothing that changes anything and the slow heat of silence?

(P.S. Title from the gorgeous Apocalypse Lullaby by the Wailin' Jennys, which I will not post an .mp3 for because the blind monkeys at the RIAA might think it was costing them money and sue me for 8.5 gajillion dollars, and I have $15.33 to my name right now. No-go. :P)

Comments

[bel-baggins.livejournal.com]

Something interesting I learned in my political science class at college was that people tend to be liberal when it comes to large things but conservative on the small. For instance, you ask - should we have clean air, healthy ecosystems? Why, yes. But then you ask - do you want to drive a smaller car, do you want to limit the number of children you can have? Why, no. Do you support helping the poor and allowing everyone to have an education? Yes, but no on the higher taxes. Maybe in a world as large as the one we live in, it's hard to think that a sacrifice on your own personal part would be needed, or have an affect on the whole.

But it is really annoying when, for instance, our government refuses to completely destroy its stockpile of thousands of nuclear weapons, and then goes ballistic when another country wants one.

[xaara.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's tricky, because the government needs to represent the people, but also make decisions that are in the people's best interest. And most people, like you said, don't necessarily want to do things on a personal level for the large "best interest," even though they recognize that it exists. So at some point, the government needs to enact change from the top down, so to speak, which means that angry people will probably cost some senators their jobs, which senators don't want to risk, and that lobbyists as a scourge will be unhappy. I think our government, unlike others, is uniquely disadvantaged when it comes to making decisions, because in many senses it is crippled rather than supported by its constituents. (This is why Carmen is not a poli-sci major!)

But Iran might NUKE US! OH NOES! :P