Stupid Smart Kids

galaxynextdoor:

Another shooting happens in America and right away news outlets sensationalize the massacre, hoping to get the highest ratings possible. It doesn’t help that the number one videogame in the country at the time was a game that allowed you to shoot random people from across the globe. Gamers knew what this would lead to of course, cries of violent video games training the killer and ,”How can we let our children be witness to the type of violence that is perpetrated in video games?”

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I wrote this editorial on violence in video games after what happened in Newton, Connecticut. Hope you enjoy it.

(As with most of my opinion pieces, I wrote this for my college newspaper El Paisano. At first I felt like I was writing this to rile up the ‘Occupy’ base, but about two paragraphs in I started to get more things off my chest and eventually I have an article that just makes me look like a cynical bastard. Nonetheless, maybe you can give it a quick read and get angry at the government again.)

Do you remember a couple months ago when all we could talk about was the ‘Occupy’ movement? It was on everyone’s mind and for the first time in a long time people were questioning authority. It was unlike anything I had seen before, because for once the people who were opposing the government weren’t treated like complete loons. Although not all of America agreed with the movement, there was something to be admired about the protests. 

Then the police started to bust down camps and eventually things went back to normal. It all came at the right time, too. Christmas was around the corner and people were ready to buy things that they couldn’t afford en masse.

It took about a month for everyone to forget what the big deal was. Something about the poor or paying the proper amount of taxes or something, I don’t really remember at this point. (And they say this generation gives up too easily…)

I don’t want to openly express my dismay with the death of the Occupy Wall Street movement, because I’m still hoping that things will turn around. I’m hoping that in a few months every person who has been beaten down and mistreated by the government will take a stand against the Wall Street goons and their political puppets. However, my cynicism won’t allow me to do that.

I once talked about breaking the shackles of oppression and as a single unit coming together to create real change in the western world, but that feels like an eternity ago and news stations stopped caring about Occupy Wall Street a long time ago. (M.I.A. did flip the camera off at the Super Bowl, though. That was pretty exciting…)

I know I shouldn’t let the dwindling coverage get to me, but I feel like a lot of people have just given up. Seeing that just gets to me and I can’t help but also give up with the rest of them.

What was I expecting? Did I really think that the Occupy Wall Street movement would change anything? It was nice to see so many like minded people come together with the idea of change in mind, but I think too many of us are scared of real change. No one said it would be easy and I think that’s why Occupy Wall Street eventually failed, because change isn’t easy.

This all may be because all the protesters were docile. If there was one thing I learned from the Arab Spring, it’s that sometimes violence brings people together. When police were beating protesters it got more people in the cause. I know we like to pretend that we’re better than that, that violence won’t solve anything, but those in power are okay with that. As long as they don’t feel threatened, nothing will change.

If you think I sound like a lunatic, maybe you’re right. Who am I to talk about fighting back? I don’t even push people back in a mosh pit.

(I wrote this article for my college newspaper El Paisano. The headline is based on the Black Flag song ‘Bastard in Love’)

Now that Libya has officially been liberated, the good people of Libya can now breathe easily knowing that they are free. They finally get the chance to live their lives as they choose to. Wait; is that an Al Qaeda flag flying over a courthouse in Libya? How wonderful.

I obviously don’t live in Libya, and I understand that starting over after a revolution is extremely difficult, but did you have to leave one oppressive regime for another? What does this really accomplish other than scaring the average American?

Luckily the flags have only been seen in the city of Benghazi, so there’s time for the people of Libya to make their own independent government without an outside influence. When I say outside influence I am also talking about the Untied States, Libya’s newfound freedom shouldn’t be of any importance to us unless they plan to attack us.

The United States has a history of walking into a country and overturning its government, we do it at least twice a decade. However, I think that if the United States really wants to be friends with Libya then they should allow Libya to decide for themselves. I’m not saying that America will corrupt Libya, what I am saying is that any type of meddling in their affairs will only be a turn off for the people of Libya.

I’m hoping that there will be no need for any American military presence in Libya, but our government likes to have presence in many countries for obvious political reasons. It doesn’t have to be like this, though. There are enough problems in America, why cause trouble for another country?

Libya can come out of this revolution knowing that they did the right thing in getting rid of Moammar Gadafi. (I would have preferred it if they gave him a trial before killing him, but the truth is that they probably would have killed him either way.) However, they should realize the mistakes of their past and stay away from anyone trying to push their values on them. If not, then we will all have to wait a couple more years until Libya is liberated again.

I wrote this for my school newspaper El Paisano. (Also, I decided to have a Smiths theme for all my headlines and thought that Wall Street Ruffians would work great for the article, but I still liked my original title ‘Occupy My Heart’)

If you follow the news then you probably know that America is going through what some would call a total economic meltdown. People are losing their jobs and money is scarce for the average working class individual. On the other side of the spectrum many corporations (who are legally people) are making record profits and living in luxury. It has obviously come to a point in America where some people have decided to stand up against unfair treatment.

This is where the people from Occupy Wall Street come in. Consisting mostly of young people who cannot find jobs, Occupy Wall Street began as a way for their voices to be heard collectively. The whole thing started off slowly, but in a matter of weeks it has become big enough to get backing from unions.

I’m all for this and am actually pretty proud of the people on the street right now. Instead of grumbling over the unfair treatment that they have received or blaming Mexicans, they have decided to take action and try to put an end to corporate greed.

The only problem I have with the whole thing is that there doesn’t seem to be a main objective right now. If President Obama or some senator wanted to join this cause overnight what would they ask for specifically? Instead there seems to be a jumble of different beliefs that most everyone agrees on. They just need someone to sort them out and speak up.

The saddest thing about this is that most mainstream news outlets aren’t giving this the amount of time that it deserves. Occupy Wall Street has been going on for over two weeks and hundreds of people have been arrested, but most news stations don’t want to cover it. MSNBC didn’t even pay attention to the cause until Michael Moore gave the protesters his support.

This isn’t only happening in New York, other groups who sympathize with those on Wall Street have begun to protest collectively in different parts of the world. Occupy LA has started recently and is slowly gathering more steam. (Although it seems like more people are interested in the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor.)

I don’t know if this will cause a global revolution, something like that would probably take a couple of years and I don’t know if Americans have an attention span long enough to care about something for more than a year unless it’s legalizing marijuana. However, I would hope that everyone at least pays a little bit of attention to what is going on at the protest. It may not seem like any of this affects you, but just remember that you too may be laid off en masse so that a corporation can save an extra couple of million dollars.