So What? WIP

So What?
Enter the stereotypically monotone, bored voice: “George Bush messed up in Iraq.” The voice pauses. “George Bush messed up with Katrina.” The voice pauses once more. “G. W. messed up after 9-11.” The voice continues, droning on similarly for eons. The only point this standard media voice makes is that George W. is not exactly on top of things. Anyone who even vaguely recognizes any media outside of Fox news has heard over and over and over again just how horribly George W. Bush bungled his job. If the American populous hasn’t gotten that idea yet, then there is no hope for the future. So after a million and a half newscasts and at least twice as many articles, everyone seems aware of the mistake. However, no one seems ready to fix the problem. The most prominent trouble with Americans today is their unwillingness to act. Any gentleman or lady on the street will offer you his or her opinion, but when asked what they intend to do about it, will simply stare blankly back at you, as if this concept of political action has never occurred to them before. Americans need to act on what they believe to be right, and they need to act now.

Every day somebody says, “I wish someone would do something about that.” Whether “that” is the empty roll of toilet paper in the ladies’ room or the still-homeless hordes left over from Katrina, someone ought to do something. Someone is, of course, always someone else. No one wants to actually be responsible for any kind of major upset, and so no one creates any major upset. This is fine and dandy, except, if everyone assumes that someone else will change things, no one ever stands up to change anything. No one would dare stand up because that would break the precious social code that our society lives by. If someone breaks the social code, then they can’t follow the rules and be predictable and then they cause people actual thought, which is work, and is thus vexing. So, no one wants to go to the trouble of thinking in the first place, much less making other people think, and everyone simply sits back and tells everyone else what somebody else should do, because it’s entirely too much effort to take care of it yourself. This is evidenced in popular culture, as in the NOFX song lyrics “The sad truth is you'd rather follow the school into the net 'cause swimming alone at sea
is not the kind of freedom that you actually want,” explain people’s desire to fit in with society rather than risk being alone and maintain their freedom. For another example, at H-F, some kids got together to try to start a GSA, a Gay-Straight Alliance, for gay and lesbian rights. Last year around April they attempted to sell t-shirts, but the announcements on VTV somehow got misplaced between approval and production several times. The authorization for t-shirt sales also, for some reason, took much longer than any other groups’ similar requests. While I’m sure that the administration was extremely busy, it was an almost perfect example of how people “drag their feet”, so to speak, when it comes to breaking the social code. Instead of taxing the PR department, H-F decided to see if the GSA would just give up and go away because legally, they had to let the club exist, but they certainly don’t have to help them. The catch in all of my complaining about society’s complacency is, of course, available methods of change. To really change anything on a large scale, one must either have a great number of bodies with which to make oneself apparent, or one must give up any chance of a “normal” life in order to gather such a large number of bodies. This is the common perception and people believe that change is impossible, or nearly so. Unfortunately, this is only made true because people believe in it so much. Change is possible and probable if any one would bother to take the initiative on his or her own instead of waiting for another leader to do it for them.

There is no simple way to create change, but that’s as it should be, because if any one person could bend the country to their whim, the entire governmental structure would be an exercise in futility, even more so than it already is. In this situation, because anarchy is not necessarily the best solution for a myriad of reasons, many people are at a loss for what to do.  This is a shame because there is a lot to be done. For instance, many semi-informed teens mill about the local hang-out with a great deal of energy that could be used harassing the government into doing something useful, but is instead expended on less grand matters. The only exposure these poor souls get to constructive civil disobedience is the occasional rowdy rock song degrading the government. In such a state, these teens grow up accepting their self-inflicted uselessness, and don’t further society any more as adults than they did as teens. However, there is still hope for a few teens, in the form of mostly Internet-oriented protest groups such as the Underground Action Alliance, the Axis of Justice, and Punkvoter.com. However, these organizations tend to tackle too many problems and honestly, pay far too much attention to the rules. They do not make themselves visible to any audience except that audience which already agrees with their ideals. Also, many of these sites start with grand intentions, but end up poorly maintained and ultimately useless. These organizations may make many more aware of the problems, but why bother giving details to trouble if there’s nothing that anyone can do about it? All that does is make people unnecessarily sad and guilty. Besides, if some organization does manage to get enough bodies engaged in a particular subject, when is the last time there was a march on Washington or anything nearly as drastic as that? Apparently this generation’s activists are more peace-loving and apparently lethargic than previous ones. Just because no one is willing to help you is no excuse for not doing anything. It is a citizen’s responsibility to take an interest in their government, otherwise democracy fails. So even if ten people write letters to their representative about a topic, the next time it can be ten dozen, then one hundred dozen and so on until the nation has no choice but to become engaged in the change. It is possible to make a difference, and as soon as more people realize that, more intelligent change will come to this nation.