Random Thoughts - November 20th

Random Thoughts

-Thanksgiving, Americas cultural & social rot & more....


*** The mainstream corporate media thinks that it's important for us to know that Katie Holmes & Tom Cruise are getting married, and that Britney Spears is getting divorced. How does this bull$hit become a priority for these so-called news organizations? Yet we hear very little about the genocide taking place in Sudan, where tens of thousands have been murdered, raped, and driven from their homes. We all know that if the genocide were happening in white rich Europe, the World would see it as an urgent crisis.

Who cares about these damn annoying celebrities? Why does the media think that its important for me to know every detail about the lives of these disgusting people? Americans are brainscrewed when it comes to celebrities. This is a country that is completely consumed by Hollywood culture.

I couldn't care less about these people. If Hollywood disappeared from the face of the Earth tonight, I would not lose any sleep. In fact, I would probably sleep easier. But what does cause me to lose sleep (& what the media does not focus on) are the women being raped in front of their husbands, daughters being raped and kidnapped, limbs being chopped off, villages being burned to the ground, and men being murdered in front of their families...all while the world does nothing. To hell with Fox News, CNN, NBC, CBS and all the rest.

*** Americans continue to show why they are completely nuts. Two men are shot and another stabbed across the country, while waiting in line for hours to buy a $600.00 video game system- Play Station 3. This is going on while thousands die of AIDS everyday in Africa due to a lack of money for medical care, thousands are starving or being murdered in Darfur, the Iraq mess continues with at least 50-100 civilians being slaughtered daily and many others being injured (as well as the loss of American soldiers), Katrina victims still have no homes and will have to spend another Holiday dealing with that catastrophe, and as America prepares for more war in Iran and North Korea. The contrast between values and needs is a contrast that is too hard to ignore.

No wonder the world thinks Americans are crazy. The world is right to think so. And the American public wonders why the world is not jumping at the opportunity to adopt American values and culture? American values and culture are for the most part in the gutter. It's a hollowed out, empty culture based on capitalist greed. Americans look at the World in bewilderment when American values, democracy (which is pretty un-democratic), and American culture are rejected in some parts of the world.

***Thanksgiving-- I have never been a big fan of the Holidays. They are just too phony for me. I pretty much hate this time of year, as I mentioned in my previous Random Thoughts a few days ago. But Thanksgiving in particular annoys me. I will never understand how Black folks so blindly celebrate Thanksgiving- A Holiday celebrating colonialism & marking the beginnings of slavery for us (not to mention the slaughter of the Indians). Wow! Talk about ironic.

I have secretly felt this way since I was a young teenager.... but at that age, you shut your mouth and play along....or get slapped.

I know that it's a day for getting together and all....but I just hope people think bigger this time around as they are praying around their dinner tables. I hope peope will remember a few important things and not just the usual shallow things (usually about themselves)- Their own personal health, their money, their cars & other hollow values that Americans tend to cling to and thank God for this time of year. THERE ARE SOME THINGS THAT ARE BIGGER & MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR FINANCIAL STATUS & YOUR NEW SUV.....
It kills me to see people (and Black folks are especially guilty of this) thanking God for their own personal wealth this time of year. God doesn't want you doing that, at least not this time of year. God wants you to have at the front of your mind those people who DO NOT have ....particularly food, shelter, health, etc. The basic life sustaining needs.

*** I'm not looking forward to Thankgiving, Christmas, etc.... Particularly the day after Thanksgiving, which officially marks the beginning of the Holiday Shopping season. I have to work in a hell hole of a place that has to deal with these people.
I get to see crazed Americans breaking their necks to spend their money. It's an ugly day.... You can call it Black Friday. It even involves people threatening and assaulting one another....all to spend their money on bull...t.

This is the real American religion- Capitalism. Americans worship money more than they worship the cross or any other so-called religion or religious symbol. It's the most important concept in American culture...more important than any form of Christianity.

I hate going in to work on the day after Thanksgiving...and everyday after that until February of the new year. Each day is like watching a Capitalist orgy, where greed takes precedence over any sense of dignity, decency, manners or common sense.

Meanwhile, folks who are at the bottom of the economic ladder are just hoping (like me) that they will be able to pay their bills this month & next. Buying gifts? Nothing could be further from my mind. But survival IS on my mind. Yet, middle class folks blindly spend $500.00, $1000.00, $3000.00 like it is nothing....usually on things that they don't need. Black folks are especially known for this kind of thing, often at the expense of more important basic needs.

I notice that low income Americans are not part of the agenda for Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats during the 110th Congress. It looks like I will be busy watching Democrats in the coming year, just as hard as I watch the Repugnants.

I just wonder what these Americans would do if the bottom fell out of the U.S. economy and they really had to deal with hard times. Because I don't think that 95% of them could survive it. Money and capitalism are the basis for every aspect of American life.... "love" included. Take money out of the picture for one second and see how much "love" Americans have for one another. A hollow society based of materialism could not survive any seriously difficult times... like what we see in Iraq and in poor countries. Such a society does not have what it takes.

I was watching a special on PBS not too long ago.... (forgot the name of the program...but it was about the Iraqi elections and it centered on the work of an Iraqi doctor and his family).

In that program, I saw this family sticking together while bullets flew outside, sticking together under death threats, sticking together during constant power outages....and through it all....they still made their traditional meals....would make their food together and sit together to eat EVERY NIGHT...(often in the dark...due to no electricity).... and they stuck to their culture and traditions and somehow kept praying and kept on smiling through the whole thing. THAT THERE IS CULTURE!!! THAT IS WHAT VALUES ARE REALLY ABOUT. Those kinds of cultural values are not based on money. Americans have no such cultural fiber.

Americans are thoroughly incapable of this kind of survival....this kind of triumph through adversity. Sure, there are a few people in this country who might make it in that situation, but the vast majority are just not mentally, emotionally, intellectually or spiritually capable of this. This material and greed based capitalist system has spoiled most Americans, making them too dependent on their paper money and their government. Americans have no spiritual money, no cultural money to draw from. If the money ever becomes useless pieces of paper with little or no value, Americans will not know what to do. Realizing that they have been living in a weak culture with little substance to speak of, they will have nothing else to fall back on to get them through times of trouble.

We can only hope that such a disaster never happens.