Revolution and Socialism

I have had several conversations lately regarding how weak America has become in regards to prosecuting the rich and powerful. For instance, the governments refusal to call people out for shit that went down during the Bush presidency. (Come on, we all know it was shady and illegal things happened). Another instance being Bernie Madoff's allowance to keep his Park Avenue Penthouse which is worth something like $6 million. Sure, a black kid steals a candy bar and we send him to maximum security, but this old, rich white guy steals billions of dollars, and we let him maintain his lifestyle.

I am aware that these opinions make me somewhat socialist (there is a lot more that makes me somewhat socialist, so the title doesn't bother me). Somehow though, this line of thinking brought me to the idea for a completely hypothetical and dangerous social experiment. What if you gave all the fifth graders in America a semi-automatic rifle and a laptop. The question is, how many kids would use the guns to gain power, stage a revolution, or commit evil, and how many kids would simply blog about it. Now, I realize that this is ridiculous and let me repeat: ABSOLUTELY HYPOTHETICAL. I do not advocate ANYONE, particularly children, having guns. But, it would make an interesting sci-fi plot for a book or a movie or a short story ... maybe I will write a short story. Doubt it.

My point to all of it is, that in America, we don't go to the streets anymore when we are upset about something. We sit, cozy in our rooms, and blog about the failure's of America. We get upset to ourselves and on twitter. But, much like no one reading this blog, it becomes a case of a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear it. If a blogger gets upset and no one reads it ... is the blogger truly dissenting? Of course the answer in this case is yes, but, the crux is that it doesn't matter.

So, where is the heartbeat of our nation? Where does it lie? In the media? In the distant and confused politicians in Washington? The truth is, that the average American has the ability to be more vocal and be heard more than ever before. After all, 30 years ago it would have been up to a newspaper reporting something happening in the midwest for anyone in Washington to hear it. And now our President carries a blackberry. So maybe blogging is the answer. Maybe we don't have to stand, hand in hand, getting battered by police to make a statement anymore. It just seems so sterile. I was raised in a blue collar environment where real work got done once your hands got dirty. But, if the internet and blogging has changed anything about America it is that we are no longer a blue collar world. Even mechanics hook computers up to cars to fix them now. The internet machine has taken over our lives, our minds and our work.

The only questions left to answer are these: Is our dependency socially, politically and economically on computers and its systems begging for some apocalyptic doom? Will there be a day when all the computers turn off and we are left standing without our third arm and half our brain?

Even as I am writing this, I realize that none of these are original thoughts and that they have been posed and partly answered by minds much greater than my own. But I think they are important to consider. If for nothing else than because we need to remain aware of how different our lives are than people who lived 10, 20, 50 and hundreds of years before us. We also need to remember that there are still many people on this planet, in this age, who live NOTHING like the way we live. And when we hesitate to question the authority that governs this nation and it's wealth, we need to remember that as some of the luckiest people in the world, we have a duty to hold these people accountable. You don't have to choose the gun or the laptop, they have become the same. Just as Bernie Madoff-with-the-money FAILED miserably at his job and should be held responsible for that, we should be held responsible as constituents, as shareholders, and as Americans. We are part of a democracy and have to do our part and speak up.

I am going to write a letter to my senator today. I am going to get a few things off of my chest. Sure, he may never read it, but one of his interns will and mine will be a voice that will be tallied and added to the others and it will be heard.