It really blew me away. At first I was angry with myself for not being prepared for the debate. Then after my chagrin and one of my friends whose opinion I value, told me that “She didn’t get it” I asked him what he meant by that and he basically told me about my frame of mind and hers. That I realized that corporate control of the media is basically the same whether it is a right or left venue and that the corporations only tell you what they want you to know. My frame of reference was different than hers. It still didn’t mean I had an excuse for losing the debate, I should have set the premise of the debate differently and I got my ass handed to me as a result.
I’m glad that it all happened however, because it brought me to a greater realization that we are far too involved in this contrived left-right debate to understand a basic truth. That truth is that the political operatives of the corporate-controlled media would rather have Americans see other Americans as the unpatriotic enemy from within than the people that really are, and that is this Military-Industrial-Complex that has been manipulating us from behind the scenes for decades.
Today I was in a store and I was talking to a young African-American woman and she asked me who I would be voting for in the election. I told her I would be voting for Senator Mike Gravel. She asked me why, and I told her that all the others were corporate controlled politicians that were not really looking after the peoples interests. She nodded and said that she would probably vote for him too, but that he didn’t have a real chance of beating the major party politicians and getting our democracy back. I said “Well what can you do about it?” To my utter astonishment she said;”We are going to have to fight for it!” Now did that blow your mind? It sure as hell blew mine. This is South Carolina mind you, and she was a hip-hop generation female that would never be expected to say anything like that. When my wife and I got in the car, she told me that things are worse than anyone can imagine. I agreed, but I thought to myself that in reality, things may be better than anyone could imagine. I had just met another realist.
I believe that I have touched the “third rail” that everyone speaks about. I still have great faith in human nature, even when I fully realize what some among us are capable of. I believe, even though I am not religious, that everyone has a soul, a conscience and a kind of “collective consciousness”. I believe that we all know when things just aren’t “right” and they aren’t right now.
That’s the way I see it.
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