NOAM CHOMSKY
BEAT YOURSELF UP – SAVE THE POLICE TIME
Beat Yourself Up – Save The Police Time
For most of my adult life, maybe the past 45 years or more, I’ve been hearing the same phrases repeated endlessly
Things have never been as bad as they are now
Things are getting worse … there’s no hope for the future
This is the worst government we’ve ever had to deal with
The last government created the problems
The next government will solve the problems
We’re heading for economic collapse
We’re heading for a nuclear war
The apocalypse is predicted to be imminent
The majority of people in this country are selfish, greedy, and stupid.
The majority of people in other countries are selfish, greedy, and stupid.
The majority of people in the World we live in are selfish, greedy, and stupid.
YOU have never met and have no real knowledge of the majority of people in this country.
YOU have never met and have no real knowledge of the entire population of seven billion people who comprise the Earth’s population, so you must be basing this negative deduction on your knowledge of yourself, and on your knowledge of your immediate friends and associates … therefore, YOU and everyone you know must be selfish, greedy, and stupid.
Right?
Wrong.
Armageddon, in one form or another, has been predicted, on a yearly basis, for almost every single one of the sixty-two years of my life.
Like the boy who cried wolf, or the chicken who predicted that the sky was falling, eventually anyone with sense eventually stops listening to such fear-ridden blather. I stopped worrying that the sky was falling many years back, and have noticed that the downfall of civilisation, the rise of fascism, the erosion of all our civil liberties, the creation of new concentration-camps, the round-up of liberals hasn’t happened as expected and foretold … and the runaway train that is civilisation hasn’t crashed yet either.
On the other hand, over the past 40 years I’ve witnessed an astonishing change in the levels of social responsibility and political awareness around me, the rise of a highly effective and powerful environmental movement, the liberation of women both in politics and everyday life, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and a level of social acceptance of gay lifestyle that I never expected to see in my lifetime, the denunciation of everyday racism, sexism and homophobia in the media, in government, the workplace, and on the street, a level of social interaction and communication on a global level that wasn’t predicted in even the most prescient of science fiction, and a potential for positive change within the Global Village that I never even dreamed possible when I went on my first ever street-demos back in the 60’s & 70’s.
In many ways, as far as I can see, things have never been better, as the potential for change has never more eminently possible, and the tools of change ie. Mass communication, and education as a product thereof, have never been more readily available and accessible.
So stop succumbing to the fear, the hype, the bullshit, the propaganda, the fairy-tales and horror stories designed to make you fear the worst, expect the worst, and give up trying because there ain’t no point … because resistance is futile.
In my early days as a political activist, our mass communications were limited to Roneo and Xerox leaflets, screen-printed posters, underground magazines and newspapers, and cheaply produced button badges … simple, but effective forms of spreading our doctrines, and a far-cry from the easy access of emails, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
One very popular button badge wryly proclaimed the slogan:
BEAT YOURSELF UP – SAVE THE POLICE TIME
That, my friends, is what you and your negativity are doing. You’re doing The Power’s job for them. That is the tactic that seems to be working highly successfully at present with the wave of rampant negativity I see on so many articles, and blogs, and vids and Facebook postings: …..
“The Future is Hopeless”
No, my friends … Your attitude is what is Hopeless … The Future is just fine.
Fight The Power … Free The Future
Thanx to my Facebook buddy Brian Spencer for the motivation to write this … one of the many Good Americans I know
STU WHO? 