I don’t even know what

I don’t even know what to say. There is a story on the observer that is very depressing. i live in houston, i am only vaguely familiar with the story they are talking about with the Houston Business Partnership, what i have heard verifies what they said though. I can promise you at least 95% of the population in houston has not heard of this organization. It was talked about on the radio one time that i heard on a very minor station.

I honestly don’t think there is anything people can do about the government we have now, and that is depressing. people don’t know what is happening, and are unwilling to learn. the news is becoming advertisements for the entertainment products of the parent company. cnn headline news is now 15 minutes of news, and 15 minutes of entertainment updates fashioned as news. with only 15 minutes of news however, only the most glaringly unquestionable statements have time to be said, and analysis is completely gone. of course, when i say 15 minutes of news and 15 of entertainment i am incorrect, because i have forgotten the advertisements that don’t pretend to be news, which probably last at least 10 minutes/30min cycle.

So, what can we do? we’re in a democracy, we can vote, except the precinct lines are redrawn by congress to ensure reelection, and unless you’re in a swing state your vote is meaningless on the national scale anyway. even if you are lucky enough to find yourself in a swing state any choice other than one of the two major parties is still meaningless, and certainly both parties take money from corporations. we can protest, but protesters are crazy, and no one knows what they’re protesting about, because the topics are never covered in the news. we can pay lobby groups. that’s really the only thing that works, but normal people cannot out-compete corporations. we can only cause change in social areas, because the companies don’t care, but we cannot win in the areas where they do care.

I think it’s important to come back to the protesting area, when people protested in seattle no one understood what they were protesting. only that they were ‘anti-globalization’. which seems backwards. i didn’t follow many alternative news sources then and thought they were sort of hippies who were opposed to cultural homogeneity. (which is part of it, but certainly not central). then as i learned more about the anti-globalization movement and the WTO etc i remember thinking, “well, this can’t be what they were protesting, it’s so esoteric and complicated that many people would never know about it” it was hard for me to even consider that these people knew about those issues, that’s how completely the media refuses to educate the population. so protesting does nothing. people don’t know what you’re doing. yes, they know you’re upset, but they don’t know why. the media will redefine your cause into something that can be said in 15 seconds, and about which no one will relate. (even then, only if it is a huge protest of course)

so, that’s my rant for today, no hope at the end. sorry. ha, for starting out “i don’t know what to say” i blabbed on forever.