Oh relax. I did that on purpose.

I’ve been thinking about how in the WORLD we got here, to this place, the one that makes everyone uncomfortable. The place that fills some with pure hatred and evil intent, and others with disdain and fear. See, people are not violent by nature, unless they’re among the outliers. People are not normally evil and murderous, unless they are among the outliers. So what the heck is happening? Well…I’ve been thinking about that.

The answer is that the outliers are being manipulated. What we ARE as a society, is manipulatable. We can be manipulated…more and more easily, it would seem. Well, I have made it a game to spot manipulative behavior and to keep calm and not laugh, while I deal with it rationally (find out the truth, the whole truth). It feels good that I have the ability to see that the Wizard of Oz is just a short, gray haired guy hiding from view. Operative word: Hiding.

But many people, maybe, oh, about half, can be led around as easily as flipping to the ‘news’ channel. It bothers me that people are being manipulated into violent and inhumane behavior, but it bothers me MORE that they are completely blind to the puppet masters, ALLOWING themselves to be controlled in this way. It bothers me that people see a headline and throw themselves into inhumane, violent behavior, and more importantly that they feel it is good to behave in these ways. Nobody seems to give any real thought to what they THOUGHT they just saw, and no thought to the source, nor the extent, of the ‘news’.

And it brings despair deep into my heart that our media have become so hateful and untrue, that they seem to find real pleasure in standing before a burning city and acting like that’s just fine. It’s not fine. It makes THEIR job more exciting, true, but it makes our lives worse. It brings despair into my heart that I have no source of trustworthy information about the world in which I live, that nobody trusts anybody anymore. ‘News’ has been tainted to the extent that none of it is useful or believable…even if it is TRUE! One bad apple HAS spoiled the whole bunch.

Don’t get me wrong; there are issues in our society that really steam me, too. And I desperately want the bullies and intolerant ones to be put in their places. But I don’t grab a gun and go shoot someone. That’s not the way to foment change. Violence HURTS any movement. So I support peaceful protest, for as long as it takes. I also support getting rid of the bad apples, weeding them out, exposing them and even imprisoning them if that’s appropriate…AFTER a trial. I DON’T support crucifying anyone before the whole story is known; and I don’t support crucifying anyone ANYWAY. We have a justice system based on facts, and we need, desperately need, to let it work as intended.

‘News’ sound bites don’t provide enough information to know a story, and definitely not enough to incite destruction of an entire city. And I CANNOT understand how any drug abuser, child molester, wife beater or even killer, can become a hero, while law-abiding citizens are treated as criminals, even killed in their once peaceful communities. See, what people have forgotten, or maybe never knew, is that we NEVER get all of the facts on TV. The JURY gets those. And it becoming okay to gun one another down in the street and feel glee about it. This is NOT normal behavior, but it can BECOME normal if this doesn’t stop.

Today I saw that there is a new ‘celebrity’ on Dancing With The Stars, and this women is being investigated for killing her husband and POSSIBLY feeding him to lions! She’s one of the people on Tiger King, and has been found to have forged her missing husband’s will. Now she’s being made a celebrity, and I think about the family of the dead husband, whose body has never been found. I think about their investigation and grief, and wonder who in the world is thinking about THEM? See I think this is insane! But the pundits say it’ll bring viewers. Does that make it okay? NO!! THAT MAKES IT WORSE!! What has HAPPENED to us as a people??

See, I believe many of these outlier folks will grow up one day, have jobs and families of a variety of types, people whom they love; and when they DO, they will feel protective of their loved ones, and themselves as well. They will want their loved ones to be safe and happy. And they will look back at their present behaviors and be mortified. I fear that many of them will pollute their offspring with bad opinions and bad behaviors, putting THEM into the outlier group, and on and on. And I also believe that these current behaviors, or rather MISbehaviors, will forever mark these outliers as unemployable, untrustworthy, unintelligent, manipulatable. I said MARK THEM, not that they are, but some of them surely are. In other words, these people are hurting themselves greatly and they don’t even care.

I never want to go all the way to thinking our society has lost any hope of humanity, but right now, I’m ashamed of our country on the world stage, and I wonder how horrible others believe us to be. I have no doubt we are a laughingstock on the world stage, believed to be a society of animalistic, destructive behavior, when we were once the place of opportunity and hope. I remember being proud to be an American. Now, whole different story.