...and All That Was

if you wish to see the intro to this, please read the previous entry

I finished watching Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine about 30 minutes ago. since then i have been thinking a lot about what he covers, what controls the greater population of America and what makes humanity such a diffinative threat. to get it out right now, i completely disagree with Michael Moore's opinion that fear runs the world. i could go into lengthy explanations as to why i believe fear does not run things. i'm not going to though, because i'm not intending to write an arguement, simply formed to shoot down another person's beliefs. what i intend to do, instead, is to write an explanation (which will probably be extremely lengthy) as to what i do feel runs america, if not the entire world.

GUILT

guilt runs america as a whole. i will simply address america with this, because i am not "world wise" enough to feel that i can address the people of other nations.

for anyone reading this that has not seen Bowling for Columbine, Michael Moore attempts to illustrate that violence in america is a direct result of the inherant fear americans feel. he shows that americans are told by the government and the media to be affraid of everything they could posibly be affraid of.

i feel though that guilt incourages many more violant acts than fear does. i am told by everyone everywhere that i am guilty.
My girlfriend makes me feel guilty for having a cigarette.
My family makes me feel guilty for not yet having graduated college.
My friends make me feel guilty for not recently havnig a job.
My church makes me feel guilty for not having enough money to donate during services.
My government makes me feel guilty for...way too many things to even try to pick out a good example.

everyone feels this guilt. over $525 million dollars were raised to help the family of September 11th, 2001. approximately 3360 people died involving what happened that day. this means that for each death, over $15 million dollars were raised. americans felt guilty enough to donate that much money. people will tell me that i'm wrong and the money was donated out of a desire to help, but even then i'm right. for wouldn't most of those people who desired to help have felt guilty if they didn't. i donated nothing and felt no guilt. i sound callous now. read on though. when my father died (which in my consideration is not long before) there was no great fund-raising to help my family. my father died of pancreotic cancer which he in no way brought upon himself. on a similar note, the people working in the trade centers, or traveling on the planes, or venturing too close to a (then) dangerous place did nothing (at least nothing i consider nearly direct enough) to cause what took their lives. those people recieved large ammounts of money to help them adjust to the radical change in lifestyle. my family spent large ammounts (not nearly as much as the families involved in 9-11 received) of money attempting to ease my father's pain before being forced to, likewise, adjust to the radical change in lifestyle. yet, i am told i am a bad person for not supporting those families. i am told i am guilty of some such wrong-doing.

this is merely one example of forced guilt upon a people that fail to notice. this also has yet to even touch upon guilt causing violence.

demonstrators (while often times completely peaceful) opperate in the exact same fashion as the government they so often oppose. they place guilt upon unassociated parties. we are told that "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." it's simply not true though. i've never caused a single civilian death in a single war fought by any country. since that's an easy fact to prove, guilt must be placed upon me in another way. i'm being told that i'm making things worse by not fighting against them. to my knowledge, fighting is the whole problem and agreement is the desired outcome. i'm supposed to fight (even if it is peacefully) someone who is fighting in order to reach agreement? using any recent war as an example: i'm told by the war supporters that i'm guilty if i don't support the war and i'm told by the protestors that i'm guilty if i don't protest the war. when i stand the middle ground and remain uninvolved, but the protestors and the supporters tell me that i'm guilty. more guilt being placed upon my already guilt laden conscience.

yet still, i've not translated any of this into how guilt causes violance. yet still, i have more that i feel i need to cover.

Any non-black is guilty if they use the term "nigga/nigger" which is commonly used by blacks
Any strait person is guilty if they don't actively support gay rights.

Now, i am guilty. i just blamed 2 minorities and you will tell me that i am being prejeduce and bigoted. i am just illustrating that everyone places guilt. black men, white men, yellow men, red men, red women, yellow women, white women, black women. everyone.

so now we're all equal. now we're all guilty and we're all declaring each other guilty and we've suddenly become equals. not everyone sees things similarly though. regardless of who you are, you do not like to feel guilty and you attempt to avoid it and to remove the guilt when you do feel it. sometimes guilt begets remorse and a desire for repentance. such is the case with donations being made for 9-11. this is a somewhat productive way to deal with guilt. sometimes guilt is dealt with be removal. if you avoid the source of the guilt or even the guilt itself then you don't have to deal with the cause of the guilt. many people turn to drugs or to the internet (wonderful to escape from things) or simply become depressed and avoid all possible interaction.

and sometimes guilt is dealt with by removing the source of guilt. in the case of columbine, 2 boys were made to feel guilty for being different from the others in their class. those 2 boys attempted to remove the cause of their guilt. yes, they are wrong for what they did. additionally, everyone who made they feel that being different was wrong and unacceptable is also guilty.

it is, and will always be, totally unnacceptable to kill someone simply for personal satisfaction, as both boys at columbine did. it is, and always will be, totally unnacceptable to persecute, degrade or demoralize a person for non-harmful traits. traits such as the color of one's skin, one's sexual orientation, one's gender, one's intelligence level, one's age, one's financial situation, one's personal opinions/taste, and many other (seriously, you can't expect me to list them all) things.

it's not just the anger that is causing the violance in america. it is the guilt. americans are now told they are guilty of more travesties than any other nation and it is wearing on the people. i don't believe that our past should be forgotten. i do believe, however, that i should not be told to feel bad for sins of people past. i shouldn't feel bad that blacks were slaves, nor that indians (native americans, for those of you who prefer that) pushed off their lands, nor that japaneese people were bombed about 60 years ago, nor that mexicans were pushed out of their land.

you want something productive out of me america? tell me that I am hope. tell me that you're glad i'm not enslaving blacks or killing indians. tell me that you're glad i'm not shooting people at my schools i've attented. tell me that you're glad i'm not declaring war on anyone. you tell me that you're proud of me and i'll be glad to hold that pride. i'm not guilty for the sins of the past. i've lived my own life and done enough things i sought forgiveness for. let everyone live their own lives and let everyone live those lives with the pride that they, too, aren't responsible for someone else's guilt.