No, I don’t understand the world anymore.
You send your child to school and he may or may not return, depending on the whim of some troubled kid who happens to have an assault weapon in his backpack.
You hear the argument: if all the people in Phoenix had been armed, they would have prevented the tragedy. So, we need more arms. Your hair goes up, your skin curls. Is there any reason left? Has all sanity disappeared?
There is a rule concerning theater: if there’s a gun on stage, it will most definitely fire. Having a weapon is a guarantee that someone is going to get hurt. You think: does this simple principle need to be explained some more? Don’t we have enough proof? Who else needs to die to make the point clear?
You read about the death of the DREAM act initiative. You picture those senators that killed it before it reached the Senate floor. In your mind you see those privileged people looking in the eyes of the college kids who played by the rules but are still harshly punished for something they’re not responsible for. They have to pay for the “sins of their fathers”. Sins? Trying to run away from misery and injustice in a mafia – run country is a sin? Trying to secure a better life for your child is a sin? But even if it were, why are the kids being punished?
You read about the biggest gains ever of the corporate world this year and your brain freezes. Isn’t there a recession going on? Apparently it’s the recession for some people and not for the others.
You read that 1% of the population owns 99% of the resources of this country. The picture is the same all over the world. Your brain explodes. You can’t bear it any longer.
Concepts like justice, fairness and decency are dead. In this “classless” society the new order is being established, the new class system based solely on one thing: money. You feel it on every corner, this plain and clear discrimination. Racial discrimination is still alive and well but it seems to me that we live in a world of the new brand of discrimination: classism. Moneyism.
The picture of the world is frightening: not only have we managed to destroy our forests and our oceans, we have also allowed the ruthless barbarians to destroy our core values.
I very much wanted to post an optimistic piece at the beginning of the New Year. But I can’t. I just can’t. Instead of false optimism, I wish all of you who are reading this – strength. Strength to continue hoping that change is possible.