Letters to the Editor
bostonMA
Published Letters: 36 Editor's Choice: 22
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Failed?
[Read the article: How the press failed on Iraq]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The semester is over? Hardly.
Why hasn't our press been expelled for violating the code of conduct they promised to uphold when we admitted them? Why are those we put on probation only those who spoke against the fraudulent work of their peers?
Our society would rather look away from the reality we have created than actually address the rampant offenses and occasional barbarities committed in our name. It is much easier to create a G-rated alternate reality we deem appropriate for broadcast television. Perhaps then we can let the grown adults in our government deal with the distasteful, gory truths. Isn't that what we elect and pay them for?
How different a world would we have if "reality TV" wasn't limited to producing endless seasons of Survivor?
We must face up to what we have become. The alternative is to accept imminent ostracism by the nations of the world, looming and violent payback for our abuses, financial and moral bankruptcy, and destruction of what remains of our wealth and standard of living. We are a now a nation largely stripped of its capacity to export anything substantial except conflict, counterfeit money and debt. Except we think we're better than that, of course. We hear it every day.
Our political institutions are run by politicians pocketed by businesses who seek influence, favorable policy treatment and lucrative contracts coerced in taxes at every turn. Our financial system is now based more on faith and psychological tactics than some cults, and the few financial statistics still produced by the government are designed to perpetuate this hoax. Somehow we still believe in it. Our politicians will promise endless entitlements to the masses in order to obtain their power, with the office going to the highest bidder. Yet none of these politicians will ever admit that we cannot afford a small fraction of what has already been promised, never mind the promises being made for tomorrow. We elect them anyway.
This nation has been bankrupted by the all-too-human aspirations of a very few who are effectively trading our lives, our liberty, our security, our wealth, and indeed our future for their own power, status and ego.
All of these offenses haven't just been tolerated by the press, but supported by a media who almost universally perpetuates subservience to demands of "patriotism", "national security", and religious "convictions". I regret that our children and grandchildren will one day look upon us as the backwards, hysterical and ignorant generation that we pretend not to be.
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What's the matter with adults today?
[Read the article: What's the matter with kids today?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Which generation continues to actually demonstrate a "stunning ignorance" of the lessons of history?
Which generation was raised on information from across the globe, not just the ideas that were gated by the teacher at the front of a classroom?
Which generation is busy fighting to undermine the challenge to religious indoctrination found in modern science, while continuing obedient support to religious institutions that have systematically traumatized and misinformed children for decades?
Which generation will work for their lifetimes to pay for the debt of their parents?
In my experience working with college-level interns over the last decade, it is almost universally true that these young men and women are more grounded in reality, more curious, more broadly informed, and more skeptical of constructs based only on tradition than their more "adult" mentors. They are also more specialized, which is a positioning that will serve them well in the broad workplace in which they will compete. Considering the world being handed to them, they are also surprisingly forgiving of their largely incompetent and arrogant elders -- at least for now.
Like other changes it has brought, the Internet has enabled this generation in ways more far-reaching and profound than society yet comprehends.