A Global Village
The hypocrisy continues with no relief in sight! I'm still amazed at how the population is willing to accept the atrocities of the growing totalitarianism of our current administration! The architecture of a regime, through the increasing disregard to the constitution and the ongoing breaking of civil law, seems so obvious to me. And the formation of a Patriot Police worries the hell out of me. Yet there are millions of our citizens, who do not see these atrocities as harmful to the basic democractic principles our country has been built upon. The typical response of the supporters of our current administration is usually something like, "There are times we just have to give up a little freedom in order to maintain a level of safety and security here in our country." And I've found any attempt to point out the obvious to these supporters is normally met with an uncompromising argument about patriotism, freedom, and democracy! I am treated as if I don't have a clue what the definition of these words are, and I am usually reminded that my non-support of the president and his adminstration's war on terror, only aids the country's enemies. If not agreeing with authoritarianism makes me unpatriotic, then so be it! I put my trust and belief in the power of the people, not an institution, and certainly not in elected politicians who follow dictated party lines and whose concerns for the working people come second to capital!
Now I can understand stubborness and can really appreciate it as a tool for the perseverance of our beliefs and actions. I understand stubborness because I have a boatload of it myself. Most times, my stubborness goes entirely against any efforts of arbitration or compromise for sure. I am not a negotiator myself because I'm just too damn stubborn and no matter how many attempts to alter or change myself, I have continued to fail. But I'm still trying and haven't given up yet! So, I'm just as guilty of the tunnel visioned beliefs as the people who support our president's administration and their plans. What is it that separates us and creates the structures of our personal beliefs in such opposite points of view? And I'm not talking about the elite within our society, but the working people themselves. The people who have so much in common but yet view the issues at completely opposite ends of the social spectrum. Is it religious beliefs which separate us, rascism issues, the capitalism/socialism ideologies, or a little of all of these? Some have quoted poles which indicate half the U.S. population is incapable of acquiring, processing, and understanding information. I can't nail it down and I'm asking because I don't have the answers. And I find it imperative that the working people, who stand to lose the most, must find some common ground of solidification. I know the majority of us believe in truth and justice, but these issues seem to become obscure and shadowed by the other issues. Somehow we must come together in order to stem, or at least to soften, the innevitable impact. Like they say, it's not the fall, but rather it's the sudden stop when you hit bottom that really hurts!
I have this dream of a Global Village. Okay, that's not my terminology for it, but the term is from Marshall McLuhan and his description of how electronic mass media would collapse space and time barriers in human communication. This collapse would enable people to interact and live on a global scale, which would basically turn the earth as we know it into a Global Village, spurred by electronic mass media. Of course we can implant the internet into his "electronic mass media" idea and see the possibilities of globalizing communities by this interconnectedness of the people over the entire earth. This connectedness allows the possibility of forming new unheard of before sociological structures within the context of culture. We now have the ability to create an unprecedented historical period in the advancement of civilization. In McLuhans book, Gutenburg Galaxy, he states that "technologies are not simply inventions which people employ but are the means by which people are re-invented." Re-inventing a people, a culture, or a civilization based on equality and justice is certainly an appealing undertaking in my opinion, and it seems to me that the tools for doing exactly this, are continually presenting themselves to the people of the earth who have this dream of a world built of the people, and by the people. McLuhan's idea that the Medium is the Massage, has raised him into the status of a prophet by many internet advocates. It really doesn't matter what we call it, global village, global awareness, or global consciousness, it basically describes a new tool in the search for equality, justice, and peace!
We have a long way to go before the global population majority is exposed to the electronic medium of the internet but we will eventually get there, and in remote places throughout the world there are people, such as Dr. Abraham George, who are dedicated to bringing the poor and remote peoples of their country into the realm of the Global Village. In the Daily Independent, Goke Omolade writes about the global village. In his article, he mentions the difference in the world's individuals, their ethics and mannerisms, and also how the impact of religion, science, and technology shape the behavioural content of nations and their inhabitants.
Omolade mentions that the experiences of our past, which the entire world has become accustomed to, may take a while to wear off, but through the connectedness of the people, it is becoming increasingly difficult for power mongers to remain behind their walls of non-transparency as the web continually opens windows to these atrocities.
The dream of a Global Village is shared by many of the earth's people, and an integral part of this dream is the possibility that one day we could see the inhabitants of our planet living within a new borderless community which employs cooperative intelligence rather than corporatist negligence. Why is it so difficult to imagine a world without borders? I find it very easy to picture our earth as a Global Village, and I know there are others who have the ability to see the possibilities of such an alliance as well. I'm sure the people who share this thought are in the minority, but I truly believe the ranks are growing, as the people of our earth are continually subjected to the ineptitude of our current economic and political systems and the leaders within these systems. The current mindset of the political structures offer no solutions, only increased problems and injustices. Yes, we are different, but there is a place where we are equal and our differences can be overcome by meaningful dialogue concerning human rights, equality, and justice. Regardless of which borders we reside behind, once we remove the ideology of profits and the consumeristic approach to happiness, we can find neighbors who have the same underlying characteristics and principles that most of us possess. Once we rise above the propagandist static, it is possible to hear the truth from real human beings. You see, the people are much smarter than the machines our societies have created. It's just that we must unchain ourselves from these machines in order to "see"!
Take my neighborhood for example. I have very good neighbors all around me, even though we are very different, we all share many common goals and ideas. There are Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, agnostics, shamans, and atheists which live in my neighborhood. There are office workers, government employees, teachers, construction workers, retail workers, and non-workers in my neighborhood. There are Asian Americans, African Americans, Austrian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Indian Americans in my neighborhood. There are voters and non-voters in my community. There are people who have yearly income levels from $50,000+ to less than $10,000 in my neighborhood. But with all this diversity, there still remains a cohesion among all of us and their are no borders between our homes. We are a community which shares a common respect for each other's rights. If a neighborhood and a community can be interactive and adhere to a system based on human rights and justice, then why can't the entire planet behave in the same way? Could it possibly be that an elite few people in power are so concerned about maintaining their power, that they keep the populations separated for their own personal gains? Do our political machines build walls between the people of the world in order to maintain a structure which promotes the ideology of a few with ulterior motives of power?
Perhaps we all have to get to a point where we lay all our nationalities aside and search for a federation of human beings on a world-wide scale. A place where communication between individuals and communities apart from the misinformation that radiates from our present world leaders. The idea of a Global Village has been around for a very long time and people with the foresight have desired a more connected and informed world population which could create a better world. And the bottom line is I believe, the desire for a better world should be what all of us concentrate on. This should be our common ground and all our endeavors and actions should focus on this as an "end", and this leaves us with a whole lot of work and coordination between all of us, deciding what should be the "means" of reaching this "end"!
Now I can understand stubborness and can really appreciate it as a tool for the perseverance of our beliefs and actions. I understand stubborness because I have a boatload of it myself. Most times, my stubborness goes entirely against any efforts of arbitration or compromise for sure. I am not a negotiator myself because I'm just too damn stubborn and no matter how many attempts to alter or change myself, I have continued to fail. But I'm still trying and haven't given up yet! So, I'm just as guilty of the tunnel visioned beliefs as the people who support our president's administration and their plans. What is it that separates us and creates the structures of our personal beliefs in such opposite points of view? And I'm not talking about the elite within our society, but the working people themselves. The people who have so much in common but yet view the issues at completely opposite ends of the social spectrum. Is it religious beliefs which separate us, rascism issues, the capitalism/socialism ideologies, or a little of all of these? Some have quoted poles which indicate half the U.S. population is incapable of acquiring, processing, and understanding information. I can't nail it down and I'm asking because I don't have the answers. And I find it imperative that the working people, who stand to lose the most, must find some common ground of solidification. I know the majority of us believe in truth and justice, but these issues seem to become obscure and shadowed by the other issues. Somehow we must come together in order to stem, or at least to soften, the innevitable impact. Like they say, it's not the fall, but rather it's the sudden stop when you hit bottom that really hurts!
I have this dream of a Global Village. Okay, that's not my terminology for it, but the term is from Marshall McLuhan and his description of how electronic mass media would collapse space and time barriers in human communication. This collapse would enable people to interact and live on a global scale, which would basically turn the earth as we know it into a Global Village, spurred by electronic mass media. Of course we can implant the internet into his "electronic mass media" idea and see the possibilities of globalizing communities by this interconnectedness of the people over the entire earth. This connectedness allows the possibility of forming new unheard of before sociological structures within the context of culture. We now have the ability to create an unprecedented historical period in the advancement of civilization. In McLuhans book, Gutenburg Galaxy, he states that "technologies are not simply inventions which people employ but are the means by which people are re-invented." Re-inventing a people, a culture, or a civilization based on equality and justice is certainly an appealing undertaking in my opinion, and it seems to me that the tools for doing exactly this, are continually presenting themselves to the people of the earth who have this dream of a world built of the people, and by the people. McLuhan's idea that the Medium is the Massage, has raised him into the status of a prophet by many internet advocates. It really doesn't matter what we call it, global village, global awareness, or global consciousness, it basically describes a new tool in the search for equality, justice, and peace!
We have a long way to go before the global population majority is exposed to the electronic medium of the internet but we will eventually get there, and in remote places throughout the world there are people, such as Dr. Abraham George, who are dedicated to bringing the poor and remote peoples of their country into the realm of the Global Village. In the Daily Independent, Goke Omolade writes about the global village. In his article, he mentions the difference in the world's individuals, their ethics and mannerisms, and also how the impact of religion, science, and technology shape the behavioural content of nations and their inhabitants.
In fact, the concept of a global village, largely, has to do with the world taken as a unit community interconnected by electronic gadgets and irrespective of one’s geographic location, the ease of telecommunications answers the demand of such needs. In a way, advancement in information technology can be adduced to the imaginative reasoning of the 1950s science fiction. That the world enjoys the services of the Internet and related network programmes is noteworthy enough and by the time the fruits and commonality of the super-highway technology are available, humanity would be the better for it. Even at that, history is seemingly on the side of the trend of events presently unfolding and since history itself is a continuum of thesis and synthesis; it might be appropriate to say that the world is on the synthetic spot wherein innovative ideas contend with opposing forces of maladministration, sheer oppression and squalor.
Omolade mentions that the experiences of our past, which the entire world has become accustomed to, may take a while to wear off, but through the connectedness of the people, it is becoming increasingly difficult for power mongers to remain behind their walls of non-transparency as the web continually opens windows to these atrocities.
The dream of a Global Village is shared by many of the earth's people, and an integral part of this dream is the possibility that one day we could see the inhabitants of our planet living within a new borderless community which employs cooperative intelligence rather than corporatist negligence. Why is it so difficult to imagine a world without borders? I find it very easy to picture our earth as a Global Village, and I know there are others who have the ability to see the possibilities of such an alliance as well. I'm sure the people who share this thought are in the minority, but I truly believe the ranks are growing, as the people of our earth are continually subjected to the ineptitude of our current economic and political systems and the leaders within these systems. The current mindset of the political structures offer no solutions, only increased problems and injustices. Yes, we are different, but there is a place where we are equal and our differences can be overcome by meaningful dialogue concerning human rights, equality, and justice. Regardless of which borders we reside behind, once we remove the ideology of profits and the consumeristic approach to happiness, we can find neighbors who have the same underlying characteristics and principles that most of us possess. Once we rise above the propagandist static, it is possible to hear the truth from real human beings. You see, the people are much smarter than the machines our societies have created. It's just that we must unchain ourselves from these machines in order to "see"!
Take my neighborhood for example. I have very good neighbors all around me, even though we are very different, we all share many common goals and ideas. There are Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, agnostics, shamans, and atheists which live in my neighborhood. There are office workers, government employees, teachers, construction workers, retail workers, and non-workers in my neighborhood. There are Asian Americans, African Americans, Austrian Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, and Indian Americans in my neighborhood. There are voters and non-voters in my community. There are people who have yearly income levels from $50,000+ to less than $10,000 in my neighborhood. But with all this diversity, there still remains a cohesion among all of us and their are no borders between our homes. We are a community which shares a common respect for each other's rights. If a neighborhood and a community can be interactive and adhere to a system based on human rights and justice, then why can't the entire planet behave in the same way? Could it possibly be that an elite few people in power are so concerned about maintaining their power, that they keep the populations separated for their own personal gains? Do our political machines build walls between the people of the world in order to maintain a structure which promotes the ideology of a few with ulterior motives of power?
Perhaps we all have to get to a point where we lay all our nationalities aside and search for a federation of human beings on a world-wide scale. A place where communication between individuals and communities apart from the misinformation that radiates from our present world leaders. The idea of a Global Village has been around for a very long time and people with the foresight have desired a more connected and informed world population which could create a better world. And the bottom line is I believe, the desire for a better world should be what all of us concentrate on. This should be our common ground and all our endeavors and actions should focus on this as an "end", and this leaves us with a whole lot of work and coordination between all of us, deciding what should be the "means" of reaching this "end"!
posted by atuuschaaw at 8:52 AM
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