Weight of the Word

2003-04-01 - 5:40 a.m.

And I suck, mainly because instead of doing really boring work, I sometimes look at websites that have me mildly alarmed at a lot of current policies and policies-in-the-making, as well as things-that-aren't-policies-and-definitely-shouldn't-be-but-are-possibly-happening-anyway-but-'they'-don't-want-you-to-know-about-them.

I've said it before, but one of the worst things about being an activist, especially someone who is seeking radical change from the status quo, is that you start to feel like you're a part of someone's paranoid delusion. You have to start checking and double-checking your sources, your ideas, you find yourself wondering why - if it's so clear to you - everyone you know is seemingly in denial. Often, your family doesn't see things the way you do, and sometimes people act with outright disblief. You are dismissed as a conspiracy theorist, a naive-well-meaning-moron, or just plain dismissed without any need for further labeling.

And so, you start to make friends with people who feel similar to you. You hang out with them because sometimes it's just -nice- not to have to argue, or wonder if it's you who's crazy or the world. You try to minimize your social contact with the people who will make fun of you, deride you, and maybe just avoid the people who plain old disagree. Most people are pretty good at organising their lives so that there's a minimum of speaking with people who don't agree with them.

But isn't this what happens when people start to lose touch with reality? Religious cults want you isolated. The most extreme conspiracy theorists only speak with -other- conspiracy theorists. It's easier to ignore reality when you're only confronted with other people who are more or less as deluded as you are, right? Where's the reality check?

I think most of us are pretty safe in this regard...I know that it's impossible to get my parents to stop calling me (most often when I've had too much to drink and accidently answer the phone before realising that I can't pronounce "Hi, Mom!" without slurring, tripping over the cat, spilling a drink all over the bong...), I have to work, and unfortunately activist groups don't pay so well, and I'm addicted to television. Survivor may not be good television, but at least it's one person's view of how other people would work in a fabricated situation, and that's worth something, right?

But even with those built-in safety nets, what happens when you read something really disturbing?

I am -certain- that keeping my hold on reality while showing up at anti-war and anti-globalisation/corporate-rule protests is a denial of some facts, if only because believing them (because I'm pretty sure that some things I've dismissed are real, unless I'm omniscient...which is even scarier, since I don't -feel- omniscient) would tip me over into a realm that is really, really close to not knowing what the fuck to do. I need to deny or ignore some facts if I'm going to hold onto all the other facts.

But where's the balance here? I'm pretty sure that my step-mom is fully capable of understanding that the two cars that my dad and step mom own, the cheap, disposable diapers they used for my sister (years ago...which reminds me of an entry I want to write), the coffee that they drink each morning...she's capable of understanding that her $25 a month to support a child in Africa isn't quite balancing out the damage done. She's chosen to ignore certain facts in her life in order to maintain other facts (they need two cars in case of an emergency, the diapers freed up time for her to focus on other things, Mmmmm, Coffee (and the pennies saved will go to baby's school funds). I don't agree with some of the choices she's made, but how do I know that my choices are any better?

And then we come to those facts that fall on the border - it hurts to believe them, but they don't really harm me, and by ignoring them I make things worse. Like the Total Information Awareness plan being implemented by the US government (as described by a new site I've discovered, and am kinda thrilled about because it might not be completely crackpot-y, Warblogging ). In a nutshell, by 2007, the US government wants to have established a system of watching -everything- its citizens do. The premise is that through this information they can prevent threats to the nation's security, the problem is that it puts at risk basic civil liberties.

Now, we can get into a debate about whether or not we should be worried about being watched constantly ("If you have nothing to hide/have done nothing wrong, then what's the problem?"), but what -I'm- worried about first is that this is Big News and I bet you that barely anyone has heard about it. Fox and CNN will fill the airwaves with animal attacks and missing children being found, with analysis of the war and celebrity news but not about the most powerful and undefeatable version of "Secret Police" ever created?

Every now and then I stumble onto a website like this one, and invariably I have to spend time - a lot of time - trying to decide if I'm being had, or if they're misled, or if I've found a conspiracy theorist's webpage by mistake. How insane are these people? Are they telling me truth or just a version of it? Are they trustworthy, or am I being subjected to propaganda from the left instead of propaganda from the right?

And so I have to weigh this, give it some sort of weight, and act accordingly, and I have to wonder if I might not just be better off going to sleep and not getting out of bed ever again.

Cheers,

The Magus

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