How to be Kedar

the declaration of the US states that we have three inalienable rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But there’s something that I feel is more important than the right to life.

what the constitution, or any constitution that I know of, doesn’t say is that we should have an inalienable right to the truth. a representative democracy should disclose all of its proceedings openly to the citizen. the citizen should be properly informed on the issues. executive politicians must be required to keep campaign promises (circumstantially), not flip-flop on key issues, and have a specific plan (not just vague ideals or rhetoric). press secretaries should disclose true information about the cabinet and the administration. representatives must represent the citizens. there should be no tolerance for pork barreling, gerrymandering, filibustering, lobbying, misuse of taxpayer dollars, and other forms of corruption. there should be a legal standard for news – if there is a form of media that consists of blatant misinformation, it should be illegal to call it ‘news’. if it is called news, then there must be some kind of clear warning that it is not news. schools should have a required current events class, where they discuss and debate over contentious contemporary issues and learn how to stay informed.

one of the pillars of democracy is the educated citizen. if the citizen is unaware and misinformed, we cease to live in a democracy. that is the principle behind why we must have an inalienable right to truth.

The human world today is played through power and politics. Machiavellian deception. Power of rhetorical persuasion. Strategic moves at the price of worker bees for the integrity of the hive. Civilization is a game of chess and we are the sacrificial pieces. White and blue collars are a commodity to be traded and sold like slaves, like goods. Indentured servants, if you will, with compensatory rights and freedoms. That is what we have become.

How could I not have seen it sooner? The game of power and politics affects all of us. Media conglomerates control most of what we see and hear (look at Fox news, the #1 name in news), spin conservative and liberal slants on the news. It is bigger than any one of us. There is a mass dehumanization in progress. That minority of the wealthiest of the wealthy controls the world’s assets and we middle class citizens are the buffer that protects them from the poorest of the poor. The rise of the middle class just after the founding of constitutional America protected the wealthy merchants on the east coast from the poor white farmers pushed to the west, the native Americans, the slaves, the indentured servants. I know this much because I have been reading a book on the history of the United States. It’s because the power of the middle population became vestigial. And so it is in the ’70s era movie “The Network” which I just watched today, where people around the world scream from their windows, “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!”

Now perhaps I am sounding like the doomsday liberal. A political test will show that I am a left-leaning centrist. But my message is not one of despair, it is a message of hope. We as Americans should get off our couches, turn off the boobtube, and at the very least live like real people with real lives rather than watching laugh-track sitcoms and celebrity exposes to hide from our own insecurity social physical or otherwise.

The only hope is dismantling this gargantuan power struggle. It is not possible for one person alone. Maybe it is not even possible. Some of the most powerful voices in the country are not members of this exclusive, secretive board of directors of the main network of regulating firms. It is immediately clear that fame and fortune provide security. That is why the rich and famous get out of jail early. That is why the media features non-stop coverage of Paris Hilton’s week in jail when there is real news elsewhere.

My dad argues that there is no such thing as ‘real news’. He says that anything that is new to him is ‘news’. I emphatically disagree, and even the very thought of that makes me writhe with anger. There is a distinction between fat and muscle and bone and sinew and skin and organs and whatever else there is in a human body. And there is bogus news and there is real news. Paris Hilton, a panda cub being born at a city area zoo, a video of a dog on a skateboard, a weekly ‘person of the week’ segment, a pregnant woman sky diving. This is not ‘news’ news, people. These are things that should be maybe on a talk show or in an opinion and editorial column. This is not news.

A democracy can only work if the citizen is informed. That is why we have a socialistic school system. But here we are, and the students are inculcated to pledge their allegiance to the flag. A democracy is not based on a blind appeal to authority, people. Democracy is self-autonomy, it is the will to positive liberty! But we are not taught how to save from squandering God-given democratic ideals in our schools. This is something I have had to pick up on my own.

Nietzche’s will to power philosophy suddenly makes more sense. If I want to help other people, I need to secure my negative liberties from not only the government, but with people. If I want to do that, I will have to create social connections with powerful interests (the ladder of greed so to speak). But remember that old syllogism ‘power is corruption’.

There is a deep part of me that wants to change the order of the world. I want to secure rights to the rightless. Freedoms to the unfree. Humanity to the inhuman. And I know that if you search deeply in your heart you will feel this same passion and ardor, that pure will.

If it were not for the civil rights movement, women and men of color would be treated less fairly. It is of course the case today that these people are still not treated with the spirit of equality. But the point is that many people boycotted and rioted and protested and sent letters and paraded and defied laws and unionized and went on strike. It is only when enough people do this that the people in power calm the riotous masses by bending back and allowing new liberties. When we are comfortable with life, when we do nothing and learn nothing, we are either robbed of freedoms or denied of freedoms.

I have finished with enough ranting for today. But this meditation on power and freedom… this is something that I will have to think about even more……

Here’s a little video mashup of mccain and o’reilly that I whipped up in premiere. enjoy: