Love to Learn, Learn to Love.

Dangerous Juice

There is no doubt that there is overwhelming division in societies of the West – mass shootings, stabbings, the venom which blankets contemporary social media, terrorism both imported and domestic, hate speech and hate crimes. There are a multitude of questions surrounding this serious crisis such as: Why is this stuff happening right now? Were/Are the characteristics associated with, and driving this hate and division always within people or are hate and division relatively new social, cultural and political phenomena? Regardless of the answer to the previous query, what or who has created the psychological environment which has been conducive to fostering mass murder, terror and hate speech and activity all of which thrive on racist thought?

Firstly, let’s agree that the hate was already there, buried, but there for sure. It took the present occupant of the White House, the moron-in-chief, with his hate-filled, racist speeches at rallies and his tweets to unleash it for all to witness. Hitler unleashed the hate against Jews, blaming us for Germany’s problems in the period between World War I and World War II. Trump has substituted Mexicans and other brown-skinned peoples for the German and other European Jews during the inter-war period (1919 to 1939).
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Another question arises and that is the following: Is it better to bring all the shit to the fore or for it to remain buried beneath the surface? I believe that it’s better for it to emerge now, given that it was there to begin with, rather than allowing it to fester and grow with time, only to emerge at some later date, driven by another impetus like that provided by the hate and division spewed by the moron-in-chief.

Why, you may ask. With the big reveal, everything is out in the open and only those going through life with closed eyes and ears can argue that the big hate is only a figment of one’s imagination. Thus we know what faces us and we must begin to take action to confront and hopefully eradicate it as soon as possible, not while the moron-in-chief is in the Oval Office however.
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Once Trump has been replaced by a progressive Democrat or Independent, we can begin the healing process. A much better educational system than that existing in the United States of Amerika is necessary to accomplish that goal. Education, higher education, gives one perspective to help us make enlightened decisions and judgements rather than ones based on ignorance and hate.

It won’t be easy, it won’t happen overnight. The rich love to see people in society fighting with each other rather than focusing on them, who are the real enemies of the people. I am talking about the filthy rich, the two hundred or so families in Amerika who control the politicians and other decision-makers. When they say jump, politicians ask how high. I am not arguing that it’s a sin to accumulate wealth. What is sinful is the high degree of concentration of wealth in fewer hands so that the middle and working classes struggle to make ends meet, while the owners and managers live lives of wealth and luxury. The fact that Amazon and Walmart workers barely earn a living wage while the owners of these companies and others like them go along their jewel-encrusted way, increasing their already enormous wealth daily, at the expense of their workers on the one hand, whose labour they exploit to the max, and consumers who often pay high prices for goods and services. Those two economic elements when coupled together allow for the upper socio-economic to earn maximum profit at our expense as workers and consumers.
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This seems an undeniable fact of life but it would seem that there are a surprising number of others don’t quite see it, understand it and acknowledge that they are being exploited, taken advantage of. Either that, or they do realize how the alienation the system has foisted – “foistered” in the words of this ridiculous president, I kid you not; he actually said it twice, failing miserably to correct himself after getting it wrong the first time and trying to correct himself the second time, unsuccessfully – foisted on them has deadened their spirits and increased their desperation as they struggle to put food on the table, a roof over their families’ heads and clothes on their backs and all this is okay with them because they see a kindred spirit and a saviour in Donald John Trump, someone, according to them who speaks his mind and says what they, his supporters are thinking.
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Education along with college and university level reading lists can help educate the ignorant, the so-called by Hillary Clinton “basket of deplorables” so as to gain some degree of perspective and understanding so that they can begin to ask themselves some serious questions: Why is Medicare a good thing? How can college/university education help one understand what is really going on in a society which claims to be the richest on the globe, and yet sees enormous poverty, homelessness and where many fight just to survive while a wealthy few have more money than they know what to do with?

Along with other factors which I have so far failed to identify, a better educational system will allow a shift to the left to occur among a significant slice of the U.S. population, and once realization and a consequent awakening happens, things are bound to change. No longer will socialism be regarded as evil but will be seen instead as a way of giving more people a fighting chance to improve their situations rather than desperately spinning their wheels as is the case in contemporary western civilization.
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However, this process will not take hold overnight. No sir. It’ll take generations, my friend. Three generations, a minimum of seventy years, which is the necessary amount of time for a new set of values be taught and learned.

One more thing, however, must be added here. Another four years of Trump will be very dangerous for civilization as we know it, and DNC centrism will serve to make Trump’s re-election a reality. Horrible thought.

Peace out.

4 Comments

  • B. Glen Rotchin says:

    B. Glen Rotchin says:
    I’m not sure I can agree with your thesis that education is an antidote to indecency. It certainly wasn’t a prophylactic against Germany becoming the most barbaric society in human history. In fact the most educated, professors and doctors, were percentage wise the most complicit with atrocity. I don’t think having moral values necessarily derives from education, and certainly not secular education. Plenty of classically uneducated people are decent folk.

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      As a result of the above comment I have revised what I previously wrote about education as the sole vehicle for change. I have added some other factors which, when coupled with a revamped educational system, will cause necessary social and cultural change throughout the western world, including in the U.S.A. Unfortunately, I don’t yet know what those aforementioned other factors are. Maybe, some day soon, I will it figure out.

  • John Michael Sinclair says:

    Excellent writing skills.

    • Jerry Cohen says:

      Thanks, John. Just saw your kind comment. Btw, you may be interested to know that I have written a book entitled “Aim with your heart; shoot with your mind. Memoir of an Extra-ordinary teacher”, for which I put my “excellent writing skills” to use. I am in the process of trying to get a traditional publishing house to take a chance on my book. Failing that, I plan to self-publish. I will keep you apprised. I guarantee that many of the more than 5000 students and colleagues I have encountered over a career which spanned some thirty-four years would want to read my book. The sale of 5000 copies makes one a best-selling author in Quebec, by the way. As a matter of fact, in doing some informal market research, every single student I asked stated in no uncertain terms that they couldn’t wait to read my work.

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