The rabbit has a sense of urgency. He's always looking at his watch, telling me there's no time to lose. I feel that too. But in order to proceed I need to know where I AM. So let's start here:
1. ECONOMY: There seems to be something dreadfully wrong with the U.S. economy. The U.S. is one of the richest countries in the world, with a mostly literate population and plentiful natural resources. Yet the middle class is losing ground while the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.
Why is the economy on the brink of collapse? Is it possible that it is (and has been) mis-managed? I ask this because I believe it has implications for Canada. Though we are separated by a border, have a Prime Minister and a parliamentary system, we are really 'owned' by the U.S. I mean this in the sense that a schoolyard bully demands your lunch money in payment for his protection services. He demands your loyalty and if you don't give it there could be consequences.
So my question is: Who owns the banks in the U.S. and Canada? What is the role of the Federal Reserve in our current situation? Is the Bank of Canada vulnerable?
2. WAR: We (including Canada) are still fighting wars in foreign countries. Even if we are only involved in so-called 'peaceful' activities, we are on someone else's soil and as often as not we have not been invited there. Our citizens are trained to fight in these wars and are being killed, maimed and traumatized in large numbers.
So my questions are: Who profits from war? Is what we are being told about 'our enemies' the truth? Or are there other ways of looking at these interventions? And why do our young people continue to volunteer to fight wars, be it for 'our' side or theirs? Who really wins?
3. ENVIRONMENT: Despite the fact that we are witnessing (with our own eyes) the destruction of the planet, very little is being done to stop it.
Everyone I know loves animals and thinks they're worth saving. Everyone I know thinks it's a good idea to preserve forests so the planet can breathe. Everyone I know thinks it's a good idea to keep the oceans clean and not fill them with floating oil slicks and garbage. Everyone I know thinks sucking oil out of the planet for short-term gain is a bad idea. Everyone I know is aware that global warming, if left unchecked will lead to disasters that will kill millions of people. And yet, this behaviour goes on and on and on.
So my question is: Who profits from exploiting the environment?
4. EDUCATION and UNEMPLOYMENT: While we should be the MOST literate people in the world considering the fact that most of us have enough to eat and a place to sleep, we are not. More kids are being crammed into factory-type institutions, bullying is rampant, cut-backs in education mean that curriculum is bare-bones and boring for most kids and teacher satisfaction is low. One gets the feeling that if education weren't compulsory no kid would willingly waste his or her time there. More and more lucky kids are being home-schooled, but I understand that that's not a great option either as it doesn't prepare a kid for being out in the world and dealing with the challenges posed by other human beings.
Kids who aren't interested in math or science have always suffered, myself among them. In my generation the education system was grooming kids for jobs in the technology sector. So those of us who were better at writing, art and music were considered artsy losers not to be taken seriously. This attitude eroded my self-esteem. For years I actually believed I was an idiot at math because I kept failing it in high school. Then in my late 30s I enrolled in a distance-education course in high-school math and aced it. In university one of my favourite subjects was philosophy. I especially enjoyed and excelled at Logic, which has a kind of mathematical flavour to it. So there was nothing wrong with me after all. It was the educational system that failed, not me.
So my question is: Why is public education still failing?
5. MEDIA and ADVERTISING: On the news just yesterday I saw that the U.S. National Debt is so high (well into the trillions and steadily rising) that the debt clock has to be expanded to accomodate the astronomical size of the number. Meanwhile TV commercials are still hawking luxury cars, flat screen TVs, coffee we can make at home using little pre-packaged cups, and a host of other products we don't need. This would lead some people to believe that there's nothing to worry about.
So my questions are: Who owns the media, and what are the roles of media and advertising in manipulating human behaviour and maintaining the status quo?
IN SUMMARY: There are probably many other issues that could be added to this list, but these are the ones that seem most urgent to me. So as I proceed down the rabbit hole I am taking these questions and looking for answers to them. I am not doing this to hurt or blame anyone in particular. Though the focus of my research centres on the U.S. powers-that-be, I want it on record that I think the American people are amazing in their vitality, ingenuity and potential to do good for this world. I am especially in awe of the talents of their artists, writers, musicians and movie-makers, many of whom are probing these same questions every day in their own ways.
What I want is to explore an alternative world paradigm by looking at many different sources of information, not just the mainstream news. The Internet offers that option (at least for the moment) but it may not always be so. There's that sense of urgency again!
I get the feeling I have been living in a fog of misinformation, a fog that is slightly drugged so it makes me sleepy and that smells nice so I find it pleasurable. But what happened on 9/11 shocked me out of my sleep for a split second and I thought I saw "the man behind the curtain". This is a Wizard of Oz reference, by the way. Interestingly, there is a whole theory of the economy based on this story, but I'm getting ahead of myself. If you are still reading this, then watch this video of George Carlin's summary of the situation. (Disclaimer: This video contains some swear words. If you can't take the heat then you should get out of the kitchen now.) http://youtu.be/FeLLR3LWtv4
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