This news is about a month old, but if you were watching the news at all or going through social media, you would've heard Donald Trumps (yes I realize he's getting more attention from everyone than he should) proposition to temporarily stop any and all Muslim people from entering the United States until they could get a lid on what can easily be describes as their racism. Now depending on who you ask, this is either a brilliant idea that will allow Americans to make their country great again, or a just some random, race dividing idea coming from a racist, bigoted millionaire that will do nothing more than create more problems in the world. In my opinion, the latter reaction is the more logical one. Not only is this an offense to the 'freedom and equality for all' ideology that America has prided itself on for... not so long. In recent years, western society has started to work towards creating a culture where everyone is as equal as possible, but then there are millions upon millions of Americans who are firm believers in Trumps ideology. If America, along with all the other nations of the world, want these an end to the radical Islamists, the solution isn't isolating people who are hardly, if at all, associated with them. It's isolating the radicalists and all the other people that want to use violence for their agendas fueled by narrow minded perspectives. It's showing them that the rest of the world doesn't agree with what they stand for. Fear makes people do illogical things, and if we don't show those who want to do us harm we aren't afraid, then how can we expect to inspire bravery in other people? And if everyone is afraid we'll just make the problem worse So a couple weeks ago I read that Time Magazine was considering people for their 'Person Of the Year' award and they pointed out the fact that Kim Kardashian and Caitlyn Jenner were two people they were considering for the award. Take that in. One is famous for a leaked sex tape, the other for, in recent months, a not so revolutionary sex change.
In my opinion this is wrong on so many levels. There are men and women all around the world fighting in the army for their countries, fighting for the rights of their people in the most politically corrupt nations of the world, and dedicating years of their lives to finding cures for diseases and illnesses to help millions of people worldwide. And Time thinks these reality TV stars deserve more recognition in society. I don't think it's Times fault, it's society's. Sure the people making a difference in the world I mentioned earlier get brought up and celebrated, but it's nothing compared to the news coverage that Kanye West gets when he tells everyone he's going to run for president, or when he and Kim Kardsahian reveal the name of their baby. When there's people like Malala Yousafzai, who as a young girl, defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012, but survived. And she continues to fight for the rights of her people. The fact that it took me ten minutes to remember her name and what a difference she's been making in both her society and our Western one, disappoints me. The solution to this problem is simple: The media and people in our society need to focus more on the changes happening in the world that actually matter, and the people making those changes. Maybe then we can inspire even more people to do good and make a difference. So in case you've been living under a rock, Paris is going through a rough time at the moment. There were seven coordinated attacks in Paris carried out by militants, killing at least 129 people. The first attacks were launched virtually simultaneously, with two explosions close to the State De France at just after 9:20 pm local time, four miles apart. The explosions came as a large crowd were enjoying the first half of the international friendly between France and Germany. They attacked ongoing concerts, cafes and people on the streets, calmly gunning down as many as possible.
Now that I've got you informed, let's talk about this event. What happened, although people die everyday from anything as big as bombings to suicides, was horrific. I mean can you imagine enjoying a concert you were anticipating for weeks, expecting to be safe just to watch people die a couple feet from you. Not only should we mourn the dead, we should be there for those that survived, those who had to experience things you only see in movies or in the news from 3rd-world countries. Not too long after the attack itself, ISIS took responsibility for the attacks. They described it as revenge on the people of Paris for doing things like insulting the profit Mohammed, attack strikes on Syria and other possibly offensive media. Now some people, once realizing that ISIS was behind the attacks, decided to directly blame to Muslims in general and in my opinion, that's exactly what ISIS wants. Think about it this way: ISIS wants people to join their cause right? Well what better way to recruit people than to make the rest of the world hate them so that they have nowhere to go except to them. Which is clearly happening to people attacking Muslims on social media, in the streets, etc. If ISIS can get people in the 1st world to begin despising all Muslims, then they get your support in attacking those who they believe are full of sin. I've talked about rambling politicians, racist light-skinned boys shooting up churches, and sexism, but this is just unbelievably sad: A recent video has been posted online where a girl at school is thrown across the room violently and handcuffed with her face being pressed to the floor, simply for not complying to an officers order's.
Now some might argue the point that if the student had simply just listened to the officer and done what she was told, Raven Symone for example. And to people like Raven, I have two things to say: The first thing would be that, seeing what I did with how much extra effort he police officer put into tossing that teen around into submission, is that he would've found some other way to hurt her needlessly. That was on the officer. The second thing is that nobody of that age and physical size should be treated that way ever under any circumstance and I blame society for making it seem, even to one man, that the way he treated her was acceptable. Of course you have to take into consideration that citizens, for the longest time, have been disrespecting people of authority. Go back to the 90's and you'll see cops abusing there power and they started doing there jobs less and less. In today's society there's still a lot of people that want to believe we're in a society where police officers are oppressing people, and that's why every single cop losing their cool is considered a big deal. They're people too, they make mistakes. Sure the officer in the video's actions were completely unacceptable, but I think we're blowing up this even just a little. 'We All Looked Up' is a book by Tommy Wallach which tells the story of 5-something teenagers with nothing in common and how they interact and come together in the face of an impending apocalypse.
Through the course of the book they must learn to see past their differences and labels, ( The slacker, the slut, the overachiever, etc.) which is a central theme in the book, and figure out how to become something more greater than what society has them labeled as. I feel this book is a meaningful one for just that reason. Everyone in life has been assigned some sort of label and these labels hold us back. The stereotypes behind these labels make us feel like we have to act or present ourselves in a certain way to be accepted in the world and acting outside of these unspoken rules is forbidden. At the beginning of the book you don't understand how these teens could ever find something in common, because you know they do, they're the main characters. But by the end you realize they have almost nothing in common, the labels are still there, but they manage to overlook what separates them and come together and find solace in their friendship in the end. I realize by the time anyone reads this the election will be over and Stephen Harper will finally be replaced with someone better, who in my opinion is the 'best worst option' because no one is ever gonna be satisfied with the candidates.
I just want to make it clear that Canada has suffered long enough under the eight year reign of our Prime Minister who has managed to show us that at best he's nothing more than a soulless conservative party robot spewing racist rhetoric and using fear-mongering tactics to scare older Canadians with their beloved pensions into voting for him, and it's time for change. If I'm being honest, I haven't done too much research into the two other candidates: Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau From what I understand Tom wants to do things like 'jump start the economy' and 'strengthen our public healthcare plans'. But of course he doesn't have any ACTUAL plans to do that, at least he says he does though. The thing about Justin is that he's too young and doesn't have the experience, even though his dad was one of the most historic Prime Ministers ever. But anyway Harper has been in office for 8 years, and since then he's managed to pass laws Jennifer Lawrence recently released an essay on the topic of sexism. The essay is titled "Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars?" You can find it on the feminist newsletter 'Lenny'.
But anyway the short version of the essay is that Jennifer realizes that her male co stars are making a substantially larger amount of money than and that it's partly her fault for not fighting for for a larger pay, but it's also societies fault for making her, and countless other female actors, feel that asking for a larger paycheck makes them seem 'bratty' or 'spoiled' Another point she makes is that women aren't exactly allowed in our society to speak with the same authority men do without being called out for being dramatic'. I feel she has a point. It's the reason the idea of feminism exists. Men and women will never be equal whether it's your average stay-at-home mom or an academy award winning actress who is making millions less than her male co-stars. Obviously sexism is wrong, and Jennifer Lawrence speaking out against it is a good thing, but I feel that no matter what, just because of how long society has undermined women, they will never be treated with the same level of respect they are asking for and deserve. It's 2015, so will someone explain why I'm still hearing about people being gunned down in their own communities, in places they thought they could safely come to for knowledge and solace? What I'm talking about is the 90 mass shootings that haven happened in the U.S. between the years 1966 and 2012. Specifically the past 7 years or so.
Obviously I feel these shootings need to stop, that the reasons and ideals behind them are petty and misguided, but that's obvious to every stable minded human being. What I want to know is why they've been happening so often. First let's talk about the reason behind some of these shootings: The Charleston Church shooting for instance, Dyllan Roof shot and killed 9 African American church goers in hopes to start a race war. The sandy Hook Elementary school shooting from 3 years ago, which was also the largest mass shooting to ever happen at an elementary or high school in the U.S., was literally pointless and resulted in the death and injury of dozens of young children, teachers, and volunteers in the school. This is disappointing to say the least. To see that people aren't civil enough to keep their guns in their pants, and to see that the government isn't hardly making any moves to prevent this kind of thing makes me think about where the most powerful nations in the world is headed when it's own citizens are shooting each other mindlessly. So I watched the Republican Presidential Debate that was on CNN last week, and if I'm being perfectly honest, I laughed at how boring and pointless it was. Essentially it was CNN starting beef between candidates by telling them 'Oh Jeb Bush called you this.' or 'Remember that time Donald Trump said that abut you?'
What I wanted to see was CNN ask the candidates what they were going to do to make America better and how they were going to 'save' it from the crisis that Obama supposedly put them all in. What I got instead were senators and business men being riddled with gossip and more or less being forced to respond by insulting someone else. I noticed there were times when I felt even the candidates were tired of fighting and wanted to actually debate and I feel they didn't enjoy the 3-hour roast session any more than I did. In the end though they did what the CNN overlords wanted and senselessly attacked each other like savages for around 3 hours, and I learned nothing about how anyone planned to fix the economy, put an end to Obama Care, (not that I'm against it) and, in the words of the great Donald Trump, "Make America great again." |
AuthorMy names Jordan, I like cats and re watching episodes of Friends while contemplating life all at once. Archives
December 2015
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