Utterly backwards

It's astonishing to take a step back and see how utterly backwards things have become - in most areas of just about everything - and for how long this unbridled regression has endured. Sure, there have been some accomplishments, technologically for the most part... But as an overall society, one has to be disappointed at the overall scope of impractical ignorance and apathy.

Speaking about the USA, quality of life and general sentiment has plummeted since I was in college. Tuitions are exorbitant, health care is not a guarantee, housing has crashed, banks have arrogantly given our hard-earned tax dollars as bonuses for "good performance," and wages have hardly kept up with inflation. Add to that the personal liberty issues that seem to have bubbled up to the surface, a 'major in minor things' mentality as I coin it, along with religious zealots who stoke their political campaigns on those platforms, and we are left scratching our heads.

When the very first episode of MTV's 'Real World' aired in the mid-90s, I sighed to myself and thought, nay knew, that this was the exact moment when everything had changed...permanently...for the worse.

Glorifying the average. A race to the bottom. Majoring in minor things. Watching people doing things so mundane, yet so self-aggrandizing, that we are literally standing on the bar. Even the news is absurd. Most of us will happily admit we get most of our news from John Stewart, a satirist. We need to feel entertained in order to feel anything about anything. When and why did this happen? I don't have an answer unfortunately...

While one acre of hemp yields as much as four acres of trees, we focus on casual marijuana use.
While those who are proponents of drug testing for welfare recipients haven't a fucking clue that welfare consists of more than just food stamps, they are one pink slip away from seeking Unemployment Insurance benefits - a part of the welfare system.
While this country was founded on the principle of separation of church and state, political hopefuls insult us with moral attacks.
While people worry about who will be elected President, lobbyists and corporations have a monopoly on our government, who by the way should be ashamed of itself for its absolute impending dissolution.
While Israel urges the USA to back its efforts to invade Iran, we propagandize it in our media to that end. What about the coup d'etat in 1953? What about this country supplying arms to Iran during Iran-Contra? what about falsely accusing them of supplying weapons to Iraq and Syria? 

Face value is not fact. Face value is opinion, of a writer, to an editor, distributed in soundbites to you...while you watch any number of MTV's 'Real World' iterations, microwave your Monsanto meal, and escape the reality that things are utterly backwards.