The latest edition of Marx Borders‘ Ideas Matter update highlights a video clip that should help focus our attention on the real challenges facing the United States:
To watch this trailer, one may get the feeling that this, while sad, is remote. These are people in a distant land, practicing a different religion, wearing different cloths, living under different rule. And yet we are so close to living in this kind of state. It’s happening right under our noses.
Americans love spectacle. The biggest issues of the day are secret service agents and Columbian prostitutes. People are outraged by either side of the gay marriage debate — and justifiably so. But we need to get some perspective. Our most fundamental freedoms are being stripped away right now.
The game is currently being rigged for a future in which the state has the level of control you see above in this video on China and Tibet. Will you be caught flat-footed.
Once your apoplexy about this trivial matter or that wanes, remember there is much more to be outraged about: American citizens can now be indefinitely detained; people can be arrested (felony) for protesting politicians; and fathers, children and housepets are being killed by swat teams over victimless crimes every single day. There are a lot of civil liberties and individual rights being lost right now. Now that you’re awake, stay awake.
