St. PJ
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This thread is really out of boredom. There is nothing new in the SSF, and currently I am watching one of Moore's documentaries. Between college, the Marine Corps, and offshore, over the last ten years, I have heard many differing opinions on Micheal Moore. It seems most people are polarized; they either love him or hate him. Furthermore, any material the guy puts out that can be termed controversial is either supported by those who agree with his views, or condemned by those who claim to hate him.
Personally, I am probably a cynic. I don't mean to be; I certainly didn't start this way. I remember growing up and believing in the motto "and Justice for all", and that anything is possible with hard work and a can do attitude. I believed hook line and sinker the things I learned in history, economics, social studies, ect. I believed we were the greatest nation and every other patriotic thing written or taught about our nation. With higher education came disbelief. Disbelief in most things I learned in public shool, disbelief in what I saw on the news, disbelief in most things we are patriotic about. I guess I became predisposed to believing conspiracy theories and negative perspectives about the direction we are moving towards as a nation concerning the economy, foriegn policy, and consumerism. In this way I have become cynical, and for the record, I like Micheal Moore.
If I had been born 30 years earlier, I would probably have very different views. The danger in my cynicism is that I use negative thoughts as a foregone conclusion as to why my dreams will fail, or as an excuse not to make an effort or not to get politically involved with many causes. Maybe people like Micheal Moore contribute to this, maybe I am a product of my generation where according to Oprah, everyone is a victim. One of my favorite quotes comes from I believe G.K. Chesterson. I think it was him who said something to this effect: I could fill a book with thousands of pages about what is wrong with the world today, but I could also sum it up with two words-- I AM."
The point is personal accountability. We all like to point the finger or cast the stone, and certainly there are many injustices and inequalities abound, but do we really ask ourselves what have we done to better the world? In one of my confessions, I told the priest how disheartened I was about the state of things, the direction things were moving, and how I cynical I have become, believing that our great moral decline over the past 40 years coupled with our utilitarian society, dumbed down education system, and shift from country vs country to corporations vs everyone who isn't filthy rich have left me hopeless, thinking that the only way to fix the world and our country is another American Revolution, the people vs the powers that be. My priest told me that Christ said in the end, nations will rise against nation, many bad things will happen, ect ect ect, but the MOST important thing and only thing we should ever worry about is what we do concerning our brother and God. Focus on feeding the hungry, ministering to the sick and elderly, ect ect ect. In other words, focus on "what have I done", becuase in God's eyes, that the only thing that will matter.
Well, I believe we should do the things we have been commanded to do by Christ, such as loving and tending to our brother and God. This seems like rhetoric, but how often do we pass a beggar on the THRWY and not give him a dollar? Or how often do we go to town and buy things we really don't need, using three gallons of gas in our 39K truck to buy a gallon of milk? How much do we consider what the cost of our consumerism does to other countries and our own? How many of us hate illegal immigrants trying to have the American Dream as our ancestors once did? How many of us truly care about life in the "ghettos" and empathize or try to understand what environmental factories create a thug. I know there are examples of less fortunate who rise above and become successful. I know there are tons of people who do things the right way and feel offended to have to take care for those who don't make an effort to take advantage of oppurtunities or make sacrifices to get ahead. I can see both sides and have empathy with each.
My point is our infastructure is such that we HAVE to have poor people, we have to have less fortunate to do the undesirable things like digging ditches or going to war. We have to have a lesser class in order to have an elite class. For all of this to work, for corporate America to succeed, for gas prices to skyrocket, for companies to do away with pensions and lay off people who have invested their lives to building said companies, laws have to be passed, the constitution has to be changed, and peole have to not take notice. We have bought into what we have learned, taught not to question, and have become mentally lazy. Again, as long as we can work at our jobs, have insurance, go to WalMart and buy whatever we want, what do we care? What happens when we do all that is right and the system fails us, like for instance, someone buys our company and our retirement gets sold out from underneath us? Or our insurance company refuses to cover what we always thought it would?
How does any of this tie into Micheal Moore? The guy asks the questions, shows a problem, and in some cases shows documented proof of why the problem is there. I don't buy into everything screaming conspiracy I hear, but if I see smoke, shouldn't I look for a fire? If the guy says something that could be true, shouldn't I at least investigate it or hear him out? I have very close friends who for the longest time already had their minds made up about people like Micheal Moore and believed he was an unpatriotic liar trying to smear good people becuase George Bush told them so, or the NRA told them so. After a few years, I finally convinced them to watch one of his documentaries, then together we went to the library and researched accusations he made. We even read congressional hearings and have found that nothing the guy has said is false. Maybe he is arrogant at times, maybe his approach and presentation comes off wrong, but the guy does ask questions and make points that need to be made, and everything he has said can be verified and proven. It seems people were shooting the messenger.
The funny thing about truth is that it always comes to light. It can be buried deeply, forgotten for years, but eventually it bubbles up and reveals itself. People looked at Christ and said "that is just the carpenter's son", never mind what the guy was saying, even thought at that time it was very radical. I don't mean to call Moore holy, just simply saying don't always judge a message by its bearer or how he presents it. I urge each of you to go to a library and aks a question, feed your mind, go through the mental sweat of evaluating and investigating exactly what you believe and WHY. Look at both sides of the argument and form your own conclusion. Don't watch CNN or Fox News and regurgitate what they say, or even what Micheal Moore says, simply, look at all the evidence and come to your own conclusion. Don't be afraid to consider that things we believed passionately all of our lives can be false.
As a nation, we are scared. We may be free, but how many of us exercise freedom of thought? How many of us believe that we aren't what we were created to be, that this nation is no longer what it was founded to be, and how many of us are honest with ourselves as to our role in why that is so? How many of us truly consider that from his point of view, Bin Laden and a very valid reason to kill innocent people? Or that from our passiveness, it is our fault for not holding Congress accountable for neglecting us and catering to the elite? Or the fact that the whole election process and democracy is flawed to the point that other countries really take care of thier citizens better than we do? We are all quick to take on side or the other, wether it be politics or religion, but how many of us are open minded enough to consider that maybe all sides are wrong, and istead of polarizing every little issue, we are going about it and looking at everything from the completely wrong perspective?
All I am saying is we all need to do our part, and that goes deeper than simply choosing a side and being passion. We need to direct our passion to a constructive cause. We need an intellectual revolution, and we shouldn't ostracize those who at least take as step and ask why not.
Personally, I am probably a cynic. I don't mean to be; I certainly didn't start this way. I remember growing up and believing in the motto "and Justice for all", and that anything is possible with hard work and a can do attitude. I believed hook line and sinker the things I learned in history, economics, social studies, ect. I believed we were the greatest nation and every other patriotic thing written or taught about our nation. With higher education came disbelief. Disbelief in most things I learned in public shool, disbelief in what I saw on the news, disbelief in most things we are patriotic about. I guess I became predisposed to believing conspiracy theories and negative perspectives about the direction we are moving towards as a nation concerning the economy, foriegn policy, and consumerism. In this way I have become cynical, and for the record, I like Micheal Moore.
If I had been born 30 years earlier, I would probably have very different views. The danger in my cynicism is that I use negative thoughts as a foregone conclusion as to why my dreams will fail, or as an excuse not to make an effort or not to get politically involved with many causes. Maybe people like Micheal Moore contribute to this, maybe I am a product of my generation where according to Oprah, everyone is a victim. One of my favorite quotes comes from I believe G.K. Chesterson. I think it was him who said something to this effect: I could fill a book with thousands of pages about what is wrong with the world today, but I could also sum it up with two words-- I AM."
The point is personal accountability. We all like to point the finger or cast the stone, and certainly there are many injustices and inequalities abound, but do we really ask ourselves what have we done to better the world? In one of my confessions, I told the priest how disheartened I was about the state of things, the direction things were moving, and how I cynical I have become, believing that our great moral decline over the past 40 years coupled with our utilitarian society, dumbed down education system, and shift from country vs country to corporations vs everyone who isn't filthy rich have left me hopeless, thinking that the only way to fix the world and our country is another American Revolution, the people vs the powers that be. My priest told me that Christ said in the end, nations will rise against nation, many bad things will happen, ect ect ect, but the MOST important thing and only thing we should ever worry about is what we do concerning our brother and God. Focus on feeding the hungry, ministering to the sick and elderly, ect ect ect. In other words, focus on "what have I done", becuase in God's eyes, that the only thing that will matter.
Well, I believe we should do the things we have been commanded to do by Christ, such as loving and tending to our brother and God. This seems like rhetoric, but how often do we pass a beggar on the THRWY and not give him a dollar? Or how often do we go to town and buy things we really don't need, using three gallons of gas in our 39K truck to buy a gallon of milk? How much do we consider what the cost of our consumerism does to other countries and our own? How many of us hate illegal immigrants trying to have the American Dream as our ancestors once did? How many of us truly care about life in the "ghettos" and empathize or try to understand what environmental factories create a thug. I know there are examples of less fortunate who rise above and become successful. I know there are tons of people who do things the right way and feel offended to have to take care for those who don't make an effort to take advantage of oppurtunities or make sacrifices to get ahead. I can see both sides and have empathy with each.
My point is our infastructure is such that we HAVE to have poor people, we have to have less fortunate to do the undesirable things like digging ditches or going to war. We have to have a lesser class in order to have an elite class. For all of this to work, for corporate America to succeed, for gas prices to skyrocket, for companies to do away with pensions and lay off people who have invested their lives to building said companies, laws have to be passed, the constitution has to be changed, and peole have to not take notice. We have bought into what we have learned, taught not to question, and have become mentally lazy. Again, as long as we can work at our jobs, have insurance, go to WalMart and buy whatever we want, what do we care? What happens when we do all that is right and the system fails us, like for instance, someone buys our company and our retirement gets sold out from underneath us? Or our insurance company refuses to cover what we always thought it would?
How does any of this tie into Micheal Moore? The guy asks the questions, shows a problem, and in some cases shows documented proof of why the problem is there. I don't buy into everything screaming conspiracy I hear, but if I see smoke, shouldn't I look for a fire? If the guy says something that could be true, shouldn't I at least investigate it or hear him out? I have very close friends who for the longest time already had their minds made up about people like Micheal Moore and believed he was an unpatriotic liar trying to smear good people becuase George Bush told them so, or the NRA told them so. After a few years, I finally convinced them to watch one of his documentaries, then together we went to the library and researched accusations he made. We even read congressional hearings and have found that nothing the guy has said is false. Maybe he is arrogant at times, maybe his approach and presentation comes off wrong, but the guy does ask questions and make points that need to be made, and everything he has said can be verified and proven. It seems people were shooting the messenger.
The funny thing about truth is that it always comes to light. It can be buried deeply, forgotten for years, but eventually it bubbles up and reveals itself. People looked at Christ and said "that is just the carpenter's son", never mind what the guy was saying, even thought at that time it was very radical. I don't mean to call Moore holy, just simply saying don't always judge a message by its bearer or how he presents it. I urge each of you to go to a library and aks a question, feed your mind, go through the mental sweat of evaluating and investigating exactly what you believe and WHY. Look at both sides of the argument and form your own conclusion. Don't watch CNN or Fox News and regurgitate what they say, or even what Micheal Moore says, simply, look at all the evidence and come to your own conclusion. Don't be afraid to consider that things we believed passionately all of our lives can be false.
As a nation, we are scared. We may be free, but how many of us exercise freedom of thought? How many of us believe that we aren't what we were created to be, that this nation is no longer what it was founded to be, and how many of us are honest with ourselves as to our role in why that is so? How many of us truly consider that from his point of view, Bin Laden and a very valid reason to kill innocent people? Or that from our passiveness, it is our fault for not holding Congress accountable for neglecting us and catering to the elite? Or the fact that the whole election process and democracy is flawed to the point that other countries really take care of thier citizens better than we do? We are all quick to take on side or the other, wether it be politics or religion, but how many of us are open minded enough to consider that maybe all sides are wrong, and istead of polarizing every little issue, we are going about it and looking at everything from the completely wrong perspective?
All I am saying is we all need to do our part, and that goes deeper than simply choosing a side and being passion. We need to direct our passion to a constructive cause. We need an intellectual revolution, and we shouldn't ostracize those who at least take as step and ask why not.
