The fine 1960 film Inherit the Wind was more than just about the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee. Yes, it had as its focal point the law forbidding the teaching of evolution in schools. However, when one views this film, or reads the play it was developed from, one sees a doorway to totalitarianism. Added to that warning is the observation that many of us humans seem to need to be led. In the fictitious town of Hillsdale, Tennessee, the common folk were led by their religious leaders, who determined how they should not only act… but think. When the great statesman and Christian scholar, Mathew Harrison Brady, comes to town to lead the prosecution of the case, he surpasses even their pastor in influencing minds. During the trial, Brady’s counterpart, attorney Henry Drummond for the defense, decides to put the right to think for oneself on the witness stand. The right to question authority, and yes, to dissent from it, is what was really on trial in that case.
Sadly, very few of our contemporaries, our neighbors and our political and media celebrities can see that America has become nothing more than a cartoon! Politics, advertising and consumerism, blended in with so-called news and information from our mainstream media, has led the majority of us by the nose. Look at the boob tube and instead of muting the volume when commercials come on, watch and listen to them. Do the same when the politicians stand before the microphone, or when the pundits and phony journalists speak. What you will observe is how they all treat you as if you were either an adolescent, perhaps 12 years old, or a senile elderly person. There is no real intellectual flow from these people at all. The commercials for products and services always allude to how everyone selling something to us really cares for us. Ditto for the politicians and the pundits: They all care about us and our families. They all care for our troops and the peoples of the countries that we are destroying with our superior military force. They tell you to place yellow ribbons and flags all over the ying-yang and simply ignore the fact that this military empire is bankrupting us all!
So, we have two evils, masquerading as political parties, controlling our nation’s political system. Well, not really controlling; shall we say they are navigating it for the super rich? Who are these super rich? Well, all one needs to do is see who is benefiting despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of us are not. Follow the age-old adage and ‘follow the money‘. As many small businesses either fold up or cut labor and services, see which companies and individuals are doing well during these’ tough times for the many for the benefit of the few’. As the singer from the rock group Kansas declared, we working stiffs are becoming ‘Dust in the wind’.
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