Breaking Down lies

To believe that someone's past eternally defines them is a fallacy of reason

Who hasn't witnessed oneself or someone dear to them doing something morally wrong?  Done not because they are evil or should spend years in prison but because of a lapse in judgment.  The truth is all it takes are but a few random situational factors for most of us to be led to step outside of ourselves and for that isolated moment appear to be genuinely bad people.  Most of this happens at a young age and we learn that it is wrong and regretful.  Once the lesson is learned, we never forget it. Well, though degrees & factors vary, far from our media's messages, that was at one time the majority of people now in U.S. prisons. This includes many who have been struck out, and are stuck there for life. It could have been anybody.

In 3-strike states like California, you don't ever have to be accused – much less convicted – of ever hitting or physically hurting anyone to be doing life as a violent 3-striker. And though you may not believe it, many people that this has happened to could easily have been you, your family or a good friend of yours.  They are not criminally inflexible or unable to be fixed.

The results of Americas incarceration campaign are detrimental to the nation. As a country, we lose a tax paying potential worker. A family loses their 18+ year investment of love. A person loses their life and we lose as much as $50,000 each year for each individual. Money largely dedicated to paying guards whom for the rest of his life will punish him. What type of person would we do all this to?  Often we have done it to a person for stealing three separate pieces of material goods without inflicting even one blow of the fist--ever.

I myself can replace property, but I can't replace a damaged brain. Besides DUIs, assaults are more than five times as prevalent as any other violent crime. Why aren't the violence-prone instigators of high schools, bars, and clubs the ones portrayed on cop dramas, or doing life?   People with 3 DUIs have shown themselves to be a serious threat to everyone on the road, so why are not they similarly presented? It’s approximated that over a quarter of a million Americans suffer injuries from alcohol-related car accidents each year. That is a whopping 1/15th of the population, every year (your chances of being injured because of a DUI are one in twelve ③, and your chance of being a victim of a violent crime - other than assault are one in 750,000,000 ).

As for the detective portrayed in cop dramas, studies show that they also are portrayed very unrealistically.  Historically, the police are portrayed as highly effective, crime-fighting geniuses with unwavering ethics on justice. And at the end of the show they near always get their man (the lawful way). And as the T.V. shows usually go, the man in jail is assuredly guilty.

The fact remains that we live under a government that allowed its people to conquer countless Native nations only to then take the people's land as “Federal” or ensure that the bankers would eventually acquire it. We live in a nation that has a government that allowed 600,000 people to die in a civil war over a few thousand connected families in the south that owned the plantations.  All this juggling takes some pretty wonderful public relations presentations e.g., propaganda. One result of this has been that we live with an education and mass media system that promotes the idea that historically our government has acted more honorable and wise than its people. X-presidents, viewed as war criminals (yes, we have many) the world over are given luxurious libraries which ensure top-notch P.R. on their behalf for as long as the current system in the U.S. endures. On T.V., we are presented with elaborate, seemingly royal, ceremonies of people wearing badges honoring a dead police officer. While in the streets petty evaders are chased down with multiple helicopters while our dying citizens are picked up in ambulance vans.

One reason that this system is so prominent is because the highly influential advertisers paying the media's tab, along with all powers that be, won't ever be offended when it's only criminals and police who are continually portrayed, especially in a highly slanted and inaccurate fashion -- even though it's the cause of great injustice.

The good guy v. bad guy dichotomy is something that comes naturally to us,  It's the criminals whom already are labeled as “bad”. Therefore, those fighting against these types of average publicized criminals are naturally seen as good. This sort of dynamic is powerful. It was one of the tactics used by President Bush when he wanted the public to be in favor of invading Iraq-- a sovereign nation.  The only "defense" the public is given to these tactics are usually reactionary figureheads which only serve to divide a country further, thereby strengthening the true power players positions. We are presented not with Ralph Nader, Thom Hartmann, or Richard Wolff and the like, but with undereducated people. For instance, people like Al Sharpton, who seem obnoxious to outside observers and not intellectually sound enough to teach people the unbiased truth. Individuals that are distracting and divisive. So instead of building common ground and mutual understanding, strong counter-reactions cloud logic in the public at large. The truth is never presented and the side of those in the know are delegitimized by their purported spokes-persons. This only divides the public and thus strengthens the rule of its exploiters. To say it lightly the Sharpton-type figures seem to miss much. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. We end up pointing fingers at each other, the crimes of opportunity continue. Many of us seem to have become desensitized by all this good guy, bad guy suggestiveness we see in the media, the government, and our own lives. We take it as believable while frequently failing to connect the dots. We do not realize that in the “bad guys” eyes, he/she is the good guy. Far from reality, the distortion of reality that the media presents to us, considering its sway over viewer opinion borders on what could be called criminal negligence.