I was thinking about this last night while visiting one of the alternative news forums I like to visit. A post made by someone else commented on how if we're not careful we, here in the US, could end up in a very oppressive country a la Nazi Germany. Then I realized, we do live in an oppressive society.
Check it out:
1) Most of us have at least 100 channels of TV to watch, but how many times have we all said "there's just nothing on TV right now"? The big businesses are deciding for us what we will watch on the virtue of assumption. They assume we'll watch some shows and won't watch others, yet, how do they know for sure? They don't - they just program whatever is the safest thing to program and we have no choice but to accept what they offer us or don't watch anything.
2) Rent videos? Buy your own videos and watch those? Sure, that's an option, but even movies these days are providing a much more slimmed down variety for us. Again, big businesses decide what is most likely to sell tickets well, as opposed to what will be interesting or new. As a writer trying to make it in Hollywood myself, I feel this pressure to be bland and safe in the stuff I write. My urge is to write exciting, thought provoking stories, but then I feel like no Hollywood producer would buy them. Sure, there are the exceptions, but so far my scripts have been them. And neither have anyone else's. I can't remember the last movie that really challenged me.
3) Last night, I was channel surfing and actually found something on to watch. Bill Maher (who's HBO show recently went on hiatus) was guesting on Chris Matthew's show on MSNBC. I find Bill Maher one of the rare voices of difference on TV so I watched. He took a question from the audience. A young woman asked about how the Bush 43 administration has been using a climate of fear to control the American people and then suggested that Bush knew about 911 before it happened. Now, I'm not saying he did know, I'm not saying he didn't, but Maher's reaction was pretty lame. He basically slammed her, claiming it was a crack pot theory and a "scurilous" accusation and that he wouldn't dignify that with a response. (too late!) What kind of society do we live in where simple discussion of what may or may not have happened is slammed? His comments were unfair and close-minded. Again, I'm not saying Bush did know, but let's be civil.
4) Thanks to things like the above, I feel like I can't suggest certain things, wonder about certain things because of I don't know what. All I know is I'm concerned for what will happen if I start spouting off any of my own "crack pot" ideas, not just about 911 but about anything else. I'm not talking about raping puppies here, but I do feel that some of my ideas are so "out there" compared to mainstream society, that, well, I don't know what. I just feel this pressure to keep this stuff to myself.
It may not be Nazi Germany, but if that's not oppression, I don't know what is.
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