Sunday, March 25, 2007
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About Me
- Think Sheep
- Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
- Now that the Perspectives Magazine is out, this is the place that the discussion continues - share what you feel powerless about, comment on someone else's response, debate powerlessness and apathy, see the unpublished responses, and pretty much say anything you like. Add your articles, comments, quotes, videos, drawings, songs - anything goes. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing. Let us know what you thought of the magazine - we're incredibly curious. Thanks! ~the Think Sheep perspectives@thinksheep.org thinksheep@gmail.com
2 comments:
"Tuition fees, book prices, government actions (War in Iraq), Corporate activities (ie. bank service charges for students). Because I have no control over any of the above." (Melissa Sheilds)
"It is not necessary to ever feel powerless. You can feel like Superman!" (anonymous)
"I feel powerless about Capitalism. No matter how hard people try to stop it, it swallows everyone whole. I long for a lasting world wide revolution, but it probably won't happen. The Imperialist powers of the West and the Islamic Jihad are just too strong. Hopefully they both fall and the world will be a much better place." (anonymous)
"Nothing. We have the power to solve anything, even if that means contributing in a small way. The only limits that we have are self-imposed. So find your power and use it! You can make a difference." (Christa Austin)
"Discrimination." (anonymous)
" 1. George Bush – This guy just won’t go away. No matter how stupid his words or actions, he gets voted back in / put back in office by the Supreme Court. He is like a corpse in a lake, resurfacing and bobbing around, never truly going away. He stinks like one too.
2. Slaughterhouses – People don’t seem to care at all that eating meat is eating animals who have lived in concentration camp conditions, who have not been free, who have been tortured all along the process from birth to violent death. Even the most enlightened people I know possess the same cognitive dissonance around seeing animals as sentient beings who hurt and have rights. Even I feed my cat cans of other animals. There seems to be no getting around slaughterhouses.
3. Mental Illness – It seems to strike us all at one time or another. We have no say as to when a bout of depression will hit, or how long it will linger. Even treating it with drugs or therapy only puts off its inevitable return, at unpredictable intervals.
4. Working for a living – According to www.globalrichlist.com, if you make over $25,000 a year (CDN), you are among the richest 1% of the world’s people. Millions scavenge dumps daily just to survive. Working for a living should be a joy and a privilege. I personally find working to be extremely overrated. And yet working at all (with benefits and paid vacations) puts me in a global elite of the lucky ones.
5. Being fat – No matter what, I weigh the same as my mother, to the pound. We have the same feet, hands, heads, asses, posture, gait. Her custom orthotics could be my own! Fighting this large shape seems like a battle better not fought at all.
6. Male domination – Men own 90% of the world’s property, and in many places, women ARE property, men run governments and militaries and corporations. I would love to see more women in politics, but I have run for political office, and it was murder. The ace debaters I recall from university are all tied up now changing diapers and wiping squash soup off their toddler’s faces – I wish I could have seen their names on the ballots, but alas, they are part of a big big hopeless problem…
7. Impending Doom – The Doomsday Clock has been moved to five minutes to midnight, and that makes me feel powerless on so many levels. That these scientists have now included environmental degradation to their list of doomsday expediters is horrifying. Everyone has twenty plug in appliances, and wants a bigger and better barn. Gridlock everywhere just gets worse and worse, and governments show no initiative around curbing excess consumption. They actually encourage it, I think.
8. Alcoholism – So many people drink to drown their sorrows, and although I feel their pain, and can understand why anyone would want to get blotto on a regular basis, it still makes me feel powerless. A drunk is totally into their own thing, and you can’t do a damn thing about it. You can holler until you are blue in the face, but that disease is just bigger than all of us. I once read about a theory that people who choose “spirits” to assuage their pain are actually people looking for a more “spirited” approach to life, and find that life is more intense when they are drunk. Maybe.
9. The state of the downtown – Our downtown sucks, like many many downtowns, where the economic growth nurtured by politicians ends up being in the suburbs, to the detriment of older city centers. I remember when downtown was a totally cool place to go, to shop, to party, eat, and people watch. Now it is riddled with crackheads, pigeons, and terrible visible poverty and crime. It is seedy and depressing. Once-thriving storefronts are now methadone clinics and employment help centers. Or empty altogether.
10. Environmental degradation and cancer – The chance that you will get cancer in your lifetime is now about one in two or one in three. Factories continue to belch out filth into our air and water, without penalty of any substance. Cars foul up the environment constantly, and drivers, insulated in their little comfortable pods, idle with abandon and commute with immunity. It makes me sick. It makes us all sick. " --Anne Marie Pavolov (submitted through email as a response to the question and given a number through email, the number was then put into the draw)
P.S. These were completely random (the draw was done in a public place, and we have witnesses).
People should read this.
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