Voices are heard and remembered

            So backing away from politics and entering a more realistic sense of the world and a very impactful one at that. What is happening in our urban schools? What are our children being subjected to? I can answer that. Bullying and a lot of it.

            I just finished watching ‘CyberBully’ from ABC Family and it is one of the most impactful films on my life. It actually relates to my life in more ways than one because the victim was aspiring to be a journalist and she wrote poetry. She was a blonde haired, blue- eyed girl who had a successful and gracious life ahead of her and she nearly lost all of it because of words. Because she had no way out. Because of one person’s arrogant and narcissistic attitude towards her and who wanted to take revenge on her average life. She also had everything a normal girl would want and she felt she couldn’t enjoy her blessings because of other’s opinions and jealousy.

I was in the same boat. I had everything at my feet and I was aspiring to be a writer as well. I wanted to be a blogger and share my past experiences with the world and inspire others so that they could overcome any obstacle they faced in life. But, I wasn’t bullied because of social media or even through social media. I was bullied from a face-to-face value. It seemed as if whatever I did as an individual was not good enough for anybody and that I needed to be somebody else to be accepted by my colleagues. But, changing for others doesn’t do anything but make you look desperate. And now, that I look back on those turbulent times I can see that I had lost my way and that I wasn’t being true to who I was. Though most do not see this bullying can lead individuals down the wrong path and make them visualize a reality that doesn’t exist. It makes the victim blindsided by what is actually in front of them and it can sometimes get so bad that they don’t see who they really are. They see what the bullies and the world want them to see and feel about themselves. It’s sickening. It’s frightening. I’ve been there. But, that’s the main reason for this posting.

I never called attention to the bullying I witnessed because I was there myself and I didn’t think my words would speak volume. But, if the media didn’t care about these issues a movie like this one wouldn’t have been made and we wouldn’t hear stories of such magnitude in newspapers or on internet news sites. I am calling attention to it now that I have some empowerment to share from my experience. Bullies are cowards who use their insecurity to criticize others. Bullies can be anywhere and they can say anything they feel necessary to bring someone down. But the victims are stronger because they have the power to end it. They have the power to speak; they have a voice. And though sometimes voices are not heard, they are remembered by actions.

So the ruling class REALLY rules????

So the ruling class has degraded our society. That is what I am absorbing from this chapter and I truly do agree. We as a society follow the ruling class because we believe in what they say. A great example of this following is: American politics and capitalism. Let’s start with capitalism.

Capitalism is supposed to be a free-market system that allows companies whether small family-owned or massive corporations to come and go as they please and provide its workers with wages. But, it has flipped into what feels like a communist regime because corporations are taking over these small- family owned shops and becoming monopolies in many different markets. 1% of Americans are exceptionally wealthy and most of this 1% if not all of this wealth is from corporations and the rest is the middle class. The middle class of America is enormous and unfortunately, most of the middle class is sinking into poverty or below the poverty line because wages are being slashed, workers are being released from their duties, and corporations are taking over complete markets. This taking over markets also includes technology. Corporations believe they have the power to control the American people and they want to be able to change the face and path of our society by any means possible even if it means disrupting our privacy and defecting crucial regulations. But, American politics aren’t much better because it gives corporations the money and the opportunity for influence over the American public.

American politics are manipulative and destructive because it thrives on influence and power. This is a main reason why our technology is lacking boundaries and why regulation is not stable or protective in anyway. On page 217 of Digital Disconnect, it states “the reason for corruption is the policy-making process” (McChesney, 217) and the policy-making process is how our country regulates technology. The American political system wants to please the American public by making the right decisions and basically positioning themselves in our good graces. But, who are the politicians really serving? Corporations or their own self- interest? The politicians want to please the American public because they want to have influence with some of the most powerful people in the country they are ruling which are none other than the managers and CEOs of massive corporations. Once an alliance is made between these powerful beings anything can change and our power as a democratic society deflates almost to extinction. This is where regulation on technology comes in because corporations regardless of the ranking in their market want to have just as much influence as the politicians do. They want to be beloved by the people but behind closed doors controlling, too. Corporations are given influence through the government and through the piece of action they receive they can control the regulation of our technology and other assets of our daily lives. In our class discussion about Capitalism and the Internet, we discussed the influence corporations and the government has on the technology our society uses. We mentioned the fact of the government tapping our phones and placing GPS devices on our phones so they could investigate federal crimes and study any suspicious activities. How is this privacy again? Also, we supposedly live in a country of privilege and freedom but how do we have freedom to explore our world or have conversations with our peers if CEOs and politicians can see everything and they can do whatever they want but deny us the illegal freedoms they practice?

Morality? What morality?

Okay...umm what is our country coming to via moral standards? I checked AOL.com this afternoon and see stories of murder, bloodshed, drugs, and racism. What on earth is happening here? Students as young as 17 are participating in the 'devil's work' by performing gruesome and in some cases unheard of atrocities. In the 1950s the simple household was expected to be clean, orderly, and have a young, vivacious family living under its roof. What has happened in the last 50/ 60 years? I mean I understand some of America's struggles to get to this point. I mean I really do I've studied it myself.

But, just because struggles have happened in the past doesn't mean we need to dig old skeletons out of the closets and throw them at the nearest passersby. To support my argument, here is a link to Hillary Clinton's fumble on using a word to describe a skeleton of the past: http://www.aol.com/article/2016/04/14/sanders-calls-out-clinton-for-using-racist-term/21344590/?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl20%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D-706118466

What do you think? I'm on the fence not because I'm a dog but because I am not backing behind a specific party. I'm Independent. I am simply stating my opinion of how it looks through my eyes. But I will state that some words should be left unsaid and there are points where opinions or phrases should be used in more appropriate situations. This would be the perfect example. An analogy to better understand this example is a bully who still has their prejudices of a person from his/ or her past and still calls them a name that he/ or her did back then. Is this right? Shouldn't this be stopped?

Journalism ceases to be dead!!!!

            When people say journalism is dead, they are bluffing. Journalism isn’t dead and will never be dead. How do I know? Because I am a journalist. I pursue the truth in everything I read and write. If there is faults in what I am given I dig even further through the information to find exactly what I am looking for.  Now here is some bigger questions: What is journalism? How do we define journalism?

            Well, I can answer both of those questions with flying colors. Journalism defines the past, describes the present, and predicts the future. Journalism is an individual’s words that define an era and that capture an audience’s imagination. Journalism is an art form that uses words to tell a story and with the word choice of the author the reader can visualize and understand different angles of a story. The next question is how do we define journalism? Well, before I answer that question let’s throw some words out there. News. Headline. Newspaper. Dateline. Rubbish. An Opinion. If one or all these words match your description of journalism then you would be right but wrong at the same time. Journalism is news because it describes and tells the reader what is happening around them. Journalism is a headline because a headline sums up what the whole story is about and the story is journalism. Journalism is a newspaper because a newspaper is a compilation of stories and these stories are journalism. Journalism is a dateline because it seals a story at a specific place, specific time, and tells about a specific person, place, or thing. Journalism is rubbish and an opinion. Journalism is what you make of it. Now to answer the question how do we define journalism? Like I said before Journalism is what you make of it. Depending on your background and how journalism has been brought into your life, it will shape the how the concept of journalism looks and affects you.  That is how I define journalism. Now does that mean journalism is dead? I say no.

            Journalism tells a story. This story defines a specific time and place. Journalism makes time freeze and allows the reader to learn about that period in time, but from a different point of view. Take my poetry for example, I make time freeze because I’m describing the thoughts and feelings I have at a specific point in time. My poetry will allow the reader to understand what was happening during that period of time and allow them to predict what may happen next. Because of my passion for writing journalism will never die because I am securing a story’s place in history. Without writing and language we cannot define our past, we can’t secure the present’s place in the past, and we can’t give promise to the future to become part of the past. So I stand concretely that journalism will never die. We make our own and with this blog I have made my own.