…In the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on the atomization of life in the suburbs. We have nowhere to meet and converse with others who may or may not have our point of view. Joining niche communities is a part of the solution, but it could be argued that only leads to further segmentation. Finding niche communities (Meetup.com, or Craig’s List) is easily done online, but finding real, living, breathing people with whom to engage in intelligent conversation is a challenge. Opinioniated discourse is tacitly discouraged, in my experience…
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Of the many “flavors” of suburbs, I’m addressing specifically the up-scale, perhaps gated, minimum three car garage type. The older suburbs, closer to cities, smaller homes, established landscaping, etc. tend to have more of a feel of “community”. The sunbelt states are saturated with the newer, pricier type. Of the many social, political, spiritual, and economic issues that arise from suburban sprawl, for now I’ll address mainly the political apathy that seems endemic to these cul-de-sac monuments to cheap gasoline.
- There is absolutely no place to walk to. There are sidewalks, joggers and dog walkers can occasionally be seen utilizing them. Like hamsters on a wheel, they walk or run in meaningless circles.
- These houses were made for automobiles, not people. Where front porches should be are blank, unwelcoming garage doors. This is equally true of the million dollar + homes as the six to seven thousand dollar homes. Leaving a garage door open unnecesarily is discouraged by the homeowner’s association, it looks “unsightly”.
- Even if the nature of these neighborhoods weren’t transient, a sense of community is simply not going to happen when lot sizes dictate how close you live to your neighbor; the neighbor who uses the remote controlled garage door opener when leaving and upon arrival home. Besides the occasional wave from each other’s cars in passing, our neighbors are strangers and interchangeable.
- The “Clubhouse”, rarely utilized, is not a substitute for Main Street. Growing up in New England, I remember the Common in the center of town, Main Street as a vital source of commerce, familiar faces, a sense of belonging. Main Street held the Police Department at one end, shops, small restaurants, a prominent library, single family homes, Fire Department, and apartments. In other words, diversity.
In the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on the atomization of life in the suburbs. We have nowhere to meet and converse with others who may or may not have our point of view. Joining niche communities is a part of the solution, but it could be argued that only leads to further segmentation. Finding niche communities (Meetup.com, or Craig’s List) is easily done online, but finding real, living, breathing people with whom to engage in intelligent conversation is a challenge. Opinioniated discourse is tacitly discouraged, in my experience.
The net effect, I fear, is the corporate owned media is defining not what we talk about, but our belief systems. I watch media news occasionally to compare what we’re being told is important, compared to what my (admittedly compulsive) research on the internet tells me. Living isolated lives, people take part in the democratic process by “voting” for their favorite American Idol contestant. The spate of Muslim as Terrorist series on television, 24, Sleeper Cell, and probably more that I’m not aware of is brainwashing, pure and simple. The rest of the drivel and sleaze on television keeps citizens distracted, while the elite are picking our pockets, looting the Treasury and our natural resources, training our children to be apathetic, bored worker drones–but very obedient-and instituting a police state based on a war on an idealogy.
Aren’t they counting on our anomie, lack of cohesion, helplessness, fear? Aren’t they counting on us focusing on non-issues like gay marriage, lies like “tax and spend liberals”, “freedom fries” because the French had the audacity to do what loyal friends do; warn us that we were about to step into dangerous territory? And, perhaps most importantly, aren’t they counting on dividing us; Red vs. Blue, the Death Tax vs. the Estate Tax, Pro-Choice vs. Pro Life (as if there were no nuances to consider, is sending our kids to die Pro Life, is the Death Penalty Pro Life?) and the newest and nearest enemies, the illegal immigrants on the Mexican border. These immigrants are not a new issue. And remember, none of the so-called hijackers entered the U.S. through the southern border. It’s another way to keep us fighting among ourselves, blaming the immigrants for job losses that are the result of corporate outsourcing.
Our mainstream news is propaganda. The Russians used to laugh at their government controlled news, they knew it was a joke. Our indoctrination is all the more dangerous because so many don’t recognize it as such. Our society, unlike 1776, is timid, uninformed, and alienated from it’s source of strength and will to revolt: our fellow citizens
Written Leslie Brundige [send her email] who is a volunteer with the www.PopulistAmerica.com research team.