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Too many people’s heads buried in reality television

Reader says society has been "dumbed down" by TV and paying attention to "selfish needs".

Editor, The Record:

Re: Enough with the Wal-Mart hate already, Sept. 15 edition.

Should we support Wal-Mart and the cheap products made in China? Should we allow Wal-Mart to pay minimum wage with few benefits and undercut the jobs in other stores?

What was so tragic about this letter is that it proves, to my sorrow, that we are indeed losing what it means to be a citizen as people just don’t think anymore. Not enough people think beyond their immediate selfish needs and look at the bigger picture, where their actions have negative consequences that are far too real. And it is that realization that is causing my disappointment in my fellow Missionites.

There are so many other examples where people just don’t want to know the facts, ranging from the insane rush to the bottom line that the big American box stores use to subvert our democracy to the current contract talks involving the BCTF.

There are certain topics that really push my blood pressure upwards and make me think some people are natural-born idiots.

Yet nobody wants to hear the truth that teachers only pretend to teach and that the students only pretend to learn. The grim facts are there for anyone to read about how our students — and therefore society — have been dumbed down which exactly corresponds to the rise of the era of the corporations running our country from their Wall Street penthouses. Cause and effect? Yes.

Our participatory democracy dies just a little more when we trade our sovereignty with each purchase of overseas-made goods. At a time when information is available to all, we have the worst-educated population imaginable.

The inescapable link between those two subjects is the same link between them and a host of other problems in society which will define our future as a country, a province, and a town called Mission: People just don’t care and have buried their heads in reality TV. Know what, I don’t much care much anymore either as what the hell is the point. Just give me the sci-fi channel and beam me out of here.

Robert T. Rock

Mission