How we survive so misguided is a mystery

The angels, like Manyard James Keenan states in Tool's song "Right in Two", are on the sidelines. The world as we know it is a place of struggle, hatred, greed, and bigotry. What I just described are the "Four Horsemen" of social ills, and never seem to diminish no matter how hard we try to fight them.

I am not saying that the everyone should be equal in the world, as it will never happen and would be unreasonable to suggest such a thing, but there must be something we can do to fight these all too common problems.

Many of the social problems that we face are self-inflicted. Take the worship of celebrities for example, there are magazines and "news" services that watch their every move and look to put their personal business all over the airwaves, websites, and newspapers across the world. The people who report this so-called news eat up the public's infatuation with certain ordinary people. It's pathetic that the public buys into all of the hype and appeal. Since when did money and status warrant preferential treatment? Aren't the laws of the land applicable to everyone?Apparently, when some celebrity talks down about the public and the paparazzi, we are supposed to tremble incessantly like their word holds more weight than ours. It's pathetic, and I've seen more than I can stand. Are all celebrities like this? Of course not. There are certain ones that garner 24-7 attention over every little detail; that is the problem.

Poltical leaders tend to follow the same manners of excessive pride as those aforementioned celebrities. Since 1787, American political leaders have had the arduous task of defending the ideals of the Constitution, a radical document at the time. I don't care to hear about how entitled or important you are because of the job description. It's rarely heard from new politicians, but the "career" politicians. This is wrong to begin with because progress can only be achieved by those willing to embrace change. This cannot be simply spoken, as our current President campaigned and thus won over the public. Change requires leadership unafraid to tackles issues that have been regarded as taboo.

Oh, how the almighty dollar has consumed us, wrapping us in a shroud of security while leaving us vulnerable to moral faults. Almost everything these days is about the money, and little of it is of any value to the majority. While there are many benevolent charities, NGO's, and programs to improve the quality of life of the impoverished, there are more and more "get rich quick" schemes and infomercials appearing telling people to buy this or try that. Has no one heard of self-reliance anymore? Has material culture become so important to the commoner that we cannot rely on ourselves to reach a high shelf without a $20 grabber or to mow the grass without a $2500 zero-turn tractor?

Ingenuity is one thing; many items do have their positive uses without rendering us incapable of doing tasks otherwise, but there are many more useless items that only help those who are making the product.

It seems odd how people can live comfortably in mansions while millions starve. Granted, self-made millionaires/billionaires deserve every penny they've made, but I am talking about people who inherited their fortunes and done nothing with it.

I think it would smart to impose a Zakat of sorts (Zakat [charity/alms to poor] is one of the Five Pillars of Islam) on those who earn more than $1,000,000 per year of about 2.5% of their income. In the grand scheme of things, it is not much, but the obligatory giving to charity when able can do a lot of good in downtrodden urban areas.

 It is a strange thing to hate a group of people with whom you aren't that different from. It's partly why I wrote the hub about D.C. not deserving to be the capital. American ideals, one would think, would not leave room for hatred. However, there is a ton of intolerance in America on different beliefs and ideals, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

The KKK systematically used terror/hatred and "law" to attempt to deprive blacks of constitutional rights post-1870. It was so pervasive in the Reconstruction South that after 20 years or so, everything the end of the Civil War eliminated was back (minus de jure slavery). But then again, white Americans for much of the 19th century referred to just about anyone that wasn't white as savages. This is a contradiction considering the slaughter and relocation of Native American tribes from their indigenous lands (i.e. Cherokee, Seminole, Creek), the mass slavery of blacks, and the rampant mistreatment of Asian (specifically Chinese) railroad workers and immigrants in the 1850's-1900's.

 There is a lot that needs to be corrected, and true tolerance is a slow process. No one ever said it was going to be easy, but how many lives were taken trying to prove it one way or the other? Could the world be doomed because we can't get along? I think so.