What’s New? I’m Glad You Asked… | Mickey Z.

Photo Credit: Mickey Z.

Mickey Z. -- World News Trust

Dec. 18, 2013

“What’s new?”
“Not much.”
“Same ol’ shit, right?”
“Yeah... same shit, different day.”

This ridiculous and ridiculously common exchange is typically followed with loud chortling as if these are the first humans to ever experience this particular conversation.

Such is life in a corporate propaganda state…

“Same shit, different day”
As sad as this refrain is within the context of any human’s everyday life, it contains a frighteningly accurate connotation in a big picture sense.

Because we’ve yet to work up the courage and/or tactics to stop the carnage, here is just a infinitesimal sampling of the “same shit” that happens every “different” day:

• Roughly 200,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed (primarily to create room for pastures and feed crops for doomed cattle).
• Almost 3,000 American children are born into poverty.
• About 13 million tons of toxic chemicals are released across the globe.
• Somewhere between 150 and 200 plant and animal species go extinct.
• Close to 2,000 women are raped -- in the United States alone.
• Nearly 30,000 children under the age of five die from preventable causes.
• Hundreds of millions of sentient beings are murdered for food (sic) by a global industry that consumes and destroys one-third of the planet’s land surface and is the top source of human-created greenhouse gases.

Another brand of the “same shit” that happens every “different” day: We -- through our behavior, silence, inaction, or ineptitude -- remain complicit.

“What’s new?”
What would be astoundingly new is if people actually started talking about all this (and so much more), identified the global criminals most responsible, and worked together to create sustainable social change before it’s too late.

So, if your sincere answer to a query like “what’s new?” is “nothing much” or “same shit,” please allow me to suggest some serious soul searching. Religious dogma aside, this is our one go-around and, as Lennon once sang, “Why in the world are we here?/Surely not to live in pain and fear.”

In the name of evolution, the next time someone asks you “what’s new?” I suggest you reply with something like this and then try like hell to live up to it:

“Every minute of every day, I’m doing my best to challenge and reject classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, patriarchy, ageism, ableism, transphobia, body shaming, speciesism, and all other forms of hierarchical privilege.”

Let’s make that the “same ol’ shit” that happens every day…

#shifthappens

Note: To continue conversations like this, come see Mickey Z. in person on Jan. 11 at Bluestockings Bookstore in NYC.

***

Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on a couple of obscure websites called Facebook and Twitter. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.

© WorldNewsTrust.com -- Share and re-post this story. Please include this copyright notice and a link to World News Trust.