Originally posted by softgrey@Jul 29 2004, 10:15 AM
OMG...
laughing so hard it hurts...!!!...hahahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa......
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Originally posted by faust@Jul 29 2004, 09:51 AM
EDUCATION, EDUCATION, EDUCATION. I can't stress this enough. Every social change that was ever made came by grassroots. It's not like the wealthy and powerful decide to be nice one day and make life better for society. The more educated the masses are, the less brainwashed they are, the faster human progress will occur.
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Originally posted by kit@Jul 29 2004, 11:03 AM
SOFTGREY
AGREED ABSOLUTELY , but the daily ' pap ' in the tabloids and on rubbish TV sends the message that its no use doing anything ( eg , use one's vote ) because ' THEY ' , the liberal bleeding hearts , will not take cognizance of the opinions of ordinary people , so why vote , it's a wasted gesture .
If only ' ordinary people ' were to wake up !!!
But why bother thinking , when there's the England football manager's latest affaire to read about , plus the infidelities of David Beckham , Wayne Rooney et al .
SOOOOO much more interesting !!!
Bread and circuses !!!
Sad , but true .
KIT
( I'll get down off my soapbox now ) .
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Originally posted by MayaPapaya9@Jul 30 2004, 01:50 AM
Helena,
I think the only way to make people interested in important issues is to introduce current events and international affairs into the school curriculum at the youngest age possible. As soon as kids learn the names of the continents they should start to have an idea of what is going on in them.
I can't speak for the UK but I know that in the US, it is positively disgusting that we are at war in the Middle East and most people around here cannot tell Iraq from Iran on a map and have no CLUE about the culture of the area. So many people here think Islam is only good for breeding terrorists and have no idea that there are lots of normal peaceful and law abiding Americans who practice Islam too.
What you said is so true, that people would rather watch some trash on the television than use their brain cells to think about the news and the upcoming election. It makes me positively ill that my classmates, all around 18 to 19 years old, are candidates for the two draft bills sitting in the House and hardly any of them, at least in the little rich spoiled beach bubble of Orange County, have any clue why this war is taking place or even WHERE it is taking place.
I think the problem is that they do not teach world history properly here, at least not in California. They teach European history and call it world history. We never learned about the Middle East or Africa or South America in school, because I think our government does not respect those places enough to add them into our textbooks. We never talked about the news in school. If I was in charge of the world there would be weekly debates about current issues because what gets people riled up and ready to make a difference is healthy discussion about issues, not some lame attempt like "everybody bring in an article from the newspaper and write a two sentence summary of it."
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Originally posted by softgrey@Jul 30 2004, 11:34 AM
and waht about that...what about taking responsibility for your own education and reading a book that hasn't been assigned...what about reading the paper and talking to people...i really feel that we as individuals need to be more responsible for ourselves and for our lives...
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Originally posted by MayaPapaya9@Jul 30 2004, 03:02 PM
Faust, I love you too, and yes I was born in NJ and raised in MA and CA. It's true that my parents' world views have influenced me a lot, because from a very young age my father and mother would talk to me about religion and politics during dinner, so I grew up thinking it was interesting and wanting to know more. Parents must respect their children's intelligence and understand that even young kids are capable of handling quite some political issues. Also my boyfriend is very into politics and economics and he's influenced me to be more involved as well. It's all about who you are surrounded by...a good kind of peer pressure.
Softgrey, it's absolutely true that individuals must take action to educate themselves. However, it is hard enough for kids to do all their homework AND study for all their tests AND study for the SAT AND do their extracurricular activities, all to get into college. I think that part of the tests/homework should BE about current events, that is what we should be studying in school, because it's a far more important subject than say, the years I spent learning about algebra that I will never use again. It's only when I got to college that my classes started dealing with these things, that I had time to look them up in the library and online. In high school it wouldn't have been possbile. Also in college in the first time that the curriculum looked at communism objectively, while in high school all we were fed was entirely pro-capitalist. But that's another topic I guess!
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Originally posted by Bonchic@Aug 11 2004, 02:02 PM
I think it's just childish to make fun of either parties in clothing
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That may be true, but there's something called freedom of speech.Originally posted by Bonchic@Aug 12 2004, 06:43 PM
well some of them are funny but some of the others well I just don't like..
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