My Servitude is No Longer Voluntary

A couple times lately I've heard people say they just don't care about Edward Snowden and his "leaks" about the NSA that came out recently. Nor do they care about the victims of our drone warfare in Central Asia. Nor about what is really going on in Syria. Nor about what is happening to Bradley Manning. Or the probable murder of Michael Hastings. Or any other number of things that I might bring up to discuss.

Cool. I dig. We all have the things we care about and the things we don't care about. There is so much news lately. All of us have a very limited amount of attention we can bestow on things in the world around us. With all the information coming at us lately have to ration our attention to the things that truly matter to us.

I can respect your own rationing system for your sympathies. I hope you can respect mine, right? In that vein, here are some of things I just can't seem to be bothered to care much about lately. It's not that I don't have empathy for certain individuals and the horrible things that happen to them, or the life trials they go through. I do. It's just that I am trying to concentrate on the small subset of things that really matter to me. I guess I'm just fatigued from overstimulation, so forgive me. I'll leave concern about the other noble causes to other folk.

Here are some things I don't care about lately:

what Paul Deen said
what Casey Anthony did, as sad as it is
what George Zimmerman did or did not do
what a bunch of Israeli settlers did on a bus
what a bunch of high schoolers in Ohio did 
what benefits that federal government employees get
who gets to have free birth control provided to them
how the federal government conducts meaningless elections to obtain our "consent"

also: any further opinion uttered by the following walnut-brained individuals or organizations, who if their voices disappeared from public discourse right now, I wouldn't miss for a microsecond: Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, Sean Hannity, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Joe Scarborough, Brian Williams, Oprah Winfrey, "The Donald," Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Piers Morgan, Robert Rodriguez, Taylor Swift, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Bill Maher, Chris Rock, Chevy Chase, Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, Candy Crowley, David Gregory, Matt Lauer, David Letterman, Larry King, Jim McNeil, any of the interchangeable bimbos on CNNFoxMSNBC whose names I don't even care to register, Mark Zuckerberg, Billnmelinda Gates, John Botoxface Kerry, Al Gore (aka Manbearpig), George H.W. Bush and any of his various devil spawn, Barbara Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Valerie Jarret, Susan Rice, Karl Rove, James Baker III, General Petraeus, Michelle Obama, Barry Obama, Bill Ayers, Rahm Emmanuel, Andrew Cuomo, Bill Hickenlooper, Ahnold, Pat Buchanan, Rick Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, Janet Napolitano, Eric Holder (he wouldn't remember anything he said anyway), Joe Biden, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, Nancy Pelosi, Pat Robertson, Ritt Momney, Barbra Streisand, Jim Carey, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Noam Chomsky, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Jay Rockefeller, Kofi Annan, Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Benjamin Netanyahu, Paul Krugman, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geitner, Hank Paulson, the Southern Fucking Poverty Law Center, Diane Fucking Feinstein, Focus on the Fucking Family, any president of any too-big-to-fail-and-jail bank, the President of Mexico, pretty much anyone who holds any position of authority in the Federal Government of the United States (®) including and especially the Supreme Kourt, anyone on NPR now that Click and Clack are gone.

Do I even need to mention professional sports figures here? Of course not.

Also along these lines I don't care anymore about being labeled (1) hate-filled (2) racist (2) homophobic (3) misogynistic (5) anti-Semitic (6) anti-American (5) reactionary (6) a rape apologist (7) the problem with America (8) obstructionist (9) crazy (10) conspiracy theorist (11) denier (go on, watch it) (12) anti-science (c'mon, really?). Sorry, but the ship has sailed on all of those. If you use any of those with me, I'll take it as a concession of your unconditional surrender in any argument you are trying to make. I'll give myself a high-five and yell "woo-hoo, I kicked your ass!" You're gonna need better insults now, so sharpen your wits and bring it on. I love to see creativity in this regard and will reward you with genuine applause if you can surprise me with something new. Of course actual evidence and sound logic is far better, but that would be like asking to see an unassisted Triple Play in the World Series---a once in a lifetime event.

Yecch. I feel gross just typing these peoples names in the list above (except Click and Clack). My friend Kelle (whose opinion I do care about) would probably remind me I'm giving these folks power by doing this, so I hope this is the last time I have to mention any of these people ever.

Now this video is for my baby sister, a fellow thought criminal and soldier in the fight for freedom in the spirit of Étienne de La Boétie. It may have taken me almost thirty years, but I've finally tuned in to the message of 80's metal. What took me so long?