One of my cousins called me Tuesday to talk; she asked if I was going to do a podcast on the Will Smith Chris Rock dust-up at the Oscars Sunday night? (Here’s a shameless plug I produce and host a podcast called Akoben the War Horn that can be heard on streaming platforms like Soundcloud, Podbean, Spotify, Mixcloud, and Anchor.)
I told her I usually don’t address issues like that. When I told my wife what my cousin asked, she asked me if I was going to write about it? I thought about it and decided to add my two cents to the growing controversy, reactions, and commentary. In my opinion, Will Smith publicly slapping Chris Rock at an event such as the Oscars is symptomatic of a larger societal malaise, resorting to violence to “solve” issues and personal disagreements!
We see violence in the news daily. Homicide is on the rise in most major urban areas, suicide and domestic violence, and child and elder abuse are rampant to the point that society seems to be unraveling. The corporate media is hyping the War in Ukraine to make it okay for defense contractors to rake in more money as the US government sends weapons to Ukraine!
The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is American culture: television, motion pictures, video games, virtual reality, books, and other media all exhort violence. The history of this nation is a mosaic of violence. The United States has been a war for 93% of its short existence! https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/usa-only-17-years-of-peace.html? Americans love war and violence–war and violence drive the US budget. At their core, all budgets reflect values, priorities, and what is important. The US has the highest military budget of any nation in the world.
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