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big brother's lullaby by Sara Aronson (hermes23w@disinfo.net) - December 21, 2001 |
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| Internal passports flash in dark hallways, the glimmer of a disapproving scowl not too far away as the card slides its grainy surface back into a pocket. Sharp voices ring out against brick walls and the silent flinches from condemnation can evoke images of a kicked puppy or a baby seal clubbed into a bloody heap on the cold white ice of a barren seashore. Atmospheres thick with distrust and repression fill the lungs of children as they play and study, stifling laughter into the short rasp of souls being crushed and futures being stunted. Children and youth rights are typically limited to forced protection that does subtle damage nearly impossible to identify and defend against. While many would protect a child from physical harm, very few would eliminate the totalitarian measures that engender the psychological thrashings of mandatory institutionalized learning, arbitrary limitations, and the manipulative tactics used to subjugate young people. ID cards needed to access information in schools, vicious exclusion from recreational and administrative activities, and further barring from rights that are inherent to being alive in society tend to culminate into schizophrenic rampages such as the one that left the halls of Columbine High School stained with blood. The tear-sodden stomach of a teddy bear is elicited by the same terror brought by the resounding click of SS boots on a swastika laden ghetto street. Estrangement via negative conditioning creates a schism that rends the capabilities of any human being, whether in Nazi Germany or the elementary school surrounded by white picket fences and minivans. Denying anyone of any age not only the autonomy that Homo sapiens enjoyed on the grass plains and verdant forests, but also the watered down liberties that are normally exchanged to reap the benefits of clan society is to take away the responsibility and interconnectedness that have served to balance psyches since before the word "Psyche" was first uttered from reverent lips. How does a person remain intact after such conditioning? Moreover, how can one who has known none of the emotional wounds caused by excessive indignity know what is being done to them? Can one have retention of insight in a place devoid of reinforcement for the curiosity and sweetness that would be more appropriate in the soft wispy caresses of the wind than in the stale recirculation of sterility that greets every newborn wrested from the womb? Awareness acts as a keystone in the grandiose arch to better worlds, holding together blocks of preservation, activism, thoughtfulness, and confidence in the great endowment every entity has. Only when lawmakers, rule-definers, and others who try to instill their own values into the vulnerable and trusting acknowledge the humanity that is shared between those in the world, then the insanity will slowly wind down as a pendulum clock forgotten in the land of digital watches. Tides of change, even restrained by seawall aberrations, will nonetheless tickle exotic shores and cause gulls and turtles to make melody in moistened cubbyholes. Necessary change will break down any barriers just as water will dissolve all containers. As the throb of society's rapid growth quickens the germination of erudition in the developing generations, change will have to make its appointed rounds and move away from the degradation of those precocious souls called "minors", "dependents", or just coded with a number and shoved behind a desktop. Prodding at the cud-chewing representatives running the show with vocal protest and potent rallies could move the tide of the stampede away from the cliff of ignorance and to the green pastures that always seem tantalizingly beyond the boundaries of a school play ground or a white picket fence. |
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The National Child Rights Alliance The Irish Family Planning Association On Youth Rights Youth Options Legal Information Institute On Children's Rights Association For Children's Suffrage Oblivion Youth Suffrage Zine Toronto Youth Action Committee Peacefire Children's Political Rights International Youth Rights Action Alliance Age Discrimination Endangers Human Rights For Young And Old Alike World Congress Of Youth Wild In The Streets Pump Up The Volume Election Free Youth Internet Youth Speak The Benefits Of Treating Kids Like People: The Junior Republic Movement & The History Of Childhood Canadian Youth Rights Association ASFAR ACLU Student Rights The Institute For Psychohistory Disinformation Dossier On William Upski Wimsatt: The Revolution Will Not Be Taught In School. Corporate Dummies: Sean Healy & Octapod vs. IDG Books Disinformation Dossier On Electrofringe Festival 1999 |
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