Chaos of Ferguson

Ferguson Missouri and racism in general is a very touchy subject today in America. Everything about racism in today’s society is so controversial and instead of fighting about if we are doing it or not, we need to just stop judging people for the color of their skin. Not generalizing, although sounding great, probably will never happen because it has never happened before in history and it won’t happen just because of the way people function, we make assumptions that often shouldn’t be made, we must try our best to stop.

                So instead of offending people or making accusations at certain people, let’s talk more about how Ferguson was handled as a country. Ferguson is a situation that if controlled better, wouldn’t have turned into total chaos. I’m all for protest, protest is a very good thing and it makes for a better country and world but the police force, the “peaceful” protestors, and of course the media elevated everything to a new level.

                It just takes a few people to ruin a party. What I feel like was a good idea at first, protest for something the people of Ferguson believe took a sharp turn for the worse when looting, violence, and other nasty things broke out around the town. Protestors stopped caring about Michael Brown and the situations surrounding that and started only caring about how to become a nightmare for the police and because of that, looting and harsh reactions from the police occurred. Protestors stopped protesting and just decide hey, let’s destroy this city’s reputation and go crazy on the police because we can, its kind of sad really that the city will forever be slandered because of this incident.

                Police didn’t help the cause either. Pointing semi-automatic weapons at unarmed civilians really doesn’t make any sense and the amount of force the police used to try and stop these protestors is a bit ridiculous. It’s odd that police are even allowed to do these things, pointing a gun at someone is a huge no-no unless you actually want to kill the thing you are pointing at and it really gives a bad persona for police forces around the country. Keeping back a few hundred protestors with such heavy weaponry causes a much larger controversy and the St. Louis police really shouldn’t have tried to be such a force. 

The Media

                The media, everyone always bags on them for over exaggerating, lying, and keeping the public from information just to promote business. Ferguson shows how powerful and influential the media can be. Showing reports and accounts of violence every 5 minutes on major new sources really causes a sense of worry for the general public. What started as a small protest in a suburb of St. Louis turned into a nationwide head line that everyone was talking about. It really blew everything out a proportion and fueled even more violence and rage into the public and Ferguson, Missouri.

                It’s scary how much our society is affected by the media. Television, newspapers, magazines, and most importantly the internet are so interconnected into our lives, everything thing we know about the world, we get from the media.   We want to know what’s going on in the world, all the bad things, the joyful things, the scary things and the fantasizing things. The media provides such an easy way to get this information but by allowing them to be our source of news, they can control what we know and what we think. Information can be manipulated, changed, and altered to the media wills, news as we know it could be totally different. Maybe I sound like some extremist who think that the government is full of lizards from another galaxy but the media can really hurt our world, a lot. Information is so valuable in today’s society because if you have the information, you have the power and the people of this world in your hands.

                Along with changing our information, our idea and our beliefs can be heavily influenced by the media. TV, magazines, and others try to be as charismatic and nice to change peoples beliefs. Talk shows and other shows where people express their opinions are examples of where your ideas of life can be changed by a simple TV show.

                Although I like everyone else love to hate on the arrogant and selfish media, technology and news has become such a plus for society. We know what’s going on thousands of miles away, we can figure out how to help, we can communicate with people in the blink of an eye. Communication as a whole has accelerated so quickly and news can travel in a matter of seconds across the world. Globalization has made us closer as a planet, our national and regional identities have started to fade and now we come together as a globe. Wars have come to a major halt, although there is still violence, our world has become so much more peaceful and we can now focus to create a better earth, all thanks to the darn media. 

For Mother Russia

                Russia is really losing it when it comes to respect around the world. Vladimir Putin can be seen everywhere being the butt of jokes and getting no respect. He is acting like a baby and maybe I’m just biased towards the freedom of the USA but Vladimir’s lack of strong leadership and not being able to just grow up could cost some serious problems for his people and his country.

                The fallen giant has now starting to take the stage again, the Winter Olympics could have been a major boost for Russia, bringing publicity and money to the mother nation. But that never happened because of how terrible the games were prepared and how they were set up. Along with a major failure of the games, Crimea and maybe the annexation of Ukraine is something that has been in the news quite often lately. Because of all the actions Russia has taken, along with terrible diplomacy displayed by Mr. Putin, the whole world is turning against Russia and they won’t survive long without the world’s support.

                Vladimir Putin probably realizes this but is taking no action to help the cause. His country’s economy is crippling with inflation and a stagnate trade. Sanctions from western countries has caused this poor economy along with oil companies in the middle east reducing oil prices so Russian oil companies can’t compete.  By putting themselves in a terrible economic position where no one wants to help them (not even China, their closest ally) the Russian people in trouble. I get so mad that an arrogant leader who thinks he’s hot stuff and just destroy people’s lives, a lot of people’s lives.

                Although an easy solution isn’t just going to happen, I feel that if Mr. Putin would quit trying to get the gang (U.S.S.R/ Satellite countries) back together and would use some actually diplomacy with other counties, maybe, just maybe, the  world might start to like them again. They wouldn’t be the big bad Russia anymore that we see on TV, they could be the loving Russians who are always drinking vodka. Once they become the drunk lovers of the north, they can work on that terrible economy and infrastructure which is something in desperate need of attention. I really don’t want to see Russia’s great army being shown to the world.