| Original Message |
Tornadotron (no login)
Posted Dec 5, 2010 10:44 PM
Are veterans really viewed as being heroes?
People get one day to pretend they are their heroes, and for the other 364 days, they go back to worshiping their favorite celebrities and sports stars because those are the real heroes of the country.
When veteran benefits and hospitals were being cut, it hardly even got mention. Some celebrity gets arrested or gets salmonella poisoning, and CNN will cover it 24/7 until we know that they have made it through their horrible ordeal. Soldiers get mangled for life and meh. A sports star sprains his ankle, and people pray for a miracle recovery.
Should be the other way around if veterans were the heroes. Sports stars and celebrities would get one day of the year dedicated to them where they get to be the hero of the day. We would all have a moment of silence for all the times Tom Cruise had a bad hair day or for all the hangovers Paris Hilton woke up with.
Which then might bring about the question of what do sports stars and celebs offer society in relation to the ridiculous amounts of money they are paid? Could it be said that peoples obsession and worship of movie and sports stars be a case of people having lost their sense of reality and common sense?
They may offer entertainment to society, but is what they do really worth that money? Is the job of a hockey player really more important than a farmer or paramedic? Does the ability to place an object across a line have the same value as being able to feed 10 thousand people? Is the ability to score 50 goals a year more important than saving 500 lives a year? Does the ability to catch and throw a ball take more talent than some clown juggling a bunch of balls on his unicycle?
In the end, people get what they want and set the market to reflect that since no one is forced to buy tickets and watch games or buy 'hannah montanas' latest line of perfume. There is a support base for it. If it's over priced and hyped up entertainment that people are willing to pay for and go nuts after, the market will play on that aspect and people will get the chance to watch a bunch of millionaires chase a ball around. If people didn’t want that, they’d spend their money somewhere else and sports stars would have to get into another line of work.
If you wake up in the morning, go make yourself a grilled cheese sandwich and discover that it resembles the image of Jesus in some way, there is also a demand market out there that will go crazy for your sandwich and you can make a ton of money off of other peoples stupidity.
It’s like with modern art; there was a time in history when art took creative talent to create and it was hard to get away with being a shitty artist with no real talent, but today, art has become more and more accepted as "anything goes" art. If you have a name, you can take a roll of toilet paper, wipe your ass with it, frame it, stamp your name on it and trade it in for a luxury yacht and you'll find a market of people who'll love your crap, praise you for the rich texture and the juxtaposition of the different shades of brown, and it'll be called a masterpiece because of your ability to transform a grilled cheese sandwich into a work of art on a roll of toilet paper that only you were able to uniquely create.
Because if there is one thing that can be said about society in general: it's definitely not marinated with an abidance of intelligence.
Thoughts? |
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