X

Mass Consciousness

By Jay Taber

The United States of America has always been an extremely violent country, but American broadcast media during the 1960s social turmoil over racism, consumerism and militarism was very different from what it is today. Astonishingly, the unmitigated violence of the American war in Southeast Asia and the Southern US was actually televised.

Since the 1980s, however — as U.S. racism, consumerism and militarism continued visiting extreme violence on regions like Central America and Central Africa — American broadcast media has acted as though social turmoil there has nothing to do with us. While readers of IC Magazine are aware that ethnic cleansing and genocide against indigenous peoples worldwide have everything to do with American racism, consumerism and militarism, television viewers would be hard-pressed to comprehend what is happening.

As IC and other online media develop the capacity to expose the violence of racism, consumerism and militarism in real time video, mass consciousness of Americans and other First World societies will change the way we view our duties, responsibilities and lifestyles. When this consciousness begins to significantly alter social behavior, we will know that our efforts here have not been in vain.