date: 10.25.2002
entitled: "Fear & Guns"

The film �Bowling for Columbine� has reached the theaters. I urge every citizen of the United States to see this film. Period. Like any documentary, it leaves questions unanswered, and issues open for debate. Unlike many other documentaries I�ve seen, it is disturbing, thought-provoking, enraging, hilarious, entertaining, gut wrenching, humbling, victorious, compassionate, hopeful, and sad, all wrapped into one. It made me look at my home state of Michigan in a light I had only caught a glimpse of, since moving to New York. I was late in realizing that Michigan is comprised of a majority of uneducated, underpaid, gun toting, ignorant, and greedy citizens. The rest of the population is a bunch of middle-to-upper class people, living in suburbia, apathetic, if not oblivious, to the atrocities happening in the rest of the state and country and world. I grew up in the suburbs north of Detroit. There was the �south of 8 mile fear�, instilled by our grandparents who fled the city when diversity came along. Yet, it was also strange to drive farther north, into the rural areas, and encounter the strange, reclusive, old-fashioned people there. My grandmother owned a farm in Imlay City, home to the Wal-Mart sized Quality Farm and Fleet store, and where kids drove tractors to school everyday. Weird. But we accepted these people, mainly for the fact that they provided us with produce, and didn�t ask questions about their strange ways. Little did we know that Timothy McVeigh and Allen Nichols were creating bombs a mere 3 hour drive north of my parents� house. And we knew that area, along with the rest of rural Michigan, was teeming with Michigan Militia, but we just pretended to shrug it off and carry on with our daily lives, while encapsulating ourselves in our protected, suburban bubble. And the tradition continues. America itself is a mere, large composite of citizens like those Michiganders, manifested in different forms. We are a country bred through fear. We let the media rule our lives, grasping onto every threat they uncover, thus purchasing deadbolt locks and home security systems and car alarms and The Club and mace and switchblades and guns. We are afraid of the weather. We are afraid of natural disaster. We are afraid of change. We are afraid of homosexuals. We are afraid of our neighbor. We are afraid of people with darker skin. We are afraid of losing our money. We are afraid of losing world power. America = Fear + Greed + Corruption = Violence I realized I have the exact same fear as everyone else, and I�d like to overcome that fear. But it�s difficult to overcome your fear, when everyone else is afraid, and will lash out at you because of it. I want to deal with it differently. Positive change within government seems pretty futile to me, especially when we can�t seem to let other parties besides democrats and republicans have a chance in office, and we have so many who are putting people like Bush in office. So, the only other alternative is to flee. And our Great Mother to the North seems a pretty nice and safe place to live, as Canadians don't live in fear. Don't believe me? Fact: Sarnia, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, has had 1 gun-related murder within the past 3 years. Canada, here I come! Now I just have to figure out a way they will let me join them.

song stuck in my head:

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