G Rated Comments About the Relevance of Pink Floyd’s Animals Album:

@larsman Great line.  

The relevance of the album’s ideas to our current state of affairs: 

Selfishness, greed, entitlement, and a lack of respect for life obviously define the Western World today.  
- corporate dominance at the expense of human dignity
- crushing and punishing the poor
- inhumane work/living/housing conditions
- lack of health care
- prioritizing the power of the NRA over the rights of children to attend school without being mass murdered.  
- prioritizing the wealth of a tiny fraction of Earth’s population (oil companies) over addressing the fact that the entire human race may not be able to live on Earth a few hundred years from now

Not a lot of respect for life here.

- prioritizing the wealth of Tech Bros over addressing the abominable conditions facing millions of poor people
- prioritizing the wealth of universities and capitulating to the entitlement of their customers (formerly known as students) over actually educating the population
- tribal behavior that punishes any person in draconian fashion who speaks in any way remotely outside of a narrow dogmatic corridor of language/thought (this goes for both sides of the aisle), i.e., “just shut up and be a sheep like the rest of us, and you won’t get hurt”

Yeah, I think a lot of the stuff is just as relevant now as ever.

@tylermunns Dude, you nailed it …

I love that we got far enough on this thread that that perspective came out …

Maybe it would be fun to start another thread on how best ti deal with it, as a people that’ve been so affected by the situation …

Or, maybe it would be more fun to keep this one going, so the conversation can continue to evolve into something even bigger …

I’d like to hear what you guys (and gals) have to say on that subject, by mentioning a fav song that speaks to what you’re proposing, and explaining why, if needed.

I’m gonna kick it off by saying Chocolate City by Parliament slash Funkadelic …

Please keep the conversation civil so the thread doesn’t get shut down by the moderators. It’s OK to express something kind of out there, just keep it G rated enough, the way you present it …

Chocolate City being my example.

@larsman +1

That’s a really great lyric … and the groove that it’s attached to is so beautiful.

How to deal with it?
Teach your children well.
Teach them that respect, personal responsibility, compassion and empathy for all life is more important than being another white-collar capitalist.
Education is paramount.
Teach them that “education” and “university” are not necessarily synonymous.
College is not the be-all-end-all, but being stupid is a deal-breaker.
Reinforce the positive behaviors in kids with positive reinforcement.
Stop adhering to archaic, counter-productive notions of “constant punishment = reduction of undesirable behavior.” News flash: it doesn’t. Just like attending to the behaviors of adult trolls (be they professional or amateur) reinforces the trolling behavior, constant negative reinforcement of attention-seeking behavior in kids does the same; reinforces it.
I’m not saying eliminate boundaries and rules. The opposite.
Be clear what the boundaries and rules are, and be consistent in holding kids accountable to them. That means holding yourself accountable and not giving in to tantrums and remaining consistent and treating a kid as though you expect them to be good; not the other way around.
Don’t be these modern parents who behave as though asserting boundaries, saying, “no,” and saying, “I will not drop everything immediately to satisfy your whim right now” is tantamount to spirit-crushing child abuse.
It’s not.
If a kid learns that engaging in undesirable behaviors elicits rewards, they will keep engaging in undesirable behavior.
If a kid is positively reinforced when they engage in desirable behaviors, they will keep engaging in desirable behaviors.
Treating a child with respect and with the presumption that they will be good doesn’t mean never praising them when they do good stuff.
Praise them.
Respect that every kid is good at something, and reinforce those proclivities instead of forcing some other irrelevant lifestyle on them.
Vote for people that actually want to improve public education, not literally destroy it by literally telling teachers they can’t teach (unconscionable) and punishing teachers who merely want to teach kids facts and truth.
If a candidate advocates handcuffing educators and punishing them for educating kids, and uses rhetoric that demonizes educators, don’t vote for them.
Vote for people who have a legitimate record of action to improve the lives of working people, have minimal instances in their political career where they sided with corporate interests instead, and express sincere intentions to reform education, health care, the impunity with which corporations can go on destroying the planet, working conditions for blue-collar jobs, and generally express actual compassion and empathy for life on Earth.

@tylermunns All good points. I bet you raised a couple of good humans. 😉

Care to name a name a song that expresses something close to that sentiment?