I write about things that inspire me, and anger/frustration is a primary source. I avoid the news for many reasons: To be happy, mostly. But the majority of it is there to fill 24 hours with train wrecks to keep us watching in order to keep advertising rates high. When rates dip, news channels go for the jugular. Fear is always a winning tactic.
As a journalist, you learn the tricks. The first thing we’re taught in school…
Crying moms = ratings.
That was written across the chalkboard on day one. Our job is to produce as much of that as possible.
I wrote this out of frustration (hence the caps and prolific use of the word “fuck”) after seeing so many repeatedly getting it wrong on Twitter and Facebook. I’m continually shocked by our refusal to get educated on a subject before we spout off. But it’s an epidemic now since we’re spouting off to others who are equally as ignorant…and the pot of shit just keeps swirling around with the communal wooden spoon of ridiculousness until it boils over and spills onto everyone’s cooktop.
This was written for Facebook to wake up friends and I’m sharing it here.
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Here is why the wall and the shutdown is complete bullshit, no matter who you voted for:
If you build a wall, they will dig a tunnel. Actually, most illegals fly in on guest visas and just stay. We’re missing the real issue, the bigger picture here. WE DON’T NEED A WALL. WE NEED TO FIX IMMIGRATION.
I’ve been through it. It’s a horrible, time consuming, EXPENSIVE process for 1 person. A family of 4? Ha. Hahahaha. It took over 2 years and almost $2000. If you count a required trip to Vancouver for an interview with the Canadian government to start the process, then it cost over $4000. And we got in before America jacked the fees. Now many spend $10,000. The US lost our case files. LOST them. Twice. I learned this is common and they’ve attached GPS trackers to papers in recent years. You can’t leave America while everything is processing — for years — not even if your mom dies. It nullifies everything. You must be sponsored. While I don’t condone illegal immigration, I certainly understand it now.
Most people have no idea how broken our system is. If we fix it, we can make it affordable, vetted, tax paying and legal. We can allow those in at an affordable fee who will offer the country something: a skill, talent, art, business. Our wall will be Green Cards. THE GOVERNMENT — We The People — the ones who work FOR US, the public servants we pay — have a duty to fix a broken system for the better of us all. Instead, they squabble like 14-year-old children, throw out fake “stats”, focus on what the other party is doing wrong and divide our stupid country full of lemmings (yes, that’s what you are if you believe what comes out of a screen instead of doing real, credible research from a .edu or .org) rather than working together to use our valuable resources WE PAY INTO to fix the issue together. As the elected body they’re supposed to be – you know, as the elected body they’re supposed to be.
Ironically, this was the estimation when it was bothered to be done: Immigration reform would cost $18 billion dollars. It would GENERATE $48 billion dollars in new revenue for the United States, mostly through increased social security taxes, since most immigrants would be younger, thus paying into our system and not collecting.
In other words, legal immigrants would a) generate far more than they would take and b) not work cut-rate jobs under the table, thus allowing for a higher minimum wage and more (probably shitty) jobs for Americans (who might not want them, but love to fight about having the option.) By contrast, the wall is more accurately estimated to cost over $21 billion. It’s not rocket science.
THIS is why Americans should get their heads out of their asses and be upset over the wall and the shutdown. But most are too ignorant and uneducated to know what’s really going on. If one is ignorant these days, it’s a choice.Everyone knows the media is slanted one way or another depending on the channel. Therefore, everyone also knows the media isn’t correct and they need proper facts and information elsewhere.”Fake News” is a household term.
You should be fucking pissed. Frustrated. Angry. Not at people who are the opposite party, but at the fuckwits in office who aren’t doing their jobs they’re being paid for by the money taken from YOUR PAYCHECK. We are literally paying them to do nothing but divide the country and live on the government provided social programs they condemn.
We live in a cloud of ignorance, blindly accepting what’s spoon-fed to us from whatever screen we watch. We are either “cold-hearted cunts and lack empathy”…or we take to social media with too much outrage and “bleeding hearts” over something we know absolutely NOTHING about and have never personally experienced.
It’s never that cut and dried. NEVER.Life is shades of grey. Step back. See the bigger picture. Stop letting a screen brainwash you to the point where you alienate the ones around you. While not everyone can experience immigration (thank God), learn about it before you become a keyboard warrior based on a headline/screen blurb and nothing else.
A true opinion can only come from experience and education. It cannot be fed to you. That is called parroting.
We don’t need more hostility. We don’t need a wall. We don’t need Americans, who mostly live paycheck to paycheck, going without paychecks. We need people to get educated, stand up, and to demand that their government fix the REAL issue, immigration. As long as we’re divided and infighting, they can do whatever they want and spend as much as they please.
Rome was unbelievably ahead of its time. Infighting and divide are what destroyed it. We’re on the same path.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana
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For the record, I’m of no political affiliation.
Thanks for reading.
April K. Hunteris a television writer, short story author, copywriter, blogger, and primarily writes thrillers and memoirs. She attends Full Sail University for her degree in Creative Writing for Entertainment. Her work appears in a variety of publications, including RxMuscle, Page & Spine, Medium, and European Journal FONT. Her first book, UNDISCLOSED DARKNESS can be found on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.
A model, cosplayer and professional wrestler, she’s currently a part-time superhero at geek conventions, Mother of Chickens and owned by one spoiled rotten corgi. When not crafting stories, she is learning something new each day or scouring the internet for funny memes while drinking too much coffee.
Putting The Clothes On, Taking The Gloves Off. 