People are given a conscience for a reason

After the activist, Kathy Kelly, came to our American Studies class this past week, I decided to go on to the Amnesty International website to learn more. I came across an article that caught my eye. It discussed the need for people to speak up for their rights. The article "No room in human rights for spectators,'" focused on a woman named Irene Khan. Irene Khan is Amnesty International's Secretary General, and definitely spoke up during the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Council. She wanted people to understand that ideas need to be taken into action. People cannot expect to sit and watch horrible things happening in the world. Khan focused on the need for the United Nations Human Rights Council to use their strength to help many. She believes that they need to be the leaders for the international community, and in order to do so they need to be active. They are the voice of many. Khan thinks that people who have influence over others need to be strong and step up. The world needs to come together, but in order to do people cannot be afraid to express their ideas.
This article very much relates to the ideas of Henry David Thoreau especially in his writing of "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau believed that everyone was given a conscience for a reason. They were supposed to stand up, and tell people how they felt and what they thought. Thoreau believed that people couldn't let themselves fall into the background. Everyone is of equal importance, and everyone’s ideas are of equal importance. This article just goes to show that Thoreau's ideas still have an impact on people today.

Bending the information

I was listening to my iPod the other day, and the song "Waiting on the World to Change," came up on my shuffle. There was a particular set of lines in the John Mayer song that really stuck with me. When Mayer sang, "And when you trust your television, what you get is what you got. Cause when they own the information, oh They can bend it all they want," I definitely saw a parallel to what we are learning in class. We discussed how the media plays what people want to hear, and that is why the wise man is always highlighted in different tales. People enjoy reading about a man who succeeded, and the media understands that. As a result of this, we have a clouded view of what is actually going on in the world. Whoever finds the information can portray the story to the public in whichever way they choose. They may leave huge bits of it out, and highlight one part of the topic. They may choose an angle that doesn't accurately correlate. Whatever they end up doing, the reader or listener sees whatever the news tells them. It is the viewers’ way of knowing national/international affairs. The news therefore determines their opinion on a situation they may not know much about.
We hear more about the hero, than the man who failed. We see soldiers saving people instead of killing them, and we watch our government usually doing the "right" thing. We see what we want to see. This perspective is bias, and doesn't tell the whole story. There are so many ideas and groups of people that are left out in broadcast. So as John Mayer says, we are just "Waiting on the World to Change."