Paying Attention's
2013 Person of The Year
No, this is not Trayvon Martin, so put your gun away Zimmerman.
by Ed Venture, Managing Editor
The staff here at Paying Attention decided to select a
Person of The Year for 2013. And it's very difficult to get all of us to agree
on anything…as you will see. We ferreted out far-flung factors, agonized appropriately,
procrastinated profusely and, almost losing ourselves in a morose morass of
videos and news articles, making sure to avoid any exposure to stories
associated in any way with the now shamefully disreputable 60 Minutes. After much debate, soul searching and throwing of darts
we came to a decision or two. So without further ado, Paying Attention brings
you our Person of The Year for 2013.
This well-known figure is no longer with us but he was a
bastion of social equality when it was even less fashionable than it is now. Despite
his wealthy middle-class upbringing, he championed the needs of the poor and
downtrodden over the well-to-do throughout his life. It was his belief that
economic fairness was the keystone of social equality. The mainstream of
America has had nothing but utter disdain for this brilliant socio-economic
theorist/activist. Actually that’s not entirely true; most of mainstream
America has had more than utter disdain for this historic figure. They have
also had an abject fear of, and inexhaustible loathing for all everything he
stood for, whether they actually understood any of it or not. Personally I was
never a big fan though in some I found his ideas had great merit and were well
worth considering. Many across the globe have studied and/or applied some of
his theories to varying effect. Nevertheless it appears that his philosophy,
and by some accounts two of his most ardent followers, have taken his message
onto center stage of the world scene, seemingly at a level seen neither during
nor since his lifetime. Ladies and gentlemen, cats and kittens, I give you…Karl
Marx.
Now that, at least according to present-day luminaries like
Rush Limbaugh along with countless nameless Tea Party opiners, America has a
Marxist president and the Catholic Church has a Marxist Pope - arguably two of
the most influential people on the planet. The historical influence of one of
the West’s most reviled social philosophers can no longer be questioned. Karl
Marx has clearly won the day, that is unless those few of Barack Obama's
polices that support greater economic equality, and Pope Francis' disparaging
comments describing the tyranny of capitalism and the dangers of almost
incalculable economic inequality are actually derived from the teachings of
Jesus. (Either way, I blame the Jews.)
During his new apostolic exhortation, "The Joy of the
Gospel," (not to be confused with the Joys of Yiddish) in which the Pope
laid out his vision for the church's proclamation of the gospel, Pope Francis
said, "Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in
order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say 'thou
shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy
kills." What a commie pinko bastard. Where is Joe McCarthy when you need
him?
Wait, There's More
Oh yeah, and Edward Snowden - American patriot. Several days
ago Snowden, in asylum in Russia, rather than in the asylum that is the NSA-run
America he exposed, told Washington Post journalist Barton Gellman, to whom he
leaked some of the documents he took from the NSA, “I already won. As soon as
the journalists were able to work, everything that I had been trying to do was
validated. Because, remember, I didn’t want to change society. I wanted to give
society a chance to determine if it should change itself.”
“I am not trying to bring down the NSA, I am working to
improve the NSA,” he told Gellman. “I am still working for the NSA right now.
They are the only ones who don’t realize it.” Snowden's avowed intention was simply
"to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that
which is done against them."
Snowden risked everything to blow the whistle on an
out-of-control "intelligence" community. Deciding to protect the
United States Constitution, rather than his own comfort and safety, Snowden is
considered an outlaw in the country he clearly loves. He is a hero.
Have a great 2014.
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