Photo credit: Mickey Z.
Mickey Z. -- World News Trust
Oct. 23, 2014
"The only thing we have to fear…”
- the guy who signed Executive Order 9066
Halloween is an odd holiday. The ostensible concept -- as it has evolved to become -- is to shock, startle, frighten, petrify, horrify, and/or terrify... all while consuming enough high fructose corn syrup to keep the American Dental Association content for another century or two.
Step away from the candy corn…
Every year, as Oct. 31 nears, loyal consumers squander a small fortune to adorn their soon-to-be-foreclosed-upon abodes with Made-in-China images of tombstones, skulls, ghouls, goblins, monsters, zombies, and even the occasional bloody severed limb or two. But let's face it, none of these cardboard depictions remotely compare to the real-life horrors we passively accept as normal.
Who needs Dracula when we've got ruling-class vampires sucking us dry -- stealing not only our blood but also our jobs, homes, health, and future?
Why bother with Saw when legions of ghouls unleash far worse cruelty -- every minute of every day -- via slaughterhouses, vivisection labs, fur farms, and other perfectly legal houses of horror?
No zombie is more frightening than corporations transformed into "persons" -- set free to co-opt our minds and pillage the ecosystem.
Never mind Jason and his hockey mask when you've got Obama playing left wing.
Who's afraid of UFOs or evil space aliens when the skies are filled with predator drones, cruise missiles, and fighter jets?
Elm Street's Freddie ain't got nothing on extraordinary rendition, NSA spying, and the PATRIOT Act.
Witches, bats, pumpkins, and skeletons vs. nuclear contamination, climate change, deforestation, ocean trawling, GMOs, and the Sixth Great Extinction? No contest.
And I'll take Godzilla's side over pesticide, genocide, and ecocide.
Here's one more 24/7 real-life nightmare far more dreadful than anything Halloween can conjure up: When all those kids come knocking on your door, expecting brightly colored toxins called “candy,” you might wish to remind yourself that across the globe, an estimated 30,000 children under the age of 5 die from preventable causes every single day.
Cue the ominous music: 30,000 dead. Under the age of 5. Every single day. From preventable causes.
The next time you're at a sporting event or a concert, take a good, slow look around you and get a feel for what 30,000 looks like.
It's a whole lot more terrifying than the whir of a chainsaw echoing down a desolate Texas highway.
#shifthappens
Mickey Z. is the author of 12 books, most recently Occupy this Book: Mickey Z. on Activism. Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on the Web here. Anyone wishing to support his activist efforts can do so by making a donation here.
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