One of "Those" People

It's easy, when you're interested in comics, television, everything else - when you have the money to pay for such a relatively expensive hobby - to forget about "those" people.

After all, we're in an economic crisis - who cares about "those" people? Hey, it's survival of the fittest - after all, you snooze you lose. We all have our own bills to worry about, why should we care about poverty? After all, "those" people don't do anything - we work our tails off. Why, if we don't elect the right president, we'll have to worry about "those" people. Besides, Superman punching robots, or the Doctor flying in his TARDIS and fighting the Daleks, helps us by taking us away from the real world, and the overall uncomfortable feeling we get when thinking of..."those" people.

Some more optimistic than I am would say, "But wait a minute - (name your favorite comic book character/television icon) inspires us to be better than we are, to take a positive stand, to do something to make the world a better place. Can't we just have some escapist fare, and not have to worry about those people?"

But in reality, with our current panic about our own financial crises (or lack thereof), we forget that there are others much worse off than ourselves. We forget that in many of our communities, things just don't work the same way, nor are all opportunities equal. We forget because we will throw away a three dollar comic because we don't enjoy it, or will openly criticize a DVD from our $20-some dollar a month Netflix plan because we didn't like it...but we won't openly do anything for "those" people.

Quite frankly, I'm writing this post because not only have I worked with "those people", but since I signed up for Blog Action Day (thanks, fellow Junk Fewd contributor Miguel!), I want to make it easy for you to take action. Something that doesn't require money, or finances, or even much physical effort - just a few mouse clicks and maybe some typing.

Part of the effort in Blog Action Day is encouraging people to stand up and hold their leaders accountable for ending poverty. Luckily, their site makes it ridiculously simple - just feel free to add the site to your existing social networking site. Click the above link to find more information; if you want to link directly to Twitter and Facebook, then just click here.

But more importantly - please feel free to share this post amongst your social bookmarking sites. At the bottom is a green icon, courtesy of Share This. Click on it, and you can pretty much send this site to various bookmarking services like Digg, Delicious, or ma.gnolia. In addition, you can even e-mail it to your friends...or link to it in your own blog.

Recently, when discussing participating in the Superstruct game, one of my co-workers - a young guy who doesn't really get out much - teased me for being a "lefty, social work-type". Quite frankly, I don't see technology as the grand savior of us all...because it has to start with a change of consciousness. It has to start with us remembering that we are all united in a common humanity, and that technology is only useful if everyone has it...and very few of "those" people do.

Because quite frankly, I have met "those people"....and they are us.