Not about money

LITTLE ROCK — Money over everything, money over everything. Is that all we care about-dollar signs and body count?

Money over everything, money over everything. We’ll criticize the radio for showing kids a bad example, but we don’t think about the news and what it really teaches you. Dollar signs and body count: time to change your lenses out.

The lens through which a society views itself is very telling of its priorities and philosophies. From this concept, I could likely conclude that anyone living outside America looks at our news media and assumes our primary concerns in life to be money and violence; they are often poised as indicators of an event’s importance.

Despite the attempt at fairness in reporting on the costs associated with the Occupy Little Rock site, there has been a failure to criticize the cost or validity of other marches and protests. I thought we accepted these costs as a society to respect each other’s heritage and values-why the discrimination?

Furthermore, I would like to point out that every year a subsidy of $200,000 in Little Rock taxpayer money basically vanishes into the lair of the Chamber of Commerce with no accountability. Where is the outcry? We are conditioned to submit to authority and oppress each other.

We are living in a finance-based society rather than a values-based society. Emphasizing and placing higher value on the supposed financial impact as opposed to the unquantifiable positive social impact of our actions negate the importance of Occupy Little Rock’s protest.

For anyone in need of a primer on Occupy Little Rock’s current projects, here you go: Band Together For The Homeless (a battle of the bands benefiting SOAR Outreach Network); protect Lake Maumelle (the drinking water supply for about 400,000 central Arkansans) from destructive over development; support the Regnat Populus ballot initiative for Arkansas campaign finance and lobbying reform; circulate nationwide petitions to overturn the Patriot Act and Citizens United v. FEC decision (abolish corporate personhood); petition to enact the Return to Prudent Banking Act of 2011; and produce a weekly radio show on KABF-FM (Tuesdays at noon) to continue ongoing public education outreach regarding the local and national political state of affairs.

This is what democracy looks like. Voting once every four years does not equate to democracy-it is an ongoing hands-on process that demands involvement at the local level. Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men and women do nothing.”

It amuses me how many scream in outrage at Barack Obama or George W. Bush, yet sit ready to cast stones from couches in glass houses at anyone who dares stand up. Thirty thousand dollars for six months of life support for the First Amendment sounds like a good deal to me (HR347, anyone?). How many soldiers lost to protect our freedoms? Dollar signs and body count . . .

We have to change the lens through which we view our actions on a local and national level. Boiling down each other’s efforts to numbers on paper serves only to strip one another of our humanity. I repeat: We are conditioned to submit to authority and oppress each other.

We must stop equating profit with positivity, i.e., money over everything. It is contradictory to shake a finger at rappers’ idolatry of money only to turn around and slap lawful protesters with dollar signs for the cost of exercising their constitutional rights.

The truth is that no dollar value can be assigned to the social service performed by Occupy Little Rock: proof every single day that the Constitution lives despite unconstitutional legislation such as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, the Patriot Act, sections 1031 and 1032 of the National Defense Authorization Act, and Obama’s latest National Defense Preparedness Resources Executive Order-these are not what democracy looks like.

I challenge the citizens of Arkansas to abandon the finance-based ideologies through which we have been conditioned to view the world and embrace progressive, locally driven values-based analyses and decision making processes. This is how we will unite over our differences.

Dollar signs and body count? You think that’s what it’s all about? Time to change your lenses out.

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Adam Lansky is an active participant of Occupy Little Rock’s Media/PR team, local musician and radio personality. He can be contacted at adam.lansky@hotmail.com.