Community is Fiction "This account has been 
terminated due to repeated or severe violations 
of our Community Guidelines..." saith the lockout 
message on u-tube when an account is disabled.
    I'm here to tell that community is dead.  
There is no more community.  Community is 
fiction.  It no longer exists except as fodder 
used by advertisers to lull us into a false sense 
of security that we do have people who agree with 
us and also buy their product.
    We used to have community.  It was very real.  
People knew each other, they interacted, they 
trusted each other and they tried to make life 
better for everyone in their community.  Not 
community is a lie, a buzz word, perpetrated by 
politicians to fill the gaps in between the times 
when they insinuate they might actually have our 
interest in mind.  Community is no longer with us 
and we should grieve its passing.
    What happened?  Television and now the 
internet.  That's what happened.  You have mom 
watching television in one room, dad in another 
and the kids in each of their rooms with their 
own tv or ipod.  The family unit has been 
separated by time, motivation and the razzel 
dazzle that 'entertains' them.
    It goes even further back than that.  It used 
to be, back in rural America, that four 
generations would live under one roof.  That was 
important because grandparents could fill in the 
gaps between times when the parents were working 
so hard to raise the kids.  Some important life 
lessons were taught by grandparents.  Not only 
was the wisdom and experience of a mature 
generation passed down, but kids would often see 
the realities of life through their grandparents 
growing old.  It was motivation to survive and to 
achieve in life.
   During that time we didn't have tv.  The pace 
of life was different as well.  People would stop 
and talk to one another, on the street, if they 
happened to meet.  Visitors might ride a horse 
and buggy and stay the night to make the trip 
back in reasonable time.  Jefferson once 
explained how he had a notebook, and when he 
visited a friend\'s house with a library, he 
might stay two weeks and jot notes from the books 
in his acquaintance's library.  Do we even 
comprehend the community our forefathers had?
    One interview [find source] about radio's 
introduction into society back in the twenties, 
one of the interviewed stated how she stopped 
playing the piano when they got a radio.  
Instead of practicing the piano she would listen 
to the radio.  I think she touches on the 
motivation of many faced with media verses an 
experience.  It's so much easier to turn it on 
and be entertained.
    I don't know.  I'm just touched with a bout 
of surmiseses here.  Don't know what happened to 
community but it's gone.  "It takes a village to 
raise a child."  The loss of community has 
destroyed our social fabric and the strength of 
our country.  "Divide and conquer."  America is 
no more because of the loss of community.
    I participated in a little experiment: I 
joined the Grange.  You see they got a computer 
lab with high speed internet access donated.  I 
needed a place to meet prospective clients, and I 
didn't want to bring them to my house so I 
volunteered to manage the computer lab at the 
Grange hall in order to meet people for the 
purposes of discussing software.
    It didn't actually work like that, although 
that's what I was thinking I would like to do 
when I first went down to the computer lab.  It 
was an all volunteer organization and I knew 
people would be hesitant to volunteer their time 
each Saturday to open the lab.  Instead I joined 
the Grange.  I paid their membership and started 
attending meetings.  My goal was more than just 
the computer lab; I did have intentions of 
getting involved in the community.  The Grange 
seemed like a perfect venue.  It just happened, 
quite naturally, because I talked so much about 
computers and electronics, that they asked me to 
manage the Grange computer lab on Saturdays.
    There's a lot of politics in the Grange, or 
amongst any group of people for that matter.  
Fraternal organizations like this can be a 
stepping point into politics and if you work with 
people there are 'politics'.  And politics are 
rarely very pretty.  Jill hates Jane.  Bob tries 
to talk down Jim.  Bosley picks up a loose end 
that Terry missed and makes sure to tell 
everybody at the next meeting.  You know how 
company politics can get quite messy.
	I'm reminded of when I was six or seven 
and we had the I hate Stevie club.  We had 
cardboard boxes and everything and one week, I 
don't remember why, but all the kids on the 
street were invited except Stevie.  Then the next 
week it was Mikey, the I hate Mikey club.  Might 
have been Jimmy next, and I can remember a couple 
of times not being invited.
	The same thing in the office or any work 
environment.  It seems to move around.  One day 
it's this or that person and the next them or 
they.  It's gossip and politics fueled by our 
influences from life and the media.  Community's 
not going to back us any more.  You can almost 
plant rumors and wait for the results.  It's a 
sport for people.  They set each other up and 
tear people down.  "I'm not one to say, and you 
know I never talk about anyone behind their 
backs, but ...".  It's over.  The salvo has been 
fired.
	Same with the Grange, except nobodies 
getting a pay check.  We all become, however, 
quite committed to the goals and take 
extraordinary strides to make things happen.  
Politics enter the picture.
    The Grange is also a follower of 
parliamentary rules.  You have a master of 
ceremonies, committee members, there are certain 
ways to say things at meetings, it's quite 
remarkable, parliamentary rule akin to Robert's 
Rules of Order.  Amongst all this fanfare is a 
structure and that structure is under constant 
manipulation, gossip and innuendo by members to 
achieve their goals.  There are some tremendous 
battles that go on in any fraternal organization 
and the politics gets quite messy.
    Unfortunately this Grange hall was in a rural 
area that was quickly being converted to 
residential as the real estate boom mowed down 
the trees and houses and cul-de-sacs replaced 
farm land.  In the Grange hall they had picture 
albums of when they met going back all the way to 
the forties.  The hall was filled with people in 
the forties, fifties and sixties, and even into 
the seventies, at times.  By the eighties it was 
empty.  It was difficult in the early 00's, when 
I joined, to even get enough people for a quorum 
(eight).  The rural and farming community that 
once thrived in this area was long gone, now 
replaced by rich yuppies who dominated the 
landscape and could care less if their neighbor 
was alive or dead.  This community organization 
which used to have canning displays and barn 
raisings was long gone as locks replaced open 
farm houses that once dotted the landscape.
    The demise of community started when we first 
moved from the farms to the cities for work.  
The first to be separated from the family unit 
were the grandparents.  The stripped down family 
units moved to the cities and the responsibility 
of raising children was turned over the the 
schools as father and then mother entered the 
work force having less and less time for the 
influences needed to raise children.
     The community dissipated almost without 
anybody noticing.  There were attempts to 
maintain community in the suburbs but it lacked 
the real life impact of the farm.  Media further 
took over the home's center piece and community 
was relegated to social clubs, fiction and 
corporate hype to get you to think everybody else 
is, so why not you. Living, breathing, pulsing, 
thriving, barn raising community that once was 
has been relegated to history and community 
expressed by politicians and Hollywood only 
fiction.  Let us morn the loss of community.
	 
	 
kb 2012
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