Life and Death of Stars

Life and Death of Stars

File Under: It Is In Our Hands

Aaron Swartz 1986-2012

An unfortunate fact of life is that truly visionary individuals are often the most troubled. They see in the world the imbalance, discord, and strife that mirrors their own. Likely these inner demons and inner turmoil are what drives them to create, to pioneer, to innovate, to advocate, and to inspire in an effort to bring about not only progress, but also the peace and harmony that escapes them personally. The great injustice of life is that for so many of these brilliant minds their life's work goes unnoticed and appreciated by the masses who will reap benefit from it or worse these individuals become victims of societal oppression and persecution. Sadly bright, brilliant stars burn out the fastest and for one reason or another can lose the path they have illuminated for so many others. When many former beacons no longer possess the will to shine they stumble and fall from grace. For others however, when the torment of this world becomes too colossal and the isolation too extreme, they commit the ultimate act of desperation – and we forever lose a star. Most recently the skies of openness, freedom of information, and sharing on the Internet were dimmed when at the age of 26, pioneering programmer and Reddit founder Aaron Swartz took his life on January 11, 2013. In addition to his technological achievements, Aaron fought to keep the Internet free of control from the government and greedy corporations as an activist against such tyrannical initiatives like SOPA.

Ilya Zhitomirskiy 1989-2011

Suicide underscores the reality that our society is ailing under a cancer of the soul stemming from our partisan lobbyist-controlled politics. This country has been sold out to globalist corporations who have destroyed family and community leaving Media and Government in their place to act as sword and shield as they seek to shape our collective futures. This confederacy has systematically devalued American workers, strong families, strong communities, common sense, high moral values, independence, free thought, self reliance, transparency, and ingenuity. Surreptitiously the ideas and principles upon which we founded this Nation, and fought so bloodily to defend, have been subverted, sabotaged, and abandoned. The product of this decay is a society that places no value on the life and worth of an individual, a society that does not seek to redress systemic problems, and a society that sees its people taking drastic, senseless actions to escape their drastic, senseless lives. For their physical, mental, and emotional illnesses these individuals could not find an answer, a means to cope, or any comfort, and for this reason they took their own lives – they imploded. Others in their sadness or madness amplify the tragedy by feeling the innocent must join them in their suffering and death.

Tony Scott 1944-2012

Political action is not the answer, politics is the problem – people are the answer: people caring about people, people exercising moral decency, people using common sense, people strengthening families, people rebuilding communities, people taking action, and people demanding and advocating for meaningful reform. We must stop allowing the Media to tell us what to care about and what is important. Stop allowing corporations to dictate the course of our future. Stop allowing the power-hungry and corrupt to lead us down a path of destruction. Stop doping our problems and shoving them into places we can ignore. Stop assigning blame to inanimate objects and fueling pointless debates that lead us nowhere.

Junior Seau 1969-2012

Our sons and daughters are dying in foreign lands in wars that do not concern America; our children, grandchildren, and friends, are murdered in their places of learning, work, recreation or worship by the mentally-ill who have lost connection with reality; and suicide is now the leading cause of death by injury in America, surpassing car accidents and gun deaths. Why? Because this country is owned, operated, and educated by globalist corporations, corrupt power-hungry politicians, and the Media – none of whom care one iota about you, human life, or this country. So long as that continues to be the case the stars that illuminate our skies will continue to wink out and die until we are all cast in permanent darkness.

Don Cornelius 1936-2012

Rest in peace: Mike Kelley, Bob Welch, Bill Zeller, Ric Weiland, Tim Stryker, Paco Menendez, Philip Gale, Gene Khan, and many more.