Tattle Telling gets Paddle Wailing

"Scruff McGruff
Chicago, Illinois
60652"

This was the anthem that played among my generation's childhood. I heard more from Scruff, than even the largest toy company. His advertising brainwash came on the television multiple times an hour. His address may have been one of the first things I was forced to remember, that and 911, yes the snitch line, not the awesome holiday.

We learn to snitch on each other before we learn most things. Anyone with siblings knows what I am talking about. Parents reinforce, celebrate, and reward snitching. This may not seem like a huge deal at first, but it creates a tendency that is not easily shuffled away.

Snitching is the least autonomous action an individual can take. By snitching, an individual not only submits themselves to the power of abusive authority, but also renders others into very compromising situations.

Even snitching as "harmless" as telling on an annoying neighbor to a landlord, or a fellow employee to an employer, can have much deeper and more serious implications. My friend does a better job explaining this than I ever could;

"The culture at every articulation is a prison culture. The method of organizing every possible social activity: Work; Education; Shelter; Medicine; Charity; Food distribution; Food production; Social deviance; Everything is the prison model. Every individual in their assigned place; Ubiquitous surveillance; A set of rules to follow; a Set of guards to punish their violation...

Surveillance is ubiquitous, but not omnipresent (yet). We nevertheless behave as if we are always surveilled--having internalized the culture of surveillance, we surveil ourselves. And increasingly we willingly open our lives to the continuous surveillance of others."

We are currently living in a culture that operates as a Panopticon prison. This must be challenged on even the smallest levels. Personal and community responsibility are not synonymous with personal and community policing.

Snitching is the adult word we use to describe a very childish thing we do, Tattle Telling. So Stop Tattling! Here is a website that can provide some pretty recent examples of the horrible results of snitching.