Friday, June 24, 2005
Ranting
I hate diamonds. They disgust me. "Only her eyes will sparkle more." Barf puke puke. It's a fucking rock that's not even uncommon; it just takes immoral behavior like terrorism to obtain the stupid things from deep mines. Buy a fucking cubic or austrian crystal! They look the same, unless you're gonna look at your ring under a microscope all the time. Save the children in Sudan some of their parents...maybe they don't have to be orphans after all. God this society sickens me. BUY BUY CONSUME CONSUME SLEEP SLEEP MARRY REPRODUCE...wait, I'm now reciting John Carpenter's "They Live". Good movie. Gluttony comes in different forms--not all of which are obesity. Fucking rich fucks with their fur coats and their "get a job you lazy bum" when they're not even working. Goddamn President with an IQ at most half of mine and the average American's...not that that's saying much. PEAK OIL. It's gonna happen, there's gonna be a severe depression created by an energy famine, and it's happening within the next couple years. No one knows about it. All this Government cares about is its own profits, keeping its dwindeling petroleum, lying to the American public. Man, if the media only covered a quarter of what is really going on. Election fraud. The Downing Street memo. PNAC--oh yeah, that one would be popular with the American people. Cover-ups and silences and complete media blackouts about global warming and environmental issues. These people aren't even human beings. I'm done for now.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Subdivision
White people are so scared of black people; they bulldoze out to the country and put up houses on little loop-de-loop streets. While America gets its heart cut right out of its chest, the Berlin Wall still runs down Main Street seperating East Side from West.
Nothing is stirring, not even a mouse, in the borded up stores and the broken-down houses. So they hang colorful banners on all the street lamps, just to prove they've got no manners, no mercy and no sense.
And I'm wondering what it will take for my city to rise; first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes. The ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots, in the city of the neighbors that history forgot...
I remember the first time I saw someone lying on the cold street, I thought, this can't just be happening, this can't just be true. But I learned by example to keep moving my feet. It's amazing the things that we all learn to do.
So we live by denial like lambs to the slaughter, serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water. And the old farm road's a forelane that leads to the mall, and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall...
And I'm wondering what it will take for my country to rise; first we admit our mistakes, then we open our eyes. Or let me just oppose to one last dumb decision: America the Beautiful is just one big subdivision...
If you know who wrote this song, write a comment.
Nothing is stirring, not even a mouse, in the borded up stores and the broken-down houses. So they hang colorful banners on all the street lamps, just to prove they've got no manners, no mercy and no sense.
And I'm wondering what it will take for my city to rise; first we admit our mistakes and then we open our eyes. The ghosts of old buildings are haunting parking lots, in the city of the neighbors that history forgot...
I remember the first time I saw someone lying on the cold street, I thought, this can't just be happening, this can't just be true. But I learned by example to keep moving my feet. It's amazing the things that we all learn to do.
So we live by denial like lambs to the slaughter, serving empires of style and carbonated sugar water. And the old farm road's a forelane that leads to the mall, and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall...
And I'm wondering what it will take for my country to rise; first we admit our mistakes, then we open our eyes. Or let me just oppose to one last dumb decision: America the Beautiful is just one big subdivision...
If you know who wrote this song, write a comment.
Monday, June 13, 2005
I am a Realist
It is sometimes assumed that "Psycho Hippie Liberals" (to jokingly quote someone I met online) are quite naive. I'd say, that's very true, and so is everyone else in this stupid country. But seriously, I'm actually a realist. Just because I have positive, sometimes optomistic views of human nature, does not mean I don't know what's going on.
Martin Luther King, Jr. cheated on his wife. Ghandi refused antibiotics for his wife to save her life, then chose to take them when the same infection threatened his own. Despite all this, they are two of my biggest role models. Why? Because of what they did do for the people of this world. I refuse to be bogged down by the "real world" and complain about little details of everything.
Einstein was an asshole to women. I just get tired of it. Do you want to hear all my flaws, and then tell me what a horrible person I am, and how regardless of what I do for this world, I will only be seen for my flaws? If I could read your mind, trust me, I could find your problems too.
I love my life, and all the horrors and wonders in it. I love humanity both despite and because of what we're capable of, and trust me, I know what we're capable of. I am not a "tolerant liberal" who thinks that people should be free to do what they please. I'm not such a cultural relitivist that I feel that it is okay for women in certain Muslim countries to be treated like less than human, or that because the Aztecs were an indigenous culture, they should have been allowed to keep conquering more peaceful, egalitarian societies in MezoAmerica. They were no better than the Spaniards. I don't think children should be allowed to "explore sexually" to the point that they have intercourse when they're twelve and have never had a realistic talk with their parents. I don't think the pedophiles have just as much of a right to seek out young boys as grown-ups do to seek out other grown-ups. These are things that I despise about some people who call themselves "liberals."
In fact, I don't believe in tolerance at all. I believe in acceptance. I do not "tolerate" same-sex couples, or black people, or different religions. I accept them as just as legitimate as my own sexuality, ethnicity, and spirituality. But I have a rule: "Do what thou wilt and harm none." That is what I think "liberal" should mean. That is why it is not "liberal" to be okay with Aztecs pillaging other indigenous cultures, Muslims treating women like shit, or sexual practices that harm people and are nonconsentual. I call that apathetic, not liberal.
So what does all this have to do with? Basically, I think we should pick our battles. Abortion isn't as important as orphaned, starving children. MLK, Jr. cheating on his wife isn't as important as Bush sending us to war without reason and a million other things he did. Keeping our economy "intact" while destroying the environment isn't as important as having a sustainable economic system. Etc.
I am aware of the horrors of this world. But for god's sake, you should measure your complaints and whinings against what you've actually done for this world. If your ratio of complaints to activism is disproportionate, you should rethink your attitude, and your lack of action. I'm sick of apathy. You know who the majority of this country voted for? No one. That's right. We voted for, "Let the most corrupt and powerful person take office, cause I don't give a damn." That is the equivalent of voting for Bush.
Martin Luther King, Jr. cheated on his wife. Ghandi refused antibiotics for his wife to save her life, then chose to take them when the same infection threatened his own. Despite all this, they are two of my biggest role models. Why? Because of what they did do for the people of this world. I refuse to be bogged down by the "real world" and complain about little details of everything.
Einstein was an asshole to women. I just get tired of it. Do you want to hear all my flaws, and then tell me what a horrible person I am, and how regardless of what I do for this world, I will only be seen for my flaws? If I could read your mind, trust me, I could find your problems too.
I love my life, and all the horrors and wonders in it. I love humanity both despite and because of what we're capable of, and trust me, I know what we're capable of. I am not a "tolerant liberal" who thinks that people should be free to do what they please. I'm not such a cultural relitivist that I feel that it is okay for women in certain Muslim countries to be treated like less than human, or that because the Aztecs were an indigenous culture, they should have been allowed to keep conquering more peaceful, egalitarian societies in MezoAmerica. They were no better than the Spaniards. I don't think children should be allowed to "explore sexually" to the point that they have intercourse when they're twelve and have never had a realistic talk with their parents. I don't think the pedophiles have just as much of a right to seek out young boys as grown-ups do to seek out other grown-ups. These are things that I despise about some people who call themselves "liberals."
In fact, I don't believe in tolerance at all. I believe in acceptance. I do not "tolerate" same-sex couples, or black people, or different religions. I accept them as just as legitimate as my own sexuality, ethnicity, and spirituality. But I have a rule: "Do what thou wilt and harm none." That is what I think "liberal" should mean. That is why it is not "liberal" to be okay with Aztecs pillaging other indigenous cultures, Muslims treating women like shit, or sexual practices that harm people and are nonconsentual. I call that apathetic, not liberal.
So what does all this have to do with? Basically, I think we should pick our battles. Abortion isn't as important as orphaned, starving children. MLK, Jr. cheating on his wife isn't as important as Bush sending us to war without reason and a million other things he did. Keeping our economy "intact" while destroying the environment isn't as important as having a sustainable economic system. Etc.
I am aware of the horrors of this world. But for god's sake, you should measure your complaints and whinings against what you've actually done for this world. If your ratio of complaints to activism is disproportionate, you should rethink your attitude, and your lack of action. I'm sick of apathy. You know who the majority of this country voted for? No one. That's right. We voted for, "Let the most corrupt and powerful person take office, cause I don't give a damn." That is the equivalent of voting for Bush.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Human Nature
You simply cannot determine human nature by observing humanity today. You must realize that industrialized culture hasn’t been around for more than 200 years, and our species is over 100,000 years old (to use conservative estimates). I think over time, we've been corrupted past anything natural. The way we treat each other isn't a result of something inherent; it's from thousands and thousands of years of abuse, passed down through the ages. Of course, that's all my knowledge of psychology and anthropology talking.
As for Milgram’s experiments, they do nothing more than prove that, at the time they were taken, in the society they were taken, people have the inclination to not question authority. In our society today, we are taught from birth to obey authority, and many of us have been taught that authority figures may override our morals. The reason that some people don’t obey authority unquestioningly is twofold: 1) They weren’t just taught morals (authoritarian), but they were shown why those morals are important (authoritative) and 2) They were taught to value their individual insights and beliefs, and to simply question the intentions of others before agreeing with them simply because of who they are. I bet that if you took the San Bushmen (an egalitarian group that is slowly diminishing) out of the Kalahari Desert of Africa, and put them in the Milgram experiment, that none or few of them would keep pushing the button until the person was “dead”. It does not make sense to take more meaning out of the Milgram experiments than Milgram intended; to explain why people were brainwashed in Germany so easily. The experiment took place in a country not too different from Germany, when you get down to it. It is no less scientific to assume that minorities (i.e. black people, Latinos and American Indians) are stupid, because on average, they score lower on IQ tests. You have to take it into the societal context.
Simply put, humans are past the point of being able to blame cruel behaviors on "nature". We separate ourselves from nature and claim to be above it, and yet at the same time, say that we have no control over what nature intends for us. We must choose one or the other. And we must take responsibility for our cruelty to each other and to nature, or our species is not nearly as intelligent as we think we are.
As for Milgram’s experiments, they do nothing more than prove that, at the time they were taken, in the society they were taken, people have the inclination to not question authority. In our society today, we are taught from birth to obey authority, and many of us have been taught that authority figures may override our morals. The reason that some people don’t obey authority unquestioningly is twofold: 1) They weren’t just taught morals (authoritarian), but they were shown why those morals are important (authoritative) and 2) They were taught to value their individual insights and beliefs, and to simply question the intentions of others before agreeing with them simply because of who they are. I bet that if you took the San Bushmen (an egalitarian group that is slowly diminishing) out of the Kalahari Desert of Africa, and put them in the Milgram experiment, that none or few of them would keep pushing the button until the person was “dead”. It does not make sense to take more meaning out of the Milgram experiments than Milgram intended; to explain why people were brainwashed in Germany so easily. The experiment took place in a country not too different from Germany, when you get down to it. It is no less scientific to assume that minorities (i.e. black people, Latinos and American Indians) are stupid, because on average, they score lower on IQ tests. You have to take it into the societal context.
Simply put, humans are past the point of being able to blame cruel behaviors on "nature". We separate ourselves from nature and claim to be above it, and yet at the same time, say that we have no control over what nature intends for us. We must choose one or the other. And we must take responsibility for our cruelty to each other and to nature, or our species is not nearly as intelligent as we think we are.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
