Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Vote Love
I came across this wonderful video today, and simply had to share. I got to the end, and just felt a deep need to watch it again. I cried both times. I have had a very hard week, and this message was exactly what I needed. We all need to stand up for love, every day, every moment.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Back From Hiatus
I disappeared for a while, around the time I was moving into a new apartment. Now I am back, and I may be spotty for a while, as things are still getting sorted out, but I am back from my hiatus, and will be back writing posts on the state of our evolution here in America very soon.
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Terrorism is a lie.
Do I have your attention? Good. Now let me explain.
I do not mean to say that terrorism does not exist. What I DO mean to say is that we fed a series of major distortions, lies, and misinformation on the nature, degree, and scope of the so-called "Terrorist Threat."
The numbers are staggering. Though some of the details may be disputed, picked at, or wheedled over, we kill each other at a rate that makes the feeble efforts of extremists statistically insignificant, and gives the lie to the histrionics of the right wing war hawks seeking to embroil us further in petty endless conflicts in the middle east.
Take a look at the statistics from 2013 (since they proved relatively easy to find). More than twice as many people were killed by toddlers in the United States than by terrorists. It's official: babies are a bigger threat to national security than ISIL. Why then, are our politicians and news media making such a big deal about it then?
Power.
It is all about power and control. Ben Franklin (yes THAT Ben Franklin) is quoted saying "They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety," with the oft-given addendum to this being "...and will lose both." And haven't we? How much have we given up for this War on Terror? How many Trillions has our government funneled into the Middle East? How many multitudes of people are under almost constant surveillance? How many heaps and mountains worth of data do the FBI and NSA have on all of us?
But the Republican party has doubled down so far on scapegoating Islamic Terrorism for all of our problems, or at the very least exaggerating their threat to such an extent that other issues are pegged as insignificant. The Democrats, though not as heavily invested in the issue of Terrorism, have been complicit in allowing it to dominate. The left has been dragged ever further to the right, to the point that the establishment will not challenge the GOP on their definition of Terrorism and its place in the political discussion.
Now the FBI is cracking down on High School students, to take away more civil liberties, and gain even more control. If this trend continues, and speech critical of the government will be labeled as dangerous as suspect. Anyone who dares to speak out will be investigated or even imprisoned. We can't allow it to happen.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
American Evolution: an Exegesis
For those who are curious; you may be many, or you may be nonexistent, in which case I am speaking into a void, I thought I'd explain in detail what I intended when I chose to title this blog "American Evolution." As is done with scripture, I chose to look at each word individually, in addition to their connection to each other.
American: This is easy. I will be focusing on American issues. The news I look into, respond to, and talk about is American, or at the very least affects America or Americans.
Evolution: Yes, I adhere to the theory of evolution. If a better supported and incompatible theory supersedes this as a viable alternative, I may reconsider, but I don't consider religious texts to be hard evidence against this theory. However, this is not solely concerned with the past and the origins of our species, but also with where we are going; how I see American culture developing, for better or worse.
Now for the two words together.
American Evolution: It is my hope to highlight, and perform my small part to advance, the evolution of America beyond the current state of today. It is to point out the areas in need of improvement, and highlight a direction to head in, or a path to follow, as I see it. I desire to see an evolution of consciousness in the American people. I want to see a people who is educated, and capable of critical thinking.
We've reached a point in American society where we no longer trust our elected representatives to, well, represent us. The prominence of political "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders (and yes, Donald Trump) are a testament to this growing zeitgeist. Unfortunately, even amid the backdrop of this awakening to the corruption and disdain of the establishment for the desires and passions of its constituency (which I sincerely hope is a true awakening, with lasting repercussions, rather than a venting of steam into which will be spent the revolutionary fervor, allowing us to settle anew into the familiar complacency of lassitude and despondency) we as a people fall short, for even in the glimpsing of it, we lack the acumen to put that realization to good use. This is by design. It is also the hurdle I wish to see us surmount, and play out my little role in boosting us over.
Right now what unites American is a sense of pervasive dissatisfaction, but with what or whom, we are divided. We have noticed that the narrative we are being fed does not make sense; we've dimly grasped that we are dreaming, but in that foggy way that does us little good. We are trying to wake up, or at least learn to dream lucidly, but we lack the skills, and they are pumping us full of tranquilizers and anesthetics to keep us under. It's time to pull out the morphine drip, and face reality.
It is no accident that this is but one letter away from American Revolution. I see the process of evolution as an inherently revolutionary act. We must change the way we see the world and interact with it. If we do that, the status quo cannot remain intact. Many of us, myself included, are strongly attached to the idea of America. This attachment to the idea often causes us to don the rose-colored glasses with regards to the truth of America, and the truth is that we are not what we claim to be. In a sense, we never have been. Some of you may have the urge to shout epithets at the screen upon reading that, and if it were the end of the thought, I might even say you were justified; but it's not the end of the thought. Because our history is a tangled mess of people who have been trying to be what we claim to be; and those who beat the drum louder than anyone else, while marching against the tide of history and the values that they would claim to represent.
Part of growing up is accepting the delusions an romantic misconceptions of your childhood. Despite all of our self-righteous chest-slapping over our moral superiority, our history is filled with some of the worst atrocities in history. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese Americans, mass incarceration, these are only a prominent few. They need not define us, but we cannot pretend they are not a part of who we are as a nation. They continue to shape us even now. Racism did not end with Martin Luther King Jr. Upton Sinclair didn't forever stop industry from mistreating its workers. Women's suffrage did not win them equality.
The process of cultural evolution must be accompanied by a wide-spread personal evolution. It is the responsibility of each of us to become better than we are. It is our responsibility to pay attention and observe the world around us; our city, our state, our nation, and hold it accountable for being what we deserve it to be.
American: This is easy. I will be focusing on American issues. The news I look into, respond to, and talk about is American, or at the very least affects America or Americans.
Evolution: Yes, I adhere to the theory of evolution. If a better supported and incompatible theory supersedes this as a viable alternative, I may reconsider, but I don't consider religious texts to be hard evidence against this theory. However, this is not solely concerned with the past and the origins of our species, but also with where we are going; how I see American culture developing, for better or worse.
Now for the two words together.
American Evolution: It is my hope to highlight, and perform my small part to advance, the evolution of America beyond the current state of today. It is to point out the areas in need of improvement, and highlight a direction to head in, or a path to follow, as I see it. I desire to see an evolution of consciousness in the American people. I want to see a people who is educated, and capable of critical thinking.
We've reached a point in American society where we no longer trust our elected representatives to, well, represent us. The prominence of political "outsiders" like Bernie Sanders (and yes, Donald Trump) are a testament to this growing zeitgeist. Unfortunately, even amid the backdrop of this awakening to the corruption and disdain of the establishment for the desires and passions of its constituency (which I sincerely hope is a true awakening, with lasting repercussions, rather than a venting of steam into which will be spent the revolutionary fervor, allowing us to settle anew into the familiar complacency of lassitude and despondency) we as a people fall short, for even in the glimpsing of it, we lack the acumen to put that realization to good use. This is by design. It is also the hurdle I wish to see us surmount, and play out my little role in boosting us over.
Right now what unites American is a sense of pervasive dissatisfaction, but with what or whom, we are divided. We have noticed that the narrative we are being fed does not make sense; we've dimly grasped that we are dreaming, but in that foggy way that does us little good. We are trying to wake up, or at least learn to dream lucidly, but we lack the skills, and they are pumping us full of tranquilizers and anesthetics to keep us under. It's time to pull out the morphine drip, and face reality.
It is no accident that this is but one letter away from American Revolution. I see the process of evolution as an inherently revolutionary act. We must change the way we see the world and interact with it. If we do that, the status quo cannot remain intact. Many of us, myself included, are strongly attached to the idea of America. This attachment to the idea often causes us to don the rose-colored glasses with regards to the truth of America, and the truth is that we are not what we claim to be. In a sense, we never have been. Some of you may have the urge to shout epithets at the screen upon reading that, and if it were the end of the thought, I might even say you were justified; but it's not the end of the thought. Because our history is a tangled mess of people who have been trying to be what we claim to be; and those who beat the drum louder than anyone else, while marching against the tide of history and the values that they would claim to represent.
Part of growing up is accepting the delusions an romantic misconceptions of your childhood. Despite all of our self-righteous chest-slapping over our moral superiority, our history is filled with some of the worst atrocities in history. Slavery, the Trail of Tears, the internment of Japanese Americans, mass incarceration, these are only a prominent few. They need not define us, but we cannot pretend they are not a part of who we are as a nation. They continue to shape us even now. Racism did not end with Martin Luther King Jr. Upton Sinclair didn't forever stop industry from mistreating its workers. Women's suffrage did not win them equality.
The process of cultural evolution must be accompanied by a wide-spread personal evolution. It is the responsibility of each of us to become better than we are. It is our responsibility to pay attention and observe the world around us; our city, our state, our nation, and hold it accountable for being what we deserve it to be.
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Thought Police
Ostensibly meant to spot signs of radicalization early and prevent terrorism, this makes any student suspect who has political views out of sync with the established, accepted modes of thought approved by the Party...I mean, by the Authorities.
Let us be clear, this new policy targets young Muslims, but it puts all of our young people at risk. Among the views now included as suspicious are "anarchism," "animal rights extremism," and "environmental extremism." This will strengthen the nefarious school-to-prison pipeline, and drags us a few steps closer to an Orwellian dystopia ala 1984. Treating criticism with suspicion is an easy path to criminalizing dissent. The Ministry of Love will be sending out its Thought Police any day now to ensure that we love Big Brother. The AlterNet article intervied Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney for the ACLU national security project, who speaks on the issue.
“Broadening the definition of violent extremism to include a range of belief-driven violence underscores that the FBI is diving head-first into community spying. Framing this conduct as ‘concerning behavior’ doesn’t conceal the fact that the FBI is policing students’ thoughts and trying to predict the future based on those thoughts.”
This would not be the first time the FBI curtailed our civil liberties in the name of security. As early as 1946, J Edgar Hoover was compiling lists of American suspected of disloyalty, and in 1950, proposed a plan to suspend habeas corpus to detain over 12,000 Americans. In the 60s through 1971 J. Edgar Hoover ran major campaigns against the civil rights movement, including both Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panther Party with his Counter Intelligenge Protocol (COINTELPRO). Hoover was famously quoted saying that "justice is incidental to law and order."
Since 9/11, the FBI has had unprecedented leeway in compiling information about American citizens in the name of national security. The Patriot Act, the controversial domestic spying law made us a surveillance nation, and multiple sources allege that our civil liberties have been repeatedly violated ever since. A report by the EFF claims that the FBI may have committed over 40,000 such violations between 2001 and 2008. This included approximately 800 confirmed and reported violations of the law, executive order, or regulations regarding the acquisition of information. Of these, about 150 were violations of Constitutional protections, FISA, or other laws governing intelligence gathering. The EFF believes these 800 confirmed cases to be an underrepresentation. Additionally, the report includes some 7000 more incidents the FBI claims were "potential" violations of civil liberties. By extrapolation, the EFF reaches their estimate of 40,000 instances of misconduct.
The truth is that we don't know how often or how severely the FBI currently violates our rights, or to what degree such even exist any more. However, it isn't hard to see that this new procedure, left unchallenged, would exacerbate an already tense issue, and put the heat to evaporating privacy rights.
I oppose the marginalizing of, and the casting of aspersions upon those who express alternate viewpoints. We should not face suspicion for calling a spade a spade, and pointing out corruption where we see it. Criticism of the government is not a dangerous act, it is our civic duty. This policy is shameful.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Sing Out for Bernie: "Feel the Bern"
Time for another entry in the catalogue of Bernie Sanders themed music out there. Today's post is about Patrick Crawford's rocking punk theme titled "Feel the Bern" after the catchy slogan of the Sanders campaign.
The lyrics are simple and cute, but the real strength of this piece is in the music and the beat. Crawford knows how to rock. I can see this song being used to fire-up the crowd at a rally, right before Bernie does a victory lap between two jets of pyrotechnics. Yeah. It's kinda like that.
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Vox: "The rise of American authoritarianism"
In an article long enough to need a table of contents, Amanda Taub of Vox brings us an insightful and adroit look at the true phenomenon taking place behind the curtain of Donald Drumpf and his rise to prominence within the Republican Party.
It took me a few days to get through it, due to a combination of its sheer volume and the distressing nature of her findings. It has been frequently said that the most troubling aspect of Trump's rise is not Trump himself, but the number of his supporters. In itself, this is not surprising, but the article sheds light on what lies behind the droves of supporters the businessman-turned-reality-star has garnered. The researchers have discovered that around 44% of Americans (who are mostly found in the republican party) display authoritarian personality traits. Those with these authoritarian personalities tend to be fearful of foreign threats, and of social change, feeling personally threatened by a change in the structure of society. In a climate like now, when they are encouraged to fear ISIL, Russia, and Iran; when they are afraid of terrorist attacks and the Zika Virus, when they see Gay Marriage becoming legal, immigration changing the demographics of society, and protesters shouting that "Black Lives Matter" they experience existential dread over their place in society, and desire a perceived "strong man" to take charge and tell them everything will be alright; that he'll make the scary bad guys go away. Enter Drumpf. He fits their needs to a T.
The Good News
The article seems to suggest that they don't have the numbers to pull off a win in the General election.
The Bad News
The large number of authoritarians in America suggests that their anxieties and their desires will continue to exist as a force in politics long after this election.
It took me a few days to get through it, due to a combination of its sheer volume and the distressing nature of her findings. It has been frequently said that the most troubling aspect of Trump's rise is not Trump himself, but the number of his supporters. In itself, this is not surprising, but the article sheds light on what lies behind the droves of supporters the businessman-turned-reality-star has garnered. The researchers have discovered that around 44% of Americans (who are mostly found in the republican party) display authoritarian personality traits. Those with these authoritarian personalities tend to be fearful of foreign threats, and of social change, feeling personally threatened by a change in the structure of society. In a climate like now, when they are encouraged to fear ISIL, Russia, and Iran; when they are afraid of terrorist attacks and the Zika Virus, when they see Gay Marriage becoming legal, immigration changing the demographics of society, and protesters shouting that "Black Lives Matter" they experience existential dread over their place in society, and desire a perceived "strong man" to take charge and tell them everything will be alright; that he'll make the scary bad guys go away. Enter Drumpf. He fits their needs to a T.
The Good News
The article seems to suggest that they don't have the numbers to pull off a win in the General election.
The Bad News
The large number of authoritarians in America suggests that their anxieties and their desires will continue to exist as a force in politics long after this election.
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