Television and The Extremes of Entertainment in Our Culture

I hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season. Things have been going really well for us lately, and I'm looking forward to keeping it that way. This update is in no way based on the status of my Christmas. I've had a really nice couple of days with my family, and during the time spent chilling at my dad's house I got to watch a little T.V. We don't have cable at our house. Instead, we save the money on what we assume is piss-poor programming (and commercials) and pick-and-choose from a small selection of things we can watch on the internet or rent from Amazon. It's been this way for a while, so I'm way out of the loop on regular programming and advertizing. This Christmas, I was reminded of why we made this decision and never looked back. Television is still a terrible pile of shit. For the most part, I see television as both an accurate reflection of society in general boiled down to its extremes, as well as a perpetuating force for our best and worst behaviors (because extremes are so entertaining.)

For the most part we watched four things: lots of commercials, A Christmas Story, an episode of an educational/demonstrative show about weapons, and a holiday episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Everything except A Christmas Story managed to offend me in some way. I worried that I may have simply become overly sensitive; but when I pointed out the offensive material, the family and friends around me generally agreed that the material was over-the-top. For the most part, we laughed about it. Deep down, however, I was concerned by the fact that people willfully--and often gleefully--absorb this stuff. Not enough of us are disgusted. If I took this programming back in time and showed it to families in the 60's, they would be outraged. It's easy to laugh at that statement because "people and entertainment were different back then. That stuff is nothing, now." How does that make it any better? Admitting we're desensitized to it doesn't mean it's not a problem. It actually means it's an even bigger problem. Think about it.

On to the examples.

• A Christmas Story. I love this movie. It's nostalgic, innocent without being unrealistic, and amusing to children and adults alike. It gives us a feeling I think we should feel more often than just for a few days at the end of December, and crams a ton of that feeling into an hour and a half. It's a dense package of positivity and humanizing awkwardness--a slight extreme. I argue, here, that television programming highlights (and encourages) these sorts of extremes. With that light opening, I bring you to the next example,


• Commercials. I still have to deal with ads on the internet, so these generally aren't very shocking anymore. Because there are so many more ads on television, however, I got to experience a larger selection of them in larger doses. I'm sure it's of no surprise to anyone that the level of mindless consumerism demanded of us by a majority of advertizing has reached socially damaging proportions. Luxury items are advertized as not only being absolutely necessary (and therefore simply expected by the general public), but being capable of delivering deeply personal emotional and psychological experiences like love and spirituality. Ads tell viewers that smart people watch such-and-such, and dumb people dislike such-and-such, and women all do this, and men all do that, and caring about things is stupid, and being a pig is totally acceptable, and making your neighbors jealous is an important goal, and the car you drive is more important than nature (and in fact, nature is stupid), and every other terrible falsehood that you've probably already seen. Despite none of this being new, I still wanted to include it since a massive portion of what I watched consisted entirely of just ads. Couldn't be avoided. On to the next example,


• Juvenile excitement over deadly weapons' demonstrations by grown-ass men. I have no idea what show this was and I don't recall what channel it was on (one of the History/Discovery/Nat Geo stations.) The underlying concept was perfectly fine, and actually rather interesting. Whatever the show was, this particular episode focused on comparing the capabilities of straight and curved swords, while (minimally) discussing some of the details of the blacksmithing process.
  
  Most of the content consisted of people attacking stationary foam mannequins and at least one pig carcass. These objects were slashed in half, hacked diagonally, or stabbed. Mannequins were bare, armored, or constructed with the addition of life-like replica skeleton parts beneath a layer of transparent jelly "skin." All three mannequins were filled with tunnels of blood to skirt and/or drain from the body once wounded (fatally, of course.) The increasingly "realistic" additions (blood, bones, clear skin) were unnecessarily gory, and it seemed very obvious that the intent was to make it more exciting by making it more like hacking at a real body--not merely to give the viewer an educated idea of how a body might be damaged.
  
  It wasn't just the methods or visuals which made this obvious to myself and my fiance, however. The boisterous exclamations from the host encouraged and highlighted the "Whoa, blood and guts, cool!" aspect of the display. He was overly dramatic and a little breathless with forced (or maybe sincere?) excitement. I was constantly surprised and annoyed to see a 30 year old man behave like a 15 year old goth kid watching a Rob Zombie video for the first time, while speaking about the history of war, war weaponry, and traumatizing (and deadly) war wounds.
  
  Now, I'm not an idiot, and I'm not a pansy with violent entertainment. I play video games, read comic books, listen to Rammstein, and own a collection of fantasy/action/adventure/sci-fi movies. I understand the entertainment value (and, sometimes, even the educational value) of over-the-top violence. I also understand the difference between entertainment, and harmful glorification. Apparently, not everyone does. With that in mind, on to the last example,


• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've heard all sorts of people rave on and on about how great this show is--about how original and hilarious and (more or less) "indie" it is. Because of this, I actually hadn't assumed it would be a bad show (though I didn't necessarily expect to enjoy it.) This show made me feel bad inside. I hated every character and just about everything they said. The only watchable portions were those in which the two dumbest characters were alone in a scene, because if anyone else was around them, it was horrendous again. (And those two characters were annoying in their own way, believe me.) Otherwise, everyone was mean, apathetic, and greedy--gleefully so. They were proud of their behavior and judgment, and at no point did they actually "get what was coming to them." (Sorry, having luxuries stolen from you after you behave like a horrible person is no kind of comeuppance.) There was so satisfaction, no sense of completion, and nothing to glean from their experiences. They never learned anything from their self-caused struggles. The audience is supposed to feel positive about the characters' petty judgments, impatience, and callousness. The entire show is all sarcasm, impulsive (unrealistic) exchanges, and extremely abrasive people. Am I supposed to like these characters?
  
  Even the worst of them--the guy who the others hate because he's such a douche (arguably the "main" character, played by DeVito)--isn't intended to be entirely disliked by the audience (not as far as I can tell.) His meanness is shockingly heartless, but "quirky and acceptable in its own way." (I use quotes to emphasize that this appears to be what is intended and therefore what is felt by the approving audience. This viewer does not agree.)
  
  To top it all off, this holiday episode included an animated portion intended to mimic the hold stop-motion Christmas movies from the 1960's. The segment was intended to teach the main character a lesson by comically and ironically encouraging him to be nice to others or else they'll collectively kick his ass. That could have been the punch-line, right there. Instead, the animation went on for minutes, demonstrating in graphic (stop-motion) detail the myriad ways his "friends" would mortally wound him if he didn't become a better person. The list included ripping off his limbs (and licking the blood from the bone), gauging out his eyes, chainsawing his leg, hanging him from the Christmas tree by his spinal cord, pushing what remains of his leg into a meat grinder, tossing him to an alligator, repeatedly stabbing him in the face with a knife, macing his face-wounds, and burning him alive on a Christmas tree. If I have to explain why this is unnecessarily grotesque and not funny--if you find yourself more annoyed or distanced by what you're reading than shaken by it--then I encourage you to either have patience with me and muscle through to the end, or just skip to the red text at the bottom of this post.
  
  The only character in the entire episode who was consistently "good" was mocked incessantly for wanting to preach about peace, forgiveness, and Jesus. The audience was supposed to be amused and relieved whenever the other characters silenced his attempts. Yes, religious preaching is annoying and I myself dislike it, but the show took the only decent thing about the entire episode and made it "dumb and unacceptable," and at the end of the episode, made the man into a lying hypocrite who threatened everyone with a gun and stole all their stuff, anyway. Now I have no one left to like.
  
  Lastly, as an interesting (and probably inaccurate) side-note, this episode's animated segment incorporates a little routine with the California Raisins. Remember those guys? They were an R&B musical group comprised of anthropomorphic raisins used to advertise dehydrated grapes in the 1980's. (I know. Brilliant.) It should be noted that the Raisins are the only "black" characters in the entire episode, save for an extra in an office scene who is disgusted by one of the main characters earlier on. (I put "black" in quotes because I'm well aware that there's no guarantee the California raisins were black. It was merely insinuated at every possible turn.) When the "black" Raisins make their entrance, the singing narrator specifically describes them as being "racist." In keeping with the joke, the Raisins are the ones who burn DeVito alive on the tree (while dressed as Klan members.) Now, I'm pretty confident they simply referred to the Raisins as being racist in order to drive home the image of them in Klan robes, and therefore giving them a reason to suddenly appear and burn someone at the stake. At the same time, I did find it a little odd. For a moment, all I could focus on was the fact that the show introduces some rare minority "cast members," and makes them racist murderers. In all honesty, however, I probably read too far into it. I could really take or leave this portion of the blog entry. I may delete it later.

Skip to this part if you disagree with what you're reading, here.

Remember that the purpose of this post is to share with my readers how I feel about television programming in general: that it depicts extremes of our current culture (while also encouraging it, thereby creating a self-sustaining cycle.) My goal is not to bring you down with examples of awful TV. (I meant what I said when I included the bit about A Christmas Story.) However, I do tend to use this blog to draw attention to things I think people should notice, and at this point in my life, I'm worried about a lot of bad stuff. (Welcome to my blog. Maybe I should focus on more positive things, too...) That having been said, I'm not looking to tell you that I hate something you may like. I'm not here specifically to tell you that the things you like are bad. My goal is to make you think, and to get things off my chest so I don't let them fester internally.

I'm rambling.

Today, in this post, my goal is to give examples of some of the extremes in our televised entertainment (good or bad, though I complain about the bad more often than I praise the good. Hm. I don't think I like that.) I'm concerned that we absorb this stuff without realizing just what it is we're watching, or what it means about (and does to) our culture. I'm concerned that we blindly and eagerly absorb promotions for extreme consumerism, extreme gore, extreme negativity, extreme assholishness, and extreme selfishness, while thoughtlessly believing that it's all okay. I'm not upset with people. I'm shocked and I'm worried.

So I'd like to leave you with this. Before anyone disregards my concerns with a roll of their eyes and defensive scoff--before I'm compared to aging grandparents droning on about how bad movies, music, and young people have become--please stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, old people keep saying this stuff because sometimes it's true. Having experienced generations of people and culture, the elderly have a lot to compare this stuff to. Sure, opinions are biased and lots of older folks are just plain cantankerous. I'm certainly not insinuating that their younger years were spent in a lost Utopia. But let's at least admit that the graphic violence, willful cruelty, and general rudeness in entertainment has increased consistently over the years. Let's just admit that our entertainment often encourages us to cheer for the meanest and/or sassiest of characters. Hell, it's why so many people find old programming to be so damn boring. We need it extreme, and we need that extreme behavior in our faces at all times. And usually, bad extremes are more dramaitic and therefore more entertaining than good extremes. Notice, I only experienced one good thing on TV all day, and I really struggle to even call it an "extreme." (Maybe only in comparison to how negative everything else is.)

Just because we enjoy something else, now--stuff clearly very different from the entertainment people enjoyed 50 years ago--doesn't mean what we enjoy is better. (At least, not in all ways.)

What say you we be a little more discerning with our entertainment?

Woo... done ranting. Merry Christmas everyone. Mine was awesome. It gets better every year, seriously. In 2013, I think I'm going to try to focus more on the positive. It's better for my health, right? Love and peace to ya'll!

Repost: The Move to Secede (It's not as simple as you think)

Recently there's been a little uproar about the move of several states (proposed by citizens, not the state legislature, of course) to secede from the Union. It's easy to wag our fingers at these people, as this became public information in the media immediately after Barack Obama was elected for a second term. However, this is not news. That is, the threat to secede has been working its way to a head for years, and not necessarily for reasons you may be thinking. This blog post is not meant to as a cry of support for these threats, but as an attempt to help folks understand the movement a little more accurately.

Over the past year or so, I've been exploring numerous websites discussing dirty financial and political dealings between America and a host of Asian, European, and Middle Eastern nations for many decades (most of what I've read revolved around our dealings with China and Japan, but that limitation is likely due to my sources.) There has been so much information, and combined with the loose research I've done into other scandalous activities (wars, industrialization of medicine, control of education, suppression of energy technology, etc.) I can't even begin to regurgitate it here. Know simply that we owe many nations a great deal of money. We are refusing to provide government bonds for gold which we took under false pretenses. Individuals seeking to utilize the bonds they were given are being arrested for doing so, in part because the notes they have were purposefully falsified just in case they were ever "cashed out." Our underhanded treatment of other countries is reflected our treatment of U.S. citizens, most certainly.

In the mean time, we are losing our ability pursue life, liberty, and happiness. I mean this quite literally. In a basic hierarchy of needs, we must have food, water, and shelter before we can begin growing mentally and emotionally. When the masses are too busy trying to find employment, afford terrible food, and avoid a lifetime of medical debt, they don't have the time or the will (or, usually, the education) to seek to improve themselves--as individuals or as a society. Enlightenment of any kind is unattainable when our most basic needs are not met. Our brains don't function as well and our bodies grow ill and weak. Here are the ways in which America keeps its citizens from those three "God-given" rights:

• The food (and its production methods) provided by our most powerful agricultural companies are harmful not only to us, but to the environment. When individuals try to fight back, these companies actually have the rights of the people reduced. (http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/02/04/monsanto-the-evil-corporation-in-your-refrigerator/)
• The medicine provided to us is controlled by pharmaceutical companies which are far more interested in long term financial gain than in actual cures. We create treatments, not cures. We do not remove the causes, but deal with the symptoms. Rather than fix our food and our living conditions, we create a campaign to make diabetes a "livable condition." We prepare to have a population in which 50% of adults are diabetic by 2020, rather than working to avoid it (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diabetes/diabetes-half-us-adults-risk-2020-unitedhealth-group/story?id=12238602). We treat our diseases and ailments like vague, unavoidable instances of misfortune; while our poisoned society, poisoned food, poisoned medicine, and negative (poisoned) psyche makes us far more susceptible to things like heart disease, cancer, autism, etc. Don't buy Komen's pink ribbons. They are not creating cures. (http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/the-drugs-dont-work-how-the-medical-industrial-complex-systematically-suppresses-negative-studies.html)
• Supplements are not properly regulated, and therefore the ratios provided are often ineffective. The food, supplement, and nutritional allowances provided by the Food And Drug Administration are often false, if not specifically misleading and dangerous (and are made with the specific intent of encouraging The People to continue buying into entities like Big Agri and Big Pharma.) In part because of this, the use of supplements is mocked by the media and the FDA. (http://relivecorp.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/fda-suppression-of-truthful-health-claims-for-nutritional-ingredients-and-supplements-is-destroying-our-future/)
• Our energy is provided by a small collection of companies (energy which is required for us to live well and therefore should be a right, not a commodity) which provide us with old and earth-damaging technologies, while other countries are implementing far more wide-scale alternative energy solutions. Even in terms of combustion engines, Europe utilizes engines that are more than twice as fuel efficient as the engines sold in America. They are legal to produce here for sales to other nations, but they are illegal to sell here. (http://www.naturalnews.com/036183_fuel-efficiency_automobiles_government.html)
• Our news and media in general are controlled by very few companies. (See this infographic: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4fd9ee1e6bb3f7af5700000a/media-infographic.jpg) Most of our news outlets stay far away from actual news, preferring to focus all attention on local scandals and partisanship. They repeat the same stories--even the same exact wording-- because it has been approved by a few political heads. Just look at the focus on the Petraeus scandal, while war has erupted in Israel and America is dumping its assets into the fray (all while you are dubbed a racist anti-Semite if you do not support Israel's war.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/036609_mainstream_media_White_House_influence.html)
• Our communications technology (constantly under government surveillance, especially recently) is outdated and slow compared to other first-world countries, but that limitation allows the handful of companies which sell these services to charge exorbitant fees for a simple product. "Digital" technology is simple, and we pay ridiculous amounts of money for it because so few companies compete. (http://internetdistinction.com/blog/2011/11/02/susan-crawford-communications-crisis/)
• Our education system is laughable. The uneducated are easier to control, struggle for employment, and work harder just to live. Our history is altered to suit the desires of the Powers That Be. Our science is not emphasized and little of it is required in most public schools. Personally, I am finding that fewer and fewer children communicate effectively with their native language. We continue to rank lower and lower in international tests with other nations. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html.)
• Our prison system is nothing more than a Prison-Industrial Complex. It makes incredible amounts of money while doing nothing to benefit our society. We make everyone into criminals (especially minorities) and ruin countless families. (http://www.publiceye.org/defendingjustice/overview/herzing_pic.html)
• Recently, steps have been taken to strip our rights to privacy and information (SOPA, PIPA, news suppression, TSA abuse, etc) and our rights to a trial by jury, our rights to due process, and our rights for fair treatment if suspected of illegal activity ("On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), codifying indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history." http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/ndaa)
• (In relation to these points, the argument for Rights vs Commodities is impossible to have, as money for the individual is far more important than happiness for the many. However, as times change, we change. As we change, our technology changes. We have the resources, technology, and man power to produce all of the natural food [with nutritional requirements met], earth-safe energy, and mass communications systems for everyone in the planet. There is no need to treat these things as limited resources anymore. More specifically, we can understand their limits without having to fearfully keep them "all to ourselves.")

Unfortunately, we have very few choices. (Graph of the few largest companies we're most familiar with: http://www.convergencealimentaire.info/map.jpg) Meanwhile, we are punished for trying to separate ourselves from this system. For example, living off-grid is increasingly difficult, and individuals find themselves fined and forcibly dragged back into the energy grid. (http://offgridsurvival.com/livingoffthegridcrime/) Eating well is next to impossible, as almost everything on the shelves is pumped with GMOs (proven to cause cancer and organ failure in tested animals, among other complications), MSG (proven to affect parts of the brain and central nervous system), pesticides, modified starches and oils, and is stripped of all nutritional value. We are are malnourished while being morbidly obese.

Our political system is tightly reined by wealthy companies. Our laws are heavily influenced by the financial preferences of these corporations. (Graph of the names and companies which control every aspect of our lives--all linked to the Bilderberg Group, which is entrenched in our politics: http://cloud.decryptedmatrix.com/live/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Ultimate_Bilderberg_Flowchart_Connected_Politicians_Corporations.jpg) It should be known that many of the cosmetic, food, pesticide, and drug additives we use so liberally in the U.S. have been banned in most other first-world countries because they are so dangerous. Marijuana is illegal here not because it hurts users, because it lessens our reliance on some pharmaceuticals--and because its cousin, hemp, eases the monopoly on certain building and clothing materials. (And arguably, because marijuana encourages a different kind of thinking and a release of our egoistic vice-grip on reality as it is--the reality of this ridiculous system. If the issue was personal damages, then alcohol would also be illegal. In a country where we pride ourselves on our individual liberties, we cannot tell adults what they consume in their private lives.)

So what does all this have to do with the threat by people in so many states to secede from the union? I would hope it would be clear, by now. People are tired of being victims in their own country. People are tired of being slowly murdered by their medicine, their food, their banks, and their politicians--even if indirectly. People are tired of being forced to support companies which destroy our planet, abuse the animals we eat (http://www.farmsanctuary.org/learn/factory-farming/), and abuse the money of their consumers. People are tired of being arrested for practicing their constitutional rights. People are tired of paying for war. People are tired of being afraid. There have been plans for years to secede from the union with the intent of rebuilding while out from under this massive, oppressive thumb.

But this is where it gets complicated (hahaha.) No one person can speak for everyone else. Some people will jump on the Secession Bandwagon because they hate Obama (and a shocking number of people hate Obama for purely racist reasons, even if they are not aware of it themselves.) Some people will support secession because they think America is falling apart because of increasingly "tolerance" of homosexuality, religious freedom (including freedom to not partake in any religion), and racial mixing. What's important to note here, however, as that this is not everyone. People are supporting this for many different reasons.

Meanwhile, the media did not begin to highlight this movement until immediately after the 2012 elections, drawing attention not to the core of the movement, but to the population of racists within it. Trust me, this is not accidental. But the movement is not defined by the racism which exists in pockets of its population, just as Occupy Wall Street was not defined by the hateful extremists which cried out for the death of the rich. (God damn it, that was infuriating.) That kind of extremism is harmful to a cause, yes, but it is not the center of it.

I think it is safe to say that no state will actually secede. The driving force behind the threat is the last-ditch effort to grab the attention of our branches of government. "The people are mad," they cry. "Stop ignoring us. Stop forcing us into lifestyles of which we do not approve. Stop misrepresenting us. Stop destroying our planet. Stop seeking profit over people. Stop encouraging ignorance and disease. Stop tricking us out of our money. Stop dangling political puppets in our faces in an attempt to turn us against each other. Stop telling us that consuming will solve our problems. Stop lying. Stop bombing. Stop!"

For the record, I neither support nor ridicule the threats to secede. I feel things are too complicated to be so black and white, and I fear the backlash of those who ridicule the movement will separate the people, rather than uniting them against their abusive Corporate Government. (Rather than divide ourselves, I would suggest looking into this: http://www.represent.us/#video. Represent Us is championing The American Anti-Corruption Act, which "gets money out of politics, so the people can get back in." The following website explains the AACA: http://anticorruptionact.org/.) I also have no idea what the numbers are. I don't know how many people want secede because Obama is black, or how many want to secede because he signed the NDAA, or how many want to seceded for both reasons. From some perspectives, it won't matter. Common ground and wider understanding are what matter. Lincoln didn't abolish slavery strictly for one reason, either, but the eventually result, while not perfect, was absolutely necessary and extremely positive, wouldn't you agree?

Repost: Observations on Capitalism

Capitalism, like Communism, is inherently neither good nor bad. It is a tool which we utilize, and how we utilize it decides its worth. Unfortunately, as with many of our other tools (wealth, technology, self awareness), people are severely unprepared for dealing/living/working in such a system. Some of this unpreparedness has to do with the conscious evolution of our species, but a great deal of it is also linked to our massively underdeveloped (and tightly constrained) educational system. More still, how society raises us to feel about other living things greatly affects our sense of responsibility with people, nature, and society itself. We abuse our economic system (as we abuse wealth, technology, and our capabilities for self awareness & whether or not we strengthen said awareness.)

Therefore, we regulate our economic system, making it not true capitalism but a mixed market economy. People, in their constant abuse of wealth and self worth, see regulation as a threat to their ability to gain MORE MORE MORE, regardless of how impossible and damaging that constant gain is. (Quite literally, we have limited resources and limited labor, grand though both may be.) Meanwhile, much of our regulation is geared toward helping money grow as opposed to avoiding abuse. It's juuust enough to keep the rest of the country from flipping tables over how badly we've destroyed our environment; the damage we've caused to peoples in South America, Africa, and Asia; and the destruction we've brought upon our own values, physical health, and emotional health. We want things more desperately than we want health. We want convenience more desperately than we want peace. Arguably, we've done this to ourselves.

The Kayapo being expelled from their homes for the construction of the Belo Monte Dam,
which will flood 400.000 acres of the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil.

There is another factor, of course. We are carefully sculpted to think this way. After all, this behavior is most profitable for private businesses and for governments, alike. Private business has become so important that it has the same rights as living, breathing people. For example, human beings are losing the right to know what private businesses are feeding them. We're in a fight right now to require the labeling of GMOs, and Monsanto is spending millions of dollars to make sure the public doesn't know they're being killed by the company which feeds them and profits from their ignorance. There is no government effort to protect us, despite the regulation supposedly meant to keep this kind of greedy behavior from harming us. In order for the richest few to remain this way, we must be kept under tighter and tighter control. We must be raised to think it's okay to encourage our children to be violent, slutty, wasteful, and morbidly obese; because then we'll buy up all the military games, bratz dolls, cheetos, and (eventually) Hummers without bothering batting an eye. There's no economic need to instill other values in our children along the way. Thinking this way moves money along, and it supports the companies which support our politicians.

Amendment flier for California, 2012.

Most importantly, however, we must see how the cycle feeds back on itself. The reason we are kept in such a state is because it's not enough to maintain one's wealth. Once a person has grown accustomed to constant growth and wealth, it's never enough. This is the human weakness that encouraged regulation on Capitalism in the first place.

MORE MORE MORE. At the expense of all else. That is why we can't "handle" capitalism. Or communism. Or socialism. For various reasons, we can't handle freedom. We continue to elect assholes to make decisions for us, because we're raised to think only rigid, controlling assholes are the right kinds of people to be leaders. We do it to ourselves.

But do not confuse my hypothesis with hopelessness or pessimism. Rather, I am recognizing a core of the issue. Altering our values, our attitudes toward living things, and our attitudes toward cooperation within systems must become a top priority. (See article, "Cooperation Is a Key To Intelligence.")
In order to create better systems, we must become better people. It starts with us, as individuals. I have to make the decision for myself. I cannot make it for anyone else. I cannot force it on anyone. Trying to do so paints my intent in a negative light and destroys it. I can live the example and help to educate people. I can encourage.

So, arguing about whether any of these existing economic systems are good or bad is a losing battle, in my opinion. We have to make something sustainable. Something new. We have to live the lifestyle we want others to mirror. And we have to hold each other accountable. When Person A abuses his/her power and lessens the quality of life for Person B, we cannot just sit idly by, no matter who profits from Person A's behavior. Agreeing on these basic points is arguably several steps back from being able to point to an existing, fully developed economic system or budget plan, but we've been needing to go back to the drawing board for a while. We keep ignoring the root causes and focusing on the symptoms/effects of the disease.

Repost: Focusing On the Wrong End of Money

I think it's important to stop and realize that no one president's (or vice president's) budget plans are going to fix our problems. Moving our limited resources around does nothing but move where our difficulties are--not eliminate them. Meanwhile, the causes of these difficulties march on, benefitting from our passive ignorance.

It's all short term. We talk about "oh well in 200x so-and-so did such-and-such and it helped this or that!" If we need a major budget overhaul every 4 years, we're doing it wrong.

Stop playing with our limited budget and start playing with the way the money and power work in the first place. Shut down these predatory banks. Strip the power from mass-production food companies to produce (and infect) all of our foodstuffs (from companies like Monsanto and Purdue.) Stop allowing private companies to help police the people, locally and abroad (for example, our red light cameras, and Blackwater, the latter of which is also now owned by Monsanto.) Stop allowing pharmaceutical companies to control every aspect of our medical rights (and yes, these should be rights, not an industry. The control includes the production of our medical textbooks, power over the FDA, power over medical studies and scientific breakthroughs, etc.) Stop allowing single corporations (like Amway and Procter & Gamble) to control every product and service we consume, thereby also limiting all of our talents, knowledge, skills, and educational incentives to serving these singular companies. Stop allowing companies to abuse the planet for profit, because without a healthy planet, eventually there IS no profit. There is nothing. The planet is not a money factory. The planet is where we live and coexist with more than just other human beings (which we do poorly) but every other living and non-living system.

Money is not the purpose of life. When we focus our politics on reorganizing money rather than changing the power we give it and the power we give those who hoard all of it, we accomplish nothing. All we do is help those with the money and the power keep playing their game.

Meanwhile, money is not an evil thing. It is a tool. We let our tools run our lives far too often. (Technology is also a tool. We rely so heavily on technology that we abuse it to complete our every task. No one knows how to DO anything anymore.)

I'm tired of budget arguments. They're empty because they were never intended to actually make the country a better place. They're intended to move money around, so long as we keep the status quo afloat. At the same time, I get caught up in pointing out the blatant problems with candidates' budget plans. Because our ability to encourage real change has been wrenched out of our hands, and when we try to exercise it, we are arrested and called terrorists and made to be the enemy of the people.

Sighing all day long.

Repost: Don't Sell Your Gold!

People are getting meager amounts of cash for their precious metals more and more frequently. I see more Cash4Gold signs than I see grocery stores, lately. The Cash4Gold scamming system was revealed years ago, but it wasn't heavily publicized and so not enough people are aware of it. So why was it brushed under the rug? First, let's learn a little about the American dollar, the gold standard, the misconception about the Federal Reserve, and how the American government wrecked it all up.

The gentleman in this video can explain it far more clearly and knowledgeably than I can:

 The Federal reserve wasn't formed by the government, and is, as the following video explains, about as Federal as Fed Ex. It was formed by the wealthiest bankers in the country (Rockefeller, Morgan, and Rothschild, to name a few), and has steadily increased the nation's debt since its inception. The greatest source of American debt and Federal Reserve profit? War.

In fact, the national debt grows exponentially with each war. During the Great Depression, people flooded the banks to get their money's worth in hold returned to them, and banks defaulted. Shortly thereafter, the government required all gold be returned for cash, and The Federal Reserve decided that gold would no longer represent our currency. From then on, the dollar itself was worth next-to-nothing ("legal tender") and could be freely printed by the Fed, who also control how much is printed. Now, some argue Cash4Gold is a modern-day Gold Recall.

The following video provides all of this information and more in great detail for your viewing pleasure. It also explains what's so shifty about the nation-wide push to sell all your precious metals as quickly as possible. The speaker is dramatic (as is the background music) and his inflections may rub your ears the wrong way, but the information is extremely important:

By the way, we're living in a giant corporation.


Edit: I apologize for the dramatic feel in these videos. I can't help how others deliver information.

Repost: Goodbye to All That - Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult

This is one of the most important, jaw-dropping things I've read all year (2011)--perhaps THE most important.

Check it out here.

Mike Lofgren was a congressional staffer for 28 years before retiring on June 17th this year. He served as a Republican in the House and Senate Budget Committees. In the above article, Lofgren reveals a host of on-going secrets in the government, particularly the conspiracies and fear-based, power-holding schemes set up by the GOP.

America was not always this way, and it needn't always be this way. Lofgren reveals frightening truths about the wars, links with oil companies, the rape of our liberties, and the GOP's plans for the economy. Please take the time to read.

Repost: Goldman Sachs Rules the World

9/26/11
I want to thank him for telling the truth, and then spit/puke at him for being part of the cancer that continues to twist humanity into greedy, inhuman, apathetic assholes. We need to be preparing for survival, not for raking in more (useless) money caused by the losses of others. Woo, got that off my chest.

Update, 9/27/11
News outlets are calling Alessio Rastani, the young man who warned the BBC of a coming financial collapse, a fraud. The majority claim it was a hoax, that he is not a real trader, and that it's a wonder he ever made it on the BBC in the first place. While incorrectly quoting Rastani, The Telegraph also reveals something quite important:

"They approached me," he told The Telegraph. "I'm an attention seeker. That is the main reason I speak. That is the reason I agreed to go on the BBC. Trading is a like a hobby. It is not a business. I am a talker. I talk a lot. I love the whole idea of public speaking." So he's more of a talker than a trader. A man who doesn't own the house he lives in, but can sum up the financial crisis in just three minutes – a knack that escapes many financial commentators. "I agreed to go on because I'm attention seeker," he said on Tuesday. "But I meant every word I said."

He does not trade with the "big leagues," he's a speaker, and he described the situation accurately and efficiently, with zero bullshit. Sounds like he has everything we need to make for a worthwhile source.

He also discusses his claims on CNN:

Repost: THRIVE

In line with the belief that the coming change is a positive thing, a film is being has been produced which discusses ideas of global changes, money wars, and humanity. Check out ThriveMovement.com. The site and the "movie" soon to be provided there describe the drop in our society and the possibility for free, unlimited energy (once attempted Nikola Tesla.) The oil companies and the tiny minority of extremely wealthy powers-that-be have wanted nothing to do with profitless free energy, and so this technology has been smothered for decades.

Though some of the subjects discussed also touch on alien conspiracies (or rather, technology learned from supposed past alien encounters), the purpose of the information is whole and good. I happen to believe in past encounters, but you needn't believe it as well. The film will be available online on 11/11/11 is available for free! Donating to view is a nice gesture, however.

Cancer is more profitable than a cure, and apparently that's what matters.

The loudest of rallying cries, lately, is "People Over Profits." This is a clear issue in regards to agriculture, our energy system, our oil-based economy, our banking/financial system, educational system, medical system, penal system, etc. A blog/article from the Activist Post reminds us that cancer is used as a source of profit. Fund raisers, research, pharmaceuticals, and anything else can and have all been used for a focus on money rather than on eradicating cancer. Your suffering puts money in the pockets of billionaires, and they want to keep it that way. (Lord knows, our modified foods, sedentary lifestyles, increased estrogen, and emphasis on quantity over quality all increase our cancer risks, and so they have created the perfect environment to keep us in a cancerous state, and therefore in a profitable state.) The article is below:

Cancer Research Fraud Destroys Mainstream Medical Cancer Industry

Andre Evans
Activist Post

It’s fairly evident that corruption pervades many facets of our society in this day and age, with profits driving major pharmaceutical companies and various political objectives. But just how far does this type of fraud reach?

It seems that it extends as far as cancer research, with monetary incentives and smudged scientific results shaking the very foundation of cancer research. Recently, the Mayo Clinic determined that ten years worth of cancer research has been made useless due to such fraud.

The nature of the medical establishment today is unsettling, to say the least. Doctors of all kinds have been trained to prescribe double-edged medical “solutions” to their patients, draining the finances of patients through side-effect ridden pharmaceuticals and invasive surgeries. Mainstream medical science is increasingly being found to be fraudulent, but many still see doctors and medical officials as "experts" that can do no wrong.

The entire multi-billion dollar cancer industry is based on fraudulent cancer research.

Particularly in regards to cancer research, many wealthy and poor individuals alike offer generous donations to cancer research organizations, utterly confident that their actions are the most noble.

These individuals think that they are funding the "cure" for cancer, though they are simply funding a multi-billion dollar "cancer industry machine" that will never truly end the disease — it is far too profitable. Even as they produce results in "scientific studies," it is extremely important to analyze these studies and what they are accomplishing.

Using the guise of "established" medical science, these widely accepted studies are disseminated through medical journals and accepted as the ultimate authority by many. In the case of professor Sheng Wang of Boston University School of Medicine Cancer Research Center, his cancer research was found to be misconducted, fraudulent, and contain altered results. What is unsettling is the fact that his research had been previously accepted and used as a cornerstone from which to base all subsequent cancer research.

With false foundations, you cannot create a proverbial structure with structure integrity. Even the practice of peer-reviewed study is in question, as many drug companies have been found to fabricate their own research and experimental studies in order to produce the desired results needed to sell their products. One such example involves Dr. Scott Reuben, a well-respected anesthesiologist who was the former chief of acute pain of the Baystate Medical Center in Springfield Massachusetts. It later came out that Dr. Reuben fabricated the data for 21 studies, all of which were doctored to deceive consumers into thinking drugs like Vioxx and Celebrex were safe.

Not all studies are fraudulent, but when the motivation for these doctors and professors is fiscal, it turns the current medical paradigm into a war zone. As a consumer, it is important for you to do your own research on the harsh side effects of traditional cancer treatment methods such as chemotherapy.

As millions are pumped into the phony cancer industry that thrives on fraudulent research, it is important to remember that free alternative health options do exist. Utilizing natural sweeteners, vitamin D therapy, and eliminating artificial sweeteners are extremely simple ways to effectively prevent cancer and potentially begin reversing it.

It's the End of America, says Naomi Wolf

Not exactly a new film, but quite important. Even if you are comfortable in your life, you could easily become a victim at any moment. Know what's going on. Sadly, it would seem that Ms. Wolf was betting on a change with President Obama. While I don't necessarily think he has bad intentions, he certainly hasn't tried to fix our core problems, because those are still "secrets." Anyway, check it out: