We're always free, but we're never free. we go to the market to buy some fruit, and we feel free in the beautiful sunshine, and the smell of tangerines. But then we go to the counter and pay with currency that the government has issued. And we leave the store and we have to wait for the white man on the crosswalk box to appear, before we walk. But we could just ignore the white man and cross at our leisure. but then we might be run over. or we could just look around, and wait until there are no cars, and then walk when we feel safe. but then my decision to walk is being shaped by the driving patters of others... this can not be freedom.
i think i am confusing freedom and happiness... or maybe freedom and peace of mind. Nietzsche would say freedom has nothing to do with happiness, and that freedom is "the ultimate form of cruelty." maybe that's too extreme for me.
I have been thinking a lot about freedom lately. In its many forms: political freedom, freedom of will, freedom of consciousness, freedom to be one's self, freedom of belief.
It is amazing that a term can be applied to so many broad categories.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
One Mind
I had just remembered something that I had read once and not too long ago - I believe it was Carl Jung. Anyways, it was about how our personalities are all actually an amalgamation of traits that we have all picked up subconsciously from all of those who we have come into contact with. Our ego is actually composed of many reflections that have all been shone into one ray of light. In essence, we are all of the same mind.
Cloning
Dolly the sheep was cloned back in the late 1990's. We probably are not too far away from cloning human beings. North American laws will likely be skpetical of allowing the cloning of human beings for a decade or two, even after the technology becomes available. However, where there are people that hate the united states, there will be scientists challenging the rights to clone human beings.
Once we clone a famous person, that clone can grow up, and read the literature and watch the movies involving their original. If we continually reinforce who that person will grow into (and considering they have the excact same genetic makeup), it is not too farfetched that they will be almost identical to their original.
What human being would you clone, and how would it bring goodness to the world?
My buddy 'welcome to the spectacle' suggested cloning a think tank of Eintstein's to solve world problems. This is a good idea.
I would likely clone a think tank of Jeff Goldblum's and get them to reinact Shakespearian plays in parks. Each Jeff would play a different character in the play, and they would try and emulate the original actor accordingly. This would really increase the spririts of the human population on earth.
other contributors... who would you clone?
My Clothes
Today I am wearing a quicksilver sweater. Underneath i am wearing a white t-shirt with the batman logo on it; i paid 5 dollars for it at wal-mart (christopher nolan did not recieve a penny, but some labourer in china did recieve half a penny for the shirt.) I am wearing Kenneth Cole Shoes and banana Republic jeans.
Today i am also wearing a MEC down vest. People that shop at MEC, feel they are escaping the spectacle because its a co-op not a corporation. They don't use slave labour in china, but rather use fairly paid labour in china. The style of the clothes is unique,and has a certain style of its own.
But how do we escape style. If I hand in my Banana republic jeans, for hemp MEC pants, i still am supporting a style. I'm still buying into an ideal that brands me to a certain group of people that buy clothes at a certain place. The hippies were the biggest stylists of this century. They all bought into tie die shirts and Rastafarian beanies.
My solution: burn all my clothes in a fire, and go to Fanny's Fabric and make my own clothes. But then do i become a walking advertisement for Fanny's Fabrics? "hey Barry, where did you get that shirt?" "I didn't buy it, i made it"
But there hasn't been an escape from style. The person that tries to escape style, ends up being an unconcscious marionette for style. Is it better to be a conscious marionette or an uncionscious marionette?
Today i am also wearing a MEC down vest. People that shop at MEC, feel they are escaping the spectacle because its a co-op not a corporation. They don't use slave labour in china, but rather use fairly paid labour in china. The style of the clothes is unique,and has a certain style of its own.
But how do we escape style. If I hand in my Banana republic jeans, for hemp MEC pants, i still am supporting a style. I'm still buying into an ideal that brands me to a certain group of people that buy clothes at a certain place. The hippies were the biggest stylists of this century. They all bought into tie die shirts and Rastafarian beanies.
My solution: burn all my clothes in a fire, and go to Fanny's Fabric and make my own clothes. But then do i become a walking advertisement for Fanny's Fabrics? "hey Barry, where did you get that shirt?" "I didn't buy it, i made it"
But there hasn't been an escape from style. The person that tries to escape style, ends up being an unconcscious marionette for style. Is it better to be a conscious marionette or an uncionscious marionette?
Just Stop
Last night my girlfriend had shown me a disturbing picture that a child in grade six had drawn. It was a picture of a Converse shoe. Apparently this child is obsessed with the brand and their product. This disturbs me so because it just goes to show that consumer brand brainwashing is still affecting young children as it was when I was young. Children should not be branding themselves. Children should not be drawing Converse shoes when asked to draw something straight out of their imagination.
I highly doubt that this child knows that her Converse shoes are owned by Nike and were made in China. I wonder if this child's parents are aware that they are supporting economic growth in China while they pissing all over themselves. American capitalists are the least patriotic people in North America. It's ironic that they have the "Patriot Chuck" (a shoe that resembles an American flag)- when this shoe is anything but. A rich man owns a company, Nike, and has his shoes made as cheaply as possible in China. He then sells his shoes at an extremely high rate compared to the actual cost of manufacturing to Americans who can barely afford them because they have a hard time finding a job. Where are all the jobs? Oh yeah, China.
People need to start teaching their children that we need to rely on locally made materials and necessities, like shoes. The future is local sustainability and local networking. We must put an end to pigs taking the ground out from underneath us. They are killing us by taking our jobs away and teaching our youngest generations to buy young, as to ingrain the idea at a young age that the current method of North American consumerism is Ok. Being branded at such a young age is like offering a child meth. Once you have them hooked on a nostalgic habit that they use to identify themselves with, the habit will slowly grow into a cancer that will enslave us all. We need to stop buying products from the swine who don't give two shits about North American citizens. They only want to profit as much as they can while they can. It is up to us, the consumers, to decide how long they can get away with it, if at all.
Why don't we understand that we can make a world of difference in bettering our lives and the lives of our fellow citizens by making simple decisions such as boycotting all Chinese made products? Targeted boycotting can change our lives so dramatically. We have the power. Take your eyes off of the spectacle and see things for what they really are. Cut yourself off from the illusion and make a real difference in your world - a positive difference. If we all start to have a conscious approach to consuming and what the consequences of our actions are, we will realize that anything is possible and that we, the people, are those who are in control of our world - not the corporate swine who are enslaving us and dumbing us down. Think - all we have to do is stop. Once we stop giving into their game, we win.
I highly doubt that this child knows that her Converse shoes are owned by Nike and were made in China. I wonder if this child's parents are aware that they are supporting economic growth in China while they pissing all over themselves. American capitalists are the least patriotic people in North America. It's ironic that they have the "Patriot Chuck" (a shoe that resembles an American flag)- when this shoe is anything but. A rich man owns a company, Nike, and has his shoes made as cheaply as possible in China. He then sells his shoes at an extremely high rate compared to the actual cost of manufacturing to Americans who can barely afford them because they have a hard time finding a job. Where are all the jobs? Oh yeah, China.
People need to start teaching their children that we need to rely on locally made materials and necessities, like shoes. The future is local sustainability and local networking. We must put an end to pigs taking the ground out from underneath us. They are killing us by taking our jobs away and teaching our youngest generations to buy young, as to ingrain the idea at a young age that the current method of North American consumerism is Ok. Being branded at such a young age is like offering a child meth. Once you have them hooked on a nostalgic habit that they use to identify themselves with, the habit will slowly grow into a cancer that will enslave us all. We need to stop buying products from the swine who don't give two shits about North American citizens. They only want to profit as much as they can while they can. It is up to us, the consumers, to decide how long they can get away with it, if at all.
Why don't we understand that we can make a world of difference in bettering our lives and the lives of our fellow citizens by making simple decisions such as boycotting all Chinese made products? Targeted boycotting can change our lives so dramatically. We have the power. Take your eyes off of the spectacle and see things for what they really are. Cut yourself off from the illusion and make a real difference in your world - a positive difference. If we all start to have a conscious approach to consuming and what the consequences of our actions are, we will realize that anything is possible and that we, the people, are those who are in control of our world - not the corporate swine who are enslaving us and dumbing us down. Think - all we have to do is stop. Once we stop giving into their game, we win.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Massages
I asked my dad to look through the corporate information that outlines my health plan. I was interested in finding out if my insurance covers a monthly massage or two. It doesn't!
What kind of a country do we live in, where a man that wants a massage, gets refused because his dads health plan doesn't stipulate massages. Some word, on a piece of paper somewhere, says that im not allowed to have a professional put their hands on my back. Is my back that hairy? Massages should be free for everybody. In elementary schools, massage therapy should be one of the 5 main courses. whenever someone gets a sore back, they could just lie down in the street until someone came and tweaked out the kinks.
lying down in the streets, and waiting for help to come to you, might be an effective political strategy as well. Let me give another example. Russian soldiers attempted it during long war campaigns, that involved travelling across europe. When the winters got too harsh, and the generals kept pushing on, soldiers would just lie down in the snow and give up. Many thought this was a will to death. But what ended up happening, was the disheartened soldier found his metabolism slowed down and he entered into a state of hibernation. He ends up outliving his comrades that died in battle defending the motherland. Nietzsche says "since you would exhaust yourself too quickly if you reacted at all, you no longer react in any way: such is the logic."(ecce homo, page 14)
This is a possibled strategy of the revolution. I think the African American movement tried it, when they lied down in the streets and refused to move, creating major traffic jams (I could not find any evidence of this on wikipedia so i might have imagined it).
What kind of a country do we live in, where a man that wants a massage, gets refused because his dads health plan doesn't stipulate massages. Some word, on a piece of paper somewhere, says that im not allowed to have a professional put their hands on my back. Is my back that hairy? Massages should be free for everybody. In elementary schools, massage therapy should be one of the 5 main courses. whenever someone gets a sore back, they could just lie down in the street until someone came and tweaked out the kinks.
lying down in the streets, and waiting for help to come to you, might be an effective political strategy as well. Let me give another example. Russian soldiers attempted it during long war campaigns, that involved travelling across europe. When the winters got too harsh, and the generals kept pushing on, soldiers would just lie down in the snow and give up. Many thought this was a will to death. But what ended up happening, was the disheartened soldier found his metabolism slowed down and he entered into a state of hibernation. He ends up outliving his comrades that died in battle defending the motherland. Nietzsche says "since you would exhaust yourself too quickly if you reacted at all, you no longer react in any way: such is the logic."(ecce homo, page 14)
This is a possibled strategy of the revolution. I think the African American movement tried it, when they lied down in the streets and refused to move, creating major traffic jams (I could not find any evidence of this on wikipedia so i might have imagined it).
Monday, October 27, 2008
Socialist Club
Today i saw an ad in town, identifying a meeting of the Socialist Club. The discussion was about the economic crisis, climate change, government and the need for revolution.
I showed up to the meeting, and a lovely lady named Michelle Robidaux was giving the lecture. She is in her 40's and has been a socialist since high school. She definitely was interested in revolution, but when i asked her if the revolutionaries can expect the help of the police in escorting traffic in their rallies, she skimmed over my question as unnecessary.
To be honest, i got the feeling that the entire Socialist Club, were a bunch of liberals that wanted to fight for reform within the system. Don't they understand that it is largely the system to blame for mistreatments of the borgousie whole today.
I had a guest lecture this week. He grew up as a hippy but handed in his reefer for a nice black suit and decided to work for the government. Currently, he is trying to address the problem of the public service diminishing (because of baby boomers retiring) while the services that the citizens need are increasing. The governments plan, is to not address this problem by hiring more people, and to do more work with less people. But the problem they run into, is when someone has a creative idea, all the ministers beat the shit out of that idea, then it goes to the house and the opposition beats the shit out of it, and then this pile of shit which does not resemble the original idea, takes 2 years of paperwork before it officially becomes law.
Wouldn't it be great if the government could announce a plan, and workers could be standing by to build it immediately. One gets to ride on the new buses the city provides, even before the newspapers are reporting the news. is this too idealistic? Or maybe the government is just too slow?
viva la revolution
I showed up to the meeting, and a lovely lady named Michelle Robidaux was giving the lecture. She is in her 40's and has been a socialist since high school. She definitely was interested in revolution, but when i asked her if the revolutionaries can expect the help of the police in escorting traffic in their rallies, she skimmed over my question as unnecessary.
To be honest, i got the feeling that the entire Socialist Club, were a bunch of liberals that wanted to fight for reform within the system. Don't they understand that it is largely the system to blame for mistreatments of the borgousie whole today.
I had a guest lecture this week. He grew up as a hippy but handed in his reefer for a nice black suit and decided to work for the government. Currently, he is trying to address the problem of the public service diminishing (because of baby boomers retiring) while the services that the citizens need are increasing. The governments plan, is to not address this problem by hiring more people, and to do more work with less people. But the problem they run into, is when someone has a creative idea, all the ministers beat the shit out of that idea, then it goes to the house and the opposition beats the shit out of it, and then this pile of shit which does not resemble the original idea, takes 2 years of paperwork before it officially becomes law.
Wouldn't it be great if the government could announce a plan, and workers could be standing by to build it immediately. One gets to ride on the new buses the city provides, even before the newspapers are reporting the news. is this too idealistic? Or maybe the government is just too slow?
viva la revolution
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Welcome Revolutionaries
This is the new blog. it was created on a saturday in late october 2008. The blog will continue to stay informative, until the revolution takes place. The Revolution will not be televized... but we will have some coverage here.
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