Another Day in the Empire

Every now and again I feel compelled to share some news stories that really stand out from the doldrums of post-industrial capitalism in this foul year of our Lord 2008. The first is vintage Bush going off about the need for more surveillance legislation; at his most emphatic and pretentious (click here). The second is some of the best writing ever from my favorite news source, The Onion, discussing how Bush has vowed to 'make it up' to the country in the closing months of his tenure as Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich (click here). The last is one of a much less amusing sort. It came out today that 1 out of every 100 adult males in these United States is now incarcerated at a jail or a prison. That number speaks for itself to such an extent that I don't even feel there is anything to say, other than sodomy rates must be higher here than in any other time in history (click here). I'm seriously wishing I was religious in these wild times. I know of no other language to describe the madness that has descended upon this earth except the eloquently epic language of the Vedas, Torah, Bible, Qu'ran or Sutras.
The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. -Psalms 9:17
Fear Not. What is not real, never was and never will be. What is real, always was and cannot be destroyed. -Bhagavad Gita
All know the Way, but few actually walk it. -Bodhidharma
The ink of the scholar and the blood of a martyr are of equal value in heaven. -Quran
The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts:Those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains. -Abu'l-`Ala' al-Ma`arri

SOS

If you ever find yourself wandering in a sea of confusion
I would like to offer up my humble, yet certain conclusion
which is that what we suffer is directly proportionate
to our self serving desire for an excess amount of shit
we can be starving demons with hollow eyes
or we can be eagles soaring in tranquil skies
you can lament the degradations of the cruel
or that we imprison the children in school
we live in a dark and dangerous war zone
shells fall all around without a sound
consume, kill, thrill, just pay your bill
the horrors are real and the pain immense
the beauty or banality, it all makes sense
even if not in the personal present tense
Some day it will all be over for you
sad, glad or mad; it's certainly true
Thus you must listen to the wise
then see things with your own eyes
"happiness belongs to the self sufficient"
ti's still a beautiful world, don't miss it

Fidel's Finale

"Condemn me, it does not matter: history will absolve me."

In an age where true leadership is all but passed from the world of man, a character of the stature of Fidel Castro stands like an oak amongst weeds. Most people in America have no conception of what an incredible man has been antagonizing our government for the past 50 years. This man, by the power of his convictions and the determination of his heart, liberated an island that had been under corrupt and vicious leadership ever since the Spanish landed there and commenced massacring the Arawak some 500 years prior. Out of all Latin America in the late 1950's not a single government or movement could stand up to Yankee imperialism without being toppled by a coup or being bought off by money. Then along came a tenacious lawyer who bravely offered himself up as a leader for his oppressed people to overthrow the cruel gangster regime of Batista. After a failed uprising, several years of imprisonment, exile and then a protracted guerrilla war, the people celebrated in Havana as the bearded warriors, headed by Castro, marched in as liberators. Unlike most self made leaders, Castro actually seemed concerned with the welfare of his people. Under his administration universal literacy and the best health care system of any 3rd world nation. He never betrayed his people, and by leaving the weapons in the hands of his revolutionary brothers, ensured that he could never turn into a self serving autocrat. It was once said that the greatest among us are servants to the rest, and such is how Castro composed himself in his almost 50 years of leading his country. In an age where leaders sell their people daily, we must take a moment to honor the last of an all but extinct bread of humans that dates back to Ramses and King David. May the Cuban people use what they have learned and blaze a new path now that the father of country has moved from the headlines to the history books. As a good friend of Castro's once said: "Hasta simpre la victoria"

Institutions

So what the fuck are these monolithic monstrosities that are gobbling up every individual and turning them into economic units of automated activity? What can be done in the face of the endless expectations that society hurls down upon the neophyte as he anxiously tries to please the countless authority figures? I would like to put forth the opinion that what was made by the mind of man can just as easily be destroyed or altered by the same organ. The USA, Catholic Church, WTO, World Bank, Wal-Mart, Universities, DEA, Homeland Security, France, etc... Our world has become cluttered and confused with the confluence of so many institutions; each desperately trying to assert its influence on ever child-like humanity. This addiction to organization is threatening to produce a very different age for us and our children. Already people in the US feel that 13 years of institutionalization is the bare minimum, with most high caste citizens insisting on an additional 4-6 years to ensure subservience to the the beast. All religious traditions have some reference to an end of times, or a coming of some great darkness. Perhaps the various religious leaders weren't prophets so much as astutely sizing up mankind and predicting that we would all begin congregating in the millions in order to feel safe and secure on a planet that has never been concerned with our survival; no doubt why modern man has no qualms about treating the earth like a disposable commodity. Maybe those visionaries saw man marching off into the abyss and created their various religions in a desperate attempt to convince humanity that their is no need for fear, that we are children of a flawless universe that we are incapable of ever upsetting. Perhaps institutions are our answer to the utter minuteness of individual existence. Whatever the origins, we have now unleashed an undeniably powerful force that will forever change the way humans behave on this planet. It's quite possible that my distate for groupthink labels me a leftover from another age, and that all the confromists are actually the next stage of our species...
To mine eyes the institutions lie
causing pollution and no solution

Back Slapping, isn't humanity neat bullshit

As successive generations of man pass over this earth like water down some sacred stream we seem to have cultivated a profound sense of self importance. I think most people at some intuitive level realize that we are training ourselves for this modern maze to such an extent that we are becoming incapable of seeing anything but but our own narrow and confused path. In ages past people had far more time when their mind wasn't bombarded with noises, sights and smells; thus they had much more time for contemplating life. So not only have we made life more complex, we have removed a major aspect of our ability to understand ourselves. Although we are pretty much as ignorant as our immediate ancestors, we seem to have gotten smart enough to realize that their is no God whose wrath we must fear, only us humans on a rock spinning around other rocks in the infinite expanse of space. "Man is the measure of all things"-Protagoras That's probably why we like to call it Civilization and not Organized Expansion of Institutions. Yup we are pretty stoked on what we've done here, but probably only because we don't think about what is actually taking place in front of our very noses. Take me for example, just your typical Californian College kid. But I understand that my presence at this place, both in time and space, dictates a few things about my existence. Like the fact that I'm one of 300 million or so living in what is known as the United States of America, a collection of various institutions all geared towards making us able to go anywhere in the world we please to either trade or steal anything we (commonly called the market) might desire. We get away with this without feeling like malevolent mercenaries by invoking the greater institution Global Capitalism, and bunch of other ideas like freedom, liberty, justice, democracy, Coca-cola etc. The way in which myself and my fellow Americans dash from location to location with bags full of money or planes full of bombs, bespeaks of a mentality that can only be likened to a carnivorous creature that never worries about the prey upon which it feeds. This whole nation runs on the premise that material wealth begets happiness and respect, sadly that material wealth just happens to require us tear assing around the whole planet extracting substances from inferior cultures. Why are they inferior you ask? Because we can go into their country and tell them whats what, so clearly we are running a better Civilization. So while little old me studies history and leads a peaceful little life, the organization that I'm implicitly a part of is changing life on earth to such an extent that our products and culture has spread everywhere. Those who help us, we reward, those that speak out we denounce as halting progress, and the few who resist are greeted with depleated uranium bombs falling in their backyard. You would think that the other 300 million Americans would want to be aware of this rather important reality, but they aren't and apparently don't want to either. We are the undeniable masters of the maze we created at present, so why should each and every individual unit have to be aware of what the whole is doing? In all likelihood being cognizant of what I've discussed would probably ruin many Americans ability to go placidly along with such a daring and violent enterprise. So it goes, I'm here for the ride regardless. For as a wise man once said, "We are all living in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."