Artistic Footprint

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Even a humble witness of the world can say that good is stark. From the beginning of conscious memory we are indoctrinated to believe that all is good and that if evil prevails, our innocence at stake. It’s easy to concentrate on either side, but what does the world look like if it were placed on a spectrum of good and bad? Where would we sit? would the trends shift over variables like gender? nation? wealth? species? Who is the best of us all, and who is the worst? how do we set that standard? Who is responsible for altruism, and who for evil?

The childhood innocence is a false vile toxin. To grow up with the expectations of prosperity and unlimited resource, only to realise one day that it has costs – makes one feel undefined by the standards of true human nature. How do you break it to a child that nuclear weapons exist? How that the environment is exploited? or that people are tortured? Do you break it all at once over the dinner table? or do you slowly let him realise it on his own?

But how do we gauge the bad against altruistic progress? Is the world getting better? Are we advancing towards bliss?

Unfortunately we have all been force-fed the concept of super-sized all-inclusive bliss, and while we were enjoying the ample supply of life-multiplying resources, nobody stopped to wonder where it all came from. How were we able to leave the quest for food water and shelter, only to enter the rat-race of taxes, vanity,groceries, and dividends?

The advancement of privatized investigation, the growth of information technology, and people seeking truth, has brought the truth of human existence out of news-networked fear gimicks to our doorsteps to help us understand those costs. Over the past few years those of us willing have been bombarded with the truth – where our comforts, wealth, health, and happiness comes from – and at who’s expense.

A part of me forces myself to sit through gruesome, horrifying documentaries. Perhaps because I was born into the grouping of humanity, and I feel responsible for the actions of this species as a member. Perhaps because of my addiction to truth and my hatred for ignorance. I quickly felt my vision of a perfect world diminish in my dreams. The eden of good was never worth the cost of atrocity. I want to fight for the vision that was falsely placed in my dreams.

But I cannot live in fear of doom and hatred. I need to have a cause in my fight. So I listen and I watch, and I feel for all that is good to me. I understand where my happiness comes from and I seek it with whole-hearted appreciation. From the filling of my lungs and stomach to the beauty captured by my eyes and the excitement of life, I seek preservation of this overall sensation. I seek homeostasis, harmony, and sustainability. Eden can grow from there.

More than anything, I have begun to understand that the definition of humanity is wavering at best, dynamic in optimism, but likely more questionable and critical. If you are like me, and you seek truth through this new and overwhelming form of revealing information, you may find yourself scared into action, but helpless in your situation/ Remember this, because this is what helps me sleep at night:

1. You are not alone

2. Seek like-minded individuals

3. Relate your mindset with your environment

4. Make your beliefs part of yourself

5. Stand up for your beliefs

6. Take action at every opportunity

7. Expose the truth

8. Remember what you’re fighting for, sometimes which is worth dying for because to you, the cause is greater than yourself.

9. Seek new ways to overcome obstacles, and share them with the world.

We are at a turning point in humanity. We have reached our lowest point without even knowing it. You may say it’s not your fault that you were born into the world this way, but those same events are what made the world an acceptable place for you to be born into. It doesn’t mean volunteering for a food bank, or travelling to the far corners of the globe to save a whale – these are either for the die-hards or the miss-americas. Your debt for the right to live is to fulfill the definition of how you call yourself human. Thats as simple as believing in the air that you breathe, the food that you eat, and the laughter you share. This is your opportunity to fill your life with all these amazing things that make you you.

Call me crazy here, but I must have missed the consumerism boat. I hate Christmas, I own a used vehicle, I sleep on a foamie in a room. I live for work and work to live. I don’t have any debt which probably makes me one of the richest Canadians. Which brings me to my next period of angst. I’ve spent the last 3 days researching and number-crunching for a “new” truck that I could afford, and have had some interesting experiences, all painting a bigger picture about what makes us all consumer whores.

I have recently noticed that a lot of my friends and co-workers have a lot of nice things. Key words lots and nice. And on the grander scale, I notice older folks with way more super expensive things. I feel subjected and pressured into aiming for those goals – it seems that everyone wants to be rich. But then I ask: How the HELL do these people afford such things? I mean I make some decent coin (modest, but still a surplus I feel) and there is no physical way that my wallet could stretch more than $500 in rent and the upkeep of a simple car.

After spending hours in car dealerships (lying about my income and budget) I have found out how. People borrow. Like a lot. The concept of owning something before you own it is just customary in the west. For example, a truck I looked at costs more than I make in a year, and yet somehow this dude in a leather coat and fresh hair says I can have it TODAY for $400 a month, and he says it’s MINE.

This may be simple in principle, but consider the structure of the everyday person. After highschool you go to university and drop $30,000 for an education that statistically you are unlikely to use, and probably pay off until you’re 35. At the same time you try to afford a vehicle at roughly $15000 – which really only lasts as is for no more than 6 years. This of course doesn’t include the mortgage of $200,000. And ontop of all this debt there’s inflation, asset depreciation, maintenance, and taxes in the double-digits. And even worse, the value of these assets is not even in your control. One person in Ottawa can sign a paper that curve-balls your financial plans and leaves you with nothing but debt.

There are people out there that just make money on money, like collection services who buy debt at increased rates, stock investors that play games, banks that give money away that they don’t have and gain immeasurable interest on loans…

This is how we operate in a capitalist system. If no one is buying, then no one is making money. This is why the government bought out corporations and devised plans to make people spend more money that they didn’t have – just to keep the system running. Adding more to the national debt. The concept of buying out a private corporation with taxpayer’s money IS by definition, communism. I laugh at the fact that General Motors was briefly a state-owned company in the most capitalist country on the planet – but no body says anything!

Can this be linked to resource depletion? overpopulation? climate change? Considering that even a quarter of the worlds population has this kind of mindset and these kinds of transactions are happening immensely large and immensely fast, I think so.

I can’t stand being in debt. being in debt means that you are a negative to someone – be it a friend, parent, or a company – you are a liability. You literally own nothing or at best small percentages of nothing. – Which means that you are enjoying the fruits of luxury at someone else’s expense. The problem is that the person you owe to WANTS you to owe them money, because they make money from your interest! If every citizen has their part in national debt, who do they answer to? Who pays for it? Who do we hurt to pay it off?

These luxuries should not exist – not for our population and not for our comforts. Life is supposed to be hard, and when it is, you learn to appreciate it a lot more.

Alright this is going to be the last I write about anything political. I find it too conspiratory, far too complicated, and to be honest, damaging to myself. It turns me into a parasitic pessimist. But what I have learned from all this pondering is the awareness and responsibility I have as a citizen of a nation. But in the back of my head I will always have the bad taste of what power does to people, and how easily followers are manipulated into blindly following stupid leaders. Here’s my take on what makes the fantastic and almost impossible concept of democracy able to operate:

The story of a politian:

In order to get into politics, you already need to be one certain breed of person. That is you must meet foreign nationals, spend years in university, be a governor, and be from Virginia or Texas. You need lots of money to finance your campaign, as well as an alliance of lobby groups and conflicts of interest, which you may or may not be able to bring with you to office. You adopt values and beliefs that get you into office like religion, culture, drug enforcement, abortion, gay marriage, international policy, even your favourite baseball team. In the campaign, there really are only two options that the country cannot decide on, and so the vote ends up being 55% to 45% or something stupid, so your citizens might as well not have voted at all. Speaking of which, only half the population votes anyways.  Then you make promises to get yourself into office which you never planned to fulfill once you succeeded. You spend a less than 10 years in office so any long term plans simply never happen, you’re pressured to take a side based on your own affiliations or lobby groups, or you are used as a puppet by your staff who hide behind you, putting your face on their decisions. And if you make a wrong move, its ok because you can control the media and create some other problem to mask the first, no one would be the wiser. You are completely protected from your people in your atom-bomb-proof office, or bullet proof armada of helicopters and jumbo jets. You are mocked all over the world through your personal life, speaking skills, or attempts to destroy/fix the economy. Meanwhile, because you spoon feed your religious duty to your citizens, you feel that you have the right to invade other countries in the name of god and the idea that capitalist, spiritual democracy is the best and only way to run the world. But you remain safe at home in your office with a little red button as your soldiers bleed and die for you. You only come out to embarrass yourself with pre-emptive mission accomplished banners.

And when all is said and done, 8 years later, you retire securely, to appear on Oprah or Late Night and perhaps start some bogus charity campaign, meanwhile your term in office is now called a “doctrine” as if international and national conflict were diagnosed and actions were prescribed.

Ok so I may have twisted that one to resemble more of George W., but I believe the majority is universal to the workings of democracy. It’s just funny because everyone believes that democracy is the perfect solution and we believe that everyone in the world should have it. And in almost every case, this is true. But people rarely stop to look at the other side of the coin. Democracy, like everything, has flaws. Lack of awareness is, put simply, just another form of blind obedience.

Its scary to think that we went to two world wars over for freedom and the right to vote, and yet our capitalist greed has corrupted it since. Dignity, morals, and justice are sold for power, money, and resources.

On my most recent trip to Toronto, I was confronted on Queen street by CityTV. Apparently, they’re “everywhere” and somehow I was in the “where” that they were at that particular time, christmas shopping with my little sister. They asked me if I would like to be on T.V. naturally I declined, assuming I would have nothing of interest to say. Then they mentioned “It’s about Tiger Woods” I mashed my hands together and said “where do I start?”

Tiger woods is an “athlete” if you could call golf a sport that raises your heartbeat (which it doesn’t) but regardless, he is the highest paid man to be in some sort of a ball, club, score… “sport” and in doing so, naturally, he’s reaped the rewards of such an honour by sleeping with somewhere near 20 women, and now his marriage and family are in jeopardy for obvious reasons.

Sidenote: have you seen the cover of Vanity Fair Magazine? Not that I fucking care because I don’t even know what the fuck that magazine is about, I just giggle to myself at all of the magazines in the line at the nearest safeway. But it appears that Tiger is making the best of his situation by appearing as badass as he can by being topless (and I mean that in the most feminine way possible), all in black and white, with a gangster black toque on, as if he’s about to loot the nearest wal-mart for some upper-body attire. Did anyone notice that he doesn’t look like much of an athlete? Interesting note number one.

Sportscasters from TSN all the way down to the tabloids have always written Tiger up as the goody toe shoes Black Guy who clearly doesn’t fit the stereotype. A role model for everyone to follow in. A man who can make success out of a skillful (albeit NOT adrenaline driven, heart pounding, nor tachycardic) sport and get rich. VERY rich.  And now all of a sudden, his life explodes in his face. 17 women claim to have carnal knowledge with Tiger. His wife I’m sure might be a little bit edgy.

But come the fuck on. He’s Tiger fucking Woods. He’s a Billionaire. He’s clearly not a monogynous man. Regardless of how the media tried to portray him as a nice guy, he was a sex-a-holic from the start. His wife knew, his friends knew, He knew. The issue here is that the hide-odourous media wanted to profit off of his countless acts of adultery in order to sell magazines. And look at the turmoil that it stirred. He lost all his sponsors and is now revolting himself to Vanity Fair.

Now where have we seen this before? Oh yea Bill Clinton. The fucking President of the United States. Look. This dude OWNED THE FREE WORLD. What this guy wanted, happened. And he got a BJ from an unnatractive desk clerk. What did we get? George Bush and a couple new punch lines from the latest comedians.

Fuck man. Sex Happens. Just like Shit Happens. The interesting thing here is that: Golf is a focus-driven sport. Tiger probably got his focus by putting his penis in women. Clinton didn’t even get to bone! Clearly Hilary wasn’t putting out, But he got something that most people get on a pretty rad night in Vegas or Whistler. Does this make them a worse golf player or president? what the fuck? is that even a question? And why didn’t either of these guys pull the addiction card like David Duchovny? If Tiger said: “yea? what do you want. I love women and I’m addicted to sex!” Complete repercussion reversal. He’d have more women lined up. Problem. Solved. It’s not like he cared about his family while he was having those other 20 affairs anyways.

This is a pure example of our true values in celebrities. That’s right, Celebrities. This is it’s own industry, people. Sports players, musicians, and actrices are in the same boat as Politicians and their lives are only as true as the ignorant stupid fucking tabloid writers make them to be. The White House is just like the Monarchy of the United Kingdom. A fucking tourist attraction. And yet, somehow, they are in charge of this world we call free. They’ve got the nuclear codes and control of the free world, but all that Enquire magazine can write about is their sex life or cellulite scars.

-makes for an entertaining read though.

http://www.ted.com/talks/alisa_miller_shares_the_news_about_the_news.html

There seems to be a clash between the public and private sectors of the western world. Clearly there is a history of Communist bashing,  but there are a few interesting omissions.

The US foreign policy has found a way to make money and generate markets for the “oh so very rich” to invest in, using public tax dollars to front the cash.

To go to war, you need a good few essentials. Soldiers, Weapons, Armour, and constructed bases. Oh yea and a reason to go too. But that’s not really that important. Traditionally, you’d assume that a few of these were bought and paid for by the US government using tax dollars – to assume that YES, your citizens DO want to go to war for a cause and are willing to pay for it.

Recently (and I mean like for the last 40 years or so) These machines of war have moved out of the public sector and into the private sector. Specifically boots on the ground and “defense contractors.” Dick Cheney, former US V.P. was the CEO of Halliburton, an oilfield production company headquartered in Texas. Halliburton received special treatment for the bid to supply infrastructure and oil to the Iraq war in 2003.

Blackwater, a private security firm, was hired as a defence contractor to work in Iraq. No longer were there men going to war because they wanted to and believed in the cause (which is another thing altogether, see this), but because they would be getting paid the big bucks to do so. Now gung-ho, stone cold, cocky killing machines were let to run rampant in Iraq. These “armed employees” of blackwater are considered by the company to be “armed independant contractors” which doesn’t sound particularily disciplined. (imagine being an Iraqi militant fighting for your life because of what you belive in, and some asshole tactician with a “modified for death” M-16 with greasy tattoos comes around and shoots you in the gut and screams “HOOAAA!”)

But that’s beside the point. What’s happening here is the U.S. government is creating wealth by hiring defense contractors, which cost a shitload more, to do their fighting and buiding and reconstructing and infrastructure. This uses tax-payer dollars to foot the contracting bill in order to pay for mercenaries and elaborate military bases.

There are Four things wrong with this that I see:

Number One: Honour. The most impactful difference between a paid individual and a volunteer is that the person volunteering (i.e. a “G-I” or serviceman) does their job with passion and honour because they work for a cause that they believe in, and feel proud to have made a difference. They bear their nations flag and are willing to die for the rights and freedoms of their families. First of all, I think it is outright disgusting that someone could tamper with that person and make them believe in a cause that doesn’t really exist where their lives are at risk, but secondly, someone who gets paid doesn’t give a flying fuck who they kill where or why, so long as they get paid. Cash for blood. The difference is that the volunteer will ensure a job well done because they actually WANT it that way. Paid employees only work as hard as their wage and only do what they’re told to keep their job.

Number Two: Reciprocation. We all know about the gap between rich and poor, and how it’s extremely top-heavy. But have you ever thought that you might have inadvertently INVESTED in your own problems? As a unit, the United States taxpayer made the call, went to war, and paid for it. Whether that’s what actually happened or not, it’s what is supposed to happen, and it’s how the rest of the world sees it. The issue is that the people who organized this little party decided to pay top dollar for everything and just sent the bill home. As opposed to using the traditional system, defense contractors made money. These people PLAN on war. Aeronautical industries like Lockheed, or Arms manufacturers like Colt, NEED war in order to make money.  These of course are just a few. weapons are just a teeny bit of what is needed to make war. Just so happens that there is a trend between politicians and defence contractors, and a country hell-bent on violence.

Number Three: “Security Contractors” is an edited definition for “mercenary.” Men who are paid employees of evil corporations like Blackwater who make dollars from bullets. They inherently care nothing for who they kill where or why, But simply to go on a military vacation and blow up shit. But that is nothing in comparison to the damage they do to their former soldier pals. The unregulated, cocky, overconfident and totally ignorant actions of these mercenaries has devastating effects on the servicemen of their country, who then must retaliate for their mistakes and clean up the mess they make. If you are a mercenary reading this, then FUCK YOU.

Number Four: Iraqis are a very passionate people, whether or not their beliefs are terrible or not, they view westerners as perverted, undisciplined, and gluttonous people. They hate our guts and the fact that we are on their soil is nothing short of total insult. Furthermore, we had no right to be there in the first place, but somehow snuck in with lies and misinformation. We barge into their homes in the night and steal their husbands and grandfathers, for years of inhuman torture with no conviction. One anonymous superior officer at the prison stated: “If I were treated that way, I’d be a terrorist.” We use “smart” bombs to take out whole buildings with the hopes that intelligence was right and yes there was one guy we wanted in there. Again even further, we are literally assimilating them into this perceived perfect world of a free democracy. While that is clearly an option for growth and stability, it is a cheap trick to signify an altruistic intent which we are all too familiar with. Our motives for this change is so that we can “trade/steal” their precious oil reserves, to wipe their country clean in order to exploit and mold it how we see fit.

But then what? what do the citizens get for their money? Surely not better healthcare or an improved education system. International security? think again. Anti-american sentiment is only growing from the inside out. Freedom? actually Bush completely obliterated Habeus Corpus with the new patriot act, which means that you could literally have done NOTHING wrong, and be plucked off your feet never to be seen again. Interrogated, tortured, “disappeared” or killed. And not have a legal right to see the evidence against you. Your families would post “missing” ads in the local grocery store.

My question is this: When you go to renovate your home or buy a used vehicle or something… you make a sound decision, right? you hire the right people, you watch what they do, you get fucking receipts. When you want WAR (which no one should want) you hire your countrymen, you understand the cause, you treat your enemies with honour and your wounded with compassion, and you see the results. When was the last time that happened?