My life just got 300X better

on a lighter note

I first learned about the shooting in Arizona last night when—oblivious to this event—I was discussing with some people what I would do with mad dough. I hesitated for some time because I really couldn't answer; most of my vision comes from an idea of the work I am going to do rather than the final product. I feel like I can visualize what I want through what I am going to do, but unfortunately last night, the means by which things are created when this question was framed at me—in accord to most people's perspective—gave money the instrument for accomplishment. but it's so fucking true, and this was what I was trying to say. My eventual answer was I wanted to find a way to dismantle the political system. You see the hard right (tea party and republicans) and the democratic party, comfortably doing insane things (sarah palin's targe map for example) because of their power.

Robert Reich wrote an an interesting article, but it's really long so here's what I think is essential:

It is difficult to hold people accountable for bad behavior while simultaneously asking them for money. In recent years Wall Street firms and their executives have been uniquely generous to both political parties, emerging as one of the largest benefactors of the Democratic Party. Between November 2008 and November 2009, Wall Street firms and executives doled out $42 million to lawmakers, mostly to members of the House and Senate banking committees and House and Senate leaders. In 2009, the financial industry spent $300 million lobbying members of Congress. During the 2008 elections, Wall Street showered Democratic candidates with well more than $88 million and Republicans with more than $67 million, putting the Street right up there with the insurance industry as one of the nation’s largest equal-opportunity donors.

These industries Finance Insurance & Real Estate make up for the majority of our $14 trillion dollar GDP. Millions of dollars in campaign contribution are pennies to these companies, yet they are also their lifelines. Say I had a couple billion in my back pocket...I would use half of it to combat the money flooding the political arena, and the other half to share for necessary infrastructure after it is dismantled. People are capable of getting up in arms for their flag and christian right for the same reason anarchists have historically taken arms. If you don't believe me..read the manifesto's of the militia groups or this article Up In Arms, you will see there are many similarities in both the left wing and right wing's motivations and actions. The problem is that the money funding the right wing ideologies come from people like the Koch brothers, and left organizers can barely get funding to xerox their black and white zines.

I realize that the funding for rightest propaganda is intrinsically more lucrative than that of the left, and that there is no money in leftist movements because its dangerous to use the means by which oppression is perpetuated (money) to achieve goals that run against them. Yet this may be key to understanding why you have psycho's killing politicians in the name of right wing libertarianism today, as opposed to attempted assassinations by crazy immigrants in the name of Anarcho-syndicalism (check out Alexander Berkman and his attempts at Frick).

Two other ideas that i promise to look into:

1. The transformation to the FIRE economy has directed more anger at the political arena, than big business. Poor people could easily identify their oppressors (their bosses) when they were working in factories.

2. Big business itself has lost power in the global market due to outsourcing, increased competition calls for any means necessary to gain an advantage (i.e infiltrate the government)

Fuck.

This is the sickest vid of all time

Yo, you know what rational racism is?

The Beacon School.

So i'm trying as best i can to integrate radical and provocative themes in my schools community service program. Already we have established youth facilitators, we read a letter from birmingham jail, talked about solidarity. thats tight i guess.

But I kind of felt kicking down the walls of my school friday when this happened to me. As a community service advisor i try to help kids find places to do their community service. I've been trying to convince all my kids to go out and work for rad organizations rather than housing works, or a middle schools. To get to the point, after advisory, i have this one kid telling me he doesn't have time for community service. so i'm all like: "o.k then fail".

Oh my god, this kid! Says he plays tennis for 4 hours everyday after school, and does homework all day on the weekends. Not only is it a problem that this kid is clearly lying, but how when i told this kid if he didn't do community service he was going to fail, he went and got his coach, coincidentally the admissions person at my school, and they both coerced me into allowing him to tutor kids spanish during lunch. Wow, so I'm asking everybody in my class to go outside of school, do some real work, look at problems communities are facing, and because your a privileged white kid who plays tennis, you don't have to?

Basically, thats what the dean of admissions/tennis coach told me. Right on!

It's the same guy who didn't allow students at my school to hold a forum on diversity in public schools. Its the same guy who teaches "american social history" and considers himself a progressive. What a rational racist.

support our troops?

My knee jerk reaction: poor uneducated people who enlist in the military are not at fault for the atrocities of war, they are just pawns of the U.S's imperialist project.

I am not so sure of that statement anymore...

"Private Stoner said Sergeant Gibbs “associates with skinheads online.” Specialist Morlock said Sergeant Gibbs had “pure hatred” for all Afghans. Fingers he is accused of collecting are now part of the evidence in the case, as is a tooth he is said to have pulled from a dead Afghan and bones other soldiers said he dug up."
Truly Embarassing...

These people are evil, and i will no longer defend them on the grounds that they are influenced by things they can't control. I will no longer defend them just as i never defend John Ashcroft or Henry Kissinger, because arguably they could be "just influenced by the hyper-capitalist imperial economy they are surrounded by". I am sick of excuses.. I understand how offensive this may be..but i really cant support our troops after the actions at Abhu-Graihb (sp) and now in Afghanistan. You make choices on a daily basis that are intrinsically correlated to your environment, but that is no justification for being a neo-nazi, OK?