It's hard out there for a pimp

Jealousy, for all its negative connotations, is a natural and often inevitable human reaction to circumstances. It is only when we refuse to recognize its existence and influence over our perceptions that it creates destruction. The wisest of men are not those who have never envied, but rather those who have embraced it and turned its darkness into accomplishment.

Everybody calm down, please stop shouting!

I never intended for this blog to become solely political. I’ll return to poorly rendered paintings and rambles about home decorating soon. Hell, one day I'll maybe even write something about food. It’s just that the state of my country and my little place in it has been on my mind a lot lately - and who can blame me really? Seldom has there been a time in my life when the political spectrum has been so polarized and broken, and when I’ve found myself and my generation so instrumental to the conversation. We’ve been dubbed the “Spoiled” and “Do Nothing” generation for years now, but in light of what has happened to our country, my peers have taken up the idea of collective action against a perceived injustice. Unfortunately, as with movements past, they are being met with brick-wallish and often cruel opposition.

Occupy Portland 11/17/11 - Source: AlterNet

It’s one thing to disagree with the Occupy movement. It’s one thing to laughably joke that they are all hipsters in Gap clothes with ipads complaining that someone took away their silver spoons. It’s another thing all together to falsely and purposely denigrate them in the news media, to perpetuate stereotypes instead of reporting the facts. It's one thing as well to vilify the police. All police. This benefits no one, and makes the physical violence that we've been seeing seem almost sane (almost). It's ok now for the cops to assault their (mostly) peaceful protests - protests, which for all intents and purposes, are their American born right to hold. It's ok  now to scream humiliating epithets at the men in blue. So many images of violence against the protesters are flooding the air waves and the internet (mostly the internet). While the media blackout has ceased, there still is little “fair and balanced” reporting on the major cable news networks. But such is our times, and this is not going to change. Evolution strikes again. Regardless of your political or social predilections, images like these should turn your stomach. Activism in the digital age once again brings to light the power of photography. It's this picture in particular that really got me to wanting to write this little essay.

An 84 year old protestor is pepper-sprayed at a raid on Occupy Seattle

I feel so much for the police, don’t get me wrong. I can’t imagine what it must be like to stare into a sea of angry yelling faces armed only with pepper spray, a stick, and a plastic shield, knowing that at any moment, even a small slight or miscommunication could thoroughly change the emotional climate and cause the whole situation to erupt into a fuming violent riot. I can’t help but think it’s gone too far though. We as human beings, have a responsibility to make it known that there is a line in these situations and that it absolutely must not be crossed – neither by the protestors nor by the police. Otherwise we all lose!

NYC 11/17/11 - Source: ABC News

Haters gonna hate. It’s true that the 53%ers or the 1%ers or the “Elites” as I’ve heard them called, will likely never come around fully to the Occupy. Same is probably true for the 99%ers. The ire that’s building and the cries of the disenchanted masses is only going to grow. The only hope of success lies in sheer numbers and voting boxes. I just don’t sense an end to this momentum. It doesn’t seem possible that snow and lack of bathrooms can stop thousands of people from speaking out and organizing against what they see as a colossal failure of the country they love and respect. And yes, most of them do love America. They just miss it. Their sense of disillusionment in a democracy which they put so much faith in is undeniably palpable. Labeling them all as anarchists and commies is a low blow, and we all know that. It's playground name calling and has no place in intelligent discussion. Saying that people who want jobs are looking for a “hand out” is beyond incomprehensible to me. Since when is wanting to exchange your time, intelligence, and labor for compensation considered a handout? Ah, but I digress.

Occupy Portland 11/17/11 - Source: AlterNet

My original intent in writing this was mostly to express my profound disappointment with the actions of those that have caused the web to be inundated with images such as these. Any movement, any group, will have a certain element of fringe participants – radical fundamentalists, uninformed hangers-on, and those simply lonely and wishing to belong to something, anything. This holds true for all of humanity, and can be applied to both the police and the protestors. Not all cops are a Tony Baloney, and not all protestors defecate in public. Not all police officers yank young girls by the hair, and not all Occupiers are naked and high. To judge any group by its outliers is anathema to understanding simple group dynamics. It’s just not logical, and all it’s going to do in this situation is cause more divisive violence, more name calling, and less solutions to the obvious problems. The civil rights movement had the Black Panthers. The hippies had the New Left. And cops have the 1990’s LAPD. Every single group has a bad element (or one perceived by outsiders to be so). It’s human nature. Get used to it.

Everybody calm down, please stop shouting. This is a refrain from a song by one of my new favorite bands (I urge you to click that link and check the song out, if for no other reason than to get a little more into my head). They sing it with such pleading conviction, that it circles in my head each time I read a new article about this seemingly never ending tableau of American on American hatred. All of which I see as spurred on by the country’s lack of togetherness and understanding of each other. I’m not talking Peace-Train-hold-hands-one-love kind of understanding. I mean simply overlooking your preconceived notions, and taking the time to learn and to actually think about what is going on. Use that giant mass of tissue inside your melon for once. Have empathy. Shut up and listen when others are talking. You’ll probably learn something. Ignorance to a subject, person, or gathering of persons is never a good thing. Ignorance and stereotypes lead to hatred, and hatred leads to violence. These are things we know to be true. Hatred. Such an ugly word. Even when speaking it aloud, your mouth contorts into a hideous little mask of revulsion – like you smelled week old garbage stuffed inside a two week old dead squirrel. So please, I implore you - everybody calm down, please stop shouting. To the protestors I say - only yell "Shame" at the cops when they step out of line and not just for doing their job which includes protecting you. And officers, lay off the old ladies and little girls. Everybody calm down, please stop shouting. I know it’s idealistic to hope for an end to hatred, but can’t we at least strive as a country to stop being so driven by it?


Important Note: All photographs and music contained in this post are copyrighted materials by the artist and/or establishment and are not in any way my property. I am merely a vessel.

Here's to the dreamers

Occupy Raleigh Kick Off Rally 10/15/11

According to Wikipedia: "The American Dream is a national ethos of the United States in which freedom includes a promise of the possibility of prosperity and success...regardless of social class or circumstances of birth. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that 'all men are created equal' and that they are 'endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights' including 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' "

I like this concise portraiture of what it means to Americans to feel successful. It reminds us that our aspirations are rooted in the very nascence of our country and its ambitions for its people. There are varying versions of the dream, but it comes from the same place, the same sentiment that we're all in this thing together. For me, it seems that all I’ve ever hoped for was a comfortable house, a family of whatever kind I choose, and simple happiness. That's my "American Dream." I’ve hoped to live in a land where all people of all walks of life are given equal opportunities to better themselves and their loved ones. I’ve hoped to be able to help people, and to surround myself with people who care about me enough to help me if needed. I’ve hoped to be able to continue to learn and to discover all that the world around me has to offer – the good and the bad. Sometimes though, I don’t know how much more I want to learn about the bad. Especially when it comes to what I see as the new concept of American exceptionalism and success.

Seen on Facebook: “Dear 1%. Thank you for inspiring us 99%er’s to live the American dream and giving us something to aspire to.” 

I don’t know if this statement was made in jest, but it didn’t come across that way to me. This made me profoundly sad. This statement, offered by one of my peers, seems to read as if the now named 1% are the ones who’ve attained the elusive Dream we’ve all been taught to hold dear to our hearts. That this ephemeral notion of “making it” of “success” is predicated on making bazillions while others struggle. Yes, I do admit that many of the wealthy are good people who worked very hard and came from nothing to get where they are, and yes, I do contend that not every rich person is a corporate whoremonger. Yet I refuse to believe that such immense inequality of wealth is what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they set this whole Ferris wheel in motion. I refuse to accept that Thomas Jefferson envisioned a world like ours - a society, so staunch in its adherence to its own superiority, that it would sit idly by while it's wealth becomes so unevenly divided as to foster a climate that would drive thousands of citizens across the nation to take to the streets in bipartisan protest. 

Occupy Raleigh Kick Off Rally 10/15/11
  

Our new America and we as the new Americans have been tasked with a responsibility our predecessors failed to accommodate for. When they dreamt up the grand ideal of prosperity that we should all attain to, they didn’t count on the culture shift that enabled the Gordon Gekkos to reach idolism. Who knew that one day the filthy rich, the business men in monkey suits, the Corporations with a capital C - who have long been the archetypal bad guys of cinematic lore - would be the ones we “aspire to” become?  How did it come to this? How did we come to this? And who do we have to fuck to make it go back to the way it was meant to be?

Perhaps planning for the inclusion of greed and its inevitable destructive forces should have been a part of this America Dream concept. Perhaps it’s me who’s failing to see the bigger picture here. Putting the likes of Washington, Adams, and the others up on this pedestal only to point out their failed intentions might be the hindrance to my overall sense of happy wellbeing.  Yet when I see that the Herman Cains, the David Kochs, the CEOs in power ties – when I see that they have become the motivators of political policy, I want to pull the plug on this whole thing and call the experiment an epic failure! 

America is supposed to be and often still is a beautiful, cultural, prosperous, and fair nation – one of the greatest examples of collective progress the modern world has ever seen. No one here makes it on their own. We as citizens are supposed to hold up our fellow Americans and be held up by them in return so that we can continue to lift each other over adversity because we know, deep down some of us still know, that without the many, the few are…well just that. Few. Inconsequential. Worthless and alone.