Sarah Levy
November 17, 2008
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Though pretty much every other topic is addressed, there is one aspect of how life changes upon leaving for college that never comes up, even with all the pamphlets and weeks of organized introductory activities.
Masturbation.
“I definitely thought about it before coming,” said Stefan Mathews ‘12. He said he was worried about how he would be affected by the lack of privacy that dorm life would bring.
Mathews is not the only first year that worried about personal changes that would come with college life. For many it was an issue.
Rosa Montague ’12 said she thought about the change beforehand, but wasn’t worried about it.
“I wondered if I would have time, what if my roommate were to find out, that kind of thing,” said Montague.
Montague said her habits have changed since college, because they are more random and more rushed. However, she said she does not do it any less than at home. And she does not really plan it out.
“I’ve learned [my roommate’s] schedule,” she said. “It’s just like, ooh, she’s left. This will be fun.”
Not everyone has been able to so easily cope with the burdens of dorm life.
“Yeah [my masturbatory habits] have changed!” said Alister Korb ‘12. “How have they changed? I don’t.”
Korb said that he did not realize until he got here that things would be different than at home. He said he cannot masturbate in his room because his roommate is usually there, and he does not feel comfortable doing it in the bathroom.
“I feel like it’s gross to do in a public shower and I think how I would feel if I were in the shower next to mine,” he said. “That would suck.”
Korb is not the only male who held off from this practice because of college. Gabriel Sutherland ’12 said the first time he masturbated after coming to Macalester was almost two months after leaving home. But for him this was not that big of a deal, even though he described his habits since coming to college as “somewhat moderately different” than at home.
“There are a lot more things to keep me occupied here,” he said. Sutherland said he has not really been affected by the change and that on average he does it less than once a week.
“I guess I just keep it all bottled up,” he said.
Another issue that comes with dorm life is that of walking in on people having sex, or being walked in on.
Suzanne Li, a senior, said that sophomore year she and her roommate would draw a “5” on their white board as a sign of “Do not enter.”
“If there was a 5 and you really wanted to go in, you knocked once and waited and if no one answered you still wouldn’t go in,” she said.
As for Montague, she said she has worried about someone walking in on her. But she does not lock the door.
“If I’m in there alone with the door locked, I’m worried about what someone walking by will think,” she said. “Because I don’t want them assuming I’m doing that.”
While some students have found ways to cope, for others relative problems have arisen. One such issue is stress.
“Masturbation is a mood-booster and if you can’t do it as often [as you would like], it does make you a bit grumpier,” said Mathews. He said that since college, he has been masturbating much less frequently than before and only during certain planned out times, which he said at times affects his stress-level.
The lack of privacy can also affect students in ways beyond just the emotional.
“I keep getting urinary tract infections because I don’t go pee after sex because it’s too much effort to go down the hall [of Dupre],” said Cece Harkins, a sophomore. “And I don’t want to have to see my RA, or that girl I have class with, or that neighbor who just heard me having sex.”
But generally students learn to cope.
“The first week or two was pretty bad,” said Jon Royce ‘12. “Then I figured out [my roommate’s] schedule.”
Montague said she doesn’t worry about walking in on her roommate or visa versa.
“We knock. I figure if you give it like two seconds, anything that’s going on can stop.”
Li said she hasn’t been walked in on, or walked in on anyone in her time at Macalester.
“But I have done things while other people were in the room and I’m not sure if they woke up or not,” she said. Li shed some light on the issue as someone with more collegiate experience.
“As you get older it gets a lot less awkward,” she said. “Because everyone, by the time they’re a senior, has been in a room while other people are having sex. They call it ‘being caught in the wing.’”
Harkin offered advice to first years regarding what she has learned.
“You learn to be silent,” she said. “You learn to do it when it’s convenient for your roommate and not for you.” She added that she has been walked in on a couple times in awkward positions.
“To make sure you get to the end, you’ve got to make it fast sometimes even though you don’t want to,” she said.
With two more years’ experience under her belt, Li continued.
“It’s just kind of like, look, we’re in a cramped space. When I say ‘Go,’ go. People understand.”
She paused to think.
“People don’t get more mature, though.”
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
20,000 Travel to Georgia to Say, "Shut Down the SOA"
Sarah Levy
November 24, 2008
On Sunday the 23rd, upwards of 20,000 people attended a Georgia vigil to commemorate those who have died as result of School of the Americas violence.
“We are here once again to say, ‘Basta. No mas. No More,’” said Father Roy Bourgeois, who started the School of the Americas Watch 18 years ago. The yearly event takes place outside the gates of Fort Benning, the military training site for the school.
“The problem is that most Americans don’t know it exists, or don’t know the terrors that have resulted because of it,” he said.
Father Jon Sobrino, one of the only survivors of his Jesuit community in El Salvador because of SOA-incited murder, explained the reason to be there.
“Any school in which violence and torture is being taught should be closed,” he said. “Any school in which lies are being taught, should be closed. Any school in which the accumulation of wealth as the main joy of life is being taught, should be closed.”
The funeral procession consisted of the names and ages of those who had died as result of SOA violence, being sung off, one by one, alternating Spanish and English. Following each name, a sea of voices solemnly sang back “Pre-sen-te,” each holding up a white cross to represent one person. A single drumbeat followed every name.
“It feels really powerful to remember the names of the dead and to bring that to the doors of the people that murdered them,” said Zeph Fishlyn, an artist who was attending the event for the first time.
Earlier that morning, six people had crossed the border onto the military base in an attempt to bring the protest down to the school. They were arrested and are facing up to six months in federal prison.
The night before, Brian Derouen, who served four months in jail for crossing the line in 2006, addressed a crowd regarding why this protest is important.
“This weekend is not what matters,” said Derouen. “If everyone goes home and tells one person and writes one letter to congress, the school could be shut down in a year. People can’t just be here and then go home and feel good about themselves.”
After putting their crosses on the fence as the culmination of the procession, people stood crying, hugging, and simply staring at the scene in silence. On a patch of grass near the fence, dozens of actors with white face paint lay in black cloths strewn with red paint to represent the dead.
Police loudspeakers didn’t seem to notice the sentiment, and proceeded to blare their message.
“Anyone who crosses the line is subject to fine and imprisonment,” a recording projected for the umpteenth time throughout the weekend. “The sole purpose of this institution is to provide military training of soldiers. It is a non-partisan operation. As a democratic institution it is upholding the constitution.”
Luckily, the weekend’s events, which consisted of many speakers and educational panels, had taught the crowd what a lie this was.
Said Deroen, “In the end, change happens when good people break bad laws and accept the consequences.”
November 24, 2008
On Sunday the 23rd, upwards of 20,000 people attended a Georgia vigil to commemorate those who have died as result of School of the Americas violence.
“We are here once again to say, ‘Basta. No mas. No More,’” said Father Roy Bourgeois, who started the School of the Americas Watch 18 years ago. The yearly event takes place outside the gates of Fort Benning, the military training site for the school.
“The problem is that most Americans don’t know it exists, or don’t know the terrors that have resulted because of it,” he said.
Father Jon Sobrino, one of the only survivors of his Jesuit community in El Salvador because of SOA-incited murder, explained the reason to be there.
“Any school in which violence and torture is being taught should be closed,” he said. “Any school in which lies are being taught, should be closed. Any school in which the accumulation of wealth as the main joy of life is being taught, should be closed.”
The funeral procession consisted of the names and ages of those who had died as result of SOA violence, being sung off, one by one, alternating Spanish and English. Following each name, a sea of voices solemnly sang back “Pre-sen-te,” each holding up a white cross to represent one person. A single drumbeat followed every name.
“It feels really powerful to remember the names of the dead and to bring that to the doors of the people that murdered them,” said Zeph Fishlyn, an artist who was attending the event for the first time.
Earlier that morning, six people had crossed the border onto the military base in an attempt to bring the protest down to the school. They were arrested and are facing up to six months in federal prison.
The night before, Brian Derouen, who served four months in jail for crossing the line in 2006, addressed a crowd regarding why this protest is important.
“This weekend is not what matters,” said Derouen. “If everyone goes home and tells one person and writes one letter to congress, the school could be shut down in a year. People can’t just be here and then go home and feel good about themselves.”
After putting their crosses on the fence as the culmination of the procession, people stood crying, hugging, and simply staring at the scene in silence. On a patch of grass near the fence, dozens of actors with white face paint lay in black cloths strewn with red paint to represent the dead.
Police loudspeakers didn’t seem to notice the sentiment, and proceeded to blare their message.
“Anyone who crosses the line is subject to fine and imprisonment,” a recording projected for the umpteenth time throughout the weekend. “The sole purpose of this institution is to provide military training of soldiers. It is a non-partisan operation. As a democratic institution it is upholding the constitution.”
Luckily, the weekend’s events, which consisted of many speakers and educational panels, had taught the crowd what a lie this was.
Said Deroen, “In the end, change happens when good people break bad laws and accept the consequences.”
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Unheard Tale: What It's Like for Lefties and Repubs at a Truly "Liberal" Arts School
Sarah Levy
November 3, 2008
With two days until the election, Minnesotan Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate for U.S. senate Al Franken spoke at Macalester, urging people to “stand up and fight for the next 48 hours.”
Leading up to the event titled “Two Days ‘Til Tuesday,” for anyone living on campus it was hard not to see a flyer advertising Franken’s visit. On multiple levels of dorm stairwells and poster boards, as well as in class buildings and the campus center, Franken’s face could be seen smiling at passers by.
While some students weren’t fazed by this phenomenon, others, such as Dan Castelli ’11, said they were frustrated by the occurrence and others similar to it that have become more and more common as the election nears.
“As a person whose politics lie well outside the corporate framework of the Democratic and Republican parties, I can't help but feel alienated by the political culture on this campus,” said Castelli, who said he is planning on voting for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.
“Everyday I'm told that if I voted for the candidates who best represented my views, the ones who best sought to dismantle racism, economic inequality, homophobia, sexism and the overwhelming corporate privatization of society, that by expressing interest in the candidates with real principles and with real agendas, that I was throwing my vote away,” continued Castelli. “So don't come to my door and tell me to vote, when you're telling me my vote doesn't matter to begin with.”
Jenny Dawson ’12, said she merely thought the Franken advertising was excessive and unnecessary because it was wasting paper.
None of this seemed to affect the enthusiastic crowd of around 450 who attended the Sunday night rally sponsored by Mac Dems and held in the Campus Center, according to Alex Rosselli, president of the group. Besides Macalester students, present were students from nearby campuses and community members.
Following a brief performance by the Trads, which was flavored with several pro-Obama and pro-vote messages within their songs, Franken addressed the crowd.
“I’m pro-A’capella,” he said. “[My opponent] Norm Coleman hates A’capella.”
Franken acknowledged that there are specific reasons to come to a campus like Macalester where the majority of students are already going to vote Democratic.
“I want people out working,” he said. “The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard.”
While Rosselli said he was pleased with how the event turned out, he said he was not sure how much of an influence it could specifically have to further mobilize students.
“[Macalester] is already one of the most active communities in the state,” he said. “It has been recognized as being extremely effective in getting out the vote.”
However, while many Mac students have been taking Franken’s message to heart as Rosselli said, not everyone has been acting as part of the Macalester Democratic status quo.
James Weismuller ’12, said he thinks all the pro-Obama energy of Macalester could be harnessed more effectively.
“I think this kind of political energy, especially on such a widespread and vibrant scale as we have witnessed during this election, could be used in ways that directly assert the will of the people instead of merely electioneering,” he said. Weismuller said he is not sure yet whether he will vote.
Paul McGuire ’12, said he doesn’t feel attacked by the Obama vibe of Macalester, but rather is amused by it. McGuire said at this point he is not sure whether he will vote for Republican candidate John McCain or Libertarian Bob Barr.
“I knew it was going to be like this when I decided to come to this college,” said McGuire. “I’m amazed by how people respect [Obama] so much, but I’m not surprised by it at all.”
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Castelli did not take the issue so lightly.
“I feel like my views are made to be illegitimate,” he said about the mass of Democratic propaganda at Mac. “I am whole-heartedly disappointed with Macalester College for being so vehemently supportive of this two party system. If you want change then don't trust politicians; force them to act on your behalf.”
Though it cannot be told whether Franken was aware of this or not, at one point during his speech he seemed to be addressing the issue.
“Some of you—and you know who you are—need new friends,” he said, only partly joking.
The Election-Related Statistics, according to Al Franken:
• Number of Minnesotans without health insurance: 440,000
• Number of Minnesotans who can’t find a job: 170,000
• Number of years it has been since the unemployment level of this state has been this high: 22
• Number of phone calls made so far for this election: 1.5 million
• Number of doors knocked on so far for the election 2.8 million
Al Franken was a writer and performer on the show Saturday Night Live between the years 1975 and 1980, and again from 1985 to 1995.
In 2003 he published the book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Now he is running as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state of Minnesota.
November 3, 2008
With two days until the election, Minnesotan Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate for U.S. senate Al Franken spoke at Macalester, urging people to “stand up and fight for the next 48 hours.”
Leading up to the event titled “Two Days ‘Til Tuesday,” for anyone living on campus it was hard not to see a flyer advertising Franken’s visit. On multiple levels of dorm stairwells and poster boards, as well as in class buildings and the campus center, Franken’s face could be seen smiling at passers by.
While some students weren’t fazed by this phenomenon, others, such as Dan Castelli ’11, said they were frustrated by the occurrence and others similar to it that have become more and more common as the election nears.
“As a person whose politics lie well outside the corporate framework of the Democratic and Republican parties, I can't help but feel alienated by the political culture on this campus,” said Castelli, who said he is planning on voting for Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney.
“Everyday I'm told that if I voted for the candidates who best represented my views, the ones who best sought to dismantle racism, economic inequality, homophobia, sexism and the overwhelming corporate privatization of society, that by expressing interest in the candidates with real principles and with real agendas, that I was throwing my vote away,” continued Castelli. “So don't come to my door and tell me to vote, when you're telling me my vote doesn't matter to begin with.”
Jenny Dawson ’12, said she merely thought the Franken advertising was excessive and unnecessary because it was wasting paper.
None of this seemed to affect the enthusiastic crowd of around 450 who attended the Sunday night rally sponsored by Mac Dems and held in the Campus Center, according to Alex Rosselli, president of the group. Besides Macalester students, present were students from nearby campuses and community members.
Following a brief performance by the Trads, which was flavored with several pro-Obama and pro-vote messages within their songs, Franken addressed the crowd.
“I’m pro-A’capella,” he said. “[My opponent] Norm Coleman hates A’capella.”
Franken acknowledged that there are specific reasons to come to a campus like Macalester where the majority of students are already going to vote Democratic.
“I want people out working,” he said. “The future belongs to those who are passionate and work hard.”
While Rosselli said he was pleased with how the event turned out, he said he was not sure how much of an influence it could specifically have to further mobilize students.
“[Macalester] is already one of the most active communities in the state,” he said. “It has been recognized as being extremely effective in getting out the vote.”
However, while many Mac students have been taking Franken’s message to heart as Rosselli said, not everyone has been acting as part of the Macalester Democratic status quo.
James Weismuller ’12, said he thinks all the pro-Obama energy of Macalester could be harnessed more effectively.
“I think this kind of political energy, especially on such a widespread and vibrant scale as we have witnessed during this election, could be used in ways that directly assert the will of the people instead of merely electioneering,” he said. Weismuller said he is not sure yet whether he will vote.
Paul McGuire ’12, said he doesn’t feel attacked by the Obama vibe of Macalester, but rather is amused by it. McGuire said at this point he is not sure whether he will vote for Republican candidate John McCain or Libertarian Bob Barr.
“I knew it was going to be like this when I decided to come to this college,” said McGuire. “I’m amazed by how people respect [Obama] so much, but I’m not surprised by it at all.”
On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Castelli did not take the issue so lightly.
“I feel like my views are made to be illegitimate,” he said about the mass of Democratic propaganda at Mac. “I am whole-heartedly disappointed with Macalester College for being so vehemently supportive of this two party system. If you want change then don't trust politicians; force them to act on your behalf.”
Though it cannot be told whether Franken was aware of this or not, at one point during his speech he seemed to be addressing the issue.
“Some of you—and you know who you are—need new friends,” he said, only partly joking.
The Election-Related Statistics, according to Al Franken:
• Number of Minnesotans without health insurance: 440,000
• Number of Minnesotans who can’t find a job: 170,000
• Number of years it has been since the unemployment level of this state has been this high: 22
• Number of phone calls made so far for this election: 1.5 million
• Number of doors knocked on so far for the election 2.8 million
Al Franken was a writer and performer on the show Saturday Night Live between the years 1975 and 1980, and again from 1985 to 1995.
In 2003 he published the book, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.
Now he is running as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in the state of Minnesota.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Michelle Obama Takes to Macalester in the Final Days Leading up to the Election
October 20, 2008
Sarah Levy
More than 4,000 people waited in line for hours Monday despite rain and cold to see Michelle Obama speak at Macalester.
Waiting to go into the Snelling Street side entrance of the Leonard Center, the line of people, sporting rain coats and umbrellas, reached all the way down Macalester Street to the parking lot by the Wallace Fine Arts building, before it began to move.
Ross Donihue ’11 said his Geographic Information Systems teacher cancelled class for the event. Others, such as Olivia Nichols, a senior at Henry Sibley High School, cut class to see the possible future first lady speak.
“I’ll definitely be affected by Michelle,” Nichols said, about missing her psychology class to be at the event. “I’ll be more motivated to start [campaign] phone calls.”
Nichols’ father, Michael Nichols, said he too was excited to be there.
“I think Michelle is very inspirational, especially to young women,” he said.
Not everyone felt the same, however. Some Macalester students stayed away from the event, such as Paul McGuire ‘12 who scoffed at what he said he considered absurd and unnecessary hubbub and “Obama-Mania”.
Dara Hoppe ’11, a sociology major, went for the mere spectacle. Hoppe said she enjoys critically analyzing what politicians are doing to get votes.
“I guess it’s the point to say those buzz-word phrases to get people riled up,” she said. “It’s exciting to feel you’re a part of the giant excitement.”
Upon entering the Leonard Center, attendees were immersed in a world of political pump-up music and Obama cheerleaders staggered about to act as a pathway into the gym. Beyond the chants of “Ready to go! Fired up!” thousands of people stood so close they were touching their neighbors, waiting for the event to start.
Following several speakers including Mayor Chris Coleman and 16-year-old Natalie Miller of Northfield, MN, Obama was welcomed onstage to deafening applause.
After she skimmed over some of the campaign highlights, Obama asked the crowd, “Don’t we deserve leaders who get it?” She continued, “The thing I’ve been doing is I’ve been traveling around this country for the last 18, 19 months telling people that Barack Obama gets it.”
Obama stressed that people need to get involved in the campaign if they haven’t already, or kick it up several notches if they have.
“Barack has gotten us 85% of the way there,” she said. “The rest of it’s on us.”
Following the event, Grace Erny ’12 noted how Obama’s speech brushed over many of the issues without addressing any of the actual policies. She said this made sense, however, considering events like this are not centered on policy and educating people on the issues, but are more about getting people excited and mobilizing them.
“While it was obvious that she was intelligent and poised, it would have been more interesting if she hadn’t had to so strongly campaign,” said Erny. “I would like to see what she would have said if she hadn’t had such a strong agenda.”
Elizabeth Anna Hall of Minneapolis said she was glad to be at the event, but it didn’t change her thinking.
“She grabbed hold of the crowd’s emotions in a really positive way,” Hall said. Originally a Kucinich supporter, Hall said that some of Obama’s positions aren’t as far left as she would like, but she is still planning on voting for him.
Tom Froyum, a St. Paul fire inspector, said his purpose on Monday was to keep the peace and make sure the crowd didn’t get too big, but that he was especially glad to be stationed at this event.
“Sure I’m excited—I’m unofficially excited,” he said regarding the content of his particular job assignment.
Surrounded by smiling people donning Obama t-shirts and having their pictures taken in front of an enormous American flag, Erny said that the event didn’t make her think about anything in a new way, at least not in the way it was intended to.
“It made me think about the way that propaganda works, but not about the issues of the campaign,” she said.
Many local politicians and political candidates were there on Monday, including senate candidate Al Franken and the mayors of St. Paul and Minneaoplis.
Also present were national news media, many of which filmed the event from a stage in the middle of the crowd.
The last time Michelle Obama was in Minnesota, her husband was accepting the nomination for the party. This Monday she returned to speak at Macalester in the final days leading up to the election.
A few of the numbers she brought up include:
• Number of votes John Kerry won Minnesota by in 2004: 98,000
• Number of unregistered youths in Minnesota in 2008: 140,000
• Number of days until the election: 15
• Least number of days you must wait in Minnesota between registering
Sarah Levy
More than 4,000 people waited in line for hours Monday despite rain and cold to see Michelle Obama speak at Macalester.
Waiting to go into the Snelling Street side entrance of the Leonard Center, the line of people, sporting rain coats and umbrellas, reached all the way down Macalester Street to the parking lot by the Wallace Fine Arts building, before it began to move.
Ross Donihue ’11 said his Geographic Information Systems teacher cancelled class for the event. Others, such as Olivia Nichols, a senior at Henry Sibley High School, cut class to see the possible future first lady speak.
“I’ll definitely be affected by Michelle,” Nichols said, about missing her psychology class to be at the event. “I’ll be more motivated to start [campaign] phone calls.”
Nichols’ father, Michael Nichols, said he too was excited to be there.
“I think Michelle is very inspirational, especially to young women,” he said.
Not everyone felt the same, however. Some Macalester students stayed away from the event, such as Paul McGuire ‘12 who scoffed at what he said he considered absurd and unnecessary hubbub and “Obama-Mania”.
Dara Hoppe ’11, a sociology major, went for the mere spectacle. Hoppe said she enjoys critically analyzing what politicians are doing to get votes.
“I guess it’s the point to say those buzz-word phrases to get people riled up,” she said. “It’s exciting to feel you’re a part of the giant excitement.”
Upon entering the Leonard Center, attendees were immersed in a world of political pump-up music and Obama cheerleaders staggered about to act as a pathway into the gym. Beyond the chants of “Ready to go! Fired up!” thousands of people stood so close they were touching their neighbors, waiting for the event to start.
Following several speakers including Mayor Chris Coleman and 16-year-old Natalie Miller of Northfield, MN, Obama was welcomed onstage to deafening applause.
After she skimmed over some of the campaign highlights, Obama asked the crowd, “Don’t we deserve leaders who get it?” She continued, “The thing I’ve been doing is I’ve been traveling around this country for the last 18, 19 months telling people that Barack Obama gets it.”
Obama stressed that people need to get involved in the campaign if they haven’t already, or kick it up several notches if they have.
“Barack has gotten us 85% of the way there,” she said. “The rest of it’s on us.”
Following the event, Grace Erny ’12 noted how Obama’s speech brushed over many of the issues without addressing any of the actual policies. She said this made sense, however, considering events like this are not centered on policy and educating people on the issues, but are more about getting people excited and mobilizing them.
“While it was obvious that she was intelligent and poised, it would have been more interesting if she hadn’t had to so strongly campaign,” said Erny. “I would like to see what she would have said if she hadn’t had such a strong agenda.”
Elizabeth Anna Hall of Minneapolis said she was glad to be at the event, but it didn’t change her thinking.
“She grabbed hold of the crowd’s emotions in a really positive way,” Hall said. Originally a Kucinich supporter, Hall said that some of Obama’s positions aren’t as far left as she would like, but she is still planning on voting for him.
Tom Froyum, a St. Paul fire inspector, said his purpose on Monday was to keep the peace and make sure the crowd didn’t get too big, but that he was especially glad to be stationed at this event.
“Sure I’m excited—I’m unofficially excited,” he said regarding the content of his particular job assignment.
Surrounded by smiling people donning Obama t-shirts and having their pictures taken in front of an enormous American flag, Erny said that the event didn’t make her think about anything in a new way, at least not in the way it was intended to.
“It made me think about the way that propaganda works, but not about the issues of the campaign,” she said.
Many local politicians and political candidates were there on Monday, including senate candidate Al Franken and the mayors of St. Paul and Minneaoplis.
Also present were national news media, many of which filmed the event from a stage in the middle of the crowd.
The last time Michelle Obama was in Minnesota, her husband was accepting the nomination for the party. This Monday she returned to speak at Macalester in the final days leading up to the election.
A few of the numbers she brought up include:
• Number of votes John Kerry won Minnesota by in 2004: 98,000
• Number of unregistered youths in Minnesota in 2008: 140,000
• Number of days until the election: 15
• Least number of days you must wait in Minnesota between registering
Saturday, October 25, 2008
America: The New Pornographers
"Masturbation is only for ugly people. And albinos."
No, this isn't a line from South Park, or some skewed Christian Right mantra to try to convince people who consider themselves good looking not to jerk off. It's what the natives of the Trobriand Islands explained to an anthropologist regarding their confusion as to why masturbation is such a common pastime in the West.
Now don't think this means that we as Americans simply enjoy pleasure more than other cultures, or by some *stroke* of luck are more comfortable with our bodies. According to Jack M. Weatherford, author of "Porn Row" and Macalester College Anthropology professor, it's actually quite the contrary.
In the chapter "Sex Without Partners" of his anthropological analysis of the porn industry, Weatherford looks at a tribal group living in scattered villages of east central India that are known as the Muria. In their culture, a part of adolescent life and education is participating in the Ghotul, a night activity that begins with singing, dancing, and coupling off to rub one another with sensual oils. As the night continues, the massages slowly turn into "more intimate touching and feeling of the other's body, and if both agree, they make love, or spend the night just caressing each other, or sleep snuggled closely together." They do this nightly, switching partners so that no two people are together for more than a couple days, and no one is left out.
Through these nightly encounters, each person learns everything about their partners' bodies-- every curve and crevice, how much oil they enjoy being rubbed with, how they respond to certain touches, how long they can keep it up, et cetera. In their view, the woman is seen as deserving wonderful sex since she has to bear the brunt of menstruation and child birth, and so each male is taught he must keep going until she is completely satisfied. Because of this practice, the male learns stamina and to stay erect for longer, so that he can keep going until she is set. Additionally, since adolescents jump right into coital rather than going through a period of masturbation, the female learns to come from vaginal stimulus alone, rather than learning to orgasm clitorally and later having to switch.
For the Muria, the concept of a platonic relationship is virtually unknown. "Every male-female relationship among unmarried people is expected to be sexual," and as their proverb goes, "Thirst is not quenched by licking dew."
You may be thinking 'But what about the STDs?' 'And all the babies?', but this is not an issue in their society.
As Weatherford explains,
"The Muria consider it bad for young people NOT to have sex, and for them teenage pregnancy does not seem to be a problem. Despite the possibilities of pregnancy, other issues are more important. In their explanation of the world, sex is a powerful force, and if it is stored too long inside the person, it may emerge in strange and harmful ways. To prevent such harm, sexual desires need to be exercised constantly."
In time, families set up arranged marriages for the young people, which are generally extremely satisfactory. In result of the Ghotuls, everyone in the same age group has been with everyone else, and so there is no urge from one partner to know what it would be like to be with a different partner, because-- oop! They already have! Also, since everyone has learned from everyone else, everyone knows everything that everyone else does, and so they're all amazing in bed.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The entire experience is contrasted abruptly with the industrial society, particularly the masturbating habits of the citizens of our grand ol' U.S. of A.
As Weatherford puts it, "Muria youths learn coitus and may occasionally masturbate, but Western youths learn masturbation even though they may occasionally have coitus."
Weatherford points out that many of the ways westerners learn about sex end up being relatively detrimental to their sex life later in life. For the male, he learns to reach orgasm as quickly as possible, maybe in his parents' bathroom, hoping he'll come before his mom walks in, or at night under the covers, dreading the appearance of an older brother. He learns the goal of speed. As Weatherford says, "while the Muria boy learns through several years of practice in the Ghotul to sustain coitus until the female is satisfied, the American boy learns merely to rush through the act and get to the climax as quickly as possible."
Meanwhile, the female gets used to reaching orgasm through clitoral stimulus alone.
Once the two combine the masturbation backlash occurs.
For the male, it is difficult to unlearn speed. Now that he is doing it with another person, he allows for no dialogue between bodies as he simply goes in to finish the act as soon as possible and then leave. *On top* of this, being used to the strong and hard pressure of the hand, the switch to the softer, looser flesh of the vagina makes it difficult for him to come.
The woman is now faced with the challenge of coming through vaginal stimulus rather than clitoral, making the process irrelevant and frustrating for her. "By contrast, women in societies such as the Muria learn from the beginning to reach orgasm with penetration."
Weatherford explains how this ends up screwing us over for the future:
"During the initial years of adulthood, when coitus is new, the novelty of the act may be enough to overcome the problems of changing from masturbation to copulation, but in time problems arise. As the female's vagina becomes less firm and tight with age, her partner may experience greater difficulty maintaining an erection or attaining on orgasm. Problems of impotence, premature ejaculation, and lack or orgasm may all be connected with the early from of solitary sex training."
This does not happen for the Muria who learn to copulate (rather than masturbate) at an early age.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The most interesting difference between sex styles is that, for the Muria, the emphasis is upon learning the other person's body and knowing everything about it and them so you can confidently please them. This, compared to our western way of learning all alone and all about your own body, so that you know it perfectly and are set for autosex, but don't have much consideration for the other person and what they want or how they work. In our culture, sex is selfish.
Even before addressing sex, the issue of one's partner becomes possessive. You can only be with one person at one time, or else everyone will be jealous because that person was supposed to be YOURS. As the Muria would say, this inhibits greatly upon sexual learning and the overall skills of all in the population. (Remember, however, that the Muria do end up marrying, and staying with that one partner for the rest of their life.)
The system of the Muria could never work in out society because people couldn't be trusted enough. They've been taught to think for themselves and only of the good of themselves, so in a theoretical Ghotul, you wouldn't be sure if some person had sketchy reasoning to be there in the first place. For the Muria, jealously doesn't take shape because everyone is equally participating and sharing everyone else.
All because Capitalism turns sex into a commodity.
[Another problem is how that kind of set-up would only work when you have a relatively small population and really only one community.]
America also has an incredibly interesting dynamic where we have a super-sexed-up culture, with music videos, clothing advertisements, and just about anything you can think of, juxtaposed with the extreme-Christian Right and conservative government that are constantly blaring messages of chastity and abstinence until marriage (if not after as well). This creates an atmosphere of urges and fantasy that are often awkwardly contained, or let to escape in secretive, sometimes embarrassing or harmful ways, as people wish their sexual thoughts didn't exists almost as much as they wish they would come true. Making it so the last thing most people want is to TALK about sex. Because that would be awful!
In severe contrast, in the Muria society, parents see the Ghotul as a way to keep adolescents out of mischief! Compared to ours which would see the mere concept of such a thing as promiscuous and sinful, let alone a case of minor scandal.
The overall result of severe shame related to sex, bombardment of sexual imagery, lack of sex, and lack of dialogue around said subject is that people grow up with often unattainable fantasies and expectations. This is what creates a need for porn, though it merely perpetuates the cycle when real human contact actually occurs and is unable to meet expectations, only creating more of a need for said images.
I'm still not sure what to make of our culture. I had always thought that the whole taking-it-slow thing was a good plan, but Weatherford and the Muria seem to make out anything beside penetration to be unnatural and oddly Western/industrial-based. I guess the key note of this label is the mentality of a mystery around sex and the other person, extenuated by a selfish goal of purely self-pleasure. But he still makes masturbation seem oddly pathetic.
While I had always thought the [sex-related] steps to overcome in our society were purely shame in sex and lack of sex-education, now it seems that there is so much more. That it's possible we are incredibly immature in the world of erotica.
*(All quotes come from Jack M. Weatherford's book, "Porn Row")
No, this isn't a line from South Park, or some skewed Christian Right mantra to try to convince people who consider themselves good looking not to jerk off. It's what the natives of the Trobriand Islands explained to an anthropologist regarding their confusion as to why masturbation is such a common pastime in the West.
Now don't think this means that we as Americans simply enjoy pleasure more than other cultures, or by some *stroke* of luck are more comfortable with our bodies. According to Jack M. Weatherford, author of "Porn Row" and Macalester College Anthropology professor, it's actually quite the contrary.
In the chapter "Sex Without Partners" of his anthropological analysis of the porn industry, Weatherford looks at a tribal group living in scattered villages of east central India that are known as the Muria. In their culture, a part of adolescent life and education is participating in the Ghotul, a night activity that begins with singing, dancing, and coupling off to rub one another with sensual oils. As the night continues, the massages slowly turn into "more intimate touching and feeling of the other's body, and if both agree, they make love, or spend the night just caressing each other, or sleep snuggled closely together." They do this nightly, switching partners so that no two people are together for more than a couple days, and no one is left out.
Through these nightly encounters, each person learns everything about their partners' bodies-- every curve and crevice, how much oil they enjoy being rubbed with, how they respond to certain touches, how long they can keep it up, et cetera. In their view, the woman is seen as deserving wonderful sex since she has to bear the brunt of menstruation and child birth, and so each male is taught he must keep going until she is completely satisfied. Because of this practice, the male learns stamina and to stay erect for longer, so that he can keep going until she is set. Additionally, since adolescents jump right into coital rather than going through a period of masturbation, the female learns to come from vaginal stimulus alone, rather than learning to orgasm clitorally and later having to switch.
For the Muria, the concept of a platonic relationship is virtually unknown. "Every male-female relationship among unmarried people is expected to be sexual," and as their proverb goes, "Thirst is not quenched by licking dew."
You may be thinking 'But what about the STDs?' 'And all the babies?', but this is not an issue in their society.
As Weatherford explains,
"The Muria consider it bad for young people NOT to have sex, and for them teenage pregnancy does not seem to be a problem. Despite the possibilities of pregnancy, other issues are more important. In their explanation of the world, sex is a powerful force, and if it is stored too long inside the person, it may emerge in strange and harmful ways. To prevent such harm, sexual desires need to be exercised constantly."
In time, families set up arranged marriages for the young people, which are generally extremely satisfactory. In result of the Ghotuls, everyone in the same age group has been with everyone else, and so there is no urge from one partner to know what it would be like to be with a different partner, because-- oop! They already have! Also, since everyone has learned from everyone else, everyone knows everything that everyone else does, and so they're all amazing in bed.
------------------------------------------------------------------
The entire experience is contrasted abruptly with the industrial society, particularly the masturbating habits of the citizens of our grand ol' U.S. of A.
As Weatherford puts it, "Muria youths learn coitus and may occasionally masturbate, but Western youths learn masturbation even though they may occasionally have coitus."
Weatherford points out that many of the ways westerners learn about sex end up being relatively detrimental to their sex life later in life. For the male, he learns to reach orgasm as quickly as possible, maybe in his parents' bathroom, hoping he'll come before his mom walks in, or at night under the covers, dreading the appearance of an older brother. He learns the goal of speed. As Weatherford says, "while the Muria boy learns through several years of practice in the Ghotul to sustain coitus until the female is satisfied, the American boy learns merely to rush through the act and get to the climax as quickly as possible."
Meanwhile, the female gets used to reaching orgasm through clitoral stimulus alone.
Once the two combine the masturbation backlash occurs.
For the male, it is difficult to unlearn speed. Now that he is doing it with another person, he allows for no dialogue between bodies as he simply goes in to finish the act as soon as possible and then leave. *On top* of this, being used to the strong and hard pressure of the hand, the switch to the softer, looser flesh of the vagina makes it difficult for him to come.
The woman is now faced with the challenge of coming through vaginal stimulus rather than clitoral, making the process irrelevant and frustrating for her. "By contrast, women in societies such as the Muria learn from the beginning to reach orgasm with penetration."
Weatherford explains how this ends up screwing us over for the future:
"During the initial years of adulthood, when coitus is new, the novelty of the act may be enough to overcome the problems of changing from masturbation to copulation, but in time problems arise. As the female's vagina becomes less firm and tight with age, her partner may experience greater difficulty maintaining an erection or attaining on orgasm. Problems of impotence, premature ejaculation, and lack or orgasm may all be connected with the early from of solitary sex training."
This does not happen for the Muria who learn to copulate (rather than masturbate) at an early age.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The most interesting difference between sex styles is that, for the Muria, the emphasis is upon learning the other person's body and knowing everything about it and them so you can confidently please them. This, compared to our western way of learning all alone and all about your own body, so that you know it perfectly and are set for autosex, but don't have much consideration for the other person and what they want or how they work. In our culture, sex is selfish.
Even before addressing sex, the issue of one's partner becomes possessive. You can only be with one person at one time, or else everyone will be jealous because that person was supposed to be YOURS. As the Muria would say, this inhibits greatly upon sexual learning and the overall skills of all in the population. (Remember, however, that the Muria do end up marrying, and staying with that one partner for the rest of their life.)
The system of the Muria could never work in out society because people couldn't be trusted enough. They've been taught to think for themselves and only of the good of themselves, so in a theoretical Ghotul, you wouldn't be sure if some person had sketchy reasoning to be there in the first place. For the Muria, jealously doesn't take shape because everyone is equally participating and sharing everyone else.
All because Capitalism turns sex into a commodity.
[Another problem is how that kind of set-up would only work when you have a relatively small population and really only one community.]
America also has an incredibly interesting dynamic where we have a super-sexed-up culture, with music videos, clothing advertisements, and just about anything you can think of, juxtaposed with the extreme-Christian Right and conservative government that are constantly blaring messages of chastity and abstinence until marriage (if not after as well). This creates an atmosphere of urges and fantasy that are often awkwardly contained, or let to escape in secretive, sometimes embarrassing or harmful ways, as people wish their sexual thoughts didn't exists almost as much as they wish they would come true. Making it so the last thing most people want is to TALK about sex. Because that would be awful!
In severe contrast, in the Muria society, parents see the Ghotul as a way to keep adolescents out of mischief! Compared to ours which would see the mere concept of such a thing as promiscuous and sinful, let alone a case of minor scandal.
The overall result of severe shame related to sex, bombardment of sexual imagery, lack of sex, and lack of dialogue around said subject is that people grow up with often unattainable fantasies and expectations. This is what creates a need for porn, though it merely perpetuates the cycle when real human contact actually occurs and is unable to meet expectations, only creating more of a need for said images.
I'm still not sure what to make of our culture. I had always thought that the whole taking-it-slow thing was a good plan, but Weatherford and the Muria seem to make out anything beside penetration to be unnatural and oddly Western/industrial-based. I guess the key note of this label is the mentality of a mystery around sex and the other person, extenuated by a selfish goal of purely self-pleasure. But he still makes masturbation seem oddly pathetic.
While I had always thought the [sex-related] steps to overcome in our society were purely shame in sex and lack of sex-education, now it seems that there is so much more. That it's possible we are incredibly immature in the world of erotica.
*(All quotes come from Jack M. Weatherford's book, "Porn Row")
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Public Service Announcement that Promotes Abstinence (See February 2 Post)
Public Service Announcement, Radio: AIDS
TINA: Hey, Gina! So I heard that you and Billy have been going steady for a while now.
GINA: Yeah. We love each other. It’s cute.
TINA: So have you had sex yet?!
GINA: Tina!! You know that I made a chastity pledge back in the third grade! You were there!
TINA: Oh, yeah. I remember now. That was a pretty cool ring. The chastity ring, that is. The one that binds you to virginity until marriage, and if you end up deciding to have sex before then that you have to give up. And you can never wear it again. Didn’t your parents pay a lot of money for it? I think they did.
GINA: Yeah. I wear it everyday, and they check to make sure I’m still wearing it everyday. It motivates me to not have sex. But I barely need the motivation in the first place because I have so much support from my family and friends that I barely even think about sex. I’m waiting until I find the perfect person who I will spend the rest of my life with.
TINA: That’s cool. Just don’t be one of the 88 percent of teenage girls who break their chastity vows before marriage, most of which do within a few years!
GINA: Don’t worry! I won’t be!
TINA: I’m glad. You, know, I care a lot about you, Gina, and I just want you to be aware that girls who take chastity pledges are less likely to use condoms and less likely to seek testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, because if they end up giving in to their natural sexual urges, they would rather pretend it isn’t happening, and if it isn’t happening, they see no need to use protection, because that just makes it seem like it is happening.
GINA: Thanks for the tip, Tina! But you don’t have to worry, because I really will never have sex until I’m happily married at the age of 40.
TINA: Me too! We can not worry about contracting HIV/AIDS together! Because, you know, the only for sure way to not have to worry about it is by being sex-free!
GINA: Yeah!… Wait, a minute, Tina—I was already planning on abstinence, but I don’t know all the facts about AIDS. Can you fill me in?
TINA: I could, but here comes Jed. The kid who had sex before he was married. And ended up with human immunodeficiency virus. I’m sure he’d be happy to fill you in!
JED: Hey, guys!
TINA and GINA: Hey, Jed!
GINA: Jed, Tina tells me that you had sex before you were emotionally ready for it and now have HIV. Would you mind telling me about it?
JED: Sure! Yeah. I figure that because I can’t do anything to go back in time and save myself, I might as well go around as a sort of living sexual martyr figure and spread the word of abstinence.
TINA: That’s sooo cool! What a great idea!
JED: It’s the best I can do. Here, let me give you the run-down: You can’t contract AIDS from another person, but you can get HIV, which leads to AIDS, through contact with various bodily fluids, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. This majority of HIV/AIDS cases are in result of unprotected sexual relations, when one partner has the disease and their sexual secretion comes into contact with the genital, oral, or rectal mucous membranes of the other partner. This is why it’s better to just wait until you’re married, because if you know that you don’t have HIV, and your partner doesn’t have HIV, and you two are the only ones you have sex with, then you won’t have to worry about contracting the disease.
GINA: Okay… but what happens if you get it? Is it really that bad?
JED: You betcha! What HIV does is it makes the body incredibly and dangerously susceptible to otherwise not-so-harmful infections. That means that what your body could normally handle, now becomes possibly lethal. Personally, I know that I don’t have AIDS yet because I don’t have any of the symptoms. But if you see me with fevers, sweats (particularly at night), swollen glands, chills, weakness, and weight loss, skin rashes, oral ulcerations, and various respiratory infections, you’ll know that I probably have developed AIDS.
TINA: How long will it take you to get AIDS?
JED: Probably between five and eight years, but with some people it takes even longer.
GINA: Can’t you just take medicine to make it go away?
JED: Sadly, no. The scary thing about the epidemic is that as of yet there is no cure.
GINA: That is scary!
JED: Yeah. The only for sure way to prevent it is by preventing exposure to the potential causes. Which is what I’m advising you guys to do. However, there are various medications that are used to reduce the risk of an infection after known exposure. I’m currently taking some of these, and they aren’t very fun, but these antiretroviral treatments reduce both the mortality and the morbidity of the HIV infection, so I’m happy to take them. Unfortunately, these agents are expensive, and the majority of the world's infected individuals do not have access to medications and treatments for HIV and AIDS, making it much more common in poorer areas and countries with higher rates of poverty.
GINA: So that’s why AIDS is such a bigger problem in Africa than in the United States!
TINA: And that’s why you shouldn’t have sex.
JED: Right, but it still is an enormous problem here in the States.
GINA: Oh, yeah, like you.
JED: I’m glad that I could at least tell you guys that the only way to stay safe is to be abstinent, since it’s too late to save myself!
TINA: Boy, I’m sure glad we were lucky enough to have abstinence-only education written into our welfare reform bill 1996. Think how many kids it must have saved already! I’m so afraid of HIV/AIDS that I’m not going to have sex until I’m happily married.
GINA: Me too.
JED: That’s great, guys. I’m glad I could fulfill my role as the sort of living sexual martyr figure and promote abstinence. My work here is done.
TINA: Hey, Gina! So I heard that you and Billy have been going steady for a while now.
GINA: Yeah. We love each other. It’s cute.
TINA: So have you had sex yet?!
GINA: Tina!! You know that I made a chastity pledge back in the third grade! You were there!
TINA: Oh, yeah. I remember now. That was a pretty cool ring. The chastity ring, that is. The one that binds you to virginity until marriage, and if you end up deciding to have sex before then that you have to give up. And you can never wear it again. Didn’t your parents pay a lot of money for it? I think they did.
GINA: Yeah. I wear it everyday, and they check to make sure I’m still wearing it everyday. It motivates me to not have sex. But I barely need the motivation in the first place because I have so much support from my family and friends that I barely even think about sex. I’m waiting until I find the perfect person who I will spend the rest of my life with.
TINA: That’s cool. Just don’t be one of the 88 percent of teenage girls who break their chastity vows before marriage, most of which do within a few years!
GINA: Don’t worry! I won’t be!
TINA: I’m glad. You, know, I care a lot about you, Gina, and I just want you to be aware that girls who take chastity pledges are less likely to use condoms and less likely to seek testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases, because if they end up giving in to their natural sexual urges, they would rather pretend it isn’t happening, and if it isn’t happening, they see no need to use protection, because that just makes it seem like it is happening.
GINA: Thanks for the tip, Tina! But you don’t have to worry, because I really will never have sex until I’m happily married at the age of 40.
TINA: Me too! We can not worry about contracting HIV/AIDS together! Because, you know, the only for sure way to not have to worry about it is by being sex-free!
GINA: Yeah!… Wait, a minute, Tina—I was already planning on abstinence, but I don’t know all the facts about AIDS. Can you fill me in?
TINA: I could, but here comes Jed. The kid who had sex before he was married. And ended up with human immunodeficiency virus. I’m sure he’d be happy to fill you in!
JED: Hey, guys!
TINA and GINA: Hey, Jed!
GINA: Jed, Tina tells me that you had sex before you were emotionally ready for it and now have HIV. Would you mind telling me about it?
JED: Sure! Yeah. I figure that because I can’t do anything to go back in time and save myself, I might as well go around as a sort of living sexual martyr figure and spread the word of abstinence.
TINA: That’s sooo cool! What a great idea!
JED: It’s the best I can do. Here, let me give you the run-down: You can’t contract AIDS from another person, but you can get HIV, which leads to AIDS, through contact with various bodily fluids, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, pre-ejaculate, or breast milk. This majority of HIV/AIDS cases are in result of unprotected sexual relations, when one partner has the disease and their sexual secretion comes into contact with the genital, oral, or rectal mucous membranes of the other partner. This is why it’s better to just wait until you’re married, because if you know that you don’t have HIV, and your partner doesn’t have HIV, and you two are the only ones you have sex with, then you won’t have to worry about contracting the disease.
GINA: Okay… but what happens if you get it? Is it really that bad?
JED: You betcha! What HIV does is it makes the body incredibly and dangerously susceptible to otherwise not-so-harmful infections. That means that what your body could normally handle, now becomes possibly lethal. Personally, I know that I don’t have AIDS yet because I don’t have any of the symptoms. But if you see me with fevers, sweats (particularly at night), swollen glands, chills, weakness, and weight loss, skin rashes, oral ulcerations, and various respiratory infections, you’ll know that I probably have developed AIDS.
TINA: How long will it take you to get AIDS?
JED: Probably between five and eight years, but with some people it takes even longer.
GINA: Can’t you just take medicine to make it go away?
JED: Sadly, no. The scary thing about the epidemic is that as of yet there is no cure.
GINA: That is scary!
JED: Yeah. The only for sure way to prevent it is by preventing exposure to the potential causes. Which is what I’m advising you guys to do. However, there are various medications that are used to reduce the risk of an infection after known exposure. I’m currently taking some of these, and they aren’t very fun, but these antiretroviral treatments reduce both the mortality and the morbidity of the HIV infection, so I’m happy to take them. Unfortunately, these agents are expensive, and the majority of the world's infected individuals do not have access to medications and treatments for HIV and AIDS, making it much more common in poorer areas and countries with higher rates of poverty.
GINA: So that’s why AIDS is such a bigger problem in Africa than in the United States!
TINA: And that’s why you shouldn’t have sex.
JED: Right, but it still is an enormous problem here in the States.
GINA: Oh, yeah, like you.
JED: I’m glad that I could at least tell you guys that the only way to stay safe is to be abstinent, since it’s too late to save myself!
TINA: Boy, I’m sure glad we were lucky enough to have abstinence-only education written into our welfare reform bill 1996. Think how many kids it must have saved already! I’m so afraid of HIV/AIDS that I’m not going to have sex until I’m happily married.
GINA: Me too.
JED: That’s great, guys. I’m glad I could fulfill my role as the sort of living sexual martyr figure and promote abstinence. My work here is done.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The Start of a New Student Movement?
The Start of a New Student Movement?
By Adam Sanchez
A week of antiwar activities in Portland, Oregon, culminated on Thursday, March 20th with a student walkout that drew over 2,000 students. The larger-than-expected crowd began in the downtown North Park Blocks where students chanted and a couple of rally organizers spoke. Sarah Levy, a Lincoln High School senior and a member of the International Socialist Organization yelled out to the crowd, "We're here today, not because we're mad at our schools, in fact, they're some of the establishments most affected by this war, but because we realize that we aren't being taught what we need in order to end this occupation, and so have learned that we must educate ourselves if we want to make a difference. The goal for today is to reinvigorate the student anti-war movement, and demonstrate through struggle the immense power that we can have as a mass of students."
And that, they did. What started out as an unpermitted march on the sidewalks of downtown Portland soon slipped out of the organizers' control as the larger than expected crowd quickly finished the short march route and thousands of high school students, many of whom had never been to a protest before, grew restless and decided to continue the march. The students strode, still on the sidewalks, down to city hall where students began scaling the walls and shouting slogans from the top of the building. A small group of organizers, realizing the moment's potential, began scribbling a list of demands onto a piece of notebook paper. After quickly settling on four demands (funding for schools not the military, no more funding for ROTC programs, all military recruiters out of Portland schools, and making Portland a sanctuary city for GI Resisters), a few of the organizers tried to take them into city hall as the students kept shouting slogans outside. They found the doors locked and the mayor had already left the building to address the crowd. Few protesters could here the mayor's speech, and few seemed to care. The energy of the crowd was far from over.
As the students headed next door to the Wells Fargo building, a number of the organizers managed to swindle a megaphone from the police in exchange for directing the crowd away from much of the downtown traffic. After march organizer, Marko Lamson, spoke about corporate profiteering from the war, the megaphone was used to rattle off the four demands, each one receiving a loud approval from the crowd. But when organizers finished the demands, a number of students in the crowd began yelling for the march to go to Pioneer Square, a central downtown location. This quickly won the approval of the crowd and the march headed to the center of the city. On the way to Pioneer Square police arrested a few students for stepping off the sidewalk, handcuffing one high school student and forcing him into a cop car in front of the crowd. After angry chants of "Let Him Go!", the incident backfired on the police as the protest split into two and took to the streets. I marched with a group who went down Broadway, one of the main Portland arteries and took over two lanes until they reached Pioneer Square. The police, taken by surprise, could not stop the crowd.
At Pioneer Square the group gathered behind the PDX Peace Coalition Banner that read: "Stop the War, Bring the Troops Home Now," and collected money for those who had been arrested and received traffic tickets. The march, now a bit exhausted, headed down to the Willamette River waterfront where they formed a gigantic human peace sign and ended by strolling back up to Portland State University where participants discussed the possibilities for future student organizing.
I have never seen such energy, creativity, and excitement at a protest. Rarely do Portland students get together, unless they are competing against one another for sport. On Thursday, students from over ten different high schools and colleges came together in a stunning display of solidarity against the war. By taking a day out of school to protest the war these students were able to educate themselves and those around them about something most rarely feel—the potential of protest to shake up a city. By the end of the day there were about 30 cops on horses, another 30 on bikes, 30 on motorcycles, 20 or so police cars, and a helicopter, all trying to figure out what was going to happen next and arrest any leader they could find. But the movement was organic, spontaneous and difficult for even the organizers to control. It revealed that students were angry and no longer willing to let politicians continue to cut funding for education while spending exorbitant amounts on the military. This protest was an inspiration, not just to students, but to long-time activists as well, many of whom had never seen such an outburst of mass spontaneity.
By Adam Sanchez
A week of antiwar activities in Portland, Oregon, culminated on Thursday, March 20th with a student walkout that drew over 2,000 students. The larger-than-expected crowd began in the downtown North Park Blocks where students chanted and a couple of rally organizers spoke. Sarah Levy, a Lincoln High School senior and a member of the International Socialist Organization yelled out to the crowd, "We're here today, not because we're mad at our schools, in fact, they're some of the establishments most affected by this war, but because we realize that we aren't being taught what we need in order to end this occupation, and so have learned that we must educate ourselves if we want to make a difference. The goal for today is to reinvigorate the student anti-war movement, and demonstrate through struggle the immense power that we can have as a mass of students."
And that, they did. What started out as an unpermitted march on the sidewalks of downtown Portland soon slipped out of the organizers' control as the larger than expected crowd quickly finished the short march route and thousands of high school students, many of whom had never been to a protest before, grew restless and decided to continue the march. The students strode, still on the sidewalks, down to city hall where students began scaling the walls and shouting slogans from the top of the building. A small group of organizers, realizing the moment's potential, began scribbling a list of demands onto a piece of notebook paper. After quickly settling on four demands (funding for schools not the military, no more funding for ROTC programs, all military recruiters out of Portland schools, and making Portland a sanctuary city for GI Resisters), a few of the organizers tried to take them into city hall as the students kept shouting slogans outside. They found the doors locked and the mayor had already left the building to address the crowd. Few protesters could here the mayor's speech, and few seemed to care. The energy of the crowd was far from over.
As the students headed next door to the Wells Fargo building, a number of the organizers managed to swindle a megaphone from the police in exchange for directing the crowd away from much of the downtown traffic. After march organizer, Marko Lamson, spoke about corporate profiteering from the war, the megaphone was used to rattle off the four demands, each one receiving a loud approval from the crowd. But when organizers finished the demands, a number of students in the crowd began yelling for the march to go to Pioneer Square, a central downtown location. This quickly won the approval of the crowd and the march headed to the center of the city. On the way to Pioneer Square police arrested a few students for stepping off the sidewalk, handcuffing one high school student and forcing him into a cop car in front of the crowd. After angry chants of "Let Him Go!", the incident backfired on the police as the protest split into two and took to the streets. I marched with a group who went down Broadway, one of the main Portland arteries and took over two lanes until they reached Pioneer Square. The police, taken by surprise, could not stop the crowd.
At Pioneer Square the group gathered behind the PDX Peace Coalition Banner that read: "Stop the War, Bring the Troops Home Now," and collected money for those who had been arrested and received traffic tickets. The march, now a bit exhausted, headed down to the Willamette River waterfront where they formed a gigantic human peace sign and ended by strolling back up to Portland State University where participants discussed the possibilities for future student organizing.
I have never seen such energy, creativity, and excitement at a protest. Rarely do Portland students get together, unless they are competing against one another for sport. On Thursday, students from over ten different high schools and colleges came together in a stunning display of solidarity against the war. By taking a day out of school to protest the war these students were able to educate themselves and those around them about something most rarely feel—the potential of protest to shake up a city. By the end of the day there were about 30 cops on horses, another 30 on bikes, 30 on motorcycles, 20 or so police cars, and a helicopter, all trying to figure out what was going to happen next and arrest any leader they could find. But the movement was organic, spontaneous and difficult for even the organizers to control. It revealed that students were angry and no longer willing to let politicians continue to cut funding for education while spending exorbitant amounts on the military. This protest was an inspiration, not just to students, but to long-time activists as well, many of whom had never seen such an outburst of mass spontaneity.
Student Revolution, March 20: Why We Did It
The Costs of War on Education and Why We Must Voice Our Dissent
We’re here today, not because we’re mad at our schools, (in fact, they’re some of the establishments most affected by this war), but because we realize that we aren’t being taught what we need in order to end this occupation, and so have learned that we must educate ourselves if we want to make a difference. Another goal for today is to reinvigorate the student anti-war movement, and demonstrate through struggle the immense power that we can have as a mass of students.
In recent years, it seems student activism has died down. Although the sentiment’s still there—kids still think we shouldn’t be in Iraq—we just seem to have come to terms with the idea that as students, we can’t make any difference on U.S. policy. So go join a Facebook group proclaiming your views. “1 Million Against the War in Iraq.” “No More War.” But lord knows actually doing something won’t make a difference, so why bother?
I know that in the past I, and probably many of you, have felt isolated in this frustration about what our country has been doing in the “name of democracy.” But look around you now. And just see how many other people your age feel the same way. What we need to do is act together to put forward a booming anti-war voice that can be heard across the country that will not only inspire other students to voice their dissent, and act upon it, but hopefully inspire adults as well, and eventually get the entire country up in arms about what is being done in our name, and with our tax dollars, so that we can not be ignored.
So going back to how our schools have been horribly affected by this war: let me illustrate for you the reason why many public schools suffer from budget cuts, and less and less teachers, and larger classes… you know the jist. According to the Congressional Research Office, looking at the Federal Discretionary Budget, whereas the United States spends between 57 and 60 percent of its budget on the military, only around 8 percent of this budget is spent on education, training, and social services combined! That’s about one tenth as much, being spend on education. So that means that the reason there isn’t the funding for teachers to make a decent wage, or to have classes of less than 30 people, or to have full-fledged music programs in our schools, is because that money is going towards building up weapons and destroying another country. What a good deal for everybody.
Another way to look at it is if you think about just how much we are spending on this war. According to Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, the Iraq war has cost us more than $1 trillion in just the first four years. In the time it will take me to say this sentence, $250,000 will have been spent on the Iraq war. That’s $720 million every day. Do you know what $720 million dollars could pay for in just one day? To all you seniors out there, that number represents 34,904 four-year scholarships for university students. Paid in one day. But it also could fund 12,478 elementary school teachers. Or 84 entire new elementary schools. Over 1 million free school lunches, paid in one single day. But instead of these good causes, it’s being used to ruin the lives of Iraqis.
Not only are we putting our own education in a tight squeeze, but we have made it nearly impossible for Iraqis (and Syrians) to get an education at all. It’s hardly safe for Iraqis to leave their homes, let alone go to school, and with the amount of refugees fleeing to Syria as well as Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon, (about 2.5 million total) each of these countries’ own school systems are becoming more and more crunched as they accumulate more and more students with no additional funds.
You may still think that protesting won’t make any difference. But if you look back 40 years, in the Vietnam war, it was only after repeated years of enormous protests, some with half-a-million people, that the GIs finally felt the courage from the support of their country, to revolt against what they were being forced to do. We need to show the troops that though we support them, we do not support what our government is telling them to do. Only once they see that their country—their friends, parents, brothers and sisters—do not agree with what they are doing, will they gain the will and strength to fight back.
This is why we need to step up the action.
It doesn’t work to just focus all your energy into an election and be done. We can’t leave these crucial decisions about what we do or do not do in other countries in the hands of a few people at the top. We have to keep fighting for what we know is right and just, and make sure that our elected officials stand up to what they promise us. We have to demand that troops leave Iraq. This is not a war. There is no Iraqi army that we are legitimately fighting against. This is an occupation. And you can’t win an occupation. You just have to leave.
We have to start an ongoing discussion, and educate ourselves about the side of the war that is not told in common media. I urge you to talk with you friends, talk with your parents, make Iraq a common topic for discussion. We have to educate ourselves and spread the truth so that more people will feel a need for something to be done, if we want this war to end in the near future.
We’re here today, not because we’re mad at our schools, (in fact, they’re some of the establishments most affected by this war), but because we realize that we aren’t being taught what we need in order to end this occupation, and so have learned that we must educate ourselves if we want to make a difference. Another goal for today is to reinvigorate the student anti-war movement, and demonstrate through struggle the immense power that we can have as a mass of students.
In recent years, it seems student activism has died down. Although the sentiment’s still there—kids still think we shouldn’t be in Iraq—we just seem to have come to terms with the idea that as students, we can’t make any difference on U.S. policy. So go join a Facebook group proclaiming your views. “1 Million Against the War in Iraq.” “No More War.” But lord knows actually doing something won’t make a difference, so why bother?
I know that in the past I, and probably many of you, have felt isolated in this frustration about what our country has been doing in the “name of democracy.” But look around you now. And just see how many other people your age feel the same way. What we need to do is act together to put forward a booming anti-war voice that can be heard across the country that will not only inspire other students to voice their dissent, and act upon it, but hopefully inspire adults as well, and eventually get the entire country up in arms about what is being done in our name, and with our tax dollars, so that we can not be ignored.
So going back to how our schools have been horribly affected by this war: let me illustrate for you the reason why many public schools suffer from budget cuts, and less and less teachers, and larger classes… you know the jist. According to the Congressional Research Office, looking at the Federal Discretionary Budget, whereas the United States spends between 57 and 60 percent of its budget on the military, only around 8 percent of this budget is spent on education, training, and social services combined! That’s about one tenth as much, being spend on education. So that means that the reason there isn’t the funding for teachers to make a decent wage, or to have classes of less than 30 people, or to have full-fledged music programs in our schools, is because that money is going towards building up weapons and destroying another country. What a good deal for everybody.
Another way to look at it is if you think about just how much we are spending on this war. According to Nobel Prize-winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz, the Iraq war has cost us more than $1 trillion in just the first four years. In the time it will take me to say this sentence, $250,000 will have been spent on the Iraq war. That’s $720 million every day. Do you know what $720 million dollars could pay for in just one day? To all you seniors out there, that number represents 34,904 four-year scholarships for university students. Paid in one day. But it also could fund 12,478 elementary school teachers. Or 84 entire new elementary schools. Over 1 million free school lunches, paid in one single day. But instead of these good causes, it’s being used to ruin the lives of Iraqis.
Not only are we putting our own education in a tight squeeze, but we have made it nearly impossible for Iraqis (and Syrians) to get an education at all. It’s hardly safe for Iraqis to leave their homes, let alone go to school, and with the amount of refugees fleeing to Syria as well as Jordan, Egypt, Iran, and Lebanon, (about 2.5 million total) each of these countries’ own school systems are becoming more and more crunched as they accumulate more and more students with no additional funds.
You may still think that protesting won’t make any difference. But if you look back 40 years, in the Vietnam war, it was only after repeated years of enormous protests, some with half-a-million people, that the GIs finally felt the courage from the support of their country, to revolt against what they were being forced to do. We need to show the troops that though we support them, we do not support what our government is telling them to do. Only once they see that their country—their friends, parents, brothers and sisters—do not agree with what they are doing, will they gain the will and strength to fight back.
This is why we need to step up the action.
It doesn’t work to just focus all your energy into an election and be done. We can’t leave these crucial decisions about what we do or do not do in other countries in the hands of a few people at the top. We have to keep fighting for what we know is right and just, and make sure that our elected officials stand up to what they promise us. We have to demand that troops leave Iraq. This is not a war. There is no Iraqi army that we are legitimately fighting against. This is an occupation. And you can’t win an occupation. You just have to leave.
We have to start an ongoing discussion, and educate ourselves about the side of the war that is not told in common media. I urge you to talk with you friends, talk with your parents, make Iraq a common topic for discussion. We have to educate ourselves and spread the truth so that more people will feel a need for something to be done, if we want this war to end in the near future.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Eskimo & Sons do 'Mediated'
"2012"; by Eskimo & Sons
They put the women with white teeth
Inside every TV screen.
They said expect some rain
But a tidal wave ca-a-ame.
Oh oh, oh-oh.
And everything I swallowed up
In the greatest aquarium
But the seahawks drowned
And the fish turned upside down.
Oh-oh, whoa-oh.
So we'll mail wood in your windows
And we'll make sales from shirts and your
And we will put you up
You and who you lo-o-ove
This house is a home, a home is your-ours
A great song. Not only does [at least the first stanza] infer that the apocalypse will have to do with television and artificially white teeth, but it uses deZengotita's reference to "comparing a wind to a hurricane."
Genre: Angelic Post-Rock
They put the women with white teeth
Inside every TV screen.
They said expect some rain
But a tidal wave ca-a-ame.
Oh oh, oh-oh.
And everything I swallowed up
In the greatest aquarium
But the seahawks drowned
And the fish turned upside down.
Oh-oh, whoa-oh.
So we'll mail wood in your windows
And we'll make sales from shirts and your
And we will put you up
You and who you lo-o-ove
This house is a home, a home is your-ours
A great song. Not only does [at least the first stanza] infer that the apocalypse will have to do with television and artificially white teeth, but it uses deZengotita's reference to "comparing a wind to a hurricane."
Genre: Angelic Post-Rock
The War Will Not Be Televised
"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."
-Martin Luther King Jr.
Friday, February 8, 2008
The Media Is Lying To You About Iraq
Unless you're living in a cave, you probably don't think the war's recently been all that successful.
'But we can't leave,' you'll say. 'I know we aren't necessarily causing dramatic good, but just think how horrendously things would escalate if we were to simply get up and go!!'
I tell you, this is the Blob speaking.
The common sentiment that "if the U.S. leaves Iraq, the violent sectarianism between the Sunni and Shia will worsen" is exactly what Republicans and Democrats want us to believe so they can "justify the continuance of the occupation of Iraq" (Dahr Jamail). This entire conception of an intense hatred between the sects has actually been manufactured and played up out of an unprofessional ignorance of culture by our leading officials, and so that the war can be more easily spoon-fed to Americans. Jamail continues, "This propaganda, like others of its ilk, gains ground, substances, and reality due largely to the ignorance of those ingesting it. The snow job by the corporate media on the issue of sectarianism in Iraq has ensured that the public buys into the line that the Sunni and Shia will dice one another up into little pieces if the occupation ends."
In reality, "prior to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq there had never been open warfare between the two groups and centainly not a civil war." When Dahr Jamail was in Iraq in 2003, he quickly learned of the grand faux-paus it was to ask someone of their sect. When asked, the most common response (after an awkward look that told you how rude the question was,) would be, "I am Muslim," or "I am Iraqi." Further demonstrating this was the amount of intermarriages between the sects, mixed neighborhoods, and even Shia and Sunni praying in the same mosques. Quite contrary to how our media would have it depicted...
However, as soon as Americans went in, they assumed that the country was strictly divided and went on to create their own Iraqi puppet government that was numerically based on the break-down of the percentages of Sunni, Shia, and Kurds (and "for good measure, a couple of Turkoman and Christian") representatives, so we could prove just how "democratic" we really were and wanted Iraq to be. (It is important to note that when the U.S. military commander showed up and asked these Iraqi tribal and religious leaders to divide themselves by sect, they were "utterly perplexed" by the oddity of his request.)
Much later, "U.S.-backed sectarian death squads have become the foremost generator of death in Iraq, even surpassing the U.S. military machine." The U.S. military has been known to let "Iraqi police" and "Iraqi army" personnel "masked in black balaclavas, through their checkpoints to carry out abductions and assassinations in the neighborhoods. But when we get the word back home, these men are referred to as "concerned local citizens," or simply "volunteers."
Consequent to what we have birthed, "almost all of Baghdad and much of Iraq is now segregated." Although we are constantly told that the violence has lessened, the truth is that that "all that has happened is a dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq," that because of us, "Baghdad is a divided city."
Yeah, but even so! We can't evacuate! Iraq would descend further into a sectarian nightmare! And we would be to blame! (Just to refresh- where did we get this idea? Oh, right- from what we've been reading.)
The one example that shows what would likely be expected if we did leave (that the media doesn't want you to know about) is from early September. This was when "500 British troops left one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the heart of the city and ceased to conduct regular food patrols." And just what was the result? "According to the British military, the overall level of violence in the city has DECREASED BY 90 PERCENT since then."
No WONDER we haven't left yet... (?)
As Jamail concludes, although this obviously can't be guaranteed, "it does prove that when the primary cause of the violence, sectarian strife, instability, and chaos is removed from the equation of Iraq, things are bound to improve rapidly."
Are you still going to believe that we're what's holding Iraq together?
(All quotes come from Dahr Jamail's article, "The myth of sectarianism," out of the current issue of the ISR. Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spend eight months in Iraq and is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq")
'But we can't leave,' you'll say. 'I know we aren't necessarily causing dramatic good, but just think how horrendously things would escalate if we were to simply get up and go!!'
I tell you, this is the Blob speaking.
The common sentiment that "if the U.S. leaves Iraq, the violent sectarianism between the Sunni and Shia will worsen" is exactly what Republicans and Democrats want us to believe so they can "justify the continuance of the occupation of Iraq" (Dahr Jamail). This entire conception of an intense hatred between the sects has actually been manufactured and played up out of an unprofessional ignorance of culture by our leading officials, and so that the war can be more easily spoon-fed to Americans. Jamail continues, "This propaganda, like others of its ilk, gains ground, substances, and reality due largely to the ignorance of those ingesting it. The snow job by the corporate media on the issue of sectarianism in Iraq has ensured that the public buys into the line that the Sunni and Shia will dice one another up into little pieces if the occupation ends."
In reality, "prior to the Anglo-American invasion and occupation of Iraq there had never been open warfare between the two groups and centainly not a civil war." When Dahr Jamail was in Iraq in 2003, he quickly learned of the grand faux-paus it was to ask someone of their sect. When asked, the most common response (after an awkward look that told you how rude the question was,) would be, "I am Muslim," or "I am Iraqi." Further demonstrating this was the amount of intermarriages between the sects, mixed neighborhoods, and even Shia and Sunni praying in the same mosques. Quite contrary to how our media would have it depicted...
However, as soon as Americans went in, they assumed that the country was strictly divided and went on to create their own Iraqi puppet government that was numerically based on the break-down of the percentages of Sunni, Shia, and Kurds (and "for good measure, a couple of Turkoman and Christian") representatives, so we could prove just how "democratic" we really were and wanted Iraq to be. (It is important to note that when the U.S. military commander showed up and asked these Iraqi tribal and religious leaders to divide themselves by sect, they were "utterly perplexed" by the oddity of his request.)
Much later, "U.S.-backed sectarian death squads have become the foremost generator of death in Iraq, even surpassing the U.S. military machine." The U.S. military has been known to let "Iraqi police" and "Iraqi army" personnel "masked in black balaclavas, through their checkpoints to carry out abductions and assassinations in the neighborhoods. But when we get the word back home, these men are referred to as "concerned local citizens," or simply "volunteers."
Consequent to what we have birthed, "almost all of Baghdad and much of Iraq is now segregated." Although we are constantly told that the violence has lessened, the truth is that that "all that has happened is a dramatic change in the demographic map of Iraq," that because of us, "Baghdad is a divided city."
Yeah, but even so! We can't evacuate! Iraq would descend further into a sectarian nightmare! And we would be to blame! (Just to refresh- where did we get this idea? Oh, right- from what we've been reading.)
The one example that shows what would likely be expected if we did leave (that the media doesn't want you to know about) is from early September. This was when "500 British troops left one of Saddam Hussein's palaces in the heart of the city and ceased to conduct regular food patrols." And just what was the result? "According to the British military, the overall level of violence in the city has DECREASED BY 90 PERCENT since then."
No WONDER we haven't left yet... (?)
As Jamail concludes, although this obviously can't be guaranteed, "it does prove that when the primary cause of the violence, sectarian strife, instability, and chaos is removed from the equation of Iraq, things are bound to improve rapidly."
Are you still going to believe that we're what's holding Iraq together?
(All quotes come from Dahr Jamail's article, "The myth of sectarianism," out of the current issue of the ISR. Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spend eight months in Iraq and is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq")
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Why You Should Take Action, And Why The Media Doesn't Want You To
If you ask most people, they'll say that protesting is dumb, that it doesn't make a difference, and even if it does make participants "feel good," it doesn't actually contribute to ending the war.
This is because this mentality has been engrained in them by the media over and over, in order to prevent anything seemingly "sharp."
For instance, as Eric Ruder wrote in his article, "Does It Matter If We Protest?", during the Vietnam war, when between 500,000 and 750,000 anti-war protesters gathered around the whitehouse for a series of rallies and speaches calling to end the war, "[t]he media reported that Richard Nixon paid the protesters no attention whatsoever, and spent the afternoon watching college football. But the true story was different. As history books later revealed, Nixon was frantic about the size of the 1969 mobilizations."
“The demonstrators had been more successful than they realized, pushing Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger away from plans to greatly escalate the war, possibly even to the point of using nuclear weapons, and back toward their ‘Vietnamization’ strategy of propping up the Saigon regime,” author Gerald Nicosia wrote in Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement.
This is just one example when the American public has been lied to through the media in order to stop them from making a difference.
Eric Ruder continues, "In 2007, public opinion against the war on Iraq may run even higher than sentiment against the Vietnam War did in 1970--certainly George Bush’s approval rating is lower than Richard Nixon’s that year. This is encouraging considering the absence of high-profile protests like those of 1970.
"But the tide of antiwar public opinion is having less direct impact on government policy today, and that’s a result of the fact that the sentiment isn’t backed up by any organized expression.
"The problem isn’t that mass protests don’t work, but that today’s antiwar movement hasn’t risen to the challenge of mobilizing antiwar sentiment into mass protests.
It's not that mass protests on their own lead to change, but that they are a starting point for a movement that can make a difference. For instance, the massive Vietnam protests inspired the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War to get back into action, and allowed the vets to join in solidarity against what they all knew was evil, but didn't think there was any point in fighting alone.
Ruder explains that "[t]he Vietnamese resistance kept the U.S. from imposing its will, but couldn’t expel the U.S. on its own. The rise of resistance among U.S. soldiers undermined the effectiveness of the U.S. military as a fighting force, but GI organizing didn’t happen in a vacuum. The antiwar movement in the U.S. shook up American society, but it didn’t have the power to stop the war machine.
However, "[t]ogether, these three forces combined to compel the U.S. ruling establishment to conclude that only further ruin of its military and turmoil within U.S. society would result from continuing the war on Vietnam. So national antiwar mobilizations are a necessary part of a movement that can end the war, even if they don’t have a direct impact on war policy themselves."
"A large national protest that attracts new as well as experienced activists helps people in the antiwar movement overcome feelings of isolation they may experience in their own cities and towns. It also strengthens local organizations that mobilize for the protest--and these groups in turn benefit from the politicization of individuals who return home invigorated to continue the struggle. And of course, the larger such mobilizations, the greater the impact they can have on shaping mass public opinion.
"This last point is one of the most important ways that a strong civilian antiwar movement can assist in the development of GI resistance--another crucial ingredient in the antiwar struggle... During the Vietnam era, the peak of the GI revolt followed years of domestic protest, the growing radicalization of the student antiwar movement and the obvious futility of the war effort itself in the face of the Vietnamese resistance."
This is because this mentality has been engrained in them by the media over and over, in order to prevent anything seemingly "sharp."
For instance, as Eric Ruder wrote in his article, "Does It Matter If We Protest?", during the Vietnam war, when between 500,000 and 750,000 anti-war protesters gathered around the whitehouse for a series of rallies and speaches calling to end the war, "[t]he media reported that Richard Nixon paid the protesters no attention whatsoever, and spent the afternoon watching college football. But the true story was different. As history books later revealed, Nixon was frantic about the size of the 1969 mobilizations."
“The demonstrators had been more successful than they realized, pushing Nixon and his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger away from plans to greatly escalate the war, possibly even to the point of using nuclear weapons, and back toward their ‘Vietnamization’ strategy of propping up the Saigon regime,” author Gerald Nicosia wrote in Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans’ Movement.
This is just one example when the American public has been lied to through the media in order to stop them from making a difference.
Eric Ruder continues, "In 2007, public opinion against the war on Iraq may run even higher than sentiment against the Vietnam War did in 1970--certainly George Bush’s approval rating is lower than Richard Nixon’s that year. This is encouraging considering the absence of high-profile protests like those of 1970.
"But the tide of antiwar public opinion is having less direct impact on government policy today, and that’s a result of the fact that the sentiment isn’t backed up by any organized expression.
"The problem isn’t that mass protests don’t work, but that today’s antiwar movement hasn’t risen to the challenge of mobilizing antiwar sentiment into mass protests.
It's not that mass protests on their own lead to change, but that they are a starting point for a movement that can make a difference. For instance, the massive Vietnam protests inspired the group Vietnam Veterans Against the War to get back into action, and allowed the vets to join in solidarity against what they all knew was evil, but didn't think there was any point in fighting alone.
Ruder explains that "[t]he Vietnamese resistance kept the U.S. from imposing its will, but couldn’t expel the U.S. on its own. The rise of resistance among U.S. soldiers undermined the effectiveness of the U.S. military as a fighting force, but GI organizing didn’t happen in a vacuum. The antiwar movement in the U.S. shook up American society, but it didn’t have the power to stop the war machine.
However, "[t]ogether, these three forces combined to compel the U.S. ruling establishment to conclude that only further ruin of its military and turmoil within U.S. society would result from continuing the war on Vietnam. So national antiwar mobilizations are a necessary part of a movement that can end the war, even if they don’t have a direct impact on war policy themselves."
"A large national protest that attracts new as well as experienced activists helps people in the antiwar movement overcome feelings of isolation they may experience in their own cities and towns. It also strengthens local organizations that mobilize for the protest--and these groups in turn benefit from the politicization of individuals who return home invigorated to continue the struggle. And of course, the larger such mobilizations, the greater the impact they can have on shaping mass public opinion.
"This last point is one of the most important ways that a strong civilian antiwar movement can assist in the development of GI resistance--another crucial ingredient in the antiwar struggle... During the Vietnam era, the peak of the GI revolt followed years of domestic protest, the growing radicalization of the student antiwar movement and the obvious futility of the war effort itself in the face of the Vietnamese resistance."
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Mutual Masterbation and Babies... (This will eventually relate to media, just wait)
Recently, while looking at my Health by Correspondence homework, I came to an assignment on HIV and AIDS. Seemingly legitimate, until I get the to the second part, asking me to write a "Public Service Announcement" on AIDS.
And I quote:
"Write a PSA for TV or radio aimed at teens that warns about the dangers of contracting AIDS and PROMOTES ABSTINENCE." (Mind you, this is in bold, AND underlined.)
Continuing,
"Content: The announcement should:
-->Demonstrate your overall knowledge on the facts concerning AIDS.
--> PROMOTE ABSTINENCE"
Hmm...
And here's where the media only starts to come in. When did my health book come out? The 90's. And what year was abstinence-only education first written into our welfare reform bill? 1996. And who was it that oh-so willingly wrote it in? BILL-FUCKING-CLINTON.
This law included, among other things, a stipulation that teenagers must be taught that abstinence is the only acceptable behavior outside of marriage AT ANY AGE, that premarital sex can have harmful physical and psychological consequences, and that birth control can only be mentioned in relation to its failure rates.
And so, with the fuel of millions of dollars, George Bush has continued this legacy by funding faith-based community organizations that are led by the Christian Right, to produce tons of media through advertisements as well as educational programs and curriculum materials that are aimed at "scaring and bullying teens into abstinence." (Jen Roesch, "The Abstinence-Only Lie")
Here is some of what Rep. Henry Waxman found in reviewing 13 curriculum materials used in states across the country as far was what is being taught to students under this new curriculums:
-Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
-Touching a person's genitals can result in pregnancy; mutual masturbation can cause pregnancy.
-HIV can be transmitted by tears and sweat, and 50 percent of gay teens have AIDS.
-A pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms.
-A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
-Five to 10 percent of women will never again be pregnant after having a legal abortion.
-Suicide is a consequence of pre-marital sex.
I can't figure out which of these is the most rediculous. They're all nearly laughable- until you realize that somewhere, kids are being taught, and most likely believing some of it.
Just from reading this, it seems clear that the recent rise in teen pregnancy (for the first time in 14 years) it probably due to a "manufactured ignorance about sex and brith control that is being forced on American teenagers," and to a "likely result of an unprecedented expansion of anstinence-only programs in schools," rather than becuase "U.S. society has become too accepting of teenage sexuality," as constantly argued by the Christian Right. (Roesch, Jen)
Although the latter argument seems to fit with Brave New World and sex being nothing, see current Hip Hop/music videos/song lyrics, and Postman's comment on how "serious discourse [--or INTERcourse-- hahahah] has dissolved into giggles," this is one time where the media is actually coming at this visciously from both sides.
Because "numerous studies show that abstinence-only education is ineffectice and sometimes harmful," (Roesch, Jen). Although when teen pregnancy rates were still declining, the right argued (and mind you, was PAID to argue,) that this was because of their spiffy new abstaining tactics, a Columbia University and Guttmacher Institue study found that "86 percent of the decline was atributable to increased use and effectiveness of birth control, while only 14 percent could be attributed to teens delaying sex." (Roesch, Jen). The study also found that "teens in abstinence-only programs were JUST AS LIKELY TO HAVE SEX, initiated sex at the same age, and had a similar number of sexual partners" as kids who hadn't been suckered by the Right-Wing media. (Roesch, Jen).
My favorite part of the study, and what's utterly terrifying when you think of all that's going into this education, is that "of one in six girls who took [chastity pledges], 88 percent broke their vow before marriage, many within a few eyars. And girls who had taken chastity pledges were LESS LIKELY TO USE CONDOMS, and LESS LIKELY TO SEEK TESTING AND TREATMENT FOR SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES."
Moral of story: don't trust what the media throws at you.
This whole abstinence-only approach is rooted in a denial of facing the reality of teenage sexuality. And so "state-mandated pre-abortion counseling exaggerates the physical and mental health risks of abortion-- for example, ASSERTING A LINK BETWEEN ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER, or claiming that WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS MAY HAVE SUICIDAL THOUGHTS." Jesus.
And now for more media:
This has all come hand in hand with a cultural backlash where abortion has been portrayed almost unilaterally in a negative spot-light, and almost never as a viable choice. (See several recent movies and TV shows.)
Conclusion: The media gets paid to promote its agenda to you, and it will twist whatever facts that come out to fit with the message it wants to get across, no matter the actual accuracy. So don't just accept what it tell you. Even if it's nonchalantly through a Health assignment.
And I quote:
"Write a PSA for TV or radio aimed at teens that warns about the dangers of contracting AIDS and PROMOTES ABSTINENCE." (Mind you, this is in bold, AND underlined.)
Continuing,
"Content: The announcement should:
-->Demonstrate your overall knowledge on the facts concerning AIDS.
--> PROMOTE ABSTINENCE"
Hmm...
And here's where the media only starts to come in. When did my health book come out? The 90's. And what year was abstinence-only education first written into our welfare reform bill? 1996. And who was it that oh-so willingly wrote it in? BILL-FUCKING-CLINTON.
This law included, among other things, a stipulation that teenagers must be taught that abstinence is the only acceptable behavior outside of marriage AT ANY AGE, that premarital sex can have harmful physical and psychological consequences, and that birth control can only be mentioned in relation to its failure rates.
And so, with the fuel of millions of dollars, George Bush has continued this legacy by funding faith-based community organizations that are led by the Christian Right, to produce tons of media through advertisements as well as educational programs and curriculum materials that are aimed at "scaring and bullying teens into abstinence." (Jen Roesch, "The Abstinence-Only Lie")
Here is some of what Rep. Henry Waxman found in reviewing 13 curriculum materials used in states across the country as far was what is being taught to students under this new curriculums:
-Condoms fail to prevent HIV transmission as often as 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse.
-Touching a person's genitals can result in pregnancy; mutual masturbation can cause pregnancy.
-HIV can be transmitted by tears and sweat, and 50 percent of gay teens have AIDS.
-A pregnancy occurs one out of every seven times that couples use condoms.
-A 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person."
-Five to 10 percent of women will never again be pregnant after having a legal abortion.
-Suicide is a consequence of pre-marital sex.
I can't figure out which of these is the most rediculous. They're all nearly laughable- until you realize that somewhere, kids are being taught, and most likely believing some of it.
Just from reading this, it seems clear that the recent rise in teen pregnancy (for the first time in 14 years) it probably due to a "manufactured ignorance about sex and brith control that is being forced on American teenagers," and to a "likely result of an unprecedented expansion of anstinence-only programs in schools," rather than becuase "U.S. society has become too accepting of teenage sexuality," as constantly argued by the Christian Right. (Roesch, Jen)
Although the latter argument seems to fit with Brave New World and sex being nothing, see current Hip Hop/music videos/song lyrics, and Postman's comment on how "serious discourse [--or INTERcourse-- hahahah] has dissolved into giggles," this is one time where the media is actually coming at this visciously from both sides.
Because "numerous studies show that abstinence-only education is ineffectice and sometimes harmful," (Roesch, Jen). Although when teen pregnancy rates were still declining, the right argued (and mind you, was PAID to argue,) that this was because of their spiffy new abstaining tactics, a Columbia University and Guttmacher Institue study found that "86 percent of the decline was atributable to increased use and effectiveness of birth control, while only 14 percent could be attributed to teens delaying sex." (Roesch, Jen). The study also found that "teens in abstinence-only programs were JUST AS LIKELY TO HAVE SEX, initiated sex at the same age, and had a similar number of sexual partners" as kids who hadn't been suckered by the Right-Wing media. (Roesch, Jen).
My favorite part of the study, and what's utterly terrifying when you think of all that's going into this education, is that "of one in six girls who took [chastity pledges], 88 percent broke their vow before marriage, many within a few eyars. And girls who had taken chastity pledges were LESS LIKELY TO USE CONDOMS, and LESS LIKELY TO SEEK TESTING AND TREATMENT FOR SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES."
Moral of story: don't trust what the media throws at you.
This whole abstinence-only approach is rooted in a denial of facing the reality of teenage sexuality. And so "state-mandated pre-abortion counseling exaggerates the physical and mental health risks of abortion-- for example, ASSERTING A LINK BETWEEN ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER, or claiming that WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS MAY HAVE SUICIDAL THOUGHTS." Jesus.
And now for more media:
This has all come hand in hand with a cultural backlash where abortion has been portrayed almost unilaterally in a negative spot-light, and almost never as a viable choice. (See several recent movies and TV shows.)
Conclusion: The media gets paid to promote its agenda to you, and it will twist whatever facts that come out to fit with the message it wants to get across, no matter the actual accuracy. So don't just accept what it tell you. Even if it's nonchalantly through a Health assignment.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
A Case for Socialism
deZengotita says that kids today aren't apathetic, they're just "ironically distanced." Hence we do nothing because we know we can't change anything and so why exert the energy? But Is there something else?
Take for instance how is it so easy for most people to imagine the end of the world. This may be in the form of global warming, catastrophic natural disasters, deadly diseases— so why is it so difficult for them to imagine a much less radical change in the way our world currently works? A shift in the economic world relations of today- a shift from global capitalism?
Slavoj Zizek summed it up by saying:
"A couple of decades ago, people were still discussing the political future of humanity - will capitalism prevail or will it be supplanted by Communism or another form of 'totalitarianism'? — while silently accepting that, somehow, social life would continue. Today, we can easily imagine the extinction of the human race, but it is impossible to imagine a radical change of the social system — even if life on earth disappears, capitalism will somehow remain intact. In this situation, disappointed Leftists, who are convinced that radical change of the existing liberal-democratic capitalist system is no longer possible, but who are unable to renounce their passionate attachment to global change, invest their excess of political energy in an abstract and excessively rigid moralising stance."
Mainstream media/politics/A-MUUR-ica wants us to think we have no power against it. We can't just go along being its bitch. We gotsta do something.
Take for instance how is it so easy for most people to imagine the end of the world. This may be in the form of global warming, catastrophic natural disasters, deadly diseases— so why is it so difficult for them to imagine a much less radical change in the way our world currently works? A shift in the economic world relations of today- a shift from global capitalism?
Slavoj Zizek summed it up by saying:
"A couple of decades ago, people were still discussing the political future of humanity - will capitalism prevail or will it be supplanted by Communism or another form of 'totalitarianism'? — while silently accepting that, somehow, social life would continue. Today, we can easily imagine the extinction of the human race, but it is impossible to imagine a radical change of the social system — even if life on earth disappears, capitalism will somehow remain intact. In this situation, disappointed Leftists, who are convinced that radical change of the existing liberal-democratic capitalist system is no longer possible, but who are unable to renounce their passionate attachment to global change, invest their excess of political energy in an abstract and excessively rigid moralising stance."
Mainstream media/politics/A-MUUR-ica wants us to think we have no power against it. We can't just go along being its bitch. We gotsta do something.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
To Save the World from the Comfort of One's Home Through Advertisement and the Simple Projection of One's Own "Values"
This sums up so much...
Banksy is my hero.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Of Music and Morals, Or, A Shameless Pitch for Kickball, Typhoon, Andrew Bird, and The Arcade Fire
“I write songs about what I cannot draw, and I draw what I can’t write songs about.” -Devandra Banhart
Dear ol' deZengotita won back my affections (after having completely lost them during his rant about children's books) as he began to analize music and why it is so important. He eloquently summed up why people connect via music more so than by any other means (explaining this by saying that friends can disagree on almost any topic, except for music... and humor, which has elements of music in it).
For a while I've been trying to write about and pinpoint the feeling of why it is that you feel so much closer to someone who loves the same music as you. This is after realizing through many random examples that I feel closer to and have more respect for people that share my music affections, (even when we otherwise have pretty much nothing in common,) even more so than: other thespians, outdoor school kids, and even fellow socialists (the last one's less so than the former examples, but still.)
And so as dZ explained what the Greeks realized, I saw that my struggle for words was not simply futile, but there was something there that'd I'd been trying to grasp for a while. Here's what I'd come up with:
--"Although it’s not openly discussed, there is a certain connection attained amongst a group of people that have gone through such a soul-opening experience as an intense, close up live show. There is a sort of quiet recognition that they all now share something, some common understanding of a truth that was reached just moments ago, and they all saw it. There is an air of common respect and peace in the room so that even a person who before would have had no reason to take the time to notice another, now sees them as almost an extension of themselves, as if the air coming through the trumpet on stage had some magical power to open people up. Part of this is because everyone inside knows that what just happened will be lost in translation to the outer world, and it is only these people here who will ever understand this other state where the only emotion is the music.
..."I’ve found this especially true at certain live shows. With some bands I feel such a strong connection to them, and something so strong yet unexplainable that I become entirely unaware of what’s around me and purely focused on the music, as if that’s the only real truth, the only thing that can communicate anything, the only thing that does and ever will matter. For example, while standing feet away from Andrew Bird, just taking in his voice and his inhuman whistling (that shouldn’t even be called whistling, but that’s the closest thing there is that we have a name for) I felt choked up and just in another state where the only emotion is the music. This relates to the state of being at a live version of the anthemic “Neighborhood #1: Tunnels” by the Arcade Fire, and just feeling so connected to the one song that it takes over all your feelings. I guess this is why I feel like there is a sort of higher understanding between people that truly listen to and seem to “understand” certain music, because you realize that there must be something either about the person in the first place, or that the music has opened up, that they must have inside of them in order to appreciate it.
..."I love it when there’s something about the music that feels much bigger than you, and bigger than the people playing it- like it’s transposing the emotions of an entire era, or an entire group of people. Often these types of songs seem to have a sort of tribal, native, feel. This is especially noticeable when it is either purely instrumental or there aren’t words that are understandable, yet the music has a feeling that is so strong that you feel a need to move with it, sometimes even cry. I’m particularly thinking of Typhoon’s “So Passes Away the Glory of the World,” a song which starts out with a slow, deep, soul-wrenching chanting of the line “Sic transit… Gloria mundi,” Latin for the above mentioned title of the song.
..."What draws me in to the band Kickball is the singer’s voice. The way he sings makes it seem like every word is painful, and getting choked out of him- making each word extremely valuable but also hard to listen to. There is something as well about Typhoon’s main singer, but it’s different than the way Kickball pounds every word into your soul."
dZ clarifies that I'm not entirely crazy, that in fact certain ancient Greeks linked music and morals closely, because with music being the one form of media that is actually real as opposed to representation, it "blends with emotion, becomes emotion-- or "passion" as they used to say."
He says that the reason for this superior ability to connect is because "music takes hold of you on levels of your being that precede intentional articulation, levels of being that CONTAIN what you can put into words."
Having written about this, I now have more respect for dZ, as cocky as he may be.
Dear ol' deZengotita won back my affections (after having completely lost them during his rant about children's books) as he began to analize music and why it is so important. He eloquently summed up why people connect via music more so than by any other means (explaining this by saying that friends can disagree on almost any topic, except for music... and humor, which has elements of music in it).
For a while I've been trying to write about and pinpoint the feeling of why it is that you feel so much closer to someone who loves the same music as you. This is after realizing through many random examples that I feel closer to and have more respect for people that share my music affections, (even when we otherwise have pretty much nothing in common,) even more so than: other thespians, outdoor school kids, and even fellow socialists (the last one's less so than the former examples, but still.)
And so as dZ explained what the Greeks realized, I saw that my struggle for words was not simply futile, but there was something there that'd I'd been trying to grasp for a while. Here's what I'd come up with:
--"Although it’s not openly discussed, there is a certain connection attained amongst a group of people that have gone through such a soul-opening experience as an intense, close up live show. There is a sort of quiet recognition that they all now share something, some common understanding of a truth that was reached just moments ago, and they all saw it. There is an air of common respect and peace in the room so that even a person who before would have had no reason to take the time to notice another, now sees them as almost an extension of themselves, as if the air coming through the trumpet on stage had some magical power to open people up. Part of this is because everyone inside knows that what just happened will be lost in translation to the outer world, and it is only these people here who will ever understand this other state where the only emotion is the music.
..."I’ve found this especially true at certain live shows. With some bands I feel such a strong connection to them, and something so strong yet unexplainable that I become entirely unaware of what’s around me and purely focused on the music, as if that’s the only real truth, the only thing that can communicate anything, the only thing that does and ever will matter. For example, while standing feet away from Andrew Bird, just taking in his voice and his inhuman whistling (that shouldn’t even be called whistling, but that’s the closest thing there is that we have a name for) I felt choked up and just in another state where the only emotion is the music. This relates to the state of being at a live version of the anthemic “Neighborhood #1: Tunnels” by the Arcade Fire, and just feeling so connected to the one song that it takes over all your feelings. I guess this is why I feel like there is a sort of higher understanding between people that truly listen to and seem to “understand” certain music, because you realize that there must be something either about the person in the first place, or that the music has opened up, that they must have inside of them in order to appreciate it.
..."I love it when there’s something about the music that feels much bigger than you, and bigger than the people playing it- like it’s transposing the emotions of an entire era, or an entire group of people. Often these types of songs seem to have a sort of tribal, native, feel. This is especially noticeable when it is either purely instrumental or there aren’t words that are understandable, yet the music has a feeling that is so strong that you feel a need to move with it, sometimes even cry. I’m particularly thinking of Typhoon’s “So Passes Away the Glory of the World,” a song which starts out with a slow, deep, soul-wrenching chanting of the line “Sic transit… Gloria mundi,” Latin for the above mentioned title of the song.
..."What draws me in to the band Kickball is the singer’s voice. The way he sings makes it seem like every word is painful, and getting choked out of him- making each word extremely valuable but also hard to listen to. There is something as well about Typhoon’s main singer, but it’s different than the way Kickball pounds every word into your soul."
dZ clarifies that I'm not entirely crazy, that in fact certain ancient Greeks linked music and morals closely, because with music being the one form of media that is actually real as opposed to representation, it "blends with emotion, becomes emotion-- or "passion" as they used to say."
He says that the reason for this superior ability to connect is because "music takes hold of you on levels of your being that precede intentional articulation, levels of being that CONTAIN what you can put into words."
Having written about this, I now have more respect for dZ, as cocky as he may be.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
We Want Sexy
"Stop the Genocide in Sudan."
You've probably seen a lot of these shirts, especially if you're from Portland. What about "Stop the Genocide in Iraq." ? No? Now think about it... which country do you think we could actually make a difference in... In which one are WE the problem in the first place? Are we going to go in and "fix" Sudan? Just like we "fixed" the Philippine Islands, and we "fixed" Chile, and we are currently "fixing" Iraq?
Oh... right.
Think about it- there aren't any activist groups, anti-war groups, or Iraq-education groups at Lincoln. But there has been a major assembly on the genocide of Sudan, and tomorrow we're bringing in money to help Darfur. Now don't get me wrong- it's not that I don't care about Africa and the genocide of millions of innocent people; I think it's horrible. In fact it's currently the second largest slaughter taking place in the world.
And the first largest is happening at the hands of Americans.
So why do we put so much thought and care into "Helping Darfur" and yet nearly nothing into the war that our own country is involved in?
Because Darfur is the sexier issue.
It's much more appealing to think about feeding starving children and building shelters and saving women from rape- all stuff we can do from here at home with just a few dead presidents, but it's a pretty ugly thought that our government- our entire country could be doing evil RIGHT NOW and devastating an entire country for no good reason (except our own greed).
And part of this is the media. I mean, the last thing Big Corporations want you to do is make a stand against what the head honchos up in D.C. are doing everyday. So they redirect our care (and our hearts) to Sudan, where they know that we can't make a difference. Seriously- If we can't stop our own governmental crazies from killing innocent civilians, how are we going to stop another country's crazies from doing the same? OUR EFFORTS ARE MISGUIDED. If we focused instead, first on things that we actually could and should affect, and the people that the evil-doers are supposedly representing. Then maybe we could work on Saving Darfur.
You've probably seen a lot of these shirts, especially if you're from Portland. What about "Stop the Genocide in Iraq." ? No? Now think about it... which country do you think we could actually make a difference in... In which one are WE the problem in the first place? Are we going to go in and "fix" Sudan? Just like we "fixed" the Philippine Islands, and we "fixed" Chile, and we are currently "fixing" Iraq?
Oh... right.
Think about it- there aren't any activist groups, anti-war groups, or Iraq-education groups at Lincoln. But there has been a major assembly on the genocide of Sudan, and tomorrow we're bringing in money to help Darfur. Now don't get me wrong- it's not that I don't care about Africa and the genocide of millions of innocent people; I think it's horrible. In fact it's currently the second largest slaughter taking place in the world.
And the first largest is happening at the hands of Americans.
So why do we put so much thought and care into "Helping Darfur" and yet nearly nothing into the war that our own country is involved in?
Because Darfur is the sexier issue.
It's much more appealing to think about feeding starving children and building shelters and saving women from rape- all stuff we can do from here at home with just a few dead presidents, but it's a pretty ugly thought that our government- our entire country could be doing evil RIGHT NOW and devastating an entire country for no good reason (except our own greed).
And part of this is the media. I mean, the last thing Big Corporations want you to do is make a stand against what the head honchos up in D.C. are doing everyday. So they redirect our care (and our hearts) to Sudan, where they know that we can't make a difference. Seriously- If we can't stop our own governmental crazies from killing innocent civilians, how are we going to stop another country's crazies from doing the same? OUR EFFORTS ARE MISGUIDED. If we focused instead, first on things that we actually could and should affect, and the people that the evil-doers are supposedly representing. Then maybe we could work on Saving Darfur.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Postmod's Dilemma
Or, Is Pop Culture Out to Get You?
Even if you're not aware of it now, Pop Culture may some day turn against you. Sure, it can be your best friend if you are just stoked about following the crowd like a bunch of desperate cattle, focused on not being separated from the herd, but if you are the type to enjoy having an original thought, who enjoys having the potential to be classified as 'different,' then Pop Culture can be your worst enemy.
There was once a Lizzie McGuire episode where Gordo started liking Big Band, and liked the fact that he was the only one to like it. Then it became popular, and whereas he had taken the effort to learn every single minute detail and aspect about his hobby, many of the new followers knew nothing and had just had jumped upon the bandwagon to be cool. However, from just a glimpse, no one would be able to tell if Gordo had originally started the entire trend or if he had just hitched a ride aside the others to be admired as “in.” He did not want to run that risk of being misjudged, and so decided that the safest way out would be to ditch his original true love and go in search of a substitute passion. However, he never became truly happy, and by the end of the episode, Gordo and the viewer learned that the most important thing is to be true to yourself and stick with what it is that you love, no matter what other people are doing.
A 22-minute show gave a short and sweet answer to the ultimate question that has stumped rebels and indie kids for centuries. What to do if your proverbial non-beaten path becomes trampled by the masses? It is an all too common scenario: you start off liking something simply because you think it is likeable. Then Pop Culture establishes that you shouldn’t like it, and that “no one” likes that thing, so you take pride in being different and “against the crowd,” embracing this idea of being a rebel. This then evolves into becoming part of the reason why you even like the thing in the first place. Then in a flash, your prestigious amigo, Pop Culture, turns on you, making “your” thing an overnight sensation that “everyone” desperately wants to be a part of. When Pop Culture had been your friend in the beginning, aiding you in being unique, it has now turned against you, leaving you under its loom, worried that it will follow whatever step you take, only steps behind. What to do? Run away and find something else with the potential threat of being chased by Pop Culture in a vicious cycle? Is that just giving in to it? Or stay where you are, trampled on by crowds of desperadoes wanting to be cool, and sucking the life out of you?
There are two ways in which this can be played out: One is the shallow aspect. Clothing, phrases, lingoes, celebrity crushes... In these cases it is best to find a new something to latch onto in order to be unique. However, on a deeper level, there are books and music. In this case, ditching your passion is like taking poison and waiting for the enemy to die. It will do no good to anyone to give up what you found and love just because other have too, and it will just leave you feeling empty.
An example of something shallow and thus the questionability of latching onto it, is clothing. More specifically, sequin belts. One of my Value-Village-scouting compadres and I had found amazing sequined belts on one of our rummaging endeavors. We thought that they were so incredibly hilarious and out-there that we decided that we had to have them, (also for just about a dollar each why not?) Months later, however, they mysteriously became the new trend, being sold at stores like Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters. Now everybody who at least thought they were an “anybody” had a sequined belt just because they wanted to latch on to the hot new “it” item. My friend and I were stuck, not wanting to look like we just had the belts simply to make ourselves feel popular, but still wanting to show off our rummage finds. The problem with a subject as shallow as clothing, is that it is easy to be judged solely and quickly just on appearance and then not thought much of, so there is a great potential for being tossed into the category of a “follower.” Once everybody is wearing the same thing, no one cares about who bought it first, or who paid what for it, but only about the phenomenon of a bunch of monkeys all doing the same thing.
You are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether you should just find a new thing that no one likes, but with the potential of starting a vicious cycle and being chased by Pop Culture, or saying that you like the thing enough that it doesn't matter who else shares that same opinion. If you don’t want to give into the image-establishing potential of this type of scenario, the best way to win is to either simply surrender, and go off to find a new thing, or lay low for a while until the trend hits its peak, causing it to fall and mellow down, letting you resume back up again once the fad has faded everyone’s mind.
A problem with sticking is that people don't believe you were an “original” (the afore-mentioned Gordo’s fear,) which is just a weird ego-trip anyway, and so you look like another shallow follower newbie just trying to be cool. Should you keep the old thing but also add on a new thing so you still have a unique aspect? This might be a good idea with a band, but not with a belt or a celebrity crush.
For years I had had an obsession with the stars Jimmy Fallon and Adrien Brody, at a time when most people didn't even know who they were. When my friends eventually realized whom I had been talking about, they had the “voice of the media” inside their heads, telling them that no one would like those people, and that Adrien has a big nose, therefore is ugly, so no one should like him. As the child that I was, I embraced the fact that my friends thought I was strange, making me like my minor obsessions even more.
Then one sad day, Jimmy Fallon came out with his Redsocks movie. Any one who had questioned his stance before was now sucked in by the hype of “now,” and media. The day my friends began talking about him I was forced to make the decision that he would be dead to me (which I could afford because I still had Adrien Brody.)
For a while my friends still classified my tastes as odd and all was alright, until the dreaded day they saw the movie, ‘King Kong.’ “Hey, you were right- he is pretty cute!” –“NOOOOO!!!,” I screamed, and fell to my knees on the floor, having lost what I had before been clinging onto.
I realize that this is a sort of selfish rule with myself, but it’s not necessarily that I’m saying no one else can like the things that I like- just that I would rather like something that is unknown to the masses. This is an example of a shallow scenario because there is no real issue that you can get into involving a celebrity crush. It might make you feel happy, but ultimately you will probably get nothing out of it, so why not move on and find something new?
However, when it comes to music, if you ditch what you love simply because other people get into it, you could be missing something. Before the O.C. came out, there was a select Shins and Death Cab for Cutie fan base, proud that they had found the music on their own. They liked the music, and also the fact that no one else knew who this band was, making them part of an elite music crowd. Then the O.C. came out, automatically labeling these bands as “cool” and the “hip new thing.” Now there were a bunch of new fans who knew next to nothing of what they were following, making the original fans feel robbed.
The originals could have gone on to find their own new thing that T.V. had not popularized, but then they would have been missing out on the music they liked. Music isn’t superficial in the same way that clothing is, because just by looking at a person you can’t tell what they spend their time listening to. Because of this, if you forced yourself to wean yourself away from what made you happy in order to maintain your selfish pride, no one else would even notice your conscious effort, and it would just leave you feeling empty. Besides, in your heart you could still know that you were an original and that you don’t just fall into the same category as all of the bandwagon ride-hitchers.
I guess it all comes down to having to ask yourself what you like more: the fact that you like the thing, or the actually thing. Then, depending on your true answer you can decide if it would be a bigger benefit to you to find something new, because that is the real thrill, or if you must just stay with what you love, because you love it. I know that I will keep listening to The Shins and Death Cab for Cutie no matter what other people make of it, but I just might have to find someone knew and unfamiliar to croon over. Michael Angarano anyone?
Even if you're not aware of it now, Pop Culture may some day turn against you. Sure, it can be your best friend if you are just stoked about following the crowd like a bunch of desperate cattle, focused on not being separated from the herd, but if you are the type to enjoy having an original thought, who enjoys having the potential to be classified as 'different,' then Pop Culture can be your worst enemy.
There was once a Lizzie McGuire episode where Gordo started liking Big Band, and liked the fact that he was the only one to like it. Then it became popular, and whereas he had taken the effort to learn every single minute detail and aspect about his hobby, many of the new followers knew nothing and had just had jumped upon the bandwagon to be cool. However, from just a glimpse, no one would be able to tell if Gordo had originally started the entire trend or if he had just hitched a ride aside the others to be admired as “in.” He did not want to run that risk of being misjudged, and so decided that the safest way out would be to ditch his original true love and go in search of a substitute passion. However, he never became truly happy, and by the end of the episode, Gordo and the viewer learned that the most important thing is to be true to yourself and stick with what it is that you love, no matter what other people are doing.
A 22-minute show gave a short and sweet answer to the ultimate question that has stumped rebels and indie kids for centuries. What to do if your proverbial non-beaten path becomes trampled by the masses? It is an all too common scenario: you start off liking something simply because you think it is likeable. Then Pop Culture establishes that you shouldn’t like it, and that “no one” likes that thing, so you take pride in being different and “against the crowd,” embracing this idea of being a rebel. This then evolves into becoming part of the reason why you even like the thing in the first place. Then in a flash, your prestigious amigo, Pop Culture, turns on you, making “your” thing an overnight sensation that “everyone” desperately wants to be a part of. When Pop Culture had been your friend in the beginning, aiding you in being unique, it has now turned against you, leaving you under its loom, worried that it will follow whatever step you take, only steps behind. What to do? Run away and find something else with the potential threat of being chased by Pop Culture in a vicious cycle? Is that just giving in to it? Or stay where you are, trampled on by crowds of desperadoes wanting to be cool, and sucking the life out of you?
There are two ways in which this can be played out: One is the shallow aspect. Clothing, phrases, lingoes, celebrity crushes... In these cases it is best to find a new something to latch onto in order to be unique. However, on a deeper level, there are books and music. In this case, ditching your passion is like taking poison and waiting for the enemy to die. It will do no good to anyone to give up what you found and love just because other have too, and it will just leave you feeling empty.
An example of something shallow and thus the questionability of latching onto it, is clothing. More specifically, sequin belts. One of my Value-Village-scouting compadres and I had found amazing sequined belts on one of our rummaging endeavors. We thought that they were so incredibly hilarious and out-there that we decided that we had to have them, (also for just about a dollar each why not?) Months later, however, they mysteriously became the new trend, being sold at stores like Forever 21 and Urban Outfitters. Now everybody who at least thought they were an “anybody” had a sequined belt just because they wanted to latch on to the hot new “it” item. My friend and I were stuck, not wanting to look like we just had the belts simply to make ourselves feel popular, but still wanting to show off our rummage finds. The problem with a subject as shallow as clothing, is that it is easy to be judged solely and quickly just on appearance and then not thought much of, so there is a great potential for being tossed into the category of a “follower.” Once everybody is wearing the same thing, no one cares about who bought it first, or who paid what for it, but only about the phenomenon of a bunch of monkeys all doing the same thing.
You are faced with the dilemma of deciding whether you should just find a new thing that no one likes, but with the potential of starting a vicious cycle and being chased by Pop Culture, or saying that you like the thing enough that it doesn't matter who else shares that same opinion. If you don’t want to give into the image-establishing potential of this type of scenario, the best way to win is to either simply surrender, and go off to find a new thing, or lay low for a while until the trend hits its peak, causing it to fall and mellow down, letting you resume back up again once the fad has faded everyone’s mind.
A problem with sticking is that people don't believe you were an “original” (the afore-mentioned Gordo’s fear,) which is just a weird ego-trip anyway, and so you look like another shallow follower newbie just trying to be cool. Should you keep the old thing but also add on a new thing so you still have a unique aspect? This might be a good idea with a band, but not with a belt or a celebrity crush.
For years I had had an obsession with the stars Jimmy Fallon and Adrien Brody, at a time when most people didn't even know who they were. When my friends eventually realized whom I had been talking about, they had the “voice of the media” inside their heads, telling them that no one would like those people, and that Adrien has a big nose, therefore is ugly, so no one should like him. As the child that I was, I embraced the fact that my friends thought I was strange, making me like my minor obsessions even more.
Then one sad day, Jimmy Fallon came out with his Redsocks movie. Any one who had questioned his stance before was now sucked in by the hype of “now,” and media. The day my friends began talking about him I was forced to make the decision that he would be dead to me (which I could afford because I still had Adrien Brody.)
For a while my friends still classified my tastes as odd and all was alright, until the dreaded day they saw the movie, ‘King Kong.’ “Hey, you were right- he is pretty cute!” –“NOOOOO!!!,” I screamed, and fell to my knees on the floor, having lost what I had before been clinging onto.
I realize that this is a sort of selfish rule with myself, but it’s not necessarily that I’m saying no one else can like the things that I like- just that I would rather like something that is unknown to the masses. This is an example of a shallow scenario because there is no real issue that you can get into involving a celebrity crush. It might make you feel happy, but ultimately you will probably get nothing out of it, so why not move on and find something new?
However, when it comes to music, if you ditch what you love simply because other people get into it, you could be missing something. Before the O.C. came out, there was a select Shins and Death Cab for Cutie fan base, proud that they had found the music on their own. They liked the music, and also the fact that no one else knew who this band was, making them part of an elite music crowd. Then the O.C. came out, automatically labeling these bands as “cool” and the “hip new thing.” Now there were a bunch of new fans who knew next to nothing of what they were following, making the original fans feel robbed.
The originals could have gone on to find their own new thing that T.V. had not popularized, but then they would have been missing out on the music they liked. Music isn’t superficial in the same way that clothing is, because just by looking at a person you can’t tell what they spend their time listening to. Because of this, if you forced yourself to wean yourself away from what made you happy in order to maintain your selfish pride, no one else would even notice your conscious effort, and it would just leave you feeling empty. Besides, in your heart you could still know that you were an original and that you don’t just fall into the same category as all of the bandwagon ride-hitchers.
I guess it all comes down to having to ask yourself what you like more: the fact that you like the thing, or the actually thing. Then, depending on your true answer you can decide if it would be a bigger benefit to you to find something new, because that is the real thrill, or if you must just stay with what you love, because you love it. I know that I will keep listening to The Shins and Death Cab for Cutie no matter what other people make of it, but I just might have to find someone knew and unfamiliar to croon over. Michael Angarano anyone?
Saturday, January 12, 2008
The Revolution Will Not Use Facebook... (or will it?)
So I've been thinking a lot about and trying to figure out why it is that the majority of students today seem pretty passive about major political/environmental/world issues. Now you may say that it's covered in deZengotita, that it's all part of being flooded with so much information, so much trauma, that the only way to survive is to tune it out, become apathetic, so that you aren't constantly emotionally breaking down and becoming demoralized.
But I think it actually has a lot to do with technology.
For instance, in the 60's, during a war and much political travesties, there was much student activism. Sit-ins and demonstrations were the norm. In Berkeley, students were getting organized and dealing with the administration and the police, fighting for what they knew was right, getting masses of people to do something (for example sit in the street so a police car couldn't make a ridiculous arrest) to get their point across.
Now people just start a Facebook group. "Students Against The War." "Save Lincoln From Greedy Developers!"
This is all they do. No action, no nothing. With the mentality of well,-now-that-I've-shown-my-view-I've-done-something.
When they haven't.
My reasoning is that we've been told so much, through media, grown-ups, and seen through recent past that we can't do anything and so there's no point in trying, so we might as well join in solidarity by joining a group and feeling like you're not the only one frustrated with whichever issue. Because there's no point doing anything bigger because it won't help anything.
But I don't think it's because students are incapable of mass action. This is because recently when there have been are smaller issues, school wide, district-wide, PPS issues that affect students, they have shown up to protest at City Hall, march the streets, fight Vicki Phillips, et cetera. All hope is not lost.
The difference is simply that they feel there is hope in these issues becuase they are smaller. The media hasn't tried to convince them that they can't make a difference.
So back to Facebook.
Is it what's making us less motivated to fight? Or can it be used for good?
Let's look at the recent Lewis & Clark case. Quick overview: there's a man who's been committing sex crimes with many women on campus for a couple years. Finally one of them decides something must be done and starts a Facebook group, "[Guy's Name] is a Piece of Shit Rapist."
Work of The Book spreads, word of mouth spreads, eventually everyone knows, and realizes that they weren't the only one with problems or who had been hurt.
Here's where the difference comes in: A bunch of women (and some men) decide to actually meet up, have a discussion abiout what should be done. In other words, once Facebook had spread the word, and people had connected in sentiment, the issue LEFT FACEBOOK and went out into REAL LIFE and REAL TIME and had a READ DISCUSSION about what to do. (And all turned out well with the school and the man convicted.)
So Facebook was the jumping point for what needed to be done, and arguably it might not have happened without Facebook, but in the end something more was needed.
So Facebook is not necessarily a bad thing? Right? Because it helps people see that they aren't the only one who is frustrated with the President/global warming/the war, and so forth.
BUT IT'S NOT THE ANSWER. It serves as a starting point, and then something else must be done.
Quick look at other technology. Because it can be beneficial. Because communication is so much easier these days. We just have to use it to communicate, not go further away back into our own little lives, never to reappear again, and if we do only after being covered in Blobby, snotty goo.
(Don't worry, I'm almost done.)
Example- Text messaging: Now it seems like a ridiculous extension, only taking us further away from speech, even pen and paper. HOWEVER my friend Adam was in Chile several years ago when the government was cracking down on people's rights issues and radicalization. There were constant arrests as well as protests and workers' mass action, and EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, if one person was arrested by the police, or if a struggle was starting up, people were USING THEIR PHONES TO TEXT MESSAGE and tell/warn other people of what was going on. To help their fight. Making it a positive thing.
So I don't think the answer is just to ditch Justin's Bike Helmet, along with every bit of technology we own, I think we just have to be aware of how we use it. And use it to our advantage.
But I think it actually has a lot to do with technology.
For instance, in the 60's, during a war and much political travesties, there was much student activism. Sit-ins and demonstrations were the norm. In Berkeley, students were getting organized and dealing with the administration and the police, fighting for what they knew was right, getting masses of people to do something (for example sit in the street so a police car couldn't make a ridiculous arrest) to get their point across.
Now people just start a Facebook group. "Students Against The War." "Save Lincoln From Greedy Developers!"
This is all they do. No action, no nothing. With the mentality of well,-now-that-I've-shown-my-view-I've-done-something.
When they haven't.
My reasoning is that we've been told so much, through media, grown-ups, and seen through recent past that we can't do anything and so there's no point in trying, so we might as well join in solidarity by joining a group and feeling like you're not the only one frustrated with whichever issue. Because there's no point doing anything bigger because it won't help anything.
But I don't think it's because students are incapable of mass action. This is because recently when there have been are smaller issues, school wide, district-wide, PPS issues that affect students, they have shown up to protest at City Hall, march the streets, fight Vicki Phillips, et cetera. All hope is not lost.
The difference is simply that they feel there is hope in these issues becuase they are smaller. The media hasn't tried to convince them that they can't make a difference.
So back to Facebook.
Is it what's making us less motivated to fight? Or can it be used for good?
Let's look at the recent Lewis & Clark case. Quick overview: there's a man who's been committing sex crimes with many women on campus for a couple years. Finally one of them decides something must be done and starts a Facebook group, "[Guy's Name] is a Piece of Shit Rapist."
Work of The Book spreads, word of mouth spreads, eventually everyone knows, and realizes that they weren't the only one with problems or who had been hurt.
Here's where the difference comes in: A bunch of women (and some men) decide to actually meet up, have a discussion abiout what should be done. In other words, once Facebook had spread the word, and people had connected in sentiment, the issue LEFT FACEBOOK and went out into REAL LIFE and REAL TIME and had a READ DISCUSSION about what to do. (And all turned out well with the school and the man convicted.)
So Facebook was the jumping point for what needed to be done, and arguably it might not have happened without Facebook, but in the end something more was needed.
So Facebook is not necessarily a bad thing? Right? Because it helps people see that they aren't the only one who is frustrated with the President/global warming/the war, and so forth.
BUT IT'S NOT THE ANSWER. It serves as a starting point, and then something else must be done.
Quick look at other technology. Because it can be beneficial. Because communication is so much easier these days. We just have to use it to communicate, not go further away back into our own little lives, never to reappear again, and if we do only after being covered in Blobby, snotty goo.
(Don't worry, I'm almost done.)
Example- Text messaging: Now it seems like a ridiculous extension, only taking us further away from speech, even pen and paper. HOWEVER my friend Adam was in Chile several years ago when the government was cracking down on people's rights issues and radicalization. There were constant arrests as well as protests and workers' mass action, and EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, if one person was arrested by the police, or if a struggle was starting up, people were USING THEIR PHONES TO TEXT MESSAGE and tell/warn other people of what was going on. To help their fight. Making it a positive thing.
So I don't think the answer is just to ditch Justin's Bike Helmet, along with every bit of technology we own, I think we just have to be aware of how we use it. And use it to our advantage.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Facebook, Part I.
From the Willamette Week:
"'Facebook is completely safe from authority, and it's completely real within your network of friends.' [Every word posted on Facebook is attached to the author's name, photograph and contact info.] 'It's what makes it as real as if they'd said it in the cafetieria. IT'S MORE REAL, ACTUALLY, SINCE IT'S TEXT. IT'S WRITTEN IN STONE.'"
Isaac Holeman, Lewis & Clark student. Article written by Beth Slovic.
So there you have it. Facebook is utterly real. More so than face-to-face conversation. Clearly.
"'Facebook is completely safe from authority, and it's completely real within your network of friends.' [Every word posted on Facebook is attached to the author's name, photograph and contact info.] 'It's what makes it as real as if they'd said it in the cafetieria. IT'S MORE REAL, ACTUALLY, SINCE IT'S TEXT. IT'S WRITTEN IN STONE.'"
Isaac Holeman, Lewis & Clark student. Article written by Beth Slovic.
So there you have it. Facebook is utterly real. More so than face-to-face conversation. Clearly.
Oh, To Be Hip
I've been struggling with the concept of post-modernism, and the question keeps popping up- are hipsters truely apathetic? Because in my mind, although hipsters are far from perfect (upon observing any mass of hipsters one can see that they all look the same- far from anti-Blob), yet they seem so much better than the general American-mentality public...
And of course, this is going off of the definition of post-modernism being a word to describe the new, "hip," twenty-something generation that sees the irony in everything including themselves, and over-uses quotation marks in daily speech and --here's where the apathy comes in-- is aware of and has thought about the utter ridiculousness of everything so much that they have been driven to a perpetual life of the shrug and "whatevs."
But I still wouldn't say I think they're completely apathetic. (I mean, I consider myself much more of a hipster than any other catergory (? and I guess the whole categorizing people is another case of Blob-ism, but we'll let this pass for now) and I consider myself far from apathetic.))
SO. Here's the best I could come up with to explain the question of Hipster Apathy:
If hipsters were actually apathetic, this would mean a scenario where one is a hipster up until the point where they realize that they are one, and at this moment the classification would simply disappear into this air.
Making it kind of like The Game.
...And I just lost.
I think it gets pretty complicated- to where there are categories of "the hip", being those who are truly hip and those who are only surface hip... GAAAHHHH. I will revisit this later.
And of course, this is going off of the definition of post-modernism being a word to describe the new, "hip," twenty-something generation that sees the irony in everything including themselves, and over-uses quotation marks in daily speech and --here's where the apathy comes in-- is aware of and has thought about the utter ridiculousness of everything so much that they have been driven to a perpetual life of the shrug and "whatevs."
But I still wouldn't say I think they're completely apathetic. (I mean, I consider myself much more of a hipster than any other catergory (? and I guess the whole categorizing people is another case of Blob-ism, but we'll let this pass for now) and I consider myself far from apathetic.))
SO. Here's the best I could come up with to explain the question of Hipster Apathy:
If hipsters were actually apathetic, this would mean a scenario where one is a hipster up until the point where they realize that they are one, and at this moment the classification would simply disappear into this air.
Making it kind of like The Game.
...And I just lost.
I think it gets pretty complicated- to where there are categories of "the hip", being those who are truly hip and those who are only surface hip... GAAAHHHH. I will revisit this later.
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