This is how it feels to be suddenly aware of ones own ignorance. ouch.

So. I have recently realized that no matter how informed I believed myself to be, I was not. No matter how anti-establishment I believed myself to be, I couldn't have been. No matter how up-to-date and aware of international issues I believed myself to be, it was impossible. I was acting just as every other American acts: as if the news media is reporting in a way that is truly unbiased, as if the history we learned in high school was fact, as if we truly live in a democracy where every vote counts.

I have since learned this may not be true, and it has been incredibly difficult for me to do so. From books, from new friends with new perspectives, and from a new self-awareness of how blind a lot of my faith continues to be, I am slowly (and painfully) starting the process of breaking down my identity as an American consumer and building up an arsenal of information to base... well... myself on.

Example one: Cuba. [As if the history I learned in school was fact]
At training for my internship this summer, I confronted for the first time my totally blind acceptance of Cuba and its leader as "bad." I thought he was an awful dictator who was just hurting his people for the sake of... I don't know what... and I had that cute little kid who got sent back to Cuba (what was his name? I forget) to back up my assumptions about how bad it really was. I mean, if people were literally dying to escape, then it had to be awful, and that had to be the fault of the evil dictator (not any kind of trade embargo we may have been imposing on the Cuban people, or terrorist organizations that we support and train).

Then I found out, from someone I met in Chicago, that Cuba (and Castro) were quite different than I had originally thought. They have a 99.8% literacy rate as a result of the revolution's emphasis on public education. I did not know that. [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/cu.html]

Something I also didn't know is that, since 1959, the USA has been funding and training Cuban exiles as terrorists against the revolutionary forces and, possibly by default, Cuban citizens. In 1976, some of those exiles blew up a plane carrying 73 Cuban civilians. What is that, other than terrorism? And why hasn't the media brought this to the attention of American citizens at any time during the brainwashing campaign of the "War On Terror"? How can we claim to fight it when we fund it ourselves? George Bush Sr. pardoned a man who, in the rest of the world, is considered a mass-murderer.

And then there is the "Cuban Five." Having not been able to obtain enough information on either side to really decide how I feel, I will say that I do not trust the information given to me by the news media or the government. Why? I'm not saying that Cuba is some amazingly wonderful place with no problems and the US is falsifying everything they say against it. I'm not. If there are people trying to leave, and if Amnesty has articles about them hindering civil rights in their country, then I must assume that they have problems. But I am saying that the US has painted a totally biased picture that vilifies them and completely erases our involvement with their current conditions, and therefore I do not trust the information that they see fit to give me.
But, anywho, a snapshot of two sides of the story:
http://www.america.gov/st/pubs-english/2008/June/20070712120209atlahtnevel0.7962915.html
http://www.freethefive.org/

So that's Cuba.

Now on to electronic voting [As if every vote really did count]

I assumed that the reason we used electronic voting was because it was the best, most foolproof, most efficient way to vote. It got rid of those stupid, god damned chads, and it seemed to take away any mechanical malfunction that could get in the way of the validity of the vote count. It seems that I was wrong.

Electronic voting actually provides a way to vote that leaves no hardcopy evidence as to what your vote really was, and some electronic voting machines are actually highly susceptible to voting manipulation, even in some cases allowing multiple votes to be recorded when only one person is voting, and the selection of one candidate on the screen to record for a different candidate in the results (Censored 2008). Not only do these theoretical problems exist, but there is evidence that electronic voting manipulation put W in the white house for his second term (disregarding the 2000 voting debacle that unfairly put him there in the first place). If the voting system is prey to corruption, then what kind of democratic republic are we?

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/1970/

Then, there's Al-Jazeera. [As if the news media reported in a way that was truly unbiased]
Maybe this one is my fault. Maybe this time, it's really on me for not pursuing and following up on the mentions of Al-Jazeera in the news, but the only things I ever heard mentioned by Al-Jazeera in the main-stream media were terrorists and their plots. Therefore, I assumed an association between the news organization and terrorism in the middle east. Imagine my surprise, then, when reading Censored 2008, Al-Jazeera is mentioned as a great alternative to our news media. So, I checked it out.

What I found was an international wealth of news information, from a viewpoint I had (up until now) not been exposed to. What I found was a forum for citizens of all nations around the world to take in information and then discuss it in comment forums. I have to admit that the comments were almost more enlightening than the news articles, but this enlightenment was focused on the perceptions of American people around the world as opposed to the real content of the news article.

This is where I found how badly we are perceived around the globe. People believe that we are incredibly uneducated to the point where political satire is way to complicated for us to understand. They also believe that we voted Bush into office for a second time, thus rendering us the stupidest nation on the planet. One person, from Afghanistan, believes that the only hope for America is that we have a second civil war and end up divided, with our states as our new countries. They think we are racist, they think we don't care about the rest of the world, and they think we do this knowingly (or that our ignorance reflects our culture, and us as a people, and not the intentions of those controlling us).

Because of the corporate, government-controlled news media's influence on our awareness of every day issues, we have become the stereotype that those comments portray. It isn't our fault, I don't think, because we are presented from the moment we are born with the assumption that news is true, voting is equal, and history is a fair and accurate report of what really happened. We are not given this information that the rest of the world sees, and the people we count on to inform us, the news media, are failing us at every turn.

Unless we want to remain the stupid, ignorant populace under a global tyrant, something has to change. I hate to admit that I do not know what that change should be, but it's true. Some people believe that it is the socialist revolution that will save us, some of us (up until now, including me) believe that electing Barack Obama will change things. I think, if it is the latter, then we have to take a much greater role upon ourselves to actively communicate what we expect and immediately call him out to hold him responsible when he starts changing his formerly left campaign promises. Maybe he really is just playing the political game to get into office so that, once secured, he can use his position to enact change, and I do hope that's the truth. It is our responsibility as informed citizens to make sure that he is aware that we are watching him, and we are holding him accountable. As for the revolution, I can't say what I think just yet. I'm still trying to deal with my long-maintained ignorance of our system, and I don't feel informed enough to support any alternative (or even the need for one). But, whatever the case, you know I'll keep you updated.

Until next time...

J-Mac and the culture of destruction

It occurred to me, whilst listening to the slammin beats of Jesse McCartney's new song on the way home yesterday, how completely right on Inga Muscio's observation of our "culture of destruction" is.

When I mentioned to a friend that I had no idea that this song was written by the afore-mentioned J-Mac, his response was one of quite surprising vehemence. He told me, immediately, that my one true love (I do hope you realize that is sarcasm.. a little..) was "just trying to be Sean Kingston."
Ahem.
My response to him was at first to be offended, because I knew that Jesse had taken two years off of his music career to really connect and try to grow up with his music and his style in a way that reflected the personal growth he had experienced, going from a teenager to a guy in his 20's (with which I most certainly identify. Except the male part). I tried to explain it, but he said that you could HEAR Jesse's (obviously) futile attempt to be the Caribbean R&B singer in sections throughout the song. Honestly, I didn't care. What I like about this song has nothing to do with whether or not Jesse McCartney wants to BE a black R&B singer. It has to do with a fun, smooth song that's easy to listen to and basically talks about a guy saying he could treat a girl better than the guy she's with who, one can assume from the chorus and bridge, makes her cry. I've been in that relationship, and if J-Mac came up to me and sang this song, I would have been leavin' fo sho.

So. On the way home from my friend's house last night, I heard the intro to the song and cranked it up, windows down, in the dark. It was fantastic. As I listened to the music, I actually did try to detect Sean Kingston-isms in his singing style, and I didn't notice any. But, it was as I was doing this that I realized where my friend's response came from. He was breaking Jesse down to build Sean up. Culture of destruction. Why, I thought, can't Jesse McCartney just have this new song that's really fun, that people who listen to Sean Kingston can also enjoy? Why was it such a personal offense to my friend for this pop singer to decide to try on a new style? Why are people so pissed off that Barack Obama might LEARN FROM HIS OPPOSITION and change a few things? Isn't that called an informed decision? Why can't Jesse McCartney's new song just be fun?

Because. If our culture is built upon success, which seems to be socially defined as being the best, then we cannot allow others to share in our good fortune. We must break them down to remain on top, in our lives, in our music, in our politics. In our culture, today, we must destroy others to be the only one standing.

I don't know about you, but that is NOT what I want governing my life and the world around me. A culture of destruction leaves no room for diversity, or this is how it seems to me. And then, like a lightbulb coming on in a darkened closet, I suddenly understood how it got to be this way... in a white, male, heterosexual dominated society.

i'll start out with some feminism and then i'll get to whats really bothering me

So. I looked at the moon tonight and, thanks to Inga Muscio's masterpiece, "Cunt," I thought immediately about how amazing my body is, how it moves in a cycle that puts me at one with the forces that dictate the moon's phases, which in turn dictate the tide. I took a moment to revel in the fact that every month, I am a living reminder of the interconnectedness of this whole crazy thing, and that really comforted me. Atheist that I am, I don't always have the comfort I used to take for granted as a Christian. It awes and inspires me that my body is now my source of comfort in the universe, and the only reason that is true is because I lucked out and was born female.

Thank goodness I am a woman.

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new thought:
how amazing is it that there can be secret-even-to-myself places in my mind? i am constantly and consistently in awe of my body and what it does with no need for my conscious self. the only things that truly astound me, ever so much more than man-created, patriarchy-reflecting savior centered religion, are the things that exist without my thinking them into existence. my cells that fight infection with no brain to spur them onward, they simply are, and do, and what they are and do allows me, my conscious self, to be. i don't even understand myself, and its because i didn't make me. my body would function without my conscious thought propelling it forward. do you ever need to think to breathe? (ok, when you aren't scared shitless for one reason or another?) no. and, do you ever need to really think to walk? no! my body, as afore mentioned, is in tune with the movements of the MOON and i don't have to think one second to make it so. this is what amazes me, this is what i choose to worship. if there is anything worth worshipping, it is what we really and truly will never understand, because it makes US. this whole idea of me existing without the need for conscious thought is somehow incredibly comforting, which is good because i am TIRED.

Next on the agenda (i am writing this here not as a promise, but as a hopeful reminder to my future self to get down to the cuntlovin already): the Starbucks: Exposed! guerilla movement.