Punk, a Subculture of Anarchism

I wrote this after reading The Philosophy of Punk. Not quite Chomsky, but it's an okay start.

I am about halfway through the book and already enraged with excitement and epiphanies and thriving on the enlightenment. The struggles I found with a hopeless democracy are diminished with anarchism. Even liberalism now seems like a sad attempt at change.
While I was reading, I took about 3 pages of notes that include punk musical influences such as the sex pistols, british invasion, citizen fish and subhumans. I already knew of these bands, but it was interesting, them being identified as a universal theme for this subculture. I have learned to be a nonconformist , to use education and exposure to make decisions, not pressure from the media or peers. Also, that obedience to authority encourages it's brutality in some cases and that mainstream society sees "individualism" and deems it "deviant" whereas a conformist becomes a "team player". The punk lifestyle is centered around the basis of substance over style. The media portrays "punk" as a white middle class youth male wearing a leather jacket with spiked hair, when the philosophy of punk is more about thought and education and freedom and independence from society rather than violence and rebelling for the sake of an angst driven rebellion.
I've also come to the somewhat shocking realization that society was not made to sustain a civilization of individuals, but to force others to fit into a mold, resulting in 'institutionalized dehumanization'.
Punk can be defined as all of the following
1) a youth trend
2) a gut rebellion & change
3) the voice of opposition
I hope that what I've chosen is not simply "teen rebellion". I don't want to "go back to normal" once a "phase" is complete. This is a way of life and I'd hate to see it just written off  as hormones or some bullshit.
I've also learned that the media's misrepresentation of punks as: violent, involved in petty crime, drug abuse etc. has attracted a select demographic to the punk scene, legitimizing the media's misrepresentation and destroying the punk lifestyle and philosophy. Skin heads have also been lumped together with punks, if you will, because they attend a lot of the same gigs but breed a whole different concept. One of hate and racism and homophobia and patriotism. They even spread to the more conservative "straight edge" punk scene. A scene that I was voluntarily part of for a while until I got an understanding of how I'd been lied to all those years about marijuana usage.
Censorship, even to censor conservative republicans/libertarians or S.H.A.R.P. members is a crime. The public must be exposed to different views because censoring promotes harm to a free-speech oriented society and the people should be aware of expressed corruption and fault.
Great influential bands such as but not limited to: Crass, Conflict, Discharge, The Ex, BGK, MDC, Dead Kennedys, etc are the representation of the punk culture being rebellious thinkers as opposed to "rock 'n' rollers".
The Government is essentially produced and run by people who sought out an opportunity to maintain a wealthy lifestyle by making others work for them. In doing so, the scapegoats request 'reforms' to manage some stability and control over the government when in reality, a reform is simply an appeasement, when ultimately, what you want is freedom. Communism does level out the class system and eliminates the "takes" v "givers" aspect of society, but at the same time doesn't condone or express freedom from the system or encourage individualism any more than capitalism does.
I watched Obama's inaugural address (state of the union) and what he spoke about held strong in the ever determined, yet painfully passive liberal way. Speaking about plans to "send bills to congress" to evoke change even if the change are ideal concepts, you must realize that the country for the longest time has been hesitant towards change. In order to gain the kind of  independence  and change we require, it's going to take a lot more than Obama's proposed (and rather vague) ideas. But more than anything else, I could not get my mind off during his speech, was that although Obama supports change, does he not own billions of dollars worth of estate and commodities himself? Does he not have an ensured retirement fund waiting to cushion him? Foes he and every other politician in DC not take whatever drastic measure they find necessary to maintain a capitalist society with themselves on top and their wear strain of funding barely, if at all, reaching the lower classes at the bottom? Greed has gotten us nowhere but facing homelessness, classism and workplace exploitation. Why does success have to equal wealth and commodities and power over others? Capitalism equals cannibalism, in that a select few eat at the remains of he dignity and independence of the other people, feeding off of their labor at the sufferer's expense."

Since then, my views have changed a bit. I don't have the time to delve deeper into my current views, so I'll save that for a later time. But I will say that I think that anarchism is a long shot and is best kept to the individual until everyone is well educated and completely convinced that their actions must work towards the greater good for mankind. People would also have to depend on personal responsibility and a strength in community and mutual respect for the individual. But hey, it worked for three years in Spain! There is no perfect system that lasts long enough to sustain all of our population and future generations because each individual has different ideas about how things ought to be run and man is corrupt by nature. Believing in the utopia is considered radical, but not when everyone does.

Bucket List

I attended my grandmother's funeral a couple of weeks ago, and there's nothing like seeing an open casket with a relative's cold body lying inside. There's this overwhelming consciousness of mortality and in some ways, it's very inspiring to regroup your thoughts and get a better understanding of what's really important in your life and what you want to do with it. So I'm making a bucket list.

1- Come to a conclusion regarding my thoughts on marriage.
2- Read all of Shakespeare's plays
3- See Bill Maher perform live.
4- Go to a Michael Moore Rally
5- Be the next Bob Sheldon and open up a nonprofit community center
6- Get a bill to actually pass in congress
7- Open up a soup kitchen
8- Get vegetarianism to become the next anti-fur movement
9- Meet Immortal Technique
10-Meet Marilyn Manson
11- Live in San Fran for a couple years
12- Visit Seattle
13- Travel to Sweden
14- Retire in Canada
15- Grow/Sell my own.. substance....
16- Get an exhibit in an art gallery
17- Sell more than 100 bucks worth of art at a time
18- Get really good at guitar
19- Perform a Spoken Word
20- Travel to a third world country and do something productive
21- Put an end to Hyrdrolic-Fracking
22- Open up a shop where I sell handmade.. paraphernalia..
23- At least get an associate's degree in something or other
24- Burn something down with Matt Hill
25- Drink absinthe with Jake Shiffer
26- Listen to records with Connor Stanberry
27- Do a collaborative art piece with Isaiah Holmes
28- Do professional photography
29- Film shows for local bands
30- Be the next Tom Tomorrow and publish controversial comics
31- Meet Stephan Colbert
32- Have Jon Stewart sign my book "America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction"
33- Write an autobiography
34- Write a fictional book
35- Make my own documentary
36- Adopt a Highway

Hope for Dope!

A lot of people tend to beat around the bush on this issue because they are uneducated about the subject and haven't really done any research themselves. But now, it is time that we all took a stand and educated ourselves on a very important, life-saving topic. Marijuana. What have we heard about marijuana in health class, from the media, teachers, coaches and even our parents? That it's a gateway drug, leads to addiction, ruins your life, kills brain cells, makes you do stupid things that are life-threatening, is illegal for a good reason and will give you lung cancer.

The main reason why marijuana is a 'gateway drug' is because in order to obtain the illegal substance, you might have to go to some sketchy dealer who also sells harder, actually dangerous and addictive, drugs. If marijuana was not illegal, younger kids and teenagers wouldn't seek it mostly for it's off-limits credibility and then wouldn't have the desire to try substances like LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. If people were properly educated about the different kinds of drugs, they would be less likely to partake in using actual drugs. These scare tactics adults use on students just destroys any trust amongst the two parties when the truth is revealed to the students. Making them go through drug tests and screenings is a violation of their privacy and sure as hell won't make them stop using the substance. There is a difference between certain types of "drugs" that make them 'good' and 'bad'.

Marijuana has no property in it that would make a person physically dependent on the use of the substance. Addiction in terms of marijuana is up to the person, not the pot. A person could be addicted to water or shopping, just as easily as they could to marijuana. Cannabis does not ruin peoples' lives. Again, it depends on the person, not the pot. If a person is generally an irresponsible and moronic individual, it's their own fault if they decide to do something stupid because if a responsible person uses marijuana, no harm is done. Not one person has ever died from smoking cannabis. You would have to smoke approximately 15,000 joints in under 20 minutes to get any toxic level of THC, making it impossible to overdose. But if you drank 15,000 cups of water in under 20 minutes, the end result probably wouldn't be too great either. However, about 400,000 people a year die from tobacco, 200,000 a year die from alcohol and 2,000 from caffiene.

Marijuana also does not kill brain cells. This misconception comes from a study performed on monkeys in the 70s where the monkeys were exposed to marijuana smoke, but the scientists didn't provide them with additional oxygen and the brain starts to lose cells after 5 minutes without oxygen. A second study was done a few years later, also on monkeys, but with additional oxygen and there was no decrease in the amount of braincells.
What seems to be a major concern for some people is this supposed risk of getting lung cancer from smoking. Studies show that people who smoke cannabis every so often and those who are nonsmokers have the same chance at getting lung cancer. In fact, marijuana has been shown to promote brain cell growth and heals damaged organ tissue. That is why medical marijuana is legal in 16 states. It is used as an alternative treatment for people with chronic illnesses, deteriorating health and even cancer. It also acts as a natural appetite inducer, which would help underweight individuals gain weight. However those who don't wish to, can control their increased appetite especially by how much they smoke. Without marijuana, most patients who use it regularly, would be suffering on a daily basis because typical, prescription medications aren't working. However, pharmaceutical companies are worried that if they allow marijuana to be legalized, they will lose profits on the manufactured pills they sell that cause even worse symptoms anyway. Marijuana has over 200 known medical uses and would have more if researchers had the funding to investigate more possibilities.

The male plant, hemp, can be used in over 30,000 different products, including food, fibers, fuel and textiles.  But of course those industries are afraid to legalize it because they fear a loss in profit and spending money to invest in a safer alternative. Cannabis has been used for over 10,000 years and nothing life-threatening has ever happened as a direct result. Marijuana was legal up until 1937 and it was illegal for farmers to refuse to grow hemp. Even Jimmy Carter, the 39th president from 1977-1981 tried to get a bill passed to reform the marijuana prohibition and not for the same reason why republicans such as Ron Paul want to end the federal prohibition (so state government can have more power over it's people than the federal without any regulations. If he really liked the idea of marijuana, he'd try to get it legalized, not just end the federal prohibition). If the prohibition on alcohol in the 20's through early 30's didn't work, why would the one on marijuana? It's relatively easy to find someone who can deal you some marijuana and it's a lot easier for most teenagers to get their hands on than any other drug.

The federal government now spends about 20,000,000 a year enforcing drug laws and about 2/3 of that is on marijuana. In North Carolina, just for having less than an 1/2 oz. the penalty is at least 30 days incarcerated and a $200 fine as well as it counting as a misdemeanor. If you have 1 1/2 oz, it's considered a felony and you could spend up to a year in prison. Just possessing paraphernalia counts as a misdemeanor and the minimum sentence is 6 months incarceration. Each year, about 700,000 americans are arrested for marijuana related "crimes" and about half of the marijuana-using african american population is targeted as suspects while less than half are caucasian because of racial discrimination. Originally, the majority of marijuana users were hispanic, so people were immediately turned off for the same reason why we have physical borders and arrest immigrants instead of the people who actually hire the immigrants. Propaganda is fed into our subconscious telling us that if you legalize marijuana, anyone can get it, especially criminals who will increase ratings in murder, rape and theft. All of which are false. Taxpayers spend 24,000 a year to keep innocent people in jail when that same money could be used towards a greater cause like paying teachers adequate salaries or keeping libraries open, parks maintained, fire stations available, etc.

Long ago, a plant, the 'sea squirt', showed to have contained THC which was ingested by an animal. The cannabinoid receptors in the central nervous system of the animal fit perfectly with the chemical THC, much like a puzzle piece. Therefore, we are all fundamentally wired to respond to marijuana whether you like it or not. If marijuana was legalized, we could tax it just as we do alcohol and cigarettes and maybe put that money towards, say, universal health care. There will always be a high demand for this product, and it would be smart, economically, to increase the availability of the supply. This would in turn, create a boom among the agricultural industry and prevent what might be a second economic collapse in the near future.

If you care about saving lives or the economy, you will fight to legalize it. Currently, a bill is in congress to end the federal prohibition on marijuana, but even that might not pass if it doesn't have enough support. However, just ending the prohibition isn't enough. Marijuana has to be legalized. If all Americans showed the government how much they need marijuana to be legalized, it would happen. You can take the first step by contacting your U.S. house representative. http://www.capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=50800581

I highly suggest you watch this testimony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQS3KEGtdBI&feature=related
If everyone fights for a common cause, change can be achieved, but if everyone assumes it's never going to happen and they refuse to take action, we will continue to live our lives as we are told they should be lived and we will continue to allow this corruption to spread.

Feel free to add any points I may have overlooked. =)

Mostly About The War on Terror (an older entry from another blog)

With recent world events such as the death of Osama Bin Laden last night, I feel now is a good time to bring up the corruption of the government (specifically with oil). Oil has been a factor in WWII, the invasion and occupation of Iraq and not to mention in third world exploitation. Claims for originally being in the middle east based on a WMD threat were obviously falsified, most especially because the whole invasion strategy used was to station troops and military bases DIRECTLY ON THE OIL FIELDS. derp. In late 2000 Saddam threatened to switch to the euro for oil trade and was going to convert 10 billion of Iraq's reserve fund to euros as well. But of course all these little details were censored in the media because when a country converts their money to say, the U.S. dollar, the value of said dollar increases, making the federal government more money especially when the price of oil itself is also increased. Then in comes North Korea and Iran, both wanting to switch to the euro. Damn, sounds like the fed would've lost a nice chunk of change from an opportunity cost there. And so, it being in the best interest of our fucked up government, we went to war. We also forced power plants into third world countries and loaned them the money that they would eventually have to pay us back, with interest. So we not only enslaved them to our dependence on oil, but to a heavy debt. During WWI the federal reserve managed to initiate a way for competing bankers to create a cartel to loan shit tons of money to other countries during the war.. but of course collect it back and then some, afterwards. The fed is able to print out money on a 9 to 1 ratio, meaning if you had a hundred dollars, it could easily become 10,000 in no time. But of course this process devalues the U.S. dollar. And then you have what we like to call: inflation. At that point, a dollar is no longer worth 100 pennies. The value of a dollar was at it's highest during the spanish-american war, took a steep drop after WWI then picked back up during the depression and then went downhill from WWII all the way to the war on terror. And well now, we're in a recession. We're also slaves to the oil companies. (ps, we should organize a strike on oil or some shit) so anyway, the government depends on the money it makes from oil from foreign countries. If North Korea, Iraq and Iran ("axis of evil") had switched to the euro, we wouldn't have been able to make any money off of them. So when our friendly axis threatened to do so, the bush administration made the case that we needed to invade the middle east in search of WMD aka: oil. While in Iraq, the military used strategies to try and fuck up Iraq's alternative energy research plants. Who exactly is making money off of the war on "terror"? Well, lets just say Dick Cheney had about 450 thousand stocks invested in Halliburton (yeah, they build prisons too) and the Carlyle group was making shit loads of money off of weapon contracts, plus international bankers make a nice bit of change off of our national debt. Now, when Reagan (yes, good old government-puppet-Ronald) was in office in the 80's, he supplied Saddam with chemical warfare weapons to go to war with Iran in exchange for hostages. (And I haven't researched this, but word on the street is reagan also gave osama weapons to fuck with the USSR and trained people to commit terrorist acts in Nicaragua and Cuba. Osama and terrorist acts, sound familiar?)

General Shit That I Am Angry About

Choosing a place to begin is the hardest bit about this because there are so many injustices that it's hard to choose which one is most important. Let's start with the environment. If a person ate at mcdonalds every day and used tap water they would defend that until their death because that is how they know to survive. If a person lived off their land and used water from a stream every day, they would defend their means of living just as well because that is how they know to survive. What we know and what we are told go hand in hand as we are constantly bombarded with information from our communities, peers, television, magazines, etc. When a person lives in an environment where they are only told that they would be happier IF they had this and this and this, then that message is drilled into their brains. It's an easy concept to follow. But what about the concept of ones environment? Why are we destroying the only place we can live in? Because certain people succeed in financial gain? Because the people being used at the bottom don't know any better to revolt? Oil companies will do anything within and out of their means to drill every fucking drop of oil available on this planet. At the expense of the planet. Off-shore drilling has resulted in some of the worst man-inflicted damage to our environment. 200 million barrels of oil were leaked in to the gulf coast last may. Did the government mandate any sort of regulations as to what is required when a company drills off-shore? Fuck no. Why? It means more money they have to spend to insure the security of our coast, when in fact, the cost of cleaning up an oil spill of that size costs way more than putting a goddamn cap on the drill in the first place, not to mention 120 miles of the coast line lost business during travel season and thousands of birds, fish, sea turtles and dolphins died.
Why do we, the most intelligent species, treat the rest of the entire planet as our own personal property? Why do we force our animals into a holocaust within slaughterhouses just because we can? Just because they can't escape our greedy grasps, does that mean we should poison them, eat them and thrust them into extinction? And we don't just stop there. No, we take the slave labor we force upon animals and transfer it into the work place. Ever wonder why the clothes on your back or the items in your household are cheaper than you would ever sell them for if you had to supply them for sale yourself? Because people in India, Guatemala, China, Taiwan, Japan, Cambodia, etc all make your shit while they work overtime for a dollar a day and if they even think about reporting the negligence and dangerous work environment, then they are fired immediately and replaced. And don't think for a second that the faceless corporations who create factories in foreign countries to ship their products back to the U.S. treat their American employees much better. When a company like Walmart tells their employees they need to sign up for Medicade and Welfare programs it's because they will not pay you enough to survive off of, ESPECIALLY for the amount of work an employee does. But this my friends, is a capitalist society. It puts people like the Waltons on top and people who work at Walmart on the bottom. It's the American Dream. They tell you that one day you could be rich and famous and live a life of luxury if you follow the rules and do as you're told. What they don't tell you is that it's unsustainable and at the expense of others and your environment. Who needs an expensive car? Who needs a new car? Who needs carbon dioxide emissions giving them lung cancer and creating a world where there's less air to burn than there is gas. You do. Because it'll make you happy. It'll make you happy to live with the wife or husband you secretly despise with 2.5 children you desperately want to strangle in a large house in the suburbs with a white picket fence in back. It'll make you happy to never see the face of the child who carries a 40 pound bucket of water on their back miles across a rocky path barefoot twice a day so their family can stay hydrated because their country can't afford clean water. It'll make you happy to see the men and women too old to have to work, slugging around over-sized bags of food onto the shelves of your favorite "made in america" store. It'll make you happy to see a calf forced into a cramped, dark, compartment awaiting it's death. It'll make you happy to realize that you were the cause of your own demise.

First Post: Spoken Word

I remember the first time I really cried.
It was a time more desperate and heart breaking,
Than when the first boy i really loved broke my heart.
I never thought life was as cruel as the time i saw a kid with cancer
Sitting alone in a hospital bed,
Staring at the blank wall in front of them.
Until i saw the big picture.
I finally saw the way the world worked
And how faceless corporations' lies
Cost children their lives.
I never understood why
Some kids get new sneakers while other kids die making them.
The day i realized the american dream
Was the thing killing america
Was the day i realized everything can be bought and sold for a bargain,
Including families living in poverty that are starvin.
We live with the "every man for himself" mentality
But we live in the 21st century
Where we shouldn't have to kill to survive.
Long after the days of slavery in america,
But im sure the people in the workplace would beg to differ.
See, i always thought we were a nation that fought against injustice,
But a nightmare is in just where we are.
Journalists are tortured for revealing the source of the tension
And they forget to mention,
That homeland security has been fightin terror since 1492.
You think we'd never let another holocaust happen?
Rwanda, Burma, Dar Fur, Sri Lanka.
Genocide isn't limited to just human beings neither.
We systematically slaughter herds of animals,
Treating them as our personal slaves as if one species is any better than another.
Apparently we've also forgotten about US manufactured missles and m-16s
Or media censorship bleeping out musicians' screams.
And of course everyone is so doped up on mk-ultra
That they believe we're fightin for democracy but we've ruined the middle east and unleashed a demon.
I can only speak for myself when i say,
The world would be a better place,
If politicians were judged based on their actions instead of intentions
And if we remembered to live simply so that others may simply live.
It was when all this came crashing down on me
That i felt an unbearable weight fall on top my shoulders,
One that my body just could not carry.
Ilet myself drop with the wait of the world,
All the corruption and greed and faulty facades.
And i've been atheist since age 8,
So i didn't pray to no gods.
I am no slave to no masters, just me myself and i,
As well as the hope that i can better the world before the day that i die.
So i brushed the saturated tears from my eyes
And decided the world is worth saving even if most people are blind.