Adbusters @ MindSay 
culture
I don't use Paris Hilton brand edible makeup, nor do I starve myself and shave every inch of my body hair to fit into tiny thong bikinis fit for only my-size barbie dolls. I'm an antisteryotype, an antisocial, and an antidrug for anyone who wants an antihit. I read magazines like Adbusters, like Utne. I read books like Palahnuik, like Huxley, like Orwell. I meditiate and self-medicate and all those things girls on 7th Hevan would lead you to believe was sinful.
How much do I actually get out of any of this? What is counterculture when there is no more culture to rail against? Trends shift, and just as liquid, their antitrends must shift. Where is the malignant culture so described to me, that I believe so vehemently in? All I do as a child is go to school, come home, refuse to do homework on the grounds that I have already learned what is being taught, eat, and sleep. All the malignancy I see is being presented by two or more opposing forces. Neither actually wants things to change, for without the other force to fight against, how would they exist? Without the 'squares' without 'geeks','losers','goths', and scores of other labels for the less, the inferior, How would the superior keep themselves as such? Likewise, How can the rebel exist when there is no longer anything to rebel against? losing battles we fight. As soon as we defeat one enemy, another takes its place. Nazis, Gooks, Commies, now Terrorists. Perpetual opposition is the way to tip top condition, applying not only to countries and their economies, but to anything you can possibly think of. Wolves. Deer. Fast food chains and resteraunt chains. Runway designers whose clothing is never meant to be worn anywhere but a runway, and designers like Ralph Lauren and Issac Mizrahi who peddle directly to soccer moms and dads, teenage girls and boys alike. War is being fought between Starbucks and Panera Bread, not for coffe, or for bread, but for who can attract the most college students to spend their afternoon sipping chai and working on their laptops.
War is being fought in drugs. The drugs you grew up with and the drugs I am growing up with are from opposite sides. Children only a few generations ago grew up on Tobacco, Alcohol, Weed, LSD, Cocaine. Those were the lords of the drug world. I grew up on Paxil, Adderal, Ritalin, Wellbutrin, Concerta, Topomax, and a host of the same chemicals under different names. These are the Drug Lords now. You call them Big Pharma, but honestly, they are just more organized and effective in advertising and distribution than the underground drug business is now. The one small difference between them, one above the law, the other below it, makes all the difference in their emnity.
A thousand thousand conflicts, raging in the world, in the cultural ether. Raging inside our own minds. The last war and the first war, Between ignorance and awareness, between information and disinformation. That one will keep going until we blow ourselves up. Silly. We love our facts so much and ignore the principles until information becomes ignorance. School is memorizing dates, never learning from the past we're condemned to repeat. Disinformation is so easy and so beautiful. Rightly spun, you can barely tell the difference between learning and memorization, between your own opinion and the opinion you've been told to have. School has become endless. Political correctness washing every fact clean of all blame, of all truth.
As I type this, it's interesting that I'm failing two classes and squeezing past the rest, except for Art. Teachers don't like it when you research yourself, when you contradict them or the textbook, when you say you read that book already and would prefer its memory stay untainted by analyzing and comprehensive questions meant to draw you slowly along to the teacher's own opinion. Teachers don't like to hear it when you say you didn't do your Algebra because you were up all night trying to write your own fractal equations. Teachers complain. The faculty puts you in remedial education, as if that helps any. When you flunk that, they send you to a school full of every other apathetic smart kid in the state classified as "behavioral issues: oppositional/defiant"
And it's great to finally be around your own people. In a bubble nice and safe from culture, from education. Not from drugs, you'd better believe that a good deal of these kids are high as a kite a good portion of the day, and the rest are on medication by their own or their parents will. Take away the drugs, I don't know what you'd have. We'd no longer be content, the false security, the numbing of the mind would be stripped away. We'd have to contend with a world that wants us to take sides in fights we never asked to be in. Sometimes I wonder what we would do. Would we form our own side of the fight? or would we kill ourselve like it seems most people do when they realize they have to choose between two very unappealing styles of life? I'm not sure. Sometimes I'm glad the drugs delay this decision. But the instant we run out of money for them, the second we sober up and face the world, we will have to make a choice. Do we fight for individuality on behalf of the masses, or fight for anonymity on behalf of the individual? Do we send our money to starving kids in Africa because the man with the white beard pulled out heartstrings? Or do we give money to Uncle Phil to support his addiction to painkillers and alcoholism?
I lost my train of thought. It's the ADD, officially. In real life, I found something more interesting to do than rant. Have a nice day, Kids.
Live it up.
Right before The Hour came on, I was flipping through the channels and came across Director's Cut on the Documentary channel. They were featuring a film called Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture by Jill Thorpe.
I. Loved. It.
It's like the Cacophony Society; I didn't even realize I was already a culture jammer. I mean, anyone who's spent any significant time with me knows I love to draw on bus stops ads, put PeTA stickers on food adverts and stop signs, and dream of owning a billboard that will only advertise for non-profit organizations or organizations that present 'unpopular' and 'controversial' views (you know, the people that actually need advertising...)
Anyways, the film itself is great. If you have any form of a documentary channel, be sure to look for it. You can also view the trailer and a synopsis online, as well as order the video, from the site above.
Another thing: I was heartbroken when I found out about this today in my Daily Grist. How could the Senate approve such a thing? Not only is drilling for oil in the middle of a NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE completely blowing past the point of making the area a WILDLIFE REFUGE in the first place, but it hurts the environment in two ways:
1. They are planning to drill in the biological heart of this refuge, which is unspoiled Alaskan wildland. For 25 years, people have fought to keep this from happening. It's not rocket science that this would severely damage the ecosystems; drilling not only means digging in the ground, it means people. Civilization will spring up in currently untouched wildland. Businesses will emerge to support the people living there. A former refuge will become a corporate paradise, which will eventually become a ghost town once the oil dries up.
2. Their excuse for this is that oil is in high demand, and therefore is expensive. They figure that by drilling in Alaska they will get cheaper oil. This is hypocrytical in so many ways (they have monopolies on most major drilling areas, why will one in Alaska lower the price?), but also is not discouraging to the American market. Aren't we trying to get people to use less fossil fuels? How will finding a way to provide more fossil fuels discourage the use of fossil fuels?
Well, I think that's enough of plugging my views for now, ta-ta.
level: 8/10
music: "Who would Jesus bomb?" by David Rovics