revisiting and revisiting the work-training, and then exiting

i know what it is- it's all summed up in this movie entitled "Leben BRD" or "Living in the Bundesrepublic of Deutschland". So this film is a documentary about the banal torture of instruction, and it goes from classes that pregnant couples attend to learn about the birthing process, to this amazing scene where this guy is describing the correct way to escape a vehicle which has turned on its side, to a man teaching a woman how to strip the correct way, interspersed with shots of various commodities being tested by pneumatic machines that drop weights onto chairs or apply forces over and over again. I guess that's a good way to describe this situation of cultural training- that it is a thing that one must train oneself for, and that it can be repeated, and that there is a right way to understand this here culture. We nestle in a sort of distance of consciousness that is nurtured by this type of training- the notion that there's a way to learn about everything, that there's a teacher that can be found, that nobody will be expected to spearhead their own experiences and derive their own fascination (because it could be wrong!). Without an authority, there can be no training, the distribution of knowledge cannot saturate and hypnotize an audience- there's always the (terrifying) possibility that the book you're reading has old dates- you know, all these books these days with all their knowledge that you just don't give a fuck about- come on books, knock it off!

letter to the editor of the star tribune

This letter is written from an email from move on dot org, encouraging and then basically setting me down in front of this interface, from where I can choose which paper to contact and then enter text. The subject is the Iraq war and the trend of exponential military spending, which of course I do feel is completely out of control, believing that all violence is hegemonic and, since it seems that money is all that anybody really wants to worry about, simply wasteful. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the sun will only come up tomorrow if the great fortress of our government continues to build bombs, so we can be fierce, and so everybody outside our borders, everybody in our crosshairs trembles and cries out and says "yes, yes, please allow me to be free, please give me my 12 hours and my shitty schools, please give me everything I'm supposed to want and a new reason everyday to hate a distant, lurking evil." This Internet interface even gives me talking points, which include the accumulation of the national debt, as well as the squeezing of domestic programs like education, affordable housing, health care programs, ECT. This money is lost in as much as it does not increase our safety through the accumulation of things set aside, devoted to kill the poor. My question is: why are the poor people of foreign countries like Iraq getting all this murderous attention? It's not like the American poor aren't making a huge racket of their own about poverty. It's time our military brought their lessons of brutal justice home- if we're spending all of these funds on violent might and magnificence (because clearly there will always be an even more convenient way to murder the defenseless)- then let's use it where it counts, right here at home. If we're going to spend more money on bombs than we have since ol' dubya dubya two, then I want one on every street corner and in every establishment- if everyone just put down their worries and started REALLY putting their backs into it, we could have every half block of this city wired to detonate at the push of five or six buttons. I think I speak for America when I say I want tangible results, and if the only thing that can be accomplished is bloodshed then let's not be so discriminatory, let's share this wealth of death with our neighbors.

Glocks: 1, Samurai Swords: 0

I have a suspicion that conceal-and-carry provocateurs are beaming messages into my brain whilst sleeping. To wit, my vaguely-remembered dream from two nights prior:
The setting: college campus; from what I can recall, not the U of M in particular
The (severely limited) action:
I am in a building, near the largest "mall-like" area of Dream U, conversing with an unidentifiable "friend." The friend and I proceed to engage a stranger in some sort of debate or argument about something. My friend and I, our shared argumentative position, angers said stranger. Greatly angers him. Apparently our disparate point-of-view necessitated a strong reaction. One that went beyond angry, shouted reproaches or even fisticuffs and nestled right up against "attack with samurai sword." And attack with samurai sword the man did. Luckily for me, he went after my comrade and severed his limbs from his body first, allowing me to gain a better advantage that was allowed to my friend: running. And so I ran with an unusually heightened sense of purpose--with a seriousness that evokes comparison only to near-daily races against my brother down the gravel road from our neighbors house in Sturgis, South Dakota. Thankfully, the integrity of the running surface contained in my dream was a great improvement over the winding, downhill, gravel-composed road of my youth--and with the aid of surer, stabler footing, I was able to elude the sword-swinging psychotic long enough to incur only a few minor flesh wounds before my savior descended. More accurately, said savior happened to be milling about the mall--and packing heat. A situation which otherwise would have ceased with my bloodied and very disembodied corpse, instead concluded with a gun-toting fellow undergrad's heroic intercession.

some thoughts on cultural trainings

Q:did you like the presentation on Somali culture

A: I still don't really understand Somali history at all, but I think there's still a lot to learn about as far as what it means to have muslim culture within secular capitalism- I think there's sort of a condescending undertone when analyzing Islam- like it's some kind of game that people play that must be humored- there's this idea that overtly phallogocentric societies are backwards and inferior, while whomever makes the analysis is somehow free from any "incorrect" propogation of their own culture

what is left unsaid is exactly the same sort of assumed inevitability that allows such conflicts as ethnic war and indifference toward the waging of nationalistic struggle from within the context of enormous consequences after colonial violence.

Q: Do you like cultural trainings

A: yes, although frustrating as well, due to these perceptions that are difficult to deconstruct. I think these exercises are extremely important but volatile because they can have the effect of informing and consequentially engaging people in the struggle of cultural pluralism- which can be an agent of great influence as a tool of analysis against the inevitability of capitalism, but they can also have the effect of alienating the audience from these "other people" by allowing the exploration of "their" history to remain vague and impossible to understand- such as the history of Somalia. What this does is perpetuates a "distance" that can't be reduced.

In the words of Richard Leppert, Paraphrasing theodor Adorno: "Shit is caused" (as opposed to "shit happens")

ciao.

Animals: Fun to Pet; Better to Chew

Inquisition: Can we, all of us humans, simply just fucking agree already that major changes need to be made: to the base, the absolute bedrock of culture--to our general philosophy of thought and intellectual inquiry/debate? I am not talking, here, concerning the virtually meaningless political rhetoric of "CHANGE" that has been espoused ad nauseum by the Democrat-o-bots (the Democratobots!, the new reality show starring Obamobot and Clintobot (thanks to Edwardobot for participating!)); no, rather, I am deeply interested in a shift away from politically-minded thinking, a re-evaluation of spiritual (in the vaguest, non-religious sense) and philosophical concerns.

Over the past couple of years, my political involvement has failed to reach even the laziest level: simply voting in state or federal elections. And I am not the type of person to merely tout my "apathy," and respond to any challenge with the oft-used "my vote doesn't matter anyway." But it has become increasingly apparent that such a response would place a person just below a majority of those who are "politically active," i.e. people that just vote, based on, of course, slogans and symbols; and not on conscientious research and subsequent debate.

This whole entry has been and is going to continue to be: utterly scattershot. And I apologize for that; but these things, these towering IDEAS are hard to wrangle and tame. We are subject, in our current mass-media culture, to dizzying levels of stimuli: images, sounds--the whir of implacable technology. At times I am completely unaware and unsure of where my head is: on my shoulders? Hardly. But I must blow an intellectual load, prematurely yes, but with more discourse comes greater focus and stamina: then, an ability to parse these gigantic ideas and come up with some specifics.

I may be able to outline my general concern now. Yes: our institutions are broken. The SYSTEM and all its constituent mini-systems are irrevocably faulty as they are currently constituted.

The funny thing is, the claim that our votes are immaterial, is pretty close to true. It is my opinion that (and of course there are exceptions) citizens who are involved in the voting processes fall into roughly two categories: one type of voter is doggedly intent on supporting the party/candidate which is most likely to keep him comfortable, to keep him in his position of relative power with regard to social, economic, and various other concerns; the other voter, meanwhile, focuses on a candidate/party that promises the afforementioned CHANGE. The first voter is a short-sighted, selfish prick, while the second voter is naive at best. And I sure do love being able to draw these lines, create these groups opposite or adjoining one another. It has been made possible by mankind's capitulation to polar thinking (bad/good, good/evil, and on and on).

Sadly, I do not think that one can effectively vote EVEN IF his concerns are so narrowly defined and ill-considered. It seems obvious--due to the prevalence of distracting, ever-progressing technological advances along with our continued insistence, as a nation of good capitalists, that we must work at least one third of our waking hours--that simply we just do not have the time to reasonably acclimate ourselves to political issues. The problem is our reaction to this dilemna does not involve philosophical reconsideration. No, no, no. The media responds by covering less and less actual news in a less and less objective manner: more graphic explosions! Panels of "experts" talking over each other, espousing their unimaginative, self-serving policy stances. But with so little time to cover actual news that affects people, how do our networks find the time for this (as one example--this is just a paraphrase of the segment)?:

"Fish funerals" have become a YouTube sensation. People have been placing their dead fish in the toilet, along with tokens or garlands to mark the occasion, and flushing them in a filmed ceremony (that was the general narration to go along with video evidence of the funerals, and probably some wicked-sweet graphics too).

The Fox News anchor providing this story, after describing more-or-less what I just described, asked indignantly: "Don't these people have anything better to do?!" If I have to explain the sad, sad irony of that quote, then I am afraid our blogger/reader relationship must end.

There is much more to talk about, hopefully with lots more focus and clarity, but I have got to quit for the time being. My mind already caved-in four times in the midst of the preceding rant; this is all just too, too much. This is surely to be continued with more suspense, and maybe a love-triangle. And graphics! Mind-warping graphics. Til' next screed...

Time Measured With Sound!

Excuses! Bah! Who wants to read anything, ever? Why not remain in a huddling clairvoyance?

What speed do you dare to read at? Slow that down buster. Get off that bus, put down that cigarette, turn off that music and sit up straight at your desk. You can't even have any tea.

The best place to read corrosive fiction is on the merry go round. That way each word makes you angrier and angrier. Or turn up the radio, have some licorice and a pepsi, munch on a bagel with cream cheese, and then scribble into your dream journal. Who do you think you are? When you read your book, do you think the world goes away? Whatcha gonna get with all that book lernin' eh? A loaded noggin, too much of nuthin. That's my name, see. Chillax.

I just witnessed some intellectual grappling, some eevaysive manoovahs. A lil of this here is what a book should goddamn be, wahpow. But this movies purty cool, it's called once, and it's a cutsy luveedove, maybe it's just the accents and those sonic acrobatics- shees cute cause she dragged the vacuum cleaner around like a lil puppy, I like her, she's cuhlahd, I like er'- I Lyyyyke thisss Cuhlerd Grrrl... iiiiiii Lyyyyyyke thisss Colored grrl- I LIKE ER!
Woh, now there's all this sweet feelings happening on the moovee screeen. I LUV it when they're talking but you can't hear it, I hate to fucking hear them talkeee walk, I just want the guitars to come outa their mouths and the sky, dive-bombing my heart like the chimes of freedom did to the Vietcong.
(GOOD JOKE!)
oh, it's over. A nice lil movie, huh? That ONCe movie was pretty good you know, like, it's real, really really real hard, hard real, real like the credits and that title track.