Over the last several years my family has become quite disenfranchised with Christmas. Last year we talked openly about it, how it seemed empty and self indulgent, which led to my mother and sister-in-law formulating a few ideas with regards to this year. The plan they’ve come up with is so good that I wanted to share it with everyone in hopes of maybe starting a minor trend.
Rather than buying gifts, everyone in the family is going to contribute what would have been spent on them into financing a care package for a family in need. Second, prior to Christmas day, we’re going to volunteer to serve dinner at a homeless shelter or at an outreach program in the community.
As my mother put it on the telephone this morning, our family gets by and that’s more than enough to celebrate. I agree with her completely. I have no time for the consumer frenzy of Christmas or its historically inaccurate religious significance. As a man that believes that the problems of this world must be solved by those that live in it rather than those that believe it is little more than a giant waiting room for the afterlife, it is a holiday that impassions a spirit that, in truth, should be ever present in our daily lives. That at our most fundamental level we are all the same, that we are only as strong as our weakest link, and that no amount of gifts or religious devotion can alter the fact our most basic commonalities supercede the fears and divisions that plague us. That, in the end, we are all members of a single family.
Last night, during my performance in Thunder Bay, I ventured into unknown waters for the first time on this tour – I mentioned the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The response was, as expected, muted, though I would learn after the performance from my soundman that people in the back of the theatre were deriding me for mentioning it and exclaiming that I should simply ‘shut up and sing’.
It’s here that I should mention that while broaching the subject of Canada’s role in Afghanistan I made perfectly clear my feelings regarding the separation of military service and policy, something that always seems to float straight over the heads of those that choose to disregard any debate on the subject out of hand. That said, no one in that theatre had the balls to say anything loud enough for me to hear in response, save one individual who claimed that there were certain things worth killing for. And while I disagree, I still commend him for having the guts to yell it out and state his opinion.
True, it’s a concert, and those in attendance have paid to hear me perform. Then again, if you’ve bought tickets to see George Carlin, you expect most of his show to be politically charged. Given what I spend the majority of my time on this website, and elsewhere, talking about, you’d think those who would willingly purchase tickets to one of my performances would at least think it a possibility that I might bring something up. And yet I am always surprised when people find it shocking that I do.
That said, the Burmese Junta has detained 4,000 monks and is planning on interning them in the far north of the country in an attempt to quell their role in recent protests. According to reports, they have been “disrobed and shackled”.
It’s important to remember that Burma’s monks did not resort to violent action in the recent protests, and in doing so have captured both the attention and imagination of the world in the process – ironically, even those that turn to violence as their favoured course of action. Of course, they cannot expect the cavalry to arrive, guns blazing, to secure their release and bring freedom to their country. Having said that, it’s of vital importance to point out that even though they have helped lead this latest charge against the current regime, they would not wish violence to be employed to see its downfall, nor their release, ensured. Many will, instead, go on hunger strikes and forfeit themselves, if need be, to continue their protest - but they will not advocate the use of violence.
There is something to be learned from the realization that only with the perception of greatness comes the arrogance of power and ultimately the need to ensure its continuity to protect the fragile shell of ego. To embrace the wisdom that power is, in truth, the drug of the weak, is to realize that the way to defeat it is to refuse to acknowledge it as anything but.
The APEC Summit has returned to its birthplace, Australia, where a small number of people, mostly youths in their school uniforms, peacefully demonstrated the presence of President Bush today in Sydney. Of course, that hasn’t stopped the authorities from insisting that Saturday’s protest, which they believe will attract tens of thousands, will result in a ‘full scale riot’…
“Chief superintendent Steven Cullen, head of the state Public Order and Riot Squad, said he had never been so worried about a demonstration in his career, predicting “horrendous” implications for public safety.
“Police lines will come under attack and a full-scale riot is probable,” Cullen told the Supreme Court.
The Stop Bush Coalition protest group agreed to change the route of the march so it did not pass the US consulate in the centre of the city’s financial district.
The court also ordered the protesters to stay away from a 2.8 metre (nine foot) high steel and concrete fence that snakes five kilometres (three miles) around the city centre, creating an exclusion zone for the visiting dignitaries.
Cullen told the court he had “absolutely no doubt” minority protest groups would attempt to violently disrupt the march and people would be hurt if there was a crush near the fence or they were pushed into glass-fronted buildings.
While police fear a repeat of the violence at last year’s G20 meeting in Melbourne, activists have labelled the unpredented security lockdown over much of Sydney as an attack on their right to peaceful protest.
“Protest is not violent, war is violent,” student Rainee Lyleson told Wednesday’s rally. “We will not be intimidated.”
Students dodged truancy officers and ignored police warnings to stay in their classrooms to attend the rally, organised by the left-wing group Resistance.
There was no sign of protest earlier when Bush held a joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard at a hotel in the centre of the exclusion zone.
Police searched the bags of pedestrians passing the venue, as helicopters buzzed overhead and officers with binoculars scanned the streets from rooftops.
Many of the city’s usually bustling streets were almost deserted amid the security operation involving 5,000 police and troops, with just a few onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of the US leader through the security fence.
Some retailers, particularly high-end fashion and jewellery stores, were closed — with signs in their windows saying they would reopen after APEC.
Pavement garbage bins were sealed off with plastic covers while private security guards stood on duty outside office towers.”
So now we wait for Saturday to arrive to see what happens. Will there be those who will act like idiots? Probably. As they say, shit attracts flies.
The Australian government recently released a YouTube video in which Prime Minister Howard said…
“There will be some individuals who want to protest against Apec. I simply ask them to stop for a moment and consider that if they really are worried about issues such as poverty, security and climate change, then they should support Apec, not attack it.”
Interestingly, how many of the nations attending the summit are economically exploited by the world’s foremost powers? The Philippines? Indonesia? Malaysia? Thailand? Vietnam? Papua New Guinea? In fact, many of those in attendance, such as South Korea, Japan, and others, also have arms agreements with the United States, which would fall under the ‘security’ umbrella of Mr. Howard’s preamble.
Some of you might remember a time when the United States was an economic global powerhouse. And while the US economy still significantly influences the markets, the fact of the matter is that their economy is, in truth, primarily based on consumption, not production - which would be why they owe the Chinese in excess of 1 trillion dollars. In fact, they’re actually a debtor nation to Mexico.
Were the foreign debt of the United States to be called tomorrow, the country would be devastated on an unprecedented level. Ironically, it would also result in a global panic that would cause a global recession of immense proportions. That’s rather interesting, isn’t it. But that’s what happens when the world primarily trades in your dollar.
Will this APEC summit result in any real change? Will Indonesian factory workers end up making more because of foreign investment? Or will they make the same, or less, because the demand for work is considerable and those paying them are all too aware of it? The reality is that foreign investment makes those holding the cards wealthier, and that that wealth doesn’t really impact society in general in such places. That’s why most of the clothes worn in North America are made in such places and not by North American workers. Because North American workers have this terrible habit of getting up to no good, such as forming Unions, demanding decent pay and medical coverage.
Now why on earth would anyone want that when the exact same product can be made overseas for next to nothing without all the hassles, driving the purchasing price down and thus allowing US retailers to maximize profits by massively over inflating prices?
Of course, such an application is entirely unsustainable. One simply cannot consume more than they produce without eventually succumbing, which is why the miraculous wonders of globalization were thrust upon us as if a summer blockbuster were being launched to justify the exploitation of cheaper markets. Unfortunately, one day, people are going to start waking up in those regions that are being exploited and realize that the distribution of wealth isn’t at all equitable, and they’re going to go about making changes – primarily in government. That, of course, is when we’ll step in and paint such movements as dangerous to our national interests and work to ensure that they fail.
It’s as old as the crucifixion. Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but no one wants to bake it.
Today’s Daily Telegraph (UK) has a story which will likely cause some Wall Street types to stand woozily atop 10th story window sills. There are those (yours truly included) who have long predicted that this sort of thing would rear its ugly head one day. This is about money and power and theft. The greedy idiots who run the central banks of the United States have sold us down the river. With a hideous and expensive war, a collapsing housing market, and subprime-dependent hedge funds going belly up (soon to be followed by banks…), the last thing our wheezing economy needs is to have the Chinese point a gun to our heads. And its a BIG FUCKING GUN.
The Chinese are far from stupid. This was planned. And don’t for one minute think this won’t affect you, in the US OR Canada. It is a global economy and when all is said and done, we are but minnows in a tsunami. We are staring into the face of a perfect storm, one that has been in the making since 1913… but more on that another time. Below is the entire article… the snappy comments in bold are mine…
China threatens ‘nuclear option’ of dollar sales
Daily Telegraph UK
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.
Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning - for the first time - that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658 billion) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress. Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.
Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.
It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900 billion in a mix of US bonds.
In layman’s terms… the Chinese are holding a mountain of US dollars… and if they decide to put those dollars out into the marketplace instead of hoarding them… Well that is Capitalism 101 folks, the law of supply and demand… just imagine what that will do to the already shaky value of the dollar (it has lost 25% of its value since 2002).
China sells us goods, they in turn use the dollars provided via these sales to purchase the unbacked paper currency of the US Government. This allowed the Federal Reserve to keep the interest rates ridiculously low (causing a housing bubble) and kept inflation at bay (for a while). But sooner or later, China is going to want to spend some of that money, especially since it loses value the longer they hold it. This is not your great grandfather’s depression. Never before has one government held so much of another government’s currency… In other words, we are up shit creek without a paddle…
Xia Bin, finance chief at the Development Research Centre (which has cabinet rank), kicked off what now appears to be government policy with a comment last week that Beijing’s foreign reserves should be used as a “bargaining chip” in talks with the US.
“Of course, China doesn’t want any undesirable phenomenon in the global financial order,” he added.
The above quote could have been straight out of any mafia film… loosely translated it means, “Of course not… it would be a shame if something unfortunate were to happen to the hegemony you enjoy via your US greenback.” (knuckles cracking in the backround)
He Fan, an official at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, went even further today, letting it be known that Beijing had the power to set off a dollar collapse if it chooses to do so.
“China has accumulated a large sum of US dollars. Such a big sum, of which a considerable portion is in US treasury bonds, contributes a great deal to maintaining the position of the dollar as a reserve currency. Russia, Switzerland, and several other countries have reduced their dollar holdings.
“China is unlikely to follow suit as long as the yuan’s exchange rate is stable against the dollar. The Chinese central bank will be forced to sell dollars once the yuan appreciated dramatically, which might lead to a mass depreciation of the dollar,” he told China Daily.
The threats play into the presidential electoral campaign of Hillary Clinton, who has called for restrictive legislation to prevent America being “held hostage to economic decisions being made in Beijing, Shanghai, or Tokyo”.
She said foreign control over 44% of the US national debt had left America acutely vulnerable.
Oh really Hillary? Tell me again who was in charge of the Federal Reserve during your husband’s presidency? Alan Greenspan? The supposed “maestro” who has buried us beneath a wall of debt over the last 20 years? Essentially, a day after his inauguration, the Federal Reserve bankers scurried Bill Clinton into a little room for a lesson in Randian economics… they told him if he’d let them keep stealing, they’d let him continue being the President.
Simon Derrick, a currency strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, said the comments were a message to the US Senate as Capitol Hill prepares legislation for the Autumn session.
“The words are alarming and unambiguous. This carries a clear political threat and could have very serious consequences at a time when the credit markets are already afraid of contagion from the subprime troubles,” he said.
A bill drafted by a group of US senators, and backed by the Senate Finance Committee, calls for trade tariffs against Chinese goods as retaliation for alleged currency manipulation.
Well if that isn’t the pot calling the kettle black… So what are they gonna do? Threaten China? With what? Everything we have was bought with money they loaned us… I guess this means no more $5 polo shirts at WalMart made via child labor… and maybe no more WalMart either (certainly not a bad thing)… Do these idiots really think they have the power to delegate over China?
The yuan has appreciated 9% against the dollar over the last two years under a crawling peg but it has failed to halt the rise of China’s trade surplus, which reached $26.9 billion in June.
Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said any such sanctions would undermine American authority and “could trigger a global cycle of protectionist legislation”.
Mr. Paulson is a China expert from his days as head of Goldman Sachs. He has opted for a softer form of diplomacy, but appeared to win few concessions from Beijing on a unscheduled trip to China last week aimed at calming the waters.
The real story is this, Paulson went to China hat in hand and in turn got his ass kicked and left for home a couple of days early after the Chinese essentially told him to go “fuck off…”
Borrowing without repaying has serious consequences. So does running a massive trade deficit. And when you also threaten to devalue the currency of your lender, well, you get what is known as a good old fashioned “beat down.” We in the north end of the western hemisphere have been living the high life for years on borrowed paper, and unfortunately for us, the clock is running out.
It’s like this… We are the dope fiend, and China is the pusher… and he is not taking any more credit… and the pangs of our withdrawal will be ever so painful…
Now don’t you wish you’d paid attention in economics class? On second thought, they wouldn’t have told you the truth anyhow…
Humiliation, Alienation, Exclusion, Isolation, RAGE… Cho Seung-Hui.
He obviously had an axe to grind… he evidently had been bullied and abused… these events along with severe mental illness and easy access to firearms made for a violent and deadly combination.
In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech massacre, pundits have erected various bogeymen to take the blame for the tragedy. How do we as a society stop such things from occurring? Turn on the news and there is an endless stream of primates howling off key… Let’s ban creative writing classes… Let’s ban foreign students… Let’s ban the internet… Let’s ban the separation of church and state…
BUT BY ALL MEANS, LET US NOT BAN EASY ACCESS TO SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT WEAPONS!!! THAT WOULD BE INSANE!!!
Sure, banning guns is an easy and obvious target… after all, how many people would Seung-Hui been able to kill had he been armed with an aluminum bat? Certainly not 32…
But let’s dig a little deeper… Despite all the finger pointing within the media, one root cause of violence has been mysteriously ignored…
American culture itself…
My 14 year-old niece said this about her high school the other day, “You’ll get eaten alive if you can’t stand up for yourself…”
How many of you out there think that is something she should be worrying about? Personally, I think she should be worrying about her biology exam, her book report, her computer lab… but no… she is worrying about wearing the right clothes, having her hair done the acceptable way, listening to the approved music, and hanging out with the fashionable clique…
Some will argue that this social Darwinism is a good thing, the earlier the better because of the nature of things… I’ll argue (quite naively perhaps) why should we not change the nature of things? Why, instead of blaming a myriad of ills, do we not once look at our bullying culture?
High school is hell, and what has college become but a more expensive version of it? Many fraternities and sororities are filled to the brim with the most privileged, the most striking, the most popular… so that they may interbreed and replace themselves with another generation of assholes with entitlement complexes.
It is the perfect microcosm of American culture and society… where we rebuke competence and intelligence and instead reward aggression and popularity… This adolescent blueprint pervades our entire society… look no further than the dog and pony show that is our national elections… we don’t vote for President so much as we vote for Prom King and Queen… we vote for politicians based upon their “likeability” and their connections…
One only needs to spend five minutes viewing “reality” television such as “The Real Housewives of Orange County” or “Sons of Hollywood” to understand the banality of our culture… Viewers laugh and applaud the mean spirited cruelty that is accepted as criticism on “American Idol.”
While these shows may portray extremes, they also portray the American ideal of success… opulent wealth without a hint of humility or class. We worship at the throne of wealth, fame, belligerence, narcissism, and idiocy.
It’s a perfect scam… it trains us to be good little consumers… Madison Avenue tells you everyday that if you don’t wear this or watch this no one will fuck you and you will die poor and alone… even being “alternative” has been accepted as mainstream… take a look at the skater kids hanging around Hot Topic at the mall in their $25 Descendents t-shirts… everyone in uniform…
Either conform and be a popular kid, or spend your adolescence in hell… And God help you if you aren’t attractive or athletic… This quandry led me to ponder how things were in other western countries… countries where such rites of passage were perhaps a bit more mature… where school didn’t revolve around sports and cheerleading… where being popular isn’t as important as being educated… where critical thought is encouraged and blind allegiance ridiculed…
Call me crazy… but incidents such as Monday’s massacre seem to happen more in the United States than in other nations… And I think it is high time someone of note within these borders stood up and asked why… No doubt, bullies exist the world over, but I will argue that there is no place on earth where they are more rewarded for their despicable behavior than here. I have little doubt that there are other desperate youths among us pondering revenge fantasies and taking notes…
The President himself is a shining example of an uncompassionate sociopath. Anyone catch W’s performance at Virginia Tech Tuesday? The following comments were particularly striking: Yesterday began like any other day. Students woke up, and they grabbed their backpacks and they headed for class. And soon the day took a dark turn, with students and faculty barricading themselves in classrooms and dormitories — confused, terrified, and deeply worried. By the end of the morning, it was the worst day of violence on a college campus in American history — and for many of you here today, it was the worst day of your lives.
Talk about rubbing it in… How many of you think it is appropriate to describe, in detail, the horrors experienced by a student body a mere 24 hours after they have occurred…? At a memorial service held in their honor…?
I have an experiment for you to try… The next time you are at a funeral, why not deliver a eulogy describing the details of your loved one’s death… in agonizing detail… be sure to let me know how well that goes over…
Cho Seung-Hui did not go crazy… he did not snap… his killing spree was calculated and methodical… He felt he had been wronged, and somewhere along the line, our society taught him that wanton violence was the answer… Gee, I wonder where he ever got that idea…
I suppose that instead of looking at ourselves, we could all just take the easy way out and blame Marilyn Manson…
From the BBC…
“Hundreds of Paris Hilton albums have been tampered with in the latest stunt by “guerrilla artist” Banksy.
Banksy has replaced Hilton’s CD with his own remixes and given them titles such as Why am I Famous?, What Have I Done? and What Am I For??
I suppose it should come as no real surprise that Paris Hilton’s recent release is doing poorly, though debuting at #29 in the United Kingdom is far better than I’d ever do, so who am I to talk? Then again, Nick Drake did only sell a handful of records during his lifetime and he was utterly brilliant, so.
I was once quite close to someone that thought Paris Hilton an absolute genius, if only for being able to remain so globally popular for being and doing absolutely nothing of import. In response I said that it’s a sad comment on our times when individuals applaud the success of millionaire debutants turned unwitting (or perhaps calculating) porn stars, among other things, and it’s a view that I still hold.
The majority of those that spend their time buying into the vacuous nothingness that Paris Hilton so resounding represents often attempt to justify it by passing it off as a frivolous indulgence, one that is by no means serious. Yet it’s the very same people that often either emulate her or grant individuals like her the attention and support required to allow them continued exposure and success, not to mention the apparatuses that support and promote them. Like it or not, there is simply no way to justify the support of such an empty and idiotic sector of society without, at some point, admitting that without the support of the public, people like Paris Hilton wouldn’t be worth mention.
There are entire magazines, websites, and television programs dedicated to nothing. The question you need to ask yourself is why are they vastly more popular than magazines, websites, and television programs dedicated to something?
There are those that might claim such views uptight. To that I would reply that while we overwhelmingly indulge people like Paris Hilton, and the entire infrastructure that supports people like her, supposedly free and participatory societies are lied to without rebuke, the next Nick Drake is probably being overlooked in favour of television talent show competitors, and the intellect and respectability of our society as a whole is diminished.
Now, if that’s something that you can dismiss by saying that it’s all in fun, I guess we know where you stand. Ultimately, that’s the choice we make in this life. Either we stand up and are counted or we perpetually talk about getting around to it while spending our lives trying to justify our cowardice by pointing to convenient scapegoats.
You don’t have to be rich, famous, or powerful to be a success in life. You just have to be something other than a convenient nothing.
Every thrift store vintage shopper knows where all the Value Villages and Goodwill’s, Salvation Army’s and Independent used goods retailers are in their town. They are dedicated to finding the best of the best in used clothing because they want to wear something authentic, something perhaps that fits in a way that newer clothes are no longer designed in, or perhaps they just simply can’t afford to purchase new goods seasonally, and so they make the most of their style by mixing and matching used with new. And sometimes, some of these shoppers seem to create a whole new style, a look entirely apart form the mainstream. But it doesn’t last long.
In recent years, and it’s happened periodically, it seemed that waves of youth began swarming these used clothing stores, snapping up everything that they could find that looked remotely ‘retro’– as fashioned by the likes of music, movie and television stars they adored.
It seemed that within 6 months of this last wave almost everyone jumped on the ‘vintage is in style’ bandwagon. What was once a small, independent movement towards something different, became a huge movement that created sameness– and this type of process is happening more rapidly with every passing fashion cycle.
The pattern is one of trend subjugation. Trends are started by individuals and co-opted by others, spread virulently outward through social circles and hubs for local interaction. Well, at least that’s how it used to be.
These days, individuality is more of a manufactured commodity, which can be purchased en masse in a big box store in your local mall. And trends themselves, once taking years to reach full momentum in a social context, can come and go in less than a corporate quarterly, which is perfectly fine for big business– in fact, it’s the preferred outcome.
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What do McDonalds, Wal-Mart, ABC, Chevron, Arco, ‘76; Shell, Exxon Mobil and Texaco have in common?
Well for starters, some are advertisers on American tanks in Iraq. And why are they advertisers on American tanks in Iraq? Let’s find out.
Some of you may have seen the film ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ by Michael Moore. In it, Moore discusses how American companies gathered to discuss future business plans with the ‘restructuring’ of Iraq. At that meeting George Bush referred to the crowd as the ‘haves’ and the ‘have mores’. He also addresses the ‘elite’ as his ‘base’.
The same kind of meeting transpired in London 2003, where over 100 private companies were gathered to discuss investment opportunities in post-Saddam Iraq.
Ewan MacAskill of the Guardian wrote of the event that:
…companies, mainly oil and banking, are being invited by the US and British governments to move in as soon as security is restored. The fast-food chain McDonald’s, which has a branch in most parts of the world, was predicted by the conference organizers to open in Baghdad next year.
Brian Wilson, Tony Blair’s special representative on trade and reconstruction in Iraq, told the conference: “A major drawback for companies wishing to visit Iraq is, of course, the continuing problems with the security situation.”
Among the Americans attending were the energy giant, Exxon Mobil, Delta Airlines and the American Hospital Group.
The conference - Doing Business in Iraq: Kick starting the Private Sector - was organized by the US-Iraq Business Alliance, set up in June last year. Its supporters say the conference has attracted the support of 145 multinationals. The alliance has close contacts with the Pentagon. (Excerpted)
Well, we now know that at least part of the reason why these multinationals have logos plastered all over American vehicles and fatigues is because they are closely tied to the event of entering Iraq in the first place. In fact, The Pentagon has issued that it’s as important for these investors to participate as it is for the Army to ‘do its job’ in order for Iraq to be a ’success’.
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