over the past month and a half, i have reached points of exhaustion i have never before felt in my life, to the point where i had to actively make some changes in how i live my life to prevent from a complete physical and mental breakdown. it was due to nothing more than overwork, from college, art, attempting to make new personal relationships, etcetera. thankfully it has been remedied by taking things down a couple gears and focusing on taking care of myself better, physically and mentally. which strangely enough, came very naturally. i guess that means i’m growing up……more.
i feel much better lately.
several personal , artistic, and educational goals have been met and discovered in this time and i have been surprised at how much life has to offer, even when i think i have my direction figured out, and can expect the results, limitations, victories and failures. i really dont have a clue but its fun. i lean back on the old Ella Fitzgerald croon of “I dont know where i’m going, but i’m going”… but i really do.
i would like to talk about Conspiracy culture and how alive, well, and influential it is particularly in American culture today. the thing is, it seems a true excersise in futility, that there is some unseen force, deity, government or something or other standing against you and your dreams.
take it from me, if you live in the United States especially, you ARE SO FREE. you are even free enough to believe you are being oppressed in any way shape or form. you are free to believe in whatever crock of shit philosophy you care to adapt that fits your plight in life, whether its based in fact or not.
i think that fact gets lost.
I hear alot of conspiracy theorists today in the United States talking about the fact their personal freedoms are being taken away. which, i look at that as nothing but empty childish excuses. read some of my work below which is well researched, and you will find that there are countless reasons behind economic, religious, and sociological oppression.
its not just “the man”.
its not some unseen force.
there are no conspiracies, and in the event of conspiracy theories there is only true carnival barking to perpetuate them.
i am really inspired by the people of Iran, who are normal people (college students mostly from what i hear from friends), not an army, standing up against an oppressive religious regime. there is no talk of conspiracies from these people, only action against true repression. a similar thing happened (non-violently thankfully) in the United States with the election of President Barack Obama, some even say his election has inspired the people of Iran to stand up against their regime. I have said this times before in other writings but i’ll put it here too, i completely support people who stand up against regimes, not a military who installs or enforces it.
In the United States there are several socialist type conspiracies floating conveniently around in the media, on blogs , and via other social networking sites spearheaded in my opinion by Alex Jones’ the Obama Deception.
I am not at all bothered that a conservative american has taken such a strong opinion against Obama. Of course the man is not above criticism and part of being the president, or in politics, is to take your critics opinions into consideration, which i believe he does (see his stance on health care reform). That is in sharp contrast to the opinion of former president George W Bush who gave the middle finger to his opposition intending to spend “political capital”. we all suffered through eight years of this.
Alot of political conspiracies in the United States forget history, basic political history at that. i see that as a trait of the fanatical political right in this country, forget facts, focus on buzz topics and carnival bark your point.
Alex Jones may have some point to make in the Obama Deception, whatever esoteric, and i can respect that process. But the fact that it focuses on “Obama and Wall Street orchestrating” an economic collapse implies no basic knowledge on how the system works. So with this films logic, the president should have no oversight on the economic system of this country….(more on that in a second)
Also, being that Alex Jones ran as a Republican State representative in the early 2000s in Texas, (what is the deal with politics in Texas?) means he probably has the same economic philosophy as Ronald Reagan, which got us here into this economical mess in the first place. Jones’ group Info Wars is a classic example of fanatical bilge. (read the Information warfare Wiki its hilarious, if deeply insulting to the scientific or political community)
in the spirit of duality, i spent five minutes with the Obama Deception before my stomach turned….it reminded me of news shows i used to see when i was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s like Hard Copy.
(remember that one?)
it had a tabloid journalistic feel, and based on its opening i am assuming there is a portion dedicated to celebrating Ron Paul
(Reagan man, Mr. Deregulate the world)
by the way Mr Jones, excellent journalistic choice in depicting some African American militant group chanting “yes we can” to open your film. Because i can tell you as a white man, living in Oakland, they are everywhere and i feel constantly endangered. (sarcasm) It was also a great move to highlight your journalistic integrity with a rant by KRS-ONE about Burger King which i am still trying to untangle its meaning.
GREAT representation of African Americans. good one Alex…but you are in america and free to do so….
I would love to hear a conversation between Alex Jones and say, a homeowner that was able to save their home from foreclosure as a result of President Obama’s economic stimulus legislation.
People talk about their liberties being taken away, and blame “the system”. This is funny to me because the system had its power taken away in the 1980’s, by Ronald Reagan, including laws that guaranteed FAIR , FACT BASED, and equal media coverage of ALL political parties, (see Fairness Doctrine) even your Republican Party Alex Jones.
Parts of government oversight have been reinstalled over time, most famously by George W Bush and the “Patriot Act” but part and parcel, the United States, socially and economically have been a wild, unbridled horse for nearly thirty years. Take a moment to read about Reagan’s government deregulation and compare that to FDR’s New Deal and Obama’s current economic legislation to see what i mean. the results on this country have been undeniable and history will never forget this, no matter what spin any fanatic puts on it.
As proof of vast government deregulation, the country has no competitive “free markets” (which is a conservative ideal but really means monopoly) for health care, entertainment, and basic community economics in general. the examples of that are health care that 50+ million americans have no shot at, two entertainment conglomerates that bilge fanatical right wing “news coverage” and give us the same movies, TV shows and music over and over again, while forcing a liberal news show like the Daily Show to feature on the COMEDY CHANNEL. (this is conservative ownerships biggest fuck you to liberal americans, finishing slightly ahead of Bill O’Reily’s brilliant “NAZI liberal” musing).
Also, the average person currently has no chance in owning a local business and competing economically in its neighborhood.
some people equate the remedy to “small government”, but we as americans have lived that ideal for 30 years, and again the results are pretty obvious. One is even free enough to orchestrate a piece of garbage like the Obama Deception, and have it be taken seriously….
i think what conspiracy theorists attempt to acheive is the supremely unscientific notion of “no truth”. that information is constantly being manipulated before it reaches you, that you can trust no one.
the answer to that is deregulate everything, make government as small as possible (because they are “regulating” you with laws like dont run red lights, and dont kill people, and oh by the way assigning value to the money you spent in paying your internet service provider to read this) so that you are free to live life on your own free will, steal, own, whatever you want, to exist on an island of “reality” connected ideals.
i think Alex Jones wants the wild west back, maybe thats the Texas connection.
Also, all this NONSENSE about the New World Order, is very funny on a few points. One, most famously it was coined by George HW Bush (Conservative Republican next president after Reagan) in reference to the end of the Cold War, and how global super powers would emerge.
Its laughable that anyone could be against some kind of global economics or protection, when some parts of the world STILL, in the 21st century, dont have running water, access to education, medicine or technology, or live under military regimes.
in fact most of the world still lives in poverty.
Go ahead, call me a bleeding heart.
this brings me to the idea of no truth, its really quite religious isnt it?
if you are a person of science, (true science not a bible scholar, you are just another literary major, sorry) then we base our lives on discovering and verifying truths. if you believe so much in your conspiracies, in whatever context, GO OUT AND PROVE THEM. you might discover some interesting things about yourself and your beliefs….
i think its really dangerous to have people create your beliefs for you..
to change gears lets talk a bit about art…
if you have been following me via MySpace, thank you so much for sticking with me over the past couple months. my flight orchestra page gets inundated with spam daily to the point where i have had to take extreme measures to avoid the process worsening. i am really sorry if you have been spammed because of me. Friend Blaster software has become a huge spam problem on MySpace and is squashing out the little guy in my opinion, and it makes me wonder how many of my 3000+ friends are actual people.
Just so everyone knows, Friend Blaster software works by worming through friend accounts on MySpace, its basically a virus with no malicious code attached. Actually, sometimes there is malicious code (i found one that tried to download a fake anti-virus program), which i personally tracked the user down and reported them a few months ago, to have the behavior stopped. its annoying.
the thing that really sucks about this is Friend Blaster software is used by viral “marketing” campaigns, so as i understand it, some people actually make money by ruining MySpace in this way. i take a very pro-defensive stance for MySpace because any indie musician has MySpace to thank for any kind of fan support.
Also, i have dealt with the deeply philosophical and religious element via my MySpace page, which i dont mind really. But it just makes me wonder what about my art appeals to them. maybe its because i make sense… hahahah
I wonder if impressionists like Debussy, Monet, or Cezanne had to deal with this too. it makes me chuckle. if you find yourself a person of deep faith, i respect you. you can think and live by whatever you want, i just hope that it hurts no one, and its beliefs carry that same attribute in any contingency.
the next few months will bring some activity from me as Flight Orchestra. The last version of How I Realized Myself will be a live performance version entitled NEO BEBOP CHANCE MUSIC CONSTRUCTION. i take the name from the music styles Be Bop , Chance Music, and Constructivism.
i am going to redo the I AM NOT A CELL PHONE ACCESSORY page too to make downloading individual songs easier.
Also i will be putting a selection of handpicked music from all four records and other goodies, up for download perhaps twice a month, or as i see fit, for you, which i will call THE SELECTION.
so lots coming from me.
making a live record means that i will be playing select shows (no pun intended) so be on the look out for that.
thanks for reading
LOVE!
-dav
2 Comments
you should read “Shock Doctrine”by Naomi Klein
thanks, great tip! will do. – david