Here is the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element in its rationality. It is the token of its achievements. The industrial society which makes technology and science its own is organized for the ever-more-effective domination of man and nature, for the ever-more-effective utilization of its resources. It becomes irrational when the success of these efforts opens new dimensions of human realization. Organization for peace is different from organization for war; the institutions which served the struggle for existence cannot serve the pacification of existence. Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means.

-Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man

I should be.  I need to keep my job.  Without a job I will loose my home and I’ll starve.  I’ll become a wretched degenerate, sneered at by business men, harassed by teenagers, and pitied by the compassionate.  Living in a subway station I’ll beg for money and I’ll get some. I’ll turn the money into food and spirits to ease my pain. And despite the fact that 6 million other Americans are also unemployed I’ll still hear that callous timeless heckle: “Get a job!”

But I’m free.

Free to choose servitude or slum, McDonald’s or Wendy’s, paper or plastic, Amex or Visa, Jet Blue or Delta, Democrat or Republican, Yankees or Red Sox, hybrid or regular, low sodium or vitamin fortified, United Health or Oxford.  Yes, it’s glorious to be a free human living in a world of choice.  Simply glorious.

it is what it is

a weekend in reality

before returning to the madhouse

I wish we lived in a world that produced abundant free food by itself.

I wish we lived in a world where you can litter because everything biodegrades.

I wished we lived in a world of infinite beauty and mystery, and peace.

A world that cleans its own pollution, and where my body heals itself.

A world without factories or weapons of  war.

A world without chains.

Oh wait, we do.

“Whoever can see through all fear
will always be safe.”

You know, religious folk like to talk about faith a lot.  They have faith in God, yadda yadda bs.  Here’s the thing; I don’t think these people have any faith at all.  I think that faith is a tool to use against fear.  So, when something scary is happening you can have faith that you’ll get through it.  But these same faithers also want to control everything.  They want to go to war because they have no faith in other forms of coercion.  They want to legislate morality because they have no faith in people to be good.  When faced with a fear, they always choose the most direct coercive action, they never let things play out.  Sometimes, if you overreact to something you make things worse.  Sometimes your overreaction blinds you to the fact that what you’re afraid of really isn’t as threatening as it first seemed.  So you start walking these paths of fear, and once you do that you have lost control of your own life because anyone can get you to do anything just by eliciting frightening consequences for not listening.  Eg. “We have to invade Iraq or we’re all gonna die”  or “We have to let the govt buy up shitloads of bad debt, or we’re all gonna die.”  And when they put it like that, we always listen. We need to stop being so easy to manipulate.  We need to have faith that we don’t always need to control everything.  Because we can’t control everything.  And taking the scarier rout is what we call a leap of faith.

On a day where we take one step closer to the world of 1984 with the re-branding of TSA headquarters as “the Freedom Center,” no, really, I feel the need to remind the world (or the 20 people who might read this) that the essential freedom America is about, the one we fought that big ‘ol war over, is freedom from tyranny.  I’m sure most of you know what that word means, but, just for the record, tyranny means “A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.”  Hmmmm, so it’s not freedom from being blown up by terrorists?  No, not really.  That’s pretty hard to guarantee.  But a government in which a single ruler has absolute power…sound like any government you know?  I mean, sure, George Bush can declare anyone a terrorist for no particular reason and lock them up indefinitely without due cause, but that’s not absolute power right?  Sure he ignores the laws he doesn’t like, and makes up new ones without consulting congress, but that’s not absolute power.  I mean, he still derives his “just powers from the consent of the governed” right?  It’s not like he stole the last two elections.  Nah, tyranny is not even close to being a problem in these United States.  I mean, how could it be with fine institutions like the Freedom Center and the department of Homeland Security guaranteeing our freedom?  Nope, no one in history has ever used the guise of national securty to unjustly seize power, so one must be crazy to think that’s happening now.  I say we all just sit back and relax, I mean, we have a really humble and qualified civil servant running the show.  George Bush loves us, just like God loves George Bush.  And I’m just loving these motherfuckin’ freedom fries!

There’s a term from 1984, doublethink, which essentially means “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”  In the context of 1984 it represents a means of fascist mind control: as in if the government tells you one thing on Monday, and then something completely different on Tuesday, you’d damn well better believe what they said to be true on Tuesday despite the obvious contradiction in your head.  It is a bad thing in this context, however, since we live in a universe of paradoxes, I believe it’s actually an important ability to have.  Often in this universe, two seemingly mutually exclusive ideas are both true.  One example I was thinking of a few minutes ago is humanity.  I feel that we are simultaneously worthless debauched immoral dregs, and at the same time godly and beautiful.  How can this be?  How can we be both slimy scum and perfect god-like beings?

I’ll let you wrestle with the larger question of how two seemingly contradictory ideas can be true since I can’t really answer that anyway.  I’ll just tell you why I think each of those ideas is true.  First the pond scum.  Well, it’s actually quite literal in a way.  Life on this planet started, as far as I know, in some sort of primordial soup.  Billions of years ago, some slime in a tidal pool started to make copies of itself, yadda yadda yadda, and here we are: hence pond scum.  Furthermore, I do believe we were some form of rodentia and some point.  These are all things that we don’t treat with much respect to say the least, yet they are us.  We also do god-awful things all the time.  War, rape, murder, and taking advantage of people are all prevalent in the world.  Humans have no limit of  cruelty, sadism and selfishness: hence, immoral and debauched.

But we are also godly.  We have the ability to create.  We can tap into our vast, probably infinite, imaginations for ideas that we can then turn into reality; out of nothing, there is something.  We have compassion, understanding, and empathy.  We do selfless things: soldiers throw themselves on grenades to save their friends, people give their lives to their children and to other people all the time.  We create art and appreciate beauty.  As far as we know we’re the only life in the universe and we are able to have understanding, to recognize patterns.  We may be the sole manifestation of the universe trying to understand itself, and thus we represent a dawning magnificent awareness.  We have unlimited potential for good as well.  And we are, also quite literally, stardust.  Our atoms were forged billions of years ago in celestial fusion reactors: hence godly and beautiful.

I hope I’ve successfully demonstrated that both of these ideas are in fact viable, and that they both could be true.  But how can this be?  How can we be both divine and profane?  Perhaps humanity is a contronym, a word which is it’s own antonym, like awful.  Humanity is awful: 1) Extremely bad or unpleasant; terrible  2) Filled with awe, especially filled with or displaying great reverence.  If the word awful can be two things at once, why can’t we?

It’s always dangerous to create a class of citizens with no rights. Especially when the definition of said class is an ideological one. Then anyone can be labeled as one of those people, and thus be stripped of their rights.

What will you be labeled as a terrorist for? Criticizing the government, protesting the war, or just acting ‘unusual’? We already have a “terrorist watch list” with over 700,000 names on it. Can all those people really be terrorists?

See, the amazing thing about our criminal justice system is that it’s designed to determine whether people are guilty or innocent of crimes using evidence. Why can’t we use that system for suspected terrorists? The government acts as if human rights are an impediment to keeping us safe and achieving justice. But I ask, how can we be safe, and how can we have justice without basic human rights? Bypassing those rights is a means that’s entirely antithetical to its supposed ends. And it’s dangerous. Basic rights protect you when you’ve fallen. They only come into play when being accused of something by the government, but now they disappear when the government accuses you! It’s madness, they might as well not exist.

There are cracks forming on the ground beneath our feet, let’s hope we don’t fall through them into the land where “innocent until proven guilty” becomes “guilty because we say so.”

Update:

Thanks Reddit for providing an example of this type of injustice:

‘Unusual’ Ferry Passengers Identified These two European business men were under suspicious for “unusual” behavior on a ferry. What constitutes unusual behavior? The FBI doesn’t say. Better be careful you’re not acting “unusual” in America. We don’t like “unusual” people around these parts.

Update2:

Terrorism Charges Leveled against RNC Protesters

Is this the military’s best recruitment effort? Here’s why it sucks: first of all it’s really annoying, as any ad that takes over the whole screen is. Secondly, what the hell does the air force have to do with preventing a cyberattack (that’s apparently a new word) exactly? Are we going to bomb the hackers? And thirdly it’s a bit fear-mongery. It doesn’t seem like an effective recruiting tool, but maybe it’ll freak people out a little. It also makes me think, has there ever been a cyberattack related blackout in America? Not to my recollection, so it’s kind of über-paranoid also.

“Join the air force where we fight hackers!” Sigh, I really don’t want the person who joins the air force because of this ad flying a 250 million dollar bomber. It’s like a filter that only let’s morons through.

The three domains of the air force:

Air. Sure.

Space….ok I guess.

Cyberspace. Well, you can’t spell cyberspace without space, which I’m not so sure you protect anyway.