Opinions on the opinionated

Ok this one is just going to be an attempt to thrash out an idea that screams through my head each time I take a break at work and crack open that daily journal. Political analysts, political journalists, people that get to write on a daily or weekly basis on all things political. We’ve got our liberal lovers of the left side penning out their daily bread-winning articles. Spectrums away we see the Conservative Counts of Rightsylvania ruling their ink with an iron fist. I couldn’t even try to come up with some crazy alliterated names for all those occupy the middle ground. But I bet you all get the picture. But I bet some of you are like me in asking, “Why do we need all that?”. No way that I am alluding to an absence of need for all those boys inking out our politic’s stat line day in and day out. I am also not saying that I don’t enjoy what all those opinions do for my 10 min breaks and 30 min lunches. But what do those opinions do for me? I know I would get in a huge fight with dad if I had to listen to Rush Limbaugh with him in the car, because some old native san Francisco fart (oh yes he’s liberal) tells me all the anti-American phrases of Rushy in his weekly article. I didn’t like ol’rush and I don’t like ol’keitel either. Why because I don’t think opinions of others need to be accepted by me, they think and write like its necessary. The only people that are going to enjoy Rushy’s gum beating and Keitel’s carpal tunnel angst are people that have accepted their platforms. This just rubs against one of my most deep cut grains, what is the point of constantly talking, writing, singing, drawing, blogging, filming or any –ing about how stupid someone else is? Instead of huge first world donors saying to Africa, “look we have had our fill of giving you billions and you’re still starving, we are tired of it”, we need to pull the same stuff on those who expect us to bleat like sheep and accept their views as ours. (if you feel so inclined). Let me explain how I think political cartoonists are the truest of all political analysts of all time. Look at a cartoon next time and you will notice that more than half the time it depicts something yes but not personal agendas and opinions but a well known political situation and then lets you make up what you want from it. I might be getting hypocritical here but let me make sense of all my jabber. News should present facts and opinions aren’t evil. But I don’t want to be a opinion regurgitating, absent of all original thought, ink tainted finger tipped boy that will never have anything to say but “this person is stupid” because someone I worship wrote, sang, blogged about it unceasingly. Do I feel original because I got a beef against those who make a living off having beefs, yes I do.

Hot plasma = vlogs

Have you ever watched a video blog or a “vlog” that does not use excessive cut and paste editing. I mean we could look at the other extreme and watch the Daily Show interviews. Which I am almost sure are taped by a camcorder sitting on a table off in the corner, still love ya john. But as good and cutting edge as some vlogs are I can’t help but thinking that these guys could not be as well spoken (scripted), direct (edited), and clear (having bold “linkable” titles for all their opinions) as they seem. This is one of my two points I would like to make on the “vlog”. Couldn’t anyone be as well spoken and wise in the world’s ways if they had a whole day to film whatever they really felt on a subject, you know really dig it all out of yourself? Then take another day and make the most powerful one two combination oration that even Ali couldn’t bob and weave out of with imac’s final cut pro editing tools. Couldn’t anyone do that? Anyone can if I can write this. All that I am saying is before we roll out the forum red carpet and worship in their holy comment boxes we should consider that with unlimited editing and outtakes our opinions just might dazzle others also. Which brings me to another point I’d like to make on the vloging subject. Why is everyone they talk about stupid and they are geniuses? Sure I am making a very very broad statement. But we all know there isn’t a shortage in stupid things done be people and because of that there is also no shortage of people ready to pounce. Pounce in a well edited burst of razor the sharp contrasts of “you are dumb as the nails that I will pound into your coffin, cause I am a vlogging genius”. Frankly I grow tired of this, apart from being informed of stupid yet funny things that people do there isn’t anything there besides a pretentious college grad who juxtapositions as he rants. I will do dumb stuff, you will do dumb stuff and most importantly the person who will vehemently terrorize the normal man for his less than stellar moments will do dumb stuff. So he has no moral high ground from which to throw his negativity. But also why shouldn’t such a genius be able to create anything more original? I dare not give suggestions they might be catalogued as stupidity or even worse, used…… To sum all this up, vloggers make some paradigm shifting stuff but don’t forget how awesome you would sound if you could edit and thread all your awesome comments into one continuous flow of burning hot wisdom. This plasma like stream of vlogging will have real original content if you avoid all temptations to skewer your fellow men. You have opinions and you will have many more stupid mistakes, make sure your opinions (house) are not (of) built upon others (cards) stupid mistakes.

I faught a french philosopher and we didnt win.

All is fair in love and war, right? So the saying goes at least and our reality shows us the veracity of this statement very frequently in our daily lives. These two forces are so powerful and interact with each other in the same ways they interact with each of us. But they do have their differences which are seen and felt as we dismantle them both. The words “just and unjust” can be applied to the phenomenon of war but not to Love. Love cannot even if one were to call it morally right or wrong be described as just or unjust. For the ways that one gains or experiences love cannot be judged as unjust or just, it is simply human to desire something to the greatest extent. War on the other hand cannot be created off the same natural pre-programmed assembly line. War is not a desire but an action that follows at least but not limited to one desire from one thing to another. How to classify war is a whole other ball game. Rousseau theorized that Just or Unjust wars will occur by following the real or apparent interests of a people. Therefore the real and apparent interests must be classified as just or unjust, before any attempt at classifying the entire act of war can be made. Rousseau saw war as a completely unjust affair created by nations following only their apparent interests to the battle field. However, due to war being a beast powered by many, it cannot ever be dismantled then catalogued as a whole. History will never get the whole picture, the present contenders will never know the real interests of everyone involved, and the future will always hide necessary details. Making war all that more dangerous.
How does such a power to wage war and bring death for a desired and expected end, come into the “hands” of an intangible entity produced by the written social pacts? Rousseau believes that this power stems from nations acting on their own self or apparent interests. Whereas the real interests of the sovereign are not acted upon or even considered. Under this conclusion it would be easy to say that all war is an evil action bent on carrying out a dangerous and unneeded desire. Simply put all war is Unjust, every war and every act preformed in it will be viewed by anyone at any time and classified as evil, wrong and unjust. But where do these two separate interests come from and how are they according to Rousseau designed to define the status of war to the ages and masses? These two “interests” were spawned as many other Rousseau theories were by the first mistake man made in the beginning. By the beginning he meant our allegedly terrible first mistake to leave the basic state of nature. This state of nature as Rousseau describes it finds man in total freedom and innocence, needing nothing that cannot be provided by the simple charity of nature. Rousseau even dared to rub against every accepted religious grain at the time by even saying that man himself was not corrupt from the start. Stating in the face of every religious creed offered that man is not stained by the “original sin” performed by Adam in the Garden of Eden. Simply, “Rousseau was the first to blame evil not on our conflicted nature or on God but on human inventions, above all society” (Who lost Who? Pg. 480) Rousseau believed that man or more so that the society and its minions will corrupt the once innocent and free man. He saw man corrupt himself through his created society. One facet of society that corrupts man explained Rousseau was interdependence, or cooperation to an unhealthy level. Men began to cooperate because of the obvious advantages in efficiency they experienced. Increased efficiency means accumulation of wealth and this gave rise to the lauded evils of Private Property. “From how many crimes, wars and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: “beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all of us, and the earth itself to nobody!””(Re-reading Rousseau, Pg. 249). Rousseau believed the creation of private property fused every feature of human nature with possessive and corrupting qualities. Robbing men of their ability to choose good or evil, who portray themselves as real and apparent interest. Clearly stating that our real interests represent the good and anything else is an impostor or apparent interest and evil. Not too be bogged down in this demobilizing swamp of a theory, Rousseau explains that in creating a way to protect Private Property and prevent the tiny quarrels created by it, men created an even more terrible monster than property squabbles. Nations were born and bred to protect the rights of the citizens located within their own lines. But what happens between these titans that are created to protect and act on the interests of once innocent men now corrupted by envy and the endless desire of more then what is their own? Because now we have on a scale much larger abroad the exact situation that men tried to avoid at home. Nations powered by millions obeying only one rule, “the Right of the Strongest”. This is where the terrible power of the apparent interest is seen; when a people pursue an interest that is not really necessary to the bitter and bloody end. With no clear rules even in the case of many treaties and complicated checks and balances meant to create authority, war is inevitable. Because to the Nation anything that furthers its self interests is “just” in its own eyes. To boil Rousseau’s theories down to their bones, man lost his innocence by creating a society geared toward the protection of man’s private property. This society corrupts man by enhancing the inequality between those who have all and still want, and those who have nothing and still are in need. This same society is also a monstrous brute called a nation, who will butt the heads and bloody the noses of all other nations that get in the way of its misguided and evil self-interest. To Rousseau its simple black and white and nothing gets blacker then the eternally unjust war. Who could argue with such a solid theory? Anyone could look at any historical war and see how Rousseau’s theoretic bones only get more muscles added on with each act of war. In today’s wars and rumors of wars we see those evil and vain apparent interests carried out by the men who have all but still want more. But the answer to, “who could argue with such a solid theory” it is anybody. How could any one person even a great French philosopher determine what is an evil interest and what is a real, necessary interest to be carried out? War springs from so many souls in so many different predicaments that it would make it impossible for any person with foresight, hindsight or even eyesight to make the classification. Yes it is dangerous to say that there will never be anyway in the future, past or present to classify completely if war is the “right” thing to do. But is it not just as dangerous to believe any group or one person’s opinion on just or unjust war? A few examples may clarify what was not seen by Rousseau’s tunnel vision. Of course war’s generated interests may be that of a vain and envious war mongering aristocrat. But does the ethnic slave not see an act of war against his enslavers as a necessary interest for himself? Yes the world is corrupt by gainsaying, greedy societies, and war will always be an ugly matter to be avoided like as it should be said, war. But do not forget altruism, or the basic human nature that was never lost, a desire to help fellow man. The incredible theories of many of our philosophers often seem to lack redeeming values while they wallow in the world’s evil and corruption. It would seem just as horrible as war itself to declare that all men who gave their lives in a war did so unnecessarily. War is such a terrible thing that it feels wrong to say that good can come from it, and that there can be situations where death of others is the real interest of another people. But there is no mistaking that the argument over the destruction of one man to free another in the name of charitable love towards mankind exists. It is also legitimate as well as Rousseau’s theory that all war is an unjust affaire that accomplishes nothing of real worth to anyone. So war cannot be classified neatly into either of the two categories, war will always be ugly and should always be avoided at the highest costs. But the inability of man to see clearly only his real interests or simply know between good and evil will cause all that is evil and complicated. Even to the great complication itself, war. War therefore is a mess morally and physically, but it will get things done. Up till now sadly no one has ever known and possibly will know if these are the just or unjust things to get done.





References.
Title: Who Lost Nature? Rousseau and RousseauismAuthor(s): Jonathan MarksSource: Polity, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Summer, 2002), pp. 479-502Publisher(s): Palgrave Macmillan Journals
Title: Re-Reading Rousseau in the Post-Cold War WorldAuthor(s): Torbjorn L. KnutsenSource: Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Aug., 1994), pp. 247-262Publisher(s): Sage Publications, Ltd.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1964. The First and Second Discourses. Boston / New York. Bedford St.Martin’s
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1968. The Social Contract. London, England. Penguin Books.

Shiny Penny songs

I could really think of a million blogs I am supposed to write due to all the kind of crazy things that have happened lately but that would be predictable, something I try to avoid like well… predictability. How do we feel about cussing in music? That’s a legitimate topic question I suppose. I am now listening to a band that is cleverly named. They are called A Wilhelm Scream. All you kids who have noticed that Lucas and Spielberg use the same sound guy who plugs the famed Wilhelm scream in each movie, must accept the bands cleverness. Hailing from Massachusetts these guys perform some pretty catchy, technical music. Why cover it up, they don’t; they are a punk band. But these guys say F*%k at least 7 times in one song let alone the whole album. Yeah that is kind of low standards as far as personal expression goes for me. But I am not put off by it even marginally. A four letter word can be a tempting brain puls………… ok simply I used to cut down forests with my jagged vocabulary. Now I am trying to find more original ways of letting anyone in voice range know how I feel at those specific moments. Back to music though. Cussing in a song is a great moral choice, not because you might offend someone but because you might make you song suck. It’s really that easy with our four letter vocabulary. No matter what kind of vocal attack our Mc’s and throats will take while testing our censors, it will shine like a penny just out of the washer. You will notice any cuss word, in any genre with any sonic offering our artists are pumping through the speakers. Those symbols (ie. %&#) might just make or break the groove you are going for. Lets face it unless you are 11 and this is the first time you listened to your older brother’s cd’s you shouldn’t think “oh he said $h*t, so cool I love limp biscuit!!!”. I mean a good ol’ bleep can give a good forte feel to a line. It can’t hurt, if it is done right. But let’s face it when you drop more F-bombs than what Dresden got in real bombs because you are a little punk band with an “attitude”, I won’t be pumping my fist. So what if you are in some fake extension of the kindergarten club you had on your Brooklyn side stoop (starts with a “G” ends in “unit”), if you are mad at someone 50 motherf%@ker will not get me on your side. So with that said, write a song that’s honest I probably won’t really care what you say because you aren’t an 80’s love Lorne god, (ie. every breath you take). If you think your shiny penny vocabulary will make me buy or download your stuff take the risk its art, but know that you are risking it with musical critics with no credentials like me. Besides I can’t sing along with only every other word.