Nineteen Eighty Four

About two weeks ago, I finished reading George Orwell's 1984, and it is required reading. For all humans. Anyone into politics, this is a must. Freedom loving people or anyone concerned about protecting their societies, 1984 is the book for the analytical thinker.

This book is serious and thought provoking. If you never make any connections to present day society...well, how can you not? In the book three superpowers constantly fight each other, because that is how their government works. Every citizen is absolutely loyal, or else they "disappear" during the night. This is still happening in many countries, on different levels, of course. Symbolism is non-stop and even more common is the book's direct approach on what it means. If anyone ever used the Cliff Notes for this book in some report when they were in school, it's worth a re-read (or rather, a first read).

It's a classic, and what's more, I've really got to stop rambling about it. But I continue on from reading 1984, to Noam Chomsky. Just a couple of hours ago, now, I picked up "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest For Global Dominance". Sounds a tad liberal. Sounds like very good reading. So far, from what I've read (page 3), Chomsky lives up to his reputation of being an insightful intellectual. After all, the man is a professor in linguistics.

Revenge of the Wal-Martians

Of the many things I dislike about the human race, one of them is certainly their ability to forget, or to really never take note of human tragedies. But the thing is people do not always see them as human tragedies, it's just someone else's problem.

Yeah, everything I bought at Wal-Mart today was made by adults and children in China that get paid eight cents an hour. Good thing for me they do it that way, because now everything is within my budget.

This has got to stop. If this is some sort of perfect capitalism, with it's sweatshops and rich executives, I want the world to be different. Who can stop this? I can only hope there is some president in the future who demands it's end. Maybe the U.N, if they get their stuff together and something or somebody can get people motivated.

There are special interest groups, but really, this is not enough. I'm not in favor of this, "It's not fair to take money from wealthy people, they earned it." Now I do not advocate total communism here, but all over the world the rich should have a moral obligation to give to the disadvantaged. This is why I am in support of the U.N's plan to eradicate severe poverty.

This guy says it perfectly. A good article, read it. Distribute.

I've still yet to find an answer to find out how this could've happened. The United States is supposed to be free, and the mantra stands, if one of us is not free, then none of us are. How could people of all nations and different places come together and give in to a combined corporate culture? Forty percent (facts taken from article) of all Wal-Martians can afford health care, which they only receive after two years of unemployment. As a strong health care advocate, I believe it should be a required immediately for any line of work, except for, of course, the doctors that are so skilled they can operate on themselves. How cool is that. But for the rest of us...

Unions, what I see as one of the most American of all employment opportunities, are prohibited from Wal-Mart. They are threats to the absolute power of the Empire. The damn Sith-like Empire. I'm not sure exactly how to go about this, but think tanks need to be focused, email chains started, fliers distributed, and information of all sorts passed on with the complete effort and concentration on the liberation and liberalization of Wal-Mart.

There have been victories over the corporate culture, but certainly not enough. Unions exist in order to give a collective voice of the workers. If it is not reasonable for them to be applied to all employments, then it must be obvious that with the size of Wal-Mart and the numbers of people employed, that they'd have some freedom and free speech. Not disruption, not rioting, but only would I (and hopefully all people) should try to demand rights in the places that need it through due process. Obviously, companies of the "successful" capitalist sort wouldn't like this, but it is not American to allow massive amounts of people have their rights trampled and violated!


See that exclamation mark? Yeah, I thought I'd put that in there for effect, and it looks pretty good. Flaming rhetoric is fun for everyone.

And in case you were wondering, on Thursday I was lucky enough to see Star Wars. It was spectacular to see the dark side take over and Anakin transform to become Darth Vader. The amount of symbolism in the complex plot of the series (I-VI) comes together and all the ends are tied. I won't give away too much, because it's way you might want to see it, too. See, I thought I'd be nice like that. Revenge of the Sith is fun for everyone...except maybe small children.

I love the guy, but hate everything he stands for.

The bully, er, Reverend Ken Hutcherson has had his victory, but maybe a loss, as well.

Hutcherson being the nice fellow who threatened a national boycott of Microsoft if they continued their support of a Washington state anti-discrimination bill for gays. Anti-discrimination, why would any right-thinking human being be against that? And here's the kicker: Ken Hutcherson is black. He grew up in the south, destitute and black. How do you think his life was? Yeah.

And I read the article this morning, and they brought this up, but he pretty much said, "Shut up, alright? That's entirely different. Entirely. " This bill had nothing to do with legalizing gay marriage, or anything of the sort. But what they obviously are trying to do is to destroy it at the stem of their individual freedoms. If you cut their throats, they cannot speak up.

What this bill was doing was adding to the list of illegal discrimination against people of color, disabled, and all the other groups you'd expect to receive equal rights. But he scared (though Microsoft denies it) the software giant into taking their name off the list of supporters for the legislation.

The bill was rejected by one vote in the state senate.

And what's pretty funny, is the news that came out today. That's right, the adventure's not over, as Microsoft again claimed they would support similar legislation in the future. Just two weeks after it gets shot down in the senate. No, they weren't intimidate by the good reverend. Maybe now they can stick to their convictions and urge the congress to make a new bill as soon as they can.

Guess Who's in Bed Together?

We may not be making too much progress on the nuclear issue, but we've gotten a good start: name calling. United States, you're first:

America: Tyrant!

North Korea: Hooligan!

America: Dangerous person!

North Korea: Philistine!

America: Bully!

North Korea: Bush is a world dictator whose hands are stained with the blood shed by innocent civilians.

America: Ass.

We've sure got some good foreign policy going on. Last night's Saturday Night Live had some pretty funny comments on it, too. One of my favorites was Rachel Dratch's character "Debbie Downer", where the sketch ended with her saying, "Guess who's in bed together? North Korea and nukes."

And now Iran is getting some of their own, and everything looks like we're totally screwed. But don't worry, we've got Iraq under control. Unfortunately they don't have any weapons of mass destruction, while two of the most unpredictable dictators do have them (or will soon have, in the case of Iran). But don't forget! Iraq has elections.

While North Korea has nukes.

Let's get rational, Americans. You've already pretty much blown it by your votes of "More of the same!" What are we getting done? What are we capable of getting done? A lot more than what we're doing now.

Now that I think of it, it was pretty common sense to invade Iraq, at least, in Bush's mind. If we had tried something crazy like diplomacy, it wouldn't have worked at all. Look what's happening now, when we try to come to terms with the person who's armed currently.

Whew, let's calm down from my rhetoric...with another quote from SNL. On "Weekend Update", Tina Fey reported that Bush said, "If it's required, America can send 70% of the marines to South Korea while sending another 70% to Iran, while maintaining our current 70% in Iraq." I paraphrase.

***( meaning I'm off the topic of North Korea)

I found this pretty interesting. Since today is May Day (I like to call it May 1st) , everyone (workers worldwide) decided to protest over rights, fueled by a brand spanking new pope who called for, "working conditions (that) will be ever more respectful of the dignity of the human person." By everyone, I mean excluding communist China who's not really into that kind of thing.