The majority of grown men who fish do not appreciate chubby ten year old girls telling them matter of factly that they're filleting improperly-- which I did, many times,"There'll be bones in the walleye if you do it like that." I'd say from the doorway of the fish cleaning house- as we called it.
It sat in the gully away from the office and cabins because fish smell-- they smell even worse when they're dead-- a bucket of their guts often resting in a corner.
I loved to watch people clean fish; there's an art to doing it correctly, preserving the most meat, the best filet.
When the rusty old screen door slammed, I'd go running down to the stinky old building.
Then after they left squeeze the swim bladders in my fingers.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
50+, 25-30, 15-20, 5-10, 6 or less. (Words that is.)
We thought,"what the hell," and went up to the cabin anyway despite it being January and the place having no heat and Leah's mom telling us the pipes would be frozen because her deadbeat dad had been too "toasted" to maintain it like he should have-- we took the Jeep.
On the way we discussed the temperature and how we're all gonna be fucked when the last glacier melts and all the nut job East and West coast livers invade Minnesota 'cause their villas are flooded.
We four by foured it up the driveway, unloaded, and when we stopped moving realized as the sweat on our necks began to freeze, that coming may not have been the best idea.
Leah suggested cooking might warm us-- especially cooking with booze, so she did.
Coriander and rosemary chicken, side of whiskey.
On the way we discussed the temperature and how we're all gonna be fucked when the last glacier melts and all the nut job East and West coast livers invade Minnesota 'cause their villas are flooded.
We four by foured it up the driveway, unloaded, and when we stopped moving realized as the sweat on our necks began to freeze, that coming may not have been the best idea.
Leah suggested cooking might warm us-- especially cooking with booze, so she did.
Coriander and rosemary chicken, side of whiskey.
Living In Dreams
I've been waking myself up with my own voice every night for the past week. After a particularly pleasant dream on Saturday, I began describing its details to a friend (who was not present) while still asleep. I awoke saying aloud,"And it was so cool because it was so real, you know?" Then opened my eyes and immediately wished I could go back to sleep.
Throughout the remainder of the day I reminisced fondly on the trip my new friends and I had taken to a festival the night before and of how kind and accepting they all were. I recalled the effortlessness in which I could move and breathe (unlike my corporal life) and the mannerisms of the girl I connected with most; her odd refusal to use the door of her house, always crawling through a window. I was so at ease with all those people. Painlessly I approached them speaking with nary a stammer-- eye contact and all. I cracked clever jokes and made relevant, intellectual comments on conversational topics; I was a (humble) hit. It was as if it had always been so simple for me to talk to people and even if it hadn't, these people weren't the sort to mind-- my skulking awkwardness would never have been a deal breaker for them.
All through the drone of most days, snippets of dreams I've had over decades will flutter through my consciousness-- which is a relatively new development. They have never failed to be acutely detailed, whether or not they're enjoyable, but as the day shambles on more often than not their residual affects fade into and are replaced by actual life. I've been noticing lately that the opposite is happening and although that might be unnerving to most, since addressing it consciously, I find myself welcoming these broadcasts of displaced memories. I'll be smiling midday about something someone in a dream said, then having to pause to either remind myself it didn't actually happen, or to think critically about whether or not it did.
Because my dreams are much more pleasant and exciting than life, I've been sleeping a lot. (I suppose a professional would diagnose this as depression, certainly always a factor, but it seems different this time.) Though, even when there's some responsibility lurking in the day, if a worthwhile dream is happening, I'll sleep through it and reschedule for the next week so it's frantic and busy.
I hate sleep because it's often elusive so consequently I'm often tired, and I love it because not only is my mind reset upon waking, but also I have lived an entirely alternate reality (a frequently much more fulfilling and pleasurable one). And it changes every night, unlike real life, so prior to slumber I have something new and interesting to look forward to. I can fly in my dream universe, rarely am I judged harshly, people interact with one another rather than stare into screens, money has no place, there's magic and mystery and pretty people who want to hold my hand. I'm appreciated and valued by those I appreciate and value. I've had more than one entire years long love affair in a night's sleep-- whose smirking, blushing warmth has taken days to slowly vanish from my mind's eye.
Now and then celebrities will star in my dreams or have cameos as a friend's parent or sibling. My favorites so far have involved Maggie Smith (always a delight), Meryl Streep (a fox at any age), Nicolas Cage (oddly enough, my childhood celebrity crush), Courtney Cox (no idea) and John Goodman as Dan Conner (whom, if he was a real person, I would marry without hesitation had I any desire to be with a man ever again).
Sometimes I'll be some version of myself, in others I'm male bodied, or a woman who is nothing like me physically or mentally, or I'll be completely omnipresent-- as if I'm watching a movie. In some I'm the main character and in others I've been an extra existing only in the background. I kill people, I'm killed, weird sex happens, great sex happens, incredible transcendent conversations, time travel, gun fights, zombies and monsters, contact with extraterrestrial life, and when I wake up (whether or not I am rested) I feel satisfied and alive and part of something important.
This kind of relationship with sleep and dreaming I suppose could be considered problematic; especially considering how often I've been asking myself, why should I reach out to her/him-- what's the point. Because people don't have time for other people anymore, and when they do, my insecure and sweating, stammering, nervous-laughing character allows for only very patient and empathetic folks. Those with weaker dispositions who are less tolerant or more important find me frustrating and haven't the time to wait out my hemming and hawing perspiration for the hour or so it takes for me to become some semblance of relaxed and comfortable.
Of course the internet is an option-- where I am able to weave a clever and well-worded web of intrigue before anyone sees how painfully distressing face to face interaction frequently is for me. But as everything on the internet proves to be, these connections are fleeting and superficial, and before long I'm waiting for someone else to stumble along seeking momentary kinship.
What's unclear to me about that whole process, meeting people and making connections and such, is why everyone out there is doing the same thing yet many are so swift to blow fellow dreamers off-- disregard them as unworthy, vapid, or kooky. (Because everyone searching for a someone is most definitely a dreamer.) It's an odd paradox perpetuated by the society in which we live-- nothing is ever good enough, there's always better, the grass is always greener, and other overused euphemisms.
What's wrong then with preferring my sleeping dreams over my waking ones? Who's to say which life is more meaningful or authentic? Don't most of us lead three separate lives anyway-- person to person, screen to screen, and our sleeping dream lives? Some of us clearly place more importance on screen to screen versus person to person, deluding ourselves into believing they're one in the same-- always performing on the record and for the world. Placing more importance on dream life than on person to person life (by comparison) doesn't seem as misguided, but probably indicates some level of insanity. Yet, many an invention and work of fiction have originated from a capable person's dreams. They contain insight ripe for the picking and are a safe conduit for raw emotion that might otherwise fester and rot.
So, thinking more often about dreams than actual life can be illuminating on many levels as long as a person can differentiate between the two and see dreams as tools for introspection not as realities. Although it would be lovely were that differentiation unnecessary and we were allowed to exist in a constant state of subterfuge, never having to accept that a friend has died, because we can always eat veggies and peanut sauce with him in that other universe. And although after such a tragedy in real life, it may be too painful for the close friends who knew and loved you both to even see you anymore, in your dreams you're still inseparable confidants. But spending all your time in a dream universe is unrealistic and impossible for someone who isn't completely bonkers.
It might be better then, to live equally in two meaningful worlds: as a dreamer while awake and as a pragmatist while asleep-- taking life less seriously and considering the innate value in dreams. I can live actual life by attaching myself to art and creation with every fiber of my being-- writing about the significance of the close friendships I've had and the lives I've lead both in and out of dreams. Because I know I'm not alone-- that is to say, I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.
Throughout the remainder of the day I reminisced fondly on the trip my new friends and I had taken to a festival the night before and of how kind and accepting they all were. I recalled the effortlessness in which I could move and breathe (unlike my corporal life) and the mannerisms of the girl I connected with most; her odd refusal to use the door of her house, always crawling through a window. I was so at ease with all those people. Painlessly I approached them speaking with nary a stammer-- eye contact and all. I cracked clever jokes and made relevant, intellectual comments on conversational topics; I was a (humble) hit. It was as if it had always been so simple for me to talk to people and even if it hadn't, these people weren't the sort to mind-- my skulking awkwardness would never have been a deal breaker for them.
All through the drone of most days, snippets of dreams I've had over decades will flutter through my consciousness-- which is a relatively new development. They have never failed to be acutely detailed, whether or not they're enjoyable, but as the day shambles on more often than not their residual affects fade into and are replaced by actual life. I've been noticing lately that the opposite is happening and although that might be unnerving to most, since addressing it consciously, I find myself welcoming these broadcasts of displaced memories. I'll be smiling midday about something someone in a dream said, then having to pause to either remind myself it didn't actually happen, or to think critically about whether or not it did.
Because my dreams are much more pleasant and exciting than life, I've been sleeping a lot. (I suppose a professional would diagnose this as depression, certainly always a factor, but it seems different this time.) Though, even when there's some responsibility lurking in the day, if a worthwhile dream is happening, I'll sleep through it and reschedule for the next week so it's frantic and busy.
I hate sleep because it's often elusive so consequently I'm often tired, and I love it because not only is my mind reset upon waking, but also I have lived an entirely alternate reality (a frequently much more fulfilling and pleasurable one). And it changes every night, unlike real life, so prior to slumber I have something new and interesting to look forward to. I can fly in my dream universe, rarely am I judged harshly, people interact with one another rather than stare into screens, money has no place, there's magic and mystery and pretty people who want to hold my hand. I'm appreciated and valued by those I appreciate and value. I've had more than one entire years long love affair in a night's sleep-- whose smirking, blushing warmth has taken days to slowly vanish from my mind's eye.
Now and then celebrities will star in my dreams or have cameos as a friend's parent or sibling. My favorites so far have involved Maggie Smith (always a delight), Meryl Streep (a fox at any age), Nicolas Cage (oddly enough, my childhood celebrity crush), Courtney Cox (no idea) and John Goodman as Dan Conner (whom, if he was a real person, I would marry without hesitation had I any desire to be with a man ever again).
Sometimes I'll be some version of myself, in others I'm male bodied, or a woman who is nothing like me physically or mentally, or I'll be completely omnipresent-- as if I'm watching a movie. In some I'm the main character and in others I've been an extra existing only in the background. I kill people, I'm killed, weird sex happens, great sex happens, incredible transcendent conversations, time travel, gun fights, zombies and monsters, contact with extraterrestrial life, and when I wake up (whether or not I am rested) I feel satisfied and alive and part of something important.
This kind of relationship with sleep and dreaming I suppose could be considered problematic; especially considering how often I've been asking myself, why should I reach out to her/him-- what's the point. Because people don't have time for other people anymore, and when they do, my insecure and sweating, stammering, nervous-laughing character allows for only very patient and empathetic folks. Those with weaker dispositions who are less tolerant or more important find me frustrating and haven't the time to wait out my hemming and hawing perspiration for the hour or so it takes for me to become some semblance of relaxed and comfortable.
Of course the internet is an option-- where I am able to weave a clever and well-worded web of intrigue before anyone sees how painfully distressing face to face interaction frequently is for me. But as everything on the internet proves to be, these connections are fleeting and superficial, and before long I'm waiting for someone else to stumble along seeking momentary kinship.
What's unclear to me about that whole process, meeting people and making connections and such, is why everyone out there is doing the same thing yet many are so swift to blow fellow dreamers off-- disregard them as unworthy, vapid, or kooky. (Because everyone searching for a someone is most definitely a dreamer.) It's an odd paradox perpetuated by the society in which we live-- nothing is ever good enough, there's always better, the grass is always greener, and other overused euphemisms.
What's wrong then with preferring my sleeping dreams over my waking ones? Who's to say which life is more meaningful or authentic? Don't most of us lead three separate lives anyway-- person to person, screen to screen, and our sleeping dream lives? Some of us clearly place more importance on screen to screen versus person to person, deluding ourselves into believing they're one in the same-- always performing on the record and for the world. Placing more importance on dream life than on person to person life (by comparison) doesn't seem as misguided, but probably indicates some level of insanity. Yet, many an invention and work of fiction have originated from a capable person's dreams. They contain insight ripe for the picking and are a safe conduit for raw emotion that might otherwise fester and rot.
So, thinking more often about dreams than actual life can be illuminating on many levels as long as a person can differentiate between the two and see dreams as tools for introspection not as realities. Although it would be lovely were that differentiation unnecessary and we were allowed to exist in a constant state of subterfuge, never having to accept that a friend has died, because we can always eat veggies and peanut sauce with him in that other universe. And although after such a tragedy in real life, it may be too painful for the close friends who knew and loved you both to even see you anymore, in your dreams you're still inseparable confidants. But spending all your time in a dream universe is unrealistic and impossible for someone who isn't completely bonkers.
It might be better then, to live equally in two meaningful worlds: as a dreamer while awake and as a pragmatist while asleep-- taking life less seriously and considering the innate value in dreams. I can live actual life by attaching myself to art and creation with every fiber of my being-- writing about the significance of the close friendships I've had and the lives I've lead both in and out of dreams. Because I know I'm not alone-- that is to say, I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Double Plus Not So Good
I came home from a long day, tried to nap, couldn't, then
perused Netflix for something mediocre to fall asleep to on my couch. Since I've been on a stand
up kick the past week or two, I looked at those and realized I'd already seen pretty much everything (within reason) but Kathy Griffin. I thought, she can't be all bad, 'cause she loves the gays, I like her weird scratchy voice, and I have a vague memory of something she said making me laugh...sometime...in the past.
In short, I don't hate the woman, so I started watching it and actually ended up mostly listening to the whole thing. (It was only 45 minutes long.) I didn't laugh much and she's kind of a tool and totally places importance on the wrong things in life, but it was interesting. (I like to look at things from an anthropological perspective and kind of just be awed rather than disgusted. As a recent professor at the University said,"I allow myself to enjoy things like that even though I morally disagree with some of their content and messages. Life is much more joyful that way.")
I watched that, passed out for half an hour, went to school till nine, and came home still tired. While lazing, I sat on the porch smoking a cigarette* and flipped through a Time magazine sitting there. The full articles are disappointing so I read only the little four or five sentence sections with their tiny pictures. Those seem to be the only parts that are factual and not some biased fear-mongering or celebrity gossip shit.
There was a tiny editorial one from a woman commenting on how (a full month after South Sudan had become a country) she had Google, Yahoo, and Bing map searched for it online; none of them could locate it-- as if it still didn't exist.
Now here's where Kathy Griffin ties into this and why I confessed listening to her stand up in the first place. She was talking about being at the Emmy's and how she wore this dress which had been designed specifically for her, how much she loved it, etc-- and literally by the time she got home from the show, (still wearing the dress) she went online and saw her picture from that night and a comment about her being one of the worst dressed celebrities.
So what the world wide web is telling us, is that what Kathy Griffin wore to the Emmy's is more important to the entire internet than the incredible struggle of millions of people that led to triumphant freedom. Jesus. Think on that a minute and then consider that another three by one inch section of the magazine was about all the cuts made to public education funding and the horrific things schools have been forced to do just to teach kids the basics.
Parts of SD have switched to a four day school week, Maryland is cutting back on buses, Wisconsin is considering working with less custodians, and one place in FL was allotted no money at all for school supplies. I mean holy shit! A B-list celebrity's clothing choice takes precedence over an entire country's liberation and US schools don't even have enough money to be open five days a week or to pay people to clean them and transport kids to and from home? I guess what was once just a given is now unimportant. But then maybe that's all part of the master plan? Dumb down, sidetrack, and blind everyone with reality TV, celebrity gossip, and right wing talking heads then slowly take away education, reasonably priced healthcare, and piece of mind, and you've got an entire population of wage slaves busting ass for the newest technological pop culture device to scan their brain waves and send them to their friend's iPod 22.3 'cause things are so "advanced" that you don't even have to use your fingers anymore.
Alright that's an exaggeration, but we're headed that direction. And speaking of Emmy's, were you aware that Barack Obama (the president of the United States of America), won one for a spoken word album in 2008? That seemed so odd to me that I looked it up, and Bill Clinton has won like four. I guess that is expected in a country where entertainment and politics are one in the same. Wrestlers, actors, whatever-- it's unnerving. Condoleeza Rice was in 30 Rock, Al Gore frequently does cameos, as does John McCain, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a governor! Politicians and people actually holding some sort of office make shitty little cameos in so many shows and movies. It's frequently hilarious, but also humanizes them when the majority aren't human at all but are actually corporate controlled drones with their minds on their money and their money on their minds. (Probably without the pocket full of rubbers and bitches gettin' it on, but certainly sipping on gin and juice and totally laid back.)
Allowing for the line between pop culture celebrity and politics to become as nebulous as it has is a mistake. It's made the prescribed dumb down even more slippery and innocuous to those who choose not to acknowledge its effects.
Speaking of the dumb down, what is it about human beings that makes us flock to sensationalism like moths to a streetlight? Cheap drama; mean people, stupid people, and the current trend-- southern people. Ooh, look at her, she's so fat because no one ever taught her how to eat right and she's always been poor so she buys what's affordable-- garbage food. We wouldn't even know what she's saying if it weren't for the subtitles! Boy, people down south are duuu-uumb! Those guys are making death booze in the forest and wrestling with reptiles in the mud, holy shit! They don't have any teeth! That guy just said "daggum," for real! Look how stupid a huge population of our country is!
And then there's Larry the Cable guy selling you heartburn medication so you don't have to suffer after you mainline 30 buffalo wings, and Jamie Lee Curtis bragging about her regularity while pushing yoghurt, and other commercials with people telling us we need things we don't need, we don't look how we should, and promoting gender and sexuality stereotypes and roles which should be considered archaic at this point.
Bringing it in-- our priorities as a country are all screwed up, and there's a reason for it. Technology; a blessing and a curse.
*Wrote some of this a couple years ago and thought I'd leave that in, but I do not smoke anymore and you shouldn't either! Trust someone who's experienced it, you don't ever want to be on a ventilator.
In short, I don't hate the woman, so I started watching it and actually ended up mostly listening to the whole thing. (It was only 45 minutes long.) I didn't laugh much and she's kind of a tool and totally places importance on the wrong things in life, but it was interesting. (I like to look at things from an anthropological perspective and kind of just be awed rather than disgusted. As a recent professor at the University said,"I allow myself to enjoy things like that even though I morally disagree with some of their content and messages. Life is much more joyful that way.")
I watched that, passed out for half an hour, went to school till nine, and came home still tired. While lazing, I sat on the porch smoking a cigarette* and flipped through a Time magazine sitting there. The full articles are disappointing so I read only the little four or five sentence sections with their tiny pictures. Those seem to be the only parts that are factual and not some biased fear-mongering or celebrity gossip shit.
There was a tiny editorial one from a woman commenting on how (a full month after South Sudan had become a country) she had Google, Yahoo, and Bing map searched for it online; none of them could locate it-- as if it still didn't exist.
Now here's where Kathy Griffin ties into this and why I confessed listening to her stand up in the first place. She was talking about being at the Emmy's and how she wore this dress which had been designed specifically for her, how much she loved it, etc-- and literally by the time she got home from the show, (still wearing the dress) she went online and saw her picture from that night and a comment about her being one of the worst dressed celebrities.
So what the world wide web is telling us, is that what Kathy Griffin wore to the Emmy's is more important to the entire internet than the incredible struggle of millions of people that led to triumphant freedom. Jesus. Think on that a minute and then consider that another three by one inch section of the magazine was about all the cuts made to public education funding and the horrific things schools have been forced to do just to teach kids the basics.
Parts of SD have switched to a four day school week, Maryland is cutting back on buses, Wisconsin is considering working with less custodians, and one place in FL was allotted no money at all for school supplies. I mean holy shit! A B-list celebrity's clothing choice takes precedence over an entire country's liberation and US schools don't even have enough money to be open five days a week or to pay people to clean them and transport kids to and from home? I guess what was once just a given is now unimportant. But then maybe that's all part of the master plan? Dumb down, sidetrack, and blind everyone with reality TV, celebrity gossip, and right wing talking heads then slowly take away education, reasonably priced healthcare, and piece of mind, and you've got an entire population of wage slaves busting ass for the newest technological pop culture device to scan their brain waves and send them to their friend's iPod 22.3 'cause things are so "advanced" that you don't even have to use your fingers anymore.
Alright that's an exaggeration, but we're headed that direction. And speaking of Emmy's, were you aware that Barack Obama (the president of the United States of America), won one for a spoken word album in 2008? That seemed so odd to me that I looked it up, and Bill Clinton has won like four. I guess that is expected in a country where entertainment and politics are one in the same. Wrestlers, actors, whatever-- it's unnerving. Condoleeza Rice was in 30 Rock, Al Gore frequently does cameos, as does John McCain, and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a governor! Politicians and people actually holding some sort of office make shitty little cameos in so many shows and movies. It's frequently hilarious, but also humanizes them when the majority aren't human at all but are actually corporate controlled drones with their minds on their money and their money on their minds. (Probably without the pocket full of rubbers and bitches gettin' it on, but certainly sipping on gin and juice and totally laid back.)
Allowing for the line between pop culture celebrity and politics to become as nebulous as it has is a mistake. It's made the prescribed dumb down even more slippery and innocuous to those who choose not to acknowledge its effects.
Speaking of the dumb down, what is it about human beings that makes us flock to sensationalism like moths to a streetlight? Cheap drama; mean people, stupid people, and the current trend-- southern people. Ooh, look at her, she's so fat because no one ever taught her how to eat right and she's always been poor so she buys what's affordable-- garbage food. We wouldn't even know what she's saying if it weren't for the subtitles! Boy, people down south are duuu-uumb! Those guys are making death booze in the forest and wrestling with reptiles in the mud, holy shit! They don't have any teeth! That guy just said "daggum," for real! Look how stupid a huge population of our country is!
And then there's Larry the Cable guy selling you heartburn medication so you don't have to suffer after you mainline 30 buffalo wings, and Jamie Lee Curtis bragging about her regularity while pushing yoghurt, and other commercials with people telling us we need things we don't need, we don't look how we should, and promoting gender and sexuality stereotypes and roles which should be considered archaic at this point.
Bringing it in-- our priorities as a country are all screwed up, and there's a reason for it. Technology; a blessing and a curse.
*Wrote some of this a couple years ago and thought I'd leave that in, but I do not smoke anymore and you shouldn't either! Trust someone who's experienced it, you don't ever want to be on a ventilator.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Capitalism as VooDoo; Corporate America's Zombie Making
**Actually from a class I took whose topic was zombies in America.**
Capitalism allows the control of corporations around the world, most specifically within the United States, to create a population of wage slaves who not only enable those corporations to grow larger and control more, but also contribute to the collective decline in national and world wide quality of life and individual freedom. These corporations' emphasis on the importance of material wealth leads to people exalting not only possessions, but the money that allows them purchasing power. With people thinking primarily of what they can buy, worrying about debt due to credit cards education or medical bills, and fretting over holding onto the jobs which allow them to keep health insurance, they stagger through life occasionally groaning to one another about the price of gas, the currently most tweeted pop superstar, a recent professional sports game, or which state of the art newly released technological gizmo they're saving their money to purchase. Blinded by the above, the majority of the country's (and the world's) citizens don't realize they are enslaved. They aren't aware that by upgrading their phones bimonthly, spending hours watching television, accepting what major news sources tell them, and idolizing reality TV stars, they are allowing personal freedoms and, quite frequently, genuine happiness to pass them up. By dutifully working nine to five jobs, and by thoughtlessly paying their taxes, they are contributing to their own zombification. Though they may be aware that the money they pay for health care and the debt they accrue via credit cards and loans also serve to keep them subservient and that a subservient population is exactly what the monopolizing companies and government want, they the majority do little to nothing-- because they're scared. They're scared that uniting and revolting against a corrupt system will lose them the jobs that allow them to send those minimum payments, thus losing their coveted health insurance, and in the end forcing them to succumb to the crushing debt seventy percent of Americans face (U.S. News). In a 2007 interview with film maker Michael Moore, Tony Benn, a former member of British Parliament said, "…there are two ways in which people are controlled; first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy, and confident nation is harder to govern (Sicko)." For fear of accruing debt, most Americans are uneducated, for lack of health insurance they are unhealthy, and because of their government's war mongering they are not confident. A population paralyzed by fear and lacking affordable education, health care, and confidence are demoralized and controlled-- nothing but zombies, shuffling through each day lifeless and wanting.
Many examples of the the melding of corporations and government can be found with little or no effort, but for brevity's sake the following paper will address only a few. It will also discuss literary works and films which approach those government abuses by utilizing the figure of the zombie and allowing Americans to see themselves reflected in the faces of the undead-- the virus causing their infection being Capitalism itself.
One of the major corporations whose finances have been and most probably still are tangled up with government officials is Halliburton, one of the world's largest oilfield services companies. In 1992 when the Pentagon paid the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root nine million dollars to create a report (which was classified) describing how privately owned companies (such as Halliburton itself) could minister "logistical support" for US soldiers in zones where wars were deemed possible throughout the world, Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense (the person in charge of allotting these funds) (GAO Report). Not long after this report, Brown & Root were given a five-year contract by the Pentagon to provide logistics for the Army Corps of Engineers. Via this contract Halliburton made approximately two point two billion dollars (GAO Report). This was just the beginning however, because following his service as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney then went on to become CEO of Halliburton and held that position from 1996 to 1998, and from February to August in the year 2000-- rather suspiciously, less than a year before the start of a war which has lasted over eleven years. Also, from 2001 to, at the very least, 2005 Cheney was being paid a deferred salary from Halliburton in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars (Turnipseed). Halliburton and its subsidiaries provided meals to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as delivered fuel to bases in both countries-- grossly overcharging for both. It was revealed that Cheney was reaping huge benefits from Halliburton's involvement in the war and in 2002 it was also revealed that Halliburton was overcharging for their services and partaking in tax fraud (Newsweek). Yet, this crooked, major corporation is still allowed to gain huge profits from a war which was both designed to be and seems to be never-ending against a foe who is named only as "terror."
Similarly, major credit card corporations influence government officials in equally as insultingly obvious ways. In 2001 and 2002 Providian Financial, a large credit card company, was caught defrauding its card holders (Koudsi 143-7). Providian would hold payment checks from customers until after the payment due dates which would cause their accounts to accrue a late fee and if the account was put over limit by that late fee, an additional over limit fee. Once these fees had been added to the account, frequently the interest rate would skyrocket as well and finance charges would increase burying in debt any card holder who was not closely examining their invoice each month (Maxed Out). (Note that Providian's holding of the checks being the only illegal aspect here. The rest of the actions taken are standard to most credit card companies.) Two years after their being caught in illegal activities, then president George W. Bush, decided to appoint someone to police corporate criminals. The person he chose was Larry Thompson, a directer of Providian Financial. The connections unfortunately don't stop there. One of Bush's top campaign contributors was MBNA, a bank holding company, which was at that time the country's second largest credit card issuer. In fact, in 2005, Bush endorsed the Bankruptcy Bill, which made it much more difficult for the average American to bounce back from bankruptcy-- this bill was written by MBNA (Consumer Affairs). These are all facts available to the public, but yet again, these corporations are still allowed to openly dispense massive sums of money to politicians and unfairly add charges to customer credit accounts.
The health care industry in America is another contributor to the creation and upkeep of the American zombie public. One in four Americans don't have health insurance, and approximately eighteen thousand die per year because they don't (Morgan). Even people who do have health insurance do not always get the care they need because the corporations they pay to insure them frequently refuse to cover necessary treatments. The power of the Managed Health Care System isn't imagined, nor are its origins difficult to trace. There are four times as many health care lobbyists than there are members of congress and in 2003 George W. Bush passed something called the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act which allowed drug companies to charge whatever they pleased and for insurance companies to be the middle man between patients and medications (H.R. 1 (108th)). Remarkably, fourteen congressional aids who worked on the Medicare Act quit after it was passed and began working for health insurance or pharmaceutical companies. One congressman, Billy Tauzin, resigned from congress and became CEO of the lobbyist group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America making over two million dollars a year (Sicko). Of course in the past politicians with good intentions have suggested universal healthcare and each time were immediately labeled Socialists trying to make the US a Socialist country. Those whose interests laid in keeping health care privatized induced the fear of Socialism-- compared it to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and told Americans they would have no freedom if they allowed the government to control their health care. (Never mentioning of course that they already do.) Paralyzed by fear, the population trusted those in power and the corrupt politicians rid themselves of the threat of universal healthcare. Somehow, these enormous corporations and the politicians they've purchased are still running rampant in 2012, while the citizens they swindle continue to elect and to pay them.
Having ties to members of government is one way for corporations to heavily influence occurrences and make obscene amounts of money in and out of the country. Another way to gain and keep control is by becoming so enormous that governments are either unable or unwilling to put the corporation in check. Exxon Mobile, while also being closely connected to politicians (namely the Bush family), falls into this category as well. According to Forbes Magazine Exxon is the largest and most profitable public corporation in the world as of April 2012 (Forbes). It funds several right wing/conservative think tanks such as the Heartland Institute, which openly decrees that global warming is not taking place and that if it were it would be a positive development for the planet. Exxon also funds (with millions of dollars) the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute, all three being think tanks which lobby for oil companies and against federal policy restrictions on their business practices (Corporatewatch). Exxon has its metaphoric hands in Australia, Europe, Peru, Ecuador, Russia, the US, Nigeria, Chad, Indonesia, and Colombia (just to name a few) and has displaced indigenous peoples, caused massive environmental catastrophes, destroyed previously nearly pristine wildernesses, and discharged toxic waste into the sea-- all of this going virtually unchecked by the United States government or the majority of its citizens.
These zombie forming groups don't always go unrecognized however. There are artists of all sorts who see the corruption just below the surface and use zombie fiction to display modern society's faults clearly. As a symbol of superficial human attributes, George Romero used zombies to make a statement with Dawn of the Dead which suggested that mall goers were already zombies and with the entire Dead series that indifference, materialism, sexism, and racism are far more dangerous and abhorrent than undead monsters who want to eat your flesh. Main character Peter (Ken Foree) says in Dawn when asked what the zombies are,"They're us that's all, there's no more room in hell." Shaun of the Dead does similar work while also depicting everyday life and the people around us as so like zombies that were they to actually become undead monsters, it may take us some time to even notice. Another film, 28 Days Later, while also taking pains to exhibit the danger of human nature over that of zombies, includes one particularly interesting shot when the two main characters are trying to reach flashing lights on an apartment complex. When they approach, the hall leading to the stairs is filled with shopping carts which act as a barricade. The two main characters climb over it, but a man who is being chased and runs up after them isn't quite as lucky. This can easily be interpreted as a statement about consumerist culture as a barricade from awareness and ultimately security. Fido, yet another zombie film, comments on the concept of security as well. In this movie's society, zombies have been domesticated and made into status symbols by a corporation which controls every aspect of the small town it's set in. Basically, "Zomcon" has used the zombie threat as a way to control a population-- telling its people that without its help they would cease to exist, instilling fear to gain control. This is strikingly similar to the US government and large corporations' holds on American citizens. Author Colson Whitehead with his novel Zone One, set a significant amount of time post zombie apocalypse, makes several references to pre apocalypse humans as zombies while also showing his readers that too much trust in government will get you killed. He creates types of zombies called "stragglers" who are reminiscent of Romero's mall walking zombies. Stragglers linger in familiar settings, the bulk of them mindlessly haunting former work places much as they did when alive (52). The main character, Mike Spitz, even compares interpersonal relationships to zombie-like actions saying,"We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them (214)." Among these comments on human thoughts and actions, Whitehead also speaks to American society as a whole. In a conversation about why the zombie apocalypse happened in the first place, a character called the Lieutenant states,"It picks us out of our robotic routine, what they called my dad before they pulled the plug: persistent vegetative state. Comeuppance for a flatlined culture (217)." World War Z is of course another literary work which addresses the state of human society. In this piece however, eventually human beings survive, but only because they unite for a common good. Brooks seems to be asking though, if humans are really worth all the devastation they cause everywhere they exist. He visits the thought that humanity is the flesh eating monster and challenges readers to prove otherwise.
Though most entertainment media sources depict zombies as the foul, rotting undead impossibly walking around and reeking havoc on society; credit card companies, big pharma, Halliburton, and Exxon (just to name a few) are well aware that this is not the case. They know, that with their business practices, with mind numbing reality TV, with innumerable forms of technology making real human contact unnecessary, and with advertising literally everywhere a person exists, they produce automatons-- people who don't think for themselves but are vulnerable to sneaky suggestion. In our capitalist society where free enterprise is taken advantage of to the highest extreme they, with the help of the government, create a form of zombie out of living human beings. The American government (as well as world government) has been purchased by corporations. People who hold, have held, or will hold government offices have and are receiving money from and funding wars around the world, accepting bribes from multi million dollar Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), allowing major credit card companies to influence public policy making, and telling the news broadcasters what to tell us to keep us frightened yet docile. Direct results of this deplorable behavior are huge populations of people believing that the whole of the September eleventh attacks were perpetrated by foreign "terrorists", accepting the "official" report stating that the solid steel reinforced Twin Towers "collapsed due to fire", not questioning the fact that thousands of low income and African American voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential elections, allowing their government to spend their tax money on professional sports stadiums rather than on keeping Post Offices open or on funding Public Schools, and consuming the over processed poison grocery store stocks labeled as food. Surely live, conscious human beings couldn't witness the desperation evident throughout society without knowing something is dreadfully awry. Surely a man being trampled and killed in a swarm of black Friday, Wal-Mart, shopping-hysterical, robots would be a mighty clear indication that our society is fundamentally ill. But they aren't conscious, and although buried somewhere deep they're probably aware things are bad, they don't notice all that much because… they're zombies. Hypnotized by technology, poisoned by greed, killed with the illusion of choice, buried in debt, and reanimated as the average American consumer existing in a cultureless society built to crumble.
Capitalism is not a totalitarian or tyrannical form of domination. It primarily spreads its effects through indifference (that can be compared to the zombie’s essential lack of protagonism). It is not what capital does, but what it doesn’t do or have: it does not have a concept of society; it does not counteract the depletion of nature; it has no concept of citizenship or culture; and so on. Thus it is a slave morality that makes us cling to capital as though it were our salvation—capitalism is, in fact, what we bring to it.
-Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death
Lars Bang Larson
Works Cited
28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Chris Eccleston. 20th Century Fox, 2002. DVD.
American Journal of Public Health. "Health insurance and mortality in US adults."
2009 Dec;99(12):2289-95. Epub 2009 Sep 17.
Bang Larson, Lars. "Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death." E-flux. E-flux, Apr. 2010. Web. 12 June 2012. <http://www.e-flux.com/journal/zombies-of-immaterial-labor-the-modern-monster-and-the-death-of-death/>.
CBS News. "Mission Accomplished," 5 Years Later." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 11 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 June 2012.
<http:// www.cbsnews.com/2100-500257_162-4060963.html>.
The Center for Responsive Politics. "Top Contributors." To George W. Bush. The Center for Responsive Politics, n.d. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/contrib.php?cid=N00008072>.
Consumer Affairs. "Senate Passes MBNA's Bankruptcy Bill." Senate Passes MBNA's Bankruptcy Bill. Consumer Affairs, 11 Mar. 2005. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_bill2.html>.
DeCarlo, Scott. "The World's Biggest Public Companies." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 18 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 June 2012. <http:// www.forbes.com/global2000/>.
Corporatewatch. "Exxon Mobil & Esso UK." Exxon Mobil : Corporate Crimes. Corporatewatch.org, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http:// www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=295>.
Dawn of the Dead. Dir. George Romero. By George Romero. Perf. David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger. United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), 1978. DVD.
Day of the Dead. Dir. George Romero. By George Romero. Perf. Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato. United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), 1985. DVD.
Fido. Dir. Andrew Currie. By Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie, and Dennis Heaton. Perf. Kesun Loder, Billy Connolly, Carrie- Anne Moss. Lions Gate Films, 2006. DVD.
GAO Report, http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/ns00225.pdf, September 2002
Greeenpeace. "ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Cato Institute." ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Cato Institute. Greenpeace, Apr. 2004. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21>.
"H.R. 1 (108th): Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003." Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (2003; 108th Congress H.R. 1). N.p., 2003. Web. 13 June 2012. <http:// www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/108/hr1>.
Koudsi, Suzanne, "Sleazy Credit," Fortune, March 4, 2002, pp. 143-44, 146-47.
Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders Poster SEE RANK Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders. Dir. James D. Scurlock. Trueworks, 2006. DVD.
Morgan, David. "One in Four Americans without Health Coverage: Study." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/us-usa-healthcare-insurance-idUSBRE83I17420120419>.
Newsweek, Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices, July 15, 2002
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. By George A. Romero, George A. Romero, and John Russo. Perf. Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Marilyn Eastman, and Karl Hardman. Continental Distributing, Inc., 1968. DVD.
Pratap Chatterjee, Dick Cheney: Soldier of Fortune, www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002
Shaun of the Dead. Dir. Edgar Wright. By Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Perf. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield. Universal Pictures, 2004. DVD.
Sicko. Dir. Michael Moore. Prod. Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara. By Michael Moore. The Weinstein Company, 2007. DVD.
Stop the Exxon Mobile Alliance. "West By Northwest.org: Looking at Corporate Power: The Case Against ExxonMobil." West By Northwest.org: Looking at Corporate Power: The Case Against ExxonMobil. West By Northwest, 7 Sept. 2002. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://westbynorthwest.org/artman/publish/article_50.shtml>.
Turnipseed, Tom. "Dick Cheney: War Profiteer." Dick Cheney: War Profiteer. Common Dreams, 17 Nov. 2005. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1117-22.htm>.
U.S. News Staff. "Poll: 70 Percent of American Consumers in Debt." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 21 July 2009. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/07/21/poll-70-percent-of-american-consumers-in-debt>.
Whitehead, Colson. Zone One: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.
Capitalism allows the control of corporations around the world, most specifically within the United States, to create a population of wage slaves who not only enable those corporations to grow larger and control more, but also contribute to the collective decline in national and world wide quality of life and individual freedom. These corporations' emphasis on the importance of material wealth leads to people exalting not only possessions, but the money that allows them purchasing power. With people thinking primarily of what they can buy, worrying about debt due to credit cards education or medical bills, and fretting over holding onto the jobs which allow them to keep health insurance, they stagger through life occasionally groaning to one another about the price of gas, the currently most tweeted pop superstar, a recent professional sports game, or which state of the art newly released technological gizmo they're saving their money to purchase. Blinded by the above, the majority of the country's (and the world's) citizens don't realize they are enslaved. They aren't aware that by upgrading their phones bimonthly, spending hours watching television, accepting what major news sources tell them, and idolizing reality TV stars, they are allowing personal freedoms and, quite frequently, genuine happiness to pass them up. By dutifully working nine to five jobs, and by thoughtlessly paying their taxes, they are contributing to their own zombification. Though they may be aware that the money they pay for health care and the debt they accrue via credit cards and loans also serve to keep them subservient and that a subservient population is exactly what the monopolizing companies and government want, they the majority do little to nothing-- because they're scared. They're scared that uniting and revolting against a corrupt system will lose them the jobs that allow them to send those minimum payments, thus losing their coveted health insurance, and in the end forcing them to succumb to the crushing debt seventy percent of Americans face (U.S. News). In a 2007 interview with film maker Michael Moore, Tony Benn, a former member of British Parliament said, "…there are two ways in which people are controlled; first of all frighten people and secondly demoralize them. An educated, healthy, and confident nation is harder to govern (Sicko)." For fear of accruing debt, most Americans are uneducated, for lack of health insurance they are unhealthy, and because of their government's war mongering they are not confident. A population paralyzed by fear and lacking affordable education, health care, and confidence are demoralized and controlled-- nothing but zombies, shuffling through each day lifeless and wanting.
Many examples of the the melding of corporations and government can be found with little or no effort, but for brevity's sake the following paper will address only a few. It will also discuss literary works and films which approach those government abuses by utilizing the figure of the zombie and allowing Americans to see themselves reflected in the faces of the undead-- the virus causing their infection being Capitalism itself.
One of the major corporations whose finances have been and most probably still are tangled up with government officials is Halliburton, one of the world's largest oilfield services companies. In 1992 when the Pentagon paid the Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root nine million dollars to create a report (which was classified) describing how privately owned companies (such as Halliburton itself) could minister "logistical support" for US soldiers in zones where wars were deemed possible throughout the world, Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense (the person in charge of allotting these funds) (GAO Report). Not long after this report, Brown & Root were given a five-year contract by the Pentagon to provide logistics for the Army Corps of Engineers. Via this contract Halliburton made approximately two point two billion dollars (GAO Report). This was just the beginning however, because following his service as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney then went on to become CEO of Halliburton and held that position from 1996 to 1998, and from February to August in the year 2000-- rather suspiciously, less than a year before the start of a war which has lasted over eleven years. Also, from 2001 to, at the very least, 2005 Cheney was being paid a deferred salary from Halliburton in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars (Turnipseed). Halliburton and its subsidiaries provided meals to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as delivered fuel to bases in both countries-- grossly overcharging for both. It was revealed that Cheney was reaping huge benefits from Halliburton's involvement in the war and in 2002 it was also revealed that Halliburton was overcharging for their services and partaking in tax fraud (Newsweek). Yet, this crooked, major corporation is still allowed to gain huge profits from a war which was both designed to be and seems to be never-ending against a foe who is named only as "terror."
Similarly, major credit card corporations influence government officials in equally as insultingly obvious ways. In 2001 and 2002 Providian Financial, a large credit card company, was caught defrauding its card holders (Koudsi 143-7). Providian would hold payment checks from customers until after the payment due dates which would cause their accounts to accrue a late fee and if the account was put over limit by that late fee, an additional over limit fee. Once these fees had been added to the account, frequently the interest rate would skyrocket as well and finance charges would increase burying in debt any card holder who was not closely examining their invoice each month (Maxed Out). (Note that Providian's holding of the checks being the only illegal aspect here. The rest of the actions taken are standard to most credit card companies.) Two years after their being caught in illegal activities, then president George W. Bush, decided to appoint someone to police corporate criminals. The person he chose was Larry Thompson, a directer of Providian Financial. The connections unfortunately don't stop there. One of Bush's top campaign contributors was MBNA, a bank holding company, which was at that time the country's second largest credit card issuer. In fact, in 2005, Bush endorsed the Bankruptcy Bill, which made it much more difficult for the average American to bounce back from bankruptcy-- this bill was written by MBNA (Consumer Affairs). These are all facts available to the public, but yet again, these corporations are still allowed to openly dispense massive sums of money to politicians and unfairly add charges to customer credit accounts.
The health care industry in America is another contributor to the creation and upkeep of the American zombie public. One in four Americans don't have health insurance, and approximately eighteen thousand die per year because they don't (Morgan). Even people who do have health insurance do not always get the care they need because the corporations they pay to insure them frequently refuse to cover necessary treatments. The power of the Managed Health Care System isn't imagined, nor are its origins difficult to trace. There are four times as many health care lobbyists than there are members of congress and in 2003 George W. Bush passed something called the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act which allowed drug companies to charge whatever they pleased and for insurance companies to be the middle man between patients and medications (H.R. 1 (108th)). Remarkably, fourteen congressional aids who worked on the Medicare Act quit after it was passed and began working for health insurance or pharmaceutical companies. One congressman, Billy Tauzin, resigned from congress and became CEO of the lobbyist group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America making over two million dollars a year (Sicko). Of course in the past politicians with good intentions have suggested universal healthcare and each time were immediately labeled Socialists trying to make the US a Socialist country. Those whose interests laid in keeping health care privatized induced the fear of Socialism-- compared it to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and told Americans they would have no freedom if they allowed the government to control their health care. (Never mentioning of course that they already do.) Paralyzed by fear, the population trusted those in power and the corrupt politicians rid themselves of the threat of universal healthcare. Somehow, these enormous corporations and the politicians they've purchased are still running rampant in 2012, while the citizens they swindle continue to elect and to pay them.
Having ties to members of government is one way for corporations to heavily influence occurrences and make obscene amounts of money in and out of the country. Another way to gain and keep control is by becoming so enormous that governments are either unable or unwilling to put the corporation in check. Exxon Mobile, while also being closely connected to politicians (namely the Bush family), falls into this category as well. According to Forbes Magazine Exxon is the largest and most profitable public corporation in the world as of April 2012 (Forbes). It funds several right wing/conservative think tanks such as the Heartland Institute, which openly decrees that global warming is not taking place and that if it were it would be a positive development for the planet. Exxon also funds (with millions of dollars) the conservative Heritage Foundation and American Legislative Exchange Council, as well as the libertarian Cato Institute, all three being think tanks which lobby for oil companies and against federal policy restrictions on their business practices (Corporatewatch). Exxon has its metaphoric hands in Australia, Europe, Peru, Ecuador, Russia, the US, Nigeria, Chad, Indonesia, and Colombia (just to name a few) and has displaced indigenous peoples, caused massive environmental catastrophes, destroyed previously nearly pristine wildernesses, and discharged toxic waste into the sea-- all of this going virtually unchecked by the United States government or the majority of its citizens.
These zombie forming groups don't always go unrecognized however. There are artists of all sorts who see the corruption just below the surface and use zombie fiction to display modern society's faults clearly. As a symbol of superficial human attributes, George Romero used zombies to make a statement with Dawn of the Dead which suggested that mall goers were already zombies and with the entire Dead series that indifference, materialism, sexism, and racism are far more dangerous and abhorrent than undead monsters who want to eat your flesh. Main character Peter (Ken Foree) says in Dawn when asked what the zombies are,"They're us that's all, there's no more room in hell." Shaun of the Dead does similar work while also depicting everyday life and the people around us as so like zombies that were they to actually become undead monsters, it may take us some time to even notice. Another film, 28 Days Later, while also taking pains to exhibit the danger of human nature over that of zombies, includes one particularly interesting shot when the two main characters are trying to reach flashing lights on an apartment complex. When they approach, the hall leading to the stairs is filled with shopping carts which act as a barricade. The two main characters climb over it, but a man who is being chased and runs up after them isn't quite as lucky. This can easily be interpreted as a statement about consumerist culture as a barricade from awareness and ultimately security. Fido, yet another zombie film, comments on the concept of security as well. In this movie's society, zombies have been domesticated and made into status symbols by a corporation which controls every aspect of the small town it's set in. Basically, "Zomcon" has used the zombie threat as a way to control a population-- telling its people that without its help they would cease to exist, instilling fear to gain control. This is strikingly similar to the US government and large corporations' holds on American citizens. Author Colson Whitehead with his novel Zone One, set a significant amount of time post zombie apocalypse, makes several references to pre apocalypse humans as zombies while also showing his readers that too much trust in government will get you killed. He creates types of zombies called "stragglers" who are reminiscent of Romero's mall walking zombies. Stragglers linger in familiar settings, the bulk of them mindlessly haunting former work places much as they did when alive (52). The main character, Mike Spitz, even compares interpersonal relationships to zombie-like actions saying,"We never see other people anyway, only the monsters we make of them (214)." Among these comments on human thoughts and actions, Whitehead also speaks to American society as a whole. In a conversation about why the zombie apocalypse happened in the first place, a character called the Lieutenant states,"It picks us out of our robotic routine, what they called my dad before they pulled the plug: persistent vegetative state. Comeuppance for a flatlined culture (217)." World War Z is of course another literary work which addresses the state of human society. In this piece however, eventually human beings survive, but only because they unite for a common good. Brooks seems to be asking though, if humans are really worth all the devastation they cause everywhere they exist. He visits the thought that humanity is the flesh eating monster and challenges readers to prove otherwise.
Though most entertainment media sources depict zombies as the foul, rotting undead impossibly walking around and reeking havoc on society; credit card companies, big pharma, Halliburton, and Exxon (just to name a few) are well aware that this is not the case. They know, that with their business practices, with mind numbing reality TV, with innumerable forms of technology making real human contact unnecessary, and with advertising literally everywhere a person exists, they produce automatons-- people who don't think for themselves but are vulnerable to sneaky suggestion. In our capitalist society where free enterprise is taken advantage of to the highest extreme they, with the help of the government, create a form of zombie out of living human beings. The American government (as well as world government) has been purchased by corporations. People who hold, have held, or will hold government offices have and are receiving money from and funding wars around the world, accepting bribes from multi million dollar Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), allowing major credit card companies to influence public policy making, and telling the news broadcasters what to tell us to keep us frightened yet docile. Direct results of this deplorable behavior are huge populations of people believing that the whole of the September eleventh attacks were perpetrated by foreign "terrorists", accepting the "official" report stating that the solid steel reinforced Twin Towers "collapsed due to fire", not questioning the fact that thousands of low income and African American voters were disenfranchised during the 2000 presidential elections, allowing their government to spend their tax money on professional sports stadiums rather than on keeping Post Offices open or on funding Public Schools, and consuming the over processed poison grocery store stocks labeled as food. Surely live, conscious human beings couldn't witness the desperation evident throughout society without knowing something is dreadfully awry. Surely a man being trampled and killed in a swarm of black Friday, Wal-Mart, shopping-hysterical, robots would be a mighty clear indication that our society is fundamentally ill. But they aren't conscious, and although buried somewhere deep they're probably aware things are bad, they don't notice all that much because… they're zombies. Hypnotized by technology, poisoned by greed, killed with the illusion of choice, buried in debt, and reanimated as the average American consumer existing in a cultureless society built to crumble.
Capitalism is not a totalitarian or tyrannical form of domination. It primarily spreads its effects through indifference (that can be compared to the zombie’s essential lack of protagonism). It is not what capital does, but what it doesn’t do or have: it does not have a concept of society; it does not counteract the depletion of nature; it has no concept of citizenship or culture; and so on. Thus it is a slave morality that makes us cling to capital as though it were our salvation—capitalism is, in fact, what we bring to it.
-Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death
Lars Bang Larson
Works Cited
28 Days Later. Dir. Danny Boyle. Perf. Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Chris Eccleston. 20th Century Fox, 2002. DVD.
American Journal of Public Health. "Health insurance and mortality in US adults."
2009 Dec;99(12):2289-95. Epub 2009 Sep 17.
Bang Larson, Lars. "Zombies of Immaterial Labor: The Modern Monster and the Death of Death." E-flux. E-flux, Apr. 2010. Web. 12 June 2012. <http://www.e-flux.com/journal/zombies-of-immaterial-labor-the-modern-monster-and-the-death-of-death/>.
CBS News. "Mission Accomplished," 5 Years Later." CBSNews. CBS Interactive, 11 Feb. 2009. Web. 14 June 2012.
<http:// www.cbsnews.com/2100-500257_162-4060963.html>.
The Center for Responsive Politics. "Top Contributors." To George W. Bush. The Center for Responsive Politics, n.d. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.opensecrets.org/pres04/contrib.php?cid=N00008072>.
Consumer Affairs. "Senate Passes MBNA's Bankruptcy Bill." Senate Passes MBNA's Bankruptcy Bill. Consumer Affairs, 11 Mar. 2005. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/bankruptcy_bill2.html>.
DeCarlo, Scott. "The World's Biggest Public Companies." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 18 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 June 2012. <http:// www.forbes.com/global2000/>.
Corporatewatch. "Exxon Mobil & Esso UK." Exxon Mobil : Corporate Crimes. Corporatewatch.org, n.d. Web. 11 June 2012. <http:// www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=295>.
Dawn of the Dead. Dir. George Romero. By George Romero. Perf. David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger. United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), 1978. DVD.
Day of the Dead. Dir. George Romero. By George Romero. Perf. Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, Joseph Pilato. United Film Distribution Company (UFDC), 1985. DVD.
Fido. Dir. Andrew Currie. By Robert Chomiak, Andrew Currie, and Dennis Heaton. Perf. Kesun Loder, Billy Connolly, Carrie- Anne Moss. Lions Gate Films, 2006. DVD.
GAO Report, http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/ns00225.pdf, September 2002
Greeenpeace. "ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Cato Institute." ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Cato Institute. Greenpeace, Apr. 2004. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=21>.
"H.R. 1 (108th): Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003." Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (2003; 108th Congress H.R. 1). N.p., 2003. Web. 13 June 2012. <http:// www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/108/hr1>.
Koudsi, Suzanne, "Sleazy Credit," Fortune, March 4, 2002, pp. 143-44, 146-47.
Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders Poster SEE RANK Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders. Dir. James D. Scurlock. Trueworks, 2006. DVD.
Morgan, David. "One in Four Americans without Health Coverage: Study." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 19 Apr. 2012. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/19/us-usa-healthcare-insurance-idUSBRE83I17420120419>.
Newsweek, Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices, July 15, 2002
Night of the Living Dead. Dir. George A. Romero. By George A. Romero, George A. Romero, and John Russo. Perf. Duane Jones, Judith O'Dea, Marilyn Eastman, and Karl Hardman. Continental Distributing, Inc., 1968. DVD.
Pratap Chatterjee, Dick Cheney: Soldier of Fortune, www.corpwatch.org, May 2, 2002
Shaun of the Dead. Dir. Edgar Wright. By Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. Perf. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Kate Ashfield. Universal Pictures, 2004. DVD.
Sicko. Dir. Michael Moore. Prod. Michael Moore and Meghan O'Hara. By Michael Moore. The Weinstein Company, 2007. DVD.
Stop the Exxon Mobile Alliance. "West By Northwest.org: Looking at Corporate Power: The Case Against ExxonMobil." West By Northwest.org: Looking at Corporate Power: The Case Against ExxonMobil. West By Northwest, 7 Sept. 2002. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://westbynorthwest.org/artman/publish/article_50.shtml>.
Turnipseed, Tom. "Dick Cheney: War Profiteer." Dick Cheney: War Profiteer. Common Dreams, 17 Nov. 2005. Web. 11 June 2012. <http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1117-22.htm>.
U.S. News Staff. "Poll: 70 Percent of American Consumers in Debt." US News. U.S.News & World Report, 21 July 2009. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/07/21/poll-70-percent-of-american-consumers-in-debt>.
Whitehead, Colson. Zone One: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2011. Print.
The Revisionists; Evolution Ain't Gots No Proofs!
I've always known that Texas has been leading the country in regards to public school textbook regulation and printing, why, I absolutely do not know. I just watched a PBS documentary called The Revisionists, and although I've heard the totally bonkers things Young Earth Creationists say in the past (see Sarah Palin), it's shocking that these people are allowed to be in charge of what children throughout the entire nation will be learning in school. We can only hope that their teachers are intelligent enough to teach actual science, history, and the rest rather than tell students what some Christian, Creationist, dentist from Texas believes they should be teaching.
Don McLeroy, although seeming to be a very kind and gentle soul, has absolutely no concept of reality. In a speech at a Tea Party rally, he said in reference to professors and colleges,"…these so-called experts have taken over our national government. Well I disagree with those experts. Somebody's gotta stand up to experts." Sigh. They are called experts because they have spent decades, tens of thousands of dollars, and devoted their lives to knowing as much as there is to know about a subject. How can you disagree with the experts when you haven't done the same? How can you disagree when you haven't allocated even an iota of your education to the narrow fields of study scientific experts have? That certainly doesn't keep Mr. McLeroy from claiming to be an expert himself however. The film included him talking to a group of children about Noah's Ark, "It is an absolute fact that there was plenty of room to fit two of each critter on the ark." Absolute fact? No person on the planet can say that even if they were an expert in Biblical Studies, which McLeroy is not. Could he name every creature on the earth in whatever year the flood supposedly happened? Does the bible name them all? No and no, because no person alive now nor any person who has ever been alive could do so.
In the same speech for a Tea Party rally mentioned above, McLeroy talks about how the US is the world's "last best hope." Hope for what, is unclear to me but he and the other conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education gave the very distinct and purposeful impression that their proposed agendas for the textbooks will be the thing to somehow redeem the US and the rest of the world. That their regulations will promote what they deem as intelligence. But if a person looks at where the US stands in relation to the rest of the word regarding intelligence (fourth, under Canada, Israel, and Japan) considering our abundance of resources and our extravagant and outrageous use of them (US population is 5% of the world but we consume 25% of the world's resources), we are quite behind intellectually. With everything we've had for so long, we should be leading in every field, but because of people like Don McLeroy our children aren't even allowed to accept evolution as a documented and scientific fact. (Of course technically it's a theory, but things exist such as the fossil record, homologies, and specific examples like the finches on the Gallapagos whose beaks evolved in different ways to be able to consume different foods, which leave no shadow of doubt.) Not only are they not allowed to accept that, but also are forced to "learn" from books which were written under guidelines implemented by a politicized board of persons who pray at each of their meetings. What place does God have in education and why are elected officials allowed to irrefutably include church in state? What place do people who exhibit obvious smugness, arrogance, and inflation when their biased and unfounded regulations pass, have in determining what our kids should learn? How can these people determine what should be included or excluded when they don't understand the basic fundamentals of the concepts themselves? Especially people who, considering their extremist beliefs, say things like,"The amount of power I have, at times, boggles my mind." What boggles my mind is why the rest of the states in the country are allowing their students to use the books regulated by these people? Because it's just easier? That's the part that really makes no sense to me. Why have states, especially those which are supposed to be the most intelligent in the country such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, allowed for a state such as Texas (ranked 25th in intelligence) to manage their children's learning?
The Texas State Board of Education, which McLeroy is a member of, has consistently voted down any proposal to remove the phrase "strengths and weaknesses," from science text books' coverage of evolution. It was mentioned that this phrase, specifically, confuses teachers because they are forced to invent "strengths and weaknesses" within a scientific theory which isn't how science works. Teachers are trained to teach science not convolute their lessons to include terminology which is unrelated. When it was proposed that this terminology be removed, the board challenged those who requested its removal to prove that evolution existed and explain the origins of life on earth. Of course they know that no one can answer this question!
Toward the end of the documentary they spoke to an Anthropologist who had been consulted throughout. He eloquently put it this way,"The evolutionary science in which I participate never asks the question of the origin of life mainly because we simply don't know. Trying to give the answer is like trying to write a fairy tale." Such as the Bible perhaps?
Don McLeroy, although seeming to be a very kind and gentle soul, has absolutely no concept of reality. In a speech at a Tea Party rally, he said in reference to professors and colleges,"…these so-called experts have taken over our national government. Well I disagree with those experts. Somebody's gotta stand up to experts." Sigh. They are called experts because they have spent decades, tens of thousands of dollars, and devoted their lives to knowing as much as there is to know about a subject. How can you disagree with the experts when you haven't done the same? How can you disagree when you haven't allocated even an iota of your education to the narrow fields of study scientific experts have? That certainly doesn't keep Mr. McLeroy from claiming to be an expert himself however. The film included him talking to a group of children about Noah's Ark, "It is an absolute fact that there was plenty of room to fit two of each critter on the ark." Absolute fact? No person on the planet can say that even if they were an expert in Biblical Studies, which McLeroy is not. Could he name every creature on the earth in whatever year the flood supposedly happened? Does the bible name them all? No and no, because no person alive now nor any person who has ever been alive could do so.
In the same speech for a Tea Party rally mentioned above, McLeroy talks about how the US is the world's "last best hope." Hope for what, is unclear to me but he and the other conservatives on the Texas State Board of Education gave the very distinct and purposeful impression that their proposed agendas for the textbooks will be the thing to somehow redeem the US and the rest of the world. That their regulations will promote what they deem as intelligence. But if a person looks at where the US stands in relation to the rest of the word regarding intelligence (fourth, under Canada, Israel, and Japan) considering our abundance of resources and our extravagant and outrageous use of them (US population is 5% of the world but we consume 25% of the world's resources), we are quite behind intellectually. With everything we've had for so long, we should be leading in every field, but because of people like Don McLeroy our children aren't even allowed to accept evolution as a documented and scientific fact. (Of course technically it's a theory, but things exist such as the fossil record, homologies, and specific examples like the finches on the Gallapagos whose beaks evolved in different ways to be able to consume different foods, which leave no shadow of doubt.) Not only are they not allowed to accept that, but also are forced to "learn" from books which were written under guidelines implemented by a politicized board of persons who pray at each of their meetings. What place does God have in education and why are elected officials allowed to irrefutably include church in state? What place do people who exhibit obvious smugness, arrogance, and inflation when their biased and unfounded regulations pass, have in determining what our kids should learn? How can these people determine what should be included or excluded when they don't understand the basic fundamentals of the concepts themselves? Especially people who, considering their extremist beliefs, say things like,"The amount of power I have, at times, boggles my mind." What boggles my mind is why the rest of the states in the country are allowing their students to use the books regulated by these people? Because it's just easier? That's the part that really makes no sense to me. Why have states, especially those which are supposed to be the most intelligent in the country such as Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, allowed for a state such as Texas (ranked 25th in intelligence) to manage their children's learning?
The Texas State Board of Education, which McLeroy is a member of, has consistently voted down any proposal to remove the phrase "strengths and weaknesses," from science text books' coverage of evolution. It was mentioned that this phrase, specifically, confuses teachers because they are forced to invent "strengths and weaknesses" within a scientific theory which isn't how science works. Teachers are trained to teach science not convolute their lessons to include terminology which is unrelated. When it was proposed that this terminology be removed, the board challenged those who requested its removal to prove that evolution existed and explain the origins of life on earth. Of course they know that no one can answer this question!
Toward the end of the documentary they spoke to an Anthropologist who had been consulted throughout. He eloquently put it this way,"The evolutionary science in which I participate never asks the question of the origin of life mainly because we simply don't know. Trying to give the answer is like trying to write a fairy tale." Such as the Bible perhaps?
Just Dance to the Racism
The only game
system I've ever owned was a Nintendo, so I've played games on other people's stuff over the years but around Christmas year before last my friend
Ryan let me borrow his Wii ("indefinitely") and bought me Just Dance 3.
And it's fucking awesome! They do repeat a lot of moves on different
songs, but I suppose it has to be easy enough for people to actually be
able to do it. I literally play about 45 minutes worth of songs every day
for my workout and it's like not even working out. Often enough I'll
end up playing it for an hour or more without even realizing it. My
point is, I love this game.
The other day though I was working on one of the goals to earn a medal, or whatever they're called, which will give me bonus shit or songs or something. One of those goals is getting one star on every song on the game, so I was playing/dancing to songs I wouldn't otherwise try like that horrible crap band Laugh My Fucking Ass Off which I just really don't understand the appeal of. One of those was Apache by Sugarhill Gang. I was astounded! When it started I thought, of course some ignorant pop-culture game designer would see the Apache song title and put a headdress on the avatar dude...but then I realized I had never heard the song in its entirety and the lyrics had my jaw dropping as I shuffled my body around to the moves.
I have many points of contention here, but let's start with the most glaringly obvious shall we? Apache, is not actually even a tribe or group of Native people, but rather a Zuñi word for Navaho people which means 'enemy' and was assigned to a group of Native Americans by the Spaniards who came through bringing with them Christianity and genocide. There's that, which is something that should be obvious to people, but alas is not. What's really ridiculous though is the depiction of a traditionally Lakota Sioux war-bonnet headdress the designers put on the avatar. Obviously this was a well thought out tribute by the game designers because the song so clearly represents the Lakota people's heritage, culture, and language. My god, ignorance abounds!
So the lyrics start with,"Tonto, jump on it, Kemosabi, jump on it," which in and of itself is some racist shit. Mostly because the portrayal of Native Americans in The Lone Ranger is so absolutely awful and wrong. What better character for Johnny Depp to revive by the way than the cowboy sidekick Tonto (Spanish for "moron" or "fool") who is too dumb to realize that the dude he's hanging with who he calls his kemosabi (meaning "friend" in the show) is part of the mass murder of his people and culture. Great job casting a white guy in a Native role Hollywood...again. Although that may have been intentional because the original Lone Ranger was a white guy, old habits do die hard and apparently racist ass TV shows die even harder. Back to "kemosabi" for a sec, technically that's fucked too because, Kemosabi is from the Algonquin language, similar to the Ojibwe word "giimoozaabi" which means "he peeks." And then the song goes on to mention "chiefs", "Custer", "horses" (which are also something that only one or two tribes of the country used), "firing squads", "maize", "moccasins", "tee-pees" (also a historically Lakota Sioux structure), "smoke signals", "medicine men", and yes..."squaws". That line actually says,"Had a little talk with my medicine man he said, "Get them squaws, fast as you can."" I'm assuming the rapper is trying to say that he wants to hook up with Native women (...?), considering that's what the word actually means in the Algonquin language, but "squaw" has been a derogatory term for Native people since the 19th century for Christ's sake. And that song was released in the '80s!
It sucks that some dumb ass, washed up band mashed a bunch of stereotypes and miscellaneous tribe's cultures together, made it all rhyme, and attempted to make money off of it. I mean, I have a sense of humor, but when the systematic oppression of an entire population of people and the destruction done to their cultures is something that's still happening...it's not fucking funny dude! And bad form Just Dance 3, for dredging that shit back up from the hole of the '80s and putting it in your game. How many other millions of songs are there to choose from!? It's infuriating. I'm sick to death of Native people being ignored, misunderstood, and pigeonholed.
The other day though I was working on one of the goals to earn a medal, or whatever they're called, which will give me bonus shit or songs or something. One of those goals is getting one star on every song on the game, so I was playing/dancing to songs I wouldn't otherwise try like that horrible crap band Laugh My Fucking Ass Off which I just really don't understand the appeal of. One of those was Apache by Sugarhill Gang. I was astounded! When it started I thought, of course some ignorant pop-culture game designer would see the Apache song title and put a headdress on the avatar dude...but then I realized I had never heard the song in its entirety and the lyrics had my jaw dropping as I shuffled my body around to the moves.
I have many points of contention here, but let's start with the most glaringly obvious shall we? Apache, is not actually even a tribe or group of Native people, but rather a Zuñi word for Navaho people which means 'enemy' and was assigned to a group of Native Americans by the Spaniards who came through bringing with them Christianity and genocide. There's that, which is something that should be obvious to people, but alas is not. What's really ridiculous though is the depiction of a traditionally Lakota Sioux war-bonnet headdress the designers put on the avatar. Obviously this was a well thought out tribute by the game designers because the song so clearly represents the Lakota people's heritage, culture, and language. My god, ignorance abounds!
So the lyrics start with,"Tonto, jump on it, Kemosabi, jump on it," which in and of itself is some racist shit. Mostly because the portrayal of Native Americans in The Lone Ranger is so absolutely awful and wrong. What better character for Johnny Depp to revive by the way than the cowboy sidekick Tonto (Spanish for "moron" or "fool") who is too dumb to realize that the dude he's hanging with who he calls his kemosabi (meaning "friend" in the show) is part of the mass murder of his people and culture. Great job casting a white guy in a Native role Hollywood...again. Although that may have been intentional because the original Lone Ranger was a white guy, old habits do die hard and apparently racist ass TV shows die even harder. Back to "kemosabi" for a sec, technically that's fucked too because, Kemosabi is from the Algonquin language, similar to the Ojibwe word "giimoozaabi" which means "he peeks." And then the song goes on to mention "chiefs", "Custer", "horses" (which are also something that only one or two tribes of the country used), "firing squads", "maize", "moccasins", "tee-pees" (also a historically Lakota Sioux structure), "smoke signals", "medicine men", and yes..."squaws". That line actually says,"Had a little talk with my medicine man he said, "Get them squaws, fast as you can."" I'm assuming the rapper is trying to say that he wants to hook up with Native women (...?), considering that's what the word actually means in the Algonquin language, but "squaw" has been a derogatory term for Native people since the 19th century for Christ's sake. And that song was released in the '80s!
It sucks that some dumb ass, washed up band mashed a bunch of stereotypes and miscellaneous tribe's cultures together, made it all rhyme, and attempted to make money off of it. I mean, I have a sense of humor, but when the systematic oppression of an entire population of people and the destruction done to their cultures is something that's still happening...it's not fucking funny dude! And bad form Just Dance 3, for dredging that shit back up from the hole of the '80s and putting it in your game. How many other millions of songs are there to choose from!? It's infuriating. I'm sick to death of Native people being ignored, misunderstood, and pigeonholed.
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