Democracy versus Capitalism

   Another school shooting. Another American Mass Murder, graded on the amount of indifference and carnage, weighed in upon the scales of fame, and now, the POTUS says that this is unacceptable and we must change. Change what? Gun laws? Mental health programs? The fabric of American community? How deep must the change go for such atrocities to end?
  When democracy finally realizes that capitalism has no values, with the exception of the more, and that our capitalist culture is what denigrates our personal relationships, and the fabric of community, maybe that would be a start of some real change. These days it seems as if all the functions of capitalism, of management itself,  have turned on American society. The financial crisis of 2008. Shipping manufacturing jobs overseas. Capitalism seems to value labor only as a commodity and fails to realize that consumers and employees are essentially human beings, much more than functions and commodities. Americans are citizens, and it's democracy that allows every corporation the right  to exist. Democracy has the ability to pull the plug on any capitalist venture, but our representative government has been bought wholesale by capitalism, ruled by their narrow interests, all covertly administered by corporate lobbyists. Even banning assault weapons is a law we passed that was washed under the bridge.
   Change? Our society is based on competition, individual relationships of mutual usage, all based on greed, on wealth, on fame, and such a social compact has it's very foundation resting upon such violence. No wall streeter went to jail. George Bush is a war criminal and nothing at all happened to him. We started this country on the genocide of the Native Americans and the enslavement of other races. We're the only country to drop atomic weapons on another people. We have a deep history of violence. We're even killing other peoples children with drones, but these days Corporate America not only feeds on the other nations of the world, but on it's own people. Violence seems to be 'the flowering' of who we are. To change that demands more than outlawing assault weapons, requiring background checks, and upping the scope of community health services. Such change requires a change in the way we see ourselves, a change in the way we live.
   You have to find this out for yourself, for there are no political or religious answers. All the people of the world are more than employees, more than consumers, more than accumulated wealth, more than fame, even more than citizens. What are we? We all have but a short time upon this earth to ask these questions, made even shorter by corporate environmental degradation and poisoning: what we call Global Warming. What is the answer?
  

~~~The Medium Is The Message~~~

   Cave Walls and Pigments~~~Pictures and Pushpins~~~Smart Phones and Websites~~~technology has developed more and more sophisticated ways for us to gather the constellation of images~~~that captivate us~~~that define us~~~and show all with the eyes to see where the boundaries of our lives are~~~and so we have~~~drawn~~~attached~~~and these days~~~downloaded~~~them into the space that surrounds us~~~as we live our daily lives~~~we seek their security and comfort~~~while upon the impermanent face of this planet. Our desires and our mysteries~~~our fears and our allegiances~~~it is within these forces~~~of thought it's self~~~that propel us to gather fresh imagery each and every day ~~~and these~~~Our Own Cherished Personal Collages~~~Refreshed and Renewed~~~ascribe some sort of meaning and supposed individually~~~security and comfort~~~into this life of ours~~~but our horizons seem to go no further than the confines of thought~~~which are our own personal~~~Walls of Plato's Cave. We all wear the same polo shirt. We all choose between the music available. We all drink from the same cup when it comes to imagery~~~it's just thought~~~and if you don't know it by now~~~All Thought is Limited~~~and the word is never the thing~~~the description is never what it describes~~~for images and thought are only abstractions of that which is.   

   So you might as well pull your pants down when you show another your Collage of Imagery~~~and come to think of it~~~that's pretty much where it all ended up~~~just a bunch of desperate scribbling upon The Global Village's Common Bathroom Wall~~~and that would be The Invention of Little Zucky~~~his spitting image cast in logos up above~~~Facebook. Well? You seem to be able to~~~get lucky or start a revolution~~~on this new electronic bathroom wall of ours~~~and for sure we all cash in our 15 Minutes of Fame while we post in there~~~because it's a flat hierarchical structure and power can't control it's communicative abilities. Our Brave New World inhabited by all of the corporate bastions of authority~~~church, state, nation, and all the myriad mix of psychopathic corporations~~~has to be worried that we all are using the same bathroom now~~~because what comes from the bottom up is always more authentic and real than what comes from the top down~~~and what's trending electronically even beats the pollesters to the punch. So don't you know~~~Big Brother~~~is in here too trying to spin things the corporate way~~~looking to reign all this messiness in.

   Facebook is~~~THE MOTHER OF ALL BATHROOM WALLS~~~but it cares not for blood nor skin in it's imagery~~~and this is it's thin veneer of morality. So if I  were to meet this~~~Pompous Zuckerboy~~~I imagine that he would have the same reaction to me as Marshall McLuhan had~~~to that guy talking about him while standing in line for a movie~~~as this was the script of McLuhan's cameo appearance in Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall~~~and so this guy is talking while standing in line for a movie and it's like he's an expert on everything about McLuhan~~~and McLuhan himself appears~~~out of nowhere~~~and comes up to him and says: "You know nothing of my work."~~~but I do know that the Digital Revolution has changed what we pay attention to and the way we live our lives~~~not it's content~~~and that's the change that I've always been looking for.