Monthly Archives: January 2010

Jan27

Corporate “Culture” has hijacked the USA; What do we DO?

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Corporate “Culture” has hijacked the USA; What do we DO?

Corporatations have taken over the country (literally and figuratively), and I wonder every day if there is anything we as citizens can do to save ourselves. One of the career directions I am purusing is Media Literacy Education. Basically, Media Literacy Education is about the development of critical thinking skills in regards to the media. Just as one example, advertising in particular actively tries to create image insecurity in girls and women, not only teaching them that they are not beautiful enough but that beauty is what matters. They do this in order to sell their products, by insinuating that girls will be prettier (and therefore happier) if they buy the products. Messages planting insecurity are pervasive in advertising, as well as “creative” media content.

The media uses all kinds of methods to communicating cultural values. I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately about how pervasively corporate advertising has hijacked American culture. I’ve long known this is a problem, but just recently realized how big of a problem it really is. It’s very scary.

Here is a link to a (no longer printed) publication called “The New Citizen,” published by the Citizens for Media Literacy, an organization in Asheville, NC. One thing that is talked about here is how corporate journalism becomes watered down in order to placate advertisers. Real, investigative journalism is actively discouraged when it could piss off a sponser or advertiser.

The article states, “This is a kind of media self-censorship inconceivable to the framers of the First Amendment, whose aim was to protect the media from government censorship. But this protection means little when media censor themselves, a practice critics call “economic censorship.”

Yep! But what can we do? Media Literacy courses are one step, but is it enough to really protect our country from these challenges we face?

Also, a country inundated with corporate values is discourages citizen participation or discourse. The article makes a strong point about this too: “By incessantly focusing attention on the self, advertising culture discourages awareness of the world outside the self. This passivity is further reinforced by a bureaucratic culture that discourages citizen activism. This “go along to get along” mentality paints citizen activists as troublesome nay-sayers incapable of being team players.”

Again, what do we do? This is all, of course, even scarier now with the recent Supreme Court ruling. So scary! Are we lost? Do we have a chance? What can we do? Any ideas?

Jan27

A note about “Journey of Windows”

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A note about “Journey of Windows”

Looking through all the pictures I’ve taken since moving out of my Chicago apartment in April, I noticed a window motif, hence this series. Although many pictures feature Joy, she is not the theme of this series. I love pictures that include light from windows and people looking through windows. All of these pictures evoke a specific memory for me of part of our Journey. In May and June, we wandered the midwest visiting friends and family. After that, we came to Asheville and continued to be somewhat nomadic because we had trouble finding a good permanant place to live.

Part 1 of the Journey was a huge adventure, although not free of its trials or challenges. It was a time of looking back to other times in my life, sort of a great summing-up of my life before Chicago. Part 2 has been an adventure, too, although a lot more difficult for me.

The journey was lonely at times, and difficult, yet filled with transcendance. Joy was basically always her normal Joyful self, and yet I faced many struggles. These pictures represent that, even as they feature toddler-cuteness. Windows, for me, represent separation. Either light is coming in from outside, or someone is looking out. There is always a theme of inside-outside, and that for me evokes feelings of isolation and yet hope as well.

Jan13

Artist and Mother

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Artist and Mother

I just want to give a shout out to all women in this world who are artists AND mothers! It’s so hard to do both together, especially if you want to do both well.

I have been really tapping into my creativity more lately, for writing this blog, doing a little fiction writing, writing up a radio show proposal and trying to create a career consisting of video and audio production and media literacy. I’m trying to dream up a good life for myself, and it takes a lot of energy!

Energy is also in high demand as I play with a toddler all day!

This is a tough transition for me right now, trying to stretch myself as far as I can without any part of my life suffering. I’m trying to carve out some time for myself for my projects, and if I can do that, everything will feel a lot easier! I’m going to find a way to make it all work, I know it! It won’t be my first miracle, but it’ll be one of the bigger ones!

(reaching…stretching…once again and still, I continue to be a girl chasing frogs!)

Jan8

Exile Nation

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Exile Nation

I highly, highly recommend that you check out “Exile Nation,” an online book on realitysandwich.com, written by Charles Shaw.

In November, I blogged about how shame is social control, a way to try to keep people afraid of stepping out of a corrupt, toxic system. Well, prison is another way. Our “justice system” is the dirty underbelly of the ugly beast.

Take drug offenses. Most of the people in prison are in for non-violent offenses and drug-related charges. My neighbor knows a man (we’ll call him Jim) who was in prison for years because he had a single joint in his car! Not an ounce (which is a felony, considered intent to sell), but probably about, um, maybe 1/16 or 1/32 of an ounce. Not that I know anything about anything like that! ;) . Basically, it’s just about enough to get one person a nice little buzz.

I’ll be honest, in my early college days I was a huge pothead. I’m not now. I really enjoyed the weed, I just eventually got tired of it. But, at the time, it did good things for me. It relaxed me, for one. And, I know this is a cliché, but it’s true, it opened my mind. Not to say that I wasn’t sometimes just a dumb stoner, cause I surely was. But, if I went into it with just the right mindset, and had just the right amount of some decent quality weed, my mind would soar. I would see new healing solutions to old problems. I’d get insights into myself and other people and art and movies and even language itself. Sometimes, I’d do stream of conciousness writing, and read it later, sober, and be amazed. Because my thoughts flowed smoother and slower, I was able to break them apart and inspect them in new ways.

The awesome thing about my drug use is that I don’t need the drug anymore. I can shift in and out of altered states very easily (just ask my midwife, who witnessed me use trance for pain control, and yet I could snap out of trance-ville to speak calmly in full sentances, even at 8cm!). Also, I have a special skill for taking apart my thoughts and perceptions and looking at them in a new way. I don’t need drugs anymore to do that, but the weed did teach me how to use my brain in new ways!

Fortunately, however, I never got caught, or I would have ended up in jail like some of these folks! Or would I have? Many of my friends got busted at one point or another, and they never got more than a slap on the wrist. Why is that? My friend (we’ll call him Joe) was busted with nearly a quarter ounce, and he spent the afternoon in jail, where Jim spent years in jai for much lessl. What’s going on here?

Well, one difference is that Joe is white and Jim is black. That’s not a coincidence. People of color are much more likely to get jail time (and more of it) for the same crimes as white people. Same goes for rich vs poor.

Back to Charles Shaw! Charles was a drug user and also a drug activist. He felt the war on drugs was unjust and a waste of money. Like me, he used drugs for healing and spiritual purposes. Unlike me, he got busted.

I haven’t read the whole book yet, I just read chapter two, part one today. I read chapter one a month ago, and waited a month for two. He is releasing it chapter at a time on Reality Sandwich. Every day of the month that I waited for chapter two, I thought about it at least daily. His writing is so gripping, the story so gritty and the message so intensely profound, that I just can’t get enough of it! If it stays this good, it might end up being my favorite book ever!

Inmates in prison are people too! Sounds cheesy to say, because it is so obvious, and yet, I feel compelled to say it. I have already experienced the shame and invisibility that come with being poor, but incarceration takes those feelings far beyond anything I have ever experienced. And, we do this to people because, what, they have a joint sitting in their ashtray? They like to relax and let their minds soar free after work? C’mon! This isn’t about drugs. Once again, it’s about social control and fear.

Free-thinking people are dangerous. We question the status quo and try to CHANGE things! We rebel against a corrupt system because our spirits know that things are not right! I personally think that almost all crime is a reaction to corrosive authoritarian control and corruption. I think that all rebellion is about the spirit trying to be free. The penal system is to curb this motion. If we become too free, too alive, too thinking, we will change the world. Greedy corporations will go down. Corrupt institutions will be cleaned up, downsized, made to serve the highest good. Politics will really be the people. And on and on.

Prisoners in our jails most often probably do not see things this way, and yet, this is partly because their poverty and/or race have denied them the opportunities to see or seek greater opportunities for themselves or the larger world. They are stuck, often have always been stuck and (because of now having a prison record) may always be stuck.

The power structure in our culture is power-over, meaning that the rich profit off the poor. Keeping the poor suppressed is vital to the system functioning as it is. If we want to fix a broken system, we need to stop the oppression (and vice versa)!

Okay, I’m off my soapbox for now! : )

Here is the link to read this amazing story (you’ll have to cut and paste. Sorry, I can’t hyperlink on my phone):

realitysandwich.com/exile_nation_drugs_prisons_politics_spirituality