on presidential selections

Dear fellow Ynki citizens:

As you vote on 8 November 2016, please remember that America is a constitutional republic that tends to operate using certain quasi-democratic institutions. The presidency is not one of those institutions. Americans do not elect their president - the president is selected by the Electoral College, which is in turn made up of persons chosen by the U.S. Senate. This part of the American system of government was set up this way to keep the uneducated masses - the base rabble - from choosing for their highest post a feeble-minded demagogue or a warmongering know-it-all. As currently those are the only feasible options, however, the system’s failures are becoming glaringly apparent. For the most part, the system is not to blame. Rather, we must blame the politicians who for nearly three centuries have altered and amended the original Constitution for their own short-term purposes and gains - those worthless scumbags are responsible for the promise of the American experiment imploding slowly before our eyes. A lumbering Hindenburg of ineptitude, corruption, and greed burning with sickening slowness, it will drag us little people down with it. We are reaping what we sowed - or allowed others to sow for us - and have only ourselves to blame for not demanding sooner a return to the founding principles of equality and justice, a retreat from aggressive war-making on sovereign nations, domestic and foreign alike. From U.S. government agents fighting First Peoples seeking to protect their sacred waters in the Dakotas to U.S. government agents fighting in support of the terrorist group known as Daesh (formerly ISIS, ISIL, and Islamic State) in Syria and Iraq, the balance of U.S. government action lies squarely in the negative realm. How much longer will we little people put up with this? Likely until the two political parties we have given a stranglehold on the lives of nearly 330 million American citizens are forced to share their power, that’s how long.

© JPR / whorphan / americanifesto / 場黑麥

46%

the same 46% of the American population that believes in creationism is likely the same 46% that does not vote, that is morbidly obese, that did not go to college, that is against homosexuality, and that can hardly tell its head from its ass. X

on job-creating street art

In this year in which the president of the United States of America is once again appointed to his post by representatives who are themselves selected (not elected) by the individual States and sent off to the all-powerful electoral college, much is being said in public about Things That Create Jobs, and about Job-Creating Agencies, Legislation, Institutions, and Policies. Amid all of this hullabaloo, it is not surprising to this author that one major job-producing aspect of American culture has been left out, namely: Street Art.

Street art creates jobs in different ways. First of all, graffiti writers frequently purchase large quantities of name badges, shipping labels, poster-board, poster sheets, glue, and other such materials which they use as media for storing their art, for moving it around without too much fuss or unnecessary weight, and for applying their art to otherwise unadorned surfaces – if not for street artists, the persons making these products would likely be unemployed. Then, our favorite urban vandals buy markers, pens, chalk, ink, spray-cans filled with paint, colored pencils, regular pencils, cans of paint both acrylic and oil-based, and many other media with which they make marks upon the aforementioned paper products or deface public (and private) property directly – if not for street artists, the persons making these products would likely be unemployed. Beyond this, Self-Directed Urban Beautification Specialists (SDUBS) purchase face-masks, respirators, eye-protectors, and many other such materials required to shield their soft tissues from fumes and splatter caused by their many writing implements – if not for street artists, the persons making these products would likely be unemployed. (I would like to point out the major flaw in the argument I am making here: that the enormous, intricately-linked nature of our capitalist world markets means that the action of a few, specific individuals does not necessarily create jobs for any other specific individuals, even if the two parties Seem To Be Directly Linked; it is therefore impossible to attribute the Creation of Jobs to any one specific action (such as buying a packet of colored markers), person (such as Banksy), or group of persons (such as all American graffiti-writers put together), but the same can be said for the bullshit seeping from the mouths of our corrupted and re-election-obsessed politicians who claim that this specific thing or that specific policy Created Jobs.) Thirdly, graffiti writers create jobs by giving judges a means to punish juvenile delinquents and other such petty criminals by scrawling on and otherwise defacing property that needs to be subsequently scrubbed clean of said defacement, rehabilitated, and re-painted – if not for street artists, the persons making the cleaning products needed in said rehabilitation, and the persons catching, trying, and sentencing these law-breakers, would likely be out of work.

The above text is brief, but, I believe, powerful, justification for officially recognizing self-directed urban beautification as essential to a robust economy and a vibrant and lively national consciousness. So please, dear friends, write to your local street artist, and thank her for getting Americans back to work.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit