on privileged protesting

In these United States, different types of people protest differently. On the one hand are wealth-backed lobbyists and representatives of special-interests who are invited into the personal chambers of Congresspersons and Senators where they voice their concerns, bitch, moan, and explain their reasons for being aggrieved after having handed over a check for many tens of thousands of dollars. On the other hand are citizens who cannot afford to give elected officials envelopes filled with cash on a monthly or weekly basis and who therefore must stand outside in the elements, holding signs in their chapped and blistered hands and perhaps telephoning once or twice a day with their state representative's personal secretary in the hope that she might allow them to speak – even if only briefly – to the person who is supposed to be their go-to-guy in Washington. Furthermore, in this, our Corporate Republic of America, certain fabulously-rich individuals can hire slick-tongued, crafty motherfuckers to set up vacations at ski lodges in posh resorts, to which Senators and Congresspersons are invited and where they are wined and dined, harangued and harassed, and bought and sold to such an extent that when they return to Capitol Hill they initiate and support legislation favoring the narrow interests of their new corporate overlords rather than pursuing with single purpose the diverse interests of three hundred millions of common and average citizens. This is how things go in America today, a country whose government was once slightly representative but which now exists merely to increase and to protect the profits of a military-industrial complex that demands constant war and corporations that have been allowed to grow so large that they get away with not paying taxes, degrading and destroying our commonly-shared environmental, stealing and mismanaging the investments of millions of hard-working persons, and brainwashing the public via ubiquitous and constant television, radio, and billboard advertising into thinking that all is well with the world.

All is not well with the world, ladies and gentlemen. The economic system known as capitalism is being used to destroy Nature and to shuffle unimaginable riches into the pockets of fewer than a thousand families across the globe. Television is rotting the brains of millions of previously self-respecting and self-reliant individuals, encouraging them to kill themselves slowly by sitting around all day and not getting out for a nice walk, exposing them to the stale crumbs of televised truthiness rather than forcing them to think critically about the bullshit seeping from the mouths of their favorite painted talking heads.

We did not arrive at this state of affairs accidentally – this was engineered by precisely those individuals who run the aforementioned giant corporations. But who is protesting the downfall of democracy and the desecration of Ladies Liberty and Siblinghood? Only a few hundred thousand people are actively battling this unjust state of affairs, among them the members of Occupy, the Indignados, and the Anti-Fascists, or antifa, who are all carrying on the proud tradition of warring against injustice that started back in the late 1840s, when the members of something called the Paris Commune first took up arms against the overreaches of the state, inspiring Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to write a short pamphlet called the Communist Manifesto. And, unlike persons who choose to bribe and to corrupt elected officials to get their way, Occupy and antifa do their protesting out in the street, for all the world to see, eschewing back-door dealings for peaceful marches through tear-gas, pepper-spray, and hails of rubber bullets so as to bring attention to the marginalization of Lady Justice, who cannot easily protect herself, as she must remain blindfolded. So, friends, by rising up, speaking out, and never taking the easy way out, you too can help make this world a better place for all people, not just for the super-rich. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

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

on novus ordo seclorum

  Every American dollar bill bears the slogan novus ordo seclorum, Latin for New Order for the Ages. The federal government of the United States (the fed) persecutes this new order in hot and cold military conflicts, and by wagingwar on those of its own citizens who would consume drugs other than those it itself licenses or sells.

  Regardless of whether you are American or not, and if you are, whether or not you vote: if you handle US currency, and if you conduct business with it, you give your tacit consent to the aims printed on the American greenback – if you use dollar bills, you perpetuate and maintain this new order for the ages. (I have followed with interest efforts in economically struggling communities to switch to location-specific para-currencies, efforts which seem to nullify the paper money printed by the US Treasury.) In the not too distant past, the fed faced oppressive and mass-murdering dictators that it had to destroy, which required it to reorder its economy and to draft its mission statement anew. By consequence the world was also ordered anew, and the smaller players held their breath as clear battle lines emerged, and as nuclear missile silos sprouted in the Urals, and in the Midwest.

  The outline of this new order began to change in the 1970s, when the fed abandoned the gold standard, causing the US Dollar to decline. Then, it changed the rules for financial regulation, allowing for rampant and destructive speculation, so that now the two hundred and fifty thousands of Americans who speculated best (the Point Oh Five) control the corporate structures that in turn control most aspects of society. But it is the duty of the federal government to shape a new order for the ages, and no other party – not the 0.05% nor the military-industrial complex – can manifest the destiny of this nation with the sort of extreme prejudice and blind dedication needed to finish the job.

  Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp