haiku 29 Aug 2018

Rocks falling at dusk 
Droppings as thick as my wrist 
A brown bear lives here 

[ americanifesto / 場黑麥 / jpr / urbanartopia / whorphan ] 

on the atlas

As an essential tool in the ongoing shaping of the fictitious Central Asia nation of Grigovia, I drew of it a map. And while adding the final touches to this map, in order to correctly determine its bordering states, I consulted a pre-Unification Diercke Weltatlas (world atlas) from my days at the Gymnasium in Germany. I had forgotten how fascinating it was to look at an atlas, at my leisure to follow the contours of a random chunk of the Siberian landscape, to examine the living conditions in and population data for a township in Apartheid South Africa, to puzzle over a detailed and colorful analysis of the economy of Argentina in the 1989. Only with effort did I remembered my task, flip to the proper page, and write down Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. My task completed, I looked back at the atlas fondly and appreciated it for having no bright display, no DSL uplink, no spyware, no malware, no netbook battery indicator counting down the minutes, no Tumblr feed to scroll through, no email to answer, no hyperlink to follow – that for ten minutes of my life on a Tuesday evening it was just me and a 20-year old book filled with pictures of countries, some of which no longer exist.

© americanifesto / 場黑麥

on idling enemies

From oil – as in crude oil, sweet crude, oil wells, and the British Petroleum / Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill of 2011 – we make gasoline. From oil we also get plastics, which are used to make water bottles, baby toys, toothbrushes, car seats, laptop cases, lampshades, bottle-caps, pens, linoleum flooring, clothing, and shoes, to name a few examples. Oil is a precious, strategic national resource of the United States of America, one every citizen is duty-bound to protect and conserve. Therefore, the patriotic citizen rarely allows his gasoline-powered automobile to idle for longer than 30 seconds, since idling past 30 seconds compared to turning off and later restarting the vehicle wastes gasoline (according to new information), and gasoline, as it is a derivative of oil, is a strategic national resource that must be protected and conserved. (Idling while stuck in traffic may seem unavoidable until one remembers the existence of gasoline-electric hybrid engines and sees bicyclists riding by freely and exuberantly.)

The patriotic citizen educates himself about his use of this precious national resource – he does not waste oil, because wasting it would require us to send America's brave men and women to fight more wars of aggression against more oil-rich nations (such as Iran). If a person wanted to harm the United States of America and to make her less able to provide for the common defense and the general Welfare, that person would drive an unnecessarily large, gas-guzzling vehicle. The person who drives a vehicle disproportionate to his supposed need to get around (such as an unaccompanied person driving a king-sized pickup truck) is effectively an enemy of the state: he burns more gas moving himself around than he might if he were to make a minor personal sacrifice and drive a smaller car with a smaller engine. (Today's Ynki accepts readily the lie that he might drive his car to work, drive his car to the store, drive his car to the gym, and drive his car to school, all without consequence; we Americans, however, can no longer afford to be lazy, worthless people who fucking drive everywhere.) In order to protect his nation's future (and to make sure the troopers fighting this nation's wars have enough gasoline for their military vehicles), the true American patriot bicycles whenever possible.

Life requires water; without water, there is no life; without water, humans die. Because it is a component essential to maintaining the general Welfare, and since it is needed to effect the Safety and Happiness of the American citizen (which, according to the Declaration of Independence, is the primary purpose of government), water is one of this nation's precious national resources. Businesses that waste water are enemies of the state, companies that deliberately poison aquifers are enemies of the state, and persons who throw water away are enemies of the state. Persons who allow the faucet to run while they brush their teeth; who run the tap while shaving; who let a shower fun for twenty minutes for it to warm up; who hose down a driveway instead of sweeping it with a fucking broom; who maintain lawns in the desert (instead of planting drought-resistant, native species); who toss cigarette butts into lakes; these persons are all enemies of the state. Please, dear reader, if you consider yourself a patriot, please examine your use of Earth's precious resources, and adjust your habits so as to reduce the risk of future suffering. He who sacrifices for the common good can rightly call himself a patriot, unlike the person who desecrates the American flag by gluing it to his clothing or pasting it to the door of his car. Liberty frowns upon they who idle wastefully.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

perspective - it matters

Time, age, tiredness, joy, sadness, loss, gain – these hard-to-define concepts are aspects of the human condition, not iron-clad rules of law but rather matters of perspective that change with one's outlook on life. What is to one person a grave insult is to another as a joyous and welcome gift. A few days ago, a family friend was telling me about growing up Jewish in a Christian town, and how the other kids would throw pennies at her and call her a penny-pinching kike, and other bad names, and how she would pick up those pennies and use them to buy herself cartons of milk and boxes of cookies, which cost about five cents a-piece. And then there is my longtime partner-in-crime, Mr. P, a friend from my childhood in Germany, who makes over a hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars a year, who lives in the new W residences near the World Trade Center site in New York City, and who is so upset with his former boss in Thailand for that man firing him and forcing him to leave that country that his heart has become swamped with hatred, keeping him from seeing his life as blessed, the kind of life that people kill for.

I spoke with Mr. P a fortnight ago, trying to help him see things from a different perspective so that he might come to enjoy his time Stateside and not be so miserable and mopey all the time, but changes in perspective are achieved only by each person individually and are not easily forced, or coerced. So subtle is perspective, and at once so powerful, that entire industries exist to shape and to mold the views of persons who consume media (which accounts for any person who has ever watched TV or listened to the radio). Even as far back as the 1930s, American advertising was so effective and so quick to control and to shape the perspectives of millions of far-flung and unrelated citizens that the National Socialists in Germany, the Nazis, adopted Yankee-pioneered advertising and propaganda techniques and used them to brainwash tens of millions of good, honest Teutons into acquiescing to the invasion of sovereign foreign nations and the eradication of train-loads of men, women, and children. The power of the American advertising machine persists – so great is it that an imbecile such as the political puppet Sarah Palin can be packaged and sold in such cunning fashion that otherwise intelligent individuals come to see her as a desirable candidate for the second-highest office in the land.

You may be asking yourself right about now, “Well then, oh-so-clever LyeSmythe, how can I avoid being brainwashed, and how can I craft for myself a pure and honest view of the world?” Persons who change their perspectives begin by turning off and throwing out their television sets, they refuse to watch junk-TV (think reality- and talk-shows), they get news from sources located in different countries around the world, and they read news in languages other than English. In this manner, self-respecting people avoid the snare of America's propaganda juggernaut, giving their minds enough unique views of news-worthy events that their opinions are not shaped or dominated by just one brand of crazy.

Beyond the political sphere, however, one's perspective of something on the order to time itself – time-keeping via clock or watch, being on or off schedule, on time or off it, early or late – is shaped by society and by the consensual, Western hallucination that time is a rigid temporal plane extending in a straight line from the past into the future. Which is all well and good until one runs into the article entitled the Rebirth of a Sioux Nation in the August 2012 edition of National Geographic in which the author talks about the way the people of the Oglala Sioux view time – as a cyclical maelstrom in which past and present, life and death, and the spirit and waking worlds are shadows of one another, not strictly separate realms. Seeing the world from a point of view so foreign to the cookie-cutter, pre-packaged perception drilled endlessly into the heads of average Americans is a nice way to blow one's mind on a rainy Tuesday afternoon; such adventures into the curious minds of wise and ancient peoples are good ways to keep one's perspectives loose, and flexible. Therefore, on the next occasion that someone complains that you were not on time, you, dear reader, can claim to be changing your views on the nature of the universe, and that the clocks were wrong, not you. Give the gift of cognitive insecurity – change your mind frequently, adopt new points of view as often as you are able, and keep that dome-piece of a swivel. Mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on idling enemies

From oil (as in crude oil, sweet crude, Big Oil, oil wells, the British Petroleum Gulf Disaster of 2011, and the like) we get gasoline. From oil we also get plastics (which are used to make water bottles, baby toys, toothbrushes, car seats, laptop cases, lampshades, bottlecaps, pens, linoleum, clothing, shoes, and the like). Oil is a precious and a strategic national resource of the United States of America, and it is the duty of each and every citizen to protect his nation's precious resources. Therefore, the patriotic citizen never allows his gasoline-powered vehicle to idle for longer than 30 seconds, since idling past 30 seconds compared to turning off and later restarting the vehicle wastes gasoline, and gasoline, as it is a derivative of oil, is a strategic national resource. (Idling while stuck in traffic may seem unavoidable until one sees bicyclists flying exuberantly by, unopposed.)

The patriotic citizen educates himself about his use of this precious national resource – he does not waste it, because wasting it would mean that the brave men and women fighting America's war would perhaps not have enough gasoline to complete their missions. If a person were to wish to harm the United States of America and to make her less able to provide for the common defence and the general Welfare, that person would drive an unnecessarily large, gas-guzzling vehicle. The person who drives a vehicle disproportionate to his “need” to get around (such as a lone person driving a Ford 350 or a Dodge 3500) is an enemy of the state, because he burns more gas moving himself around than he might if he were to make a small personal sacrifice and drive a smaller car with a smaller engine. (Today's homo non-sapient accepts readily the lie that she might commute to her job by car, drive her car to the store, drive her car to the gym, drive her car to school, all without consequence; at least in America, we can no longer afford to be lazy, worthless people who drive our cars fucking everywhere.) In order to protect his nation's future (and to make sure the troopers fighting our wars have enough gasoline for their military vehicles), the true American patriot rides a bicycle whenever possible.

Life requires water. Without water, there is no life. Without water, humans die. Because it is a component essential to maintaining the general Welfare, and since it is needed to effect the Safety and Happiness of the American citizen, water is one of this nation's precious and strategic national resources. Businesses that waste water are enemies of the state. Persons who waste water are enemies of the state. Persons who allow the faucet to run while they brush their teeth; who run the tap while shaving; who hose down a driveway instead of sweeping it with a motherfucking Broom; who maintain lawns in the desert (instead of planting drought-resistant, native species); who toss cigarette butts into lakes; these persons are all enemies of the state. Please, dear reader, if you consider yourself a patriot, please examine your use of America's precious resources, and adjust your habits so as to improve this country's ability to survive in the future and to fulfill the parameters of the Constitution.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit

dollar stores = commie outposts

  As of these last few months of 2011, millions of American citizens are directly supporting the People's Republic of China, our country's primary economic competitor and one of the sole remaining bastions of the socialistic world-view. Every day, we in this country support communism in the People's Republic of China, and all across this nation, in cities great and small, from the rolling central plains to the rugged western coastline, countless numbers of red-blooded, patriotic American citizens contribute directly to the ascending might of the Middle Kingdom.
  Dollar stores, which sell products ranging from shower curtains to miniature cast-resin busts of zebras, stand at the forefront of the Chinese invasion of, and its inexorable dominance over, the American economy. Purchasing an item that reads, Made In China, funnels funds directly into the rapidly growing Chinese economy (where most of the consumer items sold in dollar stores are made) rather than into the pockets of producers based in these United States. In the 1980s, the capitalistic-minded oligarchy that has been allowed to accumulate the vast majority of America's wealth saw an opportunity to further boost their profits, destroying the manufacturing economy in this country by shifting manufacturing capacity to foreign countries. As hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens lost their manufacturing jobs, they had few options other than to buy the cheapest products in order to survive – they turned to dollar stores, thus supporting the very system that had swallowed up their jobs in the first place. The capitalistic oligarchy effectively enslaved the American consumer to the whims of foreign nations by shifting production overseas, to special economic zones that are, in everything but name, slave camps.
  I welcome our soon-to-be Chinese masters, and I would like to say Ni-Hao-Ma. As a Son of the American Revolution and a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims, my blood has been in America since day one. I, however, am not blindly patriotic, nor am I inextricably tied to our prevailing economic model of top-few capitalism. In fact, I find our current economic model, in which the fruits of the labor of an entire people are re-directed into the a pockets of a handful of corporate officers, deeply and intrinsically un-American. I am personally boycotting dollar stores (and, by extension, Walmart, Target, and the rest of the big-box stores), not to harm the Chinese economy, but in quiet mourning for our lost manufacturing economy. Join me if you wish, but know that this choice requires paying a bit more money for everyday goods, a sacrifice that will instantly reward you with a deep sense of pride and patriotic fervor.
  So, remember – if you aren't buying products made exclusively in the U.S.A, you are in part responsible for the gutting of the American manufacturing economy, for the demise of our middle class, for our high unemployment rate, and for the Chinese government's ability to purchase a significant portion of our national debt. Shopping at dollar stores is unlikely to have a positive economic impact on your personal finances (as such goods' generally inferior quality will necessitate you buying more and more frequently), but it will certainly boost the profits of those very corporations that got us in this mess in the first place.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp