So doing my part to protect the community and gorging myself on what youtube fare has been left in the public domain, i stumbled across a delightful “film” - i use the term loosely · “Billionaire Ransom ·” That is an hour and some odd minutes i will never get back, but i was mesmerized by its sheer mendacity in service of the billionaires who are only now capping off their greed tanks, and as has been said better elsewhere, “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” On one hand i was disheartened to the core knowing how much money is being spent framing the worth or our economic parasites in a positive light, and on the other hand i cannot remember when my moral compass writhed with such mirth at the utter cupidity of such stupidity; (and yes, tommy cruise could be found in the equation, tangentially - like all things tommy cruise; why do you ask ¿?). I mean that in the nicest possible way to all the Scientologists in the audience.
What pains me more is how many seemingly intelligent, well meaning - even forward thinking humans i know who would have no clue about the naked aggression of this inept, however innocuous “action film” of the early 2010s is. The story arc advocated redemption; something of which everyone on the planet is in favor, and in need. What was glossed over throughout the storyline is truth - the white washing of vacant personal responsibility of a drunken driving accident · the unrealistic rehabilitation of lifelong habits of disregard for the value and worth of all people through vacuous casting and vicious dishonesty about a mythological “rainbow bridge” at the higher echelons of society. However, critiquing this yellow journalism is not how i wish to spend my afternoon; if you are tempted to make your own evaluation about a hack film, by hack artists about a hack gentry, please do - but on this subject · i bid you adieu.
MLK Jr. - “Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war” ·
In that regard the capitalists got it right, and Upton Sinclair had is righter - “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” I put myself through college designing war components, and it is a fucking crying shame that what i learned during that time could not be put to better use now with what we face as an occupied species. I do what i can and use what i learned after refusing to participate in the warehousing and indoctrination of children of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I liked teaching, kids are way more fun to be around, and they are by far the better teachers of the important things in life; like how to hide a lie, bully the weaker, make war with anyone who is different . ..
My greatest experience in teaching was at a school on Sunset Blvd in East Hollywood. Of the diverse student body in LAUSD at the time this was the most diverse with nearly even split between Armenian and Latino with the remaining 20% divvied up between a dozen other demographics of color. It was maddening to watch the needless deterioration of relations between the two dominant cultures when they had so much in common - love of music, beauty, independence and fierceness. But nothing i could do or say with the time i was allotted could bridge the gulf - and so it is with likely every other warring faction on the planet, including the pissant billionaires. It makes no sense to struggle for another’s discomfort when everyone on the planet is so uncomfortable. I was, and am at a loss as to how to reason that gulf into the awareness of anyone who does not want to know otherwise.
I don’t do billionaires, because they seem to be terminally tone deaf and i prefer to work with musical people. Men and women have no excuse, for they are the progenitors of our species and have enslaved themselves to a dichotomy seemingly based on vanity which serves neither. As a man it would be normal for me to point the finger, but i also know what a remote asshole i can be, so i think it better to own that defect and search for understanding with she whom i have loved so often and on occasion found sanctuary from the pain. I have not yet learned how to not cause suffering, but i think Lao Tzu knew the way when he advocated that we each show compassion to ourselves and thereby become reconciled with the world; when i figure that one out, you’ll be the 1st to know . .. now for the love of g_d, go wash your hands; you know in your heart she knows best.
jts 11/08/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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