Virgin, Soma, and Our Space


Virgin Records... Now the Virgin Group: from music to beverages, airlines, trains, games, consumer electronics, financial services, films, internet, cable TV, cosmetics, jewellery, house wares, mobile phones, and now spaceships too i.e. see SpaceShipTwo, whose first test “drop flight” occurred on Oct 10. 
Since NASA and the U.S. government can no longer afford to commercialize space, reaching that next frontier in
humankind’s profit potential is now left up to a massive empire with intensely far-reaching limbs built out of an industry which is now far from being their primary focus.

Virgin’s record division is now owned by EMI—they also own the Capitol Music Group—which is now wholly owned by UK’s mega Terra Firma Capital Partners (homes, defense, gas, energy/utilities, alcohol, betting... you name it). TFCP is a Normura Group (Japan) investment, which also owns shares in everything from electronics to gas to electricity to banks to... 

Entertainment is big business with an insane profit margin; successful entertainment necessitates big bucks.  And at the level produced by such companies, don’t be fooled, it’s packaged and sold to us like any other consumer good, be it a pair of jeans, frozen peas or toilet cleaner.  
Of course this isn’t to say that the product can afford to be totally devoid of some form of inherent worth—although giants like EMI, Time-Warner, et al. do all that they may to influence and manipulate audience interests and trends, the act of “pleasing the masses” still remains a greatly fickle, incalculable business.  Sure there are clear formulas, Pop culture is proof of this, but that yesterday’s nobody may be today’s superstar and end up being tomorrow’s washout still relies on innumerable uncontrollable variables. 
But these seem to be diminishing, the gap between the immeasurable and predictable disappearing as the science progresses and their investments spill into all areas, penetrating deep into all other industries.
As such, these corporations seem to be able to exert far greater control on our likes and dislikes by marginalizing “culture” and quickly buying out any trend or meme that explodes in full view, milking it for all its worth.
After all, "one-hit wonders" is really a by-product of the mass-recording and distribution revolution unleashed by major labels, exploited by Television, and immortalized by the Internet.

And as we focus all our anger towards governments and particular types of corporations, spitting venom on the evils we perceive, we willingly allow others to get outrageously rich, exercise an exponentially growing control on us and on all facets of our personal lives, our environment, and now space, too.  What's left? 

Why do we allow it? Rather than frown on these all-pervasive empires, we seem to glorify them, allowing anything to slip under their logo because the products we associate with them make us happy by, ironically, enabling us to quickly and effortlessly escape those perceived evils.  

Is today’s Soma tomorrow’s government? 


Keep on clicking! 
PDL 


 © 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier 
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Lolz Cats and My Beef




You have to admit, there’s something terribly wrong with a society that places more importance on Lolz pets and  the freaks that shop Wal-Mart than on the Fine Arts. If our future's generations were genuinely  interested in paying just 1/3 as much attention to wisdom-inducing activities or matters of real value than they do to the Lolz Cat, Lolzers et al., then perhaps I’d be able to feel good about such sites.  But not until then.

It saddens me  that all these forms of crass entertainment are preferred over the ones that procure a truer and lasting enjoyment but demand some effort. But why should that be surprising?  Less than 12% of North Americans have ever set foot in an arts museum; anyone can locate a Lolz Cat site but not everyone can locate their country on a globe, and, on the street, people are more likely to recognize an obese redneck that was featured on “The People of Wal-Mart” blog than Noam Chomsky.  A Youtube video of someone farting has over eleven million hits while you'd have a hard time finding 1% of eleven million people who can tell you what happened in Sierra Leone or Bosnia.

Sure, I awww-ed and giggled when the Lolz Cat pictures first hit the net, but now that I’ve been bombarded with countless such pics, I feel I’ve pretty much seen ‘em all.  The captions are trite clichés barely surpassed in insipidness by the ones found on those pseudo-motivational images.  The pictures and videos have become  disturbingly similarly unimaginative whether they’re from Haz Cheeseburger, Lolz Cats, Hot Dogs or the slew of other Hallmark-for-the-mentally-challenged type of animal or feel-good site that’s out there.

That’s because Jim-and-Jane-with-a-pet-and-a-camera are flooding these sites with content, hoping to get their 5 minutes of fame by posting a staged or waited-forever-to-get-lucky but out-of-focus picture of their pet and writing a witless caption in a way that guarantees never having to reach for a dictionary, while site owners are pulling in great advertising bucks thanks to senseless but free content while somewhere yet another truly talented artist is forced to pawn his medium in order to cover rent, throws in the towel, and ends his days in a call center selling bogus products no one makes and no one needs for some guy he’s never seen but rumours are he owns three Bentleys.   

And the “humans sicken me so I prefer relaxing by laughing at cute, harmless, uncorrupted animals” line doesn’t fly with me.  What’s the one thing these pictures have in common and the real appeal: anthropomorphism.  It’s not that you love animals, it’s that you enjoy seeing yourself in an animal. Escaping reality by hunting down and pointing out basal human traits and behaviours in anything that’s non-human, including human babies???  In that case how do you explain the comparable popularity of "Failblog" since logically, who'd want to escape human failings by focusing on human failings and harshly judging those that erred, and thus, are human? So, is it that we prefer to imagine ourselves as creatures possessing a mere fraction of our intellectual capacity and potential?  Or is it the belief that less-intelligent creatures would provide a better world if they possessed our intelligence?  That still doesn't make sense to me. Do you really think we’d still be the dominant species?  If your Golden Retriever had your level of intelligence, do you honestly believe that you’d still be the Alpha-male or that he’d still be your best friend?  And I can only imagine that any animal that would think like Cheney would do a hell of a lot more damage than the real Cheney?    

We humans have wondrous abilities; we’ve produced extraordinary things of astonishing beauty, breadth, and depth; we’ve probed and theorized and proved parts of the impossibly mind-perplexing. At any moment, at any time, nature bursts with unbridled animation.
And yet we prefer to watch others live a directed reality on TV, a simple story recapitulated for twenty of the show's forty minutes.  We smell digital roses and we can't be bothered  to observe the raw nature of nature through a non-raciocentric lens. We’ve created an awesome tool like the Internet, and porn, fraud, and content-less content for a pay-click is what prevails.  We prefer to share stupid-but-cute pictures rather than a minute of worthwhile information. 
Our obsession with the stupid infuriates me, further still when non-participants are frowned upon.  It’s glorified brain porn.  And these types of sites and attractions now dominate our cultural landscape in between the reality shows and the empty, depressing lyrics and banal beats of synthesized sex heroes.

So why should I be happy about the Lolz-crap site formula when what I see is yet more evidence of our general mental decline through our destructive obsession towards The Spectacle?  
This isn’t to say that pipi-caca-tit jokes and annoying pet owners and the Britney Spears don’t have their place in this world and that, by default, anyone that enjoys aspects of such things endorses retardation to a socially-revered anal phase.  Original potty humour will always find a way to make me laugh.  However, the limits of toilet subjects and (especially) of the people that usually create such jokes are easily reached.  Predictable potty humour is as pleasant as a badly performed root canal.  Ditto for the dripping-with-sappy-sentimentality crap that’s supposed to warm my heart and the redundantly worn-out pop-picture trends.
What's shocking is that these forms of entertainment haven't just become barriers to true culture, they are becoming its equivalent. Human stupidity is the new art form!  And while we're all complaining about this, we're more than willing to make it happen.
  
Whatever happened to our sense of discovery?  Have we really become blazé and numb to the point where we’re barely willing to search, to unearth within ourselves emotions and thoughts heretofore unknown.  Instead we flock towards the safety of mass acceptance through empty forms that scream out the feelings we’re meant to feel so we don’t have to wonder how we should feel, relying on the same codes that make us increasingly easier marketing targets?

But it’s the government's and the corporations' fault that you don’t care, right?  
At this point our future relies on the sacrifices we're willing to make. 

Keep on clicking!

PDL


 © 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier 
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Silly Advertising: Diesel’s Irresponsible Anti-Intellectualism



It’s a no brainer... in every sense.  Diesel’s current campaign, “Be Stupid.” proves that a company can in fact be all that it promises.

It is, in a way, refreshingly shocking to see such honesty in advertising, but don’t be fooled, albeit disturbing, this is merely another upsetting instance of a company bending truth, remolding it to suit their need, i.e. sell products.  Rest assured that the Diesel people spent huge sums of money on developing this campaign, armed with top notch advertising and market research people; it’s all about creating a buzz!  And it works; people react to big bold ‘stupids’, they barely care for 'smarts'—all part of our obsession towards The Spectacle.   As a friend, Paul A. Toth, pointed out: “It was obviously intended to be so blatant that it would attract comments from people like us...  And to an extent, I feel like I'm feeding the beast by blogging about it.”  Ditto.  And although I hate to do so for that very reason, I nonetheless feel that some negative attention needs to be given to this campaign; this is evil propaganda at its worst.
That said, I hope you can appreciate that I refuse to post their link here on my blog, but all one has to do is type ‘Diesel’ and ‘stupid’ in any search engine...  

Given our current financial times—the doom and gloom of the global credit crunch—it’s no surprise that retail operations are suffering setbacks, hard times, and plain ol’ bankruptcy.  Stores that sell obscenely-priced ‘luxury’ goods are seeing a good part of their market reconsidering their need for such “stupid”, narcissistic items.  Hard to justify spending in excess of $300 for $40 jeans when half of your expected-pension suddenly vanished and a majority of your stocks are worth more as toilet paper.  And anyhow, your kids should be your priority, and after dressing them in the required-by-peer-pressure Diesel-Kids you’ve only got enough money left to buy yourself one pair of Diesel socks...

Despite repeated attempts by our financial markets to impart lessons and wisdom upon us, we once again chose to remain blind as we turned the page on a new millennium, our hope-filled, dream-fed  ‘new start’ losing all glitter, quickly fizzing out before the decade could be spent.
So, once again, after a few brief years of 80’s reminiscent attitudes of over-abundance, self-indulgence, and the triumph of synthetic over the natural, we once more find ourselves experiencing yet another economic recession marked by yet another strong desire to return to a state of equilibrium.  Whether we want it or not, very few can, literally, afford to toss caution to the wind in quite the same way that the boomer generation could for so long.  Reasonable and sensible aren't “in”, our institutions have made these a “must”.
Globalization, overseas out-sourcing, the environment, the rising cost of grain, the list is long, the causes interweaving and complex, but loud are the alarms signalling a new dawn of unpredictable instability; from education to labour to retirement, nothing is sacred, guaranteed or protected.  The equations of yesteryear no longer apply: one should now start investing for one’s retirement before one is even a part of the workforce; one can no longer expect that a company will take care of them in return for years of loyal service—a career lasts, on average, 6.5 years; heavy debt-load isn’t just a part of “starting out in life”, it’s a part of life, always; graduate studies may end up costing you a lot more than their potential, long-term payoff; saying blue-chip investments is now an oxymoron;  kids are no longer our future, they’re yesterday’s profit margin and today’s borrowed equity... You get the gist.  

The reality is there: the middle-class, though not, in my opinion, disappearing, is finding itself being redefined and repositioned in respect to a broadening lower-class and a strangely morphing anti-upper-class upper-class; this is a world-wide phenomena.  As many absorb increasing variants of lower-class woes, a new class of overnight millionaires are popping up all over the globe...   And Diesel’s ability to capitalise on these too-much-too-easily-too-soon types is what has kept them thriving, setting their collection of used-looking casual wear—the kind of clothes one would expect to find in a thrift store—in the same competitive league as all the well-known and lasting couture brands.  Essentially, they’ve managed to become an internationally recognized and accessible status symbol.    

However, here’s the conundrum: the rich may have been responsible for establishing Diesel’s reputation in the company’s younger years, but their numbers and ‘tastes’ can’t sustain the pre-credit-bubble-burst expanse Diesel had taken.  And without credit, who can afford to drop several thousands for a new wardrobe?  But the really wealthy (i.e. people for whom a $7000 dress merely represents the interest made while they stirred their coffee) don’t care at all for brands in the same way that the middle-class does.  The really rich don’t “buy” into the American dream, they “live” the American dream. They buy the best, and outward labels aren’t a necessity; their ‘friends’ will know, don’t worry.  It’s about exclusivity.  And with their logo now available on a whole slew of products ranging from clothes to perfume to jewelry to home decor and cars too, all sold in over 5000 retail outlets in over 80 countries, Diesel isn’t all that exclusive anymore, nor can it be as high-quality—that kind of operation entails the implementation of low-cost large-output manufacturing techniques (indeed, most of Diesel's clothes are now made in, you guessed it: China!  And at a fraction of retail prices).  As a consequence, and albeit the outrageous prices, a brand like the one Diesel has become is entirely dependent on middle class insecurities to achieve and maintain the types of sales growth it has achieved in the last 15 years; last year the company grossed $766 million, slightly less than the $802.8 reported in 2008.  Trends are predicted to continue.  
This new campaign is clearly the company acting on this reality.  After all, spending the equivalent of most people’s  monthly rent or mortgage payment on one piece of clothing is only stupid if spending that kind of money implies financial planning and worrying.  Well, recent events were a nice slap-in-the-face reminder that that implies all but a very thin slice of the stratification pie.  Nearly everyone, especially the middle-class, is worried about their personal finances these days.
Is it a good time to bring up Jimmy Carter’s 1979 Malaise Speech?   Here’s a relevant portion: “too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose.”  Hard to believe that was 40 years ago.  But back then this was a warning; today, we're living the consequences. 

If the current economic and social atmosphere is forcing members of Diesel’s key-market group to become increasingly cognizant of the fact that buying such products is senselessly stupid, Diesel figured that any attempts to counter these forces is wasted energy.  And if, in the immortal words of Forest Gump, “Stupid is what stupid does,”  then the Diesel folks took it upon themselves to redefine ‘stupid’ for us.
This is the part that I find incredibly despicable and insulting: rather than attempt to adjust to this shift and this new reality, Diesel is pretentious enough to give us all a big, "f*ck you, we won't change! Instead, we'll tell you what you are and we'll fool you into believing that it's a good thing by redefining stupid for you, since, after all, you're stupid enough to believe us, we've already sold you tons of merchandise!"
They really don't think too highly of their potential and actual customers, do they?  The truth is simple: Diesel and all these similar brands rely on two things: stupidity and insecurity; it's their lifeblood.  Because of these, people who can't really afford such products are nonetheless willing to put themselves in debt for "stupid" reasons.  But 'stupid' is also the attitude that brought us to a time where we're willing to be sold a shiny new and pleasing concept of 'stupid'.  Indeed, stupid is what stupid does.
  
For those who haven't seen the advert's accompanying texts and video (should we call that, "legal department imposed supplemental material"?), here is Diesel's campaign in a nutshell:
Stupid is good.  Smart is bad.
Stupid is unique.  Smart is humdrum.
Stupid is the new rebellion.  Smart is authority.

Their ad bombards us with the idea that 'stupid' is "wild, passionate, unreasoned actions made from the heart," i.e. pleasing one's self with an impulsive, unjustifiably expensive purchase, and that 'smart' is boring, predictable, devoid of life and essence; smart is conformity, especially to oppressive kill-joy authority figures (i.e. what we usually expect of the “stupid” masses).
Stupid is about succumbing to false needs and wants, even if this means finding yourself on anti-depressants... 
Yes, let’s celebrate obsessive, debt-inducing, vapid behaviour.  Let's encourage self-serving, living-for-the-moment moments despite any consequences. And let's be proud to call ourselves stupid for a company that embodies all that is wrong with the world we currently live in.

What's next?  New definitions for slut, thief, and murderer?  Wake up!  Other companies and governments are already working on those.

Try as they may, 'stupid’ will never become synonymous with ‘cool’ and ‘freedom’; at least not with smart people.  Stupid is a perfectly good word to describe stupid behaviour... behaviour like, for example, holding a sign that says "carrots" in an attempt to convince people that potatoes taste like turnips.    
And paying that kind of money on clothes, for nearly all of us, should still and always be seen as an act of stupidity, but stupid as in:  1. Slow to learn or understand; obtuse. 2. Tending to make poor decisions or careless mistakes.

Keep on clicking!

PDL
 
Image (above):  The Transparent Wall of the Spectacle: Be Stupid by Paul A. Toth; digital collage based on Diesel's "Be Stupid" web campaign.   


Side note: I’d like to call attention to the way the B was placed above the P (in Diesel's ad, top of post) as if to suggest BP Stupid.  Coincidence given the Deepwater Horizon disaster and Diesel’s release of their revamped Fiat 500 cars in the UK? 


© 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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The Spill (Gulf of Mexico)





Keep on clicking!

PDL

 © 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier 
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Will British Petroleum Still Make a Profit? All Bets Are Open.


On the morbid side of things, gambling website PaddyPower.com is taking bets on spill-related extinctions. [...] PaddyPower seems to be flip about the whole thing, but the site serves as a startling wake-up call--yes, this spill might be so bad that entire species die out as a result.

Read that startling bit on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on Fast Company’s Website. It’s disturbing on so many levels, initially; after careful consideration, is it really?  

Paddy Power Site owners claim that they’re hoping their actions will help “highlight the recent gulf catastrophe,” and although few may buy that this was their initial goal, I think we all pretty much believe the same thing: that’s just a spin on a great but shameful opportunity.  
But, amidst all the BP cover ups journalists are slowly unearthing, one aspect few had so far talked about is the potential and all too likely disappearance of a few species; the Kemp's Ridley turtle is at the top of the list... odds are (according to Gambling911.com, a gambling “news” website (that aims to sell the spin) – sorry, didn’t bother directly checking out the Paddy Power site, no time to waste).   Albeit corporate-media news disseminators have placed much concern on the environmental effects,  it did take an Irish-based betting Website to bring the idea of annihilation of certain species outside of activist and environmentalist circles.

So, I’ll admit that my first reaction to seeing this being turned into a gambling opportunity was total disgust, but my shock quickly dissolved into fulfilled-expectations of typical human behaviour--we humans are disconcerting, that's nothing new.  Let's face it, people gamble on way worse things, some of which wouldn't exist without gambling. And weren't people placing bets some years back on whether or not Britney Spears would commit suicide?  Paddy Power is also taking bets on who the next CEO will be, so honestly, in this case, what’s worse? That some crafty buggers found a way to profit from this and inadvertently played a role in raising awareness in unlikely circles, or gambling on such things?  And what’s all of that in comparison to what’s actually happening?     
What I’m really afraid of is this:
Knowing what we humans are capable of, I wouldn’t be surprised to one day find out that these oil-related extinction bets had become so important and represented such potentially large sums of money for some who played a part in accelerating/assuring the extinction of some aquatic species of flora and fauna, especially some of the most unlikely ones, the ones that represented the more interesting returns... and I’m thinking the whole thing was cooked up by BP PR folks in an attempt to divert some public attention... and I’m thinking BP Investment dept. folks, placing bets and insuring them... and I’m thinking big winnings and earnings covering the material and financial cost of this disaster... and it does sound silly, but I’m trying to think up a logical reason as to why BP would act the way they are, why they would apply the solutions they are, and why they continue to obsess over the use of highly irritating toxic chemical dispersants (beyond the most obvious, i.e. dispersants keep the oil away from the surface and out of sight) which is also, at this point, the most damaging course of action for them...  It blows my mind!  
I bet you that going electric makes more sense now, doesn't it? 

Keep on clicking!
PDL


© 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier 
Photo credit: pdl, all rights reserved 

Much Needed Words on Groups, Animals, and Pedophiles...


Yes, I know; it has been a while, again.  Life... what can I tell you.  
But be happy, in a way, for this subject pumped me full of productive anger... I really wanna talk about this Facebook group: "why test on animals when we have pedofiles in prison." [sic]  

Please read all the way through before reacting to anything I have to say.  I’m  aware that the millions of people who have joined the group will probably hate my point of view, but hey! that’s nothing new. Common sense is not always popular opinion... And indeed, not enough people are looking at this topic objectively, willing to give it some serious thought.  What I’m usually seeing are purely reactionary attitudes, and albeit “proper” and understandably justified, this is far from being the type of approach that, in the long run, is going to improve matters.  In fact, it worsens things. 

Firstly, what are we to make of the fact that every single post on the group page contains serious mistakes; the author can’t go more than ten words without making at least three grammatical/spelling errors. The creator continually makes jokes and excuses concerning his English skills, but so what?!  Never heard of spellcheckers or dictionaries?  Can’t take the time to do a bit of research? The subject isn't deserving?  Well, that’s obvious...  
Anyhow, the qualityat any level or angleis proof enough that this whole thing was born out of an impulse to act on a sudden idea rather than careful planning in the hopes of instilling serious change; either that or it’s all a well-planned scam to, no doubt, extract info from as many members as possible.  However there’s an authentic naïveté to the page that makes me think some teen geek cooked this up in between episodes of Family Guy, unwittingly allowing him his “fifteen minutes’ of Warhol-ian fame and that’s it!   Could that explain the owner’s anonymity?  Raises questions.    
Unfortunately, s/he isn’t competent or dedicated enough to use the platform to direct serious discussions or establish goals.  But the number of members sure seems important.   Conversely, people have clicked, and can therefore feel good – now time to talk about the weather and post links to Garfield stuff.... The world will change! Yeah, right!  Wake up, people!

Out of the thousands of posts and comments, less than 5% actually discuss the topic in any serious manner.  The rest is spam, crap about the weather, comments about pets, empty hurrahs, and twisted Hallmark morals.
Believe it or not, I’ve read more interesting YouTube threads.  Hard to beat!  And last time I checked people had posted 148 “fan” pictures of their pets or favourite cartoon animal. WTF?!


As far as I’m concerned, over 1.6 million people (to date) have clicked on "like" without even giving the subject any serious thought.  And their hate-filled comments confirm it.  Because if they had, they wouldn't be joining such a group unless they're willing to admit to possessing latent Republican, gun-toting, cross-burning tendencies. And I honestly don’t think most people who have joined this group really arbour those feelings. It’s just that they’ve given this less thought than that ever important question: “what’s next on TV?” 


This is the type of ignorant bandwagon-jumping that really irks me.  And I know few like to hear what I have to say... and I can’t help my tone, sorry; I’m profoundly upset. 
And why should I care so much?  Perhaps because I DO care and honestly DO WANT and strive for a BETTER world.  My morals aren’t just politically correct buzz phrases I spew out at cocktail parties, nor do I have a second set for when I’m with my drinkin’ buddies.  I actually believe what I believe in, the philosophy I’ve laid out for myself built on a solid framework of logical arguments.  So when I say that I don’t believe in violence, I don’t continually adapt elastic morals however way I feel just so they fit and are justified by my emotions, I act in accordance to my morals and contrast my emotions to them – if I have violent feelings, I’m outside my sphere of true beliefs, period.  No footnotes.  I’m not saying that provoked and necessary self-defence is in the wrong, I’m not gonna play Gumbi to any sudden attacker, but I REFUSE to condone or participate in any acts that arise out of aggressive attitudes leading to violence.
THE why test on animals when we have pedofiles in prison PAGE PROMOTES THAT, VIOLENCE.  And it seeks to make it morally acceptable to do so by promoting utilitarian hypocrisy; it’s clear that the 1.6 million people who joined don’t truly care about animals nor, for that matter, the environment. “Why test on animals” but who cares about the daily abuse done to millions of chicken, beef, lamb et al. on “meat” farms across the world, right?  Wonder how many vegetarians are in the lot?   
So yes, bravo. So let’s treat mentally ill people like sub-human monsters worth less than pet-worthy animals—already a reason why matters are getting progressively worse—but let’s do so legally.

How typically human: a tortured, suffering soul only deserves sympathy if the “trouble” in question doesn’t involve a taboo that falls too far outside of acceptable societal mores.  We tolerate and even encourage any compulsion that can be “safely” marketed and successfully exploited, and yet we choose to be totally indifferent towards, condemn, and opt for violent solutions when the side effect of all we tolerate manifests itself in sickening ways.  Destroying pedophiles by the time they can be categorized as such is senseless.  It’s trying to resolve a problem by attacking the result, not the cause.  If you’ve got a process that produces faulty product, you don’t just let it produce more faulty items so you can toss them in the garbage, you get the ‘system’ fixed. 
Why can’t people have the same basic consideration towards ‘faulty’ humans? Why are so few people willing to put their energy into truly productive, non-vengeful and “love”-filled solutions?

Different thing when you're a victim or the parent of a victim, of course; anger and hatred is more than normal, provided it's targeted at the perpetrator, and not, as a consequence, at an entire class, race, or gender... currently, this is all too often the result of our uncaring attitude.  But from those not directly involved?  What is their motivation for wanting such destructive, equally violent vengeance against convicted pedophiles?  I tend to think this is linked to some sort of collective blood lust combined with easy scapegoating because torturing those who have reached the 'acting-out' stage does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent further sufferers, be they potential pedophiles or victims.

Not an easy thing to do, but think "big" picture!
But we're too busy pretending to believe in some religion or other while we go buy more Calvin Klein and American Apparel stuff (you’ve seen their ads, you know what I mean) as those who can afford it go to Thailand and Taiwan and any other place teeming with sleazy tourists seeking to capture someone else’s youth for a few welcomed and tolerated bucks! And let’s fight for our right to view the lewdest acts possible within a few clicks, and our well-earned right to buy dildos on any corner or visit a peep-show at any hour.  Let’s celebrate the stars that sing of sex as they grab their groins in front of our kids.  And why don’t we let our kids buy those glossy sexually-charged, ad-packed magazines that teach the ABC’s of empty principles and let’s let them absorb the Hollywood bimbo values and ultra-violence dictated by the next gaming trend and CGI effects...  Let’s pump them full of synthetic, sugar and fat-filled crap that alters their minds.  Let’s reward our girls with botox and implants and let’s not talk to our kids about GHB and Ecstasy... or anything, really. Let’s blame everything and everyone else but ourselves when kids are now having consensual sexual relations at age 12 and going to blow-job parties by 13.  And let’s not question why there are more types of recorded sexual perversions than there are educational TV shows.
Let’s make a big deal about a boob on the loose on prime time TV while Hustler is clearly available in any quaint convenience store and everyone has access to shows like “Sex in the City”.  Let’s tolerate all the adverts and all the ways by which we are all asked to objectify others and think sex, sex, sex, but let’s make sure we castrate any male who now dares to openly exhibit or discuss his hyper-stimulated natural urges.  Prostitution is bad but it’s okay when college girls are doing it, they’re merely taking advantage of a situation...
Just shake your head and don’t forget to close your blinds when some kid is screaming down the street.  Phew!  Need a full-body massage?

And let’s not pay attention to any of that... Easier to spit on a troubled mind because such behaviour is beyond our scope of comprehension... or compassion. And no, I’m not saying we have to forgive them and be honky-dory with such foul behaviour.  Violence towards children sickens me.  But I want a change.  Read on...

It’s all a vicious cycle.  Remember this (for some reason few people ever mention it or seem to take it into account): nearly all pedophiles (not including the touristy kind—no stats for those; speaking of self-confessed or captured offenders) claimed to have been physically and/or sexually abused when they were young.  Most cases include siblings (highest), parents and relatives, neighbours, etc., and rarely are the offenders complete strangers to their victim.
Now, if pedophiles are monsters who were once the victims of monsters who were once... How the hell is any plan suggesting we legally treat them like monsters going to change matters, not to mention that its very existence reinforces counter-productive attitudes. Easy to want to experiment on some sicko in some other Province or State, but what about when the sicko is a member of your family and your own actions may have had a direct impact on their behaviour?  How far are you willing to dig into your own family secrets and closets?
We create these sick individuals. Pedophiles are the result of human folly, and the only way we seem to react towards this issue is with more human folly?! 
When are people going to stop pretending we don’t all play a role in perpetuating and even increasing this type of behaviour?  And honestly, do you really think pedophiles are happy being pedophiles?!?! Is anyone happy with their diseased mind, knowing that society’s unwillingness to understand and openly address the problem means they’ll never have a healthy, normal life?
Granted, pedophiles represent the worst of humankind--our grotesque flaws and failings personified.  They are a big part of our collective shame, and so, in typical human fashion towards anything that makes us uncomfortable, we’d rather bitch about the aftermath than assume responsibility and play a positive part in bringing about change.  People prefer to dump puss and venom on these people.  Didn’t people react the same way towards schizophrenia and similar illnesses some years back? Didn’t we drill holes in their head hoping evil spirits would be released? Until we finally gained enough wisdom to develop lobotomies, that is...
Seems to me this group page suggests a return to such practices.


Again, I’m not trying to convince anyone that we should shake their hands, pat them on the back, and offer up a friendly nod, or that we should abolish all jail terms for sexually-based crimes.  I’m encouraging understanding and an openness to see beyond the consequences so we can attack the cause. 
If society adopted a less destructive, more responsible and proactive attitude towards the problem, perhaps it would cease being such a troubling taboo that does nothing more than create ticking time-bombs.  Perhaps then pedophiles would be more open to help, to programs, as well as participating in controlled means of channeling their compulsions towards acceptable but equally gratifying methods of satisfaction instead of fearing for their lives, bottling uncontrollable emotions to an explosion point...  No doubt, everyone would be willing to invest more time and money in order to study the problem in more depth and develop new solutions if all were able to see pedophilia for the devastating disorder it is, instead of blindly unleashing so much mis-directed anger and hatred.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, this includes victims.  In such a world, they’d certainly be more willing to report and speak of any victimization; to seek help and to externalize and free themselves of the shame and the guilt that allows their victimizers to manipulate them, which then festers unattended until it produces the unstable monster whose life is, according to group members, worth less than any animal (except the chickens!).  After a few generations, surely the matter would improve.
And if all parents were a bit more present and interested in their kid’s lives, who knows?
And imagine if all played a part in assuring that everyone has access to a basic level of quality  education.
And what if we sought to resolve hunger and poverty and all forms of injustices that usually breed hatred and violence?
What if we took it upon ourselves to eliminate violence by refusing to dole out violence? 
What if we finally decided to be honest with ourselves and stopped justifying our own contributing attitudes and actions and decided to play anything but a passive, judgmental role in the face of our modern woes? 
What if we treated all humans as humans?

So when all you could do was spit out fruitless hate and blame upon hearing of some pedophile’s vile acts, what were you doing for the victim? And when the pedophile you’re willing to torture was just a wee child victim, what plans were you willing to partake in to help him avoid becoming another victimizer, another statistic?  With torture?  With empty clicks?

And no, I’m not for animal testing!  There’s another solution for that too.

In any case, in any situation, ignorance is the gateway to violence.
Please, those having joined the group, all I ask is that you give the subject some serious thought.  
Of interest: Child Molester Statistics

Keep on clicking! 
PDL 


© 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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The Worst that Can Happen


It took me forever to be able to post this picture, the thought of writing on the subject and seeing it on my blog disturbed me. And how could it not, right?  But this is reality.  Make no mistake, this is a result of our uncaring society.  It's a process, not a choice. It's a slow descent down to this level, and beyond a certain point, modern society--a macrocosm of corporations, acting as a pure externalizing machine--does everything to bring some people there, especially the mentally ill.
Frighteningly, this world is within anyone's reach, given the wrong string of terrible events...



In this shot, the homeless man needs to have his clothes peeled off of him by a doctor, over a years worth of urine and feces having fused them to his skin, collected in his shoes, and gave birth to maggots.
According to doctors, this is a fairly common "procedure" for homeless people who have been forced to an E.R. for one reason or another--the ones that don't die on the street.  However, this tends to limit itself to larger cities with cold, snowy winters.  I think it is fairly obvious why.  If not ask. That's as much as I want to say about the picture...

Keep on clicking!

PDL


© 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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Christmas Came and Went... Same as Always.


Christmas came and went. The holidays are gone. Back to reality, and here’s my annual thoughts on all that...

On Christmas eve, while every other adult had sensibly gone off to sleep, my brother-in-law Nick and I toughed out the night performing some of our usual celebratory rituals, i.e. drinking too much, smoking too many...err...cigarettes, resolving some of the world’s serious ills and satisfying those munchies.

At one late point, as we debated Quebec labour unions between gulps, puffs, and mouthfuls of words mixed with left-over meatballs and handfuls of cashews, Nick suddenly exclaimed, “Oh no! I forgot to leave cookies and milk by the fireplace.”

It did take far longer than it should have for us to convert glowing blue numbers on an oven to time, and longer still to deduce that we’d best hurry since my two nephews, ages 6 and 2, could be up at any moment.

Nick hesitated, tired and hazy, his face contorted in an expression of defeat and abandon. So, rising to my role of loveable uncle, I clapped my hands and jumped to the task. Nick leaned against the kitchen counter and watched as I side-stepped by him, broke a piece of crust off of a pie and proceeded to crumble flaky bits in a small plate.
“You think that’s gonna fool them?” he asked.
“Looks like crumbs to me,” I replied.
“Hmmmmm. They’ll know it’s not cookies.”
Nick rummaged through our parents' pantry for cookies while I got a glass which I then filled with a spurt of milk.
Again Nick watched and asked,” You think that’s gonna fool them?”
“Well, I’m not gonna fill it. Santa drank it, right? It’s just for show.”
“No,” Nick wagged a finger in the air, “Kids, man... I tell you. Fill it up and I’ll drink it. Otherwise they won’t see that milky line and they’ll know the glass wasn’t filled.”
“Oh... right,” I said, “Not a very good liar, am I?”

That’s when it hit me, the type of paralysing doubt I’m often ridiculed for being plagued with at such moments... Was I actually doing a good thing by partaking in and encouraging a scheme to dupe my nephews into believing the existence of some jolly ol’ mythical figure fashioned and exploited to promote a kind of empty consumerism that goes against my every moral fibre and annually places such a devastatingly big financial burden on parents?

Jolly Old Saint Nick + slaving elves = peace and love = the birth of Christ = a mega f*cken stretch any way you look at it today! Screams of capital C Capitalism.

Schools wouldn’t dare teach crap about aliens and Martians; we convince our kids that ghosts and goblins don’t exist; the grimly realistic cautionary tales of yesteryear have all been Walt Disney-ized, and every single parent I know is quick to point out that unicorns, mermaids, dragons and vampires are all straight out of fiction, and that Barney is some guy in a suit and not a real dinosaur. Yet everyone, educators to the educated et al., are all willing to play along when it comes to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny (and yes, the whole “Easter Bunny = Christ’s resurrection” equation is one that completely numbs my brain...). Why is that? Equally disturbing is the fact that even atheists are willing to sell the existence of a never-seen, all-knowing and judgemental Santa Claus and Easter Bunny to kids. How Judeo-Christian is that?!? It's no wonder people have a hard time with the concept of the Holy Trinity, in their early years we’re teaching them that it’s actually a Holy Quintet!
I in turn leaned against the counter and let Nick take over operations as I reflected on the matter... which inevitably became our topic of debate once Nick returned to the kitchen, the plate and glass carefully staged by the modern, ultra-efficient fireplace. That the belief in the myth requires authentic cookie crumbs and meticulous planning to ensure that kids buy into the loony idea that some obese box-carrying man came down and out and back up of what even the blindest of bats could see was an impossibility from three properties away is destabilising.

“Are parents really doing a good thing by selling their kids the preposterous Santa clause?” I asked, offering a sly grin, proud that I could still muster some wit in my state. “Or are they just playing into the hands of big-money by perpetuating the cycle which seeks to indoctrinate consumer habits at the youngest age possible?” I hiccupped.
Nick stared back, mouth agape, “Uh?”
“And what if the belief in Santa Claus and the magic of Christmas is a required part of a normal, healty occidental childhood?” I continued. “What if having a Santa-filled childhood is necessary to create the proper memories and nostalgia needed to become a well-balanced individual in our society?”
After all, nearly all adults—even the childless—agree; Christmas is for children.

We drank and ate and talked some more.

Nick, father of two, was happy with leaving things at, “I do it for my kids; it makes them happy.” He bid me goodnight and crawled off to bed, grumbling that he’d have to be up in 45 minutes to an hour.

Me, still childless and wildly idealistic, I couldn’t be satisfied with that. Left with my thoughts and two-thirds of a beer, I pondered a world without Santa Claus; not a world without Christmas mind you, but a world where parents weren’t coerced en masse into lying to their kids about a pseudo god of consumerism. A world where our economy didn’t entirely depend on 4th quarter sales and a mascot for peace and love that had very little to do with actual peace and love.
I headed to bed profoundly disappointed by the thought that such a world would never be allowed. Santa Claus is now a firm part of the world we all played a part in creating, like death and taxes and disposable whatsits.


Keep on clicking!

PDL

© 2010, Pascal-Denis Lussier
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