Controlling people part 1

I'd like to take this week's blogpost to discuss something that is taken for granted. This is the fact that in many ways, your life is controlled whether you know it or not, or even choose to acknowledge it. 10,000 years ago seems like a really long time ago. It is, but it's still only less than one tenth of human existence. Since 10,000 years ago, various developments and strategies happened to allow certain people to have great control over other people. From the beginning of human existence to about 8,000 years ago, the individual human being was free. By this, I define free as freedom to travel to where you are physically capable of going, no taxation, no governmental regulation, no religion, and no jobs. I'm not arguing that it was better then, only that the freedoms of humans have been drastically altered. 

Before 10,000 years ago, everyone in the world was a hunter- gatherer living in a variety of ways. They reaped from the environment what they needed to sustain themselves and left enough so that there would be more for the future. When domesticates and agriculture were introduced, people slowly began to settle down. Agriculture soon became a method of control. While hunters and gatherers communally owned and defended land, agriculture brought about the idea of individual land ownership. People took advantage of this and established themselves as elites or rulers by buying land and letting others work it. They collected taxes and yeah, we can see where all this is going, government entities were formed. If you think about origins of governments, you see how controlling resources and the surplus that people produced allowed certain people to become elites and make others do what they wanted them to do. 

But what keeps people from rising up against these entities that start taking a part of what they produce? The emerging labor class certainly outnumbers the elites and could rise up and overthrow them right. Soon to follow in agricultural societies was creation of cults of the dead and organized religions. Let me make something up for you. The reason that there is evil and good in the world is because there are two supreme beings that represent each. Let's just say that I am divinely born and I serve as the bridge between these two entities on Earth. Because I am so great, you should worship me and my close followers (other elites), give me a share of what you produce and I will ensure that you thrive, and then I want you to build me a burial mound and put all my stuff in it so that I can have it in the next life. By doing all these things, you are sure to have an afterlife like me and you will live eternally. Go against what I say and the good spirit in the universe will cast you down. Thus, religion became justification for control by elites. I don't mean to offend anyone who is religious that reads this. They adopted their religion because of good faith, a genuine concern for others, and hope that they will have a good afterlife because they lived theirs well. It's religious doctrine that was merely written by elites to take advantage of the good nature of those they ruled over. 

Surfing Sunday

            This weekend, I went back home to wonderful Ocracoke Island, my dear home. I’ve come to miss it more and more because it is so relaxing and peaceful there. Every morning, I can go to the Flying Melon Café and get the dankest food. This stuff is good. I often eat a lot of food from there when I’m home because it’s easily accessible, I can ask for special orders, and I usually don’t have to pay. The flow of my day seems much more organic and matters seem a little less important at the moment. The same goes for my nights. I can walk to all my friends’ houses in five minutes and people just take things easy. The thing I miss most of all is surfing. Whether the waves are good or not, I don’t care. I’m always ready to hit the water and have some fun.

            Surfing this Fall Break wasn’t anything special at first. On Thursday morning, I caught some waist high peelers on my six foot superfish. Every so often, there was a chest high-or-so wave that would break far out and would give me a really long ride. While the waves weren’t especially powerful, the nice shape and substantial robustness of my surfboard gave me the speed I needed.

            Then, because of unfortunate, unavoidable circumstances, I was forced to stay for Sunday. The waves had been basically flat since Thursday and I didn’t expect much increase. I was in for a surprise. Because of an extended sporting tournament into the late hours of Saturday night, I stayed in bed until late. When I arose from my slumber and called my buddy Tristan, I realized it was on. The north end of the island was handling the extreme northern angle of the swell pretty well. The sometimes-bad northeastern wind was offshore. For those that don’t understand what I’m saying, the elements had come together to make good conditions. The waves were sick! A couple hours later, I pulled up and observed the lineup. While the air was cold, the wind was colder, and the water was deep brown with stirred up sediment, the waves formed into very long lines. I still had my superfish by my side because I knew it would serve me well, even if it wasn’t my best board. On Thursday, I had surfed in shorts and felt great. Come Sunday, the water forced me into a wetsuit. I hit the water and after a little uncomfortable paddling and diving, I made it into the lineup. I caught some waves, but none were like my last one.

I was surfing by myself in an area with plenty of shark sightings so I had a bad vibe. I saw a bomb coming and I thought I might have to paddle over it. But because of the strong wind blowing at the wave, the lip held. I took off at a critical spot. The wave peaked and threw a mighty lip forward just a moment after I took off. After an extreme air drop into the pocket, I braced myself in the perfect spot. The wave was perfect and I got barreled for seconds in the meanest pit I had surfed in a long time. I could see the sand being sucked up from under me and over my head. As soon as I came out of it, I was so pumped that I was shaking for like seven minutes. Anyway it was a lot of fun.

Plaguing America

Fellow citizens, today I want you to take notice to a very important issue. The regulation of Corporate America is an issue that must be addressed immediately. The policies of our last, and certainly not our wisest, administration focused on deregulation and cutting taxes for large corporations. Cutting taxes on these companies is effectively subsidizing them. I won’t lie. Subsidizing big names like Wal Mart and ConAgra lowers the prices of their goods. More people can afford their products and thus more can contribute to our growing economy. But how else does it affect the majority of Americans?  These subsidies are what we call socialism, effectively pushing small business and retail out of competition. When my opponent, John McCain, says that he wants to lower taxes, he’s wants to lower the taxes on the rich that run our large corporations. This only increases the burden for the American middle class, because the largest contributors are having their taxes cut. Barack Obama has proposed increasing responsibility for corporate heads that go bankrupt or commit fraud. But he doesn’t go far enough to oppose corporate handouts and tax breaks.

Municipalities allow something called tax increment financing. This practice is redirecting the property tax and sales tax we pay to chain businesses. This tax that we are forced to pay for at the register or for our property becomes designated to develop more chain businesses or corporate development. In some cases, it increases commercial development, but at the cost of development in other zones, mostly small business centers of town. We average American citizens have to suffer by paying for government action to bail out companies that have brought themselves to bankruptcy. So why do my opponents, Barack Obama and John McCain both refuse to confront these issues? Just take a look at the top contributors to the campaigns of both candidates. Among them, you will see familiar names. As of September 29^th of this year, financial institutions like Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Chase & co. are top contributors on the lists of both candidates, with Goldman Sachs being the largest for Obama and Merrill Lynch being the largest for McCain. Here I would like to raise a question that neither of my opponents would be inclined to ask. Why did these companies fall into such turmoil while paying for the campaigns of both presidential candidates?

This brings me to my other topic relating to big business regulation. The heads of these big businesses are giving their assets to candidates at all levels. In return, most candidates vote to give these corporations subsidies, tax breaks, and the competitive upper hand. Goldman Sachs for instance has contributed over $730,000 alone to Barack Obama’s campaign. The heads of that company alone now wield more power than the average voter. They wield more power than many of us combined. Don’t you think that this is a profound problem with the fundamentals of our democratic society? This isn’t capitalism. My opponents stand for picking the winners in business and advocating them over others. This is corporate socialism and it decreases the power of the voting individual in America. I think we need to step up and question this: Do we need to limit the involvement of government in business? Or do we need to limit the involvement of business in government?

 

P.S. For all of my advocates out there, please help me in spreading my message. Please donate because I will soon be done in. The massive amounts of money given to my opponents can easily out-campaign me. Hope is not lost however. You can donate to the campaign or do your own individual part by helping to spread my objectives to others.

 

Sarah Palin?

To those who are reading this blog, you have probably thought to yourself, "What was John McCain thinking when he picked this inexperienced nobody governor from Alaska." I know I have. Really, if it wasn't for all of the conservative media outlets portraying her as a prepared maverick reformer, her and McCain would be done. I have given it some thought and I think I know why John McCain picked Palin. He thought he could find a woman who served merely as an icon. He wanted a family- values, good-willed, political puppet who was untouched by the scandals of Washington. He chose someone who could appeal to families and conservatives who advocate local government. He chose someone so generic, so appealing to interest groups and values voters who go to the poling place with her superficial characteristics in mind. 

What is so great about an outsider to national politics who wants thinks that a bailout will help the interests of health care reformers. Seriously, does anyone ever watch her interviews? I know its one thing to not be great at interviews, but she doesn't know dirt to back up what she preaches. If you watch the interviews, notice how she answers questions. She does something like this: She starts by kissing the asses of conservatives for local government, "Well, as a mayor of a town and later, a governor, I think it should be a state's issue." She then goes onto talking about, "As a hockey mom that also works a hard job, I really connect to pro-life voters." When asked about Roe v. Wade, she mentions the role a state should have and then talks about how smart and wise Americans are in their foundations, for a majority of her response. She then can't even name another supreme court decision that she disagrees with. She only appeals to every issue on the conservative platform for the time being, but doesn't even know why. 

Now, I appeal to you because I am scared. I agree with a lot of people that she is a nice lady but she seems like she is more cut out for president of the PTA, not president of the United States. And for those who want to vote for her because she'll only be the VP, don't believe it. John McCain is old, unhealthy, and on plenty of serious medication. She can't even handle a basic interview, let alone the nation when called upon. So what kind of maverick- reformer is she? To me, it sounds like she's calling for everything that George Bush and staunch conservatives want. She only says that to appeal to people who want serious change in the presidency which has recently brought us economic ruin. If she can't even back up the lies that she gives us, what does that say about her as a potential president?