A Couple of Words of Caution

Issue #1
It is to be expected that anytime something like the Occupy Movement is getting started that a few of the more extremists come out of the woodwork. It seems like for every JFK; RFK; Medgar Evers; MLK Jr.; and John Lennon, there is a Lee Harvey Oswald (or whoever did it); Sirhan Sirhan; Byron De La Beckwith; James Earl Ray; and a Mark David Chapman.

We need to be careful, and carefully vigilant on some of the material that is starting to seep out there. Yes, a lot of the problems are with the Financial Institutions and those who control them. That does not mean that this is, or should be, an antisemitic campaign.

I say this because I stumbled across a couple of things today that blurred that line. Now, I have a personal problem with religions (I have gone into that in the past), but this movement, on this stage, is not the place for grinding axes (especially narrow-minded ones).

Issue #2
Violence should be a last resort, not a first response. I understand the frustrations, but don;t let them cloud your judgement. As I see it, in order for this to work, we need to use our brains, not whatever brawn we may have.

Just had to clear that up. Use your heads. Keep euphemistically fighting!
  

99 is NOT A MINORITY!

I started blogging as an outlet for myself. In some ways it is cathartic for me. It gives me an outlet to express and vent my thoughts and frustrations. Sometimes these thoughts and frustrations come across as clear and concise, other times they are little more than the disjointed ramblings of a madman (but hey, I tell you that upfront).

Over the years I have written about various subjects (religion, sex, politics, the arts, humanity, and so on) on assorted sites. I usually get inspired to write something because of a news story that is floating around that is either getting under-reported, or poorly reported on. I am an avid news junkie. The problem with the news today though is that it is not “news,” it's sensationalism and spin.

Gone are the days of Walter Cronkite telling us “That's the way it is,” they have been replaced by the 24 hour news cycle essentially telling us “This is the way we see it.” The news isn't news anymore, it is commentary on a perception of events.

Another problem comes in when the corporate news sources think they are being threatened by actual news events. A case in point is the Occupy Wall Street Movement. For the past three weeks citizens of this country have descended on Wall Street in protest to the corporate greed structure and the government corruption that allows and encourages it to exist. The media has been less than enthusiastic in either their ability, and/or willingness to follow this story.

It's a great story. It's a sensational story. It has human interest qualities to it. It has been widely buried by a lot of the press (who do you know that knows more about burying something than me?).

The model that the protesters have been using, and in fact were inspired by, is what is known as the Arab Spring model. Arab Spring refers to the protests that took place in the early part of this year (primarily the one in Egypt which I wrote about here).

I rarely associate myself with organizations because of what I see as the inherent corruption that exists in many of them. It seems like, most of the time, whenever there is an organization formed, organized corruption is not far behind. However, I made one of my rare exceptions in this instance, mainly because these people are doing exactly what I wanted to see done in my blog.

Since these people are actually making a stand in a way that I thought that we should months ago, and since the media seems reluctant to devote significant coverage to it, I would be remiss and extremely hypocritical if I did not lend my voice and support to them now. I hope you do too. Even though I was horrible with math in school, even I know that 99>1.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words (On Facebook)

The purpose of raising your voice or standing up against something that is wrong, is not to be recognized for being right. The reason you do it is because something is wrong and needs to change. There are thousands of people in this country that are speaking out and standing up that will never get recognized.

Here's my idea for the night: For those of you that have a Facebook page or Twitter account, Change your profile picture to a picture of "V" for the next week to show solidarity with those in NY and elsewhere. I've seen a lot of you change your picture for lesser reasons. Remember that it is not about recognition.

GET MAD AS HELL!

As anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter, or any other social platform knows it seems that some things (as insignificant as they are) have a way of picking up steam and developing a life of their own. Most of these "jewels" tend to be asinine fallacies such as Facebook starting to charge for services or other such nonsense.

The way I see it (and I will concede that my view can be more askew than Kevin Smith's production company), we may as well use the viral nature of the web to actually say something that is short, sweet, and simple - because let's face it, it seems that there are a lot of people who cannot handle much more than short, sweet, and simple.

So here is what I want you to do, I want you to take the famous video clip from the movie Network and start circulating it on your social platforms and/or email. It's not difficult to do. Just start doing it, and let's see how far it goes. Here is the link