I frequently contribute to 'BBC Have Your Say' discussion on facebook, and yesterday after one such post, I was surprised to see a message in my inbox from a certain Ben James that went as follows (with personal details cut out, of course):
Hi ______ -
I'm a producer at BBC World Have Your Say. Thanks for your comment on the SlutWalk discussion.
Would you be interested in taking part in the radio discussion later today? If so, please email me a number I can call you on to ___________, or message it to me here, and I can explain more about the programme.
Best wishes,
Ben James
BBC World Have Your Say
+44 207 --- ----
So I responded by giving my number in Cape Town and after a few tries, whilst walking along the road on the way home, I received a call from Ben James who told me about what was going on, asked me a few questions about my position on whether the police officer should have said what he said and what my opinion was on the subject, then said that they were several people who had been contacted on the topic and that 'there were no guarantees', but that he 'hoped to get me on'. Then we spoke a bit about the upcoming Manchester City v. Tottenham game that I said I was hoping to watch and he bid me adieu. I wasn't exactly sure what I would say, so I prepared the following statement should I get called:
These protests are supposed to be a justified form of direct democracy. The Toronto police representative represents the executive arm of the government, so if someone condemns the public protests of people who disagree about a very contentious progressive issue, they are effectively backing fearmongering in the form of 'do this at your peril'. And this applies to both the freedom to dress as one wishes and the freedom to organize.
With regard to the matter at hand, namely 'women dressing like sluts', this sort of idea is inherited from a history of paternalism and patriarchy. It basically says that those who are dominant (most often physically, e.g. men) can wear whatever they like: topless, shirts that say 'hung like a ....', etc., because their dominance means that there are no consequences. Yet others, who don't fall into this category of dominance, those who are vulnerable (e.g. many women) must adhere to a strict dress code. Why should women who dress suggesting 'I am looking for a mate' not have the freedom to choose which mate she wants simply because there are those who can force her to make a choice that that she doesn't want to make? If she wears clothing that suggests she is sexually free, this should NEVER mean that she is sexually available to everyone. This is why there is the notion of CONSENT. If women and vulnerable individuals are constantly discouraged, harangued, and exploited for the way they dress, the 'freedom' to 'dress like a slut' then becomes elitist: it becomes a form of 'freedom' that is genderly biased, and takes us back to Feudalism where biological facts were used to justify that it is only men who should act while women should merely follow.
Third, it is important to point out that this phenomenon does not occur in a bubble. Sex sells, and cosmetology and fashion are huge industries. Individuals like Beyonce Knowles and Jennifer Lopez are constantly portrayed in scant clothing and are glamorized as enslaving beautiful men, and then they turn around to the vulnerable youth that take in these messages and look up to these people and suddenly say 'don't do this'?? If people really want women to stop 'dressing like sluts', then they had better be willing to take on the fashion industry, the film industry, the music industry, and all the media that represents them. Otherwise, it is blatant hypocrisy that puts business interests ahead of human rights.
In the end, I didn't get called to participate in the radio show, but it was cool to get a call in South Africa and talk to a BBC representative. And I am glad that it allowed me to crystallize my opinions on the subject.
So... SlutWalk Cape Town anybody??
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Cargo Cults, Causality, Capitalism (and Mathematics) (Interlude of Absurdity)
It was nice to know that the interlocutor from part one was nice enough to email me and tell me that he was 'still waiting for cargo cults part II!'.
I wasn't able to do Part II in a timely fashion as I have been spending a fair bit of time doing other things as a midterm test and subsequent marking clashed with a few articles I had to write and various other things. And I still haven't got there yet, and the interlocutor above may be disappointed because there is something I saw in the news that I felt I needed to comment on and goes nicely with the present topic. It was a BBC article entitled "Obama urges spending cuts and increased taxes on rich". I read this headline and thought, "Nice one buddy!" And then I read the article, and, true to form, the Re-pubic-ans were total dicks about it and fought it tooth and nail: "Primarily, [the Republicans] firmly rejected his proposal to raise additional tax revenue from the wealthy." Surprise!! But let's have a look at it shall we:
"At a time when millions of our countrymen remain unemployed, the president again proposes tax increases on job creators," said Jeb Hensarling of Texas.
A classic capitalist ploy: 'hey, dont make us pay, we're creating jobs here'. Used the world over: "Yeah we're giving elderly Bangladeshi women 10 cents an hour to make Diesel Jeans with their arthritic fingers and selling them for massive profits. But we're 'creating jobs'. We're 'helping these people'. We're 'giving them opportunity'." Really? Have you ever seen Happy Gilmore?
Stiller on the phone: 'This is handmade quality shit here! Alright. Good doing business with you'
Stiller to the elderly: 'Alright people turn up your hearing aids. I've got good news. Arts and crafts time is going to be extended by four hours today.'
Elderly woman: 'My fingers hurt.'
Stiller (feigning concern) 'What was that?'
Elderly woman: 'My fingers hurt.'
Stiller: 'Well now your back's gonna hurt because you just pulled landscaping duty. Anyone else's fingers hurt? I didn't think so.'
Sad but true. Creating 'opportunity', huh? Whose opportunity? Let me guess. If one of those workers say "I can't live off of these terrible wages and work under these terrible conditions", you're going to say "Fine. I'll 'create opportunity' for someone who will"? You people are genocidal maniacs. Oh wait, but this is business as usual, right? Ever notice how during feudalism, BEFORE capitalism really took hold, it was alright for leaders to go around physically killing people, and now with the hegemonic hold that capitalism has on the world, that's 'not alright' (just check the UN's 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights'!), but now to economically kill people... well, that's 'just business'. Hey, I think I just realized why they called it 'feudalism'. Oh wait... that's probably just coincidence.
Anyway, to get back to where I was before I went off on that tangent, I wanted to say "Hey Jeb, have you ever thought about WHY millions of your countrymen are unemployed. It couldn't be because these very RICH people you are defending are filthy rich BECAUSE they arent doing their JOB of CREATING JOBS??? Jobs COST MONEY. You have to PAY PEOPLE. When you are NOT PAYING OTHERS, you are able to ACCUMULATE AND HOARD MONEY TO BECOME RICHER." (Of course you know that, you just need an excuse to defend your 'contributors' tooth and nail).
Ok... enough about that, let's move on:
Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House budget committee, said: "Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery. We need solutions."
'Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety'?? Who was just talking about 'if we tax the rich, there go all the jobs?' Who was it, for eight years hammered home the idea that those great and ever-present opportunists 'the terrorists' were hiding around every corner, waiting for you to look away for just one second before they would rape and murder you in your bed and eat your children (because of their jealousy for the 'white man's way of life, of course')?? It wasn't BUSH (and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Condy and Colin Powell and...) was it??? A REPUBLICAN??? Oh, wait. That wasn't 'fearmongering', that was 'a genuine concern for people's safety', right? I forgot. Yet Gaddafi talking about Al-Qaeda and various foreign powers being behind the rebel force in Eastern libya is obviously 'the talk of a crazy man'? OF COURSE that can't be true!! I mean we all KNOW (see Part I of this article) that Western leaders would NEVER impinge on the sovereignty of other countries for their own gains. Of course, of course. That makes perfect sense. So let's move on.
Led by Mr Ryan, Republicans have offered their own proposal that would go further than Mr Obama's, slashing $6.2 trillion from government spending over the next decade, in large part through cuts to government programmes that serve the elderly and the poor. The proposal would also drastically reduce taxes for wealthy Americans, a move conservatives say would boost economic growth.
Nothing new there. We gotta create jobs, right? I mean, if we dont make billionaires richer than they already are by giving them more money from the poor and unemployed, how else is the poor and unemployed going to get money? Erm... wait a second... Ok, let's just ignore the circular logic, shall we? It may look like we are sodomizing the poor and weak to the point where their pants no longer jingle during the thrusts because there's nothing there to jingle, and they can no longer walk straight, but we all know THAT'S JUST NOT TRUE!!! JOBS, MAN!!! WAGE LABOUR, MAN!!! THAT'S THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS, MAN!!! YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, MAN!!! [continue "rich white man smoke and mirrors" rhetoric here]. But Obama continues by putting it all into perspective:
"They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm president. There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires."
Right on, Barack!! That's the nail on the head!! Crystal clear!! And clearly in a 'democracy', where the poor greatly outnumber the rich, such a plan will pass easily, right? Well not if Eric Massa's interview with Glenn 'Nazi Moron' Beck (or... history for that matter) is anything to go by, where he revealed that his job as a politician had a strange resemblance to that of a telemarketer: he spend most of his time on the phone trying to convince rich people and corporations to give the government money. He was even coached on who to call when, and how to talk to them. From my experience, telemarketing is a dead-end job that pays low wages and has a massive turnover of employees. It's nice to know that by re-categorizing them as 'politicians', all those negative aspects of such a job go away.
So let's consider one of two plausible scenarios:
Rich man on phone: 'Hey buddy, if you pass this bill and my net worth starts to go down, you arent getting ANY money from me, my empire will boycott anything that you stand for, and my media friends will drag your name through the mud the world over.'
OR
Rich man on phone: 'Hey buddy, if you vote against this bill, I'll push up your funding 'substantially', I will try to convince people to back your rallies, and my media friends will put your name in lights on the front page (or, at least, on page 3) whenever you do 'a good' and will defend you tooth and nail whenever you 'mess up' or there is a 'misunderstanding' no matter how much of a bonehead you might be.'
I mean, who WOULDN'T reply "sorry man, I was elected by 'the people', and this is best for 'the people'... do what you must..." I mean, this is a democracy, right? And they must be the 'best democracy in the world' if they are going to be 'spreading democracy' right?
And only NOW do I realize WHY my term of 'cargo cults' to describe those in other countries waiting for the Manichean avengers of the US and others to come in and make everything OK by spreading 'freedom' and 'democracy' to them was misguided. I mean, all they want is a little democracy. All they want is to say "Please stop these feudal tyrants from forcing us to our knees through their autocratic rule. Being on our knees is not enough... we would prefer instead that you bring your economic tyrants to help us give away what little money we have so that our faces can well and truly be down in the mud, as we want not only our dignity but our economic well-being as well to be completely in tatters."
Life is all about being 'happy', right? And whether that happiness comes from surrounding yourself with genuinely good things or it comes from the bliss that ignorance gives you, its still happiness, right? That's why I love cargo cults: because ignorance is bliss.
And the denouement:
So what becomes of the politicians? Aren't they supposed to be serving the people? Isn't that their job. Not really. Remember 'Williams', from Enter the Dragon:
Han: Your style is unorthodox.
Williams: But effective.
Han: It's not the art but the combat you enjoy.
Williams: The winning.
I think that just about sums up the ideals of politicians. But let's just remember Han's reply:
"We are all ready to win, just as we are born knowing only life. It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for."
[And what does Williams say? "When it comes, I won't even notice. I'll be too busy looking good."
...That's probably a fairly accurate depiction of a very common attitude as well...]
I wasn't able to do Part II in a timely fashion as I have been spending a fair bit of time doing other things as a midterm test and subsequent marking clashed with a few articles I had to write and various other things. And I still haven't got there yet, and the interlocutor above may be disappointed because there is something I saw in the news that I felt I needed to comment on and goes nicely with the present topic. It was a BBC article entitled "Obama urges spending cuts and increased taxes on rich". I read this headline and thought, "Nice one buddy!" And then I read the article, and, true to form, the Re-pubic-ans were total dicks about it and fought it tooth and nail: "Primarily, [the Republicans] firmly rejected his proposal to raise additional tax revenue from the wealthy." Surprise!! But let's have a look at it shall we:
"At a time when millions of our countrymen remain unemployed, the president again proposes tax increases on job creators," said Jeb Hensarling of Texas.
A classic capitalist ploy: 'hey, dont make us pay, we're creating jobs here'. Used the world over: "Yeah we're giving elderly Bangladeshi women 10 cents an hour to make Diesel Jeans with their arthritic fingers and selling them for massive profits. But we're 'creating jobs'. We're 'helping these people'. We're 'giving them opportunity'." Really? Have you ever seen Happy Gilmore?
Stiller on the phone: 'This is handmade quality shit here! Alright. Good doing business with you'
Stiller to the elderly: 'Alright people turn up your hearing aids. I've got good news. Arts and crafts time is going to be extended by four hours today.'
Elderly woman: 'My fingers hurt.'
Stiller (feigning concern) 'What was that?'
Elderly woman: 'My fingers hurt.'
Stiller: 'Well now your back's gonna hurt because you just pulled landscaping duty. Anyone else's fingers hurt? I didn't think so.'
Sad but true. Creating 'opportunity', huh? Whose opportunity? Let me guess. If one of those workers say "I can't live off of these terrible wages and work under these terrible conditions", you're going to say "Fine. I'll 'create opportunity' for someone who will"? You people are genocidal maniacs. Oh wait, but this is business as usual, right? Ever notice how during feudalism, BEFORE capitalism really took hold, it was alright for leaders to go around physically killing people, and now with the hegemonic hold that capitalism has on the world, that's 'not alright' (just check the UN's 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights'!), but now to economically kill people... well, that's 'just business'. Hey, I think I just realized why they called it 'feudalism'. Oh wait... that's probably just coincidence.
Anyway, to get back to where I was before I went off on that tangent, I wanted to say "Hey Jeb, have you ever thought about WHY millions of your countrymen are unemployed. It couldn't be because these very RICH people you are defending are filthy rich BECAUSE they arent doing their JOB of CREATING JOBS??? Jobs COST MONEY. You have to PAY PEOPLE. When you are NOT PAYING OTHERS, you are able to ACCUMULATE AND HOARD MONEY TO BECOME RICHER." (Of course you know that, you just need an excuse to defend your 'contributors' tooth and nail).
Ok... enough about that, let's move on:
Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House budget committee, said: "Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it's not change, it's partisanship. We don't need partisanship. We don't need demagoguery. We need solutions."
'Exploiting people's emotions of fear, envy and anxiety'?? Who was just talking about 'if we tax the rich, there go all the jobs?' Who was it, for eight years hammered home the idea that those great and ever-present opportunists 'the terrorists' were hiding around every corner, waiting for you to look away for just one second before they would rape and murder you in your bed and eat your children (because of their jealousy for the 'white man's way of life, of course')?? It wasn't BUSH (and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Condy and Colin Powell and...) was it??? A REPUBLICAN??? Oh, wait. That wasn't 'fearmongering', that was 'a genuine concern for people's safety', right? I forgot. Yet Gaddafi talking about Al-Qaeda and various foreign powers being behind the rebel force in Eastern libya is obviously 'the talk of a crazy man'? OF COURSE that can't be true!! I mean we all KNOW (see Part I of this article) that Western leaders would NEVER impinge on the sovereignty of other countries for their own gains. Of course, of course. That makes perfect sense. So let's move on.
Led by Mr Ryan, Republicans have offered their own proposal that would go further than Mr Obama's, slashing $6.2 trillion from government spending over the next decade, in large part through cuts to government programmes that serve the elderly and the poor. The proposal would also drastically reduce taxes for wealthy Americans, a move conservatives say would boost economic growth.
Nothing new there. We gotta create jobs, right? I mean, if we dont make billionaires richer than they already are by giving them more money from the poor and unemployed, how else is the poor and unemployed going to get money? Erm... wait a second... Ok, let's just ignore the circular logic, shall we? It may look like we are sodomizing the poor and weak to the point where their pants no longer jingle during the thrusts because there's nothing there to jingle, and they can no longer walk straight, but we all know THAT'S JUST NOT TRUE!!! JOBS, MAN!!! WAGE LABOUR, MAN!!! THAT'S THE WAY THE WORLD WORKS, MAN!!! YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, MAN!!! [continue "rich white man smoke and mirrors" rhetoric here]. But Obama continues by putting it all into perspective:
"They want to give people like me a $200,000 tax cut that's paid for by asking 33 seniors to each pay $6,000 more in health costs? That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm president. There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires."
Right on, Barack!! That's the nail on the head!! Crystal clear!! And clearly in a 'democracy', where the poor greatly outnumber the rich, such a plan will pass easily, right? Well not if Eric Massa's interview with Glenn 'Nazi Moron' Beck (or... history for that matter) is anything to go by, where he revealed that his job as a politician had a strange resemblance to that of a telemarketer: he spend most of his time on the phone trying to convince rich people and corporations to give the government money. He was even coached on who to call when, and how to talk to them. From my experience, telemarketing is a dead-end job that pays low wages and has a massive turnover of employees. It's nice to know that by re-categorizing them as 'politicians', all those negative aspects of such a job go away.
So let's consider one of two plausible scenarios:
Rich man on phone: 'Hey buddy, if you pass this bill and my net worth starts to go down, you arent getting ANY money from me, my empire will boycott anything that you stand for, and my media friends will drag your name through the mud the world over.'
OR
Rich man on phone: 'Hey buddy, if you vote against this bill, I'll push up your funding 'substantially', I will try to convince people to back your rallies, and my media friends will put your name in lights on the front page (or, at least, on page 3) whenever you do 'a good' and will defend you tooth and nail whenever you 'mess up' or there is a 'misunderstanding' no matter how much of a bonehead you might be.'
I mean, who WOULDN'T reply "sorry man, I was elected by 'the people', and this is best for 'the people'... do what you must..." I mean, this is a democracy, right? And they must be the 'best democracy in the world' if they are going to be 'spreading democracy' right?
And only NOW do I realize WHY my term of 'cargo cults' to describe those in other countries waiting for the Manichean avengers of the US and others to come in and make everything OK by spreading 'freedom' and 'democracy' to them was misguided. I mean, all they want is a little democracy. All they want is to say "Please stop these feudal tyrants from forcing us to our knees through their autocratic rule. Being on our knees is not enough... we would prefer instead that you bring your economic tyrants to help us give away what little money we have so that our faces can well and truly be down in the mud, as we want not only our dignity but our economic well-being as well to be completely in tatters."
Life is all about being 'happy', right? And whether that happiness comes from surrounding yourself with genuinely good things or it comes from the bliss that ignorance gives you, its still happiness, right? That's why I love cargo cults: because ignorance is bliss.
And the denouement:
So what becomes of the politicians? Aren't they supposed to be serving the people? Isn't that their job. Not really. Remember 'Williams', from Enter the Dragon:
Han: Your style is unorthodox.
Williams: But effective.
Han: It's not the art but the combat you enjoy.
Williams: The winning.
I think that just about sums up the ideals of politicians. But let's just remember Han's reply:
"We are all ready to win, just as we are born knowing only life. It is defeat that you must learn to prepare for."
[And what does Williams say? "When it comes, I won't even notice. I'll be too busy looking good."
...That's probably a fairly accurate depiction of a very common attitude as well...]
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Journalists on Drugs
I've recently taken on a few journalism jobs. I dont know if this is philosophy or not, but it should be. Most recently, Ive been selected as new 'Science/Nature/Technology' journalist for the Cape Town Globalist. The theme of the next edition is 'Drugs', which is quite nice.
Interesting things, drugs. I may have reported earlier that when I had imbibed far too much bhang lassi in Gokarna and was confined to my bed for the better part of the evening and night (that is, when I wasnt exorcising demons in the squatter toilet out back... though no hangover thankfully!), what was most on my mind was the whole notion that reality can be distorted so ridiculously by pouring a small amount of toxin into the flowing river of sense-data. The brain is an amazing thing and these sorts of situations ask serious questions surrounding 'what is reality?' If reality is the sum total of our sensory experiences, then the fact that we can use various stimulants to change that reality seem to lend a certain amount of credibility to a more idealist notion of reality: 'to be is to be perceived', as Berkeley put it. If I take a drug cocktail that puts me in the shoes of the protagonist in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', reality has suddenly changed from rational to completely distorted. It seems fairly obvious that my reality will no longer correlate with anyone else's reality, including that of my buddy who has also taken said drug cocktail.
So maybe solipsism isnt so far-fetched after all...
(Oh, and for anyone interested, the plan for my article is that it be one entitled 'Gifts from the Gods' or 'The Opiate of the Masses' (Im not sure which approach to take yet) and it will be all about the drug properties of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh... There are recent articles about frankincense stimulating various ion pathways in the brain that are not well-understood, and there have been studies about myrrh having various drug-like effects as well... and gold... well we all know the drug-like euphoria, giddiness, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia that come with having various amounts of gold around.... i.e.
"[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." -- Warren Buffett)
Interesting things, drugs. I may have reported earlier that when I had imbibed far too much bhang lassi in Gokarna and was confined to my bed for the better part of the evening and night (that is, when I wasnt exorcising demons in the squatter toilet out back... though no hangover thankfully!), what was most on my mind was the whole notion that reality can be distorted so ridiculously by pouring a small amount of toxin into the flowing river of sense-data. The brain is an amazing thing and these sorts of situations ask serious questions surrounding 'what is reality?' If reality is the sum total of our sensory experiences, then the fact that we can use various stimulants to change that reality seem to lend a certain amount of credibility to a more idealist notion of reality: 'to be is to be perceived', as Berkeley put it. If I take a drug cocktail that puts me in the shoes of the protagonist in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', reality has suddenly changed from rational to completely distorted. It seems fairly obvious that my reality will no longer correlate with anyone else's reality, including that of my buddy who has also taken said drug cocktail.
So maybe solipsism isnt so far-fetched after all...
(Oh, and for anyone interested, the plan for my article is that it be one entitled 'Gifts from the Gods' or 'The Opiate of the Masses' (Im not sure which approach to take yet) and it will be all about the drug properties of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh... There are recent articles about frankincense stimulating various ion pathways in the brain that are not well-understood, and there have been studies about myrrh having various drug-like effects as well... and gold... well we all know the drug-like euphoria, giddiness, hallucinations, delusions, and paranoia that come with having various amounts of gold around.... i.e.
"[Gold] gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." -- Warren Buffett)
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