11 years ago
Thursday
The Bad Economy is on me.
Today I was layoff along with 7 people at work. I feel frustrated but I think that everything happens for a reason. I 've been wanting to do community organizing work or just anything where I can help out others. But since I was comfortably paying my bills, I did not bother to seek for a job that could satisfy my needs. I am looking for a community organizer job, if any one knows of anything please help out. Getting layoff has to bring something good into my life.
Zeitgeist
The word zeitgeist describes the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate of an era or trend. There are 2 parts to this movie. The first is the "Zeitgeist, the movie" that you should watch first (located on the bottom of the linked page) then watch the recently released "ZEITGEIST: ADDENDUM" (located on the top of the linked page). "Zeitgeist, the movie" is in 3 parts, it starts a little slow but trust me it will all make sense after you watch the whole movie. The newly released "Zeitgeist: Addendum" is very relevant to what our economy is going through at the moment. Be ready to get blown away.
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm
Friday
700 billion bail out
It is ridiculous that members of Congress decided to bail out all these corporations who got us on this mess. Congress should have just let them go bankrupt. Let them start from zero just like all those home owners on foreclosure. It is sicking to my stomach that when corporations say "ouch I cut my my hand" Congress runs to them and makes things better for them.
But yet when millions of Americans lack of free health care insurance (for all), a decent budget for the CSU, UC system, college, veterans psychological treatments, benefits (like giving them all a deed of their dream home), youth programs, after school programs, arts and job skills programs in high school, social security, etc, etc, Congress turns around and says "sorry we have a $700 billion deficit." And the only thing we do is what Parson's said, we define our integrations of loyalty to social collectivity by pretending to be happy that the $700 billion bail out will bring us some benefits. Will the bail out make things better for stress home owners, students, small business owners, for us or for the bourgeoisie? Absolutely not! Marx will say "political parties only serve those who control the means of production (i.e. corporations, the 8 (or more) most rich families in the world)."
But yet when millions of Americans lack of free health care insurance (for all), a decent budget for the CSU, UC system, college, veterans psychological treatments, benefits (like giving them all a deed of their dream home), youth programs, after school programs, arts and job skills programs in high school, social security, etc, etc, Congress turns around and says "sorry we have a $700 billion deficit." And the only thing we do is what Parson's said, we define our integrations of loyalty to social collectivity by pretending to be happy that the $700 billion bail out will bring us some benefits. Will the bail out make things better for stress home owners, students, small business owners, for us or for the bourgeoisie? Absolutely not! Marx will say "political parties only serve those who control the means of production (i.e. corporations, the 8 (or more) most rich families in the world)."
Wednesday
Women, Men, and Other?
Just wanted to make a comment about today's banter against men. I just wanted to add it just seemed a little generalized, at least by today's standards as well as cross culturally. Yes, I do believe it is men who are the oppressors but at the same time there are sub-groups within the male identity that should be addressed as well, not just the fe/male dichotomy.
In a few of my other sociology courses, some of my TA's have emphasized that it's not just the men in this culture, it's the men in the upper class; rich, white men who are the one's running the game and in certain cases they use the issues of race to deter our attention away from the issue of class. By doing so, the separations in class according to race will keep people fighting so they will not realize that their enemy is the upper class, not each other.
I'd like to point out that something that tends to be underplayed in discussions about sexism, or anything in general and that's hetero-sexism. Hetero-sexism is the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and by doing so people are lumping together a whole sub-culture into an assumed mainstream culture just because they look like one particular sex; as with the case with gender roles. Our culture of maleness and femaleness emphasizes this (or at least did emphasize this a lot more before) in a lot of ways, as pointed out by feminism (the GLBT movement wouldn't have worked as well if feminists didn't pave the way); i.e. girls wear pink and boys wear blue, boys like sports and girls like to play kitchen.. etc. One or the other.
There are other cultures that are more inclusive of these other sexual orientations or in some cases called the Third Gender. There are several Native American tribes that believed in the people with Two Spirits who fulfilled varying roles rather than the set gender roles. There's actually 2 countries where you can see the how the influence of the colonizing powers on the population's behavior towards these third gendered individuals.
The Hijra of India used to be honored and called upon for births and other special occasions for blessings. As someone once put it to me, "In some places in India still, you cannot imagine having a birthday, or some kind of celebration without them..." you can see how integrated into their society Hijra's were until the British (an imperialistic colonizing power) came and colonized them. With their feelings and ideals about Godliness guiding them and justifying their actions, they felt they should "civilize" these polytheistic heathens by teaching them our ways, their attitudes towards the Hijra changed from a position of honor to some sort of perversion.
Thailand on the other hand was one of the few powers that was not colonized by a western power. Their version of the third gender, the Kathoey, are more readily accepted. For example, when I went on a trip to Thailand a while back, there was a biological male working at the Baskin Robin's there with a full face of makeup on, AND IT'S NORMAL TO THEM! Doubt you can see that in any westernized/post colonized country.
Anyways, my main point is that not ALL generalized men should be blamed. In fact, by acknowledging that there's more than just the roles of man and woman and destroying the dichotomy, it would destabilize the power that said masculinity is supposed to have. You can't really ask a homosexual couple, "Who wears the pants in the relationship?" because they both can at the same time (ideally speaking of course, but that's another blog there..).
In a few of my other sociology courses, some of my TA's have emphasized that it's not just the men in this culture, it's the men in the upper class; rich, white men who are the one's running the game and in certain cases they use the issues of race to deter our attention away from the issue of class. By doing so, the separations in class according to race will keep people fighting so they will not realize that their enemy is the upper class, not each other.
I'd like to point out that something that tends to be underplayed in discussions about sexism, or anything in general and that's hetero-sexism. Hetero-sexism is the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and by doing so people are lumping together a whole sub-culture into an assumed mainstream culture just because they look like one particular sex; as with the case with gender roles. Our culture of maleness and femaleness emphasizes this (or at least did emphasize this a lot more before) in a lot of ways, as pointed out by feminism (the GLBT movement wouldn't have worked as well if feminists didn't pave the way); i.e. girls wear pink and boys wear blue, boys like sports and girls like to play kitchen.. etc. One or the other.
There are other cultures that are more inclusive of these other sexual orientations or in some cases called the Third Gender. There are several Native American tribes that believed in the people with Two Spirits who fulfilled varying roles rather than the set gender roles. There's actually 2 countries where you can see the how the influence of the colonizing powers on the population's behavior towards these third gendered individuals.
The Hijra of India used to be honored and called upon for births and other special occasions for blessings. As someone once put it to me, "In some places in India still, you cannot imagine having a birthday, or some kind of celebration without them..." you can see how integrated into their society Hijra's were until the British (an imperialistic colonizing power) came and colonized them. With their feelings and ideals about Godliness guiding them and justifying their actions, they felt they should "civilize" these polytheistic heathens by teaching them our ways, their attitudes towards the Hijra changed from a position of honor to some sort of perversion.
Thailand on the other hand was one of the few powers that was not colonized by a western power. Their version of the third gender, the Kathoey, are more readily accepted. For example, when I went on a trip to Thailand a while back, there was a biological male working at the Baskin Robin's there with a full face of makeup on, AND IT'S NORMAL TO THEM! Doubt you can see that in any westernized/post colonized country.
Anyways, my main point is that not ALL generalized men should be blamed. In fact, by acknowledging that there's more than just the roles of man and woman and destroying the dichotomy, it would destabilize the power that said masculinity is supposed to have. You can't really ask a homosexual couple, "Who wears the pants in the relationship?" because they both can at the same time (ideally speaking of course, but that's another blog there..).
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