Just because there seems to be infinite space on the Internet, doesn’t mean you should post everything you can to it.
Nonsense Privilege
That’s it. I’m coining a phrase. “Nonsense privilege.” This is when you are so goddamn comfortable, so secure, so coddled, that you feel it’s your god given right to believe whatever the hell you want. You see no need to participate in commonly understood politics and debate. You have no need for facts. No need for data. No need for research. Instead, you see your truth and apply it outwardly without any evidence whatsoever. Whether climate change denier, birther believer, or anti-vaxxer, you use your privilege to peddle in nonsense because you can. And your nonsense threatens us all.
Poster: STRIKE!
Pro-Union, Pro-People. The power of the collective, to organize and to demand, to work and to earn, to bargain and to strike, is one of the great American powers. The collective helped build the middle class, end child labor, implement the 40-hour work week, and earn a respectable living for millions. Because of ruthless conservative policies, they have been weakened in the last couple decades. But no more, they are on the comeback. Whether or not America actually becomes a country where anybody, anywhere can create a meaningful life will in large part depend on the effectiveness of unions. Because without them, where people work together for a better tomorrow, America will remain a place where only the rich thrive and the rest of us toil away with little hope for the future.
For the workers and the teachers out there in need of a sign for their next protest. Download, print, mount, take to the streets!
Recruited in the USA
The misreading of one of the greatest protest songs ever recorded has always struck me as odd. Isn’t it obvious what “Born in the U.S.A.” is about?
Growing up on the great plains, basketball was my game of choice. I’d enter 3-on-3 street ball tournaments in the summer with a couple friends and we’d hit the pavement. A handful of games over a weekend was always a good time.
Aside from the games, it was also fun mingling about. Walking around, looking for girls, being a little rowdy, sometimes acting a fool. In the mix of all this were the tents. Places covered from the sun where sponsors set up to sell you something.
Inevitably, there was an Army tent. Ready to convince you to join. Sign up, be somebody, be an army of one. And always blasting out of the tent speakers on regular rotation was “Born in the U.S.A.” Always, without a hint of irony. The slick recruiters obviously never stopped to listen to the lyrics.
I suppose it didn’t matter. That chorus was all they ever needed. And whether the Viet Cong, Al-Qaeda, or the Taliban, they’re still there while we’re all gone, also of no concern to the recruiters. They just wanted our signatures.
On the Country
Based on how it behaves:
I see a country okay with inadequate health care.
I see a country with racist policies.
I see a country full of polluted communities.
I see a country who puts vulnerable people in cages and ruthless people into positions of power.
I see a country giving every advantage to the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
I see a country full of white supremacy.
I see a country who refuses to educate all its children.
I see a country who refuses to offer liberty to everyone.
I see a country who cannot have a meaningful conversation with itself about where it plans to go.
I see a country who does not believe in the future.
When you don’t get the project you really wanted
It happens. And it can sting. But hopefully, when you lose out on a project that means it went to someone who will do a better job. I never mind losing projects to great competitors. It’s the ones who cut corners, do it on the cheap, and talk a good game that really bugs. But if the project instead goes to a studio I admire for their excellence and dedication to the cause, I say high fives all around.
The Worst Brand
“Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation, only to market himself and to build his wealth and power.”
This from the mouth of Michael Cohen as he testified to the House Oversight and Reform Committee on February 27th.
Of the many negative critiques of our president, this can seem not as important as the racism, the defrauding, or the bullying. Yet it is one of the more damning, especially to the people he claims to be trying to help. The forgotten Americans, if you will. And sadly, they will never be much concerned with it.
With the base of his support, this brand-centric approach to the way Trump operates should provide much caution. It allows him to lie to them. To bait and switch. To get really excited about all the power he’s gaining and to falsely proclaim he’s sharing it with them. He isn’t. He never intended to. He knew at the outset, that the seedy underbelly of branding allows for all sorts of conning, cheating, and stealing. American corporations have perfected the tactics for centuries, whether they’re dealing in oil, pharmaceuticals, or data.
The Trump brand is a weapon in the fog of this information war. But also, it’s something that’s able to be critique and dissected. The American consumer has had decades of practice in discerning the world of products at our fingertips. The thing we’re failing to understand is that branding can translate to much more than what we buy and sell. That transaction feature of branding makes people think they no longer need to apply any critical thought to the brand in front of them, because the transaction is enough. With products, sure, it can be. But not in politics.
The Trump brand was powerful enough to propel a conman to the highest office in the land. That also means it can take him down. If the people under his spell are ever able to snap out of it and look honestly at the man Trump, what they see will surely shock them. But after that, they’d be able to move forward without the intoxicating false promises of greatness.
Ah greatness, the genius of the brand promise. So vague. So easily defined as whatever a person wants it to be. Once intoxicated, the person sees only what he or she wants wants as long as he or she is incapable, or unwilling, to pull back the veil. Sadly, the base under the spell of brand Trump has no intention of ever doing so.
