I know this isn't the video thread, but since I watched "The Inside Job" I did some more digging on banks, America, capitalism and such. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O--2R0
A Chinese man named Chen Guangcheng is a blind activist in China [1]. Guangcheng is a 41 year old man [2] who stood as an activist for years. Then he was arrested (for exposing FORCED ABORTION in northern China [3])and held under heavy house arrest for 18 months [4]. He escaped, recently, and fled to the US embassy in Beijing, then flew to the US. This caused a million issues, and I think China handled them very poorly.
When Guangcheng escaped, the police immediately went to his house, in Dongshigu [5]. They attacked his family, mainly his nephew and his brother.
The nephew has been tried and arrested to 3 years in prison in what many are calling a "flash trial". The young nephew wounded a few officers with a kitchen knife after they broke into his home in the middle of the night and began beating his family. He was not permitted his choice of lawyer, nor to see his family, before the "snap trial". The few prominent lawyers who came to his defense were told that their licenses would be suspended if they helped him.
He is now imprisoned. The activists older brother, Guangfu, escaped his village yesterday, too, and ran to Beijing. The Chinese government is suffocating and destroying this family over an arrest that should never have happened, because it was caused by revealing something that should never have happened.
"The 55-year-old Chen Guangfu, in a rare interview since his brother escaped in April, recounted details of his own torture and reprisals by authorities since his brother's escape.
He said he was restricted from leaving the village and that police in Shandong warned him they would increase the sentence for his son, Chen Kegui, who is being held on an attempted murder charge, if he gave interviews." [6].
Is it fair for the Chinese government to commit such human rights' atrocities after swearing to improve? The world has watched China marginally become more open to things the US and Canada take for granted. Is this their relapse?
This is my weekly post. *(This doesn’t necessarily a specific topic, I’m presenting facts I have come upon and expressing my opinion as well.) Capitalism defined by Oxford is: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. [1] This system seems fair right? I start a business, my business makes money and I take the profits of the effort that I put forward. This makes sense for small businesses and is a good way to maintain a working economy; but as some of these businesses grow, they become corporations. The CEOs of these corporations make millions, even billions in profit while corporate slaves like you and me make next to nothing. Then these corporations whose only concern is money look for ways to generate more profits, so what do they do? They expand, they cut corners to save money and with things like say… oh I don’t know the banks and investment companies they do it in a way that is borderline illegal. Don’t believe me? Watch “The Inside Job” it is absolutely eye opening, these bank CEOs and executives make hundreds of millions and billions off of risky investments and very unethical business practice. I was so intrigued by the photo Mr. Forsyth posted about Iceland (Also in “The Inside Job” deals with Iceland as well.) I did some more digging around about banking practices and such… The government tried to intervene with the banks and regulate the way investments were handled but the bankers (who own the politicians) told them to back off and shut it down. Some economist saw what was going on, and had meetings with the people who were allowing this to happen, tried to warn them but since all Wall Street cares about is money and has a total disregard for safe business practice, the repercussions of their actions and the people who actually had to deal with the repercussions, they just kept it up. Look what that got us... the 2008 economic collapse. While all these houses were being foreclosed and after the bank executives faced court and got away with it they gave some employee bonuses upwards of 10 million dollars. While people are being evicted and left homeless, the one percent live in mansions with 7 sports cars and house all over the world. Where is the equality in that? For more info on capitalism Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" is great as well. Sources: 1 - Oxford University Dictionary 2 - The Inside Job 3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O--2R0 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeROnVUADj0
This is my weekly post: An interesting topic came to my mind this weekend and I decided to talk about that for this week - "Are we taking technology for granted?" or rather, "Internet addiction." Now many of you are probably shaking your heads and saying no but this is a lot more serious than you think. Technology is everywhere and especially in South Korea there has been deaths related to electronics, one of the most infamous ones related to electronics is video games. For example is in 2009, a 3 month old Korean child died from malnutrition because both her parents spent hours a day at an internet cafe raising a virtual child on an online game. (1) That's ridiculous - in many developing countries many kids die from this and it is because they don't have food, but for a child to die like this over a video game? Something is not right. And it's not only people in South Korea, many people around the world are submerged in the world of internet and technology. Even looking at statistics on social networking has made me even more curious of what our generation has come to. On average, 62% of adults around the world use social media (2), that's about 4,340,000 people! And about 8 hours are spent on Facebook per person per month! (2) 8 Hours! Think of all the other things you can be doing for 8 hours. I think one of the biggest concerns with technology taking over our lives is smart phones, I think when you ask someone what they use their smart phone for phone calls in not the first thing that comes to their mind. On average, internet is used on the phone 24 minutes and 29 seconds in a day and social media following behind at 17 minutes and 29 seconds. What about phone calls? Well, about 12 minutes and 6 seconds, pretty much half of internet's time. (3) Now this may not look like it's a big deal and you may be thinking, "who calls people anymore?" but this goes to show how technology has evolved and everything we need is right at our fingertips, which is all nice, but no one seems to think they can live without their phones anymore and they become dependent on it. But it's not like people aren't aware, internet addiction is becoming a serious thing. And in countries like South Korea, and the government has stepped in hoping to prevent these things by adding things like counseling and putting in education starting at a young age about the dangers on internet and gadgets. I think this a great idea especially with the generation we live in and future generations we take technology for granted. Everything is at our fingertips; have a question? Just Google it. Want to watch a movie without going to the theatre? Go on Netflix. Things like that are all nice things to have and use but if we all of a sudden become dependent on it, we could have a serious problem. Sources: 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction#South_Korea 2. http://thesocialskinny.com/99-new-social-media-stats-for-2012/ 3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/9365085/Smartphones-hardly-used-for-calls.html 4. http://sourcefednews.com/south-korea-battling-gadget-addiction/
This my weekly post. In this post, I chose to address an issue which, often times, is not perceived to be an issue at all, this being the correlation between shortened life expectancy and “enforcers” within the athletic industry. In my experience, I have found that athletes are either adored or detested by the general public. Such could be attributed to the fact that to some they are seen as role models, even as heroes to children. But to others, they are seen as lazy and undeserving of the paycheck that comes with their not so strenuous careers. The point I wish to relay is that aspect of life in the athletics industry that is in fact strenuous and more often than not, leads to deaths of the players my their own hands, or in other words, suicide. This past Friday night, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Jovan Belcher, took the lives of both his girlfriend and himself. “Minutes before taking his own life, Belger allegedly gunned down his girlfriend and mother of his three month old baby.” (1) He then proceeded to go to the team’s training facility and shot himself in front of some team employees, including coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli. (2). In the last four months, three National Hockey League enforcers have died tragically. In May, Derek Boogaard died from a combination of too many painkillers and alcohol. Rick Rypien, was found dead in his home in Alberta on Aug.15, an apparent suicide, and, most recently, Wade Belak was found dead in a Toronto hotel on Aug. 31 after taking his own life. My point in relaying these events is that it is believed that the root cause of these players desire to end their lives can be largely attributed to the fact that they had roles as “enforcers” or “fighters” within their sport. Being a fighter entails mass physical contact and often entails head trauma. (3) Belak, Rypien, Boogaard and Belcher were most likely subject to many concussions and physical derailment. There is however, a prominent psychological aspect as well. In being fighters, there is so much pressure on a person to perform a certain way. They feel awful when they lose a fight, but don’t feel much better when they win due to the fact that they know they have severely injured someone else in the process. Players who are trained to be “key fighters” on a team are usually those whose tempers can be sparked easily and when that temper is unleashed are often violent. Such is considered to be the case with Belcher. It is speculated that perhaps he got into a heated argument with his girlfriend and as a result just lost control of the situation. Once the repercussions of his actions set in, he took his own life. To me, this is an issue because I do not believe that an industry aimed at such a large demographic of people should be focusing on promoting violence. What was once just the “love of the game” is turning into a gladiator like style of combat within every game. In fact, online polls display that people find sports events without any fighting to be “boring.” It is irksome to me that our society is reverting back to putting a positive emphasis on violence as entertainment. What was so terrible about just watching a hockey game and urging your team to score, not to maim? If the pressures that come with being a fighter and being respected for that reason are causing such young athletes to take their own lives, perhaps we ought to revaluate the sports industry and the corruption that lies therein.
These men joined leagues such as the NHL to be a part of the sport they love. Yes, perhaps it is true that hockey and football players should not be held in higher respect of those whose lives are devoted to helping others such as doctors and teachers. The point is however, that it is unfair to overlook the stresses of these people because we vastly contribute to it. Athletes are at the end of the day, just people, the same as you and I. They are not super heroes, and not invincible. Everyone has a breaking point and it is unfortunate that this breaking point is being reached at earlier and earlier ages, and is causing young athelets to forfeit their lives. Sources: (1) http://www.necn.com/12/01/12/Kansas-City-Chiefs-player-and-former-UMa/landing.html?blockID=808675&feedID=11106 (2) http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/report-chiefs-player-kills-girlfriend-takes-own-life-154951891--nfl.html (3) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/02/f-robert-cantu.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0 This a song called Same Love by an artist known as Macklemore. This song is about revolution, and the oppression that is faced by homosexuals in our society. It's about human rights and how those that choose to love others of the same sex are persecuted for that choice. This violation of basic human rights is like the issue of race in the 1950's. It has no place in our society and is going to be seen by future generations as a ridiculous time in history that had no place in our society. I will use direct quotes from the song to talk about this issue , in addition to other resources. In the first verse he talks about when he was a kid and he liked to draw, he thought that he might be gay due to this love of art. "When I was in the 3rd grade I thought that I was gay Cause I could draw, my uncle was And I kept my room straight (1) How ridiculous is that? In our society negatives stereotypes oppress people and make sure that we all conform to our gender roles and the expectations society has for us. In this verse he always talks about how conservatives on the right wing think that homosexuality is a choice and that we can “cure” it with treatments and religion. Some religious people even think that the devil created homosexuals. The right-wing conservatives think its a decision And you can be cured with some treatment and religion Man-made, rewiring of a pre-disposition (1) Lastly he talks about how God is supposed to love all his children but the gay ones are somehow excluded from this love (2). He also touches on the fact that we paraphrase the bible, which was written thousands of years ago by more than 40 people (3) over the course of about 1600 years. (4) "Man that's gay" Gets dropped on the daily We've become so numb to what we're sayin' Our culture founded from oppression …And gay is synonymous with the lesser In this verse he is talking about how often we use the word gay as an insult, a derogatory word not used against homosexuals but to devalue other individuals. He also touches on the fact that America and its culture were built on the oppression of visual minorities (especially black people and natives), gay people, people that weren’t Christian, etc… In my opinion this is his most significant line in the song: Live on! And be yourself! When I was in church They taught me something else If you preach hate at the service Those words aren't anointed And that Holy Water That you soak in Is then poisoned (1) This describes exactly what is wrong with religion today. When you use your belief system to condemn and devalue other human beings you are no better than anyone of those supposed “sinners”. If we truly want to instill change then this “holier-than-thou” attitude must be done away with so that we can move on with equality. Macklemore says it best : It’s human rights for everybody there is no difference! (1) Macklemore has been making waves around the world with his new album but we are still a long way from equality. This was illustrated very clearly by the case of a Detroit teacher being suspended for showing this video to her class to teach them a message of love, equality, and respect for others sexuality. Apparently a student in her class was offended due to his religious beliefs. When religion is allowed to overpower common sense, law, and spreading a message of love and compassion for those whose rights have been stolen, you know that we live in one messed up world. Thank you Macklemore for making the most inspirational song I have ever heard, I know you’ve touched the hearts of millions. (1)http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-sme-love-lyrics (2)http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/god-hates-fags1.jpg (3)http://www.allabouttruth.org/how-many-people-wrote-the-bible-faq.htm (4)http://www.discoverymagazine.com/digger/d99dd/d9907dd.html
There's been a lot of talk about Scotland becoming independent from the UK and, being Scottish myself, this really strikes my fancy.
Now, economically speaking, it wouldn't be wise to separate from Great Britain [1]. "There is a gap between public spending in Scotland (£40bn) and revenue raised there (£27bn). A Scottish government would have to choose between higher taxes and cuts in public services." "The integrated British economy is more capable than an independent Scotland would be of meeting the challenges of globalisation. Likewise, having independent defence and security structures would overstrain Scotland's resources."
For real-time proof, we can take a look at neighbouring Ireland who, economically, is not doing so well. [2] They have an unemployment rate of 14.4% and are $2.352 trillion in debt! That places them in the top 10 most in-debt nations in the entire world. Could Scotland end up like Ireland if they were to separate from Great Britain?
To speak from a pride point of view, yes, gaining independence would be really nice. I myself get bothered when Scotland is overlooked and only seen as a part of the UK, so I can only imagine how a Scot living in Scotland may feel.
However, this battle for independence isn't new; it's been going on for centuries! (3, to be exact) [3] The history between Scotland and England is anything but friendly--go ahead and watch Braveheart for a Hollywood summary. I can speak from experience when I say even today, relations between Scottish and English aren't always civil; though that is not to speak for everyone. And not everyone in Scotland wants to separate, either. But that's what democracy is for! A vote is nigh and I am highly anticipating the results.
I know this isn't the video thread, but since I watched "The Inside Job" I did some more digging on banks, America, capitalism and such. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O--2R0
ReplyDeleteSo we're off to China for this weekly post.
ReplyDeleteA Chinese man named Chen Guangcheng is a blind activist in China [1]. Guangcheng is a 41 year old man [2] who stood as an activist for years. Then he was arrested (for exposing FORCED ABORTION in northern China [3])and held under heavy house arrest for 18 months [4]. He escaped, recently, and fled to the US embassy in Beijing, then flew to the US. This caused a million issues, and I think China handled them very poorly.
When Guangcheng escaped, the police immediately went to his house, in Dongshigu [5]. They attacked his family, mainly his nephew and his brother.
The nephew has been tried and arrested to 3 years in prison in what many are calling a "flash trial". The young nephew wounded a few officers with a kitchen knife after they broke into his home in the middle of the night and began beating his family. He was not permitted his choice of lawyer, nor to see his family, before the "snap trial". The few prominent lawyers who came to his defense were told that their licenses would be suspended if they helped him.
He is now imprisoned. The activists older brother, Guangfu, escaped his village yesterday, too, and ran to Beijing. The Chinese government is suffocating and destroying this family over an arrest that should never have happened, because it was caused by revealing something that should never have happened.
"The 55-year-old Chen Guangfu, in a rare interview since his brother escaped in April, recounted details of his own torture and reprisals by authorities since his brother's escape.
He said he was restricted from leaving the village and that police in Shandong warned him they would increase the sentence for his son, Chen Kegui, who is being held on an attempted murder charge, if he gave interviews." [6].
Is it fair for the Chinese government to commit such human rights' atrocities after swearing to improve? The world has watched China marginally become more open to things the US and Canada take for granted. Is this their relapse?
1: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1130/breaking49.html
2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Guangcheng
3: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/30/chen-guangcheng-nephew-jailed-trial
4: http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/world/asia/china-chen-nephew-convicted/index.html?eref=rss_mostpopular&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_mostpopular+(RSS%3A+Most+Popular)
5: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/06/09/151801/chen-guangchengs-mother-brother.html
6: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0524/breaking15.html?via=rel
This is my weekly post. *(This doesn’t necessarily a specific topic, I’m presenting facts I have come upon and expressing my opinion as well.)
ReplyDeleteCapitalism defined by Oxford is: an economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. [1]
This system seems fair right? I start a business, my business makes money and I take the profits of the effort that I put forward. This makes sense for small businesses and is a good way to maintain a working economy; but as some of these businesses grow, they become corporations. The CEOs of these corporations make millions, even billions in profit while corporate slaves like you and me make next to nothing. Then these corporations whose only concern is money look for ways to generate more profits, so what do they do? They expand, they cut corners to save money and with things like say… oh I don’t know the banks and investment companies they do it in a way that is borderline illegal. Don’t believe me? Watch “The Inside Job” it is absolutely eye opening, these bank CEOs and executives make hundreds of millions and billions off of risky investments and very unethical business practice.
I was so intrigued by the photo Mr. Forsyth posted about Iceland (Also in “The Inside Job” deals with Iceland as well.) I did some more digging around about banking practices and such… The government tried to intervene with the banks and regulate the way investments were handled but the bankers (who own the politicians) told them to back off and shut it down. Some economist saw what was going on, and had meetings with the people who were allowing this to happen, tried to warn them but since all Wall Street cares about is money and has a total disregard for safe business practice, the repercussions of their actions and the people who actually had to deal with the repercussions, they just kept it up. Look what that got us... the 2008 economic collapse. While all these houses were being foreclosed and after the bank executives faced court and got away with it they gave some employee bonuses upwards of 10 million dollars.
While people are being evicted and left homeless, the one percent live in mansions with 7 sports cars and house all over the world. Where is the equality in that?
For more info on capitalism Michael Moore's movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" is great as well.
Sources:
1 - Oxford University Dictionary
2 - The Inside Job
3 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYFw3O--2R0
4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeROnVUADj0
I found this as well and loved it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=zA1ioym5OYA&NR=1
This is my weekly post:
ReplyDeleteAn interesting topic came to my mind this weekend and I decided to talk about that for this week - "Are we taking technology for granted?" or rather, "Internet addiction." Now many of you are probably shaking your heads and saying no but this is a lot more serious than you think. Technology is everywhere and especially in South Korea there has been deaths related to electronics, one of the most infamous ones related to electronics is video games. For example is in 2009, a 3 month old Korean child died from malnutrition because both her parents spent hours a day at an internet cafe raising a virtual child on an online game. (1) That's ridiculous - in many developing countries many kids die from this and it is because they don't have food, but for a child to die like this over a video game? Something is not right. And it's not only people in South Korea, many people around the world are submerged in the world of internet and technology.
Even looking at statistics on social networking has made me even more curious of what our generation has come to. On average, 62% of adults around the world use social media (2), that's about 4,340,000 people! And about 8 hours are spent on Facebook per person per month! (2) 8 Hours! Think of all the other things you can be doing for 8 hours. I think one of the biggest concerns with technology taking over our lives is smart phones, I think when you ask someone what they use their smart phone for phone calls in not the first thing that comes to their mind. On average, internet is used on the phone 24 minutes and 29 seconds in a day and social media following behind at 17 minutes and 29 seconds. What about phone calls? Well, about 12 minutes and 6 seconds, pretty much half of internet's time. (3) Now this may not look like it's a big deal and you may be thinking, "who calls people anymore?" but this goes to show how technology has evolved and everything we need is right at our fingertips, which is all nice, but no one seems to think they can live without their phones anymore and they become dependent on it.
But it's not like people aren't aware, internet addiction is becoming a serious thing. And in countries like South Korea, and the government has stepped in hoping to prevent these things by adding things like counseling and putting in education starting at a young age about the dangers on internet and gadgets. I think this a great idea especially with the generation we live in and future generations we take technology for granted. Everything is at our fingertips; have a question? Just Google it. Want to watch a movie without going to the theatre? Go on Netflix. Things like that are all nice things to have and use but if we all of a sudden become dependent on it, we could have a serious problem.
Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_addiction#South_Korea
2. http://thesocialskinny.com/99-new-social-media-stats-for-2012/
3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobile-phones/9365085/Smartphones-hardly-used-for-calls.html
4. http://sourcefednews.com/south-korea-battling-gadget-addiction/
This my weekly post. In this post, I chose to address an issue which, often times, is not perceived to be an issue at all, this being the correlation between shortened life expectancy and “enforcers” within the athletic industry. In my experience, I have found that athletes are either adored or detested by the general public. Such could be attributed to the fact that to some they are seen as role models, even as heroes to children. But to others, they are seen as lazy and undeserving of the paycheck that comes with their not so strenuous careers. The point I wish to relay is that aspect of life in the athletics industry that is in fact strenuous and more often than not, leads to deaths of the players my their own hands, or in other words, suicide.
ReplyDeleteThis past Friday night, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker, Jovan Belcher, took the lives of both his girlfriend and himself. “Minutes before taking his own life, Belger allegedly gunned down his girlfriend and mother of his three month old baby.” (1) He then proceeded to go to the team’s training facility and shot himself in front of some team employees, including coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli. (2). In the last four months, three National Hockey League enforcers have died tragically. In May, Derek Boogaard died from a combination of too many painkillers and alcohol. Rick Rypien, was found dead in his home in Alberta on Aug.15, an apparent suicide, and, most recently, Wade Belak was found dead in a Toronto hotel on Aug. 31 after taking his own life. My point in relaying these events is that it is believed that the root cause of these players desire to end their lives can be largely attributed to the fact that they had roles as “enforcers” or “fighters” within their sport. Being a fighter entails mass physical contact and often entails head trauma. (3) Belak, Rypien, Boogaard and Belcher were most likely subject to many concussions and physical derailment. There is however, a prominent psychological aspect as well. In being fighters, there is so much pressure on a person to perform a certain way. They feel awful when they lose a fight, but don’t feel much better when they win due to the fact that they know they have severely injured someone else in the process.
Players who are trained to be “key fighters” on a team are usually those whose tempers can be sparked easily and when that temper is unleashed are often violent. Such is considered to be the case with Belcher. It is speculated that perhaps he got into a heated argument with his girlfriend and as a result just lost control of the situation. Once the repercussions of his actions set in, he took his own life. To me, this is an issue because I do not believe that an industry aimed at such a large demographic of people should be focusing on promoting violence. What was once just the “love of the game” is turning into a gladiator like style of combat within every game. In fact, online polls display that people find sports events without any fighting to be “boring.” It is irksome to me that our society is reverting back to putting a positive emphasis on violence as entertainment. What was so terrible about just watching a hockey game and urging your team to score, not to maim? If the pressures that come with being a fighter and being respected for that reason are causing such young athletes to take their own lives, perhaps we ought to revaluate the sports industry and the corruption that lies therein.
(continued)
ReplyDeleteThese men joined leagues such as the NHL to be a part of the sport they love. Yes, perhaps it is true that hockey and football players should not be held in higher respect of those whose lives are devoted to helping others such as doctors and teachers. The point is however, that it is unfair to overlook the stresses of these people because we vastly contribute to it. Athletes are at the end of the day, just people, the same as you and I. They are not super heroes, and not invincible. Everyone has a breaking point and it is unfortunate that this breaking point is being reached at earlier and earlier ages, and is causing young athelets to forfeit their lives.
Sources:
(1) http://www.necn.com/12/01/12/Kansas-City-Chiefs-player-and-former-UMa/landing.html?blockID=808675&feedID=11106
(2) http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/report-chiefs-player-kills-girlfriend-takes-own-life-154951891--nfl.html
(3) http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/02/f-robert-cantu.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlVBg7_08n0
ReplyDeleteThis a song called Same Love by an artist known as Macklemore.
This song is about revolution, and the oppression that is faced by homosexuals in our society. It's about human rights and how those that choose to love others of the same sex are persecuted for that choice. This violation of basic human rights is like the issue of race in the 1950's. It has no place in our society and is going to be seen by future generations as a ridiculous time in history that had no place in our society. I will use direct quotes from the song to talk about this issue , in addition to other resources.
In the first verse he talks about when he was a kid and he liked to draw, he thought that he might be gay due to this love of art.
"When I was in the 3rd grade
I thought that I was gay
Cause I could draw, my uncle was
And I kept my room straight (1)
How ridiculous is that? In our society negatives stereotypes oppress people and make sure that we all conform to our gender roles and the expectations society has for us.
In this verse he always talks about how conservatives on the right wing think that homosexuality is a choice and that we can “cure” it with treatments and religion. Some religious people even think that the devil created homosexuals.
The right-wing conservatives think its a decision
And you can be cured with some treatment and religion
Man-made, rewiring of a pre-disposition (1)
Lastly he talks about how God is supposed to love all his children but the gay ones are somehow excluded from this love (2). He also touches on the fact that we paraphrase the bible, which was written thousands of years ago by more than 40 people (3) over the course of about 1600 years. (4)
"Man that's gay"
Gets dropped on the daily
We've become so numb to what we're sayin'
Our culture founded from oppression …And gay is synonymous with the lesser
In this verse he is talking about how often we use the word gay as an insult, a derogatory word not used against homosexuals but to devalue other individuals. He also touches on the fact that America and its culture were built on the oppression of visual minorities (especially black people and natives), gay people, people that weren’t Christian, etc…
In my opinion this is his most significant line in the song:
Live on! And be yourself!
When I was in church
They taught me something else
If you preach hate at the service
Those words aren't anointed
And that Holy Water
That you soak in
Is then poisoned (1)
This describes exactly what is wrong with religion today. When you use your belief system to condemn and devalue other human beings you are no better than anyone of those supposed “sinners”. If we truly want to instill change then this “holier-than-thou” attitude must be done away with so that we can move on with equality. Macklemore says it best : It’s human rights for everybody there is no difference! (1) Macklemore has been making waves around the world with his new album but we are still a long way from equality. This was illustrated very clearly by the case of a Detroit teacher being suspended for showing this video to her class to teach them a message of love, equality, and respect for others sexuality. Apparently a student in her class was offended due to his religious beliefs. When religion is allowed to overpower common sense, law, and spreading a message of love and compassion for those whose rights have been stolen, you know that we live in one messed up world. Thank you Macklemore for making the most inspirational song I have ever heard, I know you’ve touched the hearts of millions.
(1)http://rapgenius.com/Macklemore-and-ryan-lewis-sme-love-lyrics
(2)http://s3.amazonaws.com/rapgenius/god-hates-fags1.jpg
(3)http://www.allabouttruth.org/how-many-people-wrote-the-bible-faq.htm
(4)http://www.discoverymagazine.com/digger/d99dd/d9907dd.html
This is my weekly post.
ReplyDeleteThere's been a lot of talk about Scotland becoming independent from the UK and, being Scottish myself, this really strikes my fancy.
Now, economically speaking, it wouldn't be wise to separate from Great Britain [1]. "There is a gap between public spending in Scotland (£40bn) and revenue raised there (£27bn). A Scottish government would have to choose between higher taxes and cuts in public services." "The integrated British economy is more capable than an independent Scotland would be of meeting the challenges of globalisation. Likewise, having independent defence and security structures would overstrain Scotland's resources."
For real-time proof, we can take a look at neighbouring Ireland who, economically, is not doing so well. [2] They have an unemployment rate of 14.4% and are $2.352 trillion in debt! That places them in the top 10 most in-debt nations in the entire world. Could Scotland end up like Ireland if they were to separate from Great Britain?
To speak from a pride point of view, yes, gaining independence would be really nice. I myself get bothered when Scotland is overlooked and only seen as a part of the UK, so I can only imagine how a Scot living in Scotland may feel.
However, this battle for independence isn't new; it's been going on for centuries! (3, to be exact) [3] The history between Scotland and England is anything but friendly--go ahead and watch Braveheart for a Hollywood summary. I can speak from experience when I say even today, relations between Scottish and English aren't always civil; though that is not to speak for everyone. And not everyone in Scotland wants to separate, either. But that's what democracy is for! A vote is nigh and I am highly anticipating the results.
[1] http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/scots-independence/35617/pros-and-cons-scottish-independence#
[2] https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ei.html
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13326310