| Church v. State |
[November 7th, 2008 | 11:07 pm] |
I painted this illustration as a way of expressing my frustration at the way America has been heading in recent years.
In spite of the incredible step forward recently in the election of Barack Obama, the passing of Proposition 8 shows that we have a long way to go as a nation. In recent years more than ever, right-wing politics has brought religion into the equation -- an exercise that casts incredible aspersions on the very foundations of this nation.
One of the first cornerstones of America called for the separation of Church and State, and yet issues such as abortion and gay rights have absolutely no redeeming features in a secular context. How have we, as citizens in this Land of the Free, come to spit in the face of our Founding Fathers? They, above all, knew that religion pollutes politics and vice versa.
Christians don't deny Atheists any rights, and Atheism goes against the First Commandment. Why should they deny any rights to homosexuals from a few verses in the Bible?
Live, and let fucking live. |
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| Spin and Propaganda |
[April 3rd, 2006 | 8:31 pm] |
"Artists use lies to tell the truth. Politicians use lies to cover it up." - V for Vendetta
I've had to listen to a lot of bullshit in my time. My childhood was full of deception as only a backstabbing Chinese family a la Joy Luck Club could produce.
Those coked-up prostitutes that my "Uncle Ted" brought into our house? No, those were his "girlfriends". He wasn't paying them for sex at all.
Didn't grandpa give me $100 for my birthday? No, you must have been imagining that extra "0" because it's only $10 and mommy just went and bought a new pair of shoes with this money that came out of nowhere.
Your friend Justin's father isn't really gay. No, he just left Lisa because she was a bitch.. even though he moved to San Francisco to live with his "close friend".
My parents are excellent spin-doctors. Except I caught on quickly.
My grandmother is a sheep that buys into every bit of propaganda and everything the newspapers tell you. She was a huge supporter of Chairman Mao and devout quoter of his Little Red Book. In fact, I think she may still have a copy of that somewhere. I grew up with her quoting sketchy-sounding articles from Chinese newspaper that said things like "Eating more Spam is good for you!" and crap like that -- and actually believing it. My sister and I would promptly debunk her with our elementary science knowledge. I vowed never to be like that. An unquestioning follower of a flawed government and media propaganda.
I rebelled against her Chinese traditionalist ideals by becoming ultra-Patriotic about America as a child and valuing our principles of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness -- basically.. save for "equality" (emphasis on the quotation marks), everything the Communist government stood against.
Other Chinese-American kids try to assimilate and fit into the majority Caucasian culture by rejecting Chinese culture. I dealt with my assimilation urges by becoming political and rejecting Chinese institutions. (I love my culture.)
I was the type of kid that never believed in Santa Claus (Yes that's right -- never.) but played along like I did so I could get what I wanted for Christmas. I never bought into my parents' bullshit because enough deception taught me better. Perhaps this makes me a little paranoid, but I'd rather be cautious than deceived.
In the year 2001, I was doing a project for my AP Government class the Senior Year of high school following the career of Dubya and the spin put on it by both liberal *and* conservative newspapers over the course of several months. Naturally I was highly amused to find that both sides were disapproving of his handling of the social security surplus (remember that?), even though the conservatives were trying to be a bit more apologetic about his unanimously-agreed crappy leadership.
Then came September 11th and everything changed.
I knew something seemed strange.
It was *ingenious* though. Even my formerly liberal friends were suddenly supporting war. They were spoon-fed the idea "What other option is there?" and propagated that bullshit among themselves and patting each other's backs for being open-minded liberals that were willing to compromise with a conservative viewpoint.. while I became a small voice of pacifist dissent crying out "THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY! You're just not looking for it."
Fucking fickle liberals.
It took them a while to come back to their Bush-hating senses again. But the mob-mentality still worked for a while, as the right-wings probably predicted.
Just long enough to get the Patriot Act signed.
Is it really THAT hard to think for yourself, people?
In AP US History class, I remember there was one exceptionally difficult essay to write. We were given some articles about the role of slavery in the United States Civil War and told to write a persuasive essay either agreeing or disagreeing with them. The spin on these articles were very *obviously* promoting the idea that slavery was NOT a contributing factor in the South's secession from the union.
Everyone in my class knew better, but the slanted information we were given said otherwise.
I was the only student who disagreed with the article, finding my own sources of information to debunk the author's position. I was given a perfect score on the paper.
The "truth" is not necessarily The Truth. It's just the better-argued "truth". |
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