This blog has been called The Feral Continuum since its inception a few weeks ago. Somewhat conceptual and not terribly accessible, I decided to rename the blog The Farcebook. So, without further ado, welcome to The Farcebook!
Now, for one, I like the word feral. The idea relates to people very easily: schooling, jobs, parents, laws, culture, government, etc. - there are many domesticating factors in our lives that we seek to free ourselves of. In trying to write about these issues, I haven't thought the name has done justice to the energy I perceive in today's world. Playing on The Facebook's monumentally popular name, The Farcebook came up. Now, why name this blog The Farcebook? In looking at the cultural and social gaps in our society that I might like to make my focus here, things often take on an absurd, farcical light. How far the spreads of cultural and institutional notions of reality diverge with true reality and how we bumble through the absurdity. From government policy reverberations to little situations we encounter in our everyday lives, it seems the farces continue, unabated in their boisterousness. In attempting to understand what's happening around me in this modern world, I'll choose to forgo disbelief.
What I would like to address here, though, are serious subjects. To do this, let me endeavor back into the feral continuum idea. The most domesticating things for people might be the least apparent. You can't necessarily see the future or past of any object or situation, person of movement. For example, you can't see that a widget made in China has lead in it, but it does either way. Or, you might not know that you experience traffic jams with such regularity because the price of gas is low. People create situations. We create history. The situations and things we create have lives of their own, histories of their own. How everything adds up is important to understanding the whole, for it is possible to change things if we know how a situation develops initially.
One of the domesticating forces that I believe we need to break is the Federal Reserve. The reality that they create with their policies is an interesting area to observe how people are affected by far removed or undisclosed events. With the bailouts and quantitative easing programs i.e. printing money, they are creating circumstances for prolonged debt slavery, food inflation, oil inflation, even hyperinflation. There is a large contingent of people that have been in agreement that the Federal Reserve needs to go, among them previous presidents Jefferson, Jackson, and Wilson, Congressman Ron Paul, and millions more. An almost mainstream primer on the issue might be the film Zeitgeist. The Federal Reserve makes its' decisions in private and is not audited, something Ron Paul has and is attempting to force upon the bank. The Federal Reserve has the singular, unique position of printing the world's reserve currency, thus affecting other populations just as much as it does the United States. This is a distinct privilege that has reverberations all over the world, affecting people in far flung countries with tiny GDP's to you and your purchasing power.
The Federal Reserve is a relatively transparent institution, as well; the rabbit hole goes deep. In 2009, the United States' Department of Defense black budget was $50 billion, funding programs shrouded in high level classifications. Who knows, and is speaking about what the NSA and CIA are really doing? Imagine the levels of classifications obscuring truth and cultural concepts of reality. The trickle down effect is significant, and those with the classifying power like to hold the cards. Classifications bring darkness to our culture and discreet policies are affecting people more than disclosed policies. At this point in history, it's farcical to accept what the government says, at all. If this idea is redundant, good.
The historical narrative of distrust of the powerful has fallen through the cracks of the common psyche, leaving those in power unjustly in their positions while the people flounder about in lies that go largely unquestioned. The mainstream media has assumed a remarkably hypocritical, enabling role in the face of cultural confusion over perceptions of reality; thus the gap. With exception to Dylan Ratigan, the mainstream media offers nothing. They act more like matadors, distracting a bull with intentions to kill. On the other hand, blogs have been arraigned for lack of credibility by espousers of the status quo, when in reality the blogs are expressing the exact amount of discontent with the dearth of quality product offered by the traditional, mainstream media. A tree's roots mirror the size of the tree.
Another domesticating force, the internet. Ahhhh, the internet. What it has done for us, what we can do with it! But, our relationship is young and there is much to learn about us. The level of social germination it allows is huge, but people are still more creative; the freedom of speech it offers is great, but we must exercise real freedom of speech. We must bring our activity in cyber space into real space, for consuming internet content is no replacement for our physical action, movement, and progress. The internet has allowed us a certain mode of social progress unavailable not long ago, but we must realize that the internet is a platform. It is not going to act. Computers don't get up and walk to the store, people do; computers don't go to rallies, people do. Without action, we are just consuming the internet, constituting only half of our relationship with it.
I will further look into the internet's role in our society, for there is much to learn about how we can better use it to become more productive and effective. For me, this is paramount. We have come so far with the internet, but we have to learn why we aren't accomplishing what we think possible with it.
In conclusion to this, yes, random assortment of ideas, I will reiterate that I would like to focus on how to close the gaps in our society into which fall so many good efforts, ideas, and potentialities. As we watch history unfold, let us not think of ourselves as doomed. Things may seem hopeless and absurd, but a farce usually has a happy ending. Sit back, and join me as I attempt to chronicle these times on The Farcebook.
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