The Ponderings of a Big Foot Buddha

2003-03-29 - 9:17 a.m.

Daily Journal:

Entry #1

Well ok to be honest it’s not likely I’ll be writing a journal daily or otherwise. :)

What I will likely be writing about will be rants & raves from life, mine & in general plus things about life that tic me off and as well as amusing anecdotes from the world around me (well amusing to me at any rate).

Entries will tend to be sporadic as time allows and as opportunities present themselves with topics I wish to share or get out of my system.

So to start off with on my first entry I’d like to touch on a calm and quiet subject. WAR and PROTEST.

I’m not saying I’m for or against the current war in the Middle East. I don’t have enough information to make what I consider an informed decision regarding the issue. Certainly all evil needs to succeed is for good men and women to do nothing. So taking a hard line stance, draw a line in the sand and say “NO MORE” and then back it up with force is by all means a valid action/reaction in my books. By the same token though many times through out history certain cultures have used this as an excuse to acquire gain either materially or socially over other weaker cultures. What the actual underlying cause to this war is known only by a few I think. Though like most things this is neither and both at the same time with some of each reason plus a few more in the mix

OK enough of a sidetrack. Back to what this entry is really about “war protests” both for and against that are getting on my nerves.

Booing another nations National anthem at a sporting event because they (as a nation) don’t agree with your nation’s Leaders.

Excuse me but what the heck does this accomplish. It certainly makes tempers rise, it certainly gets a bunch of press, it certainly does foster bad feeling between citizens of both nations, it certainly gets the originating nation pissed off when they get boo’ed in retaliation. What it does not do though is affect the decision making process or the mind set of the nations leader in either county. It makes whoever does this on either side of the border look like a pack of asses.

Spray-painting war protest graffiti on property other than your own.

“Come on & grow a pair why don’t you!” Geez sneaking around at 2:00am in a back alley and scrawling “NO WAR”, PEACE, “USA SUCKS” and other similarly witty slogans is really a good way to get a message across to the powers that be (<<< sarcasm incase you didn’t realize it). All you accomplish is making private citizens pay for clean up out of their own pocket or out of their insurance company’s pocket (which in turn they pass on back to us). If you really were honest and sincere in your desire to protest go join a legitimate protest rally instead of being a waste of skin and a drain on society. If you really feel the need to express yourself with paint put the time & effort into making it a work of art on a grand scale. Go find a corporate sponsor that feels like you do & do the side of a big downtown building, paint a large scale banner that can be placed somewhere highly visible, find an empty lot, field or park & make some really big art visible from the air or a tall building (use biodegradable items) then call the local media, get the picture? Scribbled phrases in stick printing with black spray-paint that looks like it was done by a freshman kindergartener just makes you look like an ass instead of that or so trendy guerilla protester you secretly think of yourself as. Make your protest art worthwhile, make it visible and make it gain some media coverage then you’ll be making a statement for yourself.

Die-in’s

Ok this one is actually a pretty good idea if done right. The ones that bug me are the ones where a die-in gets staged in a busy downtown intersection during morning rush hour or some other similar place. I understand (as it was explained to me) that the idea is getting the corporate world to notice by disrupting them in the place it hurts most, the pocket book. Certainly playing havoc with a company’s workforce can have serious consequences for a company. Think for a moment though, are you really hurting the large corporations?, no of course not it’ll take a lot more than a couple hours of downtime in the morning to make enough of a dent for the corporations to notice. The people you hurting and getting take notice of you though are the small mom and pop type businesses and the average working guy. For starters these are people just like you, they don’t have influence with any of the decision makers, the personal frustrations and employments problems you cause just hurt and anger people just like you. Now a die-in held in a less stressful place for other purposes is a very good idea. Do it in a mall with a couple of undead people (hehe snicker “undead” people can be very persuasive hehe) handling out information materials. Campuses are a good place as well to spread information like this as well. See if you can find a sympatric company with a large building downtown that will let you stage one. Maybe try city hall steps even on tax day or the day dog licenses are due.

Trendy Protesters & Advocates

These people are the worst of the lot in my opinion. It’s the latest cause of the month club for these goons. They don’t really know what they are protesting just that everyone they admire or are in their circle of life are protesting so they must too. War = bad no matter what the cause so we must protest war by inciting riots and causing public damage in order to get our point across. Ahh what putting down a tyrant that is causing suffering and death to further his own gain or beliefs? I can think of a few good examples of this situation in the last century and a couple years that have required war in order to end the continuance of this kind of evil. Certainly you can’t deny there are some aspects of this war that are similar.

Peace mongers and pansies that are scared to break a few eggs to get a job done that needs doing. These vehement pro-war nitwits take the cake as long as their government says we need to go to war they yell “OK let’s go”. What about a war that is pretty economical in nature? One country looks for a reason to use force (all types of force too economical, social physical, etc) to obtain control of resources or lands to which otherwise they’d have no access or restricted access to? This sounds pretty familiar in relation to the current day events actually as well. Killing people so you can have something you want even if it’s already owned by another sounds pretty criminal to me. I’m pretty sure (well maybe more than pretty sure) if I walked up to an owner of a car I liked and yell out “I saw you sell cocaine to a child!” then shoot him in the head, hop into the new car and drive off the police and courts aren’t going to buy the “I did it because he was evil and the car was a reward for my noble actions” excuse now are they?

Wow that felt good to get it off my chest even if no one ever reads this. You have my applause if you managed to read down this far through all that muck above. My next entry will cover something less inflammatory like maybe abortion.

Free to agree or disagree with my opinions or thoughts but never deny me the right to have them because though I might not agree with your opinions or thoughts I’ll never deny the you the right to have your own regardless of how unpopular they maybe with me.

previous - next