I often spend time just thinking and today I got to thinking about how much time I spend on my thoughts. However, I rarely think about ever doing time for my thoughts. I read up a bit about the police's plans during the impending protests against the RNC to arrest a lot more people than usual and target more radical protesters, allegedly to keep the streets safer. Immediately, my mind was filled with horrible images of the Gestapo, Stalin's purges, Orwellian thought police, and a plethora of other images of terror. I realized the moment that it became unsafe for people to express their contempt for the government is the day freedom itself became unsafe. When the expression of your thoughts become dangerous to the welfare of the State, one's expression of them becomes a danger to the welfare of oneself.

P.S. --- Emma Goldman is tight:
"We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America. How else is the world to take America seriously, when democracy at home is daily being outraged, free speech suppressed, peaceable assemblies broken up by overbearing and brutal gangsters in uniform; when free press is curtailed and every independent opinion gagged. Verily, poor as we are in democracy, how can we give of it to the world? We further say that a democracy conceived in the military servitude of the masses, in their economic enslavement, and nurtured in their tears and blood, is not democracy at all. It is despotism--the cumulative result of a chain of abuses which, according to that dangerous document, the Declaration of Independence, the people have the right to overthrow. "
- posted by sdskyle @ 3:15 PM

 
Living near Plano, I had heard of its reputation with Heroin. However, after reading upreading up on it a bit today, I've found that it's much worse than I had imagined.

It's a sad story in which many teenagers' lives were taken or ruined. Even the story of some of the 29 sentenced to time in prison is sad. The leaders of the operation that brought heroin into Plano were just impoverished immigrants who had worked their asses off their whole lives and had nothing to show for it, so decided to introduce heroin to the wealthy suburban community just north of Dallas. And the sentencing of the young Chris Cooper to 20 years in prison, which brought the kid to the lowest point in his life, was on of the most absurd ideas I've ever heard. Does anyone honestly think that prison is a great place to send a recovering drug addict that's trying to stay clean in a halfway house? The kid had been clean for at least six months, so now they want to throw him in a place full of a lot of stressed out, mistreated and mentally unstable individuals, many of which could turn him to higher crimes or maybe more drugs? I think that's just what he needs so we can turn him into a productive model citizen.

You know what also pisses me off about this? That the city's planning made Plano predisposed to this kind of stuff. The city planning leaves people feeling distraught and isolated. People don't really know each other. There's bound to be some tension between all the strangers in town. And, if anything, the teenagers are bored out of their minds, especially in the early teens when they can't drive themselves out of the prison that is their neighborhoods. Some kids think they have nothing better to do than drugs in their basement(er, no basements around here because of the foundations, but whatever substitute). Plus, the environment is pretty stale and the kids don't know how to handle something like the introduction of drugs to their schools at parties, etc. I mean, when chiva was introduced to Plano, most of the kids didn't know that it was actually Heroin they were doing. They thought it was some party drug or some lame shit like that. Plus, the area remains pretty segregated. I'll bet if any of those kids had at least one Mexican friend that spoke Spanish, they would have known that they were in fact using Heroin.

Anyways, the problem started to get out of hand, and people tried to get the authorities to do something, but they were afraid that a drug problem would lower their precious property values. So, more and more of this supposedly valuable youth kept dying or coming close in ER, and all the city could think about was covering it up enough so property values don't fall (it was hard enough losing the rep as the suicide city). I think you know the rest; it got more and more out of hand until it couldn't be ignored and Plano became the heroin capitol.

So, I can't help but find the war on drugs to be more and more full of shit, like the War on Terror and Crime. All these policies tend not to cater to the safety of the masses, but rather to the billfolds of the "opulent minority" (a term coined by a founding father. I believe it was James Madison). This war on drugs gets even worse, as far as the conviction of far more black people than white, and the consequences issued from the use of drugs generally associated with certain social classes. I think that's enough for now. This system is starting to make me sick.
- posted by sdskyle @ 7:17 PM

 
Today, I found out that my cousin was laid off from her job as a teacher in Detroit. With her, some 900 teachers were laid off from next year and a total of about 3200 jobs were eliminated in Detroit public school systems. Apparently there is a budget crisis because the schools are losing students and aren't being paid as much as before because the schools are paid by the state "based on how many students they are educating" and the Detroit schools have lost 16% of its enrollment or the "equivalent to 65 elementary schools with 450 students in each." Essentially, the city has turned into hell and people are getting out. But wait, doesn't it makes sense to fire teachers because of the decline in enrollment as most capitalist logic would have it? Does that still apply when the schools are "already short-handed and stretched to the limit"? What happens if we take an already overcrowded school system, fire 3200 people, and close a few schools because CEO Robert Moore wants to "right-size the district"? Could it by any chance increase the quality of the children's' educations or would it merely increase the quantity of children who have been deprived of a quality education in the name of profit? And shit, all that talking about the children had us forget about the people that lose their jobs.

And why is it that this no child left behind scam has trimmed the budget for public schools but has expanded the budget for the military and fattened the wallets of people with ties to the military-industrial complex? We need to set our regime's priorities straight. Let's fuck this system and send them packing with survival being their only priority.
- posted by sdskyle @ 10:17 PM

 
Following this is the speech I'm working on. I'm trying to make it philosophical, but accessible and passionate. I hope to recite it someplace soon.

I write this as an appeal to those who feel like they have nothing to live for: those that are so caught up in the fight for survival that they can't fight the fight against the State, its military industrial complex and corporate prisons that profit from the unfair and racially biased imprisonment of a large population of people. I dedicate this to the people that are busy hustling just to get by, the people that have to resort to selling drugs or worse, themselves, to get a college education. I dedicate this to everyone who strives for change, but is left drowning in the illusion of their freedom: those that sense there is something inherently unfair and corrupt about the system, but are left feeling alone and powerless in a blanket of silence. I dedicate this to the people whose lives are shrouded by the illusions of contentment with the system, even though they've never experienced anything that would justify those feelings in their lives.

Thus is the disturbing nature of our lives. Reality is inadvertently obscured by how one perceives it, which is in turn influenced by the doctrines and ideology that dominate the subconscious. As people are not homogeneous in culture and ideology, we tend to perceive things differently, which generates controversy.

Only in silence can there be truth, for when people no longer question the validity of these alleged truths, they are accepted as truths and subsequently ingrained into the minds of the masses. Accordingly, we should question ourselves when there is an alleged consensus that leaves society in silence because, without audible objection, the people are silenced into the State's illusion of the truth.

Let us not be disillusioned. Break the silence! Crush the illusion of powerlessness. Reject the lies of the administration. Let us dissolve this conception that dropping bombs on innocent civilians will protect them from the evil regimes that rule them as good men are forced to occupy a foreign land against their will and the will of the peoples whose lands are in occupation. Let us shatter the illusion of the authority of the state!
- posted by sdskyle @ 9:40 PM

 
Damn, there's so much horrible stuff going on in the world that I just don't know where to begin. There's the issue of US soldiers in IRAQ deserting because morale has hit rock bottom and even the sargeants go AWOL. Is this greater evidence of the betrayal of these young men that fight to serve this country?

Anyways, I don't think I really need to direct you to any bad news as I'm sure you see too much of it in your lives. I know I do. How about some uplifting news? My friend sean told me about some Coca Cola protests like the demonstration during the CEO's speech at Yale and a "mournful" ceremony at NYU http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/90476/index.php. These students are brilliant activists. Speaking of brilliant activism, check out sean's site for a couple M20 links.

Oh, and as far as activism goes, people should check out www.freemumia.org . On the 24th (Mumia's 50th birthday, I believe) of this month, there will be massive protests to free Mumia Abu Jamal, a man on death row for a crime committed with a gun other than the one he had and that another man confessed to committing. If anything, he deserves a fair trial with a judge that doesn't say he's out to "fry the nigger." So, if you're out there, organize and attend the rallies. I know there are some in Philly and San Fran, but there are bound to be others. Look around.

Oh, and for all the SF activists, try to hook up with Emcee Lynx, he says he performs at demonstrations for free (he'll even travel if you pay for expenses). He's a pretty talented artist with a powerful message. I'll end with an excerpt from:

Empires Fall
Lyrics and Vocals by Emcee Lynx
Instrumental by Jay Peepz of the Live Oak Crew

empires fall when the people rise up
how many folks gotta die before we wise up?
getting burned we gotta learn to stand the fuck up
The whole worlds gonna change, soon as we stand up!
Now everybody in the audience put ya fists up
If your ready to make a change and fuck the system up
All a ya’ll against the wall, you better raise it up
Lightin fires in your mind, that’s how we blaze it up


Peace,
Kyle
- posted by sdskyle @ 7:14 PM

 
This is the post where I introduce myself. I am Kyle and this is my blog. I have a broad interest in things like political activism and studies associated with it like economics, political science and philosophy, but I also like to study biological science stuff (mostly dealing with primates, psychology and ties to linguistics). Of course, I'm only a high schooler, so you'll have to excuse me for being naive and ignorant at times. I try.

As much as I like a lot of intellectual stuff, I really enjoy music. I listen to a variety of stuff, but I'll probably talk most about hip hop and music that's about social change and artists that are down for revolution and willing to put up a fight against social injustice.

As far as the significance of the title, there really is none. You see, I really don't like CEOs or corporations - anything to do with neoliberal capitalism for that matter - so I figured it would be funny to satirize capitalism by making a caricature of the title of the people capitalists tend to value most. And I suppose it's kind of catchy.
- posted by sdskyle @ 6:02 PM