I look back in history and I see mans propensities as to his constant need for ownership and control over everything within the grasp of his greedy, dirty little hands play itself out in everyday life, but the industrialization of “everything” the last hundred years ( extorting the land, farming, the Arts, even to our relationships with one another &c.) through mass hypnosis and propaganda amaze me; swallowed up everything in sight leaving behind a trail of bodily waists and broken dreams emanating from the veracious unfettered appetites of the few to both maintain and continue to procure more food for themselves to binge on, like the obese “Apes” that they are, is just gone to a level that is overwhelming to both the planet, and the creatures that occupy this beautiful and perfect ecosystem.
This corporate/governmental collaboration that both perpetuates and inspires this insidious, destructive appetite, through propaganda, invites us in for this feast, knowing “they” will only be feeding us the dirty little crumbs as “they” ingest the feast. This appetite can’t be satisfied with any amount of the flesh or spirit that they consume. They must be extremely vigilant in continuing to re-educate the masses to conform to any changes they may need to implement in order to keep their food supply available for ingestion. They have indeed manufactured a social, economic, and artistic prefabricated BOX that robs both men and woman of their capacity to live well, see clearly, and embrace life on life’s natural terms; they have taken away the natural flow that filters life through this magnificent ecological system that turns decay into new life &c., and have held it hostage as a means to an end…” unprecedented consolidation of wealth for the few operates on all levels of life whether it is in the material realm, the artistic or spiritual realms. This economic power base cultivates all the industrial complexes as it sees fit, and is tapping directly into the very center of nature, life, and man, and extracting the very lifeblood out of our existence through entertaining us, and brainwashing us to death.
Sounds too dramatic? I think not! This progression of man’s nasty, foul, out-of-control appetites, in general, distorts the very nature of what was created as a natural landscape to serve the needs of all the creatures that live here. This violent intervention over these last 100 years by this parasitic infestation of the one percent does great harm, and it doesn’t feel anyone’s pain other than the pain of its own loss that may occur if the rape doesn’t continue at its planned pace to ensure the bottom line, “the almighty quarterly report”! This false reflection of what we embrace as progress has made monkeys out of us all, and is destroying the very planet we live on right before our very eyes. And the insanity of it all is it’s all being done with our consent, by the mere fact we have, (because they allow us to have), the rent paid, food on the table, (for most of us anyway), 100 TV stations to keep us entertained, beer, and if that fails to keep us content we can go the doctor and get a prescription for something to adjust our brain chemistry to accommodate our new man-made synthetic environment.
It’s getting to look more and more like a Franz Kafka novel. Our oceans acidic levels are rising to alarming numbers, waste and chemical pollution in just the last 50 years are like something from an x rated science fiction movie, “x” just by way of not wanting to scare our children half to death from them witnessing the reality of how things really are and will be for them after we leave them with this byproduct of both extravagant human consumption, and our very bad decision to trust the industrial culture that is being led by the Billy goats and Apes that are controlling the course of our destiny to fulfill the needs of theirs and our insatiable appetites.
Rivers, lakes, even our underground water supply is now being affected. The air quality is just unbelievable in most of our major cities around the world, China has the common sense to promote their city populations to wear masks to keep the public health expense bearable … fluoridated drinking water, REALLY! … Farming, and ranching practices, well lets not even go there.
Wendell Berry: “The earth, which we all have in common, is our deepest bond, and our behavior toward it cannot help but be earnest of our consideration for each other and for our descendants. To corrupt or destroy the natural environment is an act of violence not only against the earth but also against those who are dependent on it, including ourselves. To waste the soil is to cause hunger, as direct an aggression as an armed attack; it is an act of violence against the future of the human race.”
We are all complicit in this erosion of the world around us, even though it’s much easier to point the finger at the “one percent” even though they very well should be pointed to! we do buy all the crap they sell us and do drive all the smog-producing cars and vans that are causing all the health problems for ourselves and our kids, and we do also go along with the programs laid out to us, by the Billy goats that hold title to this planet and the creatures in it…So I guess we are as much to blame as the “one percent” …OK…Maybe that’s a stretch, but you get my meaning.
“Universal literacy was supposed to educate the common man to control his environment. Once he could read and write he would have a mind fit to rule. So ran the democratic doctrine. But instead of a mind, universal literacy has given him rubber stamps, rubber stamps inked with advertising slogans, with editorials, with published scientific data, with the trivialities of the tabloids and the platitudes of history, but quite innocent of original thought. Each man’s rubber stamps are the duplicates of millions of others so that when those millions are exposed to the same stimuli, all receive identical imprints. It may seem an exaggeration to say that the American public gets most of its ideas in this wholesale fashion. The mechanism by which ideas are disseminated on a large scale is propaganda, in the broad sense of an organized effort to spread a particular belief or doctrine.”
Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda
Photos just don’t get any better than this…! I have known this man (Ira on the far right) since I was a sixteen year old street kid with a saxophone hanging off my shoulder knocking on his front door when he lived right across the street from a graveyard in Dania Florida, (his front door literally faced the graveyard which was about 100 feet away, if that…lol…) he answered the door and spent at least an hour with me, and told me to go home and practice, he’s been my friend ever since…For all of us young musicians (back in the day) that were friends with Ira, know Ira had a huge influence on all of us who came in contact with this him…He’s a Jazz legend because he blew through Chicago, and New York City with Red Rodney (Charlie Parker’s trumpet player) back in the 50, and 60’s like a Be-Bop hurricane leaving nothing but blown down Jazz clubs in its wake, and has played with every Jazz Great on the planet …Not to mention Ira was playing both Trumpet and Saxophone with equal genius, and I never use that word genius loosely, but with Ira, it rolls of the pen like warm butter…He also was nominated for several academy awards, the last one he lost to John Coltrane…So this photo just warms my heart to no end…Its Perfect…! Thats Jimmy Heath (played with John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Gil Evans, Dizzy, &c.) and Ray Drummond (played with Freddie Hubbard, Pharoah Sanders, Art Farmer &c.)…So you’re looking into a wealth of Jazz history in one photograph, these guys were major contributors to weaving Jazz into the American cultural landscape that spread all throughout the planet, and that’s not an over statement by any means…What a great shot…!
jeff bertolotti 