poetry in commotion...

"If you think rape should be legal, then don't vote"

Wise words from Cameron Diaz.

One thing I find so amusing about America, the so called Land of the Free, is that for a country that meddles so much in the events of other, sovereign nations, as a whole, a lot of them have nothing to do with choosing the next President.

Which is fair enough, since civic responsibility isn't exactly something you can always instill into the common man.

However, what has been amusing me more than normal recently, is the great lengths the entertainment industry have been going to trying to get the ~50-55% of the populace that don't vote, to vote. The thing is though, their methods of trying to convince people to vote is perhaps the most amusingly ill concieved and disastrously implemented civil campaigns that I have had the priviledge of watching.

Take for example, the MTV music awards. While I was unhappy that Modest Mouse did not win the category they were nominated for, and a little irritated by the posing of various "hip-pop" artists that is the norm in Hollywood, it was more than compensated for by the "Vote or Die" slogan they started to parade near the end of the show, as they try to convince the MTV generation to vote for something more worthwhile than which artist rehashing the same old tired rnb tunes while chanting about 'hitting it one more time' is worthy to win some worthless trophy for a category that generally makes a mockery of music as an art form.

Wait a second. "Vote or Die"?

What in the hell does that mean? Are they going to send some US Gestapo to your door in the middle of the night and drag you away, all because you don't vote? Or maybe it means the presidential candidate that loses this next election will personally send you an envelope full of military grade anthrax? What in the hell does it mean?

Now, I'm all for trying to instill civic responsibility in a nation far far away, even if the most of you don't. Why, you ask? because, if the country in question is a hyperpower, and has the propensity to meddle in world politics, as well as flout international opinion when it suits itself, it is in your best interest to make sure it elects a leader that does not see the world as some kind of playground, filled with smaller, candy laden kids. The thing is though, if you're trying to instil any sort of responsibility/duty to a person, the first step is to make sure you don't treat them like an idiot, even if most of the time, they are.

Then you have the actors, role models for the young and old alike, espousing the righteousness of going out there to vote, and why its important to do so, yet falling flat on their face and setting themselves up to be ridiculed by the idiotic and plainly absurd statements that they love to spew forth from their uninformed mouths. In the end, their efforts generally fall under "almost made it toots, but no cigar" category. Some have made an admirable effort. Uma Thurman, for example. In her acceptance speech for some teen awards show a long time ago, she urged the young adults to vote. Simple as that. No stupid slogan, no idiotic statements, just a simple speech telling the kids o make their voice be heard. It also works because, as a young adult, its often a struggle to be taken seriously by adults. That speech taps into this latent desire to be recognised as an adult, so it works.


What was the point of all this? To tell you the truth, I'm not sure. It started off as a post about something that amused me, albeit humour that falls more under the "intellectual man" humour instead of the fart jokes and slapstick antics you normally see on television, but turned out to be part political/social commentary in the end. I guess you can see it as the display of conflicting sides of a complex man hidden in a 'dag' i think the word for me was. I'll try to be more consistent in the future.

Next post, I'll do something on censorship, so stay tuned for that!


<3 jaseypoo!

EDIT: RIP Superman Christopher Reeves, 1952-2004

Now you can truly fly.


Well all the apostles-they’re sitting in swings
Saying I’d sell off my savior for a set of new rings

posted by jaseypoo! @ 9:30 PM