Sampling of some of the writings I have published on various personal sites:
The International PR Game
I really gotta hand it to Barack and the Obama administration, they have orchestrated an almost flawless international debut with the G-20 summit and NATO meeting, big speeches in Prague and the border town of Strasbourg, France, a visit to Turkey to promote our country’s relationship with those aligned closely to Islamic culture, and a surprise visit to Iraq to hand out medals of honor to several troops, give a speech, and get an update and overview of the on-going situation there. He brings back with him from this trip a new sense of global connection as Americans see their president networking with other world leaders and producing real results, and it seems as though the world stage is welcoming for Obama and the international audience largely approves. This is all so vastly different than the 43rd president of our country and almost a little rough to get used to. Was it not too long ago that every time our country’s leader stepped out of the White House there would be some verbatim gaffe to laugh about or shoe-throwing dramedy to gossip on? Reading reports on world leaders mocking and avoiding him as he tried to garner their respect in himself and the country he represented? Things have definitely changed in foreign diplomacy policy at the White House, and I am pretty content with what’s there now. And on top of a slam dunk tour of Europe and the Middle East, our President even called it for N. Carolina in the NCAA bracket, so he’s pretty much ballin’ like a pro at this point.
Obama giving his weekly address aboard Air Force One while touring Europe, White House Photo 4/3/09.
David Sanger, a blogger over at NY Times, writes about an emerging Obama Grand Strategy that this recent international trip hints at. I have to agree, I do believe we are beginning to see the development of a worldwide PR campaign to mend and clean up some of the damage the United States has inflicted on its international image over the last few years. And while this might seem like a focus on image over intelligence, I think that it is because of this administration’s intelligence that they understand how critical it is to present yourself and even an entity like the USA in the best way possible.
And the Domestic PR Game is still very much at play, I just came upon White House on Vimeo, which is my favorite video hosting service (for it’s high quality compression and HD offerings, and also for being a magnet for more artistic/informative video uploads) online. Here you can watch up-to-date high-quality video of the on-goings of the Obama administration, which I think will become the new norm in documentation of historic governmental events. I am definitely content with being able to easily view what’s going on overseas in a format like this!
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At Year’s End
What a year 2008 has been. Full of ups and downs and left and rights. But at the end of it all I find myself thankful for everything and everyone that I have encountered. Isn’t that the point of life anyways? I mean, to be frank, we really will never know the point to all of this insanity. But we should relish on every situation, on every event that we endure. So much focus this year has been on the future, whether or not it is bleak or hopeful. Our outrageous election cycle was so forward-thinking we didn’t seem to even glance at the still sitting administration. 2008 was a year in which we seemed to become so bogged down by the negatives that we couldn’t even enjoy the good in life that was still around. Sure, our economy is royally fucked, both nationally and internationally. And there is chaos brewing in many places in our world today. But what happened to an intelligent consciousness? We have gotten to overwhelmed with the bad that we have failed to realize that good can only be produced when we instigate it. We are waiting for our hero and savior, whether that is our new president, or his economic team, or some other entity that has yet to be revealed. We are waiting for this mythical hero to ride in and fix everything that has been broken over the course of this year and those before it.
But what is being left unsaid is the fact that one man or being can only do so much. The only way to fix our economy, education, health care, violence at home and in the rest of the world is to empower ourselves to do something about it. Singularly we are weak and ill=prepared, but collectively humans can solve dramatic and insurmountable problems. History has shown us this very clearly. When our entire world was consumed in warfare, we figured it out. When our economies were completely bankrupt, we endured and revived them. Even when our young country was itself split in two by waring factions, we were able to once again unite the all of the states.
This upcoming year I am throwing away pessimism and procrastination. I am sick of dealing with cannot’s and will not’s, both in myself and in those surrounding me. We collaboratively can achieve whatever we set our minds to, but we have become so lazy and comfortable with having the hard work done by others that we no longer are enthused to do anything notable. This kind of a statement is brilliantly narrated in Pixar’s WALL-E, which was released this summer. In it, future humans are the blubbiest, fattest, most laziest creatures ever to be realized in an animated movie (aside from that horridly fat Ursula via Little Mermaid), and they had left all the work to the droids and robots.
Back in high school I worked very diligently on an organization called Invisible Children. I presided over a school club and we communally raised a few thousand dollars for suffering children in Uganda, Africa who were fearing abduction by a religious rebellion army hellbent on taking over the region with brainwashed child soldiers. I was so moved by a documentary detailing their hardships that I had to do something about it. I committed myself to try to understand their struggles and to become humbled by it. After all, I was a bratty well-looked after middle class american white boy, what the hell did I know about pain and suffering?
But then that humbled feeling began to pass as college approached. In the wild jungle of Arizona State University I became consumed with the material desires that had filled the mines of all others around me. It wasn’t even simply about what brand you were wearing any more, instead it was about every material possession you had to your name. What car you drove, how much you could spend on drugs and alcohol, whether you could afford lavish trips elsewhere to more wealthy touristy locations, what kind of TV you propped in your dorm, what kind of laptop and the many electrical accessories you accompanied yourself with as you walked around campus. If you were able to omit yourself from such judgments and desires during this period then I will either bow at your feet for such utter nonconformity or simply call bullshit, for it ran so rampantly even amongst the trendy and indiependent crowds.
I am truly ashamed at how such a form of living could be so seemingly likable and desirable, but then again, our entire country was in that same mindset. Which is partially why we are in such a mess of things at year’s end. Instead of holding back our absurd desires and phony necessities, we sought out loans and financing to live whatever materialized life we could squander. Buying up TVs and sports cars, numerous houses and literal tons of plastic commodities shipped right from China’s doorstep. In our efforts to create prestigious individual lifestyles we have unraveled the beauty of modern man.
And so at this point you’re probably asking what is even beautiful in men, for I have been rambling on and on about the evils our society has bought into. And this brings me to the point of this post and also to my main New Year’s resolution. What I hope to do in this new year and what I hope we as a nation and a world can begin to do is to focus on more than simply ourselves. Let us regain what love we can for all humans, for what destruction and chaos and the bad times show us is that all we have is everyone else. We can latch on to materials and bureaucratically produced wealth or we can find true happiness in those who we love, and other’s who are far less fortunate than us. I am tired of bitching about the kind of car I drive or the clothes I wear. In this upcoming year I will struggle to understand why all of that has no real meaning and matters very little to life itself.
There are people in the world with literally nothing, and since this global financial meltdown, those numbers are dramatically rising. I cannot in good consciousness continue to care for the petty insignificant problems and dramas I face on a daily basis, there simply is no reason. I must regain a sense of understanding in the common man, I must find once more my love for every soul on this earth, the misunderstood and the cowards, and everyone in between.
But I must also commit myself to this ideal. I must commit myself to the work necessary to make other’s lives better. Instead of buying a red cupped latte, a red ipod, or any other of those heavily marketed “do-good” materials that companies are convincing me will make some sort of an impact on the world if I buy into it, I must actually DO SOMETHING about what’s wrong in this world. And in this act I hope and pray that others will begin to follow, and that a wave of good can once more wash over our world and we will once more start caring about more than our little selves.
Realize this: life is brutally short. In the next year you might very well be six feet deep under root and dirt. Will your possessions endure with you into the afterlife? Will your god be proud of what you have done with yourself? Maybe you have no god and your bones and flesh will decompose themselves into nothingness and there will be no more you. Yes this is a majorly bleak outlook on “the end”, but it should serve as a wake up call that we are all heading to the same place. It’s just what we do on the way that makes us unique, that sets us apart, and that gives us meaning to our lives.
Happy New Year, let’s seriously make this next one more than the other’s we’ve lived through. Let’s do entirely new things and grasp entirely new and bold concepts. Let’s break the molds that have held us down and turned our lives into blandness. When the clock strikes 12 and a new year is upon us, take some time to consider all of this in the newly minted minutes of ’09.
yours truly,
Drew
“However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.” – Henry David Thoreau
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Remember, Remember..
It is something of a significance that the day after our country elects Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, one of our closest allies, Great Britain, celebrates a historic day of defiant action. For in 1605, Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators put into action the Gunpowder Plot, a plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament by sneaking in barrels of gunpowder into the cellars below. Fawkes was caught in the act before he could set flame to the explosives, and he and his co-conspirators were sentenced to brutal executions. But this treacherous act has gained respect over the centuries and is now a cause for a celebration. Fawkes and Co.’s methods were blunt, but their ideology was to bring religious freedom to the lands of King James I, specifically for other Catholics like themselves.
This Powder Treason is violent in nature, but is symbolic of the desperation of a group of people seeking religious freedom from an intolerant dictatorship. And its 403rd anniversary comes a day after our much younger country chooses an entirely new kind of President to lead us in an entirely new kind of direction. It’s also notable that we’ve elected an African American, a racial group our country once enslaved, and very very slowly did we finally allow them the rights other white Americans were insured. And that this man is now mandated by the American people to break down the old walls of past administrations and bring our country something entirely different and new that will be able to successfully govern our modern civilization.
So celebrate this holiday as if it were our country’s own. For now we too have faced a standing power, and shown that we the people have enough of our own gunpowder to shake things up.
Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I can think of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow.
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(this next one I posted onto Myspace back when I had just graduated high school, interesting read regardless, but I feel I have grown as a writer since then)
Power to the People
Current mood: 
thoughtful
Note: this isn’t light-hearted irrelevant banter about insignificant things. If your not the type to critically read or become inspired by written words I suggest you move on from this little post and continue with your average life. I hope you’ll read this and be persuaded to see Sicko with an open and thoughtful mind. I hope you do this because it isn’t just a propaganda film or a film filled with lies, but rather it’s a film that will seriously make you think about the conditions we allow ourselves and our neighbors to live in in this country and (for me at least) provokes thoughts on how we must change this way of life.
So I just got back from seeing Sicko because I was bored out of my mind and didn’t have plans and felt like seeing an engaging movie. I was not only engaged, but thoroughly devastated and impacted by the stories about our current American health system. I will not hide that I cried quite a lot throughout the movie. I cried when I heard the story of a little black girl with a 106 degree fever that didn’t get the appropriate health care she needed and died due to her illness. I cried when the stories of 9/11 volunteer rescue workers were told. They weren’t given insurance coverage because they weren’t on the payroll of the NYFD or NYPD and were suffering with lung, heart, and emotional problems caused by that tragedy.
These people, who spent weeks of their lives searching through piles of broken concrete and twisted metal in hopes of finding a living survivor, have been ditched by our system because they don’t comply to the misleading legal text and guidelines our health system lives by.
The movie also shows us life in other countries with socialized health care like Canada, France, and the UK. I’m sure it was a tad bit glamorized, but the truth is still there. Citizen’s in these countries receive government-payed health care whenever they need it. They do not undergo a review to see if they are qualified under a certain coverage plan. They walk into a hospital, fill out paperwork, and see a doctor/specialist.
Why do we bicker and argue over socialized medical care? In these countries left and right, old and young, rich and poor, all (well an extremely large majority) are happy with their health care. They’re not paying disabling taxes (of course they do pay taxes) or having the government tell them what doctor to see. They simply get free health care.
There’s an obvious reason why our great country refuses to accept this ideal and that’s simply put: money. These HMOs and health insurance companies are making massive profits (the film cited MSNBC reporting double and triple annual profits for 2 health insurance companies) by simply denying health care to people through ridiculous reasoning. That’s their goal. They are a capitalist company that naturally seeks an increased profit. Why are we allowing ourselves to put our lives into the hands of companies that don’t care about our health, but care about how much money they can make from us?
It seems completely contradictory to buy into a health care system that isn’t caring for your health.
What I think is the strongest argument in this movie though, is the argument that in other countries the governments are scared of the people. They will loose their jobs if they don’t show competence and the people demand things from their governments. In America this is a radical and far off concept. Very few people care, even less protest and allow their voices to be heard. We spend our time arguing with each other instead of thinking about what’s best for everyone and demanding our government do it and do it quickly. We’re consumed in, to be frank, conceded self-centered lives. This way of living and governing is un-patriotic, un-democratic, and slowly destroying our country. It’s the kind of living and thinking that leave the poor to stitch their own stitches. The kind of living that throws the unhealthy out of hospitals if they are uninsured and poor. It’s absolutely devastating to know that we the people have control over our lives and the lives of others. We have control over the government, over the laws that are governing us, over the people who sit in power in this country. And we take this power, we take this freedom, and we bicker about it. We toss it out of our minds as we seek material pleasures and plastic happiness. We give in to lives that are uninspiring and condemn our entire lives to a system that requires us to work till we’re dead just to continue to pay to live.
Why?
This probably sounds like peace-loving hippie bullshit that will never and cannot ever be applied to the American way of living.
But why not?
I’m not asking you to believe every single fact that is presented in this film, or to become a die-hard supporter of socialism. Nor am I asking you to support a leftist agenda or vote for a certain candidate. All I ask is that you look at America critically and look at the poorest of poor, the helpless and dying and ask yourself, “is this the country I want?” Because if you’re not completely happy, why not get up and change it? As much as we’ve been programmed to think we have no power in the inner-workings of America, in reality we have complete and utter dictatorship over it. All we have to do is stop hating and fighting with each other and come together as a “people” and make change happen. Does it hurt to try?
Please comment this post if you agree or disagree, if you hate my philosophy on American politics or if you are in love with it. If you have suggestions or criticisms.
Because caring and thinking about problems usually results in some form of a solution.
**PS- if you’ve seen the movie and feel the facts are bloated or false, or maybe you won’t see it in fear of this being the situation, please read this analysis by CNN on what the movie brings up.
And PLEASE remember this is a movie meant to move masses into action. Of course it is going to cite the worst stories of our health system and show you the best of other countries. But it is undeniable that our health care system is fundamentally flawed and other countries have developed much better systems. The World Health Organization really did put the US at number 37 in health care in it’s world health care ranking And France does have the #1 ranking. Although this IS a year 2000 report it’s still relevant. You should be critical, but don’t disagree simply because it’s a Micheal Moore film. That would be ridiculous and unintelligent and would fuel the corruption that continues to seep into our government and way of life.
***PSS- I want to point out a quote from a blog I posted over a year ago about the conditions in Africa.
“I seriously cannot see how we can close our eyes to the destruction that’s taking place on that continent.
History will remember our ignorance.”
What’s ironic is that a year ago I was opening my eyes to the problems in Africa, and today I am just beginning to open my eyes to the problems that lie at home in our country. I’m not saying we should divert our full attention on our own, but we must start devoting ourselves to fixing these problems both at home and abroad.
If you are religious, this is what Jesus and other prophets and gods have preached and what you should be commiting yourself to.
If you’re not you should have equal commitment for the health and well-being of your fellow people because what else in this world has more meaning or significance?
History continues to watch with judging eyes.
You can always find the bulk of my writings over @disteria.blogspot.com!
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