Class Action Lawsuit

Are you a homosexual?

Better lawyer up, friend. 66-year old Sylvia Ann Driskell is taking you to court.

The self-proclaimed ambassador for God and his son, Jesus Christ (I guess they were too busy to file the suit themselves?) wants the court to decide once and for all: is homosexuality a sin, or isn't it?

Not making this up, folks. Reality truly is stranger than fiction.

Only in a nowhere state like Nebraska...

You know it's gonna be good when the very important legal documents are comprised of seven hand-written sheets of lined paper. SMH.

Driskell says that the defendants (the gays) claim that it isn't a sin to be homosexual, and  that “they have the right to marry, to be parents, and God doesn’t care that they're homosexuals; because He loves them.”

Now I know a few people who are part of the LGBT community and I can tell you without any hesitation that exactly none of them are concerned with what Yahweh the Almighty thinks about their sexual escapades.

According to the "documents," Driskell contends that homosexuality is a sin (SHOCKER), and that homosexuals know it's a sin to live a life of homosexuality.

You know, I really doubt that. Unless of course they happened to be raised in, say, a fundamentalist household, in which case, yeah they're going to have some mixed feelings about the whole situation. For instance, they might think: Oh shit, the Bible says that being gay is a sin and I'm fairly certain I love dick!

Hopefully the next few thoughts go something like this.

"Why is it that I love dick but most men love vagina? I mean, I feel like I've always been into dick. And balls, can't forget the balls. So good. Wait: does this mean I was born gay? Yeah, I think I was. So wait: why would God make me gay and then make being gay a sin? What an asshole!"

What Sylvia and so many like her seem to conveniently forget is that morality isn't a concrete thing. It can't be seen, felt, or measured with instruments. We can't take a sample, analyze it in the lab, and say, "Oh yeah, there you see it: definitely a sin!"

Morality is fluid and subjective. It changes from person to person and from situation to situation. Ms. Dryskull should know that! The same book that gave her "Thou Shalt not Kill" also contains countless passages of slaughter bearing God's celestial stamp of approval.

To Sylvia gays really are sinners while to other more logical individuals they're merely people who like to mash genitals with other people of the same sex. No biggie!

I'm not a slimy moral relativist. I'm not saying there's no right or wrong out there, only that the bulk of what we consider morality is speculation, conjecture, and dark twisted fantasy.

There's definitely morality to be found out there and it's fuckin' simple, too. It's just that people like Dryskull are so lost, so distracted by the spectacle that they miss the obvious.

Here's a nice rule of thumb even the ambassador for God can remember and, more importantly, understand.

First, do no harm.

Did I just blow your mind, Ms. Dryskull? Wait: I'm not done.

You know how some guys are into heavy girls, and some guys are into blondes, and some guys like big butts? Well some guys are into guys.

I know, right? Crazy.

And you know how some girls are into clean-cut guys, and some girls like lumberjacks who always smell like cedar, and some girls are into bad boys? Well some girls like girls!

Doesn't sound so bad when you put it that way, right?

Here's an idea, Ms. Dryskull: instead of relying on your surface-level interpretation of a bronze-age anthology of myths, try using your brain.

Homosexuality is sinful to you, of that I have no doubt. So my advice to you is, don't be gay. And if you're really worried about it, don't befriend or associate with gays, either. Hell, you can keep telling the world you think homosexuality is an abomination, for all I care. Knock yourself out. It's your right and I'll be damned if anyone takes it from you, ma'am.

But this whole "Oh I'm so clever, I'm going to take the gays to court and prove once and for all that they're a bunch of big bad sinners" is sad. Seriously. You need a hug. And a dozen or so hobbies.

I mean, how much spare time does this lady have on her hands?

So what do you think, Mighty Reader? Is gayness a sin? Is it a choice? Is there even such a thing as "sin?" Is morality relative? Is Kanye West the genius he believes he is? Does God really have a KILL stamp? Where my dogs at? Arf arf!

Rebirth and Ranting

Why hello there! What are you doing here? Didn't you read my last post? This blog is done. Finished. I stuck a fork in it, dude. If you're here looking for metaphysical rants or philosophical exposition, turn yourself around. You won't find any of that shit here.

Well, not much of it, anyway.

See I didn't understand the purpose of a blog until very recently. I spent all this time typing furiously, laying out my philosophy of life, preaching and ranting, trying to share something no one asked for, never once acknowledging a very simple fact.

People don't want to read that shit. They want to be entertained!

So I'll try to keep the Good News to myself going forward, or to spread it elsewhere. 

Starting now, the Meme Merchant is going to serve as a window into my deranged mind. Reading this blog will feel at times like taking a heroic dose, like being dropped into an acid trip without any warning or context. It will be disorientating and discombobulating; confusing and, I suspect, infuriating. 

Whereas before I was trying build you up, now I'm going to tear you down until you don't know your face from your ass. 

And then, maybe, we'll giggle and laugh together. 

What to expect from the Meme Merchant in the future: 

1. The unexpected

2. Short stories and poetry, random thoughts and observations, book and movie reviews, or anything else I damn well feel like.

What kind of topics to expect:

1. Human cock-fighting

2. Cooking

3. Parenting

4. Foolishness of the human animal

5. ? 

Like I said, window into my mind, folks. There's a lot of weird crap in there, too much to list here and now.

Enough chit chat. I'll end/start this with the same words I used when I asked my wife to marry me: 

So are we gonna do this or what?

Full Circle

There is an end to nothing; all things are connected in a sort of circle; they flee and they are pursued. Night is close at the heels of day, day at the heels of night; summer ends in autumn, winter rushes after autumn, and winter softens into spring; all nature in this way passes, only to return. I do nothing new; I see nothing new; sooner or later one sickens of this, also.

- Seneca 

You ever notice how everything works in circles? Spheres, ovals, rings, loops, disks, cycles: everywhere you turn they're right there turning with you.

Above or below, within or without, there's no escaping it. The universe is a dance of circles colliding, interlocking, flying apart, and embracing again.

See here.

Electrons, neurons, atoms, and particles, the tiniest cosmic building blocks, are circular.

The universe is a cosmic balloon inflating. The Milky Way is a disk of stars held together by the black hole at its center. Our sun--another sphere--runs slow circles around the galaxy.

And us, where do we fit in?

We live on a ball of rock orbiting a bigger ball of gas orbiting a black hole.

We're surrounded by circles and made of circles, too.

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter come and go and come again, but that's not enough for us. We're obsessed. We need more circles. We make little notches on the spinning wheel, noting seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millennium, eons.

We're so silly. Don't we know Eternity can't be divided and subdivided?

Think of a clock. Where does it begin? Where does it end?

Nowhere. It repeats itself repeats itself repeats itself.

Inside we're made of circles, too.

The mind is an invisible cosmos. The psyche has its own orbit, the soul its own seasons, but we don't see them. Our attention is always turned outward, fixated on all these visible circles. We ignore the invisible circles at our peril.

Observe the soul's seasons, how they come and go and inevitably return. See how the storms and sunshine appear at regular intervals, their arrival triggered by the external world.

Notice how Monday feels like the winter blues; Tuesday, winter's wrath; Wednesday, spring's respite; Thursday, birdsong; and Friday, flowers full-bloom. Saturday has you dancing beneath the sun and sleeping beneath the stars.

Now Sunday is here like a melancholy autumn afternoon. Now Monday is back and the cycle starts over again.

Observe how relationships form yet more circles.

Like celestial bodies you turn about your beloved, pulling close and repelling, flinging each other across great distances, colliding, or else falling into a stable orbit together. Eventually the bodies break away and go careening through space in search of new orbits or to be remade into new forms.

This is true of people and relationships, of planets and stars.

"I was born here," you say pointing to one notch. And to another notch further along: "Here I will die." The space between these two notches looks like a straight line. Here it begins and there it ends. But the notches were carved by your own hand upon the wheel: before and after the notches the circle continues unbroken, its spin uninterrupted.

The journey between birth and death isn't a finite line: it's a circle with one half hidden from sight. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not there!

How can you think life is a straight line when you're surrounded by all these damn circles?

Look at the way new growth rises from decay; how you and I and everything on earth is made from the dust of dead stars; and how black holes, the corpses of interstellar giants, hold galaxies together.

You know how history loves to repeat itself? How you can talk circles around a person? How your mind is spinning right now? How your thoughts and actions are cyclical?

How, after a while, you feel like you've heard and seen and done it all before?

You ever get "stuck in a rut?" You've been spinning your wheels in the same spot so long: what did you expect would happen?

When you crave change, what you're really looking for is a new beginning. Thing is, every beginning is the end of something else, and every ending is just another beginning.

So next time you approach the end--of a relationship, job, book, vacation, stage in your life, whatever--just remember: there are no endings, no beginnings, only circles.

This is the end of the Meme Merchant, but like all endings it's merely the beginning of something new.

Stay tuned my friends, and stay curious.

/rant over

Great Illusion

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

- Morpheus, The Matrix 

In the 1999 sci-fi classic The Matrix, the lead character (played masterfully by Keanu Reeves) harbours an unspoken suspicion: that what he considers reality is actually an illusion. He can't verbalize this let alone prove it, but it robs his life of meaning nonetheless. Scene after scene we see him wandering around like a drone, going through the motions joylessly, until eventually he meets people who confirm his suspicion and break him out of the Matrix.

I trust you know the rest: slow-motion bullet dodging, leaps of faith, and my personal favorite:

Special effects and action sequences aside, there's something about the Matrix that speaks to people on a deeper level. Intuitively, I think we know that the plot accurately describes our current situation here in "the real world."

Look around you: the majority of people you see are plugged into the Matrix and don't even suspect it.

This isn't a novel idea, either. Centuries before the Wachowski brothers made their masterpiece, philosophers from a wide range of traditions were saying the same thing: what you experience on a daily basis is not Reality but an elaborate illusion, a pale shadow of what is really "out there."

The illusion isn't manufactured by evil machines, though. It's your very own mind that puts it together.

Here's how it works.

The Simulation

Your senses scan Reality, collect information, and send their findings to your scumbag brain. From here the information is translated into a kind of composite sketch. What you sense and experience all around you isn't Reality but rather a simulation of Reality, a best guess crafted by your mind based on the details provided by your senses.

And as you probably know, your senses only detect a very small, very refined slice of what's actually out there.

To make matters worse, your unconscious mind filters out details it deems unimportant. The majority of what you sense doesn't officially "register" in your conscious mind.

Have you ever pulled into your driveway only to realize you don't remember a single detail of your drive home? You obeyed traffic lights and street signs, made turns, yielded, but don't remember a single thing. Clearly you were aware of all these things on some level or else you probably would've crashed.

So where did all that information go if you never became aware of it? No further than your unconscious mind. If this can happen while operating heavy machinery, you can bet it happens all the time without you noticing it.

It's also worth noting that the simulation you call "reality" isn't out there at all: it's in here, inside your head. You're just like Neo in his pod, Descartes' brain in a vat, or a prisoner in Plato's cave.

Unlike the Matrix, however, there's no escaping the mind's simulation. And that's a good thing! Without it, we'd have no way to make sense of our environment. On its own the simulation is mostly harmless. It's an image of Reality caught in your mind, which acts kind of like a fun-house mirror. The image is distorted and blurry, but it serves its purpose.

The Narrative

The simulation is only the first layer of this great illusion. The second layer is superimposed over the first, further distorting our already flawed perception of Reality.

I call the second layer the narrative and it's composed of all the stories we tell ourselves (and each other) about the simulation. Labels, opinions, judgments, and beliefs: none of these things exist in Reality.

Opinions don't nest in trees, only in our minds.

The narrative isn't a reflection of something real: it's our attempt to make sense of this dazzling show being put on by the brain.

It's a comforting fiction, but a fiction nonetheless.

So why does the narrative exist? Like the simulation, it serves a an important function. Labeling objects, people, and events allows us to sort through information quickly and efficiently.

But there's a nasty side-effect to the mind's labeling process. After a while, we get so used to the labels we stop reacting to the simulation altogether. In other words, we stop taking things as they are (or appear to be) and react to our labels instead. We become prisoners of our own minds, slaves to opinion, belief, and judgment.

Of all the labels we mistakenly accept as real, here are the most (potentially) harmful ones:

• Past and future
• Good and evil
• Money
• Government
• Culture 
• Religion

These are concepts, abstractions, and ideas that can't be found in the natural world. They exist in the human mind and in the shared space where minds connect, but no where else.

When we're fearful, anxious, jealous, angry, disappointed, and so on, we're not reacting to Reality, nor even to the mind's simulation of Reality: we're reacting to labels and the stories they tell.

Conclusion

Don't try to dodge bullets or fight off a dozen thugs by yourself. You're not really in the Matrix. The world you perceive isn't real but it's real enough to put you in the hospital. Also, don't disobey laws, dodge taxes, or give away all your money. Despite having no place in the material universe, the narrative still shapes and moulds our world in countless ways.

Your scumbag brain is awesome at a lot of things but most of all it excels at fooling you into believing its lies and delusions.

Each of us is in solitary confinement, trapped in a cell where we experience a personalized simulation of the cosmos further enhanced by a variety of useful but ultimately artificial labels. Over time we forget that these labels are fictional. We stop reacting to things as they are and react to the labels instead.

As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Next time you find yourself depressed because something bad happened, or stressed because you're running out of time, or anxious to know your test score, remember: none of that shit is real.

/rant over

Two Cent Rant: Islamophobia

The Prophet said, 'There are some who see me by the same light in which I am seeing them. Our natures are one. Without reference to any strands of lineage, without reference to texts or traditions, we drink the life-water together. 

- Rumi

While gunshots were still ringing inside the offices of Charlie Hebdo, one could already hear the cries:

"Islam is violent!"

"Islam is intolerant!"

"Islam is savage and barbaric and hateful!"

Islamophobia is a prime example of blaming the wrench for the mechanic's incompetence. The wrench, in this case, is the Koran and the mechanic is anyone who uses it to destroy rather than to repair. Instead of painting all Muslims with a broad brush, we would do well to step back and employ some critical thinking.

Here, I'll get you started.

First off, anyone who accuses "Islam" of being anything admits their ignorance right off the bat. Islam, like Christianity, is an umbrella term used to describe a bunch of different sects. The only thing uniting all these sects is their belief in the Koran as the word of God. That might sound like a lot but it really isn't because everything comes down to interpretation.

Let's take Jihad, for example. Some Muslims believe it to mean holy war against infidels while others see it as an internal struggle waged not against real people but the animal self and its destructive passions. Same book, radically different interpretation.

Having realized the foolishness of lumping all these different brands of Islam together, educated Islamophobes turn their sights instead to the source: the Koran.

This is only slightly better than criticizing "Islam."

The Koran, like all holy books, is a mirror that reflects our best and worst qualities back to us. It contains powerful truths about human nature. It reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly that resides in every human's inner-world. It's up to individuals to decide how to interpret these messages and apply them in their lives.

You know how ultra-right conservatives cling to a pair of obscure passages in Leviticus to justify their hatred of gays ("it's a sin!") but ignore almost everything else written in that particular book? That's just one example of selective interpretation.

Do you know why I'm almost positive conservatives ignore the rest of Leviticus? Because wedged between the two chapters that condemn homosexuality God warns us not to breed different kinds of animals together, plant two kinds of seed in one field, or wear clothing made of mixed fabrics.

"Let's see the tag on the inside of your shirt there, mr. Bible Thumper! It's just as I thought. Cotton and polyester. Everybody grab some rocks: it's time for a good old fashioned stoning, Old Testament style!"

This kind of selective fixation and interpretation is the extremist's most powerful tool. Of course the Koran contains passages of startling violence, brutality, and intolerance: so does the Old Testament. To say that the Koran is exceptional in its brutality is hypocritical to say the least.

People tend to overlook or downplay the nasty parts of the Bible because Jesus rolled up and softened things up a bit. You could almost say that Christ tried to reboot the Old Testament. He gathered people into a crowd and was like "Hey guys, you know those old books you're all really into? Forget all that shit. Stop cutting your dick-skin. You can even eat pork if you want! It's all good. As long as you love your fellow man, you're doing right by me!"

And Christians still managed to twist and distort this message of universal love and salvation to justify acts of unimaginable violence! Notice I say "Christians used the Bible," not the other way around? Books don't use people. They're just paper and ink.

Terrorists are not created by holy books but by socio-economic and geopolitical conditions. The Koran isn't training these zealots to strap up and go ka-boom: people are.

Imagine you can't feed your family and your neighbourhood gets bombed every other week. Imagine that your country is being attacked, invaded, and occupied by foreigners for reasons you either don't know or don't understand. Imagine holding your little son's body in your arms after a misplaced drone strike. Now when some AK-47 wielding extremist comes looking for recruits and promising eternal life as recompense, well, I don't blame anyone for signing up. It's all about perspective here, folks

Victims of botched drone strike that hit a wedding in Yemen.

Two wrongs don't make a right but push someone into a corner long enough and you better expect some backlash.

To blame religion or a holy book for this is nonsense.

Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jew, Taoist, Hindu, Scientologist: these are labels, nothing more. And when we dig beneath the labels down to the foundation of these belief-systems, we find that they sprang from a single source.

In any case, the Koran is no better and no worse than any other holy book. Case in point: if the Koran truly were a despicable text filled exclusively with hatred, violence, and intolerance, you would expect all who believe it to reflect its contents. With 23% of the world population identifying as Muslim ( approximately 1.6 billion people) you'd think we would be fighting World War X by now.

Clearly Muslims don't all fixate on the same passages. Clearly they don't interpret it the same way radicals do, or else terrorist attacks would be daily occurrences here in the West.

If you want to judge the Koran, you can't just look at the words and deeds of its most unstable and violent adherents: that would be like me judging your entire family based on your one crazy uncle who brought a hooker to thanksgiving dinner at your parent's house that one year.

If you want to gauge the Koran, you have to take in the full spectrum of Islam. Doing so will reveal that the majority of Muslims, just like the majority of people regardless of religious affiliation, are decent people trying to find their way through life.

/rant over

Two Cent Rant - Je Suis Charlie

"It is clear that not in one thing alone, but in many ways equality and freedom of speech are a good thing." 

- Herodotus 

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." 

- Soren Kierkegaard

Let me preface this little rant with the following statement: I rate all acts of unprovoked and unjustified violence, whether against individuals or the masses, as despicable and inexcusable. There is in my opinion no valid reason to harm or kill people who haven't attempted to harm or kill you first.

I also support freedom of speech. You should have the right to voice your opinion whenever you like without fear of violent retaliation. You should also have the right to ignore other people's opinions or to engage those who hold opinions you disagree with in open discourse.

That being said, I believe that freedom of speech, when placed in the hands of the ignorant, short-sighted, and ego-driven, is a double-edged sword that can cut both ways. The shootings in Paris last week are a painful example of free speech backfiring on those most eager to exercise it.

Before you accuse me of victim-blaming, allow me to elaborate.

Let's pretend for a moment that you hate Mike Tyson with a passion. If you ran into him at the airport, would you exercise your free speech? Would you tell him he's scum or call him a wife-beater, rapist, and ear-biter?

Why not?

Body, head.

There aren't any laws against insults but there are laws against assault so you should have nothing to fear, right?

It's not that Tyson would be justified in beating you senseless for insulting him, only that you should know better than to poke an angry bear.

Al Queda, ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever the fuck they're calling themselves now), and other extremists are crazed, wounded bears. Free speech your ass off bro, but if you toss insults at those bears, you should expect to be mauled.

Is this to say that radical Islam should be left untouched? That we should reprimand people who criticize religion or sensor magazines, blogs, and news articles to avoid offending certain people?

Of course not.

Radicalism, be it theological, ideological, or political, is a mind-virus that spreads like wild fire under the right conditions. These conditions are ignorance, poverty, oppression, and disillusionment. Anyone who tells you that all the answers to your problems can be found in a 1,500 year old book is a bold-faced liar, and the only way you'll believe that lie is if you're poor, ignorant, and angry enough.

The answer is never found at the polar extremes but somewhere between the two, in the nebulous grey zone. Radical ideologies are oversimplifications; they create the illusion that only two valid answers exist to a certain question. They force a "this or that" scenario onto people even when no such scenario exists.

When you buy into one of these answers, you trade freedom of thought for freedom of speech.

A lot of these "new" (see: radical) atheists pretend to be modern-day crusaders liberating believers from the shackles of religion. They claim that, behind the sarcasm and venom lurks a concern for the wellbeing of their fellow humans.

They would have us believe they champion truth and education, but one need only look at their methods to see that words and deeds don't align.

If radical ideologies perpetuate themselves best when certain conditions abound, and we know what those conditions are, shouldn't we try to alleviate them? Isn't that the best way to fight the good fight?

I'm no teacher but I'm pretty sure scorn, mockery, and insults are horrible ways to teach anyone anything. You want to convince a group of people that their ways are wrong? Try not profaning their holiest symbols first. That sorta kills the dialogue.

These anti-theists and radical atheists aren't solving any problems: they're making them worse.

Charlie Hebdo, the magazine targeted by the radicals in Paris, made a point of taunting some of the most unstable and dangerous people on the planet. These terrorists are so disillusioned with the world they live in and so hateful of Westerners that they would gladly die just to take a few of infidels down with them.

Those twelve people certainly didn't deserve to die, but is it surprising that they did? Not really, especially considering Charlie Hebdo was bombed only three years ago. The people who worked and died for that magazine are the sorriest martyrs I've ever heard of, but they're martyrs nonetheless: they died for their cause.

Do you own a magazine and want to wage war against radical Islam? Here's what you do: superimpose pictures of atrocities committed in Allah's name with passages from the Qu'ran that prohibit said atrocities.

"What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of human beings, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the sufferings of the injured." 

Or point out the contradictions between radical Islam and its moderate cousins. Or highlight the good, selfless deeds of Muslims around the world. Or educate people on the different branches of Islam.

"How is that a solution? Terrorists are beyond educating. They don't want to talk or 'be saved;' they just want to kill infidels."

True, education and respectful dialogue won't stop terrorists, but neither will drawing pictures of Muhammad blowing the pope. Truth is, the most extreme cases are beyond repair.

The goal isn't to save the guys wearing bomb-vests--once you resolve to give your life in Allah's name, it's probably too late for you--it's to prevent Muslims from putting on the vest in the first place.

If you want to help, do anything but troll.

Unless of course you never wanted to help in the first place. In that case, be a troll. Say what you want, poke fun, satirize, whatever: it's your right and I'll defend it with you if anyone tries to take it away.

Just don't pretend you're on a noble crusade to spread truth and save those who have been deceived by evil organized religion.

/rant over

(P.S. Terrorist attacks always spark off a bunch of this "Islam is a religion of hate" nonsense. People love to demonize the youngest of the Abrahamic religions, quoting brutal passages as evidence that it is far worse than both Judaism and Christianity. I'll tackle this topic in my next post so stay tuned.)

Restless

Have you noticed what's going on around the world lately? Whether it's Mexico City, Hong Kong, Ferguson, or New York, the story is the same.

People are starting to wake up to reality and their reaction is one of outrage and anger.

When cops shoot unarmed kids, governments place corporate interests ahead of planetary ones, and laws are broken by the very people paid to uphold them, we should push back.

I probably don't need to tell you that all these protests are connected. If you trace the issues back to their source, you will find the same three culprits grinning sheepishly: greed, hatred, and ignorance.

Thankfully information technology is helping dispel ignorance all around the world. Try as they may, the 1% can't keep a lid on all the dirt they're doing. All it takes is one brave whistle blower  and the whole world finds out.

If you want to know why so many people across the planet are taking a stand, it's because, for the first time, they actually know what's really going on.

Our honeymoon of blissful ignorance is coming to an end. Soon enough we'll have to take a stand and affirm what we all know intuitively and factually: that rule by the few at the expense of the many is a broken model which has and always will result in corruption.

Things simply can't go on like this indefinitely. Sooner or later, something is going to have to give. Either we let short-sighted elitists drag our planet into the dumps or we rise up and take charge, not so we can install a new oligarchy to rule over us but so we can tear the rotten system down and replace it with something better.

Before we can get to this stage though, we have to learn a few important lessons.

Love Your Enemies

Moral outrage is good. So is unrest. It motivates people to get off their asses, put down the gossip mags, and act against the destructive forces lined up against us. The problem, as I outlined at the end of this post, is that we can't combat greed, ignorance, and hatred with greed, ignorance, and hatred.

We have to be above the scum, not swimming in it. Our cause might be righteous but when we employ violence, we defeat ourselves.

I totally understand the impulse to act violently in the face of corruption. I can only imagine the acidic hate that would boil in my veins if one of my (unarmed) kids got shot by a cop.

That being said, police officers are not the root of the problem, only a symptom.

Sure, there are plenty of racist cops out there. Then there's the straight arrow who got bullied in school and signed up so he could finally get a taste of power. And guess what power does? It corrupts. Aside from these unfortunate cases though, cops are just like everyone else, average Joe's and Jane's trying to make a living.

There are easy and effective remedies for police brutality. You could equip cops with body cameras, as some departments have already done. Here's another idea: you could stop giving them second-hand tanks and military-grade weapons. That might slow things down a bit.

So why isn't this happening on a grand scale?

Who do you think is giving police departments enough artillery to take out a middle-eastern dictator? The same people who have the power to mandate body cameras on all officers but choose not to.

The same people who are trying to kill net neutrality, spy on their own citizens, and allow corporations to ravage our planet.

There's no conspiracy anymore: our would-be masters do their dirt right out in the open. Their arrogance borders on madness. They think they can do whatever they like, that they stand above the unfair laws they themselves set up.

They're confident because they've met resistance before and overcame it with ease by sewing discord, distracting, and downplaying. Which leads us to lesson number 2.

Move with Purpose

In a lot of ways, Occupy Wallstreet was a massive blunder. It raised awareness on the widening gap between the richest 1% and everyone else but it failed to produce a coherent strategy to level out the playing field.

Occupy Wallstreet was a child's tantrum. Mom and dad know we're pissed, but they also know that we're powerless, leaderless, purposeless. All they have to do is keep baffling us with bullshit and we'll never rise up and take what's rightfully ours: the world.

As I said, outrage and unrest are great motivators, but alone they lead to... nothing. Corrupt governments are immune to protest because they don't give a shit about what protestors think. What do they care if a few thousand people make a fuss? So long as their bills get passed and donations keep coming in, all is well.

Protests send a statement, but without follow-through, without a way to hold those in charge accountable--without leverage, in other words--those in charge wait patiently for protestors to get tired and disperse.

The way I see it, protests are networking opportunities. "Oh, you're against this pipeline too? Let's be friends!"

A protest is the birthplace of revolution, not revolution itself. A protest is the means, not the end. It's where like-minded people meet and design a proper strategy for change.

More than protests, we need plans. More than anger, we need wisdom. More than violence, we need purpose. What's the endgame? What's the goal? To stop a pipeline from being built? To put an end of police brutality? To eliminate political corruption and strip corporations of their influence in government?

Whatever the cause, it starts with you.