Saturday, June 26, 2010

Totally talking about Grey's Anatomy, and not the G20 at all.

Why, whenever I see some of Grey's Anatomy on tv, do I only ever see the dumbest, most annoying stuff? This show is popular, come on- I want to enjoy popular things! Okay, no I don't- but still: two of the main characters (the female lead and that Sandra O person people like, I'm guessing solely because she's Canadian and we can therefore feel proud of her) are having an argument before a fallen-on-ice Sandra gets an oddly CGI icicle fall and stab her. It would have been far more credible if it wasn't that one icicle that magically fell.

I really can't take that show.

An interesting juxtaposition on the facebook: G20 protest opinions (all thoroughly anti- protester, a surprising imbalance) vs. "I ate a lot of bacon" statuses. Or as I like to say, stati.

Just did a bit of research on the black bloc organization/movement/style of tactic depending on who you ask, which you can readily hear on any news network so I don't really need to lay that out here.

Read a letter/article at anarchistnews.org- no, you don't have to go there yourself, there's not a whole lot of merit in it- it denounces blanket statements, which is a clever way of making me feel awkward about making a blanket statement, against violent protests and property damage.

Well, here's a blanket statement against violent protests and property damage. It's lame, don't do it dudes.

My opinion against this particular article was solidified when I came upon this response to it:

"Fuckin right... I am against capitalism as I experience it on a day-to-day basis; bosses..., teachers, cops... that's what my friends and I fight against, simply because it makes more sense to us than fighting against some obscure government policy that only minimally... worsens or betters (not really heping your case dude) our daily lives... Anyway, I didn't read this whole thing, honestly, cause it's long. But I got to the part where it says the anti-globalization movement was fucked, and pretty much gave it my approval... So I won't say I'm down with the whole article, but I enjoyed the beginning of it. Who's got time to read giant articles when there's so much social war to be fighting!- Johnny Omen"

If you don't care enough about something to read all the way through an article on it, fair enough, life is short enough as it is. But, if you do care about it, be informed, and that means reading. Or feel free not to comment on it and expose your own laziness and resultant ignorance.

A couple more points about this article- it lumps together police, small business owners, or just "bosses" in general, and lackadaisical yuppie Queen street dwellers (I may have conflated a few groups in that last one) as the "other" that support the system and must be fought against, while calling on the poor and disaffected to join their cause. My problem is that the writer is working with an argument divorced from reality.

Take the police in particular: while I unfortunately think a majority of police gravitate to that profession due to a personal lusting for power (sorry guys, I'm pretty negative about why most people get into their various professions. At least it's not just police: law and business students are in it for the money, aspiring teachers think it's an easy "fall back", etc etc.) there are still those police that represent a more idealistic view of why they do what they do.

And more important than the existence of this divide, between the negative and the positive, is the reality that it's a scale- that even the worst representative of the police, is still a person. It's a very rare scenario when you're dealing with someone completely intractable, someone who can actually represent the totality of a negative image.

There was another reply that I really appreciate for its perspective, and yes it follows from what I've just been talking about, I'm not going on a crazy tangent just yet. Unless you count that last sentence itself.
Anyway, the comment:

"this is the problem incarnate right here. everyone thinks anyone one tiny level above them is the enemy, when in reality the bottom 90% are in relatively the same boat, and it's the top 10% that are really the fuckers who are running things and tearing us to pieces for their own wealth. they may use some of us more than others in that pursuit, but we are mostly all the same except for the ultra-rich and their politician lackeys. don't lose sight of the real enemies."

Well, anyway, what it all boils down to is I think anger is the secondary feeling common to both police and protesters, the first being fear. And it's all pretty sad.

***

I wonder what I'll write about tomorrow in my compulsive quest to have a total 11 entries this month? Could I possibly have more to say about the downtown situation and still manage to sound half way intelligent? Hey, you're guess is as good as mine.

1 comment:

  1. had to edit this one, a large chunk was missing, and it was important, otherwise you'd have missed out on the last part of "Jonny Omen"'s reply, the part prompting my following paragraph. didn't make sense the way it showed up.

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