Jason Mark Roehrig My Web Home

In Sao Paulo this has partly become a reality, what bliss. Though I'm sure, plenty of people have become sufficiently addicted to the constant sensory input, that they will feel some kind of loss.

Advertising has become the modern form of popular art. And instead of thinking for a solution to employ creative people, without having to rely on a monstrous propaganda industry. We have accepted flawed arguments for the need of "information", and the legitimacy of mass manipulation based on the individuals freedom of speech. Especially if the main aim is to create noise to dampen the spread of information. Brands are like spoilt or deprived children, always out to get your attention, no matter at what cost.

I can see how one might argue, that cities will turn gray and boring in the absence of colourful [and especially blinking, buzzing] adverts. What I can not accept, is this being an argument for accepting mass propaganda. While it may not be for totalitarian governments, we have to acknowledge its attempt to create totalitarian products and brands. How about coming up with new ways to finance public art? Why can't it suffice to have a small plaque stating a businesses sponsorship, with a mentioning in the public paper?

Only because we have become accustomed to, and developed a culture of killing small businesses, does not offer sufficient ethical reason for its continued legitimacy.

I'm certainly not for a total ban on advertising, which would be in line with drug and alcohol prohibition. But I'm certainly for a reduction of its prevalence and advertisings seeming boundlessness. Just as with tobacco. I'm not for the prohibition of tobacco products, but I'm for sane laws restricting and limiting its spread and usage. Both, advertising and smoking are bad for our health. The only difference being, that one affects the body, the other warps minds. Our sleeping partner, as the late Alan Carr referred to it, is a powerful persuader, without us even realizing its efficiency. Why else would corporations be spending billions to push their products?

Be Very, Very Scared - They Disguise As Human Beings

The latest news headline reads - "Terrorists Use Toilets!". They take a shit and piss, can you believe it? Human beings with distorted world views, sick ambitions, acting in a manner most don't agree with, actually act in many ways like "normal" human beings. What a surprise! This news is earth shattering. Well, not quite, but these kind of reports, repeated over and over again, will scare your average Joanna into helplessness and irrational thought, which can ultimately lead to only one reaction - where's my saviour? Toni, Jesus, Georgie, Joseph, Mohamed or Adolph, they are just names that enable future human beings to mark time periods of organized hatred. It will always be up to those humans of the future to decide, "will we learn from past mistakes, or just continue acting dumb, stupid, and blind?" Or more accurately and less polemically formulated - should we be progressive or conservative?

What is going on in journalists minds, when they publish stories such as the one spreading military propaganda, which after "the world is a different one" pseudo-event seems to have become the norm. People, get it into your heads, just because two buildings were maliciously blown up, changed nothing about this planet. Every day buildings are being blown up, not every single one maliciously, but sufficiently to make cry oneself into hopelessness. And every day thousands of people die unwillingly. Most are murdered, others ravaged by disease, and some because their end just came. What has changed, is solemnly the willingness of people, folks like you and me, to accept hatred as a basis of human interaction. We decide how to interact with each other. Which in term will decide how they will treat us. Yes there are assholes, but how often do you act inappropriately? How often have you been greedy? How often were you willing to bend the truth to your benefit? When faced in utter honesty, these kind of question hurt, don't they?

Forget curiosity, forget inquiry, forget knowledge, especially be ignorant of meaningful facts, all that counts is blind hatred. This is the message of mainstream organized journalism. And we are the ones paying for their salaries! We the consumers of news media. If we don't consume, there will be no income, and the news media will go bust. Hmm, in a perfect world maybe. We can already see the results of some of the market having withdrawn their funds - more porn, more violence, more animal instinct feeding. There goes the magic of free markets out of the window. So what can we do? Think, reason, communicate!

We may all be kids at heart, but the mature rational mind has a substantial chance discovering the Boogie Man within our own thoughts. None of us is perfect, and with this in mind, we can manage and semi-control our emotional reactions, directing them towards constructive ideas and endeavours. Petitioning a government to act in revenge, is not constructive. Asking them to change their ways is. Courts are not perfect, and they will never be, but they are our only chance to ever come close to the ideal we like to believe having already achieved - civilization.