Occupy Wall Street, Student Walkout

My fellow students:

My name is Garrett Grieb, I am a 24 year-old law student at Seattle University in Seattle, Washington, USA. Brief background: I worked for four years in a publicly traded company before leaving my job so I could attend Seattle University’s Law School full-time. I have also had the privilege of earning an Associates in Arts and Sciences from Everett Community College, a BA in Political Science from Gonzaga University, as well as a Masters in Digital Media Communication from the University of Washington. Today, on Wednesday, October 12, 2011, I will walk out of Seattle University’s Law School at noon and join with the protest in Seattle’s Westlake Park, which is a mirror protest of the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City.

I know from statistics that most of you do not consider yourself political, and I have no political ideology to push upon you. However, if you think that it is important to come to the aid of your country in a time of crisis, then please listen. I believe the United States and the rest of the world it is economically tied to is in danger if there are not significant changes made towards correcting the current structural problems in our economic system.

The Constitution of the United States of America was created in order to safeguard the People of the United States of America from tyranny in their government. The founders of this nation believed that tyranny can be found wherever power is most concentrated and unaccountable. This is why the Constitution lays out such a system of checks and balances.

Obviously, not every organization in the world is built to be able to disrupt concentrations of power within itself. It is readily apparent that there are non-governmental organizations that have successfully implemented an agenda to perpetuate the huge wealth disparity in the United States of America the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. This was no accident. Actual legislation was passed in order for this gap to be widened, most notably through financial deregulation. This disparity causes real suffering for the people in my country. The reasons underpinning this disparity also undermines my nation economically, which has been dramatically illustrated by the 2008 financial collapse that we still experience the effects of today. Whenever passing of legislation to further perpetuate this gap could not have been readily achieved, a simple majority of nine judges could decide to further it along, which can be seen in cases like Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Even media networks have been acquired and consolidated to condition the People of the United States to accept the surrendering of their government to the demands of this de-facto nascent aristocracy as being the result of the natural order of things.

I for one will not stand idly by while the future of this nation is surrendered to what are essentially private tyrannies that operate under the dangerous delusion that this planet is an infinite resource and an infinite garbage dump; and that infinite growth of their profit margins will always be possible, regardless of who or what it effects, even though it flies in the face of the second law of thermodynamics and is a threat to the People of this nation. This is the United States of America, a country built upon reason. We are ever increasing our ability and capacity to understand the world around us. I believe in quantifiable facts that support the conclusion that despite the wealth these organizations are capable of generating, that if left unchecked, can lead us to disaster and ruin. Of course, one protest will not make all the difference. However, as it is our world to inherit, it is our generation that must help lead the charge towards reason.

I think it is time to make it known that our generation is willing to act as the grand societal check that says “no more.” We must say “no more” to unjustifiable concentrations of financial and political power that are unaccountable to the People of the United States of America. We must say “no more” to the buy-in cost to participate in our elections to ever increasing billions of dollars, which makes our political parties ever more subservient to them for resources.

This is why I will walk out of class today. My classmates are the future legislators, lawyers, judges, representatives, and business people of not only my home state of Washington, but other states as well. That you are in school at any level means that your actions are being witnessed by other people who someday might do things that also have an effect on all of us, even if it is simply voting and consuming. It is time to make them aware of the world that we all share. This is why I believe it is important to show solidarity with those who have been braving the elements in New York City and other mirror Occupy Wall Street protests across the United States.

If you decide to be recognized and accounted for in support of at least some aspect of this broad movement, I only ask that you refrain from any overtures of violence, and not seek to antagonize the police. Please remember that this is about a long-term effort, and should not be needlessly squandered by those seeking pyrrhic victories. Though I know for some of you the people protesting may seem different than you, or of a different tribe, but it is our pluralistic society and its ability to come together in times like this that makes this nation great.

Thank you for reading,

GG

Re: The Bechdel Test for Women in Movies

That is a cool metric, and it’s no doubt that males as the protagonist in movies probably outnumber movies with female protagonists, but I question their application of the metric with regards to some of the movies that they then showed as examples aside from the all too easy targets of the rock-out-with-your-cock-out action blockbusters.

Why it’s hard to post here.

The main reason, is that there is no walled garden. Half the things I say are almost inside jokes directed to a specific audience. Therefore, the amount of posting I was doing on my previous blog cannot be brought to this blog because there is a lot of previously developed (no longer publicly available) context lacking.

However, I am recently unemployed so a lot of these transition related tech projects I’ve been start-and-stop on will finally be able to be properly “moved-in” to in the time being.

So basically, stick around. Just going to dump a lot of content and figure out how to tie this blog to a site I own.

Book Review 1: Jack Kerouac’s On the Road

Some things you should just plain read because of their historical and subcultural value. The cover of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road reads, “The novel that defined a generation.” What was it that defined such a generation? The wanderer that’s missing a piece of their soul. The main characters search the North American landscape like ghouls as they’ve come to see something hollow about Americana and seek something to fill/feed the void within that spurns on their restless travels. The story is really all about the observations of Kerouac’s stand-in, Sal, as he follows in the wake of the madmen that criss-cross a post World War II United States.

All in all it’s good (especially when you ride the bus to work). Kerouac writes in constant meter and it reads in a jazz style. It’s my understanding that he wrote the entire piece on one continuous roll. Within the context of its time one can piece together how this book could come to influence the boomer generation’s disillusionment with the tacky glut of Americana and helping to cause a heavily self-focused identity revolution.

For a long time I put off reading this book and anything by Kerouac because it seemed to be how one just said, “Game on for self-destruction!” and then became a hipster, nihilist, and/or a neo-beatnik. And then, if they really got into it pull a Christopher McCandless, because let’s be fair here, you can tell by all the (now) weird racial and sexist verbiage this is largely about (and probably for) people of WASP culture who feel something’s amiss. However, after reading it I found some of my aspersions to be misplaced.

I’ll put it this way, the character who is the main madman/catalyst is Dean Moriarty and he is a sonofabitch. Kerouac’s stand-in Sal also knows this and finally says so within the last 40 pages when laid up in a hospital bed. However, Dean, being a sonofabitch and an all-around fuck-up, is in a way a hero for a lot of kids I knew, and was the one I would say emulated the most. But, I identify with the ostensible reporter Sal, so again, my aspersions toward Kerouac were misplaced.

After reading this I read another book and it got me thinking about Kerouac’s short life and I would say his writing is in a way very sad, and his real life actions will come to affect the next author and book: Daniel Pinchbeck’s 2012: Return of Quetzalcoatl.

My Mocking of the Neo-Conservatives about Iran back in 2007

Special Note: Yes, this is satire.

(Originally created in February 2007 for my undergraduate college newspaper, snubbed, but published online anyway on 2-26-07 under one of my now defunct pseudonyms)

Background: At the time there was a lot of talk from the political right of the US in favor of bombing Iran. This meme would continue throughout the 2008 US Presidential election most famously with John McCain’s singing “Bomb Iran” in response to what he would do about Iran.

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Should the US Attack Iran’s Nuclear Facilities?

The United States should attack Iran because Iran needs to know its place. The term is SUPER-power, would Superman just let Lex Luther take over the world? I think not. We already have troops on its eastern and western borders (Iraq and Afghanistan) and we may not have that same closeness if the democRATs take control of the presidency.

Many fifth columnists parading around as “human rights advocates” or “middle eastern experts” or “US intelligence officers” would tell you that attacking Iran probably has nothing to do with nuclear weapons at all, and bombing attacks to probably include more than just nuclear facilities with a projection of mostly disaster if we actually invaded.

So what if it’s true that we’ve had a somewhat strained relationship with Iran as part of a longstanding policy created and maintained throughout succeeding Presidential administrations since we overthrew their parliament and gave them a caretaker in the form of the Shah in 1953. Back then we were at least super enough to help the Iranians understand that people of other countries shouldn’t concern themselves with politics or possible economic relations with communist countries, besides it’s so sunny and warm in that part of the world why in their right minds would they want to concern themselves with such boring things anyway? But what did they do in return? In 1979 they overthrew our legitimately coup’ed-in leader the Shah, and took Americans hostage all the while whining about the Shah’s use of torture, death squads, and not being allowed to practice their religion, and it is principally due to this act of defiance that they should not be allowed to join the nuclear club (which, by the way we founded).

Thankfully much of the same men that were in power to help Iraq fight Iran in the 1980s are in positions of power in the white house today, we should be grateful to have such veteran political players! Just because we’ve had a checkered history of involvement in that region doesn’t mean that we should feel bad about our strategic placing of military forces in the middle east in order to have what amounts to a veto power over industrial rivals, remember we’re more than special, we’re Americans. As we continue to diversify our sources for oil our overall policy in the region hasn’t changed (not that it would: not broke-why fix it?), remember that our rivals like China want a piece of that middle eastern energy pie! Ladies and gentleman we cannot allow an energy control gap in the world, which would amount to other countries that aren’t as benevolent as us having an increased say in how things potentially worked in the world.

I also say to those pointing to North Korea as an alternative to how we deal with dangerous nuclear players that we weren’t having “altercations” on both sides of its borders nor could we tie an action against North Korea in to our priority policy of controlling a vast quantity of the worlds energy resources, remember terrorists drive cars! Even though a bombing campaign may damage internal resistance efforts and democratic movements within Iran, they’ve been living under an Ayatollah for so long how do we know they’ll even be able to get democracy right, like would they know to post the ten commandments in their courthouses?

Although the Ayatollah Khamenei has final say of Iranian foreign policy and said that Iran supports the Arab League position regarding Israel, they also have a President who has said very mean things towards Israel. I don’t know about you, but I’m an American and that means that I believe at least these two things: 1) that America is the greatest country in the world, and 2) America is represented by our commander and chief, our President. Countries should therefore be represented by Presidents, not Ayatollahs, and their President is threatening our strategic ally Israel (also where Jesus was born) and we should therefore attack Iran. The question is not “should” we increase hostility towards Iran it’s why stop now?

Bill Hicks (posthumously) on Tiller Murder

Not many comedians like Bill Hicks anymore. Australian Jim Jeffries comes close, but about 15 years between active periods, Hicks having died in ’94 and Jeffries having his HBO special this year. The type of comedy is a kind that engages using vulgarity and making things profane. It creates a somewhat jarring sensation that causes people to at some level respond to what’s being discussed if not there internally then afterward. They also don’t care if you like them because they want you at some points to be offended, in fact if you’re not offended on some level then you aren’t the audience they want to play to.

Done not talking.

This blog is coming back.

I’m detonating my other blogs. Kabloom.

Something is wrong and very very strange occurring. Every family function I go to I find people wrapping themselves in fabricated nightmares, and I am being pressured to join in. I will not. Reminds me very much of this Adam Curtis piece “The Power of Nightmares.” What I like about Adam Curtis is not only the use of immense BBC archive footage, but also because I think he’s able to provide these documentaries as a meas of intellectual self-defense in the current pseudo-intellectual deluge.

I will be posting a collection of book reviews that I wrote in the last 6 months next.

The Beauty of Irreverence

Like many people who have been using the Internet for some time I belong to a message board. The reason for said belonging is that I’ve been posting in this community of posters since I was about 12 (so about a decade). Like a small town in the middle of nowhere that no one seems to be able to leave, I’ve resigned myself to it as a kind of hometown of crazy people. However, I’m happy to say that there can still be found great gems of wit, like this one today from poster Rev. Tseng:

I wonder if the dodo viewed his encroaching extinction as a source of pride like the modern white man does. You guys, look how awesome I am, guys! Caw! I’m letting this woolly mammoth eat me.

Caw!

Seattle: Today

View is from the city looking west to the Olympic Mountains.

Young and Participatory: A Voting Story

Here is a link to our official site for Young and Participatory: A Voting Story.

And here is the You-Tube version that we had to split in two: