9/52 - Only a Fool

"Great warrior? Wars not make one great." - Yoda.

Dear Internauts, 

My dad always told me that I gotta pick my battles. "Only a fool attends every fight to which he is invited," quoth he from some unknown author. It's one of those lessons that a parent tells their kid over and over again, because the trick is in the application from one situation to the next, not just in knowing a general rule. It's like adding sriracha to a dish. The quantity is key, of course—in this case the number of splurts, since the nozzle always gets partially blocked up. However, in many improvisational variants on recipes, the old line remains, "just because you can doesn't mean you should." 

Often, in arranging and recording music, one of the most important skills and talents of a producer is knowing how much is just enough. Often the sign of an over-produced track is one which ignores any cohesive groove in favor of breaking out as much contemporary pop flavor and gaudy stylization as fits within the budget and time frame allowed. Such a recording then tends to resemble what happened to the little tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas after they tried to trim the poor thing with too many decorations. 

Back to the point about attending fights, I think it prudent that I lay a bit of nonsense in the plain and simple for you lovely readers. I confess, I spent too much of my childhood fighting with my older sister. I confess, too, that I spent too much of my life online fighting with faceless usernames. Further, I confess to having changed my mind on several important points, argued for conflicting sides, and acted incredibly snobbish and self-righteous in my ignorance and bullheadedness more from an emotional drive than a logical one. 

Certainly, open-mindedness has never been the strong suit of my game, but I suppose we all play the hands we've been dealt, even if most of us aren't sure which game we're playing and are sure that everyone else is cheating. 

I have a notion that if I keep this blog apolitical, it won't hurt the view count quite so much as if delve even deeper into the mud. Part of me certainly wishes that I could share witty incites and anecdotes that make you smile and sigh before you start your week on a high note, but just like I don't have much confidence in my ability to make any more than twenty-ish percent of my songs about romantic love, I don't much like the odds of me being the maple-flavored corn syrup on your Eggos. 

That being typed, who'd like to talk about the US Defense Budget? I just know you're getting hype right now, but no, I'm not an economist or a general or even someone who wears a tie on a regular basis. Sad, I know, but true. 

Something else that's sad but true is the scale of absurdity that is this budget thing.

So, we've got China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, The United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan, each with their own military spending. That's seven big nations, two of whom have the largest populations in the world. All seven separate budgets, when added together, aren't even enough to equal the spending of the United States. 

Plus, that spending is hardly handled with the tact and restraint you'd think might be warranted by a country with over twenty-trillion dollars in debt. Here's a Forbes article about only a few of the ways that spending, and calls for its increase, are wasted in their allocation. 

My entire life, the United States military has been occupying foreign nations, slaughtering the people who live there, selling weapons and offering support to despots and war lords, and using racism, classism, xenophobia, and nationalism to promote the idea that our military action is always justified because of its ties to the state and hollow symbolism. The word "terrorist" has become the catchall term to allow politicians, intelligence agencies, and military officials to act without accountability in increasingly harmful ways. While our representatives and leaders continue to vote in favor of increased spending, torture, imprisonment without trial, spying on citizens, and drone bombing which leads to the deaths of countless families and children who are refused a defense, we are continually fed the assurance that war will end soon. 

In fact, there is no war. 

The only war is a war on terror. An idea need never end, only change. And still not much changes. 

Fear is the greatest tactic military and political leaders have to endlessly bolster their own power. Our assent, our consent, our acquiescence to the slavery, imprisonment, and genocide of anyone whom we are told to fear suspends us within a bubble of tyranny whose outer shell has become so clouded, we can neither see within or without. In the dark we turn on eachother. We fall into old habits of prejudice and greed. We crave a constant diet of pain and pleasure in cycle. Scare me then comfort me. Terrify me then tell me big brother will take care of the monsters. 

Don't you worry. 

Don't you cry. 

Daddy's gonna make all the bad dudes die. 

When "Make America Great Again" means we need to "start winning wars again" and build "more ships and planes", are we surprised? That this all boils down to appearance? Apparently, we need to look strong and intimidating in the same way that the alt-right says we need to look "like real Americans again". 

On another note, how come there are so many people who are anti-interventionist when it comes to foreign aid to the same countries they practically orgasm over the thought of bombing? 

Is it the same reason why so many people prefer buying guns and voting for looser gun control over helping fund community centers, anti-violence education, and criminal rehabilitation? 

Is it the same reason why personal moral responsibility is shoved aside when the person is in uniform? If the so-called sanctity of life can be suspended when its war time or when they "looked intimidating" or when its part of an understanding among officers, aren't we simply searching for an acceptable way to vent our hatred? 

Just like how you may not be racist or misogynist or homophobic, but the joke was still funny or it was "just guy talk" or its your freedom of religion to treat someone else like less of a person. When "Make America Great Again" means bring back the days when I could call my coworker a faggot or make jokes about how no means try harder and nobody made such a big deal about it. When "Make America Great Again" means wasn't everything so much better when I never had to think that maybe I've had some advantages in life that have nothing to do with how hard I've worked? Advantages other people don't have? What about when we weren't so sensitive to all this "mental illness" stuff? Y'know why do people need safe spaces or trigger warnings or health insurance, 'cause back when I was your age that was just your old drunk uncle who was never the same after the accident or that was just Billy who was always sad-looking and had no friends or that was just Marge's sister who slit her wrists but we don't talk about that or that's just that place upstate we sent your cousin because he was "too much" and they say the lithium and shock treatment is helping but he doesn't talk anymore?

Maybe we're all just looking for permission to say what we're really thinking. 

But maybe, what we're really thinking is not a good place to stop thinking. 

Maybe nobody cares what some college dropout who can't hold a steady job and has to take five different pills to stay kinda okay might have to say about complex socio-economic policy and foreign affairs. 

But maybe if the only thing I know how to do is write and even one person is reading this right now, then maybe instead of arguing about the latest movie or what some idiot just tweeted (not that those aren't somewhat important conversations in the right moment), I might at least say that I think we shouldn't cut the budget to foreign aid, nor should we spend more money on an already wasteful defense budget. Maybe if even one person hears one of my silly protest songs or reads part of this blog, then it might be good for me to spend at least a bit of time picking better battles. 

In life, I think some conflict is inevitable. History makes it pretty clear that trying to gain and maintain oppressive power over others by killing only leads to more oppression and more killing.

I think you really don't have to attend every fight to which you're invited. But you decide the how and the why you fight the fights you choose to fight. 

As for me, I fight and write for peace. 

Thanks for reading, 

Odist 

p.s. - Got to hear an early mix of the first track of the next EP. Sounds great. I know this may seem like a slow process, but it's tough working with a small budget and across a thousand miles. Still, Joe Casey's doing a fantastic job as producer and on bass, and Joe Tounge on drums is just incredible. So stay hype.