Occupy Wallstreet & Occupy movement

The one thing I am glad about is pursuing the degree that I have current earned through my undergraduate years of hard work. International Studies that is. It has given me a strong background on organizations, international relations, political science, economics, political economy, history, intercultural communication, and an understanding of how successful multicultural societies operate as a whole. As such I remember people telling me a society's success is due to the lack of multiculturalism in it. This can be further from the truth.  homogenous societies fail just like multicultural societies, and often for the exact same reasons.

I have been followiung this movement for the last few weeks, and I find it interesting to see such a thing when it seemed like  it wasn't going to materialize. With that being said I have many hopes, and I realize there are ways I can become disappointed with such an organized movement. That is the ability of people to put the problems of others in the after burner in order to advance what they see fit as a proper problem to place a grievance under. With that being said, the failure and success of the occupy movement stems from  if they will be inclusive 100% and that means if someone wants to voice the problem of police brutality in african american communities then that problem should become the occupy movement's problem by taking this stance many within the african american community will adopt the organization's problems as their own as well. When it comes to human organizations the ability to reciprocate and be reciprocated is key and important. This is the foundation of all societies. When things become awkward as the current situation in the United States where the few have most of the wealth and power while the many struggle then failure of such a society is almost certain. Even societies that are created on the premise of the few privileged having the right to rule over the masses will eventually fail. I have always heard that it is a pipe dream to have a true democratic country where everyone's voice can at least be heard. But this isn't the case, it isn't a pipe dream, it can only be considered as such by those who lack talent and imagination and such people cannot call themselves leaders of any organization, group, movement, or society.

I wanted to bring this point up because a highly intelligent user on youtube made a comment stating that this isn't about color, but with that being said there is strong evidence that those in our highly stratified society do deal with issues that only happen to them simply because of color. If such issues are ignored then they will continue to keep society stratified and people isolated. This is what I am hoping the occupy movement doesn't do, and that is to isolate potential contributors and allies to the movement by refusing to adopt the problems of such groups and individuals. If such a thing was to be refused then the occupy movement will see failure, and will at that point deserve such failure.

With that being said I am hoping the grievances of all the 99% will be heard, and can be heard as the success of the occupy movement depends on it. Now more than ever before, and hopefully talented individuals are able to see this, and step up to positions of leadership that do not reflect upon the current poor leadership that has been demonstrated in all areas of United States society, from political to economically, and even socially.

Politically, politicians shamelessly take kickbacks and donations and eek out a living that is non-productive to society while misusing the trust that the people placed on them by voting for them.

Economically the American style of management has proven in some areas to be a failure, and internationally is indeed being questioned. The question of why shareholders should reap the most rewards from a company's productivity is very valid and has been raised several times. Essentially the question must be asked because there have been well known cases of shareholders bankrupting certain companies for the sake of profiting from it. This is quite a big deal as it creates a more volatile atmosphere within our economy.

Socially the US is highly stratified, if it isn't by education then it is by wealth if it isn't wealth then often it lies in skin color. This is very important as stratified societies allow for it to be easily managed by an elite few, but as mentioned earlier a society constantly ruled by an elite few while the voices of many go unheard is extremely awkward and only leads to the road of failure in the eyes of history.

With all of this being considered citizens of the United States have a real challenge ahead of them, and this challenge is even greater than the challenges of the generation of the civil rights movement had to deal with. But like that previous generation the rewards of success are quite large and will change the social,economic, and political landscape of the United States for generations to come.

I hope for the success and if interested in participating I will direct you to this site: http://www.occupytogether.org/

How?

How? How am I able to do what I need to do to find success.
The solutions seem simple, but reaching those solutions require a solution itself.
Where I have been, the people I have spoken to, to be honest I feel that all but me
have it all figured out. I feel as if I am lagging behind, and that I have accomplished nothing in my life.
I have done nothing, and people accuse me of being lazy for it. They say earning my bachelor's was simple.
That any idiot can do it. I realized they were full of it because they surely do no have a degree they say is easy.
Waiting waiting, life is slow, time moves slowly; everywhere I go slowness follows.
A better word would be stagnant. Things stand still, and I am not moving forward, but I have not moved backwards. How can I can the world by storm when people simply pass me up, saying I am not a good fit for
their team. So I decided to create my own team, and I hope by doing so I will create my own success. I hope everyone decides to do this no matter what!

Race & IQ - A story of dishonesty

Culture Wars

It's been awhile since I've written one of these. Anyway will be going through a very interesting topic for the moment.

Basically I was thinking back when I was a kid, and napster first came out and was extremely popular. Then the music industry pretty much crushed it and started stating that downloading is illegal. Now technically it is, but the justification of sharing files online being made illegal was often made from a moral standpoint. "You're stealing" you are told, and "someone has to make a profit" you are told. Was the music industry's lack of ability to adapt to something completely new what caused their reaction? Basically yes.

In most of the world today; many people download. Movies, music, books, games. From a variety of torrent sites. Now file sharing is completely decentralized making the enforcement of copyright laws even more difficult. Though I would like to rewind the tape back to when napster was around. This is a crucial point that many people tend to forget. But copyright laws weren't meant to do what it does today. In fact many companies file false dmca violations simply as a form of censorship. Often these claims are over the top such as suing a mother for posting a homevideo of her daughter's birthday party. What was the problem? Britney Spears playing in the background. Where is the line exactly?

So of course the internet being a large place. Artist decided to start making music exclusively to distribute and share with other creative people. This is done currently in vlogging, flash animations, internet series, etc.

Recently I have noticed that the current generation of highschool students from suburban backgrounds. Have a tendency to say "downloading is illegal" Now if you are a young adult I have noticed we do not think in this manner. In fact we don't have a problem with sharing anything. I will refrain from stereotyping. You will find people who think downloading is wrong on a moral basis, and you will find those who don't think of it as a moral dilemma. I have noticed those that are from the older generation. They currently have this draconian view. While generally speaking the current youth downloads quite freely. I know its difficult to download in the US now, but in other places they don't crack down as hard, or gov'ts tend not to get involved. Companies in Japan for instance decided to find a way to benefit from file sharing. It is starting to happen in Europe, and slow happening in the US. Though before within the US there was this authoritarian mandate from companies that you must buy it from a store or you are breaking the law. Without ever stopping to ask themselves "why do they prefer to download instead of buying the CD" of course many will say " because its free" this is still the case, but now downloading has becoming time consuming. Its tough to tell if the file you are downloading is legitimate, or if its a virus about to destroy your hard drive. But still people do go through these lengths and take these risk in order to get what they want. So as a record company you must ask yourself "why isn't my stuff selling" and instead of going sue happy because you can't make money. Maybe find a different way to market your product, be more adaptable and competitive.

Either way file sharing has become one of the biggest culture wars for the current generation. Because I have found myself asking this very basic question. "If I can't download, how come I can give/get a CD from a friend." I guess they assume you can't keep a borrowed CD but you can hold on to mp3 files forever. But of course you can burn a CD into mp3 files and have the whole album. Point is I asked myself this, many young people have asked this question. It is worth asking, but of course easily dismissed, but why? Simply put by asking this question you are indeed initiating a questioning of the current value system. Is it really a company's God give right to make a profit? I notice Baby Boomers always talk about the free market and how it magically solves everything, but when it comes to the music industry(which yes is truly on a free market) the moment a variable enters into the market creating a situation where companies can go bankrupt, and the industry can forever change (downloading wasn't going to do this, but this was their defense of setting up the current draconian set of DMCA laws and their current defense used to try to have copyrights be in affect for longer than the current 15 year limit allows for). Now the industry did in fact change. It adapted. What happened? How did they adapt? At first they reacted in a way that is very dictatorial. Forcing consumers to buy something when they can get it for free. Was it really stealing?Ask a young person some will say yes it is, but of course we know they're the tools ;) At the very least that is my opinion of people like this. Because I have noticed one thing. Those that complain about illegal file sharing seem to be already very successful. Already have more money than most of humanity will probably never get to see or hold. So why should I feel bad? I didn't break into a store and instantly started to steal albums. Property wasn't damaged, people weren't hurt. It may cut into your revenues a bit, but record labels that make money tend to not make the mistake of having the sale of albums be their main source of revenue. Even independent music artist are smart enough to know albums aren't their sole source of revenue. Though I will say that we do indeed need copyright laws in order to ensure that those who created it gain the credit from it. So that someone else isn't profiting from another person's hard work. But overall if file sharing to other people on the internet stealing someone else's work as your own? I don't think so. There are many music artist that would agree with me on this. System of A Down released an album known as "Steal This Album" and they weren't kidding you could in fact download this, or burn copies of it without facing charges. Tonedeff made a song called "Napster Anthem". Ultimately this current culture war on the surface may seem like wealthy people wanting to ensure they continue to gain more wealth, but also on a societal level we are trying to figure out what constitutes as thievery. Right now I would say governments are very much out of touch, but I wouldn't say completely. Head ways made have been the Fair Use Act which has done a lot to stop companies from taking advantage from the situation. It could be said that the two creative industries of music and movies might be changing seeing that anyone with a digital camera can make a film/music video, and anyone with recording software and instruments can make and distribute their music worldwide. With the internet changing the world at such a rapid pace. With so many people connected. Even myself I can make the claim that I have a friend on every continent on this planet except for Antarctica. Wait nevermind even including Antarctica as I currently know someone who is down there for research. Nevertheless, I think things will begin to go even more into the gray area, and having a black and white worldview isn't going to help us. I'm sorry for those who went through highschool in the 50s, but there is indeed a cultural revolution going on. It may not be in the form of Mao's version(albeit very violent, counter-productive and served to destroy a lot of the culture instead of advancing it. Seeing that now in China people are working hard to reclaim what was lost.) but there is a revolution happening. And I say currently generation y is indeed leading the way, and are in fact one of the first to adapt to something new. You'll notice now that there are classes on how to use Twitter or Facebook, or to post videos on Youtube. If you're under the age of 40 and computer savvy. You don't even read the instructions or attend any of these classes. If you're over 40 and computer savvy then you too don't even have to go through the pain of learning. People learn by doing.
With the new social media people share instantly what they see, what they do, their videos, their music. Positive change is happening, but the negative will always be there, and there isn't a guarantee that the internet will always be around, but it is as Dr. Michio Kaku stated; the internet is indeed a product of a type I civilization. The 21st century will continue to be interesting, and dangerous.

Social Advancement

DOn't think the title does the this entry any justice, but it was as close as it could get. Anyway one day I was at 68 talking to a tourist. The tourist was from Australia, and we had a long interesting three hour conversation on politics, etc. Anyway we began talking about how the world is rapidly changing, and how people are really more connected to one another than ever before. Throughout this conversation the theme of a culture war(which one professor which I will not mention names refuses to recognize that a culture war goes beyond what was going on in the 1960s. of course that was a culture war, but this doesn't pertain to what is happening now) continued to appear. The old way vs. the new way of doing things. Why older generations seem to be more into nationalism than the younger generation. People can say that it means young people simply do not have patriotism for their Nation-State. This would be true, but as the conversation got interesting we began to question if there really is a need for the current nation-state system we have. The trend right now seems to be going towards regional blocks and eventually world government. We can find plenty of conspiracy theories on world government and how its a horrible horrible horrible thing that under minds the tried and true tradition of national sovereignty. Then you realize the nation-state system and the idea of sovereignty are quite a recent development. People in the year 1230 didn't really care much about the country they lived in. The kingdom they were from unless they had some stake in it, unless they were the nobles, or the elites, or in the military. Even to be in the military in some kingdoms/countries you needed to be born in a certain social class. Most people simply only have allegiance to their local communities and paid their taxes to their gov't when the gov't wanted it, otherwise the gov't wasn't so prevailing to make them go die for their country. The Roman Empire had to promise its soldiers citizenship for them and their offspring before they would go fight, and die for Rome. The same is said today. But the concept of total war(where the entire society is expected to participate and contribute to the war effort for their nation's victory) is also a very recent modern phenomenon. The whole point of our conversation was that it is possible that in this decade we are seeing early signs of nationalism being seen as unimportant by the younger generation. Mind you 68 is a bar for students, and of course it is a place where you can see someone from Georgia having a drink with someone from Russia, etc etc. My point is simply the 21st century may be this crucial moment where people will be more connected with each other, can see what is in common with each other and can appreciate the differences. Quite possibly challenging the concept of nationalism, and the nation-state system. Simply put we see what is happening is currently a failure, with neoliberal economic policies more people are simply able to move more freely, and communicate a lot easier. It may not end up like 1984 George Orwell according to many who are conspiracy theorist. Quite possibly people will continue to question the current political system, and might find new solutions to old problems. This doesn't mean the 21st century will be the century where a world gov't forms. I have high doubts about this happening simply because at the moment we have no common enemy, and its hard for us to collectively see our common goals, and the current nation-state system is well current. You still need a passport to travel, people are still treated according to their country's economic status even if they have a high social status at home. But the whole gist of our conversation simply was this: "Governments tend to lag behind the people in progress." (Aussie Tourist Dude)
Simply put people may see more in common with each other, and even if their home countries are at war with each other, they are less likely to go at each others throat(younger generation) simply because there is a mutual understanding that their governments are at war with each other not the people, and there is also a understanding that the people have little influence on what their gov'ts choose to do concerning their foreign policy. While this mutual understanding isn't completely universal. AS there are still plenty of places where people are less educated, and more nationalistic. For the most part, people who have access to information that the previous generation didn't have are becoming more aware of what is going on in world politics. This isn't some kind of wild counter-culture revolution, but quite possibly within the next 90 years nationalism will not be the banner that everybody can easily get behind, but of course this is still too early to make such a statement, and I am only stating that form my perspective nationalism will have a less prominent role in our daily lives. I tend to avoid this topic because it is within one of my least liked subjects(Sociology). But no matter what you're into all subjects eventually have some connection with Sociology especially if you're dealing with people, and statistics.

New blog

This is the start of a new blogging page. The goal of Thought Lore is simple. Post topics that interest others, and allow people to freely exchange ideas, discuss events and issues. With the possibility of brainstorming on ideas to resolve the questions that we face today. I expect nothing big to happen with this, but find that it will at the very least be an intellectually stimulating experience/experiment.

For starters, my name is Keith currently studying abroad in Japan. I'm a senior at the University of Oklahoma, and I study International Studies in the school of International & Area studies. I've done a lot since I've attended OU, but I still feel as if the years spent in University might go to waste. Anyway with that being an issue not related to this blog. I will explain the reason for starting this blog.

If you read my earlier blog Journey Japan(Nihon written in Chinese characters) Most of what is written there is basically my experience during my first exchange in Japan. I enjoyed it, and it was quite a carefree time. There were some tough spots, and I believe I definitely talked about that. Anyway I dealt with the financial crisis while I was in Japan that first time. Felt the recession first hand when the currency value of the Japanese Yen went out of control. Its quite an interesting experience to realize the money you have now was worth less than when you first arrived. Though with this experience came maturity.

The reason I speak of this is because once I returned home to the US. I found that a lot had changed. Politically speaking. I had a year long break from keeping up with US politics. We talked about the US as if it was some nightmarish place that very few people wanted to be except for those who see the opportunities available. The US definitely isn't a nightmarish place to live in, but it definitely has its problems.

I return to the US, and realize there is a "grassroots" movement known as the Tea Party that has gained popularity. A group within it called the Birthers claim that the president of the United States isn't a citizen. An opposition party that is so irresponsible that nothing is getting done, and an offering of little to no alternatives is what they stand on. I wish I could put this in better words, but the US isn't doing too hot for itself. So this blog is to explore it. I had a year to think about a lot of this stuff. Maybe a bit of an obsession, but I am very much interested in what's going to happen next. I wish more people of the current youth understood what is really happening. What has happened, and how we got to where we are today.

I am fascinated by Japan, but not by its politics. I can care less about politics in Japan. I can be a bit of a political junky, but the political issues that go on domestically in Japan is a problem for those that are Japanese. As I do not have certain rights in Japan as a person on a student visa. I have little say in what goes on in Japan, but as a US citizen I have a lot of say on what is happening in the US. Some may call me a person that feels entitled, and indeed this is true. I not only feel I am entitled to express what I am expressing, but it is an obligation as a citizen. If I do not say anything then I feel that there will be no sanity left in the country's political discourse. I'm not so self-centered to believe that I am at the center of it, but no I am not. I am just one person. A small piece of a 300 million human mosaic. If one decides to be apathetic I believe they have a right to do so, but I also believe that it is damaging to the society. How can one sit here,and see insanity, and decide to do or say nothing? This is a simple answer because the question itself is simple. Fear is the answer. People are afraid, and overwhelmed by the challenges we face. Tough times are indeed ahead, and when a person is afraid they have one of two options. The first option is to simply run away. The second option is to rise to the occasion and do something about it. The latter option is more difficult, and Americans living in a consumerist society make decisions that benefit them the most. At least decisions perceived to benefit them the most. Following that pattern, running away from the problem is quite a nice option to choose. Why deal with it? Someone else can deal with the problem. Simply put if everyone in society says this, then civilization comes to a halt, or at the very least continues down the road of destruction at full throttle with no pretensions , or shame.

So I am politically a progressive, but I am not using this to look down upon those who share a different world view. I'm very inclusive, and I've spent a lot of time traveling to many different countries, and sharing opinions and ideas with people from various backgrounds. Some people were amazing, others were average, some weren't so bright, but all of them were brilliant human beings. The whole point of this blog is to bring out the brilliance in all of us, and to brainstorm on ideas that may prove beneficial to the future of humanity, or at the very least the current generation of young adults.

Thank you,

-Keith