Catatonically Speaking

Beware of this edition of Catatonically Speaking, for it is rather wayward in nature. Rather than blather on about some trite topic I have chosen instead to focus on internet imagery that inspires me. Since I spend a lot of my editing process searching for images to adorn the pieces I publish, I come across some wickedly invigorating pictures and artwork. Here, I post and comment on a few of my most recent favorites. Some are cosmically comical, others are sullenly serious, but all share one thing in common: They are imbued with an irrepressibly creative, polemical spirit.



This one is titled "Republican Penis," but I prefer the more alliterative, "Patriotic Penis." Or, hey, how about "Jingoistic Junk" - mirthfully merges high-brow with low-brow, no? (For those of you disdainfully divorced from pop/rap culture, "junk" is the oh-so-savory slang for "crotch.")

So many Americans have such a horrid hard-on for their country without even grasping why. For if they ascertained the TRUE nature of their rapaciously imperialistic government, they might actually forego such preposterous patriotizing. OR, it might strengthen their nationalistic neurosis. Either way, in my mind, patriotism is STOOPID in whatever country; ain't no nation better than any other.



I love this one because while I am apt to eschew all loathesome labels regarding my religious persona (or absence thereof), I would consider myself atheistic before anything else. Actually, if you really pushed me to contextualize my religious views, I would describe myself as "non-theistic pseudo-Buddhist." Non-theistic because the god concept is immaterial in my world, and pseudo-Buddhist because I really do admire Buddhist teachings, and yet I am not much of a practitioner. I shun the rigors of religious practice because I don't believe in it - but Buddhist teachings can be incorporated in other ways, which is the beauty of Buddhism; it's amenable to lifestyles. I feel similarly about other mystical traditions, including those tangents of the Big Bubbas (Christianity, Islam, Judaism).

Anyway, atheism is just another religion as far as I am concerned, but I'll take it over the menacing mythologies propagated by the Big Bubbas listed above.



This picture is particularly heartbreaking because of the terrible truth emanating from it. Lurid laissez-faire capitalism as practiced in western nations creates an indigestible rich-poor disparity, which can be discerned in sinister symbols like the obese child and the emaciated one. The Buddhist Middle Way becomes a more navigable path when faced with such a sickening scenario as the one above.





These two images further exacerbate my anti-capitalism ideology, even if I am starkly aware that it's really the WAY we practice capitalism that is so perilous. If we urged a more socialistic capitalism like they do in, say, Sweden, things would be less fraught. Anyway, innate to an anarchic free-market mentality like the one in place here is a fearsome ethic of force. We are narcotized by the false ideals of freedom sold to us by the liberty-pushers, but the regrettable reality is, we could not be less free in such a corporate-domineered culture. When profit is king, the king must employ violent tactics to suppress his subjects lest they interfere with the aggressively acquisitive beast.


Is there anything more that needs to be said about this bumper sticker? I think not.





These images are very timely reminders of the shameful environmental devastation wrought by the corporate juggernaut. The first image is a poetic depiction of a tyrannical mechanized monster bent on annihilating the earth, juxtaposed with a human who is pretty puny in size, signifying his helplessness next to gargantuan corporate greed. The second image, of course, is a satirical rendering of the now-notorious "green" BP logo.

In fact, be sure to read the searing screeds of Edwin Young and Giles Watson on the crass and catastrophic BP oil spill, right here in the pages of the latest Clockwise Cat.

Issue 17 is certain to rock your genitals straight off! You didn't need them, did you?