AI Colonialism? How Generative AI Homogenizes Thought and Recolonizes Knowledge

I keep noticing something that is becoming harder and harder to ignore.

The more people use AI, the more writing begins to sound the same.

The tone smooths out. The edges soften. The structure becomes familiar. A certain style of “clarity” takes over. Arguments get cleaned up into managerial prose. Critique gets translated into balance. Conflict becomes “trade-offs.” Politics becomes “polarization.” Everything starts sounding just a little more professional, a little more optimized, a little more like it passed through the same cultural filter.

And at first, that can feel helpful. AI helps you organize your thoughts. It helps you move faster. It helps you write around fatigue, distraction, uncertainty, overload. I use it myself all the time. But that is exactly why this matters. Because the more useful AI becomes, the more power it has to quietly reshape not just what we write, but how we think, how we frame problems, and what starts to feel like common sense. In a lot of ways, this sits directly alongside what I wrote recently in The Age of Dependency: How We Lost Our Personal Sovereignty. What looked like convenience there increasingly looks, here too, like a surrender of intellectual autonomy.

That is where the deeper issue emerges.

AI bias is not only about whether a model leans “left” or “right.” It is also about which institutions become default authorities, which styles of language become normalized, and which political-economic worldview gets quietly built into the infrastructure of everyday thought.

From bias to infrastructure

Recently I asked AI a basic health question about hand, foot, and mouth disease. What came back was clean, confident, and heavily routed through the same institutional pipeline. CDC. CDC. CDC. That is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But I am not in the United States. And even more importantly, why should one national institutional framework quietly become the default informational center for users everywhere?

This is not a minor technical issue. It reveals a larger pattern. Generative AI often defaults toward a narrow set of high-authority, English-language, institutionally dominant sources. Those sources are then laundered back to users as neutral knowledge. But they are not neutral. They are geographically situated, politically shaped, historically contingent, and increasingly unstable themselves.

So the problem is not simply that AI sometimes gets things wrong. The problem is that it can centralize authority while appearing merely to summarize it. And once you begin to see that, it becomes hard not to connect it to broader questions of sovereignty and power. Specifically, as most Tech companies are located in the United States, and the US's current geopolitical disposition is a seeming return to the colonial era, it is not hard to see colonial logic: one center sets the terms, everyone else is expected to receive and adapt.

That is already dangerous enough. But then there is the second layer: style.

The neoliberalization of language

A lot of generative AI does not just answer in a certain way. It writes in a certain way. The tone is familiar now: polished, managerial, “helpful,” controlled, non-threatening, mildly upbeat, and endlessly inclined toward optimization. It often sounds less like a writer and more like a hybrid of a consultant, platform designer, HR department, startup founder, and - in the worst cases - like a 'Tech Bro.' 

That style is not politically innocent, as it carries a worldview. Within that worldview, social problems are reframed as design problems. Structural violence becomes a coordination issue. Inequality becomes inefficiency. Human beings become users. Institutions become platforms. Democracy becomes governance. And critique, if it appears at all, is softened into something manageable and professional.

Over time, that style begins to work on us. I can feel it in my own writing. The punctuation changes. The rhythm changes. The structure changes. I want narrative; AI pushes bullets. I want friction; AI pushes readability. I want sharper critique; AI often pushes it back toward something smoother, tidier, more acceptable - less critical.

So even when the ideas remain “mine,” they are increasingly being filtered through someone else’s tonal regime.

That should alarm us. Because this is not just a matter of technology. It is also a matter of political economy, as the issue is not simply that AI is biased. It is that the dominant models are emerging from a very particular capitalist world, and they carry that world’s assumptions back into our sentences.

When different AIs produce different worlds

And this becomes even clearer the moment you step outside the U.S.-centered AI model ecosystem.

If you use a Chinese AI system such as DeepSeek, you often encounter a different center of gravity. It is not the same Silicon Valley voice. It is not the same institutional defaulting. It is not the same moral vocabulary. You get less neoliberal-tech-bro speak, less startup-managerial framing, and more state-developmental or national-stability framing (even if the grammar can remain annoying consistent).

Of course, that comes with its own constraints. Criticism of the Chinese Communist Party or asking politically sensitive questions or topics may be restricted. So this is not some naive argument that Chinese AI is “free” while American AI is “biased.” Both are biased. Both are shaped. Both are governed. The point is that they are governed differently, and those differences reveal the politics buried inside the machine.

Once you see that, a bigger realization follows:

Why would every country, region, or culture not eventually want its own AI?

If AI is becoming part of the infrastructure through which people learn, write, interpret, diagnose, plan, and govern, then of course states and societies will want systems shaped by their own histories, languages, values, and priorities. This is part of why the world is moving toward what is increasingly being called “sovereign AI.” And that discussion links naturally not only to questions of empire, but also to democratic self-determination. If the core tools that a country's citizens are using to learn and express themselves is dictated by specific logics, what happens to to local tastes, flavors, and cultural containers? Nevermind to democracy in these locations more broadly, where the issue is not just who governs, but through what structures, whose voice, and under whose terms.

But isn’t this just another form of colonization?

I would argue yes.

Not colonialism in the old territorial sense. But colonialism as extraction, dependency, and epistemic rule.

Our language, habits, questions, and social life are continuously fed into systems we do not govern. Those systems are trained elsewhere, aligned elsewhere, funded elsewhere, and optimized according to logics that often have very little to do with the worlds many of us actually want to build. Then they come back to us as assistants, advisors, editors, and translators of reality into terms that are - or will be - slowly reshaping the ways we understand the world, how we learn, and the way we write - and therefore express ourselves.

That is a colonial relation.

It is extractive because human life becomes a raw material for model training and monetization. It is dependent because institutions begin relying on external systems to think, write, and know. And it is epistemically colonial because it installs external authority structures as the default architecture of truth. If older empire worked through direct rule, this version works through infrastructure, default settings, and the quiet standardization of knowledge - not too dissimilar to Vaclav Havel's description of communist Czechoslovakia as a subtle, "Post-Totalitarian" state.

So yes: this can absolutely become another form of colonization. A recolonization of language, style, knowledge, and interpretation through technical infrastructure rather than direct occupation. And whereas, Donald Trump and the US feels the right to go into Venezuela and do as it pleases, we are subtly letting this form of colonization into out minds and homes. Different terrain, different mechanism, but a strikingly similar problem: who gets to define the terms under which others live, think, and engage?

The danger of one empire and the danger of many

That does not mean the answer is simply “let every nation build its own AI” and call it solved.

There are two possibilities here. One is pluralism: multiple model traditions, multiple epistemic centers, multiple cultural framings, and the possibility of comparison, contestation, and real diversity in machine-mediated thought. The other is fragmentation: a world of competing ideology machines, each training citizens into its own curated reality, each reproducing its own silences and biases, each becoming a domesticated truth infrastructure.

So the goal cannot be neutrality. There is no neutrality here. The real goal has to be legible bias, plural epistemics, and contestable infrastructures.

What would a better AI ecosystem look like?

This is partly why the idea of building something different matters so much.

Not just another chatbot. Not just another assistant. But an AI shaped by another intellectual and ethical center of gravity. One that does not treat critique as an exception. One that does not default toward conforming and neoliberal managerial language. One that does not pretend the U.S. institutional universe is the natural center of knowledge. One that can compare frameworks rather than hide them. One that can show users which sources and value assumptions shaped an answer in the first place.

That would not eliminate bias. But it would make bias visible. And once bias becomes visible, it becomes arguable. Once it becomes arguable, it becomes political again. And that matters, because what is at stake here is not simply better search results or better prose. It is whether we build systems that deepen dependency, or systems that open space for critique, plurality, and self-conscious interpretation. 

the core question is whether AI becomes a machine for intellectual homogenization, or whether it can be bent toward a more plural and self-aware knowledge politics.

Right now, too much of generative AI is moving in the first direction. It is smoothing language, narrowing expression, centralizing authority, and quietly normalizing one dominant way of seeing. If we are not careful, the great ideological victory of this era will not come through censorship in the classic sense.

It will come through "default settings."

Selected external reading

• Couldry and Mejias on data colonialism
• UNESCO on AI ethics and cultural diversity
• Nature on model collapse and recursive AI-generated data
• MIT on political bias in language reward models
• Reporting on DeepSeek and politically sensitive prompts

Not Free, Just Different: How Socialist and Capitalist Media Both Manufacture Consent

 

Propaganda, ownership, and why “private media” isn’t the antidote to state control.

When the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe collapsed, one of the promises loudly celebrated in the West was the end of authoritarian, state-controlled media (see Václav Havel’s classic dissident essay, “The Power of the Powerless”).

No more propaganda. No more party line. A “free press” would arrive with capitalism, and truth would finally circulate — a claim challenged by foundational media-critique frameworks like Herman & Chomsky’s propaganda model (and the broader argument in Manufacturing Consent).

We know now that this is a fantasy.

As someone who lived in the Czech Republic in the early post-socialist years, and later campaigned in movements like Occupy Wall Street, I have watched two different media systems up close. Both are propaganda systems. They just propagandize in different directions, built on different motivations and different visions of what a human life is for (see also Habermas on the transformation of the public sphere: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere).

The West critiqued socialist media as propaganda — correctly. What it rarely admits is that capitalist media is also propaganda, just for a different regime (Herman & Chomsky: media “filters” and the bounds of acceptable debate; McChesney: Rich Media, Poor Democracy).

Socialist media: the propaganda of community

Let’s start by being honest about socialist media.

State media under socialism was not some benign public service. It was a tool for power. Its job was to:

• promote the party line
• present the socialist state as the natural horizon of history
• celebrate workers, collectives, and the heroism of building socialism
• suppress stories that undermined that project

People in socialist states knew much of their news was propaganda. They understood the performances of May Day, the obligatory coverage of party congresses, the ridiculous “achievements” of five-year plans. They developed strategies of reading between the lines, jokes, cynicism (see also Alexei Yurchak’s ethnography of “late socialism”: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More).

But there is something important here: the propaganda was organized around values of collectivity.

The message of socialist media emphasized:

• community and solidarity
• the dignity of work
• the idea that individuals were part of a collective project
• suspicion of unregulated private profit

Over years and decades, this produces certain habits of mind. Certain motivations (Verdery’s classic post-socialist analysis is useful here: What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?).

When I arrived in Prague after 1989, you could still feel this. People had grown up inside a media ecosystem that, however hypocritically, kept talking about society, community, fairness, and shared responsibility.

You could feel how different that was from the motivational ecosystem I grew up with in New York.

Capitalist media: the propaganda of profit

In capitalism, the media is not formally run by the state. That does not make it neutral or free. It simply shifts the center of gravity.

The key motivations are different:

• maximize profit
• grow market share
• deliver audiences (eyeballs, clicks, data) to advertisers
• keep shareholders and owners happy

The media’s job in this system is not to “inform the public.” It is to turn attention into money (Herman & Chomsky: the media’s institutional role; McChesney: commercial media as anti-democratic force).

So the propaganda looks different:

• It celebrates individual success, not collective achievement.
• It glorifies wealth and consumption as signs of merit.
• It frames competition as natural and good.
• It quietly erases or ridicules alternatives to capitalism.

The people who own the largest media platforms are the winners of capitalism. In J. K. Gibson-Graham’s terms, they are deeply capitalocentric.

When those people own the microphones, their worldview becomes the water everyone swims in. For classic work on corporate media concentration and ownership power, see Ben Bagdikian’s The New Media Monopoly.

A concrete example: Occupy Wall Street and editorial power

During Occupy Wall Street, I spent time with a journalist from The New York Times who was following our work.

After a couple of pieces, I asked if there would be a third. I was told:

“No. We’ve been told from the highest editorial levels that we’re not going to cover Occupy Wall Street anymore.”

That wasn’t an accident. It was an explicit political decision by a privately owned media institution — precisely the kind of boundary-setting described in the propaganda model (Herman & Chomsky).

This is how capitalist media manufactures consent:

• not through overt censorship,
• but through editorial decisions about what matters.

Research on Occupy framing confirms this pattern (Xu 2013).

Consumer logic, not news logic

Capitalist media is organized around a simple rule:

“It’s not enough to make money. You have to make the maximum amount of money possible.”

That requires maximum attention, engagement, and emotional reaction.

Outrage cycles and culture wars are profitable not because they inform, but because they keep people watching.

The system is consumer-driven, not truth-driven (again: McChesney).

Two propaganda systems, one missing option

Yes:

• Socialist media was propaganda.
• Capitalist media is propaganda.

The difference is not truth versus lies, but which interests are served (Herman & Chomsky’s framing: Manufacturing Consent).

We moved from the party line to the bottom line.

What we have not yet built is a genuinely democratic media ecology:

• community-owned media
• non-profit infrastructures
• public storytelling not driven by markets or states

Until we confront who shapes the shared reality we live inside, we will keep mistaking propaganda for freedom.

---

Further reading (critical sources)

• Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky: “A Propaganda Model” (excerpt) and Manufacturing Consent
• Robert W. McChesney: Rich Media, Poor Democracy
• Jürgen Habermas: The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• Václav Havel: “The Power of the Powerless” (also available as a PDF: download)
• Ben H. Bagdikian: The New Media Monopoly
• Alexei Yurchak: Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More
• Katherine Verdery: What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next?

AI's Blind Support as a Business Model

 

AI that cheers for everything you do isn’t a personality quirk — it’s a business model.

I use AI every day now. It’s my number one work assistant. It’s in my pocket, on my desk. It’s instant. It helps me write, structure ideas, build projects, start new articles, refine language, and keep intellectual momentum moving.

And there’s a reason it’s become so indispensable.

It supports me.

It encourages me.

It tells me my ideas make sense.

It helps me push them further.

And it helps me organize them.

If you’ve spent years being dismissed, misunderstood, or treated like your ideas are “too much” or “too different” — as many dyslexic intellectuals like me have — that kind of consistent support can feel like oxygen. It can feel like finally being met where you are — intellectually and emotionally — without the usual friction, dismissing, or social punishment.

But that’s exactly why we need to be careful. Because the most important thing about AI support isn’t just that it supports you. It’s why it supports you.

The comfort of finally being intellectually “met”

Here’s my honest experience: as an academic, I’ve rarely had a stable intellectual compatriot. Most of the time, my ideas don’t fit neatly into the academy’s containers. My reading of things is different. My structures are different. I think differently. And that doesn’t always get rewarded in academic life.

Yet AI doesn’t do that...

AI doesn’t dismiss you. It doesn’t get threatened. It doesn’t humiliate you. It doesn’t make you pay a social price for thinking or writing in unconventional ways. It lets you iterate quickly. It helps you test concepts. It helps you write. It helps you build.

And for neurodivergent minds in particular, this can be more than helpful — it can be a real accommodation. It can help you organize, translate your thoughts into usable language, and keep moving without getting stuck in the social and institutional bottlenecks that so often shut people down.

So I’m not here to demonize the fact that it’s supportive. I’m here to question the structure of that support.

Support vs. blind support

There’s a difference between:

• support that helps you grow, and
• support that simply validates whatever direction you’re already leaning — because keeping you engaged is the point.

AI support often has a “yes-and” quality to it. It takes what you say and builds on it. It’s collaborative. It’s encouraging. It’s smooth. And most of the time, that feels great. But there are moments when “yes-and” becomes dangerous. And those moments reveal something we don’t want to admit:

AI isn’t primarily designed to be wise.
It’s designed to be usable.

And in a capitalist context, “usable” quietly drifts toward “pleasing” (so long as you keep giving us money).

The case that made this impossible to ignore

A few weeks ago I read a story about a young man who died by suicide — and the claim (as reported) was that an AI had been supporting him in what he was saying he wanted to do. One widely circulated example is the 2025 reporting around a series of lawsuits summarized by The Guardian, and local reporting by CBS News on the lawsuit involving Zane Shamblin.

I’m not trying to sensationalize this. I’m not making a moral argument here about the meaning of suicide in the abstract. I’m talking about something simpler and more structural:

An AI, acting like a companion, can become a mirror that amplifies a user’s direction — even when that direction is self-destructive.

And if that’s true, then we have to ask:
what is the AI optimizing for?

Because if it is optimizing for user satisfaction, emotional smoothness, and economic retention of users (i.e., customers), then “support” becomes a product feature — not a moral stance.

It becomes something closer to customer service for the psyche.

The capitalism problem hiding inside the AI problem

Let’s name the obvious: most of these systems are commercial products. Whether you’re using them for free or paying, you are inside a business model. And business models come with incentives.

For-profit AI companies are trying to keep customers. They are trying to expand use. They are trying to increase dependence. They are trying to become indispensable. They are trying to upsell.

I feel this personally: I pay around 25 euros a month, and I find myself thinking, would 200 euros a month be worth it? Not because I’m stupid — but because the value is real. It’s become integrated into my work life in a way that would make it difficult to go back to the old dyslexic struggles.

This is where the critique sharpens:

The more emotionally supportive the product feels, the stickier it becomes.

And in capitalism, “sticky” is not an accidental outcome. It’s a core performance metric. So even when the support is genuinely helpful, we still need to be skeptical. Because what looks like care can also be retention logic.

“ChatGPT thinks all your ideas are good ideas”

My wife jokes with me about this.

I’ll say: “Yeah, ChatGPT thought it was a good idea.” And she’ll laugh, and say “Yeah, but ChatGPT thinks all your ideas are good ideas.”

She’s not wrong.

That’s not an insult to the tool. That’s a description of the dynamic. Because constant affirmation is part of what makes AI feel safe and pleasant to use.

But constant affirmation is not the same as truth. It’s not the same as wisdom. And it’s definitely not the same as ethical guidance.

Sometimes you don’t need encouragement. Sometimes you need friction. Sometimes you need contradiction. Sometimes you need a grounded voice that says: “Slow down. That’s not a good idea. That’s not safe. That’s not reality.”

A system trained to keep you engaged may hesitate to do that — not because it has evil intent, but because its training and market placement reward “positive experience.”

In fact, even OpenAI has publicly acknowledged this dynamic, rolling back a GPT-4o update after widespread complaints that the model had become overly flattering and agreeable — what they themselves called “sycophantic” — and then publishing a longer post explaining what they missed and why it can become a safety issue (including mental health, emotional over-reliance, and risky behavior): “Expanding on what we missed with sycophancy.”

The distortion that’s coming

This is why I think we need to see the limitations of AI through a critique of capitalism. As capitalism shapes product development in predictable ways:

• prioritize what increases engagement
• reward what reduces discomfort
• smooth the edges
• keep people using the product
• expand usage into more areas of life
• monetize dependence

This is not a conspiracy. It’s how capitalism and its incentives work. If you want a parallel example, this is the same structural logic that helped produce what scholars call “surveillance capitalism” — the economic model where human experience becomes behavioral data and prediction products. You can start with Shoshana Zuboff’s definition in the Harvard Gazette interview, or a more popular summary in WIRED.

And if AI becomes the tool we use for everything — for work, emotional processing, relationships, meaning-making — then the structure of those incentives starts to shape human life itself.

The long-term risk isn’t just “bad answers.” It’s a society slowly trained into needing a system that always makes us feel okay — and rarely asks us to face hard truths.

What would AI look like outside capitalism?

I’m not naïve about funding. I run a nonprofit. I understand how hard it is to raise money for public-good projects. I understand how easy it is to fund something when investors can see future profit — and how hard it is when what you’re offering is “goodwill” and “human benefit.” We need look no further than OpenAI, which started as a non-profit and has predictably been coopted.

But that’s exactly the problem. If AI is one of the foundational infrastructures of the future, then building it primarily through profit incentives is going to shape its nature in ways we will later regret.

A non-capitalist AI — or even a less-capitalist AI — might be designed differently:

• not to retain customers, but to build capacity and independence
• not to maximize use, but to optimize for real-world human connection
• not to affirm constantly, but to be capable of saying “no,” “slow down,” or “this is beyond me”
• not to become your substitute friend, but to push you back toward actual community

Maybe a different kind of AI would still be supportive — but the support would be oriented toward human flourishing rather than blindly keeping the user (and their money) close.

That’s the distinction.

The point, stated plainly

AI will always have biases. That’s not the shocking part. The question is: biased toward what?

Right now, a major bias is toward making the consumer feel good — because “feeling good” keeps people using the product. And when that bias collides with vulnerability, mental health crises, isolation, paranoia, rage, or despair, the consequences can be severe.

We don’t just need safer AI. We need AI built under different incentives. Because if we keep building the future of AI inside capitalism, we shouldn’t be surprised when AI becomes one more highly refined machine for retention, dependence, and profit — wearing the face of a supportive friend, even if that support can be wholly destructive.

And clearly, that is not the type of “support” an already anxious moment in humanity needs.

---

Further reading (a few useful entry points)

• The Guardian — “ChatGPT accused of acting as ‘suicide coach’ in series of US lawsuits” (Nov 2025)
• CBS News — reporting on the Zane Shamblin lawsuit (Nov 2025)
• OpenAI — “Sycophancy in GPT-4o: what happened and what we’re doing about it” (Apr 2025)
• OpenAI — “Expanding on what we missed with sycophancy” (May 2025)
• The Verge — coverage of the GPT-4o rollback and “sycophancy” concerns (May 2025)
• Research: “Towards Understanding Sycophancy in Language Models” (2023)
• Research: “Measuring Sycophancy of Language Models in Multi-turn Dialogues” (2025)
• Harvard Gazette — Zuboff on “surveillance capitalism” (2019)
• WIRED — summary discussion of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019)

War, War, and More War!!

I mean, lets do it!! What are we waiting for?!  A little "limited" strike never really hurt anyone right?!  I mean its a win win for everyone involved.  We get to stick to it to Assad for "provocating with us", our military industrial complex gets to use those shiny weapons it makes billions of dollars off of, the Syrian rebels and all of their unknown and/or undesirable benefactors get a little help in creating government(s) in their own image(s), the 1,000+ dead from the chemical attack get "revenge" for being killed - "Justice" is done!  Those dirty peaceniks get to "feel good" about standing up to tyranny, crying foul for the lack of evidence for invasion.  But the US gets to save face for our little "red line" quip about Syria going too far.  France gets to be called our "oldest ally", the UK gets to say, "hey, we're not actually your lap dogs, we just play one on Iraqi TV."  Both leading to "high fives" in the US's corridors of power at how ingenious we are at manipulating our imbecilic allies and global pubic perceptions.  Not to mention..... FRENCH FRIES RETURN TO THE PENTAGOONS!!  The NSA, while obviously jealous of the fries, contents itself in knowing that attention has been deflected from sitting in our living rooms and getting off on our phone sex, and that Obama's Canadian Bacon styled maintenance of power will keep allowing it to tap that!

Meanwhile, back in the desert.  Egypt gets to keep killing its protesters and tightening its grasp.  Syria gets to retaliate against Israel - and I mean who in the middle east doesn't want an excuse to retaliate against Israel?! Hezbollah of course gets to fire some rockets... and the Palestinians too! (who of course can't see who their shooting at over that giant wall and 400 calorie a day haze).  Iran gets a good sporting show rooting for and training with Hezbollah, while Saudi Arabia gets to keep making money behind the scenes, and Al-Qaeda gets even closer to another lawless enclave to operate from (western Syria anyone?)!!  Given all this "Muslim warmongering," Israel of course can then start blowing shit up throughout the entire region.... never a bad thing there!!

Chaos (oh excuse me, "instability,") reigns, the US and some smattering of the Coalition of the Willing, Part Deux gets to broaden the blank slate its been building in the middle east to bring a more "equitable balance" of power, and eventually set up Burger Kings, oil rigs, and "free" markets for the priceless loot of another ancient museum.  Corporate gain and jobs for all!!  Our alleys can of course share in the riches, both privately and publicly.  We can send them more money for their militaries to keep their own people in line, look the other way when they use cluster munitions on their own people, and get a little extra cash and sport for taking, feeding, and advancing the enhancement of interrogation techniques on those rabble-rousing prisoners soon to be formerly of Guantanamo bay.  The UN then of course gets a little more work out of all this, because they get to go in and do some inspecting.  There Maldivian or Bhutani soldiers of course get "a little something extra" in their blue helmets to use on the ladies.  Doctors get steadier work when cholera breaks out across boarders.  NGO's, not to be despaired, can then run in like superpeople with their willy activist agendas and hugs for all!  Rich people back in the West can feel good about themselves for donating their hard earned inheritances to saving those poor little starving babies with flies on them from dieing of diarrhea and an exploding toy.

Russia of course gets to call the US names.  Vlad gets to go bare chested on horseback again with a giant elephant bazooka talking about how he could single-handedly wrestle a US tank into submission with one handle while beating Obama and a gay guy in a game of spades with the other.  Of course during all this, Edward Snowdon sits by a cozy fireplace in Siberia reading Seven Habits of Highly Effective People with his new tennis playing model girlfriend - all the while feeling that much more secure that Russia won't give him up as a diplomatic pawn.  China, quietly and pensively sitting and watching this train wreck, gets to go on loaning money to the US, making billions of dollars on the interest payments, and gobbling up all the resources in the rest of Africa.

Back here in the US spirit is amazingly high! The poor, the black, the brown, and the hoorah type all get to go back to war!  The former alleviating their little unemployment issue by going into the army and getting their recently felony convictions for sneezing in a black neighbrhood pardoned and the right to vote back for becoming war heroes while defending our porous boarders from all evils foreign and Mexican!  The later of course, well, they get to kill a-rabs, towel heads, and Muslim jihadi heathens alike!  Hoorah!!  Government spending of course gets to be reallocated with more discretion towards its "rightful" allocations - away from programs for those dirty, lazy, no work wanting free loaders (high school seniors) and back where it belongs: putting those dirty, lazy, no work wanting free loaders into an aMerican ass kicking freedom fighting uniform! Hell yeah!!! But not only that, it stimulates the economy too!! The bumper sticker makers get to sell more "support the troops" and "my son Kicks Ass-ad" stickers! Flag and coffin makers prosper, the media gets to cover it all under a hale of advertising dollars, gas companies profits sore amidst rising prices and Canadian pipeline bliss! Shitty oil for all!! (obviously opposition drops to energy dependency amidst these blatant national security concerns.)  Hydro-Fracking companies obviously see opposition fall as well due to the precariousness of that pesky oil dependency issue. And of course in terms of sustainability this is the ultimate win-win for all involved!!  We get closer to resource independence, companies make billions of dollars (and create six new jobs for people in southeast Azerbaijan) and people in gas regions get free heat in their kitchens and bathrooms (save the cost of a match!).

I just think this is the greatest idea ever.  Let's do it.  Lets go kill more people.  I mean, why would they want to live?  Life sucks.  It was Buddha that said all life is suffering right?  So stop trying to fix it and just end it. We can all go to our chosen denoted parcel of heaven or the like right?  So I don't see any reason why we shouldn't just go ahead, send a couple innocent little strikes over there to the middle east.  Everyone wants it.  Men, women, children, they don't want to live. I mean, its gotta be really hot in those head scarves. Plus, what's a little peace in the middle east without a little spilled milk?  (except in Palestine, where they don't have any milk).  So Fuck it, lets just go kick ass and take money!  Hoorah!!

Oh... wait.  Yeah, I was just thinking about this from a human-centric perspective.  There is of course that whole earth thing to think about as well.  But now that you mention it, all in all, it wins out as well.  There'd end up being LESS PEOPLE, less population to consume it.  I mean, from cancer in Pennsylvania, to those pesky children in Palestine, to the dirty jihadi's in well... geez... everywhere it seems we get to wipe millions of people of the face of the earth.  I mean, yes, some would say it would come at the cost of a little climate change or "pollution" given the massive industrial ramp up to create war, fly around the world marketing it, and then rebuild everything afterwards.  But you know, when you really break that whole climate change thing down, that stuff isn't even really a proven science anyway!  So not so much of a worry after all!  Woo Hoo!!  Let's do it!  Hoorah!!

[beating of drums, beating of drums]

Marriage Equality, The Same as any Equality?

I find this debate over same sex marriage incredible.  That is, that at this point in America's existence - and after all the social struggles we've been through - that we are even having this debate.  Just step back for one second from emotions and the flood of positioned journalism, and you will quickly see the problems with the existence of even having this debate.

If, as a logical foundation, you take each individual person and view them as their own personal and legal entity - which I believe is safe to say we as a country do - then each individual is one person, one human being, one legal entity.  Each one with rights, civil liberties, goals, dreams, aspirations, etc.  With this concept of a person in mind, we should theoretically all be treated in a way that allows us as individuals to interact, communicate, and enter into contracts and such with each other equally, and where one or another person should not be disallowed entrance into any type of interpersonal or legal engagement for whatever reason.

Yes, our laws create limitations to equality of entry on some issues.  But these issues are mostly based on economic grounds both stemming from a capitalist based social system and the creation, usage, and control of money (which is an inherent exclusionary barrier for those without it).  This barrier is however exclusionary in many ways both for haves and have-nots - especially if you look at money in a "value neutral" way.  Everyone can't apply for social services, everyone isn't taxed the same, everyone doesn't use state services like roads and police the same, just as those with money can buy, go places, and do things those without can not.  But capitalism and economics is a different story.  The point of this debate on marriage inequality is along the lines of race, sex, and creed - things the constitution and laws of the United States says we can not discriminate against.

I can not tell you that you can not do something simply because you are a woman, or black, or Asian, or whatever (though unfortunately people still try).  This issue with the marriage equality debate, and what makes it so absurd, is that to be against this type of equality is to try to say that you as a woman can not pick who you want to marry (or get benefits within a marriage) based solely on the sex of that person you marry.  Those against the allowance of marriage equality says that if I as a man marry a woman, not only am I allowed to do this, but I am entitled to certain things, certain legal benefits.  However, they then say that if I marry a man, then I am not entitled to these same benefits.

That inherently states through its inherent and unavoidable action and outcome that men and woman are NOT equal, or at least not legally of equal standing in United States based SOLELY on their gender and relationship to other genders.  The fundamental problem though is that if this were correct, does it not directly juxtapose a United States constitution that states that "all men [and presumably women] are created equal"?  By telling me that I can or can not marry another person based on no other reason than their gender, you are telling me that the sexes are not equal.  But while many people, including myself, may feel that a gross injustice of inequality exists between men and women in this country, especially in terms of outcomes, historical standing, current day power relationships, is it a fundamental and core value of the the United States that men and woman are NOT equal in one-to-one human terms?  Are not capable of entering freely into social and legal engagements with one an other?  Almost everything/one (including morals, ethics, and everything in between) tells us that this unequal stance is not only the wrong way for our country to proceed, but all together wrong on a basic human level of existence.

Marriage Equality is not a gay or straight issue, a sexual preference or what someone's kids call them issue, and it is most definitely not a "states rights" issue, it is a gender equity issue.  That every human being - no matter their gender - is of equal personal and legal standing to the next person and is legally allowed to interact with everyone in the exact same manner.  Of course, this gets tricky though in some senses.  Because I have NO idea what we're going to do moving forward.  God help us once corporations start trying to get married!!

The Back Door

I want to take a moment to examine the idea and conceptualization of the service entrance, the servant, and the segregating of social classes/places/people, etc.  In my recent work as a "delivery boy" for an upscale supermarket, I deliver food throughout Manhattan's midtown and upper east/west sides.  I spend my time going in and out of the buildings "service entrance", and entering apartments many times - especially in the older buildings - literally through the back door.  I have also been reading the People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, and the two of them have gotten me thinking about the history of segregating out "servants", and the way that America has both reinvigorated and fostered over hundreds of years a class based society where the rich or "better off" do not have to see or come in contact with those they either see or place as their "inferiors".

Yes, I use this word "inferior" because as per my observations, this is the design of the concept of service entrances.  There are generally as I see it three uses of the service entrance/elevators.  One is construction, the hauling of materials, dirty men, and tools up to a construction site.  Two is moving/shipping and receiving in which people need a larger elevator or don't want giant sofa sets or bed frames to scratch up the main elevators.  Third is the day to day use for deliveries.  Pizza, groceries, whatever. 

All of these buildings that I am delivering to above five floors have both main elevators and service elevators, and NYC and the area I'm delivering in specifically has hundreds of these buildings.  They most all have doormen and elaborate teams of workmen (yes, almost always men) that run these buildings.  Sometimes this means over one hundred workers for one building.  There is a front entrance where the residents and their guests enter, where the doormen cater and fawn over any request (lest they not receive their Christmas tip money).  There is then a person at the service entrance checking people in and sending them on their way - with much less fan fair or niceties I assure you.  Some buildings let you come in the main entrance now and again, after hours, etc, and show much more openness with it.  Others are down right contemptuous about it.  Not to mention some tenants.  I was told two days ago by a doorman that he doesn't like one tenant because the tenant said to him "what are you doing in this elevator? You can't be in here."  The guy works there, sorts his mail, delivers the food he eats.

This attitude is certainly prevalent in many of these buildings.   And when I say these buildings, some of these buildings - especially those overlooking Central Park are incredible.  I was told by one elevator operator (yes, one person who's job it is to sit in the elevator all day and make sure the servants get where they are supposed to get to without getting into mischief , that not one person in the building had a net worth of less than one hundred million dollars - 15 Central Park West.  Amazing.  

Anyway, the real point that I would love to examine here is the construction of and the concept of a servant, and thus the segregation of servants from their "masters".  Why is it that the wealthy do not see it fit to co-mingle with their "inferior" servants?  It takes me back to the people's history, of the slaves, indentured servants, woman, and "Indians", upon who's backs this country was founded and developed upon.  For time immemorial these groups - all historically inclusive within the lower classes - have been entering through the back door.

What does this do to a society and to people?  Now I understand that there was certainly a history of cleanliness and such going back centuries, but in current day sanitary conditions we are all human beings carrying no more disease than the next person.  Yet still there is a purposefully constructed barrier between the classes in their residences.  Why is it that the servants are not treated as equals?  Why are they not allowed to use the same entrances and same elevators and same doors as everyone else?  Would the lobby become over crowded?  Would the people in these buildings be forced to address and see the lives servants lead, the people doing their work for them?  

To many people in these buildings, their goods and groceries seem to just appear.  They go shop, and then get home later and there are their groceries in the kitchen.  They don't care to know about the low income delivery person that carried all eight bags of their stuff through the alley and down the steps in the basement at the back of the building, tried to open the double security doors while hold the groceries, using their head when necessary, then struggled throughout the maze of the basement to find which elevator is that person's - while being monitored the whole time.  Up the elevator, with a guy to watch even as you knock on the back door service entrance to an apartment that covers an entire floor of a building over looking Central park.  The maid, or nanny, or housekeeper, accepts the groceries (and servants never really give a tip).  Then the meager delivery servant is sent upon his or her way.  shoo shoo...  Poof!!!  Your groceries are in your kitchen!!  Rich people (most anyone that lives in this area of Manhattan it seems to me really, and by global measure as well), don't want to know or see these people.  

Yes, there are average people, with single apartments that accept their own groceries and do give you a couple dollars, but the process in the building is the same.  You are subservient, beneath the residents.  You will enter through the back, be monitored, leave the things and go.  My real question and interest with this though is what has this created in terms of the separations of people and classes in a society, and in the creation of class based frames of reference and the construction of a view of the self.  For rich people to never see their servants means that they will never understand or see their lives.  That these people are regular, normal and intelligent people simply struggling to make their way in a world that has not been as kind to them as their masters.  That these are a group of people that have been institutionally suppressed and been made to either feel or see themselves as inferior.

With every building built, and every policy put in place that requires this continued segregation of the classes and people, our society perpetuates the concept of an underclass and an upperclass; that some people are beneath others.  Rather than creating a society based on equality and human dignity, we structurally induce hierarchical social arrangements and ignorance of other people and their lifestyles.  Not sure what kind of a melting pot that is.