Final Paper - AWOL, its a love hate relationship

How I used to make sense of the American Life

This was way back in September, when the media and the government were actually good at keeping the greater majority unaware of what America was really like. I had believed "the best part of believe is the lie" (Fall Out Boy), that America was awesome we weren't poor, doctor visits were free and painless, the farms I had visited smelled of fresh grass and the cows practically smiled, I knew nothing about the constitution accept that it gave me the freedom to speak freely, the babies came quickly, Taco Bell was good especially since now they list calories and that for the most part all the people I knew seemed to be equal to one another... then I met Andy... dun dun dun

How I make sense of the American Way of Life now

I'll start with the constitution, like I said all I knew about the constitution was the undeniable fact that I had the right to speak my mind (which is why I never had a problem questioning authority). But when I had begun studying it I was not interested at all. But then I realized that the Constitution told a story, a story of slavery, inequality and power. I'd learned in all of 3 weeks that the foundation of this country was in the hand of rich, old, white, racist, men. Without the Amendments this country would be in for some pretty serious crap. Which says alot, that originally the constitution only benefited white men... and that's something that I did not know. Without the Amendments there would still be slaves, women wouldn't be able to vote, everyone would have to believe in the same God, plain ol' citizens wouldn't be able to keep their nine millimeters... I would go on but I'm sure anyone reading this gets the point.

Moving on, I never really looked in to the whole birth scene. I knew that after unprotected sex, intrauterine methods and sperm banks, led to pregnancy. Which in my opinion was decent knowledge considering... What I didn't know was the exact process of having a baby is completely and totally different from what society and TV has taught us to believe. In all of 4 weeks, I had learned that over 98% of women had their baby by C-section. At first it didn't seem like a bad thing, but most women have C-sections when there is no need to. The process of having a C-section involves 'drugging' your baby. Doctor's won't tell their patients this, just that after the woman is all high off of medicine the doctor says that its necessary to have a C-section to relieve the stress off the baby. Home-birth with a certified mid-wife is much healthier and much cheaper. But hospitals don't want the competition,so very little women are unaware that there are other options to having your baby ripped out of them.

While on the topic of hospitals, let talk about the health care system. Let me just say for the record that the health care system seemed nice at first. To me all I did was go in for a checkup and come out knowing either something was wrong or that I was healthy. But like everything else in America nothing is ever plain and simple. In all of 3-4 weeks I had learned that America has the worst health care system. Here there are more people not covered probably bleeding in a ditch than the people in cool shiny most likely to be infected hospitals. In other countries things like college and health care are free. This fact suggests that other countries actually care about the people living there and not the amount of money that they are worth. America might be ‘the greatest nation’ but it lacks sincerity for its people.

Food, something every American is familiar with. Never cared much about the topic other than I ate it when I got hungry. Food was always marketed as something neat and nice that was done with a wonderful family of four. But now you can’t walk more than 3 blocks without running in to a Burger King of Wendy’s. This, being the fast food corporations, is merely designed to pull the money out of consumers. Nobody really thinks about where their food comes from just that they get it. Well like everything else I had learned that that wasn’t the case. The lovely chickens and cows that people eat are actually suffering and then being slaughtered. The animals that we humans’s depend on are getting treated like shit, but no one cares. I learned all this with-in 2 weeks…impressive huh?

Oil, well I’m not too keen on this topic but apparently we need it bad…or else. Oil, from what I’ve been learning makes up just about 100% of the things that we need/use daily. But I’m sure that if some of these things were cut that we might just have a fighting chance.

Enjoy It?

Sometimes I enjoy the AWOL and sometimes I don’t, the American Way of Life is like Andy’s teaching you might not like it but there isn’t much you can do about it. I like that we aren’t starving…yet. I like that for now we have this illusion of freedom and I like the technology. There’s a longer list of things that I don’t like but I really don’t want to write that. Some of the dumb things here include the media. I cannot stress this enough, NOBODY CARES ABOUT HOW MANY KIDS BRAD AND ANGELINA HAVE! Honestly, why waste hundreds of thousands of paper on stupid crap like that. Right now it looks like we are headed for a slow collapse, but look at the bright side, we’ll all have new ipods.

Final Thoughts

I can't think about something or look at a TV ad in the same way anymore It's almost like I have to pick it apart and analyze and or criticize it. In some ways that will come in handy but in other ways it might make your social life a bit harder, for example if a friend asks your opinion on a new sweater, in September I probably would have said something like " It looks nice" or "that's a good color for you" now I'll end up saying something like "I hope you know that you're wasting the little bit of oil that we have left on this planet?" or "you're being sucked in to this whole marketing scheme to get your money" I guess that's the difference of being educated and oblivious.

Extra Credit

Comment for Jenise:
I like the way you start off your intro saying that the AWOL is alternative, and by the end after you get a taste of the real AWOL you change you mind. I think that it shows how your understandings of topics changed. I also liked how you said that you wanted to like AWOL, it made me wonder how many people believe that just because they live in a certian place they have to like it...

Comment for Kevin:
I like how you were able to connect to each topic of the course. It shows how geared you were into the American Way of Life. I also like how you imply your favorite was the food topic. I wonder, are you going to change the way your AWOL is or not?

Collapse Assignment 2 - Short and Smart

The 'possible' collapse, I really don't think that word can eve be placed in anywhere in that statement. Andy, didn't really leave room for possibility. But when you think about it, it doesn't seem like America can avoid this collapse. Like in the Easter Island reading the civilization basically fell because they were terminating the things that they didn't know they needed for "dumb shit"(Snyder, 6/8/09). This is where it relates to America, here they cut down trees, clear cut forests, make hundreds more landfills, use up oil like nothing all for stupid crap. America has been in this cycle for centuries and I don't think people will stop now. There is an amazing quote I'd like to share from the movie Across the Universe, [two characters were talking about the war protests that were going on] "maybe when bombs start going off here, then people will listen". I think that this applies here, in America people wont care until this bad shit starts happening to them...i.e a collapse.

What is scary about this is the people of this society don't really have a choice on what rain forests get clear cut or how much oil gets used or how many fast food restaurants get erected on a yearly basis. But its going to be the poor and middle class that get affected from this recession and this upcoming collapse, the rich will get on their jets and cause problems for other countries. The fact that the people don't contribute much to this collapse sucks but will have to stick around for when the real problems start. That sucks

It seems that America wont be able to bounce back from a collapse. America depends so much on money and the extortion of the poor that if something happened to their primary form of income they wouldn't know what to do. 'Let's go green!' yeah , well look how bad that's going. Big corporations hold a few rallies and paste up a few posters and call themselves 'going green' so that when the amount of pollution gets worse they can blame it on the people. When in reality it's places like, McDonald's, Shell Gas Co and MTA that are contributing to the rapid decline of oil. If these big business were taken away even for a second America might just have a fighting chance against the all mighty COLLAPSE

Collapse Assignment 1

I think that the most important part of the reading was where Jared Diamond was baffled by how the civilization had managed to do certain things when it seemed that they lacked the necessary technology and resources. I thought that it was interesting because it shows that there are things that can be done without the constant upgrade of useless technology. I also thought that the way that Jared Diamond described the island was quite interesting. It [the description] was designed to show the reader that the setting basically screamed 'under privileged' and I think that showing that aspect of being deprived was essential to show the meaning of collapse.

Honestly the whole time I was reading this all I thought about was the United States. When Jared described the long journey to get to the island it mad em think of how people go on long journey's just to get to America, and the view that he saw when he had arrived gave me thought of how when you get to the 'land of the free' you might be one the one had happy that you made it and on the other hand thinking 'what the hell is this?!'. What was different was they were able to 'strive' without the excessive dependency on new gadgets and gizmo's. Whereas America is top notch everywhere and somehow stuck in a recession. Gives you something to think about...

I think that our culture needs to rethink alot, the people need to be involved more in our government. We should focus more on equality than money and war. But honestly there are a million suggestions that one could make but in the end it becomes a waste of time.

To Be Oblivious Is To Be Profitable -- Final Food Paper

It seems like when it comes to everything in America no one (or at least our class) seems aware of what is happening in our society. It makes me think that these ‘evil’ corporations are doing a good job at keeping us unaware of what’s really happening, all attention is devoted to keeping us [the consumers] interested in buying their products. I think that this is because we are always shown the + side of everything when we are young and from then on we don’t look into anything anymore because it doesn’t directly concern us. Take Vroom: Farming for Kids, yay big tractors that make loud sounds not to mention a great spokesman who makes farming seem like the best job that a kid could have. That sounds fun when you’re young and all but when you get older in a way you are in this state of mind that says that farming is fun and harmless so you don’t really devote more attention to the subject.

Just last weekend I watched a movie called Antz. It’s a animated children’s movie about how ants work and how one poor worker ant gets the rich girl while managing to cause a revolution within the nest. I just realized how many messages were being portrayed through this seemingly harmless and funny cartoon. I have not watched that movie or even thought about it in years. When I was a child, all I thought was how funny and cut the insects looked and I never thought about how it shows that the rich are the oppressors and it’s actually the workers who have the power if they only realize it. So in ‘fun’ farming movies we are under this spell that farming is fun and harmless, boy were we wrong.

What seems even weirder is that we [Americans] are in a way given constant reminders and notices as to what is happening. But somehow any chance that we have at gaining awareness all seems to go out of the window. Take the Meatrix the video in plain ol’ English tells us how bad things happen, I highly doubt that many people are actually aware of how they get their precious beef and chicken and pork. I wasn’t aware that the very animals that are killed get treated so horribly. Also there is also that aching response “so what?” to the constant reminders that our society for lack of a better term, sucks. It’s almost like the American people want to be oblivious, which in turn leads to more money going to McDonalds and stupidity coming to this society.

Take birth for example, countless sources are on the internet about home births and how the doctors for many women may not be the best choice. But what happens? Women, actually almost 100% of our female society go in to the doctors with high hopes and happy faces and come out with a doped up baby and a sob story. It’s almost like it’s being oblivious has become attached to our society and the only ones benefiting from this are the rich.

Food is a big deal in this society. Mostly advertising pulls everyone in depending on the demographic. What’s amazing is that even when those rare times arise when people are aware they don’t fully grasp what’s happening. I have taken the whole food thing into consideration. I showed the Meatrix, video to my mom and she actually started looking in to more healthy places to purchase our food which in turn makes me more aware of where I get my food from. Ever since we have started this food unit my mother has taken a great interest about what is really happening with the food that we buy. Just like when I went to the food conference I brought her back a little booklet that suggested healthier things to look for when you go food shopping.

I think that actually taking the time to sit back and think about something affects you take a certain level of patience. To be able to think about or even care about the life of the poor chicken that you are about to digest. Its because we weren’t taught to revolt but to accept what is given and we are forever stuck in a cycle of nonchalant oblivious people. Maybe if that were to change this lovely society might get somewhere.

Food Paper 1'st Draft

I chose to come at this from a money angle (as I do everything else). Marketing through food seems to be a very generous career if you're the CEO of Burger King or McDonalds, and if you're not the food marketing business has also been quite lucrative for non-fast food like Purdue or Boars Head. Money is to be made all around if you happen to be involved in food at all. That's well known, we get our food is not so well known. Most American's are concerned that Burger King still has char-broiled whoppers and not about the poor pathetic life of the cow that lived in its own crap for months at a time and never even go the chance to have a normal sex life as explained in Our Daily Bread and the Meatrix.

When we were kids we were taught that farming and big tractors were fun and that the little cows and the little chickens and the little pigs were all walking around with big smiles on their faces. From then on we [American's] have little to no concern of where or food comes from, just that we get it. In Vroom: Farming For kids, an enthusiastic view of farming is portrayed greatly to the kids who view it. What they so elegantly leave out is the fact that the animals that they have there are in the worst living conditions possible. Cows,chickens,pigs all cooped up with little to no room to move.

You Say Tomato I say To-mato, You Say Potato I Say Pah-tato

Well, Well, Well apparently we all have come a long way from those blogs where we don't get to the point or we just don't do it. While I was sort of sitting in on another class Andy addressed that the grades have gone up alot from the beginning of the year. He seemed sincerely perplexed...Well let me just say, that the point of school is to learn, and if given time, the right teacher and the right materials believe it or not Andy this thing called learning will happen. Eventually, the things that have been drilled in to our heads will stick, I've been told that brainwash...er I mean 'clever manipulation' works best. It seems that now it's almost impossible to see anything the same as we did 8 months ago, (not that that's completely bad). A commercial isn't just a commercial anymore, its a message to get people to spend money in the worst ways, birth isn't just birth anymore its a "billion dollar business", health care isn't the warm and loving doctors waiting to help us, its a scheme to make us all poor.I believe there's a thin line between deeply criticizing something and paranoia.

Food #8 Industrial Food

Addressing the following sources: Industrial Food Isn't Cheap & Animal Cruelty

For the first one, I agree. Although I do see some area's for argument. The major food franchises such as McDonalds, Burger King, Quiznos, Subways, 711, KFC, Popeye's and so on; have some prices that are a bit outrageous. They [major food franchises] have invented some clever ways to keep people interested: 1. Introduce more food for cheaper prices, 2. Include more food in the meal, 3. Adapt a similar food from another food franchise for cheaper, 4. Have monthly sales where things such as 'chicken' nuggets are sold for .99c These corporate schemes pull people in to the point where they wake up one morning and notice that they've gained 400lbs overnight.

Which connects to what the source addresses in the first line of the article "If you added the real cost of industrial food -- its health, environmental, and social costs..." that this fast food thing that America has going here is costing more than this weeks paycheck. Food is a big deal here and advertising it is even bigger. It pulls us all in at some point, you see some coupons for Starbucks in the Sunday paper, chances are that you are going to use them. To an extent everyone is pulled in to the fast food world. And it's not good for your wallet or your body. But getting people to stop would be almost completely out of the question, prices will raise and lower and recessions will come and go but ultimately at the end of the they the typical American must have fast food, soon to become faster food.

For the second source, animal cruelty is something that I think most people are familiar with, when it comes to using baby alligator skins for new purses or African chinchilla's for new mink coats but people tend to act oblivious to animal cruelty when it comes to actually eating it. When you see the poor defenceless cow being tied down and then slaughtered for next week's Big Mac, people get jumpy and disgusted, its almost like they [humans] know that eating all these animals in mass amounts is bad, and for the most part isn't exactly nice but if they [humans] actually have to see it it's completely out of the question. I feel that if these animals have to be eaten they should at least be treated with respect before they meet their certain doom.