What’s Not For Sale?

A Soilder’s Tears – Iraq 2006 – Photo via ISM

In the land of the brand, what do we designate priceless?

There is no question the rise of the brand has marketed each aspect of life, each nugget of marketability extracted with precision by ad execs and PR flacks. From birth© to death™, every possible product, not always tangible, dictates a prescribed need or commanded want. We’ve gone from inspiration to aspiration.

What is off limits, what can gold never reach, what is it that will never glitter beside diamonds and pearls on a market table? What value exists beyond commerce?

I grew up in Canada, and there is something beyond golden bestowed to me from my education and upbringing there. I was given core values, a work ethic and a drive to succeed only as long as it benefited the greater good. The community needed you, the system supported you and corporations couldn’t reach so easily into the family abode.

My Brooklynite mother said it often – in the US, it’s not about doing the right thing, it’s about doing what you can get away with. A country created by Calvinists, forged west by frontier justice and expanded worldwide by Banana Republics – it seems the right thing was left with the fore fathers on a sweltering table in Philadelphia long ago.

Photo by M. Ulto – Israel, 2005

Most Americans don’t get the irony of naming a clothing store “Banana Republic”, with stock generated from underpaid wage slaves in Malaysia and Mexico, celebrating an uber colonialist mentality. We have branded and embraced the style of imperialism, drape it over us and forgot the economics we’ve forced on nations rich with the new raw resource – cheap, unregulated labor.

With my entire soul, I send strength to my sisters around the world, slaving for some dipshit Madison Avenue vision of the “perfect woman”. How can we as American women, the most powerful, liberated, educated, wealthiest block of our gender on the planet, jockey for a footing in a patriarchal world that subjects so many other women to slave labor, poor wages, union busting, environmental hazards that kill their children, bombs dropped for expediency and the ever-present boot of the US military on their straining necks? When do we stand up and say, NO, this must change, no matter the cost? Are there women brave enough to say and do this? With examples like Hilary Clinton, who talks and walks in very confusing and insincere circles, whom do we turn to for leadership?

Photo by M. Ulto – Israel side of Occupation Wall – 2005

But wouldn’t this bravery eventually end up as a brand or slogan to sell Splenda or Tampax? Is flattery our first flaw – to be validated by a brand co-opting your slogan? When do we start rejecting these labels placed on us, dividing us as women, keeping us insincere and ever-watchful for competition? So much data has proven men just aren’t worth that much fuss, but we persist.

The goal for women now must not be the same as it has been for hundreds of years – the primary function of reproduction is not our sole focus. The planet is over populated, polluted and prostituted for every last drop of sellable resource. We, Americans in particular, are much like locusts, descending, decimating and destroying the planet a piece at a time. Globalism is a farce – simply a way for corporations and banks to centralized control and data – it will not benefit those on the low rung of global economics. Our planet is a woman and we must help her through this current labor into the change that is, must and will happen. We are the midwives and douenas, Amazons and goddesses, and our mission is sustainability for all.

Photo by Oren Ziv – Palestinian Protest

The First Nations teach that you should never take more than you need, and give back to the source of your benefit. Instead, we have a 24-hour world, with resources needlessly burned. Why do we need streetlights on ALL night? Why do electronic billboards need to run everyday, ALL day? What kind of luxury do we buy into where the value of a stone, a dead animal’s pelt, a cotton or silk shirt, is worth more than the humane treatment of those slaving to make the products we, especially the rich, enjoy so much? What are we aspiring to – to replace the power elite and reap/rape the same rewards, inflict the same pain, but with a different name? Why do we continue to buy into the game and say “that’s just how business is done”?

Hate the game, not the player? Bullshit. Hate nothing, recognize what needs to be changed, be your own prophet, lead your own revolution in your soul and watch that radiate out like ripples on water. Change starts with realizing this “game” – wealth, power, privilege, entitlement – it’s all toxic and benefits no one. It’s a zero sum situation and the powerful always have blood on their hands.

Photo by M. Ulto – Ball of Confusion

Be the change you want to be in the world. I was struck by intellectual lightning when visiting the other side of the world and I cannot go back, as easy as that Western soma state is to linger in. My mind demands more, my soul requires more, my heart, bled and now dry, beats like a thin skinned drum for a better end. BE – meaning shop, work, live, relate, fight for and live for – the change you want in the world. I’m a radical, revolutionary, malcontent and rabblerouser for a damn good reason – I have nothing to lose and only the world to gain. Open your minds, your souls and realize your wallets are the power and the chain we bear together.

What’s not for sale and what would you pawn for real change?

Peace,
Melissa

Enjoy Immortal Technique’s The 4th Branch, from “Free the P”, who speaks on the need for change, truth and revolution:

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