Wednesday, January 25, 2012

observatory in progress

firstly, as a number of presidential student union campaigns roll around i am once again confronted with blatant attempts to get the apathetic to mobilize, in hopes that marginal voter will have marginal interest in your cause or party.

additionally - i have been observing some weird consecutive 'attacks' of Project Interest Research Groups (PIRGs) in Quebec and Ontario. there seems to be an attempt to de-legitimize this organization and eliminate their ability to collect student fees. issues regarding technicalities of paying fees for these groups seem to inspire fervent debate and strong disdain for PIRGs. from my experience these groups are largely innocuous to university affairs and rather focus on their community of students that they serve.

this microcosm of political activity seems to signify the growing fear and uninformed nature of political attacks that pervades society. i would like to explicitly state that i am anti-ignorance. i wager it is highly unlikely any students that vehemently oppose PIRGs have ever attended a PIRG event, workshop or office. they (anti-PRGers) have simply masterminded that this group is explicitly supporting a personally offensive political agenda and therefore should not be able to support itself by collecting student fees directly (the irony of club funding). all the while i have YET to hear a student uprising of the political agendas of universities in Canada. especially the agendas of the student unions, administration or other clubs that partially or fully base their income on the collection of student fees. how can these organizations be arbitrarily delineated based on some 'scary' political agenda'?

moreover, i wonder where our society thinks it is going when freedom of thought and fostering that freedom is perpetually getting harder and harder. yes, you could call what i am saying 'left of center support' but let us get super real. that political left and right spectrum actually means nothing. i swear some dinkus made it up to make it more palatable 'to the average man' inadvertently creating chasms of political faith between groups of people that need to be working TOGETHER and not AGAINST each other. PIRGs as anti-oppression organizations allow spaces for all kinds of misunderstood or under represented ideas and projects to flourish or die. what is so bad about that?

yes, i am exaggerating a situation in a microcosm of the world. but (and there is a big but) these microcosm are supposed to be the place where you can make up ideas, pursue passions and extend limits of thought and belief. universities are the places where 'thinkers' go to think a lot and tell us what to think and talk to other thinkers. why is it, that supposedly 'absurd' opinions are to be shafted, and have the air taken out of them just because you don't like it?

i increasingly feel like if you don't want to be heteronormative, anglo-saxxon and rich you should just get out of town. politics is worrying me, changing and becoming more difficult for me to navigate through articles when i see so much effed up shit going on around me. i dunno if i am going to jump into the arms of change anytime soon but a life in non-partisan politics right now also seems like a very real viable option and pill i have to swallow.

i truly hate political parties, and i have trouble deciding what to advocate for because, the system is all fucked up. all i figure i can do is focus on my own actions, be honest with myself and tell people what i think as often and as clearly as possible. maybe be subversive too? who knows.

this is turning into a ramble and accident self-reflection.
my point is - our politics and mindsets are changing. these things are practiced in our everyday lives even though we don't always acknowledge them. whether its limiting funding to a group and silencing its voice or choosing a different kind of detergent . our lives are living breathing political dilemmas that we are brave enough to take everyday.

i guess for the next little while in my life i am going to go searching in places and through people what this problem is , and the answer to it. maybe i will write a convoluted text one day that will get people thinking, talking and acting. who knows?

until then, i am going to hang out and watch glee...judge me now.

Monday, January 23, 2012

patinage


skating in little catarqui conservation area. beautiful and a great way to spend the day with a good friend/laugh partner.