"Hey buddy, my daddy died for that flag."
"Really? I bought mine. Yeah, they sell 'em at K-Mart."
"He died in Korea!"
"Wow, what a coincidence. Mine was made in Korea."
-Bill Hicks
It's always good to start with a quote. Why? It's a little easier to get people to agree with you when someone else's opinion leads the way. Do I need your opinion to agree with mine? No. Wow, I guess I really blew my opening. Since posting this video I have had people tell me they hope my cat, Zion, gets hit by a car, hope also that I get hit by a car or hope that I burn in a fire. Well, I'm glad because "hope" is a perfect thing to feel when you know you have no control over a situation. You just sit in your little ignorant houses and hope the war works out, hope that you don't find yourself a victim in a drug war, hope terrorism doesn't come to your neighborhood, hope your vote counts, or maybe hope that discrimination won't turn out too poorly in your favor. Sometimes you need to get a rise out of people to get them to think.
My "American Flag" video was taken down from break.com, it got flagged. I did not intend to have to write an artist's statement for this piece, but considering the circumstances, I am now. On break.com my video got around 3oo views with 14 comments. The comments were great and I appreciate everyone who posted them. Those comments are gone now, so please post here your opinions good or bad and we'll see how long they stay.
What I love about this video is the three distinctive symbols that get my point across. It's simple:
1. American Flag: symbol of the United States government
2. Zion: my cat, symbol of me, United States citizen
3. Catnip: symbol of drugs in the United States
In controlling the situation I was able to establish my feelings on the issue of the cannabis plant being illegal to be grown, possessed or inhaled by anyone, excluding medicinal (in some cases), within the United States. My feelings:
1. Anger
2. Laughter
I love this country, I love all countries. We are in this together not as a nation, but as a world called, Earth. People have also expressed that I'm lucky I live in a country where I can desecrate the flag in an act of protest. I am not lucky. It has nothing to do with luck. Are the times that sad where it's considered "lucky" to be free to express my opinion? Obviously, we do. Let's not hope any longer. Let's act. It's as simple as pulling together symbols from the collective consciousness and getting people to talk about the issues. If we and by we I mean; the poor, discriminated, minorities, sheep are able to sway headlines based on our short attention spans let's sway them on issues that provoke change and not on what is wanted from us, which is ignorance. One change I would like to see is innocent people being freed from jail on charges related to the cannibis plant. It's a law put there to put minorities in jail. It's a law put there to keep a large part of America from rising up and getting a piece of the pie we all deserve. I want us all to be equal, which is what our constitution is all about. Sometimes it takes great love to criticize. Saddest of all is the argument that it's wrong to use American flag in an act of protest because that suggests that the object is infallible, that the American government is infallible. Nothing created by humanity is infallible.
http://norml.org/
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/index.html
http://www.billhicks.com/
http://www.esquilax.com/flag/
http://www.freedomforum.org
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4 comments:
The video rocks. The sad thing is, people who misunderstand your video see it as an attack on patriotism and the history of the united states of America. I see this video as a product of patriotism and our history.
People place an overwhelming significance on arbitrary symbols, like our flag. It was not our flag that granted women the right to vote, nor did our flag end state sanctioned racial segregation. Nor did our flag defeat fascism or communism. It was the people.
We Americans have much to be proud of, and even more to learn. Let's not stifle artists who may shock an d unnerve us. Or at least I won't. 3:00 o'clock book, please keep it coming.
honestly i found myself skipping through it. i kept thinking the flag would get fucked up, and then it never did. its kind of fucked up bc its on the ground but thats incidental. i totally missed all the symbolism. if we have so much freedom how come they can show people burning flags on tv but u cant show ur cat rolling on a flag on a gd blog on the tubes. wtf is that. i guess in iran they have more freedom than us
in conclusion, i'm with you in spirit, but as far as the video itself i don't feel like its your best work. you're much funnier than that.
Except for Jack :)
It also should be noted that Zion is a tranny!
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