American Flag

"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