Play Spaces

It's true, the play space is where kids plot out their method for world domination. These methods won't be taking effect immediately, but at some point, the children alive today, who you see out playing, will take over the world, and the kind of space they have to practice out their methods now makes all the difference over whether they chose to simply replace us, or take us out by force and demand something better. The powerful and the downpresser would prefer a gentle replacement that benefits them unto and beyond the end, but the powerless want their children to be a force onto themselves, bold enough to fix what does not work, stand up for what is good and just, and throw those benefiting from the broken system into the ground as fast as possible. At least, that is how the adults have decided to use children.

The economic engines of our society have attempted to create a generation contented on its own gluttony and self-absorbsion, and it's not so much a conspiracy as it is just good business practice. If you want future customers or constituents, you only tell the incoming generation to challenge authority if you intend on being the authority, otherwise, you close and limit their play spaces, and distract them with your gadgets so they never have to leave a parent's sight. But then when that technology expands their new insular play worlds to the largely unregulated spheres of play found online, a problem develops, for they become "beyond control" once again, and therefore a threat to power. The powerful then endeavor to turn even their newly formed online play spaces into havens of corruption. Simply put, adults don't want kids playing in or outside the box, not behind the shed, not in the house, not in their room, not stuck to their computer--they don't want them playing here or there, they don't want them playing anywhere!

A child caught walking the public streets could easily find themselves in the back of a police car. A group of kids playing in the woods could find themselves branded as hoodlums and once again thrown in the back of a police car. Gone are the days when the cop would tell them to "get on home." Now the message they're given, should they choose to accept it, is that either their home is the shopping plaza, their own backyard, or if not, it's the hold up at the police station. Simply put, adults don't want their children in this day in age to play in the uncouth, unstructured, unsupervised ways in which a child seems naturally drawn. Most parents, most townships, most police, don't want children learning too much about what it means to be a free individual because a free individual is encouraged by a free, wide open to roam place space to think free thoughts--thoughts that threaten those who stand to gain from a broken world. They want the next generation to be "good little goobers" now, and forever.

One play space is really no more or less superior than another for children to learn about the workings of the world and other people, whether it is online or out in the neighborhoods of the sticks and concrete jungles alike. They will naturally test out their strengths and weaknesses, socialize, and grow fond of each other in these social spheres, regardless of what any adult tries to do to stop them. They carve out their own decadence in a world that adults wish to fashion for themselves alone, and that's why it is discouraged. But the adults are fighting the losing battle, for it is just a fact of nature that the children, regardless of what is put into them now, will someday rule the world, it is only a question of time.

We didn't really have what the kids growing up in this day in age have, we of the generation Y. We were in the unfortunate position of having our physical play spaces limited by the PC "don't let the kids ever get hurt" parenting, and at the same time, didn't have the boundless internet where we could replace that missing play space. We had no acceptable place where we could be truly beyond the eyes of our overlords, and because of that lack of opportunity to direct our own purpose, we were grown spineless. Due to the internet, we can't expect the same from generation Z, who grew up in a world divorced from many adult's understanding. The internet has become our mode of cultural rebellion, it is our play space--for now at least, so let the revolution commence.

We are Anonymous, legion.

Aphorisms for Hypocrisy

Those who fear the child predator ignore the child marketer. Those who fear the child predator ignore the army recruiter. Those who fear the child predator on the news, the sex offender living down the street, or their child's freedom online...ignore police arrests of 8 year olds, corrupt CPS child removals, and the ethnic, racial, and gender disenfranchisement in many public schools.

Those who feel an innate sense of disgust at one form of child destruction, do not bat an eyelash at the "socially acceptable" forms of it. It doesn't matter if the 8 year old arrest was simply a kid guilty of the crime of walking to school in a predator-panicked district, or if the never-liable CPS worker had no evidence of abuse or neglect in their decision to abduct children for funding, and it certainly doesn't cause anyone to lash out with such displays of righteous indignation (at least not to the "lynch mob" status given to solitary perverts) over what happens to the African American boy in an under-performing school. Where are the bands of concerned citizens gathering to defend him, and why are they rallying to kill the television pervert instead?

Those who believe they have done the children of the world a service by hating on the one teacher caught with child pornography, do not even shutter at the fact that the common airport terminal has been turned into the largest creator of child pornography in the world, and its operators into the biggest collection of child groomers. These same people certainly don't mind sending their children through the chambers to be pictured naked for a trained onlooker, patted down by strangers, or strip searched in public, in order to board a plane--after all, the parents already paid for the ticket.

What is sanctioned by culture is never illegal, no matter how wrong, but what is illegal is sanctioned rarely, no matter how just. Illusion becomes real, and reality becomes ignored. What is true is obliterated, no matter how right, and what is sensational is preserved, no matter how evil. The innocence of children must be preserved as long as it is profitable.

"All this righteous indignation about predators... This whole country is trying to get into your kid's pants, because that's where he keeps his wallet."
--Bill Maher

Power of Choice

As questionable as any abstract policy, agency, cultural concept, or limitation is, it can be rendered limp with just the choices, the words and actions, of human beings. Individuals--be them adults or children, social workers, teachers, parents, legal guardians, child care workers, independent agents--each and everyone, has the power to overcome the limitations of what society has established collectively. Human passion transcends bureaucratic disenfranchisement, because it existed before it and will continue to exist, it prevails where the system fails.

It is the difference between the life and passion of the warm heart and the paycheck for the cold heart. One has the power to help the world, the other to watch it crumble and run. It's the difference between the active and the passive soul working in a dehumanizing system, the stiff professional downpresser and the warm personal caregiver, the cog and the human--and all it takes to propagate is a loving, caring, and reasonable perspective. When that personal perspective is on the table, one can truly help kids. Without it, one can only do damage.

It may not make you hip or gain you friends, and certainly may put you at odds with the systems of control in the world, the cultural schemes, but you stand a chance of really improving a child's life on the most personal level if you allow a bit of yourself to shine through. Children respond to that, because evolution has produced in them that instinct long before we had things like the CPS around to siphon it away. It is natural for a child to respond well to an adult that actually cares for them, and also completely natural for them to resist those who are only in it for the check.

The choice is out there. We may have these cushy titles and social roles given to us, such as "teacher" or "parent" or "social worker," but it makes little difference if we fail to truly lend the personal touch that allows anyone fulfilling those positions or others like them to make a difference in the lives of the next generation. It's the only power individuals truly manifest. If one wants power, don't go for high titles and recognition, but instead, humble and give of oneself first. The shorter trees let light be shared among the saplings, the tallest ones just block it.

Incapable, Yet Culpable

Could it be that the greatest threat to America's children is not the threat of predation, but the threat of incrimination--for innocent sexual games played among themselves-- by a system that deems them incapable, and culpable? I've always considered it worse. For one, the "child abuse industry" (add "entertainment industry" where applicable) affects many more children (whole swaths of the population at a time) than any lone child molester does, and arguably, with the same ferocity and delusional, narrow-minded lack of insight about the effects.

The real difference is that child molesters are outlaw scumbags that society hates, they are easy to ridicule, easy to shame, and therefore, the only recipient whipping boy of society's pent up reservations about the treatment of children. On the other hand, protectionist groups and law enforcement are sponsored scumbags that society regards as heroes.

It would seem that whether the molester has the kid tied up on the floor or the officers have the kid tied up in a cell waiting for a judge to determine against the kid's life on earth over something as trivial as "seeing someone naked" at the age of 10, the child is going to suffer at somebody's hands. It turns out society has no problem with children suffering, only so long as the entity man-handling the minor with its grubby hands is state sponsored. Society has no problem ruining a child's life, so long as its tax dollars go into funding those responsible for doing the deed. After all, the right to life and dignity was never something it granted children to begin with, not so long as they were "minors."

So all this righteous indignation about corrupting children can not and should not be without mention of the juvenile justice system, the system society has entrusted to turn normal children into registered sex offenders.

The Fate of Downpressers

Downpresser man, where you gonna run to? All along that day. You gonna run to the sea but the sea will be boiling. When you run to the sea, the sea will be boiling. All along that day. You gonna run to the rocks but the rocks will be melting. When you run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting. All that day.

You drink your big champagne and laugh, all along that day. I wouldn't like to be a flea under your collar, man, all that day. --Tosh

All authority figures governing human civilization are, and have always been, and in many ways need to be, downpressers. It is just a function of pretending to be all-mighty on the earth that one looses their soul, they loose the capacity for compassion, the capacity for empathy, the capacity for tolerance. In their world, they are bogged down in the bureaucracy they willed upon themselves by choosing to be a civic worker, a public persona, and they loose the capacity to be anything but.

These are any authority figure, including government people, police and corporate management, including all those on the front lines of population control (police, the media, social workers, justice system workers, CPS workers... etc.), and anyone who tries to control the thoughts, deeds, how we choose to communicate or what we choose to communicate about. These and other similar forces in society can only be understood as a necessary evil.

Should we be empathic towards these individuals who have chosen to run our society for us? Who have chosen to be this necessary evil? One would think. After all, who among us would willingly trade in our compassion for a heartless beaurocratic regimen? Who would trade in their love for their own child so they can work in an institution responsible for treating human beings as cattle? Surely, we owe our public servants and masters a debt of gratitude for being capable of denying their humanity on a daily basis.

What we don't owe them anything for, is their attempt to deny our humanity in due process, nor the humanity of children. We don't have to sympathize with their plight because it is one they have brought upon themselves. They perform their function for society and are greatly needed to usher us toward their own idealized promised land, but that is the absolute extent of their use. They are performers, they are functional entities destined to grow old in the system, strong in the ways of commanding people and serving them in their neat and orderly lines, but weaklings by all other comparison. The rest of us, though dehumanized in their presence, are made of far greater stuff, because we are allowed to leave. We are allowed to experience the world. We are allowed to be human.

Those who are tasked with being responsible are responsible entities. They are called "units of care" when they are put in control of children. They are called "public servants" when they are put in control of keeping a community safe. The responsibility to serve us and the authority manifested in this position allows them to become our masters. This is the only function they can perform. One who is tied down to the earth can't be moved, nor can they move themselves. Those who can move will trample on them. Downpressers today will fall down tomorrow, and on that day, not a tear will be shed in gratitude for their works. In fact, even the children will laugh.

Only the oppressed will ever know vindication. Downpressers will only know the weight of their own justice.