Super Capitalist Brothers

Since the last article was such a downer I thought, for the sake of balance I should talk about something a little less heavy. That being said, the following may still shatter paradigms.

I was enjoying the New Super Mario Brothers on Wii when I came to a slow realization that one of the staples in my childhood may have been a veiled glorification of the "American experiment" (as the Russians would call it).

Super Mario Brothers is the story of two Italian American plumbers that travel through a fantasy land collecting coins and power ups in order to defeat the evil Bowser and save the princess of the mushroom kingdom. Most would not consider looking to deeply into this, though some have. Check out this hilarious video that shows Mario as a communist. It's a popular meme, the idea that Super Mario is really communist propaganda.

Was Stalin a plumber too?

I disagree. It's a child's game and likely not intended as a sociopolitical message to be decoded. Still, I discovered a few interesting parallels that point to the other extreme, that Mario is a Capitalist fighting Communism.

1) Koppas: The main antagonist in the games is Bowser, also known as "King Koopa" head of the Koopa army. The Koopas in the game are turtles. Koopa is a Japanese term for a Korean dish (Kuppa). Super Mario came out in the mid-eightes at the height of the cold war. North Korea, a Socialist workers nation, was isolationist but also becoming militaristic. As with most Asian countries, North Koreans are largely Buddhist or Confucianist; there is no dominant major religion. Just like the Koppa army, North Korea has it's own would be king.

The resemblance is uncanny

2) Drugs: The dominant religion in the US has always been Christianity. If you are familiar with the work of John Allego and his deciphering of the Dead Sea Scrolls, you may have heard the theory that Christianity blossomed from what was once a mushroom worshiping cult. Everything from the holy grail, Santa Claus and the phoenix myth can be traced back to this magical red and white mushroom. You could say, based on it's origins, that America is the "Mushroom Kingdom".

Plumber/Farmer/Capitalist/Drug User

In the game Mario and his brother chase these mushrooms and when they catch them it makes them stronger and more resilient to attack. This is not the typical result of real magical mushroom intake (perhaps metaphorically). Another power-up is a glowing flower that enables the brothers to throw balls of fire. Again, no flower I know of can do this but there are many plants that also have psychedelic/medicinal properties like the Datura or Poppy.

What am I?

Opium is used to make morphine and codine, very common drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. It is also the main crop of Afghanistan which was a mainstage of conflict during the cold war. It is an old problem for another Communist Asian country China, which had many years of wars over the plant with the lovable British East India Company.

3) Coins: Mario is constantly chasing gold coins which can be found hidden in bricks (for which he must be on mushrooms to break open) or floating in areas that require a level of risk to get too. If enough coins are collected, Mario gets to play the game longer by being rewarded with "another life". If he tries to get those hard to reach coins he could end up falling to his temporary doom. Modern banking as well as modern Christianity was borne in Italy. Find out more on this in my other blog. Gold coins are a common item in these types of games. Like in life, it is a reward system that adds another level of gameplay if you have gone passed just trying to get to the end without dying.

Next time, more coins less "power-ups"

So what we have is a couple of working Joes, (the central audience to which the Capitalists and Communists were trying to sell their ideology to) who use drugs and money to rise up against the evil dictator and save the the helpless and hapless Princess Peach and her kingdom. If Mario was a Communist he would be just another turtle. It is a story of personal empowerment in tandem with the approach of 80's hero tales and the American Capitalist ideology that promotes individualism and success through spiritual and monetary means.

I know what you are thinking "someone's been eating too many magic mushrooms".

Look, anyone who comes up with a game idea like this was either tripping balls or trying to make a point artistically. I am simply doing the same.

K

The King is Dying

Dear Sheep,

If you were semi-conscious in 1977 you may remember when Elvis died.



In early news reports they stated the King of Rock "collapsed in his mansion", which is a very eloquent way to put it. In reality we know from leaked information that the King died on his toilet from cardiac arrhythmia caused by an overdose of a medley of prescription drugs; codeine, Valium, morphine, and Demorol.

Artist's rendering:


Thanks to his father Vernon Presley, the rest of the details won't be available until 2027, two years before Kurzweil's Singularity. By that time no one will care for it is well known that robots do not like Elvis.

I know what you're thinking; "What does this have to do with me?" I knew you were thinking that because that's the first thing any sheep thinks about when confronted with an idea.

Looking back we can see the King's decline in the years before his death. In 1986 a book was released about his final years in which Elvis' guitarist John Wilkinson recalled:

"He was all gut. He was slurring. He was so fucked up. ... It was obvious he was drugged. It was obvious there was something terribly wrong with his body. It was so bad the words to the songs were barely intelligible. ... I remember crying. He could barely get through the introductions"

His doctor George Nichopoulos (aka Dr. Nick) later admitted he wrote the King prescriptions for 10,000 doses of narcotics in 1977 alone...because he cared.



Recently another King died of a drug overdose and just like Elvis, his doctor was named his murderer by many fans. In "This Is It", when Michael Jackson speaks during rehearsals he seems "not all there". After watching the documentary, the title had a whole new meaning for me; less "anticipation" more "evidence".

It's easy to make these claims in hindsight. It's harder to make the call before it gets really bad, unless you are paying close attention to the signs.

For Elvis it was:

a) Fat
b) Addicted to substances
c) Unable to stand up

For MJ:

a) Batshit crazy
b) Heavily In Debt
c) A comeback that never came

For both there was a self-destructive level of overindulgence that ultimately took it's toll on the Kings.

And now my point.

The US has been for the last 100 years a beacon to the rest of the world. America was one of the central governing bodies behind the bulging of the middle class that shot the global population up 700% in the last century. It fostered in a new era of technology, medicine, and commerce that gave a simple man the opportunity to live like a king.

That time is ending.

The signs are all there. In the macro sense, the US government has grown considerably. The military consumes nearly a quarter of the Federal budget leaving little money for funding domestic social services. Despite a necessary call for renewable energies and the threat of peak everything, the nation is still hopelessly addicted to oil. Because of emerging global markets, outsourcing and the internet the US is not producing and consuming as it once was. Despite large cash injections the future still looks uncertain and at times bleak.

In the Micro, the average American person matches the country as a whole. Here is the first result of a google image search for "average American":



Just like the other kings, most Americans are on some sort of pharmaceutical or drug. Cancer, diabetes and obesity are the leading causes of death. Many citizens are devoid of critical thought, participating and existing in a superficial world completely disconnected from the real one. This includes persons like corporations which based on their actions are often deemed psychopathic.

An then there are our elected leaders, who prove to us on a daily basis just how fucked up (normal) they really are.



Yes, it's a cock. Sit down, I'm not finished.

Last year I wrote a blog entry called "The US is Bankrupt". I'll let you sheep figure out the point of that.

Recently S&P, a leading US financial research company downgraded the US from a stable to a negative rating. Their reason?

"…very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us."

And just yesterday a Chinese ratings house claimed the US has already defaulted on its massive debt.

You may remember the Chinese as the former principle holder of US debt.' The new top dog is...the US. Well, not exactly, we owe the Federal Reserve, which is a private organization, publicly governed (by it's friends).

"A year ago, at the end of June 2010, according to data released by the Fed and the U.S. Treasury Department, the Fed trailed China by a wide margin, owning $777 billion in U.S. Treasury securities compared to China’s $1.1121 trillion.
But in August 2010 the Fed started marginally increasing its holdings of U.S. debt, according the Fed’s monthly balance sheets. By the end of August, the Fed owned $784 billion in U.S. debt. By the end of September, it owned $812 billion. And by the end of October, it owned $838 billion."

To offset what is becoming a financial death spiral the Fed's solution is to inject more money into the system. Though this comes with a very real threat of inflation (which means a drop in individual purchasing power) it is the only solution short of a complete overhaul or an economic miracle. Though, historically, some miracles are not all they are cracked up to be.

"At first, the credit-expansion appears to be a stimulated process of economic growth. Interest rates fall, capital values rise and entrepreneurs profit by building up the capital structure. The capital construction cannot be completed, however, since genuine saving is insufficient. The boom rests on a lie, viz., artificially low interest rates, and once the lie is exposed, the boom must end and the bust must follow."
- Jeffrey M. Herbener

So there you have it. The signs are all around. This is it. We are fat, sick, broke and going crazy and no matter who we elect into office nothing is going to change. Just like anyone who is addicted, we have to quit the drugs, take better care of ourselves, and get away from the bad people who keep us addicted.

I'm not gonna end this article on a joke because this shit isn't funny anymore.

K

Jefferson Memorial Protest

Dear sheep,

Sometimes the Shepard feels insecure so he makes rules. If the sheep don't obey, he sends the dogs.

Original footage


Aftermath


The logic here is the dancers were "causing a disturbance and making it difficult for other people to see the memorial". In reality the officers were the only ones being violent and ended up shutting the memorial down so no one could see it.

What have we learned?

a) No dancing? Some laws are just stupid
b) No matter how small the crime, an officer will and can do whatever necessary to detain a person.
c) Sometimes making a point means you get body slammed
d) Cops are just people doing their jobs, some of them just get an extra level of satisfaction upholding the law.



K