The March

This is the first piece of prose I ever wrote which is purely metaphorical. You can pretty much work out what the characters and acts represent. Toss it into the comments if you want.

THE MARCH 

From the northern edge of the city, the people walked irregularly, though in the same direction, the same destination, the same purpose. Passing through the ruins of a security checkpoint, they paused and climbed over the walls which once blockaded the area.

Passing a few at a time, not helping each other, not sure that the others would climb over the wall, not caring whether the other individuals made it past, whether the others turned around and returned back. Never looking behind them, but hoping that the others were behind them, hoping that they did not stand alone.

Across the city in the most southernmost tip lay the government building. On a balcony facing north, stood the president, enjoying the evening breeze. A pair of dark-coloured glasses on his face, he stood stone-faced, wondering what the sound he was hearing was. He was hearing the faintest sound, the sound of people walking, approaching.

He felt a hand upon his shoulder, and a voice he recognised – his economic advisor. “Sir, you have an important meeting to attend to.” The president slowly turned, and, resting upon the advisor, walked back inside, closing the door behind him, silencing the noise in the distance.

The two figures walked towards the meeting room, the Advisor in front, helping to direct the president to the correct location. The president opened his mouth “I heard a noise in the distance, tell me what it is, advise me on what I must do to remove it.”

The advisor smiled, though he knew that the president would not see it, “It is nothing - I shall solve it...you have other matters to attend to.” They arrived at the meeting room, and the president set down at his chair. Around the table sat a number of representatives, the owners of the largest industries which supplied to that city. They were all there to discuss the latest proposed law.

The individuals walked closer, what had remained of it, what of it had not turned away at the first sight of trouble, what of it had not been controlled by the images which were transmitted into their homes, what of it had not been moved away by the sweet voices of promises. They could see the government building nearby, perhaps upon seeing a crowd, the president would realise his people were suffering, his people had voices.

At the foot of the building lay a number of people with weapons, mercenaries. They marched towards the assigned position, taking the same steps, moving at the same speed. Their commander finished his radio transmission, “We have been given the go-ahead from the government - live fire has been permitted.”

The two groups met a few meters away from each other, and the mercenaries raised their weapons…

Inside the government building, the president drank his champagne, and opened the gifts given to him by the representatives, his mind busy on more important matters.

Happy Capitalistmas :)

'Twas the night before Capitalistmas, when all thro' the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

A few kilometers away, a merchant smiles with glee
"What shall I buy for myself, let us see
With the profits I gain that this season brings
I will be able to buy a great many things"

And the mother stayed worrying, suffering the stress
"Did I buy for my kiddies the very very best?
Will they be happy with the expensive game -
shooting at people and calling them l4me?"

In a dimly lit room, owned by a company of fame
Stood people in tuxes, toasting with champagne
Celebrating the stupidity, of people who thought
That they make a difference with the generic gifts that they bought

And a man sat down worrying, reading down a list
Worrying about the few people he missed
"Will this person, offended be?
If he doesn't receive a generic gift from me?
This family here, I must buy them a few,
if they give me a present, what shall I do?
And these presents here, let they be hidden
Put them in here with the labels unwritten
In case someone comes, here unexpected
Will give him one, so he feels not rejected

And come Capitalistmas morning, and the children sift
Through the rubbish and the wrappings, to get the best gifts
As they located the most expensive thing
They feel the 'joy' materialism can bring

And many shops open, with signs "Xmas Sale"
Stuffing coupons into people's mail
"Look, more things you can get for your cash.
Things that by next year will be in the trash"

And away, certain children, hungry and poor
They remain this way, while rich kids get more
Nobody has given us a single thought
While instead they worry about the gifts they bought...

The Llama - 25.12.2010

Consumers of the World Unite - Part 2: The solution

Part 2 of the 2-parter series...
--

Alright, last time I spoke about the problems facing us nowadays. Now I am going to share with you my idea for solving them. Firstly, we have to recognise an important fact. The majority of the companies, no matter how big and powerful they are - depend on customers. No matter how many millions they make ever year, if they had no customers, they would collapse.

Economy and Capitalism works on something weird called trust. The value of a company is simply how much trust the stakeholders hold in the company. So lets use that to our advantage shall we?

Firstly, the consumer needs to be correctly informed of what is happening - in order to be able to take informed choices. Review sites are a solution of sorts for this - however their current implementation is rather incorrect at the present time.

For a start, review sites usually contain a small community of people who are able to comment or write reviews. In certain cases, the owner of the review site will be connected in some way to the company they represent - and in other cases, act as a sort of unofficial customer relations. There were cases where a particular website was 'bribing' customers and then removing their negative reviews - ready for the next mug.

The solution: A trusted and neutral hub of information - a website of some sort -which contains not only experiences from real buyers, but also contains certain history and other interesting facts which could effect the decision of a potential buyer. 

The second solution is somewhat related. Workers gained many of their rights through Unions. Through the ability to band together and make a difference. A 'consumers union' would be the solution. Not particular related to other meanings of "Consumer Union", this would be like a trade union. Linked to the above solution - the group of consumer members could easily agree to boycott or strike, even temporarily. A noticeable drop in profits, no matter for how short the period of time - will make the right people notice.

Both these ideas require a lot of people - a lot of contacts... In the words of Philip K. Dick - "When two people dream the same dream, it ceases to be an illusion". Let us hope that this some day comes to fruit.

The Llama 

Consumers of the World Unite - Part 1b - The Problem Continued

I realise it should have been part 2, but I have an addition to make to the problem.
-
There is an extra problem with corporations nowadays. Namely that certain of them believe themselves to be above the law - or manipulate the law for their own gains - including bullying people in order to make money.

There are tons upon tons of examples, but I shall give a few of them which surfaced just a few days ago.

Example 1: RIAA and MPAA getting national security to take down a number of sites from the internet under 'secret conditions'. They hit a few websites which had done nothing wrong at all, since this was done without a proper court order or evidence collection.


Example 2: "Filesharing Bullying". As you may or may not know, IP addresses aren't a perfect way of working out who a person is. They just grab a few IP addresses of filesharers, get their details and send them a letter asking for money or they will sue them. In many cases, the people are not the filesharers, and the companies which attempt to extort money know this - however its more expensive to contest it in court than it is to pay up.


Example 3: Just happened yesterday. MPAA and RIAA are teaming up with Mastercard in order to block payments to websites they allege are copyright infringing websites. Obviously, if they are illegal, you should take them to court and get them taken down. But of course large corporations and lobbyists are above the law. That said, its every right for Mastercard to refuse service to whoever they want - so that part is totally legal. However it shows how much we depend on corporations. If credit card companies want to kill off a site - they can.


Part 2 will come soon. Be safe.


The Llama

Consumers of the World Unite - Part 1 - The Problem

This is going to be a two-parter blog. Part 1 is the description of what I see is the problem, while part 2 is my idea for a possible solution.

Since I have a worldwide audience, certain parts will appear to make more sense for certain countries than others.
-
Consumers of the world unite.

As the world becomes less about individual governments, the commercial sector begins gradually taking over, through Lobbying for example, or through advertising on the media which attempts to rile up the public against things that it doesn't like - sometimes clearly, while other times it does this discreetly, and sometimes even illegally (such as having 'people' write positive things about the company or whatever).


With the government becoming slightly less important, and with all the expensive lobbying which the general public can't afford, there needs to be a way of taking back control.


If a company enacts bad policies, mistreats its clients, or performs some other actions which the general public does not like, we're supposed to find a solution to push it back on the right track. Similarly, if a company treats its clients well, or performs some good acts - then it should be rewarded.

One of the most popular 'solutions' in the 'free market' is to "Vote with your wallet". However even this has numerous problems:


1. The common public is a number of directionless sheep. They naturally follow leaders and don't want to be the first to change


2. The common public is fragmented. There is no communication to get a common goal.

3. There is a lack of personal information transfer. A person with a bad experience can not easily transfer this information to others, similarly with good experiences


4. There is a lack of information about 'embarassing' policies. For example - certain people wouldn't use a product if they knew it was tested on animals, or produced by child labour, or were the cause of a civil revolution in order to ensure their products got through (not joking about the last one).


So given these, larger corporations are allowed to get away with anything they want, and the public can do very little to change this. My idea for the solution will come in Part 2.


If you agree with me, feel free to spread this around - if you don't, feel free to comment below. I will engage anyone in a discussion ;)


Regards


Llama

Sampling, Plagerism and Crappy Music

Last time I had the (dis)pleasure of listening to one of the more popular tunes at this day. I kinda recognised the tune - which isn't amazing since the song is composed of this tune looped over and over again. At a further date I found the song I recognised, and discovered that this latest song had 'sampled' the song I remember.


Just today, I'm looking through the rubbish music my better half listens to, and I hear another tune I recognise, "Oh look, she's listening to "Video Killed the Radio Star" ". I was wrong. It was just part of that tune being looped over and over again while some one who couldn't sing their way out of a paper bag vocalised something.


Am I the only one who has a problem with this? 

For one - the part they ripped off will be the only attractive part of the song. So they are basically taking credit and money off someone else's work and effort. 

Secondly - their very meddling with the song produces a song which is usually less attractive/famous than the song they ripped it off.

Thirdly - These songs are often old. Both of the 'sampled' songs in the above case are 70s. So future generations would remember the catchy tune segment as being (wrongly) invented by the person who ripped it off

Fourthly - There is enough crappy music around. If you can't come up with anything new or be able to think for yourself (or get whoever writes the tunes to do it for you) - then you're in the wrong job.


I understand with using a few notes in order to play an homage to it. I also tolerate (to a certain point) - calling it [Original Song] Remix. Which at least directs people to the original song which you ripped off.


I still don't think people should be paid for adding some nonsensical lyrics to an already tried-and-true song segment.


Regards.


Llama

Added: Interesting Link Thanks to Byron

Never tickle a sleeping llama

Was reading a blog written by a friend of mine today. Felt inspired to start blogging again. I used to do so in the past - disseminating my ideas and opinions - but I had stopped. And now I'm going to start again.

I will be using this page to note down my opinions, my ideas, and sometimes an odd fictional story or two.