2471 - Bed Of Roses

Born in 1964, I grew up in the 1970s, a time that was largely covered in the second part of Adam Curtis’ brilliant documentation “All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace”, a time when big business had “got it” how to catch up with the rebellious spirits of the 1960s and channel the desires of a generation into pure consumerism. It was a time when bands stopped playing in clubs and started to play in stadiums, a time when rock bands had their own aircraft.

On the darker side it was a time when international terrorism had its heyday, only to be followed by a series of false flag operations under the direction of western secret services. It was a time of disillusionment and ongoing political protest, a time that spawned the Green Parties in Europe.

But although the spirit had been tainted, although things had turned out vastly more complicated than they had seemed in the 1960s, there was tremendous success on a whole number of fronts. Women’s Liberation was only one part of it, but that’s where I was heading for, because here we are with today’s images 🙂

Women have fought for their equal rights, and although I am really a generation younger, even to me and those born roughly at the same time, the very thought of women being a different species (or race, if you want it) seems bizarre, and that although it was largely accepted only one, two decades earlier. The problem is, like in so many other areas, progress has not only stopped, we are in fact going back rapidly.

Need proof? Well, I don’t have children, the only child I have been following growing up was Michael, a boy, but I do have eyes. When was the last time you were in a “Toys’R’Us”? Really, if like me you don’t need to, go into one of those toy supermarkets (that have replaced all the smaller, individual toy shops) anyway, and look for girl’s toys. Don’t ask, don’t read signs, you won’t need to. There is no chance you wouldn’t find them, at least as long as you’re not color blind.

Children’s clothing? Girls’ clothes? Girls’ school bags? Bicycles?

Today we live in a bizarre age of “Political Correctness”, which in reality is all surface, Newspeak masking a new age of gender apartheid.

And it works. When I see young women today, women who were born in or after the conservative backlash of the 1980s, women who dress their girls in pink, then they themselves wear pink and makeup and bras and they giggle girlishly. Not all of them of course, but the degree of uniformity (and the willingness to accept it) are breathtaking.

Why worry? Let them have it if they want it, you say? Maybe, but these people are so obviously the victims of propaganda, that it troubles me that at the same time these are the people who by voting keep our institutional overlords in perpetual power.

According to these re-established role conventions I should present myself manly, ideally as a warrior, but that is all rubbish. Sometimes when I feel the need I’ll make “unmanly” images like those of today’s post, made of roses in the parking lot of a local furniture shop. It’s not all idyllic though. If you have a close look at the upper right corner, you see how close paradise can be to hell 😄

The Song of the Day is “Bed Of Roses” from Bette Midler’s 1995 album “Bette Of Roses”. Hear the whole album on YouTube. The actual song starts at 28:17.