I'm afraid I've been thinking, a dangerous pastime, I know.

I've learned a lot in my classes. Much of what I've learned is a lot of what politicians and "pastors" are spouting is pretty much plagiarized from the Cold War era. I mean, they aren't even really trying to put a spin on it. Crazy.

My most eye opening class has been African Colonialism. In this class (and the others) Karl Marx keeps coming back up. In historiography, my professor pointed out that we are all Marxists to some degree because our society has been impregnated by the ideas for so long. That was interesting. Something to think about. But it was my Colonialism class that really made me understand how Marx is still relevant today (and not necessarily in a good way). I had to write an essay about cultural hegemony. What does that mean? Cultural hegemony is a Marxist concept that Gramsci elaborate which is that a culturally diverse society can be dominated by a one social class. To accomplish this they manipulate the societal culture (beliefs, perceptions, values) so that this ruling class worldview is imposed as the societal norm. This worldview is held as universally valid (status quo) and beneficial to all of society, even though it only benefits the ruling class in reality. 

It's crazy to me that people claim to not understand what Occupy Wall Street is really about. This cultural hegemony is what it is about. It's not anti-capitalist, it's not class warfare (at least not begun from the bottom up), it's not just some bored loonies. It's rejecting this cultural hegemony. The values of the 1% are not beneficial to all and Occupy is rejecting that hegemony and is calling for balance. Shouldn't we all be?  I don't know about you, but I'm not really excited about the idea of a revolution. But we are walking down this path, just a bit later than Marx would have thought. I hope that we can stop pretending we aren't comprehending the 99% movement and we can strive to bring balance back. Balance of earnings, balance of the greatness that occurs when government and public enterprise work appropriately together. I'm not looking forward to Marx saying, "Told you so."

First days and other happenings.

Chi has been enjoying preschool. He wishes he could go more than two days a week. I like the teachers. The kids are almost all younger than Chi (most of them either just turned three in the summer or right at the beginning of the school year). So, the socializing aspect of preschool isn't taking off like gangbusters, but I'm sure it will be better by mid-year.

Gabe is doing so much better this year. His teacher is a much better match. She is challenging him and he went from saying he didn't like math much last year to saying it is his favorite subject.

I realize these are sideways. I thought they were rotated, but they aren't and now I'm being lazy.

We went to Johnson's Giant Pumpkins again this year. The boys were overjoyed to watch the pumpkin launching. We just went because we needed something to do, but we have plans to take Matt's parents, Grandma White, Mike, Kathy and their kids later this month. Gabe and Chi are so excited to show them everything. I guess the nice thing is that since they change some things each year, we've scoped it out and know where things are located. Streamline the fun - or something like that.

Matt is doing research with a couple of students and he's nervous about getting results that will finally get him grants, but he's trying to just enjoy working on it. School is going well for me, but it's busy. It's a struggle to stay on top of everything. I like it though and had a very encouraging day yesterday.