I Don’t Live In Fear

I’ll say it, I don’t care, we live in an era of censorship. You look at CISPA being passed by the House, we have the NDAA that’s waiting in the shadows, we have drones ready to take into the skies to watch our every move 24/7, we have proof when Occupy Wall Street was beaten to a pulp, when Aaron Swartz was bullied by people who dealt in censorship and who pushed him to his own death, we have Bradley Manning facing a life sentence for showing the ugly truth of the world, and Juilan Assange held in the Ecuador Embassy, fearful of stepping out, cause he believes the UK and US government will assassinated him on the spot, just because he helped Bradley Manning expose the truth. Look me in the eye and say we don’t live in a time of censorship.

I think the talk about censorship, is something that is always taboo, cause society kind of files it under paranoia, and for artist it’s the subject that can get you blacklisted. I think the industry as a whole doesn’t want artist to speak out about censorship that’s happening around their given nations, you can say how grand your nation is, but the moment you point the ugly side your bashed for it. If you look at any artist personal site, you’ll find everything about writing, sex, jokes, but you’ll never see the subject of censorship. Cause it’s such a bad word among the community, even if we know it’s happening. But if it’s not trending or making money for the industry we’re told to hush up, or you’re collogues turn their back on you. And this goes double for any artist that works with a publisher, there everything you say and do is filtered and reprocessed, where your words are no longer your words, you’re no longer a person, you’re just a product. Design to create what they want, and if you try to play them, they’ll end your career before it gets off the ground.

I think we’ve reached that point in society where we rather let the horror go unspoken about, even when we witness the event in front of our eyes. We do live in a nation ( U.S )where we do have more wiggle room than other countries, but that is being taken away by us at a rapid pace with more insane bills being passed through the House and Senate. And we are aware of this, but everyone seems more wrapped around meaningless issues, that they’re missing the bigger picture.

Will all this come to bite me back. Who knows. Do I really care, not really. Cause someone has to say the truth, even if it does hurt. I don’t want to look back knowing I did nothing, and sold everything.

~ Jesse Abundis

 

Are We In An Era Of Self-Censorship ?

Have we come so far, just to fall so hard? I’ve taken notice with a lot of authors/artist who have taken to doing self-censorship. Which just puzzles the living crap out of me, why would anyone want to censor themselves? A few books, I won’t name titles nor authors, started a scene with a  man tie to the chair, when this characters was about to cut the finger off his victim the author just felt the need to cut off, then jump back in after everything was done.  This continued on through out the book.

            Another wouldn’t use full cuss words “ Mother…” that’s it, instead of just saying “ Mother fucker!”  One was published, the other was a self-published book. I can see where some publishers do lack the balls to just let a story play out in fear of upsetting “ readers“ which is code for “ Uptight assholes who watch nothing but hallmark“ But if you’re self-published and censoring yourself, that just gives me the urge to slap the living hell out of you. There’s no reason to hold back, as a self-published author you’re given more freedoms in what can be said and what can not. I just don’t see a lot of Indie authors taking advantage of that, maybe one day they will.

            The thing that still bugs me is that self-censorship is becoming of a bigger trend. With artist fearing to create because they think one angry asshole is the end of the world. Another part is because of what they see on TV, one-act violence and they assume that everything should be flowers and sunshine. Any act on violence on people isn’t called for, but nor does it call for letting fear run how we think. If you let fear rule you, then you’ll never be able to really live, you‘ve forced yourself into a cage that you‘ll only seek to do more harm than good.

            I think censorship should stay away from the art, let us create, and if the film, game, book or comic is too much to take, then the people have a choice to view it or not. When has being creative become a crime, why should one bad deed spoil life for the rest of us. If anything, art shows us the horrors and makes us rethink life in a grander scale, it gives clarity where clarity would have never been found if censorship had it’s way.

            I will leave you with this, censorship doesn’t move mankind forward, it takes it back to the stone age, it destroys whatever freedom we had, it shortens great minds to hide in the dark corner, just to out run the stones that are toss their way. I would like to think that in these modern times, we would see the horrors that censorship has brought to many souls in the past,  a free voice should speak as loud as it pleases and never fear of being burned alive at the stake.

 

One love

Jesse Abundis

 

 

 

Jesse Speaks: Films, Books, Video Games Are Not To Blame For Violence

The Aurora Shooting, The New Town massacre. Events that have left many people shaken, events that has started to push people to ask the question who is to blame?

My answer would be the arms manufacture. I think if you want to end many countless deaths, you must shut them down, take away their billions and then you’ll see a much peaceful world.

But that’s never going to happen, not when money is being made, it’s like every trend in the world. You just don’t kill a cash cow. That’s the honest truth, because no matter how violent the crime, if money is made, it will always out weigh that moment in time. So, how do we solve this problem? Easy, you blame something else, something that’s easier to attack, something that has always be under fire the moment it said it’s first words. That my friend is the art world.

A lot authors might say ” Video games are not art, blah blah.” Shut the fuck up, the story, the time they take to create that world, the team that poured their blood and sweat, it’s art. Enough said.

Literature was fun to burn back in the days when it was deemed as rotting the young minds, Comic books were to blame in the 40′s, Movies came after, and now it’s video games from the 90′s till now. Just because there’s a few guns and bombs here and there. Are they to blame for the worlds problems? No, not even close.

Fiction always tells the ugly truth around us, in a way film, books, games are showing the true face of the world, in their own different ways. There’s a billion film watchers, million of video game players, million of book readers if they were linked to violence, well the world would be mighty empty around us.

President Obama & Vice Biden have come out that they are looking for the harmful effects Movies and Games have on people. And this pisses me off, because the witch hunt is on, instead of fire, they use something called ” Censorship ”

With the events that have happened and the more people seek to have a face to the problem, I wonder how many artist will cave and just simply censor themselves. Which shouldn’t be, we’ve come so far in life, that to be told to write what is deemed acceptable is just soul crushing, because once we give into Censorship, the art we love will never be the same, because they’ll take more and more until we forget who we are.

Art is not to blame for the fault of the arm dealers that deal in death, and I hope as one we stand together and take a stand against any censorship that should try to take our freedom to write and create away.

We were hunted down once by the church for thinking outside the box long ago, I never want to see that happen again.

~ Jesse Abundis

 

Amazon saying no to Author on Author reviews

Well Amazon has taken a hard stance on Author on Author reviews in these recent months, so much that they have taken to bring them down. Now I kinda get where Amazon is going with this, they want the word of mouth coming from the readers not by other authors who might be giving a positive review when there shouldn’t be one. This is their way of keeping the playing ground fare. But that’s kinda a lie in itsef coming from Amazon.

A lot of authors have spoken out why their reviews of other popular books haven’t been struck down, in their eyes we’re apart of the industry, so why not ban the reviews of those books. And that’s where the biggest gripe lies in this new tactic of theirs. It’s not keeping it fare when your only gunning for indie artist.

This new stance can be pushed either to kill sales or drive the indie artist out of Amazon. Either way this is a step towards censorship, one that no one needs.

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Below are some links on the subject

http://selfpublishingadvice.org/blog/amazon-censoring-indie-author-reviews/

http://www.digitaltrends.com/web/is-amazon-censoring-book-reviews/