Yes, Mother

It’s Mother Jones week in the Willsie household! All of my selections for this Links feature are from the magazine: every single sentence, word, vowel and letter. Two are photo essays while the last is a real live article! With thoughts as words and stuff! Enjoy!

American Happiness and the Need to Consume
Photos by Brian Ulrich and text by Clara Jeffery

Ulrich’s work here comes from his ongoing Copia project, a photographic study that began after September 11, 2001 when the American public was insidiously encouraged to buy, buy, buy and buy some more. His study is supposedly a response to the way consumerism is equated with patriotism here in America, but this photo essay fails to convey this correctly. It is, however, deeply effective at making you sick to your stomach with how much we buy. Although rumination on the awfulness of American consumerism is becoming somewhat trite in this oh-so-post-modern world, one thing will never fail to surprise me: the vacant, vapid, and disturbingly vacuous stare of someone who is about to buy something. Honestly. Check out this photo essay simply for the appall of seeing that awful blank, gray gray gray look.

The Hidden Half: A Photo Essay on Women in Afghanistan
By Lana Slezic

This photo essay tells the stories of the collective Afghan woman. It is pretty, sad, disturbing and beautifully done. The burkah is a startling and mesmerizing image in itself, but the images of the consequences of self-immolation and repeated beatings are doubly shocking. Also, make sure to read the text accompanying the photo essay. This type of subject often lends itself to a type of Western-gawking (Omg, I can’t believe women are treated this way “over there”) but the text does a good job of illuminating the issues surrounding the Western woman’s (read: Laura Bush’s) desire to “save” the subjugated Eastern woman. Oh, and isn’t it so odd but so typical that all the mannequins are white? The American brand of consumerism seeps and seeps and seeps.

The 50 Year Strategy: A New Progressive Era (No, Really!)
By Simon Rosenberg and Peter Leyden

Both Rosenberg and Leyden did a great job really analyzing the political and social situations currently at play in the entire U.S. and more specifically in our generation in this article. Though I had heard the comparison of this era to the period right after Hoover and before FDR, I hadn’t really thought about the underlying reasons for that aside from the obvious shared rejection of our president and largely conservative values. However, the analyses of the way new media (shared information=participatory democracy?) and diversity (we are the most culturally varied generation) affect the politics of our generation is infinitely interesting. It’s worth a read and an ensuing debate. Trust me.