Capitalism | Always Question Authority

by Sonali Kolhatkar

I hate parades. I have always hated the bright exuberance, the cheering and the flag waving. Every New Year’s Day, millions of people around the U.S. and the world tune in or gather in person to watch the Tournament of Roses Parade, also known as the Rose Parade. I live in Pasadena, home of the Rose Parade, and every year I watch thousands of families camped out on the streets of the city to secure a coveted spot from which to view the spectacle up close. Meanwhile, the moneyed classes pay for premium seating on bleachers set up for the occasion. But beneath the facade of festive glamour is an institution rife with sexism, racism, militarism and corporatism.

The Rose Parade has its origins in exclusivity and elitism. In 1890, when Pasadena was a magnet for wealthy East Coast Americans looking for temperate climates to vacation in during the winters, the Valley Hunt Club organized the first parade to show off the city. The hunting and fishing club, which continues to be featured in the parade for historical reasons, has had a problematic history of not admitting people of color.

Today the Rose Parade continues to remain ensconced within Pasadena’s well-to-do neighborhoods in the south of the city. Its annual route avoids by a wide berth poor and working-class communities of color, whose homes are concentrated in northwest Pasadena.

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By Madison S. Hughes (11.11.2011, revised 11.10.2013)

Veterans Day, like many if not most American holidays, is a paradoxical celebration at best, a fraud at worst, and intentionally so. Be it known to those who have not “served” in the military, that military personnel are not the heroes the media, and politicians make us out to be. We are simply economic conscripts trying to survive in an oligarchy of which most of us do not realize we are of part.

So, as one celebrates this Veterans Day, think less about the veterans themselves, and more about why we as country continue to have such an unquestioning demand for their inhumane services. For example, one may reflect upon the huge, tax evading, profit driven multinational corporations run by an oligarchy that rules the country that many mistake for a democracy.