Best Political Videos on the Internet!

What Barry Says / Knife Party:
http://www.knife-party.net/
Direct link:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1669325314815164245
...or for a much higher definition mp4 version:
http://nofatclips.com/02005/10/07/says/What%20Barry%20Says.mp4

"The Power of Nightmares"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmaresDVD

"The Shock Doctrine"
http://bravenewfilms.org/blog/12290-the-shock-doctrine-by-alfonso-cuar-n-and-naomi-klein
(with links to media)

How it happened:

"The Century of the Self"
http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0
Part 2: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart2of4
Part 3: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart3of4
Part 4: http://www.archive.org/details/AdamCurtisCenturyoftheSelfPart4of4_0

I do my best to keep these links in circulation. If you find dead links, search google video or youtube for the names of the shows.

These videos go a long way in explaining the political agendas of the western nations for the last several decades. More video links to come - esp. on banking.

If you can't do anything more because of time constraints or attention span issues, at least see the Knife Party video "What Barry Says" which is extremely appealing visually and also quite short. Do yourself the favor.

Reverse Robin Hood

"Tomgram: Nick Turse, The Pentagon's Stealth Corporations"
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174948/nick_turse_the_pentagon_s_stealth_corporations

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I know, I should be doing Friday cat blogging or some other shit that passes for proper blog material. Instead, I just sit here and read the bad news.

I knew you were wondering why they mug you every 15th of April, or at the pump, or at the grocery store, or via a million different excise taxes passed on to you as a consumer. Well, wonder no more.

It's "Reverse Robin Hood" - they steal from the poor and middle classes only to give it all to the top wealthiest 1%.

Happy fucking Friday!

Energy Crisis: Same As It Ever Was

"Our Fake Energy Crisis: What Really Happened in California"
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/dereg/FakeEnergyCrisis.html


"Bush/McCain's Gas Price Scam is an Enron Re-Run"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harvey-wasserman/bushmccains-gas-price-sca_b_108576.html

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I mean, you knew it was all bullshit, right? The world doesn't have to be this way. The reason it is this way is because of greed and power.

In all reality, if we were serious about national security we wouldn't let things like energy fall into the hands of capitalist speculators. We don't want energy prices that are volatile, we want energy prices that are as stable as a rock - a rock that God himself could not raise.

As it is, there will be blood...

All Your Base Are Belong To U.S.

"Taking your laptop into the US? Be sure to hide all your data first"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/may/15/computing.security

"Laptop Searches in Airports Draw Fire at Senate Hearing"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/washington/26airports.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&adxnnlx=1214560780-JmUH3k9wPbTpnf8mLbVx7A

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Point being: the U.S. thinks it has the right to copy and search your data. Any kind of questionable file - be it an mp3, a movie rip, nude photos, or what have you - needs to be something of which you can prove that you have a legal license to use and to have. Technically, the fair use right to an mp3 copy of songs you ripped from a CD that you actually own is disputed by the RIAA. Don't assume anything is okay, it probably isn't. It's all being sifted in the court system right now.

You have to be careful, because this government is insane and favors big business over individuals.

I'd recommend not taking anything with electronic data abroad that has to be brought back in. I mean, family photos on a smart card is probably fine. Anything else, why hassle it?

That's the world we are living in now. They claim the right to turn you upside down and shake you to see what falls out. If they can make a case around it, they may very well try to do so.

Reverse Globalization

"Oil Price Fallout: Jobs Coming Home?"
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=5235731

"It's not just about labor costs anymore," says Rubin. "Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour."

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This is a good story. I hope that this trend continues. Globalization really doesn't make any sense for most of us.

I always wondered why most of the orange juice one could get in Florida came from California and why most of the orange juice available in California came from Florida. I guess when oil is cheap enough there is plenty of competition even from sellers all the way across the country. Cheap oil makes transportation nearly frictionless when it shouldn't be.

Now it's going to make more sense to buy local. As it should be.

George Carlin Dies

There must be thousands of great, pithy quotes from this unerring commentator on modern American life, but I am going with just this one:

"The consensus reality is often intentionally misleading." - George Carlin

What more need be said?

Norman Solomon on Health Care

"Fund Health Care, Not War"
http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/88744/

Here are Dr. White's two key conclusions in his own words:

• "Until we remove the motive of profit from the financing of health care, we cannot and we will not resolve our current health care crisis."
  
• "Any group that proposes reform policy that maintains the use of for-profit insurance companies in a so-called free market is being driven by one single motive -- to protect the golden coffers of their share of the $2 trillion cash cow!"

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Americans are positively inured in "free-market" idealogy. I wonder what it will take to ever break them of their costly and outmoded ways.

Scapegoats

"Crime and delusion on Wall Street"
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/19/news/newsmakers/bear_cioffi.fortune/index.htm?eref=rss_topstories

Prosecutors allege two ex-Bear Stearns hedge fund managers misled investors. Perhaps, but Wall Street has long been kidding itself about the credit crunch.

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In days passed during times of great need, some poor asshole would be sacrificed as a proxy for the king. Symbolically the king's blood would be spilled and the land would become bountiful again. Originally, they actually sacrificed the king himself. As king's grew more powerful, perhaps more necessary to early forms of government, a proxy sacrifice would be preferred instead. This proxy would live in the highest fashion possible and indulge every fancy - that is, for one year. For one year the proxy was not to touch the earth and not to see the sun. At the end of it they would trot this poor bastard out and destroy him to appease the gods.

Nowadays you get to live in similar luxury for a little while. Fabulous accomodations, cable TV, bitchin' tunes, bitches, booze, cocaine...

And at the end of it all they trot you out and blame the whole mess on you. "These are the guys that stole your money!"

But hell, this is nothing. Read the Constitution, then read Title 12 of the Federal Code. Yeah, something's not right between those two works. And in the space between we get the monetrary system which far more cleverly robs you of wealth every fucking day than some dude on the street with a gun would ever be capable of. The guy with the gun goes to jail for being a bad man. The people responsible for saddling us with their funny money system are given humanitarian awards and live at the highest levels of society.

Maybe they all need their day in the sun.

This was always a war for oil

"Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/world/middleeast/19iraq.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print

BAGHDAD — Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power.

Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat.

The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.

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I mean, c'mon...! Who doesn't believe that we are sending our people die on foreign sands and bleeding the economy to benefit the oil corps?

Yeah you, non-believer, can you walk and chew gum at the same time?

Obama's Free-Market

"Obama's Chicago Boys"
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein

He chose as his chief economic adviser Austan Goolsbee, a University of Chicago economist on the left side of a spectrum that stops at the center-right.

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Don't hope for a significantly different direction for the economy under Obama, he's here to stay the course.

To win the office of the "Prez" of the USA you have to race to the center during the election, once your position is secured you can actually do whatever the hell you want for the better part of four years. We can only hope that Obama is racing for the center only to get the office and that he will then veer to the left for the remainder of his time in office.

This market needs regulation not more freedom.

Memento Mori: remember that you are mortal.

Today I visited the website of Kako Ueda, which you can find here:
http://www.kakoueda.com

I won't tell you what I thought of this highly skilled artist's work, you can go see it and judge its value for yourself. My purpose is much more personal and of a deeper level of contemplation.

I am thinking about my own mortality.

I want to touch and be touched by those around me. I want to experience joy and for those around me to experience it with me. I want to know another and be known by that being in return. I want to go all the way - I want our minds and bodies to indivisibly become one, at least for a little while. I want to breathe as one with another.

When I am gone I want the world to forget me. I am myself not at all important to the world, but I do think it's possible that some ideas I can share are important. My highest achievement would be a great quote - an idea -  that is remembered and attributed to anonymous.

As a person, I want to be remembered only by those within my closest social circle. I want them to remember me fondly but to go on with their lives with laughter and hope for their own endless tomorrows. If there can be more, I will be there waiting for their arrival.

We have so little time here. There's no time for sadness or regret. There is only now. The infinite present.

And that's how I want to start...