http://www.openfilm.com/videos/the-power-principle-1-empire
POINT OF VIEW
Monday, May 28, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Mirror, mirror on the wall
Nick Hanauer, Seattle
venture capitalist on actual 'job creators'
Cultural 'cuisine'
It was a photograph in
Newsweek Magazine, a
picture of a dead shark that had drowned because its fins had been
cut off and then thrown back into the ocean. Shark fins are
considered a delicacy among many people in Asia. Some shark species
are being driven to extinction.
Whether it's the butchering
of dolphins, whales, tigers, the overfishing of Blue Tuna, the simple
human sickness of shooting the endangered rhinoceros or, closer to my
home, the ceaseless, mindless slaughter of wolves in America, it's
often referred to by its defenders as cultural
cuisine.
In Asia this usually means
food. “We've been doing this for 500 years.” But cultural
cuisine also refers to the junk food we stuff into our minds without
thinking much about it … or deliberately avoid thinking about.
No stinkin' abyss for me
In the United States it does
matter what kind of society we create, not just for us Americans, but
the world in general. At the moment there is no shining
city or cities on the hill to step into the vacuum. In fact,
the alternatives are fairly grim. We're going to have to get beyond
fairly soon the nonsense about the market
always knows what's best, the wonders
of the global economy or we're going to have to squeeze
you into serfdom in order to make you well.
Yeah, so what do we do?
What we do is begin creating
those resilient communities throughout America. It could be on a
regional basis, city wide, but most likely neighborhood by
neighborhood. Yes, small is oftentimes beautiful and appropriate
technologies are getting better and better, whether it might be for
example solar and wind energy, hydroponics, local food production, 3DPrinting, local currencies and so forth. There is now a wealth
of information available and people and communities who have already
embarked on this new venture across the globe. The first requirement
is to stop saying I don't know what to do.
This is most definitely not
about some survivalists mumbling to themselves in a cave while
fondling their guns. This is about building open communities that can
stand on their own and encourage participation, innovation, growth
and cooperation. If it ends up being about mumbling survivalists then
we've failed.
William Black explains the
basics of “Crony Capitalism”
Additional reading:
Don't Mess withMassachusetts (think about what this means in general for your well
being)
Monday, May 14, 2012
Thinking about 'what if'
These people, the .01
percent, are mostly childish idiots.
(Alex Pareeme, writer)
Will work for food
Of course it's ultimately
going to be about “jobs” in the 2012 American elections, in the
European austerity crisis, watching for unrest in China and the whole
world festering....
But who among us will figure
out how to tie jobs to something much larger, something that will
actually resonate? That would be the real Nobel Prize for Peace.
Leonard Cohen
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Picking a reality that's best for you
Capitalism is probably the
first instance of a cult that creates guilt, not atonement.
(Walter Benjamin, German
essayist, 1892-1940)
Super PACs may be bad for
America, but they're … good for CBS.
(Les Moonves, president of
CBS)
We'll show them
We Americans got good and
mad just before the 2010 mid-term elections. After all, it had been
two years since the global economic collapse in 2008 and life had not
returned to “normal.”
Well, we got up from the
couch, turned off the TV and voted da
bums out, in congressional and state elections. In 2010 the
bums happened to be the Democrats. We then turned the TV back on and
collapsed back on the couch after our hard work.
The only problem was that we
neglected to read the second chapter on how to be good citizens.
That's the part that tells you about being somewhat
informed, knowing
something about the issues and having an inkling
about the candidates who promise you they can of course do a better
job than the persons currently holding the office. We are now paying
a very big price for our intellectual sloth.
Facts and other assorted
irritants
Mitt Romney, the likely
Republican candidate for president, criticized President Obama the
other day on the anemic monthly job creation report—and the report
was weak. Romney claimed that we should be creating 500,000 jobs per
month! Hm-m. Of course, we haven't had that sort of monthly
performance in 30 years but … does anyone know that?
In Who Are the OtherAmericans Now? we once again learn that there are a lot of “poor”
Americans and the numbers are growing but, here again, some people
point out that “80 percent” of poor people have air conditioning
in America. For some apparently this raises the question of how
poor the poor really are. What is the sound of one hand
clapping?
The economist Joseph
Stiglitz says Politics Is at the Root of the Problem and suggests
that some of the change will have to come from the street.
How will the facts effect the outcome? How will the street affect the
change?
Perhaps what we really need
is a wantologist to help
us get in touch with our correct personal reality. The only
requirement is the cash to pay for the service. See below: The
Outsourced Life.
Foreigners to the rescue?
Nope, not going to happen.
For the time being we're stuck with figuring it out ourselves or at
least doing the bulk of the repair work. That new world order is a
good ways off. Pepe Escobar has an interesting article entitled A
history of the world, BRIC by BRIC (see below). The predator classes
in these countries are as ignorant, greedy, shortsighted and
misguided as any in the old world order. Their reality could leave us
all with a very unpleasant world.
So on to the streets but
with a lot less banging of the
drums and a much better plan for concrete action.
The art of bloodletting
Additional reading:
Self-made men, debunked (of
course you didn't make it all by yourself)
Gadgetopia: Chasing After AnElusive Dream (reason for sharing the wealth of productivity)
The real job creators (no
it's not clueless billionaires shuffling money around)
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