Here, again, is an online video compilation for the weekend to save you from having to waste your little bit of spare time on watching adults chasing balls or accepting the intravenous drip from the propagandist establishment media. It sports a great podium discussion on moving forward from our mess, as well as news and analyses of the mess: for example on how we are getting exploited and betrayed to the extreme, the American poverty nightmare, the issue of people’s lacking awareness and moral standing allowing this mess (and animals showing us the finger), the continued raid on our healthcare, U.S.-conducted world terrorism, a deep system analysis, and a reminder that the universe is lurking in ambush while we fight among each other.
I. Moving Forward
Brilliant Podium Discussion
(from which the title pic above was taken)
A very important point is the abolition of scarcity. In his marvelous speech (starting ~40 min in), Nick Braña points out that, in the past, humans were pitted against each other over limited resources, but modern technology has abolished these outside limits. Soaring inequality is now artificially created by our outdated thuggish system (as I have written before).
Something else that for me lifts Nick Braña to the very top of today’s political activists is his deep understanding of “technology and the pace of modern change” which he addresses in his speech. I have marveled all my life how my fellow humans could be so blind to things like our rapid perfection of surveillance and public mind controlling technologies, automation, and the tension between aging and genetic engineering and gene therapy about to turn our oligarchs into veritable physical gods and condemn the rest of us into permanently huddled masses of the utterly hopeless never again able to revolt against cruelty… Well, he only hints at some of this, but then who is really ready to hear the full scope, yet?
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Left Forum 2018 Session 1 – Independent Power: Towards a Party for Working People“)
Notes:
- And, as Nick also points out, the DP is teetering giving this generation of Americans an opportunity to unite for a major new party for working people.
- Tim Canova’s speech (following Nick’s) is also great. And he is right in that, by his running independent this year, independent voters, always blocked from (rigged!) “Democratic” primaries are empowered to throw in their weight. They don’t have to ponder whether it’s worth to bother with rubber-stamping establishment-picked “R” or “D” candidates. When we vote independent or third party, we are no longer forced to chose between cholera and gonorrhea.
- Great term: Fusion Politics (ignoring party lines, focusing on working people’s needs and violated rights and a genuine way forward)
- 1:10:55: Nick brings up the 2nd Bill of Rights, which reminds me to remark that ideas like a UBI are just ways of bringing it to pass.
- Nick Braña quote: “Our economic and political systems will act as threat multipliers and they will determine whether we fall on the abundance side of that potential given to us by our technology or on the self-annihilation side. If we remain in a conflict driven society characterized by soaring inequality, sweeping deprivation, and sectarian intolerance, the risk of catastrophe will be extreme. Applying our potential to create an abundant and harmonious world is not just a moral imperative, it’s a matter of survival for all of us.”
II. American Nightmare
Today’s American “Dream”: Rich to the Riches, Rags to the Ditch .
These are Facebook videos… so, no hints on how to find them if they get deleted…
III. Where is our Humanity?
Let’s delve into our psychology and compare with our wild cousins…
The biology of fairness, empathy, sympathy, and lack thereof…:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “The Age of Empathy by Frans de Waal“)
Can we really not measure up to our animal cousins?
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “MUST WATCH THIS VIDEO ABOUT ANIMALS HELPING EACH OTHER!!!!“)
The plutocrats have driven much of our compassion and solidarity out of our human society. It’s time we reassert those principles, don’t you agree? It strikes me as a little odd that we tend to call them human or humanitarian principles, even in an age when we have put them aside and are getting shamed by our animal cousins.
And, clearly, I am not the only one thinking this way:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “”Charity Is The Opiate Of Capitalism” – Nellie McKay”)
The interview continues here (discussing Bernie and 2020, among things).
IV. Economy
“Disruptive” Tech as an additional thumb screw and bloodletting on the people:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “How Tech Giants Feed Off Capitalism’s Failures“)
The Mechanism of Rich-and-Poor:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Scumbag Amazon Swimming In Taxpayer Subsidies, Pays Food Stamp Wages“)
Myth and reality:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Are the Rich White Boomers Taking of Millennial Wealth?“)
And the biggest economic unit, our government, which used to spend on us (FDR’s New Deal), today spends on the billionaires instead (who keep telling us that it can’t afford to spend on us):
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Starbucks Billionaire: You Can’t Have Healthcare Or College“)
V. Healthcare
Once again, corrupt politics aims at benefiting the rich (health insurance owners) at the expense (ruin, pain, and death) of non-rich Americans (you and me and our friends and families):
This is, once again, a Facebook-only video, so it has no title which I could use to give clues for searching for it. So, good luck finding a copy if this video gets deleted. (Youtube may be working to skew things on behalf of the establishment, but if one posts videos only on Facebook (which isn’t trustworthy either), then the lack of titles makes deleted or re-pathed videos all the harder to find again, which is why it keeps boggling my mind why certain information sources only or mostly post on Facebook neglecting other ‘tubes’. Also, Facebook video streaming is cumbersome, feature-poor, and buggy on the viewers’ end. Oh, well… Enough of my ranting.)
VI. The Terror Empire
No, it’s not ISIS. It’s the U.Sis:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “~199~ 121 Bombs A Day, Poor People Get Angry, Death Of Local News”)
Also: more on other things like healthcare.
VII. System Analysis
A structural system analysis surely giving a high percentage of listeners a lot to think about if the highly intellectual language presents no barrier. The clip, in so many words, agrees with my regularly made claim that our corrupt politics and lousy lives both derive from our rigged economic system which in turn depends for its continuation on our manipulated mentality that has our perceptions and priorities being all wrong:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Critique: Bernie Sanders “Inequality in America” Town Hall from 3.19.18, by Peter Joseph”)
Comment: Bernie may or may not think this deeply, but – running for office – he naturally has to focus on the things that touch people more unquestioningly (the symptoms) rather than a deep system critique (the causes) which many still struggle to comprehend due to the lifelong system propaganda we have been exposed to (unlike the animals shown earlier).
VIII. The Real World
Why humanity cannot afford a corrupt system:
Nature isn’t friendly. Our primary human defense is sticking together, preparing for disasters, and changing our environment to be more supportive of our lives. When we create and maintain a socio-economic-political system that adds more problems, like our current system does (albeit it also still provides some improvements, e.g. running water and groceries), it’s like we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
As a graphic reminder of nature’s threats, here is footage of people fleeing from a pyroclastic flow belched up by a small volcano in Guatemala last week:
(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Videos Impactantes Captados Durante La Erupción del Volcán en Guatemala 04/06/2018“)
If the locals were better educated, their government more responsible, and our global society geared towards optimizing human life rather than squeezing and suppressing everybody on behalf of the rich, people might have been evacuated on time or not lived so dangerously close to their active volcano in the first place.
And if you succumb to the idea that we are so much more advanced as a society a thousand miles north here in the U.S., ask yourself did we properly prepare the levees for Hurricane Katrina? Did our government provide proper help after Katrina hit, or did it rather enable corporate raiders to take people’s homes away from them to convert them into money-making investments for the rich? Has our government done anything to help our fellow citizens in Puerto Rico devastated by another big hurricane last year, or is it leaving the door open for disaster capitalism again (a form of vulture capitalism) same as in New Orleans? Is it smart of us to ignore nature’s curses and constantly fight among ourselves because we can’t get our act together and dethrone the pillaging oligarchs and abolish the greed-driven, inhumane, anti-human system they imposed on us generations ago, the system which incentivizes inhumane acts and is ruining our country?
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Ending Note: It takes me at least 100 hours of spare time each month to research and write news updates and analyses and work on my book. Please widely share links to these articles, so this work is not for naught. You can also help in other ways (including much needed financial support). Only together can we change this messed-up world. Let’s do it! 🙂
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