Video Weekend 06-16-2018 (12 videos)

This online video compilation for enriching weekend watching presents news and sharp analyses over a wide spectrum of issues, among these: wrongful government spending; oligarchy; disaster capitalism (such as is currently ravaging Puerto Rico); better health in China than the U.S.; burial of the Bernie Bro Myth; the establishment’s smoke and mirrors; the race to the bottom; voting, guns, and healthcare in Australia, and an expert analysis of the “Democratic” Party’s psychology.

 

I. Government Spending

Bernie speaking in the Senate about “our” government’s blank-check war industry spending ($716 billion – more than the next ten countries combined while always whining about the deficit when it comes to helping American families in trouble):

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Our National Priorities: Endless Defense Spending or Working Families?“)

A comment left on Youtube: »“Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.” Psalms 82:3-4«

Why we “Can’t Afford” Nice Things. When billionaires and their politician shills tell us we can’t afford nice things like healthcare for non-billionaires, it’s not because the government is poor (after all, it spends avishly on the war industry and on tax cuts for the billionaires) but because the billionaires siphon off the government money into their own coffers and they don’t want it to go elsewhere:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Billionaire Says We “Can’t Afford” ‘Medicare for All,’ Bernie Sanders Responds“)

 

II. Disaster Capitalism

The pillaging of Puerto Rico:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: ““The Battle for Paradise”: New Intercept Doc Goes Inside Struggle over Puerto Rico’s Future“)

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Puerto Rico, “Playground for the Privileged”: Investors Move In as Homes Foreclose & Schools Close“)

 

III. Empire

Bernie warms up to the fight for a responsible foreign military policy:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Bernie’s Amazing Foreign Policy Smackdown Excites Progressives“)

The U.S. Empire’s heavy hand in Venezuela explained in a nutshell:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “[114] Abby Martin & The Neo-Liberal Plan To Bring Down VenezueIa“)

 

IV. Bernie Bro Myth

Burial of the Bernie Bro Myth

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “New Poll Completely Demolishes the ‘Bernie Bro’ Myth“)

 

V. Smoke & Mirrors

Fake Charities and Humanitarian Foundations. The thieving oppressive oligarchs like to make themselves look good with charities and also appease and co-opt people by pretending that organizations are in place that take on humanity’s problems when in reality they only white-wash the oligarchy and its cruel empires. So, is it any wonder that only crowd-funding supports truly helpful organizations, candidates, and alternative media (sadly way too little, in part because of these false flag organizations giving the impression that we underprivileged folks don’t have to sacrifice our few hard-earned dollars)?

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Garry Kasparov Unhinged! – His Human Rights Scam Exposed w/Thor Halvorssen“)

 

VI. Economy

China now has better health than we do, the race to the bottom with systematic tactics to impoverish working people, and more:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Economic Update: Standing Up“)

 

VII. Oligarchy

As Bernie Sanders says, this is what oligarchy looks like:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Amazon & Bezos Screw Homeless In Seattle“)

 

VIII. Elsewhere in the World

Voting, guns, and healthcare in Australia:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “What America can Learn from Australia’s Progressives“)

 

IX. System Analysis

Today’s America: a system where nobody in power does anything for working people anymore. The disease of the “Democratic” Party:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Frank : “Trump won because Clinton and the Democrats dismissed the concerns of working people””)

~

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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Delving Deep into our Souls (Video + Commentary)

To make true and lasting change we must think things through thoroughly. This conversation will likely stimulate some mental review of your positions:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Prominent Progressive Sours On Bernie 2020 “)

Comment: I agree on the questionability of Bernie’s foreign policy stance in the past (it seems to be getting better, though, and he may simply have been picking his battles strategically). Personally, I’d still support him against most probable opponents. I also agree that within the “Democratic” Party he probably couldn’t accomplish all that much. I’d definitely prefer him to run independent or for a third/new party since I by now seriously doubt that either arm of the Big Money Party (known as Republican and “Democratic” arms) are reformable, and if the “Democratic” Party which for such a long time has been occupying the position of the working people’s party, but only very insincerely so for the last 30-40 years, can be reformed into actually becoming that, I am quite certain that it will require enormous outside pressure to do so — basically the knife of replacement by a third/new party held at it’s party bosses’ throat.  

Raiding Immigrants to Divide the People and Protect the Oligarchs

In all truth, visa-less immigration — typically smeared as “illegal immigration” as if running for a chance at life were a crime — happens with the approval by our state and federal governments who quietly let it happen in order to please our cheap-labor-hungry plutocracy. The displays of border fences and walls, border patrols, and ICE raids are really nothing but dog-and-pony shows to (A) pretend that this form of immigration which leaves these immigrants bereft of rights is not an establishment-run affair in collusion with our bought government, and (B) divide the working people in our country against each other, lest they unite to overthrow the plutocracy and build a democracy in America.  

Interview on the State of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange (May 2018)

Here is a video of a length I usually dare to share only on weekends. It is soooo long (over an hour) that only weekends offer the time for most of us to watch it. Some such long videos I chose not to share at all, but I would feel remiss if I didn’t share this one, so this Sunday will have to harbor it. It’s from May 16^th, by the way.

Why is this topic so important? Because what is quietly happening is a direct attack on democracy by the U.S. and other governments.

Here is the video in which astute and clear-minded Jamarl Thomas interviews one of the world’s few experts on the Assange case:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Elizabeth Lea Vos Discusses New Developments W/Julian Assange & Wikileaks Developments, Live!”)

 

If you want to read up on the details of issues mentioned in this interview (and way more), here are two major links:

1. BEING JULIAN ASSANGE by Suzie Dawson on ContraSpin
2. Opinion: Is The Zeitgeist Finally Shifting In Favor Of Julian Assange? by Elizabeth Vos on Disobedient Media

 

The 23,000 word article “BEING JULIAN ASSANGE” (more like a short book put on a web page) is only partly about J.A. It also spends much time explaining how the nefarious coalition of despotic governments and their mass media shills are systematically dismantling WikiLeaks and slowly killing Assange until we, the people of the world, will be once again left in the dark about what our cruel establishment tools are secretly doing.  

Video Weekend 06-09-2018 (14 videos)

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?

~

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! 🙂

 

Ending Mass Migration

An immigration hysteria has invaded our immigrant nation. It has divided American voters, boosted dangerous politics, resulted in horrible crimes, and obfuscated the true causes of our problems. Both corrupt major parties are pouring gasoline on this fire for their party bosses and secret donors to benefit.

While I don’t share the xenophobic fears of certain people, I have a piece of advice for them: If you worry about too many immigrants, don’t go criminal or inhumane. Don’t waste time on building walls, either. Eliminate the cause of mass migrations, instead.  

Blaming the Wrong Culprits (Immigrants)

When you believe that immigration without a visa is a high crime deserving the deportation of people who grew up here, the tearing apart of families and kidnapping (plus “losing!”) of children, and even point blank execution by government agents — all because you have come to fear immigrants as the cause of unwanted changes in your home culture or competition for scarce job opportunities, then you have clearly had your mind manipulated by the blackhearted lords of the oligarchy in which we live — a fake democracy where you have no say at your places of work and only a non-counting vote in our public affairs.