Political Awakening Video Weekend 05-12-2019 (18 videos)

A great discussion on UBI, great political satire, class warfare and the dying middle class and poor, healthcare racketeering, political awakening, media corruption by the rule of money, a people’s revolution, the real (capitalist!) entitlement in our market society… 22 cool videos. Stars: Nick Brana, Chris Hedges, Kim Iversen, Richard Wolff, Tulsi Gabbard, Ralph Nader, Jimmy Dore, and more.

Topics:

1. Nick Brana & Scott Santens Discussing UBI
2. Satire: Neoliberal Slavery
3. Class Warfare: OMG, Reality is Real! Who Knew?
4. Middle Class Struggling — But still Half Asleep?
5. Market Society: Infinite Greed, Inequality, Non-Living Wages, Life Depression, The Poor…
6. Awakening of a Hillerite
7. Media: The Dying Free Press & Anger Sales
8. Candidates: Debate-Qualified Ones & Tulsi Interview
9. A Political People’s Revolution
10. World: Venezuela Analysis & How Castro Became an Empire Asset
11. Humor: Hillary’s 2020 Advice & Joe the Sniffer
12. Capitalist Entitlement

The Camouflage of Authoritarianism

In the interview clip shared below, a caller makes an important point about authoritarian regimes, namely that authoritarianism can camouflage in any present economic or political system. Therefore socialism gets easily smeared by pointing at the Soviet Union where an authoritarian undemocratic regime hid behind the facade of socialism (or communism, depending on which representative or critic was speaking). It’s almost funny considering that the Soviet Union’s economic system wasn’t really socialist or communist but a form of state capitalism where the ruling capitalists aren’t private owners of everything but bureaucratic members of a regime controlling everything, making workers as ruled from above, voiceless, and possibly exploited at their places of work as in any private ownership style capitalist system. If you research the history of the term socialism you will find that it was created around the idea of democracy in our economy, the workers owning the means of production, not an authoritarian regime acting out as the workers’ alleged representative and thus painting itself as socialist. But I digress…

Proper Tax vs. Iɯdɹodǝɹ ┴ɐx

As the Tax Day is about to hit us over the head or under the belt line again, it makes sense to give a thought or two about how proper or improper our tax system is.

Clearly, lots of people across the political spectrum hate taxes, or at least their own taxes, or would like others to be taxed more, or – in some cases – gladly pay their taxes as a contribution to the society that grants them a civilized life. (I once belonged to the latter group.)

But how many of us have actually thought this through? What our taxes are for and what they could be used for instead?

Since many of us are busy meeting the deadline, I want to keep this article as short as possible, only throwing out a funny historic remembrance and some food-for-thought seeds for our future.  

Political Awakening Video Weekend 04-07-2019 (20 videos) — Biggest Topic: UBI

This weekend’s video collection of political, economic, and societal issues – both problems and their solutions – is mixed with significantly more written commentary than usual, basically merged with an article. The writing is added to tie the clips together and also enhance the understanding they bring. This particular compilation is also dominated by a heavy focus on one big major theme that is growing in popularity and public discourse: the concept of a Universal Basic Income. Here are many of the pros and cons and how a UBI fits into the big picture. Other topics: an ethical society, news on the corporate media, healthcare, Tulsi Gabbard, liberty, whistleblowers (Manning & Assange), top-run dividedness of the people, Venezuela’s economic reality, and a political comedy session.

Topics:

1. UBI: Introduction
2. UBI: Active & Passive Incomes, Taxed or Not
3. UBI: Just Printing Money for a UBI is not the Correct Way
4. UBI: Social Context and Effects of a UBI
5. UBI: A panel discussion with further insights
6. UBI: Here is another pretty good discussion
7. UBI: The UBI-Scam-Worry on the Left
8. UBI: Well Made Point Concerning the Ethics in Our Society
9. Lee Camp Exposes Our Ayn-Rand-Style Corporate Media
10. Healthcare: An American Tourist’s Healthcare Experience in Europe
11. Tulsi Opposes Torture and Regime Change Wars
12. Where is our Freedom Party?
13. Talk: Chelsea Manning, Grand Juries, College, Mega Corporate Non-Free Market
14. Our History: The Divided Poor Utilized by the Rich
15. World, Corrupticians, & Media: Backstabbing Assange
16. World: Venezuela’s Economic Crisis Explained
17. Comedy: Jimmy, Graham, Ron, Stef…

Political Awakening Video Weekend 03-30-2019 (12 videos)

Once more an enlightening video compilation so we can spend time on our weekend to educate ourselves for desirable change rather than letting ourselves be dumbed down by the corporate media. Enjoy!

Topics:

1. Society: The Crippling Corporate Culture
2. Isms: Socialism vs Fascism
3. Corruption: Law Run by the Thieves – The ‘Big Four’
4. Revolutionary History: What to learn from the Bolsheviks
5. Unions: Top Middle-Class Unionizing Against its Decline
6. News: U.S. Election Rigging, Venezuela, Yellow Vests, Social Media Censorship
7. Media: ‘The Cleaners’ Who Scrub Social Media
8. World: U.S. Sabotage of Venezuelan Power Plant?
9. Capitalism: Greed Ends the Age of Antibiotics
10. Change: Government is a Tool
11. Democracy: Our Fraudulent Elections
12. A Good Life for All: The Citizen Dividend (a.k.a. UBI)

 

I. Society: The Crippling Corporate Culture

Here is an old, yet outstanding, speech by Chris Hedges. It’s from April 3, 2013. If you are certain to have heard most of this before and are short on time, you may fast forward to 1:05:32 where his wrap-up starts and hits hard: https://youtu.be/KJ9nvAX-S1g?t=3932 Otherwise, here the clip starts from the beginning:

(Note: If the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Chris Hedges – America from the Outside – How the World sees US – 2013”)

Political Awakening Video Weekend 03-24-2019 (19 videos)

Biggest theme this weekend: capitalism, esp. its war on the people, incl. the new “Woke” Capitalists (The Empire Strikes Back). But also insights on our politics’ corruption and a SILVER BULLET for curing us of it. Plus various other topics, including more on AOC, Medicare & Social Security, the Green New Deal, the Silver Spooners, and the ongoing trickery of the “Democratic” Party to defeat Bernie in 2020 and how we may fight back.

Topics:

1. The Political Minions of the Oligarchy
2. “Woke” Capitalists (The Empire Strikes Back)
3. Stagnant Wages & the End of the Education Moves-You-Up Myth
4. AOC (Competent & Immune to Establishment Smears)
5. The War on Medicare & Social Security
6. A Silver Bullet to Clean up Political Corruption
7. Our War Economy
8. World Politics: Venezuela
9. Marx’s Actual Take on Religion
10. Capitalism Discussions with Economists
11. Green New Deal
12. AOC vs Ivanka: Real People vs Silver Spooners
13. “D”-Party Trickery revealed by an Insider: Why so many candidates? & Silencing Tulsi to Eliminate Bernie
14. Mindset for a Good World

Political Awakening Video Weekend 03-16-2019 (21 videos)

Heroic women and children and even some men… Definitely don’t miss AOC’s talk with Bill Nye at the beginning of this video compilation and absolutely not the world-wide school children’s uprising videos at the end including a jaw-dropping speech by the little girl that started it.

1. AOC & Bill Nye – Wow! (and more)
2. Why Capitalism Sucks (3 spiffy videos)
3. Rebelling against Human Extinction
4. Empire (Plot against Venezuela, U.S. Colonies, & the Alternative)
5. Media War
6. Whistle Blower War
7. Hope from Action: AMAZING World-Wide School Kids’ Climate Protests

 

I. AOC & Bill Nye – Wow! (and more)

(Note: If the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “AOC Surprised by Bill Nye at SXSW”)

Summary: Not one person paying painfully for another, but investing in a great future for us all. We can all win together. No more hopeless cringing. Time for courage and change.

Financial Security for All via a UBI – Not to be Seen in Isolation

Financial security for us “common” people is an extremely important topic. The video shared below touches upon several highlights of this subject, such as the question of affordability and the worrisome band-aid-possibility of a “universal basic income” (short “UBI”, but better called something else like a citizen dividend in order to frame it properly within the big picture). The video explores these points too superficially, though. Therefore I recommend to first listen to the video conversation and then read my comments below (to which you are welcome to respond and add):  

UBI – Where Will The Money Come From?

From the rich, of course, where it currently is going. Such an excessive portion of the money in our economy is currently flowing to the rich that they will be less and less able to extract money from us as we slide so deeply into poverty that we can’t afford their sales of goods and services any more, nor their fines, rents, and interest payments. That situation will then collapse the economy on which these green-blooded money aristocrats ride all their lives. That’s why some of them have woken up to the realization that, in order to protect their privileges, their class of the ultra rich must be forced by governments to let some of this siphoned money flow back to the broad population on whose back they stand and dance. Otherwise, they will sink as well when the floor on which they stand (namely us, we are that floor) sinks into the abyss.  

The ‘Private Property’ Demon behind Inequality

In a video I will share this weekend, I heard the following phrase: “In the criminal justice system the people are repressed by two separate but equally important important groups: the police who defend private property and the policy makers who criminalize disobedience”. When I heard “the police who defend private property and the policy makers…” my mind spun ahead completing the sentence with “the policy makers who define private property”.

Why did that pop up in my head? Well it is because of the immoral and cruelly corrupt system of human life into which I was born and in which I therefore have had to utterly waste my short time on Earth. It arranges and justifies its inequality and its abuse of people – and even the destruction of our life-supporting environment – on the concept of private property.

And what is that concept of private property? How is it defined for us?