Wakeful Video Weekend 2019-11-24 (25 videos)

Neat videos: First, a great video on what human life is meant to be (egalitarian and natural!). Next, billionaires are systemically evil. And lots more on: the money aristocracy, awareness, state coups, “Dem” debates, “Dem” candidates (Bernie vs Warren, Tulsi vs DNC, Biden BS), billionaires vs free speech, separating anger from action to make change, our political choice between fascism and a better world, and, and, and, incl. some humor. 🙂

Stars & channels: Christopher Ryan, Jimmy Dore, The Grayzone, The Real News Network, Democracy Now!, Abby Martin (Empire Files), The Michael Brooks Show, Hard Lens Media, Krystal Ball (The Hill), Secular Talk, Yanis Varoufakis, NonCompete, and a bunch more…

Topics:

1. Hunters & Gatherers’ Egalitarian, Social, Low-Work, Low-Worry & Low-Stress Life ***
2. Billionaire = Evil **
3. Money Aristocracy: Let’s Let Jeff Bezos Own the Whole Planet
4. Stimulating Conversation on Awareness
5. Bolivia’s Coup & its People’s Resistance
6. “Dem” Debate Analysis
7. Candidates (Bernie vs Warren, Tulsi vs DNC, Biden BS)
8. Media (Speech Monopoly / Treatment of Protests)
9. U.S. Schools & Teachers (shoved into the ditch)
10. Political Stubbornness, Rich Selfishness, & One Choice: … **
11. Populist vs Popular & Lying vs Snuggling Politicians
12. Thoughts: Focus on a Better World
13. Humor: Bolivia, Obama (“Don’t Hope!”)

 

1. Hunters & Gatherers’ Egalitarian, Social, Low-Work, Low-Worry & Low-Stress Life ***

There is a reason why in my critique of our abusive current system and promotion of a Good Life for All (incl. No Rich and No Poor but universal prosperity) system I regularly point at how our ancestors lived before resources-hoarding from agriculture and abusive large-population hierarchies ruined human life having us all born into a man-made hell to fizzle out our lives in:

How We Are Being “Civilized To Death” w/Christopher Ryan ~ The Jimmy Dore Show

Comments:

1. As far as our rapidly changing world goes, let’s not forget that those of us who grew up in the fifties, sixties, or possibly even seventies, grew up with the expectation of picking a profession, contributing to society in this profession throughout our working lives (stable working lives!!!), enjoy hobbies, maybe build or buy a home, and then retire in comfort for the last slice of our lives. But job security went away, retirement security went away. Even healthcare and education did. All was taken by the super rich to make themselves even richer. People like me have been crushed out of their jobs AND PROFESSIONS over and over and over again, losing all our lives savings every time, and seeing ahead of us a bleak future of a last phase of life in utter poverty and helplessness.
2. As far as trying to return to where we came from goes, there isn’t only hunting and fishing (and other hobbies) that resemble H&G life, there are also other popular activities: parties, sports, and VACATIONS… socializing with other people, traveling around to see nature or villages or town and ruins never seen before. Vacations that aren’t staycations (that poor people like me are often limited to, if in fact we aren’t busy hunting for a new job) do indeed resemble the roaming H&G life! Travel-vacations are such a high mark in people’s lives and so incredibly relaxing and recharging for some reason, aren’t they?
3. Our great ape relatives: Chimps resemble capitalism or (with the lack of hoardable resources) a simpler form of unequal authoritarianism. Bonobos (an evolutionary recent split from chimps) resemble the “Love not War” Hippie movement or communes that was perhaps sparked to no small extent by the development of birth control. We humans seem to have both instinctual MOs built in.
4. And kudos for bringing up the vastly important topic so generally avoided: our dying phase that our greed-driven capitalist society is not at all prepared to handle with any form of dignity. An issue we must discuss because it is critical and can also help us tie ourselves together and dismiss the silly distractions with which we are lambasted daily by the establishment.

Wakeful Video Weekend 2019-11-03 (23 videos)

It’s really cool that more and more women are coming out of their traditional closet to speak up and stand up against the corruption and rot of our system – or are finally paid attention to. And, finally this time, the so often forgotten elderly and their terrible sufferings are revealed. And guess which candidate cares about them?

Stars & Channels: Abby Martin (Empire Files), The Real News Network, The Zero Hour, Bernie, John Spritzler, TeleSUR, JRE Clips, Michael Brooks, Hard Lens Media, Ralph Nader, Jimmy Dore, A Current Affair, PBS NewsHour, VICE News, AJ+, Nina Turner…

Topics:

1. Companies Rule the World
2. Neoliberal Fearmongering to Divide Us
3. The Old Age Misery in America
4. Temp Work Used as a Picket Line against Workers
5. Corporate America: Profits over People’s Lives
6. How the Rule of Money Miserably Shapes Society
7. The Path from Police Brutality to State Terrorism
8. Edward Snowden on Mobile Phones Surveillance
9. World News: Overlooked Uprisings World-Wide
10. All the People(s) are Beginning to Rise Up
11. Candidates: Biden, Warren, Trump, Bearnie, $Hillary, Tulsi
12. Bernie: End Corporate Greed Press Conference
13. Whistleblowers are Heroes, Not Spies | None-of-the-Above Voting
14. Despotic Government Bullying True Journalists
15. Another Funny Fox Failure: Reaganite to the Left! Panel SCREAMS!

 

1. Companies Rule the World

… and 80% of TV news stories are manufactured in public relation firms working for governments and the corporations (i.e. the nebulous rich rulers behind these scenes):

Giants: Who Really Rules The World?
Empire Files

One man’s wish: Let the people be free!

At the end of this short piece, I share a video that’ been gathering dust in my archives.

It may be rather long and rambling, but the great point Jamarl’s speech ultimately comes down to is: What kind of life do we want to live? He mentions nobody wanting to be a cog in a wheel which is what people end up being in our current human world. So, ask yourself what kind of life do you want to live?  

A Personal UBI Appeal: The Downside of Life-by-Jobs

I think that, in order to arrive at a better civilization, we must rid ourselves of the slave-mentality that is structurally built into our economic system of job-slaves and job-masters. We must do so because it makes us subservient to the ruling class which grossly abuses its power. We must also rid ourselves of this slave mentality because it ruins our individual lives by creating a desperate willingness to accept jobs that aren’t good matches. This willingness often has us even try very hard to convince employers that bad job matches are GOOD matches, simply because we don’t want to starve and go homeless. The threat of poverty has become what the chains and whips were during the days of plantation slavery. The modern form is wage slavery. And it comes with fears, coercions, and unhealthy conditions that ruin our individual lives and our entire societies. 

The Nature of our Duopoly Voters: Rep “Values” & Dem Blindness

Yesterday, I came across an interesting article which attempts to explain why many Republican voters seem to consistently vote against their own interests, thereby supporting a political party which works exclusively for the rich and throws everybody else under the bus, including these voters. For an example the article points at Trump’s war on our healthcare coupled with continuing loyalty to him.

It’s Trust, Not Trump, Baby!

In a recent article, Umair Haque explained pretty well why the spreading attitude of me-me-me and to hell with society and the related phenomenon of splintering into tribes are so damaging for all of us, including for those who live this attitude. You may know people who need this explained to them. I sure do. Hence this article.

Salient Quotes:

“What’s a place where there’s no trust? A jungle. Maybe a prison. … Without trust, a society can’t be a society. It becomes something else entirely: a place where predators rule. … There must be some level of trust that binds people together, or else a society will almost inevitably decay into demagoguery, collapse, and ruin.”

“Americans can’t have what the rest of the rich world takes for granted: public healthcare, education, finance. They live profoundly crippled lives: precarious, anxious, afraid. They will never retire, can’t afford to educate their kids, and their incomes have been stagnant for decades. No wonder there is widespread rage.”

“First, trust is lost. Then, society loses the ability to function. Then, public goods are lost. Without public goods, people’s lives shatter. The rage that results from broken dreams produces demagoguery. Today’s gilded demagogue, then, isn’t the issue: the loss of trust is.”

Here is the link to the full article: The Five Letter Word That Spells the End of Societies

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Chris Hedges Interview Video: The American Empire Is Over

Another worthwhile Chris Hedges clip about how we got to our current state of affairs:

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Chris Hedges Brace Yourself! The American Empire Is Over”)

For a list of key points, 

The Competition Curse

Our society = a pyramid scheme!

Quote: “Our competition and internal strife weaken us and prevent us from facing the universe’s tough challenges like disease; the ravages of aging and a short life-span; as well as natural disasters like earthquakes; tsunamis; pandemics; global climate change, with its ever increasing hurricanes; and giant meteorite impacts, such as the one that killed off the dinosaurs…”

Read the full article…

 

How Things Are in Other Countries

Example: France, so very different from the U.S. … Not all is perfect there. They make mistakes. Yet, a 35 hour work week, long paid vacations, and the best healthcare in the world (at half the price of U.S. healthcare)… in THIS universe??? An entirely different way is apparently possible. Watch and be amazed.

Conclusion: All these things are easily possible when we don’t shunt the lion’s share of our mutually generated wealth to the 1%. It’s the robbery by the 1% which is preventing us from having a good life.

(Note: if the video linked above gets deleted, you may search the Internet for the title: “Does Socialism Work In France?”)

Please comment below.

In other words: participate! 😉

A Must-See Video

I am shocked! Someone, and a young one, apparently… made this amazing 8+ minute video which summarizes much of what I keep wanting to write a book about, much of what life has taught me. You have to watch this!  (in case the link is deleted again, the title to search for is: “The Lie We Live“)