Occupy Wall Street short music video.
“Power” by Kanye West
I wish videos like this went viral.
What’s happening is a non-violent sit-in with dialogue and discussion. Yes, it’s direct action, but it’s NOT an occupation. Take a look at Gaza and Iraq, those are occupations.
The question isn’t whether or not we need time to sit down have dialogue with fellow humans. That’s nice, it feels great, and it’s beautiful—but it’s not an occupation. Allow me to predict what’s going to happen in NYC. Day after day, more activists will be arrested until their are little left and the media will deliver misinformation to keep the public ignorant.
I hope I’m wrong.
Fuck the feel good shit, it’s time to storm the lobbies and board rooms of banks and corporations, and demand they concede their power and resources to the people. We can talk on twitter and tumblr about the wrongs they’ve committed later. Right now, it’s time to demand they forfeit their corporate charters and release their assets and funds to the other 99%.
And occupying wall street is only half of our fascist country. We have to occupy the state and demand the same thing. Who do those riot police work for? The state. In a democracy, the state is suppose to protect the people. Why the hell are they protecting corporations? Oh yeah, because this isn’t a democracy.
END:CIV examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”
The causes underlying the collapse of civilizations are usually traced to overuse of resources. As we write this, the world is reeling from economic chaos, peak oil, climate change, environmental degradation, and political turmoil. Every day, the headlines re-hash stories of scandal and betrayal of the public trust. We don’t have to make outraged demands for the end of the current global system — it seems to be coming apart already.
But acts of courage, compassion and altruism abound, even in the most damaged places. By documenting the resilience of the people hit hardest by war and repression, and the heroism of those coming forward to confront the crisis head-on, END:CIV illuminates a way out of this all-consuming madness and into a saner future.
Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land. The film trips along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. END:CIV illustrates first-person stories of sacrifice and heroism with intense, emotionally-charged images that match Jensen’s poetic and intuitive approach. Scenes shot in the back country provide interludes of breathtaking natural beauty alongside clearcut evidence of horrific but commonplace destruction.
END:CIV features interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.
One man went to prison for health care. Not surprised.
This is a problem. More people speak up about this.
Whoever posted this obviously doesn’t know someone in prison. Trust me, they do NOT have it better.
Nobody said prisoners have it better. The point of this infographic is to highlight the fact that as a nation we are not investing in our future. If we gave every child in America the education that we’re capable of providing to them, then we wouldn’t have a need for these prisons in 20-30 years.
Less money on education now = more need for prisons in the future
This is a great graph for illuminating our countries misplaced priorities. Of course, the spending per soldier in Afghanistan alone is 1,000,000 per year, but details… I hope, though, that people see this and realize that politicians and decision makers are not ignorant to these facts. Many of them have vested interests in making sure that these facts continue.
What the chart doesn’t mention is that U.S. prisons have a disproportionate amount of black inmates—and this is also no coincidence. Job opportunities and rights are extremely different for prisoners and students as well. Our country, or our corporate overlords, are more interested in creating inmates and soldiers because both as are under control. And educated free person is dangerous to their established order.
Don’t believe me? Look back up at the chart.
(Source: kingjaffejoffer)
I’m sorry for the cynicism, but wages have been stagnant for over thirty years, more prison are being built, more schools closed or defunded, no health care for millions, global temperatures rising, capitalist greed is growing—this is all under the leadership of both democrats and republicans.
We need a radical shift in politics and industry. We need a people’s revolution in America today. We need a true democracy in Washington and in our workplaces. No more hierarchies. No more top-down, self-other power relations. No more rent. If you work there, you are part owner. If you live there, you are part owner.
I love her radicalism. “Nickel & Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America”: Barbara Ehrenreich on the Job Crisis & Wealth Gap
The Poverty of Philosophy by Immortal Technique
Most of my Latino and black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophising about freedom and socialist democracy is usually unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don’t realize that America can’t exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there’s no way in hell we’d allow this country to push it’s genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.
This is a classic. And it reminds me of the necessity to remain a radical revolutionary in the constant face of pseudo change. We don’t need reform, we need bottom-up radical change in virtually all areas of our social, political, environmental and economic structures.
Hmm… I wonder how the debate will go tonight…
ANY RANDOM JACKASS: bladday blah blah sharmamam skjdnf yadda yadda yadda oooo looky shiny object blah blah hmm, I think I have a… nope just more blah blah blah blah yadadad [50 minutes later] blah blah blah yadda bladday blah blah sharmamam skjdnf yadda yadda yadda oooo looky shiny object blah blah hmm, nope just more blah blah blah blah yadadad!
TRANSLATION: More cuts to the public sector, more tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy, more money for the wars, more racists laws for Latinos, more prisons for Black men, more attacks on women, workers, and the GBLTQ community………….. annnnnnnndddd oh yeah, Obama is Muslim.
In other words, don’t vote. If you’re still waiting on any of these arrogant assholes to start acting on the people’s behalf, you’ll be waiting another four years, then another, and another, and another. Change happens first in you, then your own community. Let’s stop waiting on people in power to act on our behalf, and go make it happen for ourselves.
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized.
Idiot boxes of the world unite! To fight off the effects of intelligence, replace smart quotes with fart jokes, substitute sense with scenes from Martin, let the baby’s bathe in that glow and learn all manner of things they don’t really need to know!
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized!
Channel the content of some rambling nonsense deep into the annals of yo’ subconscious, deprogram and depress chasing some televised success, be them, that, they and those be everything but in control,
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized!
Small claims Court drama, teenage baby mamas, Osama watching Osama, Celebrity Endorsed indoor saunas, the perfectly cooked piraña and other cannonfodder for you to ponder, all at the speed of imitations of life while the smoke of war gets inhaled thru the peace pipes, be still my beating heart and scare my brain from thinking thoughts as i sit intoxicated by the delights, sarcasm and 3 strikes thrown by my favorite pitcher in a sound surrounded, 3 dimensional, high death, full color mixture, wholly unsocializing and completely uncensored,
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized!
By this one-eyed monster most of the world was raised, and by this hero most of the world was saved, and to this master most of the world is slaves, it factors your fears with actors and cheers from a live studio audience pushing you to engage in a heroic act of thoughtlessness for the grand prize of a little bread, fleeting fame in the circus and every thought in yo head,
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized!
“Ain’t no changing me” said my flat screen TV, No More Che’s to the rescue, or Black Panthers to correct you, just coaxial cables and satellite signals to connect you to a world that doesn’t really look like it does on TV, where everything is much shorter, fatter, uglier and in disorder, where u have to do it now because there are no digital recorders where if the present gets boring you can just fast forward,
The Television Will Not Be Revolutionized!
So there will be no revolution, or paradoxically ironic televised public execution of the entire worldwide televising institution, there wont even be a celebritized, televised trial of old baby blue, cuz you see my dear friends the television will not be revolutionized but what about the revolution that should taking place inside………………….of you?
By Wasalu “Lupe Fiasco” Jaco in Dedication to that guiding light of a human being Gil-Scott Heron
(Source: lupefiasco.com)
