How creativity is being strangled by the law.

A People’s History of American Empire by Howard Zinn

Indigo Children

Eddie Vedder: “Society”

This is probably my favourite track from Eddie Vedder’s solo soundtrack for the incredible movie, “Into the Wild”.  Someone put some visuals to the music. Here’s the lyrics:

Oh it’s a mystery to me.
We have a greed, with which we have agreed…
and you think you have to want more than you need…
until you have it all, you won’t be free.

Society, you’re a crazy breed.
I hope you’re not lonely, without me.

When you want more than you have, you think you need…
and when you think more then you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
I think I need to find a bigger place…
cause when you have more than you think, you need more space.

Society, you’re a crazy breed.
I hope you’re not lonely, without me.
Society, crazy indeed…
I hope you’re not lonely, without me.

There’s those thinkin’ more or less, less is more,
but if less is more, how you keepin’ score?
It means for every point you make, your level drops.
Kinda like you’re startin’ from the top…
and you can’t do that.

Society, you’re a crazy breed.
I hope you’re not lonely, without me.
Society, crazy indeed…
I hope you’re not lonely, without me
Society, have mercy on me.
I hope you’re not angry, if I disagree.
Society, crazy indeed.
I hope you’re not lonely…
without me.

Documentary–The Pot Union:

Shit, People are already ahead of the game: (but this is more about the industry…)

Of course, marijuana is illegal in this country, but it is a huge business. Seven billion dollars a year, and that’s just in British Columbia. We’ve got two guys who made a documentary about the pot industry. Adam Scorgie and Brett Harvey, are the makers of the documentary, ‘The Union – The Business Behind Getting High.’
CBC Link:
http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=1956

Actual Doc’s website:

http://www.theunionmovie.com/TheUnionWeb.html

Trailer:

Movie Synopisis:

Ever wonder what British Columbia’s most profitable industries are? Logging?
Fishing? Tourism? Ever think to include marijuana? If you haven’t, think again.
No longer a hobby for the stereotypical hippie culture of the ’60s, BC’s illegal
marijuana trade industry has evolved into a seemingly unstoppable business
giant, dubbed by those involved as ‘The Union’. Commanding upwards of $7
billion Canadian annually, The Union’s roots stretch far and wide, directly and
indirectly affecting all areas of our society. With 65% to 85% of all ‘BC Bud’
being exported to the United States, it’s clear that the BC marijuana trade has
become an international issue with consequences that extend far beyond our
borders. When there are record profits to be made, who are the players, and
when do their motives become questionable?

•Why is marijuana illegal?
•What health risks do we really face?
•Does prohabition work?
•What would happen if we taxed it?
•Medicine, paper, fuel, textiles, food, etc. Are we missing something here?

Follow filmmaker Adam Scorgie as he dives head first into Canada’s most
socially acceptable illegal activity. Along the way, Adam demsytifies the
underground market and brings to light how such a large industry can
function while remaining illegal. By interviewing experts from around the
globe, including growers, clippers, police officers, criminalogists, economists,
psychologists, medical doctors, politicians and pop culture icons, Scorgie
explores the cause and effect nature of the business behind getting high.
Nobody’s innocent in this exploration of an industry that may be profiting
more by being illegal. Join Adam Scorgie as he unravels the mystery of The
Union.

noam chomsky: distorted morality

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4054523048548733881

we watched this chomsky lecture filmed at harvard last night. The man really does his research! Check it out

Aldous Huxley Interview

10 steps to fascism… PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE watch (45mins.)

A lecture by Naomie Wolf, author of “End of America, A letter of Warning for a Young Patriot” at the University of Washington. She has carefully studied the political and social environments that led to the ‘installment’ of totalitarian regimes in the 20th Century (Stalin, Mussollini, Polpot, Hitler and numerous other ’smaller’ dictators) and concludes that there is a blue print of 10 characteristics that each of these regimes has followed. All 10 of these characteristics were present in the lead up to all of the totalitarian regimes, and all 10 are currently present in America right now… YOU are NEEDED to save democracy in America. Action needs to be taken immediately.

This guy is great!!

9/11: An Inside Job?

“I’m open to coordinated activity in secret places…but I don’t believe in secrecy.” 

Civil Disobedience: Howard Zinn Video, Hannah Arendt’s words

www.howardzinn.org/

celeb endorsement of the day:

Bruce Springsteen raves about Howard Zinn

In the new issue of Rolling Stone, under the heading “Inspiration,” Bruce Springsteen says: “Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States had an enormous impact on me. It set me down in a place that I recognized and felt I had a claim to. It made me feel that I was a player in this moment in history, as we all are, and that this moment in history was mine, somehow, to do with whatever I could. It gave me a sense of myself in the context of this huge American experience and empowered me to feel that in my small way. I had something to say, I could do something. It made me feel a part of history, and gave me life as a participant.”

“Civil disobedience arises when a significant number of citizens have become convinced either that the normal channels of change no longer function, and grievances will not be heard or acted upon, or that, on the contrary, the government is about to change and has embarked upon and persists in modes of action whose legality and constitutionality are open to grave doubt”

“The extreme form of power is All against One, the extreme form of violence is One against All. And this latter is never possible without instruments.”

“Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of the individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together…Power needs no justification, being inherent in the very existence of political communities; what it does need is legitimacy. The common treatment of these words as synonyms is no less misleading and confusing than the current equation of obedience and support. Power springs up whenever people get together and act in concert, but it derives its legitimacy from the initial getting together rather than from any action that then may follow. Legitimacy, when challenged, bases itself on an appeal to the past, while justification relates to an end that lies in the future. Violence can be justifiable, but never will be legitimate. Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future.

Strength unequivocally designates something in the singular, an individual entity; it is the property inherent in an object or person and belongs to its character, which may prove itself in relation to other things or persons, but is essentially independent of them…

Force, which we often use in daily speech as a synonym for violence, especially if violence serves as a means of coercion, should be reserved, in terminological language, for the ‘forces of nature’ or the ‘force of circumstances’, that is, to indicate the energy released by physical or social movements…

Violence, finally, as I have said, is distinguished by its instrumental character. Phenomenologically, it is close to strength, since the implements of violence, like all other tools, are designed and used for that purpose of multiplying natural strength until, in the last stage of their development, they can substitute for it.

It is not superfluous to add that these distinctions, though by no means arbitrary, hardly ever correspond to watertight compartments in the real world, from which nevertheless they are drawn.

-hannah arendt, Crises of the Republic, 1969

Macolm X read by Mos Def

Mos Def introduced by Howard Zinn…

Malcolm X, in Detroit, Michigan, 1963–2 years before his assassination.

West, Cornell. Race Matters . New York: Vintage, 1994: 149-51

THE CONTEMPORARY FOCUS on Malcolm X, especially among black youth, can be understood as both the open articulation of black rage (as in film videos and on tapes targeted at whites, Jews, Koreans, black women, black men, and others) and as a desperate attempt to channel this rage into something more than a marketable commodity for the culture industry. The young black generation are up against forces of death, destruction, and disease unprecedented in the everyday life of black urban people. The raw reality of drugs and guns, despair and decrepitude, generates a raw rage that, among past black spokespersons, only Malcolm X’s speech approximates. Yet the issue of psychic conversion, cultural hybridity, black supremacy, authoritarian organization, borders and boundaries in sexuality, and other matters all loom large at present-the same issues Malcolm X left dangling at the end of his short life spent articulating black rage and affirming black humanity.

If we are to build on the best of Malcolm X, we must preserve and expand his notion of psychic conversion that cements networks and groups in which black community, humanity, love, care, and concern can take root and grow (the work of bell hooks is the best example). These spaces-beyond the best of black music and black religion-reject Manichean ideologies and authoritarian arrangements in the name of moral visions, subtle analyses of wealth and power, and concrete strategies of principled coalitions and democratic alliances. These visions, analyses, and strategies never lose sight of black rage, yet they focus this rage where it belongs: on any form of racism, sexism, homophobia, or economic in justice that impedes the opportunities of “everyday people” (to use the memorable phrase of Sly and the Family Stone and Arrested Development) to live lives of dignity and decency. For example, poverty can be as much a target of rage as degraded identity.

kalle lasn buy nothing day interview on CNN

Love is all you need…

  you’ve got to watch all the videos. You’ll get a good sense of what Hardt is referring to in the Multitude, when he refers to love as a political concept.