Archive for March, 2008
China, Olympics, & Propaganda; Democracy or Economy; Destroying a 5,000-Year-Old Civilization
March 30, 2008Obama Runs a Crooked Game
March 30, 2008War Against the Third World
March 30, 2008Algeria chapter of "The Great War for Civilisation"
March 30, 2008Miguel Coyula talks about what’s happening in Cuba
March 29, 2008The current political situation in Iraq
March 29, 2008Where Has the Rage Gone?
March 29, 2008Classified Memo Reveals Iraqi Prisoners as “Starving”
March 29, 2008Five Years of Accelerating U.S. Decline
March 29, 2008Inspired Genius – Rats on Cocaine Ep. 9
March 29, 2008Wall Street or Homeowners: Guess Who’s Getting a Bailout?
March 27, 2008White Lies – A "Top Ten" List
March 24, 2008Bush Administration to Blue-State California: Drop Dead!
March 24, 2008Welcome to Hell
March 24, 2008Americans are so deep in despair right now that they are hoping the world is like Dante’s Inferno – heaven is found only by a path through hell. So while ostensibly opposing the machinations of Rove , Cheney, and others they are immobilized and rendered impotent not by fear, but by hope. They believe that only when life becomes bleakest, when apocalypse is on the doorstep, when a constant nightmare is their waking life, will the people rise up and instigate a utopian (socialist) revolution. In this sick way Rove, Cheney, and the Neocons are doing them a service, guiding them through hell so that they may reach heaven. It is this fatal mixture of Orwellian doublethink, Marxist permanent revolution, and Dante’s perversion and religious superstition that is the social reality of the moment.
In the Rocky series of movies Rocky explodes and wins the fight only when the fight seems lost – it’s the very definition of “comeback of the underdog”. When the fight is competitive Rocky is lame, taking punch after punch.
The Left in America is not so much weak as believes themselves to be weak so as to conform to their perverted vision of hope. Self-righteously they take punch after punch, calling out “Fascist!”, “Police State!”, or “9/11 Truth!”, while enjoying every blow they receive since according to them it enables their hate and fear to grow with the end result of socialist revolution.
The most effective members of the left, not surprisingly, are those who (subconsciously) denounce this worldview – Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein. The problem is that this worldview is so pervasive that the left is emotionally fractured and cannot come together in a mass, or even a semi-mass, social movement.
Sitting Out but Standing Tall: Tokyo Teachers Fight an Uphill Battle Against Nationalism and Coercion
March 22, 2008FARC Women
March 22, 2008South Park’s lack of class analysis
March 22, 2008Episode 1202, “Britney’s New Look”, highlights a typical flaw in Parker’s and Stone’s analysis.
In this episode, Britney Spears is terrorized by greedy paparazzi to the point that she severely injures herself with a shotgun, ruining her singing career (despite the dogged efforts of fans and managers to maintain it).
In a ridiculous twist at the end, it’s revealed that there is a conspiracy among *all* people (managers, paparazzi, fans) to murder Spears, relating it to the sacrifice of virgins (Spears is the modern Western equivalent of a virgin apparently) in some older cultures. The murder is done through stress-related events following an excess of attention (by paparazzi, managers, and fans). The logical flaw of murdering Spears by torture rather than by execution (throwing into a volcano or cutting out the heart) in relation to the comparison is not mentioned.
Spears is a manufactured pop star, in the same way that Hannah Montana is as well as various “boy bands” and others. These people don’t so much have fans as propaganda victims, who are taken in by the pomp and circumstance given to a fresh, pretty face doing something mildly entertaining. There aren’t even many victims, but due to the extremely high exposure (and the targeting of the young and vulnerable) and mass-audience enough victims emerge to produce the only thing the pursuers of this care about – money.
None of this is presented in the episode. The episode treats the various constituencies (paparazzi, managers, fans) as essentially equal in their effect – as reinforcing the other and working together toward the same goal (sacrifice of the “victim”).
Also not noted in the episode is that the manufactured pop star, unlike the sacrificial virgin of yore, becomes exceedingly wealthy. Excess attention is merely a side effect of the wealth. For South Park to produce this episode which presents these pop stars (all of whom either know what they are in for or are total fools) as victims is ridiculous.
This kind of “everyone is bad except the South Park kids who form the lone conscience” is typical of South Park and why they often provide decent analysis but never great analysis.
We're in Our World Now 