Guy Maddin

Last week I discovered this director Guy Maddin...he's incredible. His film "Brand Upon the Brain!" blew me away...I highly recommend it (click that link to see the preview, and to read further). Also, to tide you over, here is one of his short films...it's indicitive of his editing style and so forth

"The Heart of the World" (2000)

(sorry, was having trouble embedding it straight onto this site...)

the really, seriously, for real, accurate, verifiable, factual, actual, no lies, no deception, honest, genuine, true, facts about... ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Real Bill Ayers
By WILLIAM AYERS
Published: December 6, 2008
Now that the election is over, a secondary character in a narrative about Barack Obama separates his fictional identity from his actual one.

Also...these are great if you are interested:
http://www.upstatefilms.org/weather/main.html
http://www.democracynow.org/features/dn_exclusive_bill_ayers_and_bernardine_d

Fanny and Alexander

"Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns."

Quoted from August Strindberg's A Dream Play in Ingmar Bergman's film Fanny and Alexander...I just watched it over the weekend - one of the best films I've ever seen. If you can, watch the longer, original version (312 minutes, divided into 4 episodes)...it's worth it. The theatrical version was cut down to 188 minutes.

Bailout?

AMY GOODMAN: Just underscoring what you wrote on the whole issue of the difference in the bailouts, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown extracting meaningful guarantees for taxpayers, voting rights on banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, a legal requirement banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses. Here in the United States, Washington Post reporting major US banks are on pace to spend more than half their bailout money on rewarding their shareholders. The thirty-three banks are set to receive some $163 billion in government bailouts; half of that sum will go to paying off shareholders over the next three years.

NAOMI KLEIN: Yeah, this bailout is really not a bailout at all; it’s a parting gift to the people that the Bush—that George Bush once referred to jokingly as “my base.” You know, in one of my columns recently, I likened it to what European colonial rulers used to do when they finally realized they had to hand over power; they would loot the treasury on the way out the door.

And the reason why there has been this dramatic change in policy just in recent days, where Henry Paulson has said, “OK, well, we’re not going to do what we originally had said at all,” which is use the bailout money to buy distressed assets, to buy bad debts, “Now we’re going to go from these equity deals with the banks to bailing out credit card companies”—the reason for that is that that first $250 billion was essentially money down the drain. They are admitting that it didn’t do what it was supposed to do, which was increase lending. So, now they’re making it up as they go along. It’s take three, take four, take five. But we’re supposed to somehow not notice that $250 billion, an astronomical sum, was just wasted, going to bonuses, going to shareholder payouts, going to CEO salaries. And now they’re trying another method to get lending going. But it really was the parting gift, Amy.

And if we think about what this money means, and this is—you know, this crisis isn’t over, and the same people who justified this bailout, who clamored for this bailout, are the very people who are going to turn around and say to Barack Obama, “We can’t afford for you to make good on your election promises. We can’t afford universal healthcare. In fact, we can’t afford what meager services Americans get in exchange for their tax dollars, like Social Security payments.” We’re already hearing this lowering of expectations now in the national discourse. So, the money—this really is, you know, reverse Robin Hood gone mad. The money has been given to the people who needed it least, and it’s going to be used to justify austerity measures imposed against those who need it most. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to food stamps. It’s going to be used to justify cuts to Social Security, to healthcare, let alone being used to justify why more ambitious plans for a national healthcare program, for green energy are not affordable. So people have to be ready for this. You know, the next shock is yet to come.

17 Quotes - Ruminating on skepticism through the words of others...

"Only if a man have a strong faith can he indulge in the luxury of skepticism."

--Friedrich Nietzsche

"In the end we shall have had enough of cynicism and skepticism and humbug and we shall want to live more musically."

--Vincent van Gogh

“Skepticism has never founded empires, established principals, or changed the world's heart. The great doers in history have always been people of faith.”
--Edwin Hubbel Chapin

"Skepticism, riddling the faith of yesterday, prepared the way for the faith of tomorrow."

--Romain Rolland

“The only new ideas that are not subject to our skepticism or suspicion are our own.”
--Cullen Hightower

"I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people."

--William S. Burroughs

"The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism."

--Thomas Jefferson

"I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all."

--Ralph B. Perry

"The city of truth cannot be built on the swampy ground of skepticism."

--Albert Schweitzer

"It is evident that skepticism, while it makes no actual change in man, always makes him feel better."

--Ambrose Bierce

""Skepticism," is that anything more than we used to mean when we said, "Well, what have we here?""

--Robert Frost

"To believe in luck - is skepticism"

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist."

--Jean Paul Sartre

“The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.”
--Simon Weil

“The goal of every culture is to decay through over-civilization; the factors of decadence, -- luxury, skepticism, weariness and superstition, -- are constant. The civilization of one epoch becomes the manure of the next.”
--Cyril Connolly

"Too much openness and you accept every notion, idea, and hypothesis - which is tantamount to knowing nothing. Too much skepticism - especially rejection of new ideas before they are adequately tested - and you're not only unpleasantly grumpy, but also closed to the advance of science. A judicious mix is what we need." [...] "If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress. "
--Carl Sagan

"The skeptic will say, 'It may well be true that this system of equations is reasonable from a logical standpoint, but this does not prove that it corresponds to nature.' You are right, dear skeptic. Experience alone can decide on truth."
--Albert Einstein

Obama and the future of US foreign policy

Today, as I tried to explain my frustrations about Obama's choice for Chief of Staff (Rahm Emanuel), my friend Torben joked and asked me (essentially) why I was being such a killjoy (our discussion was more detailed than that). I get this kind of response from a lot of people. My answer is that, honestly, I'm not buying into Obama. Let me be clear, I am extremely glad that Obama won over McCain, but I think that we quickly need to forget about him as being a hopeful candidate with inspiring speeches and a slick campaign, and start thinking of him as the leader of the most powerful and dominant country in the world. ...a leader of a country with an awful reputation in the world, in a world that has very high expectations of him and a lot of demands...a leader of a country with 2 wars to manage (several more on the verge of breaking out in the middle east...Syria, Pakistan, Iran), a failing economy, a health-care crisis, a world climate crisis, etc., etc. So, while this is a time to celebrate Obama as an inspiring president-elect with all of its historical importance, we must ask ourselves: what is he going to do now, and what will that reality look like?

I actually believe that, domestically, Obama's presidency will be fairly successful, and will be extremely refreshing given the last 8 years. I desperately hope that universal health care will be implemented even if it is still under a for-profit system...it is a step in the right direction. I haven't had health care for years and it is very stress-inducing. I think he'll start making baby steps toward being economically responsible and implementing sustainable energy solutions. He hasn't yet unveiled a coherent plan for immigration issues... I want to say more, but that isn't the purpose of this post.

What concerns me most is foreign policy issues, which dominate and plague presidencies. The world is celebrating Obama's win, but I fear for some of those countries, and for the countries that I don't fear for...I think that they are going to be disappointed. I just listened to this round table discussion on Democracy Now! between investigative journalist John Pilger in Britain, Columbia University professor and Africa scholar Mahmood Mamdani, Laura Carlsen of the Center for International Policy in Mexico City, Iraqi analyst Raed Jarrar, Pakistani author Tariq Ali, and Palestinian American Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada...and it articulates many of the feelings and concerns that I have about an Obama presidency, particulary concerning his foreign policies and what this presidency might mean for the rest of the world. I really think that the information explored here is important for U.S. citizens to hear, because none of this kind of stuff is being reported elsewhere with this kind of depth and seriousness. It celebrates Obama as president-elect, shows the incredible international response (mostly very positive, some a bit skeptical, some with recommendations and advice). It is also a rather fascinating and sobering discussion, and the people engaging in the discussion are highly informed with responsible research as well as direct experience. Please check it out (you can watch it, listen to it, or read it): http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/6/president_elect_obama_and_the_future

So I am really not being cynical. I am highly skeptical and trying to be critical...and rightly so...when was the last time a president fulfilled the promises made during a campaign? Please listen to the discussion (linked to above), and then please tell me if you think I'm being paranoid, or if you think I'm full of shit...or what else you think...I'd love the discussion.

---"...the lesson of Bush is that when a candidate steps from the arena of electoral politics to the presidency of the US, the kinds of interests and pressures that now come to bear on the candidate are different, larger. And the context within which the president now operates is different. There are anxieties about the particular kinds of people who gathered around Obama, especially as regards foreign policy and particularly as regards Africa. Some of the liberal humanitarian interventionists, the most vocal of them, what I call Democratic neocons, like Pendergast, for example, are huge Obama fans and are there around him." -Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Government and Anthropology at Columbia University. He has written extensively on post-colonial African politics...his latest article for The Nation magazine focuses on recent events in Darfur and is called "The New Humanitarian Order."


---"And I think that progressive people across this country, you know, instead of basking in the euphoria, need to pick themselves up today and start demanding that the Obama administration immediately end the siege of Gaza. It’s totally indefensible. It is a crime unprecedented in modern history that 1.5 million people are confined to a ghetto, starved, cut off from the world, threatened. This is indefensible, and there’s no excuse for it to continue even for a single day under a new administration. And we should be setting the standard very high, not accepting slight hints that in a few years’ time an Obama administration might accept a Palestinian state or might talk about one. The days for that are over. The situation is urgent, and we really need to see radical change. It’s not going to come from Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk; it’s only going to come from a groundswell demanding that the promises of change be kept. [...] there could not be a more provocative appointment than Rahm Emanuel, if he wanted to send a signal that he is going to stick by a quite hard-line pro-Israel policy. [...] he’s publicly embraced people like Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, two of the most pro-Israel officials from the Clinton era, who are totally distrusted by Palestinians and others across the Middle East, because they’re seen as lifelong advocates for Israeli positions. " -Ali Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada


---"I’ve heard many US pundits say that the election of Barack Obama doesn’t change the US image in the world overnight, but actually, and certainly in the case of Latin America, it has. The first and most obvious reason is that much is being made of the fact that the nation was able to break through enormous racial barriers to elect an African American president. And that’s major in countries that are also struggling with diversity and discrimination. Of course, many are still skeptical about how much change there will actually be under Barack Obama, but the fact that the US political system showed this kind of capacity for change and this level of citizen participation, that was really not thought possible after the two Bush elections, has made a big impression on people......this (the drug war) is the point of most concern: militarization, and particularly within the hemisphere. And here is where Obama’s policies have shown little change from the Bush administration, that launched the drug war here in—or supported it, because it was actually launched by President Calderon in Mexico, and has supported it also in Plan Colombia. Those policies in the Latin America platform plan an expansion of that." -Laura Carlsen, director of the Mexico City-based Americas Policy Program of the Center for International Policy. She has written extensively on US relations with Latin America.


---"...my reaction was not so different to that of other people you’ve already interviewed. I mean, historically, the fact that there’s going to be a black family in the White House can’t be underestimated in terms of the impact that will have on black consciousness in the United States. I think it’s important in its own right for that reason. As for what the policies are going to be, the situation is pretty depressing. I mean, Obama, during his campaign, didn’t promise very much, basically talked in cliches and synthetic slogans like “change we can believe in.” No one knows what that change is. In foreign policy terms, during the debates, his—what he said was basically a continuation of the Bush-Cheney policies. And in relation to Afghanistan, what he said was worse than McCain, that we will actually—we should take troops out of Iraq, send them into Afghanistan and, if necessary, go in and take out people inside Pakistan without informing that government. Now, I think once he is in power and sees the intelligence reports coming in from Afghanistan, he will realize that that’s not a serious option. [...] And if he does it, it will be a very, very serious mistake, on the same level in scale as invading Iraq. So, he would be very ill-advised to do it. And I think some of the people around him will probably tell him that that was a foolish and intemperate remark in the heat of an election battle, so not to seem too wimpish, since he was already supposedly opposed to the war on Iraq, and that he will pull back from that. I think the key is what he’s going to do in Iraq. Is Iraq, as Joe Biden wants, going to be balkanized, with permanent US bases in northern Iraq and a Kurdish area, more or less, kept going as a US Israel protectorate? Or, are they going to do what the US traditionally does, long before the war on terror, which is find local relays? And in that case, I think they’ll have to do a deal with Iran." -Tariq Ali, veteran journalist, commentator and activist. He was born in Lahore, Pakistan and lives in London. He has written over a dozen books and is on the editorial board of the New Left Review. His latest book is called The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power.


---"...wherever I travel around the US, people do have the impression that Obama will be the president who will withdraw the troops. The campaign was very vague about describing troops’ withdrawal, all the troops, within sixteen months. Now, the fine print of the campaign suggests the opposite, actually. The fine print suggests that Obama will continue the same policy through leaving what he calls “residual force,” the thing that both Bush and McCain wanted to leave indefinitely. So I don’t have a lot of hope, based on the statements. Now, no one knows what will happen in the next few months, whether Obama will, you know, unveil this progressive face that everyone is waiting to see, or whether he will continue the same policy. [...] I hope that there will be a modification of that policy to a new policy that is based on a complete withdrawal, that leaves no permanent bases, no mercenaries in Iraq, because without that policy, I think the situation in Iraq will continue to deteriorate." -Raed Jarrar, Iraqi blogger and political analyst. He is the Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee.


---"...my sensing is that we have to place the man within the context. I am equally skeptical of those who believe Obama is capable of everything as I am of those who believe he is incapable of anything. He’ll simply be muzzled by context. I think that, you know, this campaign began as a campaign on the question of peace. He began as a peace candidate and ended up as a redistribution candidate. Foreign policy had the front seat at the beginning and had the back seat towards the end of the campaign. So we don’t really know much. What we do know is that any president who wants to make an impact on history can only do so at a moment of crisis. And this is a moment of profound crisis, domestically and internationally. Obama’s campaign announcements, I believe, give us very little clue as to what he is going to do. His appointments, I agree, give us some clue, and there is reason for concern. But at the same time, there will be returns coming in if the appointments lead to the policies that we fear they may lead to. It’s a time of possibilities, and it’s a time to organize and put the pressure. Has the movement been absorbed into the state? Look, there’s a remarkable difference between the youth movement of the ’60s, which mainly organized outside the system, and the youth movement which has brought Obama to power, because this movement has organized within the system to reform the system. Obama keeps on saying that this movement must not go away, that change hasn’t come, that this is the beginning of change. Now, will the candidate be able to tame the movement, or will the movement be able to stamp itself to some extent in the coming days? " -Mahmood Mamdani, Professor of Government and Anthropology at Columbia University.

Let Us Have Madness

Let us have madness openly.
O men Of my generation.
Let us follow
The footsteps of this slaughtered age:
See it trail across Time's dim land
Into the closed house of eternity
With the noise that dying has,
With the face that dead things wear--
nor ever say
We wanted more; we looked to find
An open door, an utter deed of love,
Transforming day's evil darkness;
but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,
and within the head
A rotting bog of lean huge graves.

Kenneth Patchen

Uh, oh...

"Three House Democratic sources confirmed Rep. Rahm Emanuel has been offered a Chief of Staff job with the Obama White House..."

Read up on him, and follow the links here!

I have been afraid of who Obama would surround himself with in the white house cabinet ever since he was running for the primaries...my fear grows with the number one position, Chief of Staff, being offered to Rahm Emanuel...a Zionist, President Bill Clinton's senior advisor, total advocate of 'free'-trade, was a major player in bringing about NAFTA with the Clinton admin., a defender of/activist for Israel's occupation of Palestine, was part of the Congressional resolution that authorized the Iraq war... Some people are making a bad mistake and reporting that he was a member of the militant Zionist group Irgun, but that is false...Irgun disbanded before Rahm was born...his father was a part of Irgun though.

On a slightly less depressing note...he is at least down with universal health care (although still under a for-profit system), has worked for consumer rights, and is 100% pro-choice. For me, an awful sign, especially as the first choice...I hope this is not indicative of the make up of rest of the cabinet.

 p.s. The Nation just posted an interesting article about this guy here: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081117/nichols2?rel=rightsideaaccordian

Oh, (if we are counting, and if this guy accepts)...Emanuel is "Chicago Boy" number 1 in the cabinet.

NOVEMBER 5 DOT ORG

Joan Miró: Painting and Anti-Painting 1927-1937

I wish I lived in NYC...

Check it out:

http://moma.org/exhibitions/exhibitions.php?id=3993&ref=calendar

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/arts/design/31miro.html

R.I.P. Studs Terkel

R.I.P Studs Terkel (May 16, 1912 - October 31, 2008)

-------------------------

“My curiosity is what saw me through. What would the world be like, or will there be a world? And so, that’s my epitaph. I have it all set. Curiosity did not kill this cat. And it’s curiosity, I think, that has saved me thus far.”

-------------------------

Conversation with future Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing in 1969:
Lessing: "You do still have gangsters [in Chicago], don't you?"
Terkel: "Yes, but these days they're mostly in business, or politics."

-------------------------

For more info., and some amazing links, go here: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/10/31/studs_terkel_1912_2008

Click image to enlarge it.

I can only laugh...

"In the long run, Americans have good reason to be confident in our economic strength. Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised."
-George W. Bush (yesterday)

That is funny, and absolutely absurd to me on many levels.

(This headline is from Democracy Now!)

UN Official: Eat Less Meat to Fight Global Warming

A top UN official is urging people to eat less meat in an effort to tackle climate change. Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the London Observer, "In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity.” The animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming has calculated that if the average British household cut their meat consumption in half, it would cut greenhouse gas emissions more than if car use was cut in half.

Read more here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/sep/07/food.foodanddrink

Amy Goodman Interviewed for NOW on PBS about RNC Arrests

Here is the story of what happened to the Democracy Now! host and producers, stories about the treatment of journalists, and the unlawful "pre-emptive" raids by the police...all in Minnesota at the RNC.

Unsatisfied, unconvinced, disillusioned, or am I just intolerant?

***Disclaimer: it has been brought to my attention that this post has an unfriendly/condescending tone to it. Please keep in mind that I don't mean it in that way at all. If this tone is coming through, it is out of a personal frustration, and also my attempt to keep it a bit humorous. This combination probably made for something a bit sinister. I ask that I'm given the benefit of the doubt, I'm merely trying to have a discussion...not offend anyone, mock anyone, or anything like that. The post is a bit provocative...and the humor hopefully translates as good-natured, not self-righteous or rude. If directed toward anyone or any group of people, it is a call for discussion, nothing cold hearted. I respect your views, even if I am challenging them. I don't proclaim to be absolutely right, I only want a discussion. This is merely my own view.***

OK. I am damn tired of the seeming complacency of people with the front runners of this election, and the endless criticizing banter about Democratic and Republic vice presidents and so on. IT’S NOT THAT HARD TO CRITICIZE THESE CANDIDATES! With all due respect to my friends that are “supporting” Obama/Biden (or is it “settling” with them?), can’t you do any better?

After listening and reading endless coverage (mostly Democracy Now!, NPR, BBC, and other articles all over the internet...Huffington Post, other reports from more mainstream/corporate media...MSNBC, CNN, etc.) on the DNC and RNC over the past to weeks, I am still firmly standing in camp nowhere for this election. I am dispossessed. This is not the kind of government I can tolerate.

The duality that people have created between tweedle-dee (Obama) and tweedle-dum (McCain)...is an illusion. Sure, Obama can talk circles around McCain, and Obama's writers can draw circles around McCain's...no doubt about that. (Did anyone else get bored stiff listening to the back and forth between McCain talking 3 sentences for 30 seconds, and then listen to the crowd clap and chant "USA" for 60 seconds...and have it go on for nearly an hour?) Moving on, there is one party running for president: a multi-trillion dollar corporate-military-industrial complex party. If that can’t be put together by the two national conventions that I just saw, I don’t know what else can. Actually it wasn’t so much a convention as it was a massive stage show on par with a professional wrestling spectacle...did anybody watch the WWF in the early to mid 90’s? In the red corner we have the Ultimate Warrior, the self proclaimed maverick, John McCain...and in the blue corner we have Hulk Hogan, the self proclaimed true American hero, Barack Obama...squaring off for the heavyweight championship of the world. Corporate-Nascar-style sponsorship and all. They each sing their little theme songs, and have their catch phrasing (even this is sounding the same now...does anybody have any change? Got Change?). They each have their little ringside pundits (Palin/Biden) who yell insults at each other and perform little flashes of trickery to help the man in their corner get the upper hand. And when it comes down to a brawl they’ve got their respective gangs to do battle (a Royal Rumble anyone?...in the blue corner we’ve got Clinton, Albright, Edwards, Kucinich (who I’m getting disillusioned with...he should be running independent), Gore, Kennedy, etc...and in the red corner we’ve got Huckabee, Thompson, Lieberman, Bush/Cheney, Giuliani, Romney, etc.). And with the multi-million dollar sound/light/stage show in stadiums and massive convention centers, all they need is some spandex and some face paint and we are at WWF Wrestlemania 2008. And like the WWF, I’m not believing a bit of it, I have the distinct feeling that somebody is staging this shit. Oh, it is pretty entertaining though, really.

Jokes aside (haha, as true as they may ring), let’s get serious for a minute. CHANGE?! Ok, so Obama has a slight strategic shift in the “War On Terrorism”, (as for how you can feasibly conduct a war on an abstract word/entity that can be arbitrarily placed on anybody/anywhere...I don’t know). We all played Risk when we were kids right? In the game of Terror-Risk (Ok, so I can’t put the jokes aside), Obama has a plan...he is strategically moving his pieces to the East, from Iraq into Afghanistan. McCain is a stalwart (let’s not forget, he pulls himself up by his own boot straps every morning, I can’t see how though...with his funny little arms, this is impressive!), he is bound and determined to claiming Iraq, and will not take any game pieces from Iraq. To hell with strategy, he is using brute force! He will stand his ground in Afghanistan too. Both candidates are firmly rooted in Israel, they’ll fit as many pieces into that little country (it’s even growing day by day with the isolation walls!) as they possibly can. Obama or McCain wouldn't be caught dead speaking for the rights of Palestinians, rather, they would be shot dead if they did. Both candidates are on the tipping point of putting hand-fulls of pieces down in Iran, if they could only find a reason for it! Oh yeah, they are a threat to Israel, and no matter what the international community says about their nuclear activities, we know they must be building a bomb. So, for starters McCain is already beating the drums for war there (“It is time to confront Iran.”), and Obama is laying the ground work too (“It is time to tighten the screws on Iran.”)...sanctions, he’ll put sanctions on Iran! Sanctions traditionally operate in conjunction with plans for war and/or regime change. (Read Scott Ritter’s latest piece: “Acts of War.” It begins with the lines: “The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities that result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions that took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood.” Or, you could go over to Democracy Now!, and hear Wednesday’s interview with him (Ritter). He talks a lot about how McCain and Obama basically mirror each other when it comes to Iran. He warns both that the road to war with Iran is an awful road to take...this is the Former UN weapons inspector saying this...) Oh, and the Bush Admin. has already spilled a few pieces out in Pakistan (oops!, ...oh well...this has been widely reported, but if you haven’t heard, read here and here)...much to the dismay and intense criticism from Pakistanis...not to mention others around the world. We all know that Obama has already said he'd unilaterally attack Pakistan, and we can assume worse than that with McCain. Georgia/Russia? Forget it! We’ve got pipelines running all over the place in Georgia and the surrounding area. We have ‘deep interest’ in Georgia’s security (this is almost verbatim from Cheney’s recent babbling in Azerbaijan, and echoes exactly what Obama and McCain say about the subject). And don’t think for a minute, Russia, that either candidate will hesitate using “appropriate force to protect our allies in Georgia”. Wait a minute...who was the aggressor in the Georgian/Russian conflict again? I have yet to see a different approach on the Georgia/Russia issue from either candidate.

I hardly even heard A PEEP about torture from either side at the conventions! So this makes me wonder about our policies on torture, interrogation, etc. If we can’t even touch that topic at a convention, forget it when either candidate takes office.

I do have ‘hope’ that someday I can either afford health care or be a part of a nationalized health care system, but am unconvinced by both McCain’s and Obama’s strategies concerning health care. I don’t want to get to long winded...and this stuff is starting to seem painfully obvious to me...there is a very slight difference between the dominating candidates/parties. As for health care I would direct anybody to listen to or read this interview on NPR if you want a very informed and bipartisan opinion on the matter: “A Partisan Divide On Health Care Reform”. This guy (Jonathon Oberlander) basically gives a run down of the health care policies of McCain and Obama, how they would attempt operate and put them into effect, and what kind of choices all kinds of different Americans would be faced with. There are definitely differences between the two camps here, but on both sides what I’m hearing is more of the tried and failed “reform” polices that are only treating symptoms of a much deeper systemic problem with American health care. I guess I would prefer Obama's plan much in the same way I prefer to smelling shit over eating it.

The economy? So we’ve got a choice between McCain...not so different from Bush/Cheney...McCain would profess to as much. And we’ve got Obama, who is from the Chicago school of law...scarily close and tight to the Chicago school of economics (I posted about this awhile back, see my post “Obama’s Chicago Boys”) that wreaked an enormous amount of havoc on the world in the 90’s...much of which we are all still suffering from now.

A flash of excitement rumbled in my belly the other day when Joe Biden said that prosecution of the Bush Administration definitely was on the table...especially if he becomes VP...because nobody should be put above "the law". But that immediately dwindled down, because I just don’t believe the old bastard. For some reason I just can’t trust this shit anymore, I wonder why? It must be because I’ve been let down the last 7,848 times.

So, as I said before, this is spectator-sport-politics...cheering/supporting two sides in the same game. If any other policy topics/nuances want to be discussed by anybody, I’d love to do so in the comments. For now I’m standing my ground with these major policies...and I can argue that it goes all the way down. The so called differences between Obama and McCain are minimal, or they are illusionistic - exaggerating what divide there is between them, while ignoring any other viewpoint or dissenting opinion. This is a deceptive tactic, the duality between them is false.

So, I’m calling people out. Why are you buying into this embarrassment? And since I know he can take it: I want to ask Torben - how is this a matter of making ‘new mistakes’ with Obama (See Torbens recent post here)? I say that these are the same old mistakes. The idea of making ‘new mistakes’ comes from the idea of making a completely new attempt, creating a completely new system, literally leaving the old and making the new. Those remarks about making ‘new mistakes’ were made in conjunction with the efforts of the American Revolution, early 20th century Avant-Garde movements, Anarchists, others that failed that we call “madmen” (only because they failed, or were defeated), etc. I absolutely refute the idea of Obama/Biden 2008 being on par with that kind of ‘radicalism’ and ‘change’. I feel like a bit of doublespeak is happening here: war is peace/security, 'change' is stagnancy.

So yeah, I guess I am intolerant and cynical. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I am not convinced. I am intolerant of one massive regime that runs this country, runs the elections by disallowing any substantive dissent and is only interested in self-preservation...all in the name of democracy (more doublespeak). Count me out, I won’t be insulted by buying into this sort of rhetoric and political masturbation. I won’t vote. I won’t take responsibility for who I vote for (because I know that they don’t represent my views from the very beginning, and that I could never hold them accountable...I simply don’t have the power, nor does the Senate or the House have the power or the guts...it’s simply not a good political move for them). Finally, I will not vote in a so called "democratic process" when we all know that democracy does not exist without differing viewpoints, and that it does not exist in our corrupt and dysfunctional electoral setup. And even if one party is slightly more favorable than the other, they are both unsuitable.

Again, I'd love to discuss more in the comments...also, I'd love to share any sources that I've been drawing from...which are also up for discussion.

Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested At the RNC

Update: Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
www.democracynow.org
September 1, 2008

Contact:
Dennis Moynihan
Mike Burke

ST. PAUL, MN—Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman was unlawfully arrested in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota at approximately 5 p.m. local time. Police violently manhandled Goodman, yanking her arm, as they arrested her. Video of her arrest can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ

Goodman was arrested while attempting to free two Democracy Now! producers who were being unlawfuly detained. They are Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. Kouddous and Salazar were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sherrif Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were being arrested on suspicion of rioting. They are currently being held at the Ramsey County jail in St. Paul.

Democracy Now! is calling on all journalists and concerned citizens to call the office of Mayor Chris Coleman and the Ramsey County Jail and demand the immediate release of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar. These calls can be directed to: Chris Rider from Mayor Coleman’s office at 651-266-8535 and the Ramsey County Jail at 651-266-9350 (press extension 0).

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amenmdent rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which they were arrested law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. Several dozen others were also arrested during this action.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar is a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists from the nation’s leading independent news outlet.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Video of Amy Goodman’s Arrest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYjyvkR0bGQ
(Link to original article/report: http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2008/9/1/amy_goodman_and_two_democracy_now_producers_unlawfully_arrested_at_the_rnc)

Found this online, don't know if I actually agree though... A+B doesn't always equal C. I especially object to the words 'the purest'. Haha, but then the statement would read "Since writing on toilet walls is done neither for critical acclaim, nor financial rewards, it is (a) form of art - discuss." ...which may be a good standard for art in general. Not that I categorically disagree with art gaining critical acclaim or financial rewards, but I certainly feel that art shouldn't be done for those reasons. I believe artists should be able to make a living doing art, but it becomes slippery. Why is art and money such a hard issue? Why do I feel embarrassed about paying people for their art, or asking for money for my own art/music? 

Werner Herzog's documentary films...

I've been watching many of Werner Herzog's documentary films lately. Just a few nights ago I watched "Land of Silence and Darkness", a documentary about the deaf-blind...it totally floored me, I recommend that everyone see it. I thought his approach to making documentaries to be incredibly interesting, especially the topic of "rapturous truth" or "ecstatic truth"...the following items highlight it quite well...they are also a great introduction to Herzog in general (especially if you are not familiar with him).

First, a beautiful letter from Roger Ebert to Werner Herzog in response to Herzog's new documentary film ("Encounters at the End of the World"...also amazing...) being dedicated to him:

Dear Werner,

You have done me the astonishing honor of dedicating your new film, “Encounters at the End of the World,” to me. Since I have admired your work beyond measure for the almost 40 years since we first met, I do not need to explain how much this kindness means to me. When I saw the film at the Toronto Film Festival and wrote to thank you, I said I wondered if it would be a conflict of interest for me to review the film, even though of course you have made a film I could not possibly dislike. I said I thought perhaps the solution was to simply write you a letter.

But I will review the film, my friend, when it arrives in theaters on its way to airing on the Discovery Channel. I will review it, and I will challenge anyone to describe my praise as inaccurate.

I will review it because I love great films and must share my enthusiasm.

This is not that review. It is the letter. It is a letter to a man whose life and career have embodied a vision of the cinema that challenges moviegoers to ask themselves questions not only about films but about lives. About their lives, and the lives of the people in your films, and your own life.

Without ever making a movie for solely commercial reasons, without ever having a dependable source of financing, without the attention of the studios and the oligarchies that decide what may be filmed and shown, you have directed at least 55 films or television productions, and we will not count the operas. You have worked all the time, because you have depended on your imagination instead of budgets, stars or publicity campaigns. You have had the visions and made the films and trusted people to find them, and they have. It is safe to say you are as admired and venerated as any filmmaker alive—among those who have heard of you, of course. Those who do not know your work, and the work of your comrades in the independent film world, are missing experiences that might shake and inspire them.

I have not seen all your films, and do not have a perfect memory, but I believe you have never made a film depending on sex, violence or chase scenes. Oh, there is violence in “Lessons of Darkness,” about the Kuwait oil fields aflame, or “Grizzly Man,” or “Rescue Dawn.” But not “entertaining violence.” There is sort of a chase scene in “Even Dwarfs Started Small.” But there aren’t any romances.

You have avoided this content, I suspect, because it lends itself so seductively to formulas, and you want every film to be absolutely original.

You have also avoided all “obligatory scenes,” including artificial happy endings. And special effects (everyone knows about the real boat in “Fitzcarraldo,” but even the swarms of rats in “Nosferatu” are real rats, and your strong man in “Invincible” actually lifted the weights). And you don’t use musical scores that tell us how to feel about the content. Instead, you prefer free-standing music that evokes a mood: You use classical music, opera, oratorios, requiems, aboriginal music, the sounds of the sea, bird cries, and of course Popol Vuh.

All of these decisions proceed from your belief that the audience must be able to believe what it sees. Not its “truth,” but its actuality, its ecstatic truth.

You often say this modern world is starving for images. That the media pound the same paltry ideas into our heads time and again, and that we need to see around the edges or over the top. When you open “Encounters at the End of the World” by following a marine biologist under the ice floes of the South Pole, and listening to the alien sounds of the creatures who thrive there, you show me a place on my planet I did not know about, and I am richer. You are the most curious of men. You are like the storytellers of old, returning from far lands with spellbinding tales.

I remember at the Telluride Film Festival, ten or 12 years ago, when you told me you had a video of your latest documentary. We found a TV set in a hotel room and I saw “Bells from the Deep,” a film in which you wandered through Russia observing strange beliefs.

There were the people who lived near a deep lake, and believed that on its bottom there was a city populated by angels. To see it, they had to wait until winter when the water was crystal clear, and then creep spread-eagled onto the ice. If the ice was too thick, they could not see well enough. Too thin, and they might drown. We heard the ice creaking beneath them as they peered for their vision.

Then we met a monk who looked like Rasputin. You found that there were hundreds of “Rasputins,” some claiming to be Jesus Christ, walking through Russia with their prophecies and warnings. These people, and their intense focus, and the music evoking another world (as your sound tracks always do) held me in their spell, and we talked for some time about the film, and then you said, “But you know, Roger, it is all made up.” I did not understand. “It is not real. I invented it.”

I didn’t know whether to believe you about your own film. But I know you speak of “ecstatic truth,” of a truth beyond the merely factual, a truth that records not the real world but the world as we dream it.

Your documentary “Little Dieter Needs to Fly” begins with a real man, Dieter Dengler, who really was a prisoner of the Viet Cong, and who really did escape through the jungle and was the only American who freed himself from a Viet Cong prison camp. As the film opens, we see him entering his house, and compulsively opening and closing windows and doors, to be sure he is not locked in. “That was my idea,” you told me. “Dieter does not really do that. But it is how he feels.”

The line between truth and fiction is a mirage in your work.

Some of the documentaries contain fiction, and some of the fiction films contain fact. Yes, you really did haul a boat up a mountainside in “Fitzcarraldo,” even though any other director would have used a model, or special effects. You organized the ropes and pulleys and workers in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest, and hauled the boat up into the jungle. And later, when the boat seemed to be caught in a rapids that threatened its destruction, it really was. This in a fiction film. The audience will know if the shots are real, you said, and that will affect how they see the film.

I understand this. What must be true, must be true. What must not be true, can be made more true by invention. Your films, frame by frame, contain a kind of rapturous truth that transcends the factually mundane. And yet when you find something real, you show it.

You based “Grizzly Man” on the videos that Timothy Treadwell took in Alaska during his summers with wild bears. In Antarctica, in “Encounters at the End of the World,” you talk with real people who have chosen to make their lives there in a research station. Some are “linguists on a continent with no language,” you note, others are “PhDs working as cooks.” When a marine biologist cuts a hole in the ice and dives beneath it, he does not use a rope to find his way back to the small escape circle in the limitless shelf above him, because it would restrict his research. When he comes up, he simply hopes he can find the hole. This is all true, but it is also ecstatic truth.

In the process of compiling your life’s work, you have never lost your sense of humor. Your narrations are central to the appeal of your documentaries, and your wonder at human nature is central to your fiction. In one scene you can foresee the end of life on earth, and in another show us country musicians picking their guitars and banjos on the roof of a hut at the South Pole. You did not go to Antarctica, you assure us at the outset, to film cute penguins. But you did film one cute penguin, a penguin that was disoriented, and was steadfastly walking in precisely the wrong direction—into an ice vastness the size of Texas. “And if you turn him around in the right direction,” you say, “he will turn himself around, and keep going in the wrong direction, until he starves and dies.” The sight of that penguin waddling optimistically toward his doom would be heartbreaking, except that he is so sure he is correct.

But I have started to wander off like the penguin, my friend.

I have started out to praise your work, and have ended by describing it. Maybe it is the same thing. You and your work are unique and invaluable, and you ennoble the cinema when so many debase it. You have the audacity to believe that if you make a film about anything that interests you, it will interest us as well. And you have proven it.

With admiration,
Roger

And next, a very pleasing interview with Herzog by Henry Rollins:

Candidates for Sale

The Incredible Julk turned me on to this article:

Candidates for Sale: Big Business Is Making Sure It Wins the Presidency (by: Matt Taibbi)

It was an incredible read and is an important thing for all of us to be aware of.