Article: The Dangerous Cult of the Guardian (A Thought Police for the Internet Age)

Original Article written by Jonathan Cook - Wednesday 28, September 2011

There could be no better proof of the revolution – care of the internet – occurring in the accessibility of information and informed commentary than the reaction of our mainstream, corporate media.

For the first time, Western publics – or at least those who can afford a computer – have a way to bypass the gatekeepers of our democracies. Data our leaders once kept tightly under wraps can now be easily searched for, as can the analyses of those not paid to turn a blind eye to the constant and compelling evidence of Western hypocrisy. Wikileaks, in particular, has rapidly eroded the traditional hierarchical systems of information dissemination.

The media – at least the supposedly leftwing component of it – should be cheering on this revolution, if not directly enabling it. And yet, mostly they are trying to co-opt, tame or subvert it. Indeed, progressive broadcasters and writers increasingly use their platforms in the mainstream to discredit and ridicule the harbingers of the new age.

A good case study is the Guardian, considered the most leftwing newspaper in Britain and rapidly acquiring cult status in the United States, where many readers tend to assume they are getting access through its pages to unvarnished truth and the full range of critical thinking on the left.

Certainly, the Guardian includes some fine reporting and occasionally insightful commentary. Possibly because it is farther from the heart of empire, it is able to provide a partial antidote to the craven coverage of the corporate-owned media in the US.

Nonetheless, it would be unwise to believe that the Guardian is therefore a free market in progressive or dissident ideas on the left. In fact, quite the contrary: the paper strictly polices what can be said and who can say it in its pages, for cynical reasons we shall come to.

Speech: Geoff Mulgan - A short intro to the Studio School

Some kids learn by listening; others learn by doing. Geoff Mulgan gives a short introduction to the Studio School, a new kind of school in the UK where small teams of kids learn by working on projects that are, as Mulgan puts it, "for real.

Video: Even The Troops Are Waking Up (Winter Soldier Mike Prysner Testimony)

A fantastic video made mainly out of Mike Prysners amazing testimony back in 2008, dealing with the military teaching and using racism, the bulk of the experience on the ground which involved him and his insight into the greed and power behind the press to war..

Documentary: Kymatica

The newest film from Ben Stewart, creator of the Esoteric Agenda. The questions that have remained timeless and profound throughout history have been all but left for dead. There have been messages left in scripture, archeological remains, shamanic traditions, philosophy, poetry, art and music. As we move closer to an apex of technological and intellectual information, we find ourselves farther and farther away from feeling any comfort or wholeness within our hearts and souls. Yet even though the concept of spirituality should have been long gone by now, we are seeing an awakening among people and a growing desire for truth.

For the first time in history we are finding that there are no sole saviors or lone prophets to guide us, but a whole race waking from a sleep that has brought this world to the brink of destruction. In a world where Apocalyptic catastrophes seem inevitable, we must look at the solutions in a whole new manner. As the latest quantum mechanics and metaphysics are just being discovered, we notice that we are not moving forward, but returning to a consciousness that the ancient shamans, mystics and sages have left for us.

It is a new age. An age for responsibility and stewardship. And as we begin to look for answers in the world within, the world without will reflect. In this new age, we will discover that we are all one mind, one organism, and one spirit. We are the savior we have been waiting for…

Article: The call to occupy Wall Street resonates around the world

Original Article written by Micah White and Kalle Lasn for the The Guardian - Monday 19, September 2011

We need deeper changes to our financial system, or tent cities of people angry at corporate greed will keep appearing.

People protest during the 'Occupy Wall Street' rally at Bowling Green Plaza on 17 September. Photograph: Steven Greaves/Demotix/Corbis

On Saturday 17 September, many of us watched in awe as 5,000 Americans descended on to the financial district of lower Manhattan, waved signs, unfurled banners, beat drums, chanted slogans and proceeded to walk towards the "financial Gomorrah" of the nation. They vowed to "occupy Wall Street" and to "bring justice to the bankers", but the New York police thwarted their efforts temporarily, locking down the symbolic street with barricades and checkpoints.

Undeterred, protesters walked laps around the area before holding a people's assembly and setting up a semi-permanent protest encampment in a park on Liberty Street, a stone's throw from Wall Street and a block from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Three hundred spent the night, several hundred reinforcements arrived the next day and as we write this article, the encampment is rolling out sleeping bags once again. When they tweeted to the world that they were hungry, a nearby pizzeria received $2,800 in orders for delivery in a single hour. Emboldened by an outpouring of international solidarity, these American indignados said they'd be there to greet the bankers when the stock market opened on Monday. It looks like, for now, the police don't think they can stop them. ABC News reports that "even though the demonstrators don't have a permit for the protest,

Speech: Martin Seligman on positive psychology

What I found very interesting about this talk was the extensive analysis of Happiness, a traditionally vague concept which Seligman divides into three sub-concepts: pleasure, the good life and the meaningful life. He goes on to explain it in a way that really did make sense to me! /od

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Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?

Article: What is Cognitive Liberty & Why Must We Defend It?

Original article from Cognitive Liberty

Drug laws attempt to control what you can do with your mind and what experiences you are allowed access to. Drug laws are, quite literally, attempts at mind control.

Cognitive libery is much more than freedom of thought. To believe in cognitive liberty is to believe that the individual is absolute sovereign over their own consciousness. It is an extension of the concepts of freedom of thought and self-ownership. It is a reaction against the prevailing assumption that other people have the right to tell you what you can do with your mind and body in situations that carry only a personal-risk.
Terence McKenna writes:

“We’re playing with half a deck as long as we tolerate that the cardinals of government and science should dictate where human curiosity can legitimately send its attention and where it can not. It’s a preposterous situation. It is essentially a civil rights issue, because what we’re talking about here is the repression of a religious sensibility. In fact, not a religious sensibility, the religious sensibility.”

When we elect authorities we do so not to place limitations and controls on what we can do with our minds; they are meant to be guardians of our freedom, increasingly their focus has been the paternalistic infringement of basic liberties in the name of protection. Where the exercise of cognitive freedom doesn’t trespass on the freedom of others, as in the case of the freedom to use psychedelics, denying such a freedom is unjustifiable.

Almost all activitees bring with them an element of risk. Driving a car, for example, is a

Article: Daylight Robbery, Meet Nighttime Robbery

Original Article written by Naomi Klein for the the Nation - August 16, 2011

I keep hearing comparisons between the London riots and riots in other European cities—window smashing in Athens or car bonfires in Paris. And there are parallels, to be sure: a spark set by police violence, a generation that feels forgotten.

But those events were marked by mass destruction; the looting was minor. There have, however, been other mass lootings in recent years, and perhaps we should talk about them too. There was Baghdad in the aftermath of the US invasion—a frenzy of arson and looting that emptied libraries and museums. The factories got hit too. In 2004 I visited one that used to make refrigerators. Its workers had stripped it of everything valuable, then torched it so thoroughly that the warehouse was a sculpture of buckled sheet metal.

Back then the people on cable news thought looting was highly political.

Article: How to make an intelligent blockbuster and not alienate people

Cinema and films are not a usual subject in this blog, however this article speaks through me and is . It perfectly describes how blockbuster movies are produced and the mentality of the big hollywood producers.
Mark Kermode goes on to challenge producers into making blockbusters smarter, since being smart or not is not one of the factors that determine a film's success. I'm afraid though, that "dumb" blockbasters are just another part of the distracting media and trash pop culture which overwelms the Western world.  /od

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In this highly charged polemic, the Observer film writer and 5 Live critic tackles the big-budget producers for their cynical rejection of intelligent movies – and contempt for the ordinary cinemagoers who fill their pockets

Here are three absolute truths:

1. The world is round.

2. We are all going to die.

3. No one enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

Oh, I know loads of people paid to see POTC3 (as I believe it is known in the industry). And some of them may claim to have enjoyed it. But they didn't. Not really. They just think they did. As a film critic, an important part of my job is explaining to people why they haven't actually enjoyed a movie even if they think they have. In the case of POTC3, the explanation is very simple.

It's called "diminished expectations".

Let me give you an example.

Article: If greed did not cause it, what did?

Original Article written by Yanis Varoufakis for a keynote speech he gave at a conference near Brisbane, Queensland (Australia) on the theme of Risk Management after the crisis. - Tuesday 7, December 2010

I thought it was a very interesting and descriptive talk and a perfect view of the bigger picture of what led to the crisis (tracing back to the 1970s) and what the consequences and the by-products are.  /od

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Ladies and Gentlemen,

Two hundred and eleven years before Gordon Gekko, Adam Smith had already told a stunned puritanical world that Greed is Good. Not in these Holywood-scripted words but in essence the message was identical: Greed is a force of good.

Smith’s audacious point was that, as long as markets remain competitive, greed turns entrepreneurs into society’s useful idiots; into profit seekers who, unintentionally, because of cutthroat rivalry with one another, provide consumers with cheaper, better and more numerous commodities, all sold at cost. It is (Smith famously insinuated) as if an Invisible Hand turns raw Greed into Society’s servant.

Of course, poor Adam Smith was writing for another era and would most likely had withdrawn his prognosis regarding Greed’s goodness today. In this sense, Gordon Gekko, especially in the sequel to the original Wall Street movie, is more relevant to our day and age than the long dead Scottish moral philosopher.

• Is there an optimal amount of greed which the world exceeded before 2008?
• Did we have an overdose of an otherwise useful stimulant?
• Was Greed responsible for the Crash of 2008?

Time to make use of our flash interactive technology: Those amongst you who think that the GFC, the Crash of 2008, can be attributed to Greed please press the yes button. The rest press no.

And what about the euro crisis? Do you think it was the result of Greed by the governments of peripheral states, like Greece and Portugal, who borrowed too much during the good times? Once again press yes or no.

Well, it would be a pity if all you heard from me today simply repeated that which you already believe. So allow me to contradict the majority opinion by arguing that greed and loose ethics caused neither the Crash of 2008 nor the current eurozone crisis.

Speech: Slavoj Zizek - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

In this short RSA Animate, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek investigates the surprising ethical implications of charitable giving.

Speech: Barbara Ehrenreich - Smile or Die

Very interesting talk! 


Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking.

Speech: Renata Salecl - Choice

Fusing sociology, psychoanalysis and philosophy, Professor Renata Salecl shows that individual choice is rarely based on a simple rational decision with a predictable outcome.

Article: The Insidious Evils of 'Like' Culture

Original Article written for the Wall Street Journal - Saturday 2, July 2011

In our age of online view counts and retweets, conformity is becoming the rule

Once, there was something called a point of view. And, after much strife and conflict, it eventually became a commonly held idea in some parts of the world that people were entitled to their own points of view.

There's a growing cultural obsession with being blogged, digged, tweeted and liked. Now add Google's +1 to the mix and it's just like being in high school all over again, says author Neil Strauss.

Unfortunately, this idea is becoming an anachronism. When the Internet first came into public use, it was hailed as a liberation from conformity, a floating world ruled by passion, creativity, innovation and freedom of information. When it was hijacked first by advertising and then by commerce, it seemed like it had been fully co-opted and brought into line with human greed and ambition.
But there was one other element of human nature that the Internet still needed to conquer: the need to belong. The "like" button began on the website FriendFeed in 2007, appeared on Facebook in 2009, began spreading everywhere from YouTube to Amazon to most major news sites last year, and has now been officially embraced by Google as the agreeable, supportive and more status-conscious "+1." As a result, we can now search not just for information, merchandise and kitten videos on the Internet, but for approval.

You 'like' me! Even rock stars agonize over their Facebook and Twitter stats.

Just as stand-up comedians are trained to be funny by observing which of their lines and expressions are greeted with laughter, so too are our thoughts online molded to conform to popular opinion by these buttons. A status update that is met with no likes (or a clever tweet that isn't retweeted) becomes the equivalent of a joke met with silence. It must be