Here's To The Crazy Ones. The Misfits, The Occupiers

Adland insists it has a finger on the cultural pulse but in recent months its counter-intuitive incentive to pretend the outside world doesn't exist is in full swing. It's a little bit like NYPD beating peaceful protesters while the rest of the world waits for a banker to be arrested. Everybody knows it's a sham but those within the NYPD and banking circles are obliged to stifle their own consciences because it pays the bills. Interestingly those least sensitive to this injustice are statistically most exposed to the news agendas of the corporate media that put profits before people by portraying in the news, peaceful protesters as undesirable. This is all paid for by brands in the commercial breaks. It's branded lying.

So is Adland now finally decoupled from a love of Apple-endorsed misfits, embrace of mistakes and lionization of authenticity in social media? 


While Adland ignores the outside world it's plain to see that the fundamentals are changing? It would be a piss poor planner who failed to extrapolate the momentum of failing markets, degraded ecology, consumer debt exhaustion and most critically the first global protest to ignite all continents including culturally deferential Asia.

And to be silent about it is the nail in the branded coffin.

It's a mistake if brands are going to grow up and be part of the future. The service to self consumer culture is inextricably linked with capitalism's ferocious greed. If 20th century advertising collapsed, along with the Euro or Dollar tomorrow (not inconceivable), it would leave brands as an historical anomaly of less significance than gentleman's wig wearing which lasted for over two hundred years.

Get out into the world and speak up about the difference between right and wrong. If you're unsure what that is, the heart knows more then the brain. 

Ask your heart. Is this the right thing? It will speak to you.

Gandhi - The Salt Marches

In the 2005 movie War of the Worlds directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring (though not shining) Tom Cruise, it takes under twelve hours to reduce the mobile TV crew from studio cosmetic aficionados to wrecked plane scavengers hauling the ready meals off an open fuselage and scoffing away like they were auditioning for Lord of the Flies in a lean period. 

I mention that movie because it's done so badly yet the point is still concrete. When push comes to shove humans or their institutions will react dramatically as in the Gandhi movie when a country that runs on salt and water is immediately threatened by the very people who need it against those who control it. Here the people choose to ignore their colonial masters and take charge of the salt business themselves thus rejecting the taxation of salt. It's a classic example of strategic and effective protest but not without its pain.

If there's one scene in the Ben Kingsley movie of Gandhi that has remained with me from the moment I first watched, it's this scene for it's approach to non violent action that overcame greed and unfairness by the British, in a manner that is brutal and hard to forget.  

Gandhi's First Protest - Lessons & Inspiration For The Occupy Movement

After qualifying as a Barrister in London Gandhi made his way on invitation to British Empire ruled South Africa where he was thrown off the railways for travelling first class. Diagnosing his identity papers as the technical source of the problem he makes his first protest by publicly burning his papers. It was his first act of dissent and typified his non violent approach. Gandhi is an incredible movie for people to watch as the storm clouds gather around the world pitching the forces of darkness and wage slave obedience against humanity. This struggle that has been going on a lot longer and with considerable more deliberation than most people who seek distraction from their entertainment and information stream could possibly begin to handle in one go.

Reality will knock on their door if they persist in ignoring the distortion of the systems currently in place to dehumanise people. They are unstable and face impending collapse.

Pakistan & Jinnah

After rewatching Gandhi I was recommended to take a look at Christopher Lee's Jinnah. I like its narrative premise of a life review, which oddly enough is a near death experience (NDE) that transcends religion and geography, the subject of the film. I think I remain unchanged from my stated position that the British left a lovely divide and rule ticking time bomb between the two countries in order that they could be subject to outside influence. 

It's called Kashmir.

Gandhi (reluctantly) and Jinnah agreed that partition would take place between India and Pakistan, and the British through Mountbatten made that process unfair given the ethnic make up of the Kashmir region. 

Divide and rule, problem reaction solution, Hegelian dialectic are all as old as the hills. The stupid monkey needs to wake up to the elite string pulling that has kept the human house divided since the Mesopotamian civilisations. I say human because the blood lines that run things are of the blue blood variety as opposed to our red. 

As Princess Diana repeated over and again before her murder.

"They're not human".

Gandhi, The Occupy Movement & The Amritsar Massacre

I've been wanting to watch Richard Attenborough's movie Gandhi again for a couple of decades. The recent Occupy movement has really impressed me by not responding to police violence. I really don't know if I could control my temper if I was attacked by a cop and obviously it would be me that would suffer in the long run so it's probably a good thing that I'm putting effort into other areas like writing and social media.

If you haven't mentioned it yet in social media ask yourself why.

I'm posting the scene above because it's the definitive evil-of-empire massacre part of the story. The film goes on to outline how the Muslims and Hindus killed each other before and during partition of India and Pakistan though it doesn't mention that the British set up much of this conflict as a leaving gift. More than even Gandhi ever new.

The film is excellent and so long I was caught by surprise because it's one of the few films to have a five minute intermission half way through and so I took a screen grab of it. There's a lot I could write about this movie and I took inspiration from Gandhi again and again from it. I will probably write about different parts at a later time. In the mean time I urge anyone with Occupy on the mind to watch the entire movie (I think it's all on Youtube in parts) and take time to consider what non violence really means.

Without a question Gandhi's way is even more relevant today than ever. I urge people to watch it and learn a thing or two about changing the world. A truly remarkable man and unlike any other we experienced in the last century. Is it only me that wants our leaders in loin cloths?


Update: The entire movie is below.

Courage

Via Daria and apropos this post and this tweet.