Collapse

I had some problems embedding two videos in the same post so I've reposted the second half of the Michael Ruppert documentary here. Chronologically it's in the wrong order now, but you can find part one here. Please do let me know if these videos are later removed as I can delete or find another way. Thanks.

Leakspin

Serpico

There's a definitive Golden Period for movies in American Cinema that roughly extends from the mid to late sixties through to the mid seventies. I got thinking about this again last night as I downloaded Network on the advice of Tariq Ali and at first wasn't convinced but I stuck it out as Faye Dunaway was looking absolutely hot (even in Beige), and then when the Howard Beale (Peter Finch) started to get Messianic I realised that it was going to be some straight shooting commentary on the United States. The feedback on Twitter was very positive and it seems that it's a favourite for many of you. 

It also unveiled a contrast on the other Network movie I coincidentally caught this week which was The Social Network.  A movie I couldn't complete it was so banal, as I could see that it only worked because Facebook is worth Gazillions otherwise it would be a straight to video affair of the 'Breakdance' and 'You've got mail' genre. Generally spindly attempts by Daddy "Capital C" culture to parasitically subsume the stuff we do to break away from it. Also sometimes called 'Counter culture' and which Madison Avenue hoovers up relentlessly.

I've previously written why Culture (capital C) is most definitely not your friend, though recently I listened to the most comprehensive and devastating explanation of why culture is everything we are not, or even as humans. Sounds illogical but the enlightenment is worth a listen from one Joseph Chilton Pearce. I'm going to name check a couple of bloggers I think should listen to this stuff too so Robert and Johnnie please make time to listen to these three podcasts when/if you can: 1, 2, 3.

I really do procrastinate don't I? I haven't even mentioned Al Pacino in Serpico. The reason it's such an iconoclastic movie in Thailand is that the cops are so corrupt that when the movie was aired here in Thailand, it was an incredible success. The real life story of Frank Serpico as played by Pacino was instantly adopted as a folk hero against corruption and greed by the cops. His sticker was mass produced and paraded on pickup trucks and motorbikes because invariably they are the people that the parasitic police most penalise with petty fines, while leaving the better off problem-free for the same minor law transgressions. 

It was a counter culture "fuck you" to the police that a White Boy parachute planner in Thailand would never get to know. Particularly if they're dropping into middle class bourgeoisie planner-land that is telling them a buffalo is an insult in Thailand, when in point of fact to the majority pro red working class, it's like the "nigger" word amongst blacks. 

A point of perverse pride. 

In any case, this is all rather a dramatic build up to "Collapse" which is a documentary Lee Maschemeyer in New York brought my attention to some time back. I didn't download it because, hard to believe, I don't get off on pessimism porn as much as you might expect. But as it resurfaced in my data stream, I put off the washing up, and it's really good. The music is well arranged and poignantly appropriate for a documentary interview style , making it compelling.

Most enjoyable for me was correcting a false perception I'd had for a while now when estimating Michael Ruppert. He's an ex-cop who was hounded out of the force for blowing the whistle on CIA drug dealing (yes they deal drugs, get over it) but I always assumed he was probably not on the smart side of things, and that is why he lost his job. I know from repeated experience that most cops aren't paid because they are clever but instead are paid to be loyal. 

I wrongly assumed Michael was one of those kind of cops, but instead I learned earlier that like Serpico he was one of the finest and bravest cops that the LAPD ever had in their ranks. His academic credentials are excellent, his story telling is blunt and rivetting and even though I don't know any more than you as to precisely what the future holds for us, I do know that if you refuse to see that the times they are 'a changing, then it's highly likely you're planning ability is flawed. Particuarly if you're a planner defending the Corporate Ancien Regime on the flimsy basis that it pays the bills.

Here's the first part. Inform yourself.  Because You're Worth it.

I've had to post the second part seperately for html embed ju jitsu reasons that you don't need to know about. So look above or look to 'newer posts' if you're coming back from the future so to speak.

Operation Payback

For the first time since 2003 I've been back on mIRC in a proper manner, mixing with the evil geniuses I used to spend a lot of time with. I've dropped in now and again in the last few years, to see what's going on there but as Twitter have been a complete pussy and banned user "Operation Payback" who are coordinating the DDOS attacks against the financial institutions I had no way of knowing what was going on. I do now, and I can tell you it's hopping on their channel.

Gavin has provided a list of the financial institutions being targeted along with a fine cyber manifesto that is believe it or not an extraordinary and prescient piece of noble digital thinking from the 90's and which I think I will later on, repost in full here. 

If you feel inclined to dabble in the dark arts then I 'hear' that all one needs to do is follow the instructions over here. Rumour has it that Anna Ardin who boasted on her blog how to stitch men up legally on her blog entitled "Seven Steps to Legal Revenge" is no longer cooperating with the Swedish police and has left the country, but that's not official, though I do believe Paypal have reversed their decision to freeze donations to Wikileaks.

Between you and I, it's probably a decision based on pure capitalism. So that's not one I can comment on given I prefer principles to profit. It's just business after all chaps.

Inside North Korea - Everything Is Connected

Transparency at the underhand and manipulative state department is just as important as the transparency emerging from North Korea on cell phone videos. Actually there are cables regarding North Korea which directly impact on this shockingly malnourished girls life. 

The responsibilities of globalisation are such that it's no longer a moral option to disconnect from the actions of one's government. 

The girl above is in her early twenties. Watch it and grok it.

These Things Happen

I heard about this from my official UK ticker tape on twitter who keeps me up to date on things I no longer follow but should know enough about to be polite, such as the recent cricket win.

This clip is even way better than I imagined it from the twitterstream. It lurches from vulgarity to pious correction then ill suppressed laughter with an hilarity that is hard to appreciate for those that may not have ever included the slightly august BBC Today show over breakfast with politics. Awesomeness on a cunt.

Information Warfare

I think I first mentioned information warfare on this blog in January 2008 though if you scout around a bit I've been talking about it quite a bit longer than that. I was first alerted to the idea of it by Marshal McLuhan and subsequently learned that Churchill also predicted the third world war would be an information war too from his learnings about the Engima code cracking at Bletchey Park.

Talking with a friend of mine in Hong Kong last year she believed it had already commenced, and of course it makes perfect sense within the context of information war that nobody actually declares it. They just get on with it. That's quite an important point now that information is so easy to discredit. Judge people on what they do and not on what they say.

It's for this reason that as soon as America starts to talk about absolutely anything being against its interests, then by and large I assume it's in my interest to take a contrarian stance. I've long given up the assumption that the nation state is going to take care of our generation in any meaningful way when they prosecute illegal wars, manipulate mainstream media and generally mortgage off to the future, any value that can be extracted today. 


I see that smaller countries all over the world genuflect subserviently when asked to carry out the wishes of the auto aspyxiating American Empire. That includes Australia, "Special Needs" UK and now Spineless Sweden. Only the New Bolivarian Latin Americans  have drawn a line in the sand to IMF and World Bank cripple-loans coupled with Shock Doctrine  economic restructuring that pays for the subsidies on all aspects of our Northern Hemisphere consumption lifestyles. It's for this reason the parasitic adjective is by no means melodramatic, though of course you could enlighten yourself and listen to Susan George on this subject if your courage hasn't still utterly failed you.

By now we all know that Julian Assange is under arrest for the Wikileaks of State Department cables detailing; nothing of danger to human life, exposing cyber security issues within the United States and most importantly telling the truth that is largely a story of deception by our so called enlightened and liberal governments. A truth that has me shaking my head when I see otherwise grown up people applaud being treated like a child by the nanny state.


In principal the people who are most diligent about secrecy have the most to hide. I've no problem with the individuals right to privacy but the transparency being imposed on the State Department is a good thing. Particularly in light of a century of exploitation in countries I've noticed the same finger wagging people are bottom-line clueless on. People who demand and are unwavering on privacy yet don't mind using the courts to drag a man's privacy through the mud. Where's your gestalt? Is this how you define your weltanschuung? On CIA inspired charges of trivial post coital rape?

I'm disgusted that my instinct about Julia Gillard was bang on the money revealing her to be a drawling mutt of an Aussie woman with clear as daylight ugly ambitions. I'd like to think Kevin Rudd was different but I've watched as he lead the way for restricted internet freedoms in Australia as the Canary in the Western world digital coal mine. No he's just as transparent and superficial. A lightweight leader deservingly slapped into place by a woman with greedier power ambition than he. Serves him right..... No worries as they say in Australia.

However if you insist, then of course the due course of law must be pursued through normal channel,s though I claim that the persecution of Julian Assange is for false allegations of rape. The timing is odd, the filing of the case and the speed with which it has been processed is highly unusual and then there's the abnormality of the girl who claims to be exploiting this post coital rape legislation that is unique to Sweden on her blog when the matter is ostensibly an ambiguous (and private argument) of prophylactic use. 


I don't mind if the domestic law dramatises its international servility by following it's masters wishes for pursuing proxy revenge instead of justice, but the silence on the part of people about any other (and there are many) important political issues currently framing our complex and morally challenging daily lives is deafening (and insulting). It points towards a triviality and ignorance that is missing from the even handedness that righteous justice demands. So let's have our Kangaroo court case. 

And be done with it.