'Politics'

So my over-indulgence, combined with this freezing Canadian weather, have resulted in a bit of bed-ridden flu steez. A good friend passed me some links of some amazing documentaries and interviews to help pass the time, so I thought I’d share them with y’all. The first one is a brilliant interview with Mr David Icke, a personal favourite of mine. The other two are to do with the late Aaron Russo, Hollywood producer and freedom fighter. One is a fantastic interview conducted by Alex Jones, and the other is Mr Russo’s film ‘America: Freedom Or Fascism’. Go educate yourselves.

Just got this gem via the David Icke newsletter. Beat is incredible, Paz kills it, Block is ridic and the Icke samples are well used. Great video too. Make sure you check out Mr Icke’s website and get educated…

So yesterdays post inspired todays.

I’ve watched this video a few times already and it’s really, really interesting. If you’re in Melbourne, keep an eye out for different things throughout the city, coz there are SO many things that you don’t notice unless you really pay attention.

And while I’m here, check the video of Lebron, Wade and Bosh getting welcomed to Miami.

Today there was so much shit going on that I thought it’d be simpler to wrap it all up in one special Hectic Friday post.

First up, the decision on the recent Oscar Grant murder trial was made today. Long story short, a white policeman shot a young black man point blank in front of a crowd at an Oakland BART station, and the cop got off on a couple years for ‘involuntary manslaughter’. This case had serious race overtones, hence the uproar.

The worst part was that it happened on the same day as the Lebron announcement (see below) so half my Twitter feed was about a cop getting off for murdering a human, and the other was about an athlete deciding where to earn his billionth dollar.

Oscar Grant murder/verdict

And this Lebron shit has been wild. I’m not even really a huge sports fan but it was all over Twitter today so I couldn’t avoid it.

My two cents: Players leave teams and get traded EVERY FUCKING YEAR. Yeah, the Cavs lost Lebron, but so what? Shit happens. Mike retired, too. Get over it. Good on him.

Lebron decision

That said, majority owner Dan Gilbert wrote a scathing public letter about Lebron’s decision, saying such sore loser bullshit like “I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE” and “You can take it to the bank.” Wow. What a tool.

Majority owner Dan Gilbert’s reaction

And to wrap up all this seriousness with some awesomeness, check out this video (if you haven’t already seen it). Never seen a human so excited about a rainbow. And aside from the video hilarity, the description reads “It was rainbowing for at least an hour on January 8th 2010.” I had no idea ‘rainbowing’ was an adjective.

Double Rainbow

This one looks amazing. Most folks are familiar with Banksy‘s work, and this doco should hopefully shed a bit of light on the man. Check the wrap up below:

“Exit Through the Gift Shop, the first film by renowned graffiti artist Banksy, became the hottest ticket at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival where it made its world debut. Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post—hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the worlds most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, Its basically the story of how one man set out to film the un—filmable. And failed.”

MTVNEP: Solar
Uploaded by yardie4lifever2. – More video blogs and vloggers.

On the real – this motherfucker is full of shit. Body language, the dark glasses. He can’t even look the people in the eye. #fucksolar

So last night I saw what was arguably the funniest and intelligent comedy show I’ve ever seen, courtesy of Jamie Kilstein. Being a left-leaning, liberal kind of bloke, everything Jamie said permeated with my beliefs, hence my extreme bias to the amazingness of his show.

Anyway, one of the highlights was the Christian Side Hug. I found a video (below) on YouTube that breaks it down for y’all. I have no words. I’m a staunch athiest and very anti-organised religion, but this is out of control. There are seemingly no bounds to the insanity of the Christian church. Just watch.

So y’all might have gathered by now that most of us here at The Movement Fam are fans of shit like this.

I won’t even go into it, but this excerpt is from The Atheist Experience talkshow. Take a listen and have a laugh.

OK, been a minute I since posted and thought this was well overdue. I’m aware I’ve been lagging on my blog posts. It’s something I hope to correct.

So lately I’ve been catching up on a whole bunch of shit that I’ve downloaded but never watched and over the next few posts I just wanna touch on something (no homo).

Firstly the latest offering from serial pest as he’s is often known, Mr Michael Moore. His new movie Capitalism, and all I can say is Wow, if you haven’t watched it-download it. He wont care, in fact I’m pretty sure he’s into it (no homo again).

OK so the premise of the film takes the viewer through the rise of the great concept of capitalism, they talk about freedom of choice, free market economies, consumerism, and of course greed and the insatiable appetite that it creates.

Now I should mention that in this movie/documentary that the focus is mainly North America but the same formula could be applied to any modern western economic situation, after all we are capitalists right?
No I’m not going to quote slabs of Karl Marx and the communist manifesto. I like capitalism – well at least some of the concept of it I think. What really incites me is the nonsensical greed that blinds us all, to constantly create must haves and needs out of desires and wants – they are polar opposites.
I digress, however the movie takes us through the sub prime mortgage crises, shows us how this came to be… again greed masked as capitalism, google it if you don’t believe me!

Life insurances policies taken out by companies for employees that the worker and their family have no knowledge of, except if they die. Then, the company stands to make a HUGE payout. In Australia we do they same thing- it’s something called (traded policies) – it can be bought by you and I.
It’s basically like trading a security; you buy someones life policy from them at a premium and when they die you get big money! Many, many, many life insurance companies, when changing a customers policy, will offer to purchase their old policy as part of a rebate for the new life policy or give them cash. They (the life company) never pay the premium on the new policy they acquire and when the person dies the insurance company gets a payout. Subract that from the years of non-payment of premium, channel it through some very effective taxation strategy and BOOM…they are all living in the Wu Tang! C.R.E.A.M. Gnomesayin?.

It’s all legal, albeit somewhat macabre and very immoral which then brings me to my next point.

Where does it say that being good at business means you should be a good person? In fact, if you look at every motivating aspect to move a companies profit line further, it almost always will fall into a moral grey area.

So should we question the virtues of capitalism?
I want to have my cake and eat it too!
I want to have a different job than my neighbour or choose to wear different coloured shoes or a shirt, should we rewrite the book to include some form of socialism into what we now embody as modern day capitalism?

I don’t have all the answers but I do know we need to ask questions to those who should, also question the motives of those who seek to undermine the disadvantaged to turn a company profit. I mean, what ever happened to corporate social responsibility? Free trade coffee beans and no blood diamonds…

Do we really know what capitalism is or has it deteriorated into a depraved form of greed that we are so blinded by that we can’t call it as we see it?

Thanks for tuning into another rant… ’till next time.

I love this dude (pause). Always insightful, always clever, always a point. I ain’t even wanna say too much – listen, watch and learn.