#OccupyWallStreet

After slacking hardcore with activity on this blog this year, this is the perfect time to bring it back. Occupy Wall Street is happening! A peaceful protest movement of the people, organized mostly through social media (especially Twitter), against the corporate greed that divides us as a nation and controls our so-called democracy. Largely ignored by the mainstream media, people are taking it upon themselves to upload live feeds & videos, and spread the word & show support online. Here is the video I put together, compiling footage from various sources:

This will continue into Monday when Wall Street opens. If you can’t be there, you can watch the live feed – click here. On Twitter, check out the hashtag #OurWallStreet, formerly #OccupyWallStreet and #TakeWallStreet (changed due to the possibility of censorship). Don’t let the lack of media coverage fool you – this is really happening. This is for the people, by the people, and it is slowly growing, but it is up to us to keep it going. Only through solidarity and peaceful but powerful demands will the rEvolution be able to bring about the changes we so desparately need.

We Are the Conspiracy

excerpts from the essay “The Legacy of Bin Laden” by Immortal Technique. Read the full essay here.

In a world that has been flooded by news, there is usually nothing that rises far above the smoldering lava of sensation—that which consumes all truth and absorbs all lies, mixing them into a fiery lake or stew of bubbling nonsense. So much so, that to discover glanced over facts, to question people of importance within government or the machine itself leads to the branding of one as a “conspiracy theorist.”

Not all people who doubt the official version of the story are raving lunatics, though. Some have an honest distrust of their own government. Some are veterans of a war like Vietnam who know that the people who run the United States of America are very capable of lying even to the best and bravest of those who risk their lives to defend the dwindling freedoms that we enjoy. Others are youthful minds, seeking to present themselves as different than the bland and overwhelmingly planned out and boring existence that chokes anything original or radical around them.

There are companies that meet everyday to decide which chemicals are the cheapest to put in their products and how to alter the law to make them sellable. That is a conspiracy. People lobby congress behind closed doors for tax breaks while we cut social services. That is a conspiracy. There are governments who will use men like Bin Laden all the time as a proxy against their opponents. That is also a conspiracy, and since we are one of those governments who used such a man, we are the conspiracy.

For the rEvolution

I’m sure you noticed: revolution is spreading in certain parts of the world. Only time will tell what the recent uprisings in the mid-east & northern Africa will bring, but it’s definitely a good start when the people rise up against the opressive powers that be. One day, it’s going to happen in your country. Let freedom ring.

Wake Up and Smell the BS

In the wake of the “Republican wave” (how clever you are, mainstream media) of the midterm elections, Bill Maher can’t understand why people overwhelmingly voted for politicians against their interests. And he has a point: so many people are unemployed and/or in major debt in these hard economic times, yet they voted for the party that isn’t interested in extending unemployment benefits, reinforcing any kind of welfare or taxing the rich to benefit the rest of us. It seems to make no sense, but there is an explanation: the Republicans, right or wrong, are way better at getting their message out their and supporting one another towards a common goal than the Democrats. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is the best thing for our nation or if it even makes sense - they say it loudly, repeatedly, put it in your face and get the people behind it, creating a collective consciousness with their agenda in mind, acquiring more and more followers that are constantly exposed to their rants… a living Twitter App for the modern techno zombies.

And so, rather than reflect the true desires of the majority, I think the results of this election reflect the panicked reaction of an insecure and misinformed nation. I’m all for power to the people. But after all of the politics, misleading campaign ads, lobbying, biased media, and the constant capitalist curve of everything thrown at us, I fear that we the people sometimes become nothing more than pinballs in a tilted machine – unknowing puppets being controlled by the most enthusiastic puppeteers, not necessarily the ones with our interests at heart. Are we Pinnochio’s opposite twins? Real people wishing to be wooden dummies, wanting someone else to take control and dance us into a fairy tale ending, because we lost interest in life?

No, we are human beings! Innately selfish creatures by design. Politicians express this trait by using psychological tactics to manipulate people into helping them succeed by convincing them that it will benefit the people. That’s how they control people and develop a large and obedient customer base for the corporations that sponsor them. If we allow ourselves to keep being their pawns, the game will eventually end with them as the winners – poetically and mathematically, it’s just a matter of time. If life was good and we were all healthy and happy, I would say “Fuck it. Let them do their thing. Let them use us as pawns; it benefits us!” But life is not good, and being their pawns does not benefit us. So wake up, smell the bullshit, call them out on it, and stay focused on the two evolutionary drives that these  power hungry politicians, consciously or not, tap into: “I will survive” and “strength in numbers.”

Point of No Return

Are we at the point of no return? Check out this epic video for the rEvolution…

Props to Immortal Technique and Southpaw.

Be Middle Class or Die Trying

• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 – 500 to 1.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

These stats were taken from a recent article by Michael Snyder. I went to his blog theeconomiccollapseblog.com and realized that his reporting, though interesting and important, is kind of one-sided and possibly prone to bias. Still, there is plenty of info out there to back up the basic gist of things: the U.S. economy is getting worse instead of better, and the middle class is being wiped out. As globalization leads to more jobs being outsourced to countries where people will work for less than a dollar a day, corporations save on labor and increase their profits, paying their top executives more money. This creates less jobs for unemployed Americans, who are sinking deeper into their personal debt. And as the national debt continues to rise simultaneously, the struggling class is bound to receive almost no assistance and is subject to federal tax increases which they cannot afford.

What can we do? Is there any way to reverse this broken system? Does the despair of the situation getting worse contribute to our inactivity? Or can we momentarily ignore the barrage of government/corporate/technology/TV/media distractions, pretend we have an attention span again, and focus on how we can improve both our personal and collective futures?

The Problem With Our Society

On YouTube, “Keyboard Cat” has over 8 million views. This important information about misleading drug ads and big pharma’s purposeful misinformation of the public and how drug companies spend more money on advertising than research: 624 views since January 2007. Wow. Looks like control and distraction of the people are working.

Plutocracy and Democracy Don’t Mix

With Bill Moyers retiring from journalism, the rEvolution will have one less great voice. It’s up to us to make sure his fight for the people is still heard. Here’s an awesome speech from his final broadcast.

You want green jobs? Then legalize pot!

If you support the legalization of marijuana, or human rights in general, check out the video for “Green.” The song, by joe DOE, touches on the three aspects of green (weed, cash, and the environment) as well as other important social issues. The video, produced by Khaos Records, is full of images that fit the content, including some funny footage of celebrities.

“Green” is off of the album Be Middle Class or Die Trying by joe DOE (former artist name D-O-E) available on iTunes – CLICK HERE

WTF

And it escalates. What a week for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to be on vacation…

Obama’s U.S. health care reform has finally been passed, let chaos ring! The Republicans are on a large scale mission against Democrats to “wipe them out” and “defeat these bastards” (Rush Limbaugh certainly has a way with words), and to defeat those on Sarah Palin’s “target list.” Threats made against lawmakers, their offices being vandalized, all because of health care reform. And it’s only been three days.

I’m all for action against government when there is a purpose or important message behind it. But what is being said by these actions? Poor people don’t deserve to live? Let the elderly and children suffer? What is the real issue here? Obviously it’s not advisable for our recession-ridden country to spend more money on anything. But where is the raging storm against crooked ties with big business or military spending on pointless invasions of other nations? Now that some of our taxes might go towards saving millions of lives (instead of ruining or ending them), suddenly the government must be destroyed? I don’t get it.

This has gone way beyond differing political views; this is the stuff that civil wars are made of. No wonder why Republicans love their guns so much.