Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label civil liberties. Show all posts

Monday, 3 March 2014

2014 Best Movie: "12 Years a Slave" (video)

Ashley Wells, CC Liu, Pfc. Sandoval, Irma Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly MODERN SLAVERY
(MCS Trailer)

Director Steve McQueen brings this powerful Academy Award winning film, determined the Best Picture of 2014. It is based on Solomon Northup's astonishing true story. In 1841, Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free citizen, is kidnapped and sold as a slave. He is stripped of his identity and sold into American slavery system forced to work for a ruthless plantation owner (Michael Fassbender).
 
There are many modern slaves in America and around the world today (freetheslaves.net)
 
Prof. Michelle Alexander
Now he must find the strength to survive in this unflinching story of hope that swept the Spirit Awards and earned a Golden Globe for Best Picture, Drama. 

This gripping film features an all-star cast, including newcomer Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong'O, Angelina Jolie-loving Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Paul Dano. 
(THNKR) The new "slaves" of the prison-industrial complex and drug war
 
THINK
Yale and Ohio State Univ. legal scholar Michelle Alexander's breakthrough book about the rise of mass incarceration in America argues that "by targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial subordnation and control just like the old Jim Crow system.

Friday, 28 February 2014

Living arguments on gun control (comedy)


No walk on the beach
I'll kill ya...for pointing that at me
The sun had already started setting by the time a former girlfriend and I arrived at Will Rogers State Beach in Pacific Palisades one night...
 
We were going to have dinner at nearby Gladstone’s Restaurant, where Sunset Boulevard ends at Pacific Coast Highway, but decided to first grab a blanket from the car and head down to the sand to watch the sun go down...
 
It was chilly that night, and few people were out there with us, except for one young man who stood just where the sand turned into parking lot, seemingly watching our every move.


(Comedy Central) We the U.S. are the problem, not our guns, as Canada demonstrates.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZkZqRM4934
After a [while] I didn’t really think much of the guy, but I looked around just the same, to see exactly how alone we really were out there.
 
Looking back over my right shoulder, my eyes scanned the rest of the parking lot, then north, along the sand. That’s when I saw another young man, this one a short distance from us, walking slowly on the beach, not along the surf but toward the parking lot, all while looking intently at the two of us.

Tea Party Republican Libertarian Na...
He made some motions with his head toward the guy in the parking lot, who by this time was joined by a third man, and those two started making their way into the sand to meet their associate.

Gladstone’s was only about an eighth of a mile away, but it might as well have been miles if we had to run to it in the deep sand in order to get away. By this time, we had finished..., my friend seemingly oblivious to what was going on around us.

(Comedy Central, Daily Show, Part II) John Oliver vows that never again
will a political career end in a senseless act of meaningful legislation.
Let us prevent political suicide in the face of NRA lobbyists.

“C’mon, I think we better go,” I said, grasping the slender neck of the bottle, preparing myself to smash it across one of their heads, if necessary.

“What’s the matter?” she asked before turning around and suddenly realizing that our new friends were actually about to try something.
 
Guns don't kill people; bullets kill people.
With that, she stood up, faced the three guys and placed her hand inside of her purse, which she then raised up slightly at arm’s length with her other hand. A look of deadly earnestness crossed her face, but she didn’t say a word. They all seemed to understand that my girlfriend was armed with a gun, and, even better, that she at least appeared prepared to use it if need be.

(Comedy Central, Daily Show, Part III) John Oliver: it's pointless for US to
study Australian gun control because the situations are just too similar.
 
I gathered up our stuff and headed toward the car as she turned toward our potential assailants, never once taking her eyes off of them. They stood there frozen, apparently knowing better than to make any kind of move as we hustled back to the car, got in, and drove away. We never did go to dinner at Gladstone’s. More

My government killing me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZkZqRM4934
Democide is a term revived and redefined by the political scientist R.J. Rummel as the murder of people by their government, including genocide, politicide, and mass murder." He created the term as an extended concept to include forms of government-murder that are not covered by the term "genocide," and it has become accepted among other scholars in spite of the fact that the term democide was defined and used in English more than 40 years earlier by Theodore Abel. In the 20th century democide surpassed war as the leading cause of non-natural death... More

Guns: Are we pro or con?
Wisdom Quarterly (EDITORIAL)
Like Budai, let's throw away the AKs (CC)
We unanimously agree. Our position on guns is that they should ALL be gotten rid of. We cannot have police, the paramilitary, and military retain firearms and expect that citizens, protesters, and advocates of civil liberties would be safe from these deadly agents, who in the past have done so much to violate the Constitution, our rights, and the laws of the land with tacit approval of the court and manipulated juries. It would be Martial Law and oppression that perhaps is only staved off because the two sides, ordinary second-class citizens versus elites and their soldiers, have guns. So they should have access to the same terrible guns.

Killing is unskillful, unwholesome karma. And what excuses we make for this intentional action will do little to alter the bitter fruit of our deeds. Many are willing to kill -- whether motivated by fear, greed, delusion, or hatred. Because that is the subtle underlying motivation, the harm is there. Rationalizations that it is "self" defense or patriotism or attacking one group to defend another group does not change the personally verifiable fact that when it is being done, one of these for motivations is at work.

Nothing good will come of it when that karma ripens. Yet, there are many people willing to shoot and kill for pay, for pleasure, for peer pressure, or simply not knowing and not understanding karma.
 
We stand for life and for the right of living beings to live oppression-free. Guns are not the way to life or beneficial karmic results. Say no to guns in the hands of authorities or in the hands of second-class citizens. But when they are in the hands of one, it seems they have to be in the hands of the other. Put the guns down.


(Mental Floss) Don't expect "science" to solve the issue
U.S. Government vs. Jon Stewart's Daily Show claim. See 5:10.

    Sunday, 26 January 2014

    Peace on "Anti-War Radio" (audio)

    Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Scott Horton (scotthorton.org), Anti-War Radio (1-26-14), Future Freedom Foundation (fff.org); G. Porter
    Peace Buddha (papercraftsbyk/flickr.com)
     
    Peace sign Buddha (BuddhaIsland.net)
    What is the cause of war? It is not tribal differences. That only leads to skirmishes, swagger, and big talk. With forced conscription and seductive advertising, governments make war possible; with profit as the highest motive, corporations make war necessary. Our imperial adventures are actually industrial ventures, easy ways for a very few to make a great deal of money while the public pays for it.

    We pay in cash, others with their lives. We send our sons and daughters into the machine; the other side has no choice but to defend themselves against our invasions. The UK taught us well, and the Romans, and the NAZIs, and the Vikings, and the Conquistadors... So we have a "military-industrial complex." A former president warned us about it, a current president keeps it going and growing, and who among us is paying any attention?

    Freedom (fff.org)
    Gareth Porter, an independent investigative journalist and historian, discusses Lt. Colonel Danny Davis’s whistleblowing on senior U.S. Army officials lying about progress in Afghanistan, why the Afghan army would rather make deals with the [CIA's] Taliban than fight them, and why David Petraeus’s claim to fame -- the 2007 U.S. War on Iraq “surge” -- is dubious.

    Saturday, 18 January 2014

    Opposing SEX, promoting violence (video)

    "Lone Survivor" - a Hollywood war glorification propaganda reel about the US invasion and occupation of Afghanistan based but not telling the actual story of Operation Red Wing.
      
    Stop resisting me, stop resisting me (BS)
    Torrance, Los Angeles LAPD Officer Brian McGee will not be charged for attempting to murder a white surfer after ramming his vehicle during the dramatic "manhunt" for accused black ex-LAPD Officer Dorner, who allegedly went on a rampage against other members of the LAPD.

    Better wrong doing right than right doing wrong
    That is the allegation, but we will never know because Dorner was summarily executed by fellow police who turned SoCal into an obvious police state. (Usually it is just a covert one).
    Israeli war criminal Sharon dies (TYT)
    This was done to prevent an adequate investigation that may have turned up damning evidence against the Department. "Shoot first, ask questions later." You may not get many answers but, hey, that's how it goes when working in a violent culture of killer cops.

    (TYT) Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola break down some criminal police 
    Citizens can now police the police (ACLU)
    Fullerton, Orange County Officer Joe Wolfe, who helped fellow gang members bash in the face of a schizophrenic homeless man before beating him to death, had all charges against him dropped after fellow killers Manny Ramos and Jay Cicinelli were acquitted during their separate trial.
     
    Tampa, Florida's retired policeman Curtis Reeves, former Chief of Security for Busch Gardens, murdered a man for having the audacity to text before the movie "Lone Survivor" (see above).
     
    Said it about health plans, said it about NSA
    He also shot a woman after popcorn was allegedly thrown in his direction, which may have touched his large toe. Reeves says that this gave him the right to shoot the couple, given that he could (later) say he felt "threatened" and thereby go scot-free for his crimes.
     
    That's funny! NSA surveillance? "If you like your freedom, you can keep your freedom" is the best summary of President Obama's false speech about "reforming" USA/NSA spying.

    The precept against killing
    Buddha and aum (Brooke Montes/flickr)
    Our world is plagued by conflicts, economic and ethnic, racial and religious, political and ideological, planned and carried out by the military-industrial complex.

    "Terrorism" serves as the great pretext to launch all manner of state-sponsored terror thanks to the CIA, NSA, NSC, FBI, DHS, and other spies.
      
    Israel's illegal Jewish settlements (DN)
    Wars, "low-level kinetic actions" (a euphemism for bloody battles, invasions, and massacres), and genocides are more than just a looming threat. They are an active reality all over the globe.
     
    No sex, please, just killing (govexec.com)
    The threat of nuclear weapons being used causes worldwide anxiety. The manufacture and sale of weaponry is a thriving industry. So are there wars because there are weapons, or are there weapons because there are  wars? Who manufactures industrial-scale conflicts?

    Monday, 18 November 2013

    "At Berkeley" (new film)

    CC Liu, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Frederick Wiseman (zipporah.com); KPFK.org

    "At Berkeley" is a documentary film by Frederick Wiseman about the University of California at Berkeley -- the oldest, most prestigious, and most radical member of California's ten-campus public university system.
    Berkeley is one of the finest research and teaching facilities in the world, excelling most of the world's private institutions while rivaling Ivy League schools. This film shows the major aspects of university life with particular emphasis on the administrative efforts to maintain the academic excellence, public role, and the economic, racial, and social diversity of the student body of America’s premiere public university.

    (Mandy Whittles) "Berkeley in the Sixties" documentary of the student movement in Berkeley in the 60's. Uploaded for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only.
     
    Berkeley in the Sixties
    All of this is taking place in the face of drastic budget cuts imposed by the State of California, big business (represented by its hand selected Board of Regents), and competing colleges. The goal of the film is to show how a major American university is administered and to suggest the complex relationship among its various constituencies -- students, faculty, administrators, alumni, the City of Berkeley, the State of California, and the federal government.
     
    In a more abstract way, the film looks closely at Berkeley’s intellectual and social mission, its obligation to the state, and to larger ideas of "higher" education. It illustrates how decisions are made and implemented by the administration in collaboration with its various constituencies. Tickets

    Rave review (The New Yorker)
    (
    Frederick Wiseman, one of our greatest and most prolific documentarians, always delves deeply into his subjects. And for his latest, "At Berkeley," that’s truer than ever. He found one of California’s great treasures, U.C. Berkeley, such a rich subject that it required a four-hour film. It is receiving some rave reviews, including one from astute film critic David Denby of The New Yorker. Laemmeles is proud to open the movie at the Music Hall, Beverly Hills.
     
    REVIEW (Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist, indiewire.com) Over the years, veteran documentarian Frederick Wiseman has covered what sometimes feels like almost [every] kind of institution and every aspect of life in America (and occasionally, life abroad too). "Titicut Follies," "Juvenile Court," "Zoo," "Racetrack... More