28.11.09

The Commons

In this innovative animation, filmmaker Laura Hanna, writer Gavin Browning and video artists/animators Dana Schechter and Molly Schwartz examine the concept of "The Commons" as a means to achieve a society of justice and equality.




Source: The Nation
"In a just world, the idea of wealth--be it money derived from the work of human hands, the resources and natural splendor of the planet itself--and the knowledge handed down through generations belongs to all of us. But in our decidedly unjust and imperfect world, our collective wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. There is be a better way--the notion of the commons--common land, resources, knowledge--is a common-sense way to share our natural, cultural, intellectual riches."

24.11.09

Taking on the Fed

It is not everyday the corporate-banking establishment gets what it deserves. In fact, for over two hundred years, hyper-rich elites have basically called the shots within the Western mainstream political and financial establishment. It could even be argued that so-called Western civil society – in its institutional, economic and governmental practices – has been so well “managed” in favor of the powerful capitalist minority that the very conditions of everyday life have come to necessitate a certain kind of perpetual corruption, inequality and political alienation.

Private interests have now so thoroughly co-opted and distorted effective democratic processes that contemporary citizenship has been reduced to 1) having the superficial leadership choice between a small handful corporate-sponsored pitch-men, and 2) a brand of freedom anchored in simple decidions as to which wasteful and ecologically insane commodities to consume, and build their equally insane and superficial identities.

But last Thursday (November 19, 2009) the United States congress - in a bipartisan vote - defied the banking industry, the Federal Reserve, the Democratic leadership, and dominant corporate establishment in order to pass an amendment, sponsored by Ron Paul and Alan Grayson, mandating a genuine and probing audit of the Federal Reserve Bank. That's right: the U.S Congress stood up to the mega-powerful elites.

As journalist Ryan Grim noted:
In an unprecedented defeat for the Federal Reserve, an amendment to audit the multi-trillion dollar institution was approved by the House Finance Committee with an overwhelming and bipartisan 43-26 vote on Thursday afternoon despite harried last-minute lobbying from top Fed officials and the surprise opposition of Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who had previously been a supporter.”

Despite key committee Democrats attempts to suddenly introduced their own amendment – an amendment that would have essentially gutted the major transparency provisions - Democratic Rep. Grayson convinced 15 of his colleagues to join with Republicans to provide overwhelming support for a strict audit of the Federal Reserve.


Key Democratic support was gained only after a letter was posted early Thursday from labor leaders and progressive economists. The letter, organized by the liberal blog FireDogLake.com, called for strong and committed support for provisions brought forth by Ron Paul. The letter helped Paul and Grayson show their Democratic colleagues that the liberal base was indeed behind them.

Populist anger over Wall Street bailouts, the banking industry influence over Congress, and the impenetrable secrecy with which the Fed conducts itself has long been brewing on both the Right and Left (and in between), but neither political party can capitalize on it because they're both dependent upon and subservient to the same elite interests which benefit from those policies.

While most of the realities of U.S economic policy do not fit comfortably into the simplifying and distracting Right-Left paradigm, independent analysts are beginning to point out the long-standing pathologies inherent in current economic systems.

As former constitutional law and civil rights litigator Glenn Greenwald writes,
The pillaging of America's economic security by financial elites, with the eager assistance of the government officials who they own and who serve them, is the prime example of such a conflict. The political system as a whole -- both parties' leadership -- is owned and controlled by a handful of key industry interests, and anger over the fact is found across the political spectrum. Yesterday's vote is a very rare example where the true nature of political power was expressed and the petty distractions and artificial fault lines overcome.
Could it be that American citizens and pundits alike are beginning to see through corporate media sleight-of-hands and gimmicky distractions and seek out truly bipartisan and trans-ideological constraints of elite financial power?

23.11.09

A Glimpse

It’s been several years since i first opened up to the ineffable experience of my own shimmering nothingness. Yet even to this day i never fail to feel shocked and surprised when the veil of intellect momentarily lifts, offering a glimpse of eternity that bursts through my mortal shell. Often it is some seemingly mundane event that occasions such experiences.

Today it was the sun’s light reflecting off the ice and snow on the rooftops of adjacent buildings.

In an instant the regularly dreary urban backdrop seemed illuminated and so utterly soaked in significance that my inner Being seemed to open up to reveal an awesome vastness, then exploded.

How terribly lucky we are to be alive.

21.11.09

First Earth

Below is a documentary by David Sheen called First Earth:
"FIRST EARTH is a documentary about the movement towards a massive paradigm shift for shelter -- building healthy houses in the old ways, out of the very earth itself, and living together like in the old days, by recreating villages. An audiovisual manifesto filmed over the course of 4 years and 4 continents, FIRST EARTH makes the case that earthen homes are the healthiest housing in the world; and that since it still takes a village to raise a healthy child, it is incumbent upon us to transform our suburban sprawl into eco-villages, a new North American dream."

Chapter 1 - Prologue: What's Wrong With Architecture



Chapter 2 - African Earth
Chapter 3 - American Earth
Chapter 4 - Why Earth
Chapter 5 - Empowering Earth
Chapter 6 - Another Earth Is Possible
Chapter 7 - European Earth
Chapter 8 - Arabian Earth
Chapter 9 - Urban Earth
Chapter 10 - Inner City Earth
Chapter 11 - International Earth
Chapter 12 - Epilogue: Future Earth
Chalking up over 300,000 views on YouTube even before its official release, FIRST EARTH is not a how-to film; rather, it's a why-to film. It establishes the appropriateness of earthen building in every cultural context, under all socio-economic conditions, from third-world communities to first-world countrysides, from Arabian deserts to American urban jungles. In the age of environmental and economic collapse, peak oil and other converging emergencies, the solution to many of our ills might just be getting back to basics, focusing on food, clothes, and shelter. We need to think differently about house and home, for material and for spiritual reasons, both the personal and the political.

18.11.09

"The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity."
- Karl Marx, Theses On Feuerbach (1845)

17.11.09

Said on Orientalism

Edward Said discusses the themes of his classic work "Orientalism", its implications and its place in the modern world.

"Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."
- Karl Marx, Theses On Feuerbach (1845)

16.11.09

Wallerstein on the Search For Knowledge

Renown sociologist and world-systems theorist IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN on THE STRUCTURES OF KNOWLEDGE

9.11.09

Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture

Manuel Delanda at Columbia University giving a talk called, "Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture":

7.11.09

The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere

Four of the world’s leading public intellectuals came together on Thursday, October 22 in the historic Great Hall at Cooper Union to discuss “Rethinking Secularism.” In an electrifying symposium convened by the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU, the Social Science Research Council and the Humanities Institute at Stony Brook University, Judith Butler, Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, and Cornel West gave powerful accounts of religion in the public sphere.

You can listen to the full audio of each talk: HERE
  • Jürgen Habermas: “‘The Political’ – The Rational Sense of a Questionable Inheritance of Political Theology"
  • Charles Taylor: “Why We Need a Radical Redefinition of Secularism”
  • Judith Butler: “Is Judaism Zionism? Religious Sources for the Critique of Violence”
  • Cornel West: “Prophetic Religion and the Future of Capitalist Civilization

3.11.09

2 Rorty Videos

Rorty on His Life, Truth, Beauty and Goodness:



Rorty in Conversation with Davidson: Truth, Meanings and Reference:



Richard Rorty (1931-2007) was American philosopher and pragmatist. Rorty achieved considerable attention for his critical views on the western philosophical tradition, and his thoughts on human knowledge, language and culture.

Learn More Here:
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