Video Activism - United Breaks Guitars

Good old fashion video activism at it's finest. Don't mess with musicians in the age of YouTube! The original video got over 4 million hits!!




There is also a hilarious reaction from a United employee (it starts for a few seconds in just black but stay with it it's great) It reminds me of someone. . . I'm not sure who:




And Taylor Guitars also responded:



Finally, the resolution on how it all turned out:

Politics: McCain - Unfit to lead

This version of the video is a draft that has spelling errors but it got the early web momentum so I am just going with it. If the spelling bothers you then the final version can be found here.

I am sick of the Rove attack machine. I am sick of McCain using Rove as an adviser who comes up with character smears and gimmicks. Now we have a new swiftboat style book being released by the same old Rove operatives. It will go #1 on the NYT best seller list because Right wing organizations are buying them in bulk and giving them away. It is full of made up facts and footnotes that point to the authors opinions in other books. . it is easily debunked but people will be parroting what it says anyway.

Politics used to be like fencing. People would duel but it was mostly honorable and fair. Stuff got dirty but it wasn't really the norm. Somewhere around Reagan or Dukakis or at least by election 2000 the Republicans started to bring guns to this sword fight and institutionalizing dirty politics, literally, so that today it almost happens on an assembly line. Unfortunately, the Democrats still think they are fencing.

I don't believe that people will one day just get sick of the dirty politics and stop listening. It is a very old profession. I think it is more likely that they will start seeing politics as something like professional wrestling and the one who doesn't put on a great show, with the help of their most rabid fans, is the weaker candidate regardless of qualifications.

My suggestion is that it's time to bring our own guns to this gun fight. People of conscience don't like to fight dirty anymore than they like to get violent or go to war. Unfortunately, sometimes, it is necessary for self defense. Obama can take the high road just like Bush did. He believes that this is "politics of the past" and that's fine. That won't stop the past from taking pot shots at him in the present, though. That also shouldn't stop this kind of pushback work from the grass roots. We've been waiting for the moment to arrive when the web can successfully compete with TV and publishing as a powerful messaging machine. I say it's that time is here and now. . and this is how we prove it.

I believe a good viral video can work just like a swift boat book in todays environment, only in this case we don't need to lie, or come up with the cash to publish a book and then buy it back from ourselves. With the strength of video, we can create the exact same kind of message to millions of people as a counter punch. We can get people talking and emailing each other and the next thing you know something from the video is coming up in everyday conversation. Many people don't understand how powerful this medium is becoming these days.

I didn't set these standards of institutionalized dirty politics but it's time we began using our new system to beat up on the old system in self defense. So thatis why I made this video. So we cold have our own "taste of their own medicine" payback device. Use it to help make the case. Use it to help relieve your frustration. Use it as payback. . . use it as an email link!

Copy and paste this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEmPZoRVRII

For the record much of the stuff in this video is already out there as common knowledge and the less familiar stuff is backed up by sources including Wikipedia, McCain's own biography, and work by The US Veterans Dispatch. I DO use audacity and the snarky Republican tone. I DON'T just make this stuff up.

Video Activism: Brave New Films take on Bill Oreilly and Michael Savage

Fox Attacks "Non Existant" Veterans:



Michael Savage hates Muslims:




Robert Greenwald is at it again with his fantastic work over at Brave New Films. This time he takes on Bill Oreilly who claimed there were no homless veterans sleeping under bridges and made fun of John Edwards for pointing out that there are. They did something Oreilly apparently never thought of doing. They took a camera to a homeless shelter and asked if there were any veterans who wanted to comment.

In the next video they are trying to expose the bile that is being spewed on the national airwaves by the radio talk show host, Michael Savage. They have created a companion website where you can contact his sponsors and donate money toward The Interfaith Alliance who Savage is suing because they used his attacks against them on their website while also asking for donations. I'm not sure exactly when such behavior could actually be considered inciting violence or unrest over the public airwaves but this certainly seems like a candidate to me.

Video Activism: Brouha Joe - Police Superiority Culture

Brouha Joe is an online video activist who has been very prolific on YouTube. I was browsing his videos and this one really left me in a stunned silence.

I worry more and more every day about the subject of this video. I've long believed tazer to be a really troubling weapon because it is very often used beyond it's intent. It was designed to stop someone who is dangerously out of control or about to attack you with a weapon. Todays police use it when someone won't get up from the ground after they've been handcuffed or when someone won't get off the phone quickly enough or when some kid shoots off his mouth for too long. It's the latest trend in "resisting arrest" tools. Unfortunately this one actually kills people.

The fact of the matter is, though, that the police could just as easily be using good old fashion tools like mace or billy clubs. The problem is the same. Todays police seem to have a much more aggressive, cowboy like, posture when it comes to citizens rights. Todays society is also a problem because I am often hearing variations on the idea that citizens deserve to be smacked around when they "get out of line" as if the government is our parent who has the right to spank us. Parents are not democratic leaders. Parents are a dictatorship. As a US citizen you have a right to back talk your "parent". You have a right to get in their face and tell them to sit down. It is sad to me that so many people who call themselves patriotic Americans unwillingly endorse the ideals of a dictatorship when they justify the bullying tactics of police superiority.

Video Activism: Students: A Challenge For You

Davis Fleetwood is the start of an MTV show called "The Hermet" that never aired. He now does commentary in YouTube videos which have become very successful. I have done some work in this technique myself and I am glad to see that it is showing more and more potential. It is currently the most viewed video on YouTube. With 1.9 million views. I can't think of a more important kind of video activism than this.

Comedy: George Carlin - Who Owns You America

A YouTube member named Puppetgove has created this visual interpretation of one of George Carlin's stand-up segments. I have always loved George Carlin's activism. He has a great way of cutting through the static of daily life and telling it like it is without sounding preachy. That takes real talent. I also admire the political activism that is happening on YouTube and other internet video mediums. It just may save this country.

Video Activism: Campaign For America's Future -Kids Warn Conservatives: No More Photo Ops

This is video activism at it's finest. Presented by the activist group: Campaign For America's Future this is a video that any articulate kid could make themselves. It sends a really powerful message to congress, and a really great idea for kids everywhere: No help for us, no photo ops with us for you. Bush has vetoed a children's health care program known as SCHIP that was trying to fill in some gaps for kids from families that don't qualify for medicade but also can't pay for private health insurance. It has been a very successful program and this expansion passed congress by a wide majority, The Senate has a veto proof majority but there is not quite enough votes in the house just yet. That means those of us who think this is a good idea need to put pressure on their representatives if they have been voting no up to this point. This is going to be a very close call. Please get active yourselves on this if you can.

I can't think of a more basic service a wealthy government should provide than making sure children from families with modest means are healthy. For me that ranks up there with law enforcement, fire protection, and public education. Of course these services to the public are socialism in the eyes of conservatives. Except, of course, for those services they use or need themselves. You know things like cheap clean water for their lawns or publicly maintained roads to their houses or massive search efforts when some billionaire crashes his plane or hot air balloon. Oh yea, and all those taxpayer funded health insurance policies that every member of congress and probably the President himself enjoys today. Socialist bastards.

The true free market would say that every road has a toll, the fire department and police will only come if your are subscribed to their services, water for your tap and clean air to breath should be paid for at market commodity prices, food that has been certified "safe" would be more expensive than uncertified food, all mail would be sent at Fedex prices, and any billionaire in a baloon or anybody who gets lost on their hunting trip better have his own rescue contractor at the appropriate market price. All that would cost individuals, even billionaires, many times more than they pay for these things in taxes but "socialism" is a great buzz word when politicians and pundits want to manipulate ignorant fools who feel smarter squealing at boogeymen than they do looking at facts and working out the math themselves.

Video Activism - Foxattacks.com - Behind Fox Attacks

This video tells the story behind the net roots movement that has become known as the "Fox Attacks" series. It covers several very important points about the power of video activism as it relates to the internet. Web producers should pay attention. You can do a lot more than just film your dog on a skateboard these days.

Robert Greenwald founded foxattacks.com as an answer to the distortions and propaganda that Fox News creates in their very agenda driven excuse for reporting. The Fox motto is "We Report, You Decide" but the reporting is so slanted that it is designed to help you arrive at the conclusion they want. Foxattacks.com has countered with the slogan "They Distort, We Reply." The victory that helped move this website into provenance in the blogosphere is the influence that they had, with the help of other online activists, on the Nevada Democratic Presidential debate that was supposed to be hosted by Fox. The argument was that Fox is not a legitimate news organization and therefore, they could not be trusted to host an event of such important public interest. I could not agree more.

The pressure of this movement was so strong that the major candidates, beginning with John Edwards, backed out of the debate and the Nevada Democrats eventually folded and backed out themselves. I consider this a major public relations victory for journalism. For the first time there was a very large and very public blow back against the Fox News brand.

In my view, we need more activism like this because Fox News is activism on a massive scale. Fox tells their audience what they want to hear based on the conservative agenda rather than what they need to hear based on objective reality. Fox also slants the stories to the benefit of themselves and their political allies and to the harm political opponents, all under the audacious title of "Fair and Balanced".

Their claim to balance is not that their individual stories are balanced but, rather, that their bias as an organization helps to "balance" out the bias of the "liberal media." The problem is that the "liberal media" holds the ORIGINAL ideal of balance first represented by the Fairness Doctrine and journalistic ethics. This definition says that they strive to give equal weight to both sides of any controversial story. Individual reporters can slip in both directions, at times but the goal of each story is supposed to be true balance. Those who are not following this practice are either bad journalists or editorial writers. At Fox, slating the story is the ideal. The majority of the programming is also editorializing and opining over events rather than trying to provide the facts in an objective way. This is not journalism and it does not deserve the respect or privileges that are attached to journalism.

In todays media journalism is failing and a great deal of the reason behind that is that Fox news has almost single handedly changed the definition of what journalism means. Journalism today means making money off stories not providing importaint information about issues of great public interest. The public is left to "decide" based on criteria that is first tested for ratings value. That is the Fox effect. If there were no political angle at all this would still be a great harm to the "fourth estate" that Fox has helped bring. The political angle just makes it twice as bad.

Lets take a look at the Fox Attacks examination of the latest issue Fox covered: The General Petraeus hearings, which were critical to the public understanding about the progress in the Iraq war. The very lives of our soldiers are at stake here so it is vital that we all know exactly where things stand. How was Fox's coverage of this event? Well. They sat down and counted the stories that were for and against the facts that Petraeus laid out and edited it all together. See for yourself:

Video Activism: The Real Terrorists

This video is posted on YouTube by an account holder named Knowitz. The account says his name is Justin from Canada and this is the only video he has offered.

Being that this is the date that lives in infamy, I thought it would be nice to review how politics has handled it all. This is a flashback to 2004. Very little has changed.

I'm beginning to wonder if our government finds it more convenient to leave Osama Bin Laden alive. If he really is as marginalized as they like to say he is then he poses no real threat to us while alive. At the same time he seems to be an endless well of political capital for the "strong on national security" crowd. They mention his name and deeds whenever possible and people understand instantly how to feel. This year they scheduled major hearings on capital hill about the Iraq war around this date. I'm sure that is partly to evoke the feelings attached to it but a cynical person might also suggest that they expected Bin Laden to release a tape at this time that would probably mentionin Iraq. That way they can point to him with perfect timing and talk about how we should stay there because he mentioned it.

Think about the brand recognition, in the marketing sense, that has been created around Bin Laden. It would take a whole lot of work to create another super villian that reaches into the gut if Joe Beercan like this man does. What if his successor's name is Alani Mohamed Mehomanhobad and nobody has heard of him? Is that going to serve nearly as well as a political tool as good old Osama? It doesn't even rhyme with "Obama" or "Chelsea's momma."

Another thing that has been bugging me is how people who disagree with the administration are automatically labeled, by supporters, as forgetting the lessons of 9/11 and helping the terrorists. If you really look at the facts it is quite the opposite.

When Bin Laden said that he wanted to provoke America into occupying a Muslim contry, George Bush was the one who did it. When Bin Laden says he wants America to stay in Iraq so they can kill as many Americans as possible, George Bush said we should stay. When Bin Laden said that Americans should be afraid, George Bush and all his supporters started screaming "The terrorists are coming! The terrorists are coming! They want to kill your children and destroy our way of life!!" If any force in America is helping the terrorists it is good old fashion political opportunism, in this case mostly by Republicans.

Video Activism: Wanderingmind42 - The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See

Wanderingmind42 is a YouTube director who describes himself as a high school science teacher in the process of burning out. This is citizen broadcasting at it's finest if you ask me. It is very simple and low tec. but it cuts through the global warming argument and gets straight to the logic of it, something the old media has yet to accomplish. As might be expected, this video drew the wrath of the global warming critics who proceeded to throw insults and obfuscate the argument into infinity in some of the 1700+ comments that were left about the video.

This led him to produce a number of response videos that are quite entertaining as well as informative so I am including them all below. He is clever in his use of simple, low budget gimmicks to get people's attention. I particularly like the funny hats in video #1 and the way, in video #3 he pokes fun of the short attention span of people on the web by using all his science teacher skills to create a variety of explosions and neat chemical reactions to put in every minute or so.

He calls this series of answers "Patching Holes."


Patching holes #1



Patching holes #2



Patching holes #3

Video Activism: Save Kenneth Foster

Kenneth foster is on death row in Texas and all of his appeals have been exhausted. He is scheduled for execution at the end of this month. It is now a matter of very narrow legal options and a the possible notice of the governor. Kenneth is unique in that he will be someone who the state is executing even though they admit he didn't committed the crime he is being executed for. Kenneth was driving the car that a different man stepped out of and, without the knowledge of anyone else in the car, got into an altercation 80 feet away and ended up killing someone. Because Kenneth and these men were driving around committing crimes earlier, he is seen as a party to the murder that one of them spontaneously committed after the fact and without his knowledge. The law making this connection is called The Law of Parties. Under this law, if you are participating in a felony and a murder results, you are guilty of the murder as well. The problem here is that the murder was not the result of the felony, it was a seperate incident that occurred while they were all heading home. The prosecutor has basically claimed that the crimes were still in progress. The Jury was instructed that if they believed Kennith was doing something wrong by driving the men around, they must find him guilty of the murder itself under the law of parties and, therefore, qualify for death. The man who committed the murder was executed already but, adding insult to travesty, the state is not applying the same standard to the other two men that they applied to Kenneth. Those men will simply go to jail like most other felons.


If I had to define my political views I would say that I am either on the progressive side of conservative or on the conservative side of liberal. One of the things that has always put me on the more conservative side is my support of the death penalty when it comes to the worst of the worst offenders who have been proven, with direct indisputable evidence, to have committed the crime. The story of Kenneth Foster, however, gave me an epiphany. It may have single handedly changed my mind because it proves to me beyond any shade of a doubt that the prevailing social culture and the government structure in the USA today does not have the wisdom or integrity to handle the grave responsibility of taking someones life on it's own terms. Politics is the result of society and government is the result of politics. If a society is "sick" with destructive attitudes and ideologies, the government, the laws it makes and the process of enforcing those laws will carry the same sickness.

American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition:

sociopath [(soh-see-uh-path, soh-shee-uh-path)]

Sociopaths are interested only in their personal needs and desires, without concern for the effects of their behavior on others.

I think that the combination of advertising, dirty politics and a culture of consumerism, celebrity worship and rabid self interest has led our society as a whole into the realm of a collective sociopath. Until we have a society, a political system and, therefore, a government that doesn't reward this sociopathic behavior we have no business letting our government set up a system that decides how to take someones life.

Texas has now become the poster child for me of why the death penalty is too much for politicians and prosecutors to handle wisely. Not only have they killed almost 4 times more than any other state, they have allowed themselves to codify that lust for tough punishment onto the heads of people who didn't even commit the crime. This is the worst kind of perversion of justice and responsibility I can imagine. If this is the result that our society is bringing to our law enforcement today, then this whole level of punishment should be done away with completely, in the name of humanity, until we have a more socially stable, wisdom driven, society. Kennith Foster deserves to be in jail as an accessory to armed robbery and maybe even manslaughter or accessory to second degree murder if you want to be really tough. He should NOT be on death row for failing to realize a murder might take place. Go to www.freekenneth.com If you want to see all the details of this case. There is also a Save Kenneth blog. There is an article from the Galviston County Daily News there with a good summary of the case.

Video Activism: Billy Vegas - How To Create An Angry American

Billy Vegas is the featured name on www.puppetgov.com who posts these videos via their YouTube page. I Can't find much out yet about who they are but it appears to me like another great example of grass roots video activism. This particular video uses this administrations own words to show how corrupt they are. It also shows how some people are reacting to this outrage.

Video Activism: Brave New Films - Fox Attacks Global Warming and Bloggers

Brave New Films is once again documenting the deliberate smearing of serious issues that Fox News advocates in it's programming.

Fox On Global Warming:

This is a Catalog of errors they have represented on global warming during their broadcasts.



Fox On Bloggers:

With no substantial proof that I have seen, Fox has characterized the liberal blogs as outlets of hate. The "hate speech" they provide are from the comments sections of the postings where anyone, including Fox producers could post with anonymity. Anyone who has ever seen comment sections know that people can get really ugly. Go to any popular YouTube video page and there are often several off the rocker, foaming at the mouth, nonsense posts that you just blow off. None of the "hate speech" cited by Fox is ever from the blog articles themselves. The quotes they will find from the bloggers themselves are usually tame when compared to right wing talkers like Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter.




Let there be no doubt about my feelings on this issue: Fox News is the enemy of anyone who wants real information. They have created a slick, car salesman like, image with groovy graphics, controversy hungry hosts and hot blond anchors with tons of lip gloss. This entertainment packaging of news brings ratings and, as a result, the other news programmers in the country have jumped to imitate it. It's just good capitalism after all right? Unless, of course, the purpose is to get real information out.

What it is is the perversion of the whole news industry and a redefining of the word "balance". In a coordinated assault with talk radio and mega church broadcasters, Fox smeared the idea of "liberals" so that nobody in their audience would ever believe anything they say. They then went on to smear the rest of the news world as both "liberal" and "unbalanced" in order to convince these same people that they need Fox's brand of news if they really want the truth. All the while, Fox is as brazenly biased and idealogical as they want to be. They justify this by saying they are "balancing" out all those liberal media outlets. Get it? It's not the coverage itself that is fair and balanced. It is Fox, the slanted spin job propaganda outlet, "balancing" out the flow of "liberal"(formerly known as "journalistic") information in the national dialog. This means if "liberals" say there is gravity, they will have someone on arguing that there is no agreement on gravity to provide "both sides of the story." If the existence of gravity is dangerous to their ideological purpose, they will have one soft spoken intellectual arguing for gravity and two loud aggressive debaters arguing against it. All the while their audience has been conditioned to believe that liberals are too confused to bother listening to what they say.

This model of getting both sides of a story, one that is factually true and one that is factually false, has even begun to make appearances on other news outlets who have taken Fox's dog and pony show success to be a sign that the rest of them must really be "too liberal." So we now have news outlets falling over themselves to be more "Fox like." It is, perhaps, the most public and successful con job on an open information industry that has ever existed.

This is why I have so much respect for Brave New Films. They have taken Fox on directly and they are building a movement to begin calling them out for what they are. If you are a network with a 4 minute "straight news" break every half hour followed by 28 minutes of hosts and pundits spouting opinions can you really call yourself news? I think Fox can say anything it wants. This is a free country, but they should not be allowed to present themselves as either "fair and balanced" or a "news outlet" unless they meet the same specific journalistic standards that the rest of the news media was trying to follow before Fox arrived. I urge everyone to get active on this issue because this is really about getting good information so we can make hard decisions. It's not about tailoring all the the information we get so that it fits into what we WANT to hear. That puts us in a bubble where we can be controlled and manipulated.

If you haven't seen their feature film Outfoxed yet, I highly recommend it. It elaborates much more clearly on what I have said here. If you want to get more directly involved become a Fox Attacker.

Video Activism: Brave New Films - Impeach Cheney

Brave New Films is at it again. I have to admit these guys make a pretty good case. Just the video alone is pretty damning as to how certain Cheney is about all the stuff he was wrong about. It makes you want to know exactly how he was coming to all those conclusions. It's easy to say "we go the intel wrong" as if it was a simple mistake rather than a deception. I personally want to know exactly what Cheney was doing at the CIA and the Pentagon while he made these statements on TV. We already know that he leaked info to Judith Miller who wrote articles in the New York Times. Cheney would then go on TV and say "Well the New York Times just printed an article that says. . . " Does this sound honest to anyone?

Video Activism: The Battle for America

Directed by Alrick Brown and written by Max Skolnik, The Battle for America, came to life shortly after the 2004 elections. The piece was one of the most popular videos that ever landed on current.tv. It was also one of the first videos that I saw on the website and it really made me understand the impact one video could have. It also helped me to understand that current.tv was not just another lame video site featuring crazy stunts, but an actual outlet for creative minds wishing to make a real impact on society today. This video is a great example of fusing poetry, film, and politics to inspire. For more information on this video and the story behind it visit director Alrick Brown's website

Video Activism: Avaaz.org - Stop The Clash of Civilizations

Avaaz.org posted this video on YouTube and I really like the way it uses simple, primitive animations and a creative sound bed to present its message.

Avaaz.org describes themselves like this:

"As major new challenges like climate change and escalating religious conflict threaten our common future, people from around the world are coming together to take global politics into their own hands. Avaaz.org (Our name means "Voice" or "Song" in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Nepalese, Dari, Turkish, and Bosnian) is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today. Our aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people -- and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations -- shape global decisions. Avaaz.org members are taking action for a more just and peaceful world and a vision of globalization with a human face."

Video Activism: Good Magazine - Internet Porn

Good Magazine is a new project that launched earlier this year who describes themselves this way:

While so much of today's media is taking up our space, dumbing us down, and impeding our productivity, GOOD exists to add value. Through a print magazine, feature and documentary films, original multimedia content and local events, GOOD is providing a platform for the ideas, people, and businesses that are driving change in the world.

An interview with the founder can be read HERE. Good media has released several short documentary like releases over the internet. This is one of the more controversial ones. It inspires me because I like the contrast they create between the sexy, attention grabbing shots and the titles they are writing on the object of our attention.

Producers to Watch: Ava Lowery - WWJD

As far as I know, this is the video that started it all for 16 year old Alabama web video activist Ava Lowery. She founded the website Peace Takes Courage and this was one of the early videos she posted as a very simple flash based slide show. The video began to be a viral hit after she submitted it to The Huffington Post as part of a monthly contest. It drew the wrath of angry Bush supporters, some of whom sent death threats. Word got out about this through the net-roots and it brought defenders in the form of Cindy Sheehan, Air America Radio and the liberal blogs who all saw her as both an inspiration and a sympathetic character who shared their beliefs. She has been one of the few web video producers I know of that have been embraced by the netroots in this way.

She has since had major media appearances where she talks about her work and, at times, seems to completely baffle them. She has been amazingly prolific. Her website lists at least a hundred more videos, many of which now incorporate combat camera video footage and are immediately promoted by various netroots outlets. There is a good Buzzflash interview with here HERE.

Video Activism: Whose Streets?

This video, from dunnlap31 on YouTube is pretty disturbing. He or she points to The Portland Media Center for more information. I have a friend in Portland who has shown me similar photographs he and others have taken at demonstrations. Somehow the police always seem to takeout fire extinguisher sized canisters of mace and start shooting large groups of people who don't look that threatening. . . other than. . you know. . protesting.

I have been worried that since "The War On Terror" has begun that authorities have suddenly been taking more latitude when it comes to getting people to "comply" or pushing around protesters. This video was used as evidence in a complaint against the Portland Police department. I think it is a good example of how the pen may be mightier than the sword but video is mightier than the pen.