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.

Politics: Plisko - What is supporting the troops?

I am working on a commentary video where I address the issue of supporting the troops which I will be posting within the next day or two hopefully. This question was done after that shoot as a submission to a website called "10 questions". Anybody can submit a question and vote on the questions that have been submitted. The top 10 submissions will be answered by the presidential candidates with their own response videos. This question is really for a member of congress, but I think it is still applicable since there are members of congress running for President. I am also interested in knowing how the candidates will feel about their own power as President being restrained by the people through congress if necessary.

NOTE: I changed the upload and it is still processing currently so it may not be available to those who read this too soon.

Politics: The Real News - Bush heats up words with Iran and Russia

Who has the right to own a nuclear weapon? I've been pondering this for a while now. When Russia and the US both had enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other, we arrived at peace. When India and Pakastan both achieved nuclear weapons, they were forced to decide how far they were willing to go. It seems to me that nuclear weapons may actually be one of the best war deterrents that has ever existed. It brings two sides of a conflict face to face with annihilation. It forces them to decide how important their hatred of the enemy really is. When only one side of a conflict has a nuclear weapon, the side without it is at a decided disadvantage.

The yahoos over here in the US are always running around saying "we should just nuke em" to just about any small country that represents the slightest threat. With this kind of casual attitude about our power, what would they be saying if we attacked a country like Iran and they then shut down the oil infrastructure crippling the US economy? How easily would desperate people in the US, who are now paying $10 per gallon for gas, be convinced that nuking Iran was actually a good idea if it might make it all stop? How likely would they need to be to decide nuking Iran was a good idea if Iran could nuke us back?

So I ask again. Who has a right to own nuclear weapons? Who has a right to say "we should just nuke em?" Now that the genie is out of the bottle with nuclear weapons how can only some people be forced to live under the threat of nuclear annihilation while others can casually sit back and gloat about their ability to annihilate? Don't gun advocates always argue that the best defense against a man with a gun threatening your family is to own a gun yourself? How is it these same people would say that we should attack someone for wanting the national defense equivalent of a gun to protect their families?

I'm just sayin. . . .

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.

Motoring: Irish TV - The Carver Car

The Carver Car is a new Dutch concept vehicle that combines elements of motorcycle and automobile. It is currently more of a sports vehicle, at this point, but there is a hybrid model and a lower power model in development that will target conservationists. The fact that it tilts like a motorcycle or an airplane as it turns could just make it a "killer ap" for the green motoring crowd because of the fun factor. The only challenge now is getting wider US distribution. There are assembly lines tooling up apparently but it is still an expensive, made to order thrill toy at this point coming in at around $40,000.

Sunday Inspiration: Nigel Ryan - My Prayer

Nigel Ryan Is a video producer in Brooklyn who has recently had his work picked for broadcast on Current TV. This project is the only one he has uploaded at Current so far and it is a very touching emotional piece about a parents wishes for a new child.

Comedy: Marcus Bridgstock - Religion

I have no beef with the search for spiritual truth and if someone can happily accomplish that within the confines of an organized religion that is just fine with me. Religious fundamentalism, however, is the enemy of mankind. It is spiritual death bringing physical suffering to the world behind a mask of love and compassion. It is McDonalds religion that fills people up with tasty comfort food and makes them feel good to eat but it is full of fattening, artery clogging crap for the soul.

Marcus Bridgestock is an English comedian who has done one of the most pointed and amusing rants against the fundimentalist, fanatical face of religion, I have ever heard. He points specifically at the 3 religions that come from Abraham: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

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: