schlafzimmer streichen farbe
is it possible, to totally bringabout a mutation in what is? to go into this question ofbringing about a total revolution, one must have an extraordinarysense of awareness. the crisis especially now,is a crisis in consciousness. a crisis that cannotanymore accept the old norms. it seems to me, though man hascultivated the external world and has more or less mastered it inwardly, he is still as he was. we want happiness.
we do not want suffering. now we are actually creatingmore unnecessary suffering. that "one-million dollars"will not bring inner peace. this money brings more frustration,more suspicion, more anxiety but people do not understand. i see all this potential,and i see it squandered. god damnit an entire generationpumping gas, and waiting tables. ...slaves with white collars. advertising has uschasing cars and clothes
working jobs we hate, so wecan buy shit we don't need. we're the middle-childrenof history, man. no purpose or place. we have no great war...no great depression... our "great war" is the spiritual war. our "great depression", is our lives. we've all been raised on television to believe that one daywe'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars... ...but we won't and we're slowly learning that fact
and we're very, very pissed off. nothing is more powerful than an ideawhose time has come. - victor hugo when you're born in this world you'regiven a ticket to the freak-show and when you're born in americayou're given a front row seat. everybody's got a cellphone that'llmake pancakes and rub their balls so nobody want's to rock the boat.nobody wants to change. we're in a nice downward glide. i call it "circling the drain". i think we squandered great gifts.i think humans were given great, great gifts.
we polluted it with this stuff... ...things, material goods,games, gizmos, toys, gadgets... ...having possessions "he's got a bigger truck! did you see his truck?it's bigger than mine! i'm gettin' a new truck!" part 1 - the freakshow "here's a big truck! oooh, i'm gettin that one!that's what, you got a video in there? dvd too?" hi eric, thank you so muchfor being with us today. thanks for sliding on we are here to talk to eric aboutblack-friday, it has come early this year.
- that's right. with the economy the way itis retailers are doing everything they can to pry dollars out ofreluctant customers hands. so, you know this is a very important season to retailersit could be 25 to 40 percent of their years total sales. so if they can expand the shopping seasonby a little bit, by advancing it... anything in this economy helps. - well i mean, at this point though last yearpeople were pinching pennies just as much as this year so why are we seeing this now? - well we're seeing it now becauseit's a way to expand the shopping season and give retailers thatmany more chances to...
...you know, sink their hooks into you. this is the world i grew up in. like many others i born with this bright,flashing, shiney promise shoved right in my face that true happiness was justa credit card swipe away. when i was a kid the world told me thatthe coolest kids wore the coolest sneakers. when i got a little older it convincedme that my success was defined by a college degree,and a job with benefits. today it reminds me endlessly that ishould have another drink and buy a new car. but i gotta tell you, the only realmessage i've heard through the noise
is that this world knows, better than i do what's best for me. >> it seems to me that most americanshave internalized the propaganda that consumerism pummlesand plies them with daily. so, we internalize this system, wecan't envisage anything different. a number of people were speaking about,"well why do people break windows and steal consumer goods?" the poor have been pummeled with this propaganda. what do you expect them to do, go outand loot a good job and good education? >> captain capitalism! wow!
what are you doing here? >> i think the better questions son is,just what do you think you're doing here? >> putting money in my piggybank! >> crippling our nation by stagnating the economy andthrowing us into another recession is more like it! >> hey girl! can you say "bling-bling"? >> why do we consume to such a crazy level? a level that the research shows over and over is undermining our health,our societal well-being, and the environment. we have to step back from before even starting this
to recognize that most of what we do,most of what we see as "normal" is actually shapedby our cultural norms. and unfortunately, where we are todayis that culture has made consumerism feel "normal", or "natural". so that watching 5 hours oftelevision a day as a child or drinking huge caffeinatedbeverages at 5 years old as this picture here suggests is ok... we don't evenquestion it anymore. you know, and a strong illustration ofthat for me is this series of pictures.
now if you can't see,up at the top-right there's a little girl surrounded by all of her pink toys. this is a little korean girl. the artist actually was more interestedin the genderfication process of children just look from how young we arebrought into the consumer culture where we define our well-being,our happiness, our leisure through the stuff we have.through the stuff that surrounds us. and here's a picture ofan american little girl of course, with the princess outfit
which i've discovered from my own fournieces that... well, it's big business. disney makes multiplebillions of dollars a year selling their disney princessfantasies to little girls. so around the industrial world andincreasingly in developing countries consumerism, is becomingthe default cultural pattern. >> in the 1950s... late 50s, early 60s... a bunch of advertising guys got together in madison avenue, and decided thatwhat they were trying to do was sell products to younger people
they thought "we should try and sell products to youngerpeople because then they'll buy things their whole life." so they'll try and sell themsoft drinks, or bread, or cigars or whatever the hell they were selling them,and they thought... "we'll try and appeal to young people." because the youth was the place whereyou were going to be able to sell things and what happened was that,in a strange kind of quirk of fate youth began to be celebrated by society in a way that it had never beenat any time in human history because what used to be celebratedwas experience and cleverness
but what happened was thatwhat became valuable was youth the quality of youthwhich made you a consumer so what happened is that they startedconcentrating on all of these people society started to turn on its head because with the deification of youth... youth has a byproduct.the byproduct of youth is inexperience. by the nature of having youth, you don't haveany experience, you're too young to have it. it became fashionable and desirableto be young and to be stupid! and it started to be a fashion,and that grew, and that grew
and that grew, and that grew... and now, that's what all the kids want to be. and this terrible movement...nobody meant it! >> everytime that i open my mouth critically,with regards to this country everytime i feel like i want to criticize this country there's this little nagging voicein the back of my head that says... "how dare you paul. " "do you know how fat and lazy you are?do you know how priviledged you are?" "how dare you criticize this country."
"how dare you sit there, in your life ofabject luxury and criticize this great country!" "how dare you." but you know what, ladies and gentlemen? i cannot carry the torchanymore for this country. america is not the "land of the free",nor is it the "home of the brave"... it is neither of those things. america is a country of aggressivelyignorant fucking cowards. people that are just willing tohand over their civil liberties lock, stock and barrel
without even taking the time to inform themselves. they're so stupid and so diluted and so caught in the quagmire that isthere empty info-tainment filled lives that they just line up for somebodyto tell them how they should feel. the real problem is us.we're the problem because we're too distracted bybullshit that's on the fucking t.v. to stand up for what'sin our best interests. what's the answer to that?how do you stop that? >> individually, they earnabout $12 a week in allowance.
but collectively, 8 to 12 year oldkids in the u.s, 20 million strong wield 43 billion dollars of theirparents money in annual spending power and they've got the stars to prove it. >> what makes her a superstar on the launch-pad? >> when she walked in and said,"hi i'm victoria justice and i'm 12 years old." i was like,"alright, this kid has real charisma." i'm thinking, "this is a kid i wantto probably develop a t.v. show for. " >> do you want to be a moviestar? or, a singing star? >> i wanna do both
>> you want it all. >> i wanna do both. iwant it all! why not? >> this season premieregot almost 9 million viewers making it the highest ratedseason premiere in mtv's history. season 4 follows the cast asthey head to their homeland, italy in what can only be described asthe beginnings of a global takeover. >> can we get the lindsey lohand.u.i. arrest out of the teleprompter and put my script in it.is that possible? >> as to the charge of first degree murder...
verdict as to count one, we the jury... >> press association is reportingthat singer amy winehouse has been found dead in her london apartment. >> ...and i'm, i'm done with the paris hilton story. >> in this country, being stupid is nolonger considered to be a detriment. being stupid is considered tobe a virtue in this country. we reward the stupid in this country. that's exactly the opposite thing that we should do. there should be social pressure onpeople that are willfully ignorant
to not be stupid,and instead we reward people... we reward stupidity in this country! we reward people withmulti-million dollar t.v. contracts so that all the other stupid people can sitaround and watch how stupid these people are. it breaks my heart to see a placelike this that has so much potential absolutely fucking wasted. >> but there's a reason. there's a reason. there's a reason for this.there's a reason education sucks and it's the same reason that itwill never, ever, ever be fixed.
because the owners of thiscountry don't want that. i'm talking about the real owners now. the real owners. the bigwealthy business interests that control things and makeall the important decisions. they own you. they own everything. they own and control the corporations, they'velong since bought and paid for the senate the congress, the state houses, the city halls,they've got the judges in their back pocket and they own all the big media companies so they controljust about all of the news and information you get to hear
they got you by the balls! they spend billions ofdollars every year lobbying. lobbying, to get what they want. well we know what they want. they want morefor themselves and less for everybody else. but i'll tell you what they don't want. they don't want a population ofcitizens capable of critical thinking. they don't want well informed, welleducated people capable of critical thinking. they're not interested in that.that doesn't help them. that's against their interests.
that's right. they don't want people who are smart enoughto sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a systemthat threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. they don't want that.you know what they want? they want obedient workers. obedient workers. people who are just smart enough torun the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively acceptall these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours,the reduced benefits, the end of overtime
and the vanishing pension that disappearsthe minute you go to collect it and now they're comingfor your social security money. they want your fucking retirement money. they want it back so they can give it to theircriminal friends on wall street. and you know something? they'll get it.they'll get it all from you, sooner or later because they own this fucking place. it's a big club. and you ain't in it!
part 2 - the big club >> think stars are having all of the fun? uh... no. >> no pressure tonight. >> these days, nobodies making moreand spending more than the button-down badassesof wall street. we'll tour the hedgerow mega-homes they'rebuying with all that hedge fund cash... >> wade carrington's the largest estatein grenitch, and it's 25 million dollars. >> ...show you the insane mega-yachts and jumbojets paid for with their mind-boggling bonuses...
>> i'm just wondering now, what do youneed a commercial size airliner for? >> ...and reveal how big name charities arejust another excuse to flash their cash. >> they raised in one night,71 million dollars. >> we are taking from working familieswho are struggling to survive taking hundreds of billions of dollars,and giving it to millionaires and billionaires. >> i think we have a class war. i think wall street oligarchsand corporate plutocrats they're very, very wealthy, they'rerich and they're very powerful are using the republican partyto actually escalate a war
against the poor andworking class of all colors but it's more a "class war" than a"civil war" that really has to do with organized greed at the top, and disorganizedpoor and working people on the bottom. >> we need to build a beautiful graniteand bronze monument in our nation's capital to honor american heros.unsung american heros and those unsung americanheros are, the rich. >> many have jobs and work hard,yet they're struggling to survive. some people showing up at ahomeless shelter in woodland don't necessarily fit the moldof your typical homeless person.
>> the shelter planned foran increase in homeless. just not this much, this fast. she says the slow economyhas put many in dire straits. >> try to imagine an americawithout rich people. rich people contributea lot to this country. they pay a disproportionate amount, forall sorts of things that help poor people whether it's food, or whether it's medicine,or whether it's helping send other kids to college. the rich do a lot of good. >> and what's going on now is,there's this philosophical myth
that has been taking washington by storm. it's always been around but for somereason recently it's been inflamed. that, somehow, if these companiesthat have shirked tax law that have taken a lot of their moneyoffshore so that profits can't even be judged let alone taxed... are somehow, if they get a lowertax rate, going to bring it all back create more jobs and, i don't know, fire theiraccounting staffs and take back their loopholes. >> can you pin down exactly what would keepinvestors happy, make them feel more confident? >> uh, that's a tough one.
um... see, i'm a trader.i don't really care about that kind of stuff. i go with what the... if i see anoportunity to make money, i go with that. so, for most traders it's not about... we don't reallycare that much how they're going to fix the economy how they're going to fix the whole situation. our job is to make money from it. if a man has an apartment, stacked to the ceilingwith newspapers, we call him crazy. if a woman has a trailer house, full of cats,we call her nuts. but when people pathologically hoard so much cashthat they impoverish the entire nation we put them on the cover of fortune magazine and pretendthat they're role models. - b. lester
>> the racking up of wealth... you would havethought the crisis would have stopped that actually more billionaires emergedin india last year, than ever! the doubled last year. the wealth of the rich inthis country has accelerated just last year. what happened was that leading hedgefundowners got personal remunerations of three billion dollars each in one year. now, i thought it was obscene and insanea few years ago when they got 250 million.
but they're now haulingin three billion. and as a famous statement, i thinkby andrew mellon, was way back... "in a crisis" he said, "asset'sreturn to their rightful owners" i. e. him and that in effect is the plugof the finacial world right now. >> new rule; television networks have to stopmaking shows that try and put a happy ending on america's enormous wealth disparity and instead make a show called"shine my shoes, fuckface". come on! this is america where thetop 400 people have more money than
the bottom 150 million combined! if abc can make a show where millionairesgive their money to poor people animal planet can make a show where pigsgrow wings and fly out of donald trump's ass. >> am i suppose to be honored? >> america rich aren't giving youmoney, they're taking your money. between the years 1980 and 2005, 80% ofall new income generated in this country went to the richest 1%. let me put that in terms that evenyou fat-ass teabaggers can understand. say 100 americans get togetherand order a 100 slice pizza.
the pizza arrives, they open the box and the first guy takes 80 slices. and if someone suggests,"why don't you just take 79 slices?" that's socialism! i know, i know, it's just a t.v. show. but it does reinforce thestupid idea people have that rich people wouldlove us and share with us if only they got to walk a milein our cheap, plastic shoes. but they're the reason theshoe factory moved to china.
we have this fantasy that our interests andthe interest of the super-rich are the same. like, somehow the rich will eventuallyget so full that they'll explode and the candy will raindown on the rest of us. like they're some kindof piå„ata of benevolence. but here's the thing about apiå„ata, it doesn't open on it's own you have to beat it with a stick. >> the rich do a lot ofgood, and what i'm saying bill is they don't need to be vilifiedthe way they are in america today. >> this is wall street bitch,you don't belong here!
i'm your greatest fear! the shit that you wish you could be,but are too weak to get here! is it starting to make sense?is it starting to become clear? >> our financial market activelyrewards being a giant cunt. like a radioactive ann coulterwho's grown to godzilla proportions. does that not freak anyone out? >>... pfizer sales reps promoted itillegally, for surgical pain in higher doses. uses the fda had rejecteddue to safety concerns. doctors responded.
instead of prescribingibuprofen at pennies a pill they prescribed bextraat nearly $3 a pill. >> sales were very good. >> you might have heard of "the yes men" they do social activismpranks on corporations. for example, last week they announcedthat general electric which uses loopholes to avoid taxes was going to give back the 3.2billion dollars in refunds it got from the government or another time they told the mediathat dow chemical
would finally be paying the victimsof a massive chemical spill millions of dollars in restitution. or another time they annoucedthat director michael bay would be giving us all2 hours of our lives back. so after these hoaxes,the corporations have to come out and go "oh, actually... that good thing you heard about?yeah, we're totally not doing that. no. not at all. " now here's the interesting part. during thehalf hour when everyone thinks the hoax is true the company's stock tumbles like crazy. g.e. lost billions.dow lost billions.
this means, we've created a systemwhere companies get massively punished for doing good things for humanity. so if a corporation announces it will hostilelytake over a 50 year old, locally owned company and fire all their employees. it's given the financial equivelantof a high-five and a reach-around. if on the other hand it anouncesit will give free aids medication to the dying people of ghana then wall street knocks it unconscious anddraws the word "queer" on its forehead. >> in this grainy seminar videoposted on the file sharing site youtube
a pittsburg lawfirm, on how to use loopholes to ensure foreign workes can get the jobsinstead of americans. >>... and our goal is clearly, not tofind a qualified and interested u.s. worker. >> here's the thing.if wall street weren't around yet would you create it to be this way? would you say, "lets make a financial systemwherein companies are rewarded" "for being piping hot douche-holes." "and if one of themdoes something good for humanity" "we'll treat that with suspicion."
"you announced you're gonna pay thevictims of a horrific oil spill?" "what are you, sean penn?" "you're a multi-national.you can't go around caring about people!" "could you imagine ifevery company did that?" "the whole system would break down!" "people would have food and clean water.there'd be fewer wars, death and hardship!" "what kind of world that be!?" "not one i want my trust-fundbabies to grow up in... " >> i'm matthew lesko and the government'sgiving away more money than ever before!
85 billion dollars, to helpbank executives take a vacation! 25 billion dollars to make carsthat people don't want to buy! 600 billion dollarsto subsidise sub-prime lending practices that got us in this mess in the first place! who cares about hyper-inflation,crippling debt or a massive tax burden on your grand kids! >> jack abramhoff may be the most notoriousand crooked lobbyist of our time. he was at the center of a massive scandalof brazen corruption and influence peddling. as a republican lobbyiststarting in the mid 1990s
he became a master atshowering gifts on lawmakers in return for their voteson legislation and tax breaks favorable to his clients. he was so good at it, he tookhome 20 million dollars a year. it all came crashing down 5 yearsago when jack abramhoff pled guilty to corrupting public officials,tax evasion, and fraud and served three anda half years in prison. today he's a symbol of howmoney corrupts washington. in our interview tonight,he opens up his playbook for the first time
and explains exactlyhow he used his clients' money to buy powerful friendsand influence legislation. >> i was actually thinking of writing a book,"the idiot's guide to buying a congressman" as a way to put this all down, but... first, i think most congressmendon't feel they're being bought. most congressmen i think can, intheir own mind, justify the system. >> rationalize... >> rationalize it. and by the way we wanted,as lobbyists, for them to feel that way. >> abramhoff wouldprovide freebees and gifts
looking for favorsfor his clients, in return. he'd lavish certain congressmen andsenators with access to private jets and junkets to the world's great golfdestinations like saint andrews in scotland. free meals at his ownupscale washington restaurant and access to the best ticketsto all the areas sporting events including two skyboxes atwashington redskins games. >> i spent over a million dollarsa year on tickets to sporting events and concerts and what-notat all the venues. >> a million dollars?
>> yea. >> for the best seats? >> the best seats. >> but the best way to get a congressionaloffice to do his bidding, he says was to offer a staffer a jobthat could triple his salary. >> when we would become friendly withan office and they were important to us and the chief of staffwas a competent person i would say, or my staff wouldsay to him or her at some point "you know, when you're done working on the hill"
"we'd very much like for you to considercoming to work for us." now the moment i said that to them,or any of our staff said that to them that was it. we owned them. >> you're asking me to trust the topone tenth of one percent of wage earners and the politicians thatthey outright purchase with stewardship of the economy. you're asking me to trust them to run theeconomy in such a way that not only benefits them but benefits me andeveryone else besides. >> how many congressionaloffices did you actually own?
>> we probably had very strong influence in 100 offices at a time. >> come on... >> no >> 100 offices? >> in those days i wouldview that as a failure because that leaves 335offices that we didn't. >> when barack obama and i were literallysitting at a desk in a high rise in chicago beginning to plan how we would tryto get this economy out the ditch
literally the first guy i called, was jon corzine. jon corzine - 54th governor of new jerseyformer ceo at goldman sachs and mf global net worth approximately $300 million. >> these people have never givenme any reason to trust them. use a little google fu, go and look upwhite collar corporate crime statistics you know, from 1980 on. these names show upover, and over, and over and over againfor the same shit.
embezzlement, bribery of public officials,outright theft, tax evasion, misstatements of profits and they do it again,and again, and again and again, and paybillions of dollars in fines and they do it again,and again, and again... this is not just an isolatedincident or two, this is a pattern. this is a part of theway they do business. part of doing business inamerica, is breaking the law over and over and over again... and getting caughtover and over and over again...
and you're asking meto trust these people. >> i'm not here to talk aboutplans to deal with this till 2017. i'm saying we've got a real problem and i'm tired of republicansand democrats who either... republians who want toburn the place to the ground and democrats with all duerespect, who want to offer a plan that gets it through the end oftheir second term of their presidency and then screws me andmy kids when it's over. and until we do that we have to dealwith the extraction that is at foot
it is the reason the financial marketsare behaving the way their behaving that is a mathematical fact!this is not some opinion! this is a mathematical fact! tens of trillions of dollars are beingextracted from the united states of america. democrats aren't dong it.republicans are not doing it. an entire integrated system; financialsystem, trading system, taxing system that was created by both partiesover a period of two decades is at work on ourentire country right now! and we're sitting here arguing about whetherwe should do the four trillion dollar plan
that kicks the can down theroad for the president for 2017 or burn the place to the ground. >> at this point in history, you can no longerafford to live in blissful ignorance of the facts. you can no longer affordto be wrong about this. the decisions that these people make,the laws that these people break, the money that these people extractfrom the global economy illegally ...and in some cases legally... everything that they do affectsevery aspect of your life. >>...and, you know the joke is if youwant to talk to someone from goldman sachs
call the treasury department. i mean, it's just staffed withpeople who are from wall street. so, it's an area where they reallydo control both ends of the debate. you don't really have much choicebetween the republicans and democrats. you know, you get the democrats in,you have as many people from wall street as with the republicans.maybe more. so it's certainly avery, very big problem. >> here's the way it works. it's 10:14 pm, eastern time.
you're gonna get up at 5:30in the morning tomorrow. if the kids are sick, forgetabout it. i don't care. get somebody to take care of them. that lousy commute that takesyou an hour and a half... suck up and do it, don'tgive me any bologna. go to work at a job that you hate, but you'retaking the job because you need the money and your boss is a jerk, andyou can't stand your coworkers i don't wanna hear any complaining. you have to stay late.
and then make that commute back. and then feed your kids some garbagethat you have that you call food. and then call it a nightand start the next day. i don't want any back-talkbut i want your money. i'm gonna take your money, andi'm gonna give it to my friends! >> there is a capacityto basically fire a politician who disagrees with meby taking funding away from him. people of the united states ofamerica, your congress is bought! your congress is incapableof making legislation
on healthcare, banking, tradeor taxes because if they do it they will lose their politicalfunding, and they won't do it! and i won't have a country thatis run by a bought-congress! >> why aren't we directly helpinghome owners with their debt burden? why aren't we helping americanfamilies faced with bankruptcy? is this the united states congress,or the board of directors of goldman sachs!? >> my name is mitch mcconnell my name is boehner my name is bush
my name is clinton my name is obama my name is reid, pelosi, frank, dodd... i'll tell you want to think, what to believe.you just turn over your money! and i'm gonna give it to mybuddy over there, bernanke. and he's gonna distribute itto all the banks and all the businesses and all the hedge funds. and they're gonna borrow billions and trillionsat zero interest rate. part 3 - the iron fist
>> does the government work for usor do we work for the government? how has the united states changedfrom a humble, peaceful republic into a police state? tonight, "freedom vs. security". this past week the united statessupreme court told police that they could break down the door of your homeif they smell what they think is smoke from the use of marijuanacoming from inside. last week the indiana supremecourt told police in that state that they can enter a private home even ifthey're not looking for evidence of a crime.
and yesterday the justicedepartment revealed that fbi and local police areexecuting "sneak and peek" warrants. they break into your home,seize an item and don't tell you that they've done thisfor over 18 months. and they are doing this inordinary criminal prosecutions not just for the persuit of terrorists,as the law requires. this is all about the slow lossof personal libery. >> the number one priorityof this government and future governments
will be to protect the american peopleagainst terrorist attack. >> after the events of 9/11,the department of justice came to us in the congress and said... "these terrorist succeeded, becausewe didn't have (we in the government)" "did not have sufficientpower to have stopped them" "and we, therefore need thecongress to pass legislation" "correcting these deficiencies in previous law" "and giving us (the government)more power." >> so just 6 weeks after theattack on the world trade center
congress passed a new law called "the uniting and strengthening americaby providing appropriate tools" "required to intercept and obstruct terrorism"act of 2001 the patriot act. sure is the"axis of evil" for bad acronyms. the patriot act is,"an act to deter and punish terrorist acts" "in the united statesand around the world." "to enhance law enforcementinvestigatory tools," "and for other purposes."
other purposes? >> under the usa patriotact, among other things you can now have people whoare tried on a military barge off the coast, a u.s. military bargeoff our coast or some other country. they could be tried by a military tribunal.we wouldn't know the charges against them let alone the evidence they could be convicted... they could be sentanced to deathby this military tribunal and thrown overboard
and we wouldn't even know their names. >> when the patriot act was first sentto the congress by the bush administration it came with a request thatwe hold no hearings on it so that there would be no public input or public discourse. >> imagine if your family wasawakened in the middle of the night by a team of federal officers. well that's exactly what happenedto a woman and her children in grandville county.
>> amanda lamb is in thenews room joining us now and amanda, we understand that because this case falls under the patriot act a lot of the usual rights fordefendants, not available here. >> that's right david.the patriot act was created after 9/11. it allows federal agents to investigatesuspected cases of terrorism, swiftly in order to better protect our country. but one grandville county mother says it gives the federalgovernment too much leeway.
her son was taken intofederal custody 2 months ago she can't get him out,and she can't get any answers. according to theunited states government this 10th grader who has neverbeen in trouble with the law before is now a suspected terrorist. >> they said that hewas being arrested for making bomb threats. >> annette lundebytold the officers that someone stole her son's i.p. address
and used it to make crankcalls through the internet making it look likethe calls had originated from her home. she says the fbi'sextensive search of her home turned up nothing. >> quitely and quickly,congress reauthorized the patriot act last week just before ducking outfor the holiday weekend. the senate passed the bill, 72 to 23.
the house followed suit just hours later passing it 250 to 153. all in all, more than 80 democratssupported the bill. we're going to bring in jeffery rosen. he's a law professor atgeorge washington university he's also the legal affairseditor at the new republic. jeffery, thanks so much forjoining us, really appreciate it. let me start with thatfundamental question. is there somethingsignificantly different about
this patriot act as opposed tothe one during the bush years? >> absolutely not, in fact the three mostcontroversial provisions of the patriot act were reauthorizedwith barely any debate. these are the provisions thatauthorize roving wire-taps, the infamous section 215 which allows the government to seize"any tangible thing" data, cellphone records, what have you... merely by saying that it's "relevantto a terrorism investigation". and then finally, the secretnational security letters
that also allow thegovernment to seize any data and if you receive this letter you're not even allowed tomention it to anyone else and an investigation in 2007 found serious and wide-spreadabuse of these letters. it found there were 140,000 of them issued between 2003 and 2005 many with people with noconnection to terrorism. these are very provisionsthat harry reid and
other democrats properlydenounced during the bush years and this past week as you said,with barely any debate the same people justvoted to reauthorize these terrible provisions. >> government was giving us,kind of a running tally... >> there have been atotal of over 480 people arrested or detained... ...we've arrested ordetained, 614 persons... ...we've detained nearly1000 individuals...
>> he swept broadly, he swept blindly until the number was over 1000 and people started asking questions. they said "how many of these 1000 people" "have been charged withthe crimes of september 11th?" and the answer was zero. then people asked "well, how many of these people,these suspected terroristists" "have been charged with any crimerelated to terrorism?" those were not good answersfrom the government's perspective
so what did the government do? in early november it annouced "we no longer willgive out a daily tally." "it's too difficult for usto give out a daily tally." it wasn't difficult for them,when they thought it sent the message that,"we're doing something to fight terrorism" but when it started to send the message "we're locking up lots of people whoaren't even charged with terrorism" they just stopped telling ushow many people were detained.
>> most congress members admit that they never even read it. >> it is an immutablelaw of the universe that if you give government power it uses it. >> but in reality, ourliberties have been on decline from almost the moment of theconception of this great country. the hateful "alien and sedition" acts,which criminalized free speech that was criticalof the government
were inacted in the 18thcentury by the same generation indeed, in some cases the same people who adopted the first admendmentwith its iconic language that "congress shall make no lawabridging the freedom of speech" those laws expired, whenjefferson refused to enforce them but two generations lateranother president would argue that he could arrest stateofficials and newspaper editors with whom he had political differences and two generations after that
the government enactedthe espionage act of 1917 which made it a crime tospeak out against world war 1 or to oppose the draft. and two generations after that f.d.r. arrested japaneseamericans and italian americans just because of their nationalities and the supreme court letthem get away with it. the war on drugs was prosecuted to distract us fromthe disaster in vietnam
and the economicdestruction brought about by wage and price controls and therejection of the gold standard. each of these assaults on freedom used the previous assaultas a legal justification. >> the war in iraq may be over but america is still fightingits so-called "war on terror". u.s. president barack obama says he wouldn't block a new security bill,which for the first time writes into law theindefinite detention
of alleged terrorists at guantanamo bay even american citizens. >> it's very, very noxious... very, very reminiscent ofthe "emergency regulations" introduced in nazi germany in 1933. it goes way beyond the "war powers" act and it's meant to intimidate people to make sure that peopledon't act up or speak out. >> u.s. congress passed a bill
which repeals "posse comitatus" which means, that we have now institutionalized andcodified marial law. right now, the battle againstterrorism involves all of us. everybody in the countryis a potential terrorist. and the words that they used in there to bring everybody in asa potential terrorist is "any associated forces" which means that if youhappen to visit a website
or happen to attend a meeting... happen to do one association you can be accused of being a terrorist and the bill says you have"no right to a lawyer". and this president, justabout a year ago announced that some of these "bad people",even though they're american citizens don't deserve even charges that they can now be assassinated. >> the vote was 93 to 7.
so only 7 senators object to the literal eviscerationof the fifth amendment. >> someone missing fingerson their hands, is a suspect. someone who has guns... somebody who has ammunition... someone who has more than 7days of food in their house... >> we're talking about themilitary arresting citizens and then you disappearforever with no trial for no reason.
and they say they cankill you if they want and torture you or have a military trial.whatever they want. i mean this is, this is... this is the royal flush. this is the "cräme de la cräme". this is the mike tysonin his prime of boxers. the babe ruth of baseball. you sit here and you look at this
and it is so mind blowing and it's happened, andnow they're just going to slowly roll it out,and they'll use it on examples of "turbaned brown people"so it'll be ok... >> radical change is immediately noticeable not just when it is radical but when it is disruptive. but if it happens slowly, and in steps if it happens in degrees
eventually the radicalchange will have happened and we will not have noticed it at all. >> the internet is one ofthe united states most robust and growing industries. it enables free and opencommunication among billions and it's been the backboneof protests around the world. but a new bill proposes we givethe power to censor the internet to the entertainment industry. >> you got to care aboutthis because sopa is next.
it's coming. what that is,if you don't know it's corporate censorship.that's what it is. it means if they see fit the governmentcan shut down your entire website. because you have copyrightedmaterial on it including links. they can sue you. you willtechnically be a felon. if your daughter posts avideo of her lip-syncing to michael jackson, or whatever she can be sued for millionsof dollars and is now a felon. >> federal law enforcementand national security
aiming to get new regulations that would make it easier for themto wire-tap internet communications. so that includes email,facebook, skype, and other sites so how can the u.s. promoteinternet freedom in other countries yet restrict those samefreedoms here at home? >> some amongst those who had beencampaigning against sopa and pipa did not know the u.s. governmentalready had the authority to shut down entirewebsites, and in fact has excersised that authorityon numerous occasions.
late last year, a number of nationssigned a new global copyright agreement known as "the anti-counterfeitingtrade agreement" or acta signatories include the united states,canada, japan, australia, south korea and 22 member statesof the european union. >> the problem is that it's vauge enough that abuses can happen. >> these acts have potentiallydisastrous consequences for things that we enjoy doing.
it's not just abouttaking down "rogue sites". it has far more dangerous implications. the fact of the matter is thevast majority of people debating it have no idea what it is. they don't have any idea how touse the internet, for one thing they have freely admitted that! it's like putting toddlersat the controls of a 747 but not just "a" 747... ...every 747, 777, airbus a320,every aircraft in the world.
do you think that's a good idea? >> no!! >> now it's temptingto stop the story here and conclude that the problem is that lawmakers are either clueless or evil or possibly evilly clueless and just leave it there which is not a verysatisfying place to go because it's fundamentallya council of dispair.
>> people who see nothing wrongwith restricting internet freedoms i don't think their primaryinterest right now is being able to shut down access. in fact, i think they actuallylike the idea of us using as many social networks as possible. because what they want to do is,they want to eavesdrop. actually let peoplesay as much as they want then let us watch, let us collect it and then let us do whateverwe want with that information
whether that's indefinite detention or whether that's shutting down websites >> if there was trustthroughout the system acta wouldn't be scary. there's no trust, that's why it's scary. >> the preponents of sopa, the"motion picture association of america" circulated a memo citing research that sopa would probably work because it uses the samemeasures as are used in
syria, china, and uzbekistan... these measures areeffective in those countries and so they would work in america too. the fact that this will be a dismalfailure over and over and over again will just make them tryharder at ineffective remedies. >> and all these people that do not care they say they don't care
well guess what, mush-head... it's your fault we're in thispredicament to begin with. we can't afford to talkabout football anymore, ok? but you have to let them know,and they're going to start caring when their wife dissappears and their friends are gone and their kid is a felon and their businesswebsite was taken down... they're going to care. this issomething we have to care about.
we have to wake up. >> wake up stupid, or your fucked! >> have you ever noticed that the government always claims that when it does these things,it does so in the name of "safety" when is the last time youheard the government give as a basis for its behavior "personal freedom"?
some will say "come on judge,this is america. we're free." and i would say "there arenone who are so enslaved..." "...as those who falselybelieve themselves to be free." >> this is an open message to police to the military to tsa homeland security and to members of every otherenforcement arm of the government. i know that most of youchose the life in uniform
because you love your country. because you believed inwhat that uniform stood for. because you genuinelywanted to serve and protect. but i also know that deep down inside you sense that somethinghas gone terribly wrong. you've watched with the rest of us as elected officials have legislatedour constitutional rights away piece by piece. you've watched as thestate surveillance apparatus
has expanded like a cancer through the heart of the nation. and you've seen the corruption that becomemore blatant with every passing year. i can understand why you haven't wanted toacknowledge the implications of what you're witnessing. to face the reality of what's happening would mean admittingthat you've been betrayed. and it would mean comingto terms with the fact that you are working for criminals. i don't envy your position.
i know your job dependson following orders. and i know you have families to support and bills to pay and i know that if you stand up you could lose everything. but what you need to understand is that, continuing tosubmit to unconstitutional and immoral orders will not protect you from whats coming.
you may tell yourself that you candraw your line in the sand later that there's a certainpoint where you'll say no. but in reality, you crossedthe line a long time ago. you're standing on thewrong side of history right now. you are already participating inthe destruction of this country and the trampling of our rights... of your childrens' rights... and your grandchildrens' rights.
you are the enforcement arm of a criminal enterprise. you are a servant of arapidly expanding police state and you do have a choice. i'm not telling you this to condemn you. i'm telling you thisbecause we, the people desperately need you to take a stand. we desperately need you to have thecourage to face your commanding officers and tell them,"no, i didn't sign up for this."
"no, this isn't right." "no, i will not obeythese unlawful orders." you took an oath todefend the constitution against all enemies,foreign and domestic. it's time to starttaking that oath seriously. >> why are you huring these people!? it doesn't make any sense! how do you sleep at night?! there is no honor in this!
there is no honor in this, man! >> so look man, that's the fucking job. the job is, we agreed,that guy gets the gun and the flashing lights and you listen tohim. "yes sir / no sir" and that means you're a good citizen and you're not tryingto cause any trouble. and in turn, he doesn'ttake advantage of this power that's presented to him by thiswillingness for people to obey
and he doesn't automatically assume that everybody owes it to him... and that's the problemwith older cops that you see punching people in theseoccupy wall street crowds. they've been involved inlaw enforcement for 30 years and you have to listen to them.you know... the whole things disgusting. it's really disgusting. it's like, these cops are forcedeveryday to go out there and
try to combat this ever growing thing that shows no signs of weakening. in fact, shows signs ofgaining momentum and strength. and that's why allthese actions are being taken to try to supress it because they go,"well, we've got to stop this now" "because right now it's 30,000 people." "what the fuck do we do whenit's 300,000 people out there?" "guess what, 300,000 people aregoing to come through those doors"
"and they're going to startthrowing people out windows." you know, and i don't think they will. i mean, it hasn't beena violent movement so far but that's what they would doif they had 300,000 people. if you're mayor bloomberg or if you're one of these guysthat owns some giant hedge fund and you've made billions of dollarsjust raping people your whole life and then all of the sudden, you know you picture what you would do
if you were all those people. you would think, "thosepeople are going to get me." "they're going to come get me." >> they're going to storm the gates. >> even if they stay non-violent these people are nevergoing to accept that because they're alwaysgoing to assume that human nature is always violent so they're going topush these people back
before it ever gets to a pointwhere they can't control it. you know that chase paidthe cops $4.6 million made a huge donation to the cops. >> of course. >> isn't that ridiculous? >> do you think thatall this is leading up to a protest, or gettingthe troops back here or, like, all of this is justgoing to lead to something like a new "hands accross america"or a new "we are the world"?
>> that's so not what's going on here. what's going on here is some"overthrow the government" type shit. that's what's going on here. you know.. this is the only time inour life that i've ever seen this. never seen anything evenremotely close to it. people saying "hey, this systemright now doesn't work at all." part 4 - the awakening never believe that a few caring people can'tchange the world. for indeed, that's all who ever have.- margaret mead
>> we will not be silent!we will not obey! we will not let our governmentdestroy our humanity! >> if you looked at young blacks and young whites with a discerning eye... and careful hearing... they have been telling us and we would not listen! >> a year ago, thousands ofegyptians shocked the world
when they took to cairo's tahrir square. fast forward 365 days and the iconic square is packed again. >> you know, they're begining tounderstand that the game is up. and yet, in their desperationto preserve their dream they want to remove any remainingtraces of democracy from the system. >> years of anger and frustrationspilling over in the romanian capital. what began as a protestagainst healthcare reform has widened into mass protestsagainst the government.
>> friday's protests culinatesa week of numerous mass-rallies accross poland... >> ...a revolution. these peopleare also standing for change. >> my wages didn't go up,but prices went up! gas goes up! milk goes up! trains go up! how am i suppose to live? >> wall street, and the banker class, thepeople who actually run this country...
they have a blueprint.and it's written in all of their ayn rand andmilton friedman textbooks. their blueprint, is the destructionof the future of this generation. >> thousands of people are outmarching here in santiago today. it's about people fed up with theinequalities of the current economic system. >> it is happening in syria. it is happening in clapham. it's happening in liverpool, and that is the natureof the historical moment!
>> my interests is inreclaiming human consciousness that's autonomous. that is our organic,natural, evolutionary place. we are not designedto be following orders. we are not designed to have authority figures above us or submissive people below us. that is not natural. it is not normal
and it's certainly not healthy. >> we are at a pivotal, pivotalevolutionary moment in human history. and, we're clearly witnessing biologicaland cultural evolutionary collisions. i don't know how it'sgoing to shake out. >> the wealthy in the united statesare worried about global unrest. they're investing inarming their yachts. they have planes and cars withmilitary-style security features... >> they're starting to buy predators. drones.
ok? they're not armed yet,they're just for spying... oh that's great. >> this was meant to be the firstpost-ideological generation, right? this was meant to be the generationthat never thought of anything bigger than our facebookprofiles and our t.v. screens. this was meant to be the generation where theonly thing saturday night meant was x-factor. i think now, that claimis quite ridiculous. we are now the generation atthe heart of the fight back. we are now thegeneration that will stand
with everyone whose fighting back! >> humanity marches on! you can fight it, or fight for it. when we say "revolution" we say it with love. >> they're giving outleaflets to the public where they say that they want tosee the money market system replaced by a resource based economy where everyones needsare provided for, free.
>> because we've got to sit around inthis shit for the next 70 years, alright? who do you think has to sithere breathing the tained air eating the mutated fish watching the vetted reality shit on t.v. create a nation ofmalignant imaginations... it's us, alright? we've got to sithere in this rancid bathwater... you know, this is a revolution. this may not be a revolutionin the traditional sense but this is a revolution of the mind.
>> we have to think as a human species. we have to think as homosapiens. we have to create global consciousness if we're going to move thisthrough an industrial revolution and create a new civilization... an empathic civilization. maybe it's not always about trying to fix something broken.maybe it's about starting over and creating something better. what we're seeing here is adefining moment for the human race. >> we will not wait another moment in fearto stand up for what we know to be right.
it is time we start meetingoppression, with resistance. >> hello citizens of the world. we are anonymous. >> the hacker groupanonymous is fighting back temporarily taking outseveral government websites... >> ...but the hackergroup called anonymous was secretly listening and recording... >>...the hackivist organizationanonymous has announced plans to... >> they call themselves anonymous.
they are hackers on steriods... >> ...calls itself anonymous... so who are these people? >> anonymous has noleaders to be targeted. anonymous has noheadquarters to maintain. and to become a member you will not berequired to fill out a questionnaire. >> they're this shadowy and motley group group of hackers and activists who answer to no one,
drawn together by a loveof internet mischief. >> now they're evolving intothis movement of social change a real driving force behindthe wall street occupiers. no surprise, they'rehated by corporate security but also, hunted by the fbi. >> the label, anonymous,is only a symbol that embodies the collective actionsof many autonomous intividuals fighting against theinjustice of the current system and any individuals ororganizations that hide in its shadow
and exploit the world. >> anonymous, and a lot of othermovements, regard the internet as sort of independant from any government and they regard governments interferingin the free flow of the internet as stepping outside of their jurisdiction. >> we are the 21st century militia. we are a part of humanity'sdeveloping social immune system. we are those who have takenup arms to defend ourselves and others, against those whoabuse their positions of power...
...people who do not yet understandthat there are no individuals there is only humanity. if you believe, as we do, that thecurrent system is a burden to humanity then you are already a member. >> we aren't a group, we're an idea. we're an expression of the anger that every person feels when they see injustice.
>> it's a dark and disturbing vision. a world where riot policeattack with impunity. where democracy is corrupted by greed and dissent is crushed. that's how anonymous sees america and they say,that's why they're fighting back. >> we are legion. we do not forgive. we do not forget.
>> our weapon is not a gun but our ability to operate withefficiency in the digital realm. our ammunition is not bullets but information. and our protection comes from the fact that we have grown out ofthe fabric of humanity itself. we cannot be stopped, because weare not restricted by your rules. we cannot be beaten, becausewe are not playing your game. we are the first stageof a new human evolution
born out of the collectivehuman consciousness and augmented by thetechnologies of our time. each of us has our own path. but each of us share the same goal. a free humanity. the corrupt fear us. the honest support us.the heroic join us. >> the people should notfear their government. the government should fear the people. we, are the people.
the people are legion. the people will not forget. the people will not forgive. expect us. >> mr cruise. come on, be a gentleman. give me a sign on it... yes! this is cool, i love it. oh thank you so much!
thank you! >> and now we have to take thatinformation and that awareness and that knowledge,and build a foundation for a new way.a new life. >> hi, my name is marcin. farmer... technologist... i was born in poland.now in the u.s. i started a group called"open source ecology" we've identified the 50 mostimportant machines that
we think it takes formodern life to exist things from tractors... bread ovens... circuit makers... then we set out to create anopen-source, do-it-yourself version that anyone can build and maintainat a fraction of the cost. we call this the "global village construction set". problem lack of freely shared informationunnecessarily prohibits
economic distribution and general prosperity by keeping human inovation inthe hands of only a few while creating artificial material scarcityfor most. solution the gvcs is an open enterprise platform that allows for true collaborative developmentof key productive technologies that foster the use of best-practicesaccessible to everyone. we are accelerating the inevitable. a future where everyone has accessto economic best-practices.
the 'global village construction set'is an open source enterprise kernel consisting of the 50 key industrial machinesthat reinvent local production. bringing wealth back to communities. the gvcs is phase one ofthe open source ecology platform that includes an open-source cad/cam solutionto realize the promise of digital fabrication. phase two is the use of the gvcs to createopen-source industries, and sustainable communities virally and world-wide in parallel to the global economic status-quoand urban sprawl. this is brought about byethical supporters and entrepreneurs
using the gvcs platform. phase three is a new worldof individuals and communities living beyond the constraintsof artificial material scarcity. why now we all know the worldis cracking at the seams. despite having access tothe most amazing productive technology, long hours, low job satisfaction,poor distribution of wealth remain persistant global problems. the new paradigm requires an unprecedentedlevel of collaboration
necessary to make a comprehensivecivilization starter-kit kernel which was impossible, prior to the digital age. market size the gvcs technology spansmultiple industry sectors from agraculture, construction,energy production, and industry. our competative advantageis a 24/7 development and improvement cycle around the worldvia open-source collaboration not to mention,equipment created with lifetime design and at a typical 8x cost reductionthan industry standards.
development roadmap presently, we have completedfour beta product releases: the automated compressed earth-brick press multi-purpose tractor soil pulveriser and hydrolic power unit by april 1st, 2012 we will release13 further, beta-stage products in the microfactory, energy production,and construction areas. by the end of 2012we will complete the remaining 33 products
after an agressive field testingand product documentation campaign involving a networkof remote collaborators. by april 1st, 2012 we will recruit aproject co-founder, ceo, and cto to the core teamto develop strategy, production, and to manage technological development. the ose fellows program will beginapril 1st, 2012; individuals who we train and fundto produce a beta product release and open business modelon a time-scale of 6 months.
2012 will also be spent largelydeveloping standards and a platform to make this one of themost collaborative projects in the world. we are a distributive enterprise,movement entrepreneur incubator. movement entrepreneursare tech-savvy individuals organizing world progressby economic development. a distributive enterprise is an enterprisewhich maintains replication as one of its core values by publishing its own trade secrets openly. at heart, we develop open source technology we train entrepeneurs viadedicated educational programs
but since we are now in startupwe have initial trainees participate in both research and development,and production runs. open source hardware is the nexttrillion dollar industry. we are not saying that we will bea huge corporation to acheive this but instead, that we will generate this valueas a distributed movement. understanding peak oil oil is a limited resource. oil takes hundreds of millions of years to form. peak oil is when oil extraction rates max out andbegin to decline.
rob hopkins of transition network is seeking solutionsto the problem of peak oil. >> it started when i was workingin kinsale in ireland at the "further education college" there and we started looking around for... ...there must be places who are usingpermaculture principles and sustainability thinking,systems thinking, to work out how cities and townsand communities are going to get through peak oilsucessfully.
and we couldn't find any, so we justimprovised and did a 20 year plan for the town of kinsale,based on the idea that where we got to in the end, could bebetter than where we start from now. today, the transition network inspiresand connects thousands of people worldwide who seek to reducecarbon emissions at a local level. >> i think what's changed for usreally over the last couple of years has been, firstly, how the idea of peak oil has moved from being largely a fringe idea to something now talked about bya number of governments
and a lot of leading organizations. it's really moved from being considereda very odd kind of idea to part of the political mainstream now, really. this is a process that you start,and you catalyze and you have no idea where it's going to goor what's going to come out of it. what does a local authority look like whose development plan for the next 20 yearsis based on the end of the age of cheap oil? ...on cutting carbon by 90% a yearlike we actually are going to need to? what does that look like?it's an enormous question.
but what's really exciting is today,i think we've sowed the seeds of people starting to ask those questions. the transition model has spread quicklyaround the world. there are now 320 official initiativesin 14 countries and thousands more in development. >> it was really fascinating whenabout 2 years in to transition and it really started to gain some traction. people started coming along and saying... "you know, transition is really a fascinatingpeice of design work."
transition is a design project. when faced with with peak oil and climate changeand the need for collective community responses to that maybe we need to look at this as beinga collective design exercise. how do we disign our way throughfrom where we are now to where we want to get? the transition model >> there's a lot of value, i think,in acknowledging the work that people do like this. when you're actuallydoing work that comes to be seen as innovative, or pioneering, or whatever...
it's generally, the people who do thathave ploughed a fairly lonely furrow for quite a long time. so when will peak oil happen? there is still a lot of debateon the exact date but one thing is certain... no matter what else happens, this is the centuryin which we must learn to live without fossil fuels. >> it's about the re-writing of stories collective cultural stories.the myth, the narratives that we tell ourselves. the idea that we can just carry on as we are
that technology can solve everything or that everything is just going to collapseand unravel very quickly you know, what we don't have are the stories about the generation, the culture, thatlooks something like peak oil and climate change square in the face,and responds with compassion, and creativity, and ingenuity. that's the story that transition is trying to tell. oil is conserved, demand shrinks clean, renewable alternativesare put in place
sustainable local agriculture fewer cars on the road and a sustainableand healthy future. rob hopkinstransition network the zeitgeist movement >> hi, my name is peter joseph i'm the founder of a social sustainability organizationcalled the zeitgeist movement which, in form, has about 1000 chapetersaccross 70 countries and basically we're all working togetherto try to bridge some differences
about economic problems that areworking its way accross the world social destabilization, unemployment,debt crisis, environmental destabilization... and this community is attemptingto bring new sustainable ideas to the forefront,to revolutionize economy as we know it hence revolutionize "human values"as we know it so we can try to createa new way of life. it's a grassroots movementwith that basic premise. >> this movement is essentially a social movement. it's not...it's easier to describe what it isn't, really.
it's not a political movement. we don't really recognize politicsas a viable option in addressing the issues that we talk about. it's a voluntary social movement.a grassroots social movement that centers on actual sustainability. we need a society that functionson a physical level that actually has advanced, intelligent, automatedto the most degree you can... systems. to enable efficient transport,efficient energy usage, efficient land usage... part of our understandings are thatwe need sustainable city systems
very much like those spoken about in the venus project,or by buckminster fuller or many other futuristic city planners. so, that's sort of the first level. we understand that earth is a finite resource. earth is actually entirely a resource. we think about wave, and wind, and tidal... it's in fact, one thing. this is the resource we're on.this is the rock that we're on, that's hurtling through space
and we need to live on it,we need to continue to live on it and as well as possible. >> why do i like the zeitgeist movement? why do i advocate for the zeitgeist movement? it's very simple. i love this. >> what we currently refer to as capitalism under various guises around the world and suggested in various doses and concoctions
in the prescripted manuals and political philosophyand economic texts the monetary based price system is a means ofcoordinating and organizing so-called economic activity of consumers, producers,and owners of resources is ultimately unsustainable. the reason for this is that it'sessentially predicated upon linear consumption and you cannot run a linear systemon a finite planet. >> join the zeitgeist movement,it is exciting the people that you meet are fantastic,they think like you and we're out to make a differenceon something that really matters.
>> ...it was, whatever you needed to do to get money. and what's happened nowwith the value system disorder is that, since that's the persuit,that's the devine drive of the system... that's what status is defined by,that's what your success is defined by... that everyone can blindly look the other waywith how much destruction is occuring in the world >> and when i look at our species,i just see one that's divided. we're so in our infancy.we're having to learn the most basic lessons in the 21st century. the zeitgeist movementand the resource based economy
doesn't go like that. it advocates that the earth is the common heritageof everyone to share. and not for us to all just dive inand take what we want but for us to intelligently manage the planet. >> the monetary system has come to an end. it was very useful for a while,i've not been anti-money in all of history. it's changed its usage in history. you can't be "blanket anti-money" andstill understand the history of money. but we've obviously come tothe end of that paradigm now
because now it isn't serving us anymore and that was the goal to begin with. it was to ensure that there was enough labor,so there were enough resources, so that we have the system,so that people are ok. >> the zeitgeist movement,from my perspective it's all about equality, it's all aboutpreserving our planet and it's all about thrivingon human creativity and innovation. >> in fact, the truth is this entire sytemof cyclical consumption that we have in this country is the cause of all of our problems.
>> zeitgeist: addendum was mind boggling. dots began to connect. >> now is that time,to move to that next level. >> i advocate the zeitgeist movement,the venus project and a resource based economy because they representthe only viable alternatives to the corrupt and unsustainable systemthat we have today. >> people aren't following this becausejacque fresco is their version of jesus or because peter joseph is a goodpublic speaker... they have looked at it, and decidedthat it makes sense to them.
>> ...basically trying to get people from around the worldto discuss why, in a very concise manner they advocate the zeitgeist movement, the venus project,and of course a resource based economy. >> today around the world,many people often say "i wish we could live like americans." i know you've heard this before. well, no. conspicuous consumption patternsof the american culture should be despised by all other countries on this planet.
we have 5% of the populationand we consume 30% of the worlds resources. it's insane. in a resource based economy, where be base ourproduction and distribution on physical references starting with the carrying capacity of the earth... where we streamline our labor expressiontowards things that have a long-term social return... where we get rid of the cancerknown as the financial system and start to share our resourcesin a diligent way working togther, avoiding the false valuesof materialism and consumption pushed upon our culture we find that we can providea high quality of life for everyone on this planet
while eliminating all of the central reasons for war, poverty, destitution, violence,criminal behavior, neurosis... it would be the dawn of a worldwe could actually label a civilization and if that isn't a goal worth working towards i don't know what is. >> the future rests in our hands. yours and mine. it rests in the capacity,which we totally have as a species to make radical shifts
when our survival is necessary. and maybe we are the peoplewho will emerge to create an alternative that enables our speciesto survive in peace on the planet otherwise we will not survive. the venus projectbeyond politics, poverty and war >> the venus projectis the redesign of a culture in which the elementsthat comprise the culture are different. what the venus project has to offer is a way of lifewithout ambiguity
to change the relationshipbetween people. when you break the patternsthat have been established by existing society you begin to move peoplein a new direction. as long as there areprisons, police, armies, navies... we are not civilized. when the world joins together and agrees to use the earth intelligently that'll be the beginning of the civilized age. people say "well, the trouble with you jacque,is you want to give people things for nothing."
let me tell you a little about "things for nothing". just being born in any technical country today you've got the lights, the telephone,the washing machine, air transportation... you had nothing to do with that.you got it for nothing. to build a way of life, worthy of man to humanize society it is neither communist, fascist, nor socialist nor democratic. to break away from the artificiality,the regimentation...
that dominates our society today we feel that machines ought to dothe filthy, or the repetitious, or the boring jobs. that man has to be free to persue the higher things.the higher possibilities of man. all of the marvels of science and technology all of the electronic and mechanical wonders are just so many millions of tons of junkunless it enhances the lives of men. the reason we emphasize machinesand technologies is to free man,to find the meaning of their own existence and lives.
our problems today are not political. our problems are technical. everything that you have... your radio, your telephone,your airplanes, your transportation... is all technical. if it wasn't for technology,you'd be pulling boats along the volga river. it's technology that moves things forward. human beings are not self-operating entities. we are operated by many resonant forces.
of course many of us are not aware of that.it looks like we're perfectly free making our own decisions. i know i think for myself.i'm sure you do. that's an illusion. you're indoctrinated to a set of valuesthat are unreal. indoctrination continuously! and then all of us together sing"we are free" ..let's go, "we are free". >> what we are introducing is a new methodof organizing and running society
based on the methods of science and technologyapplied to the social system. >> you have a societythat's a predatory society. if you get your car banged up,somebody makes money. you get a toothache,the dentist makes $1500. so everybody makes moneyon every form of misery. there's no final architecture,or final frontiers, or final city. even the best city i design will be a straight-jacketto the kids of the future.
they'll design their own cities. i don't want to follow anybody and i don't want anybody to follow me. if what i say makes sense, do it. if it doesn't, get off. to build a followingwhere people admire you, that's dangerous. trying to solve your problems politically by electing this political partyor that political party...
all politics is immersed in corruption. we have the brains, the know-how,the technology, and the feasibility to build an entirely new civilization. the choice lies with you. there are no negro problems,or polish problems, or jewish problems, or greek problemsor women's problems... they're human problems. we could either developparadise on earth or oblivion... wipe ourselves out.
only the future will tell. what you do to make the future. part 5 - the future there are far, far better things aheadthan any we leave behind. - c.s. lewis >> the tremendous progresswe've made over the last century by a series of forces, are in fact accelerating! to a point that we have the potentialin the next three decades to create a world of abundance. now, i'm not saying we don't haveour set of problems...
climate crisis, species extinction,water and energy shortage... ...we surely do. and as humans, we are far better atseeing the problems way in advance but ultimately, we knock them down. underpinning much of this is technology and of late, exponentially growing technologies. we truly are living in anextraordinary time and many people forget this! this is moore's lawover the last hundred years.
i want you to noticetwo things from this curve. number one, how smooth it is. through good time and bad time,war time and peace time, recession, depression, and boom time... this is the result of faster computersbeing used to build faster computers. it doesn't slowfor any of our grand challenges. and also, even though it's plotted ona logarithm curve on the left it's curving upward. the rate at which the technology is getting fasteris itself, getting faster.
and on this curve, riding on moore's law are a set of extraordinarily powerful technologies available to all of us. "cloud computing", what my friends at autodeskcall "infinite computing"... sensors and networks... robotics... 3d printing, which is the ability to democratize and distributepersonalized production around the planet. synthetic biology...fuels, vaccines and foods...
digital medicine...nanomaterials... and a.i. the world is going to changewith or without you... get ready. >> science and technology arepropelling us forward at accelerating rates >> that's right, and if we don't understand it and by "we" i mean the general public if it's something that... "oh, i'm not good at that.i don't know anything about it." then who is making all of the decisionsabout science and technology that are going to determinewhat kind of future our children live in? just some members of congress?
science is more than a body of knowledge. it's a way of thinking. a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understandingof human fallibility. if we are not able to askskeptical questions to interrogate those who tell usthat something is true to be skeptical of thosein authority then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious,who comes ambling along.
it's a thing that jeffersonlay great stress on. it wasn't enough, he said,to enshrine some rights in a constitution ...or a bill of rights... the people had to be educated and they had to practicetheir skepticism and their education otherwise we don't run the government.the government runs us. >> my sense is,the problem lies with the fact that our business leaders, our government leadersand for that matter the rest of us we are continuing to rely on18th and 19th century ideas
about human natureand the human journey that were spawned at the beginingof the market era the nation-state era and at that period of timewe had a great discussion the enlightenment. john locke, the great political philosopherof the enlightenment he said "look, babies are borntabula rasa. blank slates." "they're not born in sin." but he did leave a little opening.
he said "however, there is a predispositionto acquire property." somebody should have caught him on that. >> scarcity is contextual and technology is a resource liberating force. the cost of solar dropped 50% last year. last month mit put out a study showingthat by the end of this decade in the sunny parts of the united states solar electricity will be 6 cents per kilowatt hour compared to 15 cents as a national average.
and if we have abundant energy we also have abundant water because we live on a water planet. we live on a planet 70% covered by water. yes, 97.5% is salt water,2% is ice and we fight over a half of a percentof the water on this planet but here too, there is hope and there is technology coming online not 10-20 years from now,right now.
and the conversation i hadwith dean kamen this morning one of the great d.i.y. innovators,i'd like to share with you... his technology called slingshotthat many of you may have heard of it's the size of a small dorm room refrigerator. it's able to generate 1000 litersof clean drinking water a day out of any source.salt water, polluted water, latrine... at less than 2 cents a liter. this is the kind of innovationthat exists today. >> i should like to help everyone if possible.
jew, gentile... black man, white... we all want to help one another,humans beings are like that. we want to live by each others happiness,not be each others misery. we don't want to hateand despise one another. in this world there's room for every one,and the good earth is rich and can provide for every one. a way of life could be free and beautiful. but we have lost the way.
greed has poisoned mens' souls. has barricaded the world with hate. has goose-stepped us intomisery and bloodshed. >> in the last 10 years under the radar there's been some very interesting developments in evolutionary biology,neurocognitive science, child development research,and many other fields which is beginning to challenge some ofthese long-held shibboleths that we have
about human natureand the meaning of the human journey. this was the dominant frame of reference: utilitarian, self-interested, materialistic. it really challenges these assumptions. and with that, the institutionsthat we have created based on those assumptions. our educational institutions,our business practices, our governing instituions,etcetera... so here's the question.
we know thatconsciousness changes in history. the way our brain is wired today is not the way a medieval serf's brainwould be wired and their brain wouldn't be the same as the wiring of a forager/hunter30 thousand years ago. so the question i asked atthe beginning of this study 6 years ago or this book is, how does consciousness change in history? is it possible that we human beings,who are soft-wired for empathic distress
is it possible we could actually extendour empathy to the entire human race as an extended family and to our fellow creatures as part of our evolutionary family and to the biosphereas our common community? >> we're going to hit 70% penetration of cell phonesin the developing world by the end of 2013. think about it. that a masai warrior on a cell phonein the middle of kenya
has better mobile com thanpresident reagan did 25 years ago. and if they're on a smart phoneon google they've got access to more knowledge andinformation than president clinton did 15 years ago. they're living in a world of informationand communication abundance that no one could have ever predicted! here is the biggest forcefor bringing about a world of abundance. i call it, the rising billion. in 2010 we had just short of 2 billion peopleonline, connected. by 2020, that's going from 2 billionto 5 billion internet users.
3 billion new mindswho have never been heard from before are connecting to the global conversation. and they will get healthier by using a tricorder and they'll become better educatedby using the khan academy a by literally being able to use 3d printingand infinite computing more productive than ever before. so what could 3 billion rising, healthy, educated,productive members of humanity bring to us? how about a set of voices that havenever been heard from before. what about giving the oppressed,wherever they might be
the voice to be heardand the voice to act for the first time ever what will these 3 billion people bring? what about contributions we can't even predict. >> but if we have gone fromempathy in blood ties to empathy in religious associational ties to empathy based on national identification is it really a big stretch to imagine the new technologies allow usto connect our empathy to the human race at large,in a single biosphere?
today we're in a globally connected world. our youngsters can begin to empathizeacross all the traditional lines. we almost can grasp the possibility of global empathy. the new communications the ict revolution, is open-source,flat, peer to peer, here's the key word... it's distributed. meaning 2 billion people can puta little utensil in their hand and they can send their own video, audio, text,to all the other 2 billion people
at the same time, at the speed of light,with more power than the centralized bbc and we did it all in 15 years. >> we have heard the rationals offeredby the superpowers. we know who speaks for the nations but who speaks for the human species? who speaks for earth? our global civilizationis clearly on the edge of failure in the most important task it faces; preserving the lives and well-beingof its citizens
and the future habitabilityof the planet. shouldn't we consider, in every nation major changes inthe traditional ways of doing things? a fundamental restructure, of economic, political,social, and religious institutions? fundamental changes in society are sometimes labeled impractical or contrary to human nature as if there were only one human nature. but fundamental changes can clearly be made.we're surrounded by them.
in the last two centuries,abject slavery which was with us for thousands of years has almost entirely been eliminated in a stirring, world-wide revolution. women, systematically mistreated for millenia are gradually gaining the political and economic power traditionally denied them. and some wars of aggressionhave recently been stopped or curtailed because of a revulsion feltby the people in the aggressor nations.
>> what gives me tremendous confidencein the future is the fact that we are nowmore empowered as individuals to take on the grand challenges of this planet. we have the tools,with this exponential technology we have the passionof the d.i.y. innovator and we have 3 billion new mindscoming online to work with us to solve the grand challenges to do that which we must do! >> our children are being revolutionized,in terms of their consciousness
to fit the new tempral-spacial orientationof the biosphere. the kids in 1st grade are learning that everything they do... the clothes they wear,the food they eat, the electricity they use,the car the family drives... all of that affects their carbon footprint and impacts some other human being,or some other creature somewhere else in the biosphere because we're all connected.that's a revolution.
we have the technology that allows usto extend the central nervous system and to think viscerally as a family,not just intellectually. it's not going to give us utopia. it's not going to eliminate the fragilities and the inconsistencies, and the imperfections and the struggle of being alive. but it will give us a sense ofour stewardship of this planet. and we know at the end of our lifewhen we look back we don't look back at our life,and we don't say...
"gee, that momement where i made a new deal..." "i felt really impregnable as an island to myself..." "i felt really detached and rational,and really objective..." "i was able to extinguish my libido,and enjoy my utility..." i just don't think... there may be some pathalogical personthat does that but, as my wife said, it's the death bed chest. when we look back at our life we look back and its the moments wherewe had that empathic connection
where we transcended ourselves and could actually feel a loved one,or someone else as if we were experiencing it ourself. we feel super-alive. it's of those moments wherewe actually feel transcendence. you don't have to be religious. and we felt, we're connected. we must be willing to let goof the life we have planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.- joseph campbell
>> you the people, have the power! the power to create happiness! you the people, have the powerto make this life free and beautiful! to make this life a wonderful adventure! let us use that power!let us all unite! let us fight for a new world a decent world that will give men a chance to work that will you the future
and old-age a security. by the promise of these things,brutes have risen to power. but they lie,they do not fulfill their promise they never will! now, let us fight to fulfill that promise! let us fight to free the world! to do away with national barriers! to do away with greed! ...with hate, and intolerance!
let us fight for a world of reason! a world where science and progress will lead to all mens' happiness. >> the old appealsto racial, sexual, and religious chauvinism and to rabid nationalist ferver are beginning not to work. a new consciousness is developingwhich sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes thatan organism at war with itself
is doomed. we are one planet. a film byrelic final mix and master bythe voice of reason all footage provided bythe interwebz want info on how to contribute to future projects?www.crackinfilms.com those who say it cannot be done,should not interrupt the people doing it. - unknown more powerful than the will to win,is the courage to begin. - unknown man is free the instant he wants to be. - voltaire
be ashamed to die until you have won some victoryfor humanity. - horace mann if there is no struggle,there is no progress. - frederick douglass all limitations are self-imposed. - unknown >> i want to live my life taking the risk all the time that i don't know anything like enough yet. that i haven't understood enough. that i can't know enough. that i'm always hungrily operating on the marginsof a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom.
i wouldn't have it any other way. take the risk of thinking for yourself. much more happiness, truth,beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way. this presentation was brought to youby crackin films. subtitles by the amara.org community