“It may be thought that we have left out a basic field of analysis – the critique of technology as a prime mover of the globe’s palpable degenerations of live diversity and the life-ground…. [however], the money-sequence program behind the pervasive advances of machine technology is never uncovered. The value logic of ‘development’, ‘investment’, and ‘profit’ in whic technology is always the means, is not itself examined… The regulating principles governing the private and state corporate bodies who plan, produce, implement, and distribute machine technology of every kind are left unexamined. What we are seeing here is a classic case of blaming a tool for what it is being used for.”
charlie veitch arrested meeting up with Press for truth.
aaron moritz, June 26th 2010the fun and the arrest:
charlie’s post arrest statement, describing the brutality he endured inside:
Charlie interviewed about the experience by Alex Jones, who acts like Alex Jones, but they make some good points about Canada’s Fascism being real:
Ani Difranco – Fuel
They were digging a new foundation in Manhattan
And they discovered a slave cemetery there
May their souls rest easy now that lynching is frowned upon
And we’ve moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who’s gonna be president
Tweedle Dumb or Tweedle Dumber?
And who’s gonna have the big
Blockbuster box office
This summer
How ’bout we put up a wall
Between the houses and the highway
And then you can go your way
And I can go my way
Except all the radios agree with all the TV’s
And all the magazines agree with all the radios
And I keep hearing that same damn song
Everywhere I go
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb week
For another hum drum hit song to appear
People used to make records
As in a record of an event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It’s about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns or drugs
You choose
We got it rehashed
We got it half-assed
We’re digging up all the graves
And we’re spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipstick on the whores
Cuz we know the difference
Between the font of twenty percent more
And the font of teriyaki
You tell me
How does that make you feel?
You tell me what’s real
They say that alcoholics are always alcoholics
Even when they’re dry as my lips for years
Even when they’re stranded on a small desert island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different
Is he different
Has he changed
What he’s about
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie about
Am I headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do
About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in Manhattan
And dig deeper
Dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage system and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water main
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Beneath the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all
Beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid and the cruel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel There’s a fire that’s just waiting for fuel
discipline
aaron moritz, June 11th 2010you know, sometimes you’re reading a message board post that’s so great you feel it’s an injustice that it’s just buried on some message board somewhere.
i decided i’d bury it on some blog somewhere too.
from the zeitgeist movement forums, obviously on the subject of child abuse / discipline. link to thread:
IDMclean wrote:
My question for you and any other person who sees a distinction between discipline and abuse, what is the distinction? Where is the line drawn? I draw it at the application of mental, physical, and social violence. Which excludes the majority of types of discipline commonly cited. In my experience as a nomadic child, living between two different parents in different places with different schools, discipline is synonymous with abuse as you can see by reading through this thread.
If you take punitive measures, you are behaving abusively. When you yell at a kid, you teach them yelling at people to get what they want is okay. If you hit a kid, you teach them hitting people to get what they want is okay. If you hold their possessions hostage, you teach them that holding the possessions of others hostage is okay. In many cases, the ancestor generations discuss what amounts to techniques of social and psychological terrorism forgetting that the use of such techniques teach the child that such techniques are okay to use.
This isn’t to say that I’m saying you can’t structure your child’s life and correct behaviors. If discipline is to be held as separate from abuse then discipline is the correction of dysfunctional behavior by example and restraint both yours and theirs. You can not correct dysfunctional behavior with dysfunctional behavior. Additionally, you can not correct dysfunctional behavior in another if you, yourself, are engaging in that dysfunctional behavior regularly; especially, if you are engaging in the behavior in practicing discipline. To do so, exacerbates the behavior and creates a double standard.
One thing to consider is that most often when a person is behaving poorly it is because that person needs or wants something. In many cases, it is because they want attention and can not get positive attention. It is a simple truth that people seek to avoid the absence of stimulation preferring positive or negative stimulation, pleasure or pain, over nothing.
If you watch the Zeitgeist Movement videos, it is a common theme that the dysfunctional behavior of the society itself comes about due to its dysfunctional structure. Remove the impetus for dysfunctional behavior, and the dysfunctional behavior itself should abate.
This principle is extensively discussed in the writings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Specifically, it is addressed in Three Ways of Meeting Oppression. Additionally, you can find more about the application of Satyagraha here.
iI really have nothing to add I just thought that was fantastically put. wish I’d wrote it.
you gave your love to me, and now you are my property
aaron moritz, May 8th 2010“Baby, I know you’ve got all those crazy, lofty goals, going to art school and following your dreams an whatnot.
Blah blah blah… just throw it to the side. You know I can support us all on my own and worst case, I’ll just have to sell some drugs to my little brother’s friends.
If you do have to sell your body, once, or twice, or seven times, it’ll be worth it. And trust me, one day my band is gonna make it and this will all be just a distant, distant, dream…
Until the earth’s removed!
Or daddy don’t approve!
Whatever happens first!
Depending on my mood!
You gave your love to me,
and now you are my property”
-Say Anything (again)
When someone says my boyfriend or my girlfriend, what do they actually mean?
What about that person is yours?
A relationship (I’d think) should be based on a deep-felt connection, of two minds, who happen to compliment each other in a unique way. I’m talking about love, though I hate to use the word because it is so loaded with preconceptions that to even bring it up can lessen the chance of what I’m saying being understood.
Person: “When I say my girlfriend, I don’t mean she’s literally mine. It’s just a way of expressing that we are in love, or at least are in a serious relationship. That we share ourselves with each other, connect.”
Amazing. Perfect. So why the proprietary terminology? Why say “my boyfriend”. I know, I know, you didn’t invent the language, but I think that this is something we should take a closer look at because the way we use language affects the way we view the world around us and the things in it.
People might argue against me on this, but I think generally when most people claim a person as their ‘partner’, they are claiming exclusive sexual rights to that persons body. At least, that’s the biggest thing. Emotional lapses can be forgiven, but CHEATING on someone, having sex with any other person, even once, is a huge deal. It means either they made a ‘mistake’, or they don’t really love you, and it’s time to leave. That’s quite an assumption.
I mean, cheating is usually a marraige ender, right? Why?
And then there’s marraige. A legal contract to love someone for the rest of your life. I can’t think of anything less romantic than putting my name on a LEGAL CONTRACT tying myself to another person for life (or until divorce). It’s so cold and sterile.
I know for most people it’s not about the contract, or the legal aspects, it’s about openly declaring your love for each other with a big ceremony, and making a lifelong commitment, and that’s something I just have to say I just don’t get. I don’t get the public ceremony thing at all. If I want to declare my love for someone, that’s a personal thing between me and him. To put it on display almost cheapens it.
It’s like the episode of the office where Pam and Jim get married. I know it’s hyperbole, but the whole office shows up at their wedding, and the day turns out to be more about the event and the other people than it is about Pam and Jim. So they sneak off, and have this romantic boat-ride ceremony that Jim conveniently had preplanned… whatever, it’s a tv show. What I’m saying is that marraige and monogamy are two social institutions that we kind of take for granted as things that are beneficial.
I’m just saying maybe they aren’t, at least, not all the time.
I’ve never been in love, so call me naive, but I think if I was, really was, there’s no way I’d want to hold that person back, in any way.
heh
aaron moritz, April 10th 2010When I fed the poor, they called me a saint. When I asked why are the poor hungry, they called me a communist.
–Dom Helder Camara (archbishop of São Paulo)
…and sometimes when you’re on, you’re REALLY fucking ON.
aaron moritz, April 1st 2010Rilo Kiley – A Better Son/Daughter // lyrics
Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move. Awake but cannot open my eyes.
And the weight is crushing down on my lungs, I know I can’t breathe
and hope someone will save me this time
and your mother’s still callin you insane and high, swearing it’s different this time.
And you tell her to give in to the demons that possess her.
That god never blessed her insides.
Then you hang up the phone and feel badly for upsetting things,
crawl back into bed to dream of a time when your heart was open wide
and you love things just because… like the sick and the dying.
and sometimes when you’re on, You’re REALLY fuckin ON
and your friends they sing along and they love you.
But the lows are so extreme that the good seems FUCKING CHEAP
and it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
You’ll fake it if you have to
And you’ll show up for work with a smile!
You’ll be better
And You’ll be smarter
And More grown up
And a better daughter
Or son
And a real good friend
And you’ll be awake
You’ll be alert
You’ll be positive though it hurts
And you’ll laugh and embrace all your friends
And you’ll be a real good listener
You’ll be honest
You’ll be brave
You’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful
You’ll be HAPPY
Your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below
And your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
And you’ll fight it
you’ll go out fighting all of em
Please listen to this song and tell me you aren’t moved.
Maybe it’s just me.
any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
aaron moritz, March 17th 2010Right? I mean show a guy 200 years ago a light bulb and he’d shit. Let alone a smart phone or laptop or airplane or fridge. So yeah, what I’m gonna talk about sounds impossible but it’s not.
Nanotech May Tap Into Your Mind – New sensors built using nanotechnology could read and write information directly into the brain.
Sometimes I like to forget what our governments might do with this technology (scary… I know) and just bask in how fucking awesome that is. We’re starting to decode the way our brains work, and we’re learning how to interface with them. This means a bunch of things.
1. We’ll soon be able to ‘back-up’ our brains. This literally means immortality. Well, the universe is still expanding, and it’ll still burn out, but until then, it’ll be possible to live on. You’re body will die, or slowly be replaced by machine parts, but your thoughts, your consciousness, everything that makes up who you are, can be saved.
2. Full immersion virtual reality. I’m talking virtual worlds that are completely indistinguishable from reality. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Think about it, if you can interrupt the signals going to your brain, and tell it that you’re at the beach in the sun with the wind going 5 mph and someone cooking barbecue ten feet away, how would it know the difference? It’s just reading electrical signals like it always does, only this time they aren’t coming from your sense organs, they’re coming from a computer.
We’ll have worlds where the laws of physics say everyone can fly around like superman, or whatever. You can go skydiving without any of the risk of skydiving, but with all of the experience. Shit, you could do it without a parachute just to feel what it’s like to die if that’s what gets you off.
3. As astounding as those first two are, here’s what I feel is the real kicker. If we can read, write, interpret, and transfer information between brains, this will connect people like never before. Imagine sharing your feelings with a loved one. I don’t mean talking, I mean literally allowing them to experience your emotions with you. Imagine how powerful that could be.
Ever tried to explain something to someone, and they just couldn’t get it, or you couldn’t pick the right words? Well, just transfer the thought. Show them exactly what you’re thinking by allowing them to share your thought. Connections between humans have never, could never have been, this intimate.
People could understand each other, really understand, and really connect with each other. If nothing else, I feel this has real potential to bring about world peace. Wide spread empathy would electrify the globe.
DISCLAIMER: I know, if you read the article, it says none of these things, it doesn’t even say we can read/write data to brains, just that we might be able to and even if we can what I’m talking about is a bunch more steps ahead of just being able to do that. I know I like science and I should be a skeptic, but I want this to happen, badly. I don’t want to die, and more importantly I wanna pretend I’m the X-men in a virtual reality world. Besides, I’m a Ray Kurzweil follower, and he’s actually made a really good case that this stuff is all going to happen within 20 or 30 years. He has charts and projections and hypotheses. HE can’t be wrong, right? Right?
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”
- Arthur C. Clarke
U.S. Economy Grinds To Halt As Nation Realizes Money Just A Symbolic, Mutually Shared Illusion
aaron moritz, February 16th 2010link – (from the onion, no, sadly it’s not real)
and a few choice quotes.
“The U.S. economy ceased to function this week after unexpected existential remarks by Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke shocked Americans into realizing that money is, in fact, just a meaningless and intangible social construct.”
“U.S. markets closed as traders left their jobs and resolved for once to do or make something, anything of real value.”
“As news of the nation’s collectively held delusion spread, the economy ground a halt, with dumbfounded citizens everywhere walking out on their jobs as they contemplated the little green drawings of buildings and dead white men they once used to measure their adequacy and importance as human beings.”
“Sources at the White House said President Obama was “still trying to get his head around all this” and was in seclusion with his coin collection, muttering “it’s just metal, it’s just metal” over and over again.”
‘“I don’t even know what we were thinking in the first place,” said former banker Nathan Collins of Brandon, MS, as he jimmyed open a door to allow a single mother and her five children to move back into their house. “A bunch of people sign a bunch of papers, and now this family has no place to live? That’s just plain ludicrous.”’
The only thing I didn’t like was the talk about bartering at the end of the article.
i guess i should read the whole book first… fight club
aaron moritz, February 10th 2010before making posts like this. It just wasn’t where I thought it would be in the book. Quote’s still not as good as the one in the movie, it’s longer and more disjointed. Still amazing.
“I see the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables.
If we could put these men in training camps and finish raising them.
All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction.
You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don’t need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they really don’t need.
We don’t have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression in our lives. We have a spiritual depression.
We have to show these men and women freedom by enslaving them, and show them courage by frightening them.
Napoleon bragged that he could train men to sacrifice their lives for a scrap of ribbon.
Imagine, when we call a strike and everyone refuses to work until we redistribute the wealth of the world.
Imagine hunting elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center.”
Not as quick and powerful as the movie quote but I like it.
reading fight club
aaron moritz, February 1st 2010Fight Club is one of my favorite movies. I’m reading the book and I noticed that this moment in the movie that never fails to give me chills isn’t there, which was dissapointing. This is the quote:
“God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables — slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”
