Vice News and the “Reasonable” Evil of Terrorist White Human Sacrifice

November 13^th, 2015

 

Are people who open carry firearms technically meeting the definition of terrorist?

Probably.

Should people who are awful enough to legally open carry be gunned down in 2 seconds?

Nope.

Ohio is an ‘open carry’ state, meaning that people with the proper paper work can legally and openly carry a firearm around in Ohio.

Keep that in mind when you think about the murder of Tamir Rice.

 

On November 22nd of last year, Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old child, was playing with a toy gun in a public park when two armed men raced onto the playground in a car, exited the vehicle after skidding to a halt five feet from the kid and immediately (two seconds) shot Tamir in the stomach twice. They refused to call for medical help, and watched their victim die.

The killing – the state-funded execution – was captured on video. A judge ruled that murder charges were warranted.

However, in a brazen but typical attempt to deny the grieving family a day in court and remove any possibility of objectivity from the grand jury process, the local prosecutor has allocated public money to pay for two reports siding with the trigger man and his driver, even though the reports can’t even substantiate whether the gunmen warned the boy that they were planning to kill him.

Again, Ohio is an ‘open carry’ state. If you’re notified about someone brandishing a gun in an open carry state, does that mean you should execute that person? You know the answer, already. Yep – if they happen to be a black child in the United States of America in 2015.

I could have concentrated on a well-written, informative piece on the murder of Tamir Rice, but a big part of this story is how consistently far too many in the press publish white supremacist garbage to support racist crimes of the highest order.

That’s why I’m linking to two articles from a tired and lazy website called Vice News (one piece is apparently from a contributor to Vice called Reuters, and here’s the link to the other, by “Vice News,”) because, as of this post, neither article even mentions that Ohio is an open carry state. I’m gonna give them the benefit of the doubt – I think that they aren’t so stupid that they don’t know that Ohio is an open carry state. As a matter of fact, Vice omits this critical fact from their reporting in order to promote white supremacist human sacrifice.

Not reasonable. And terrible journalism.

Shame on the cruel, petty, corrupt, and quite possibly mentally deficient Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy J. McGinty for covering up this heinous criminality, and insulting the victim’s grieving family.

[Here’s a link to ‘Prosecutor’ McGinty, insulting the Rice Family, after refusing to address the grand jury process until a year after the diabolical offense occurred. The monster said this about Tamir’s family and his mother: “They waited until they didn’t like the reports they received. They’re very interesting people… let me just leave it at that… and they have their own economic motives.” That’s some grade A, uncut, good old fashioned white supremacy right there, compliments of chucklehead and small man – also apparently Cleveland’s most diligent assistant of shooters – Tim McGinty – on television, no less. And in regards to the killing of a child. Or as Vice News would describe his performance, “Reasonable.”]

Shame on these killers, who carry out acts of depraved violence for white terrorism.

And shame on the ‘media,’ like Vice News [sic] that refuses to document key elements of their racist crimes.

 

Here’s a quote from the article by Vice News, linked to above:

“The officers were apparently so stunned after the shooting that they neglected to administer first aid to Rice.”

Who the fuck can write that sentence and call it journalism or news? This unconvincing excuse for a man gunned down a child in cold blood and then watched him die. That’s what you write, Vice News.

 

Let’s actually be reasonable: Call for authorities – any damned authority! – to arrest the man who took the life of Tamir Rice immediately!

 

#BlackLivesMatter

Justice for Tamir Rice.

Justice and Peace to his family.

THE PRESCRIPTION FOR ILLINOIS’ FINANCIAL HEALTH IN 2015? TAX THE RICH.

Chicago Teachers Union VP Jesse Sharkey, addressing the City Club of Chicago, August 27, 2015

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“We really do take the idea that we’re the defenders of the public trust – public education – very seriously.”

             – Chicago Teachers Union Vice President Jesse Sharkey, addressing the City Club of Chicago

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Jesse Sharkey, and the people who educate kids in the biggest city in Illinois are sounding an alarm, and it’s not the first time.

 

The political elite in Chicago and Springfield are setting us up for a hard fall – statewide, budgeted funding levels are far below those needed for basic services, such as Special Education, and Home Care services.

 

These gold-plated pols try to distract you from their agenda by picking on Chicago.

They pick on Chicago because it has so many people of color living in it, and is a World Class, Working Class, city.

 

They sow the seeds of racist resentment, especially downstate and in the suburbs, frequently based in jealousy about how awesome it is to live in an near the city. Lots of folks are ready to fall for it. And if enough of them do, we all fall hard – in every corner of the State. 

 

They’re quick to attack Chicago for being violent, but it doesn’t take a genius to see that violence in Chicago runs hand in hand with elitist politicians cutting services, slashing honest jobs, closing community schools. From where I sit typing, it’s clear to see the fingerprints of merciless billionaire-directed policies (cutting schools, mental health services, etc.,) on every murder in the streets of Chicago. We shouldn’t stand idly by, while the rich prosper obscenely, observing the slaughter with an indifferent shrug. Let’s make them pay their share. And let’s build real supports (jobs) for those neighborhoods where underemployment and unemployment directly correlate to high levels of violence – precisely the neighborhoods suffering from the elitist banker/politicians’ divestment and privatization.

 

And they pick on government workers, because these greedy little clowns can’t steal the hens from the chicken coop when caring public servants are watching – they hate that our public workers negotiate solid union (unity!) contracts that mandate non-discriminatory hiring and disciplinary procedures. These facts are also one of the reasons why unions like Mr. Sharkey’s provide a crucial defense against the stampeding oligarchy in Chicago, across our State, and pretty much everywhere else, too.

 

The reason the funding is deliberately withheld? Because the political class in Illinois is beholden to the rich, and is terrified of the retribution sure to follow adequately taxing even the most opulent displays of wealth. They’re cowards. The teachers, the hunger strikers at Dyett High School (#FightForDyett,)  principals like Troy LaRaviere are not.

 

The propagandists hired by the rich, such as Illinois Policy Institute, the Chicago Tribune, and the Chicago Sun-times, believe that their demonization of public employees will work because you’re all so distracted.

Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner, likely discussing which secret offshore accounts to use for funding propaganda operations like Illinois Policy Institute.

 

The right-wing hacks have an ample supply of headlines for many years about state workers making $100k or more – oh, heaven forbid! They say things like, “Well public employees shouldn’t earn decent salaries, but it’s fine for the private sector.”

 

Who orders this selective attack on state workers while administrators, executives, and professionals all over the state make more money every day? Notice they don’t say nobody should make $100 grand, right?

 

Do you really expect these hacks to attack their paymasters, to reveal compensation packages owners of the big media companies, not to mention the executives at the 49 charter school syndicates?

 

Do they work harder than teachers, social workers, bus drivers, nurses, hospital orderlies, janitors? Really?

 

There are a bunch of suburbs that have much higher property taxes than Chicago, in large part so they can have high quality public schools. Because schools are the heart of public trust, as VP Sharkey emphasizes.

 

It’s easy to love Chicago’s food, festivals, and fun. It’s easy to root for Chicago sports teams, and to have a great time listening to legendary Chicago blues and jazz. Chicago, in many ways, embodies the strengths of this society.

 

Now is a critical time to support the people who make Chicago – and its beautiful home, Illinois – so great. Support the kids, and support our elders who care so much for them! Support the current teachers and elders who have established a great tradition of public Enlightenment in education. The way to do that today is to tax the rich. They’ll still be rich, so let’s patiently tolerate as their hired PR hacks whine and threaten. 😉

 

It’s a simple message to cut through their campaign to divide rural from urban, downstate from the big city, white from black, citizen from immigrant:

 

Let’s say it together.

 

Tax the rich.

 

P.S. We missed you – feel better soon, Karen! 🙂

 

Please follow the link to hear Vice President Sharkey’s excellent analysis:

 

 

 

#LoveWins

Siblings!

My loving siblings’ struggle puts me in the light today!
Thank you and love to you!

Into my mind pops this argument between siblings from the play ‘Antigone’ – they’re arguing about how the personal is political, about oppression, about defiance and the constant threats of the powerful to our loving politics of democracy, and about responsibility. Antigone is going to bury her dead brother, which King Creon has forbidden, and she has asked her sister, Ismene to help her. It has something deep to say (I’m not sure I can say exactly what) about us all living together. Really living!

“Ismene:

…But oh, Antigone,
Think how much more terrible than these
Our own death would be if we should go against
Creon
And do what he has forbidden! We are only women,
We cannot fight with men, Antigone!
The law is strong, we must give in to the law
In this thing, and in worse. I beg the Dead
To forgive me, but I am helpless: I must yield
To those in authority. And I think it is dangerous
business
To be always meddling.

Antigone:

If that is what you think,
I should not want you, even if you asked to come.
You have made your choice, you can be what you
want to be
But I will bury him; and if I must die,
I say that this crime is holy: I shall lie down
With him in death, and I shall be as dear
To him as he to me.
It is the dead,
Not the living, who make the longest demands:
We die for ever…
You may do as you like,
Since apparently the laws of the gods mean nothing
to you.”

Sometimes, even I worry about not making sense, 😉 but this has come to mean more and more to me over the years:

Silence=Death

LOVE! EQUALITY! 🙂

p.s.

The beginning of Ismene’s speech actually has a ton to it, as well – just felt that I was already being a little confusing…. but it’s worth adding:

“Ah sister!
Oedipus died, everyone hating him
For what his own search brought to light, his eyes
Ripped out by his own hand; and Iocaste died,
His mother and wife at once: she twisted the cords
That strangled her life; and our two brothers died,
Each killed by the other’s sword. And we are left:…”

19th Century Child Labor Repackaged For 21st Century Chicago

Before our unions smashed child labor, founder of Northern Trust, Armour and Co. ruthlessly exploited children for gain in their meatpacking business – now they would like to “educate” your toddlers for profit. Northern Trust is a partner in the new pre-k initiative.

 

When you think of child exploitation, what do you think of?

 

A grimy basement filled with whirring sewing machines and silent children, toiling for an evil, shouting, and unshaven boss with a grease-stained shirt and a belt in his hand? Or little boys stuffing sausages in a frigid, unsanitary, meatpacking operation from over a century ago – like in the picture above? At least something like that, right?

 

How about high-stakes testing and high-pressure ‘evaluations’ of 5, 6, and 7 year-olds?

 

 

This is one story of how child labor has made its’ way into the 21st century: the wealthiest Americans are pinning their investment returns on children’s pre-kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade performance. 

 

In Chicago, these new, sophisticated child exploiters are celebrated and honored, receiving praise and patronage from politicians, and minimal scrutiny from the press – but make no mistake, they are the same child exploiters, repackaged. Is this child labor 2.0™?

 

Indeed, what seems to be drowning out the cries of Chicago’s children is the clinking sound of champagne glasses in the halls of Chicago’s elite.

Why are teachers and education professionals removed entirely from these for profit early education schemes? Could it be because these investments are terrible for kids and teachers? [From coverage of earlier Pritzker/Goldman Sachs early ed investment in Utah. Source: edweek.org]

Why do the richest people in the United States want to make money off of the work of Chicago 5 year-olds?

 

On November 5th, the Chicago City Council approved a $17 million loan to the Chicago school board from a group of finance capitalists, which will allow the city to expand its’ pre-kindergarten slots by about 2,600 kids.

 

The lenders are guaranteed to make a killing from their investment – up to $30 million – but only as long as the little kids can be forced to produce results.

 

It is not a stretch to say that the most powerful finance capitalists in the world are dead-set on undermining education in the public interest.  For years, these vampires have been making massive amounts of money at the expense of Chicago schools in scams such as auction-rate securities, which allow Goldman Sachs and their buddies at Bank of America to steal and/or gamble away up to $100 million of the public’s money. I guess when you can steal that kind of dough, why not get into the harder stuff – why not get into tying your profits directly to the performance of school kids?

 

Goldman Sachs (the most powerful finance firm in America,) Northern Trust (which financially represents 20% of America’s richest families,) and the Pritzker billionaires (Hyatt hotels, Royal Caribbean cruise lines, etc.,) have instituted what they call a Social Impact Bond, designed to generate wealth based on the hard work of preschoolers. Taking their orders from The Most Corrupt Man In Chicago – Mayor Rahm Emanuel – the rubber stamp city council voted the measure through with little debate, which is perhaps the strongest argument for their wholesale replacement (only five no votes against the scam).

 

So, if the politicians, newspapers, and TV stations are going to stop short of saying it, let me make this clear: There is an epic crime afoot in Chicago – Tying profits to the work of children is a violation of child labor laws.

 

“This hasn’t swept the nation yet, but this is part of the wave that’s coming,” – JB Pritzker, “industrial sector” billionaire, on his plans to make millions off of child labor. Glowing coverage of the child labor outfit at chicagobusiness.com.

 

 

Millions in cash transfers with names like, “Kindergarten Readiness Payments” and “Third Grade Literacy Payments,” will be funneled directly from public funds to the banks’ escrow account. I couldn’t make this up.

 

Emanuel’s cowed neoliberal defenders may argue that this technically isn’t a legal conspiracy to commit crimes against minors. However, in political, civil, – and most assuredly – in moral terms, what I’ve just described cannot be characterized as anything other than child labor violations.

 

Why has the press allowed this scam to be described in glowing terms by the establishment (from the Mayor to The Civic Federation,) with no questions about how this is the very definition of child exploitation?

 

It doesn’t take a genius to know that when Goldman Sachs starts going after little children in Chicago, you can’t for a minute consider yourself safe. No matter where you live.

What does #HandsUpDontShoot mean to you?

I’d like to express my gratitude and admiration and to thank the residents of Ferguson, Missouri for raising their hands and sending a message of victory and freedom in the face of terrifying brutality, and in the midst of mourning for a young man; mourning that many Americans tragically refuse to respect, much less to honor.

If there’s something about the stance of Michael Brown’s murderer, about the spectacle of hundreds of heavily-armed bullies terrorizing Ferguson that confirms a view of a concrete-hard universe, small and inescapable, then the response – the open hands of the people – represents something far deeper, something way beyond surrender, something that reaches past hopelessness, even beyond vain hope.

There is no word for the resolve I’ve been able to glimpse in Ferguson, but it taps into something that I think we all can understand – that we all can recognize.

Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) Argentina – from 9000 years ago

The ‘showdown,’ or the ‘standoff’ in Ferguson is about people occupying the same space. If the weak side – dependent on brute force – wins, then silence wins. If the people win, then expression wins. It is a simple thing to say that if dialogue is really going to happen in Ferguson, the terrible misbehaving side would need to set down its weapons and raise its hands, too. I don’t really trust anyone who just wants to go back to the way it was before. Wasn’t that where the problem came from? And we’re supposed to believe that if we just shut up, everything is going to be ok? Sorry, but that’s not even remotely sensible.

First of all, I want to say that I have no idea how things will end up in Ferguson. I wish the people there the best of luck, and I urge everyone to spread the word to respect whatever decisions they make in the coming days, weeks, months.

I will say that I am fully in favor of the most ‘radical’ or ‘subversive’ actions that the people of Ferguson choose to take.

Some friends asked why I am not, let’s say, more cautious. The easy answer is to say that I am for whatever response feels appropriate to a community dealing with the revolting violences of the racist white power structure as described by witnesses to the murder of Mike Brown, and to the bizarre totalitarian theatrics carried out by all levels of an obviously structurally racist government. Whatever the decent people living with that insanity choose to do, I respect and trust them far more than the maniacs doing that other stuff. I also enthusiastically encourage everyone to support the assembled people of Ferguson, as they work through this tragedy and the reprehensible military attack on their city, as it interrupts the Brown Family’s and community’s mourning.

from “Hot Chicks, Cold Sexists, and Occupy Wall Street.” http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/10/20/hot-chicks-cold-sexists-and-occupy-wall-street/

I’ll try to explain myself in a little more detail here, because something much more important is going on, and it gives me more hope than I’ve had in a while.

It’s obvious that something important is going on in Ferguson, or else the authorities wouldn’t have reacted to peaceful expressions of grief and calls for justice with overwhelming and callous force and violence. Yes, the police provoked and incited some violence, but nothing remotely resembling their terrorization of an entire city, the beatings, the threats, the teargas, and arrests.

The show of force in Ferguson night after night cannot be truly named. It is clear that it serves a purpose for interests and agendas distant from Ferguson. We can name these distant interests, but the silence such a cloud of murderous intent calls for has no name. We can name the obvious interest of white racists to hurt black people financially, burden African-American communities with awful shit like invading “peace” armies, at the very least, feeling distinctly uncomfortable, not to mention unloved in the presence of whites. We can name the criminalization of Black speech, the criminalization of Black expression, the New Jim Crow, the White Power Structure. We can name the sadism of a society in which people who otherwise appear absolutely normal justify military invasions with tanks and machine guns on account of a property destruction that ordinarily merits a written report, a one page insurance claim, and a couple of squad cars parked for an hour or two.

It’s the silent submission to exploitation and dehumanization that does not have a recognizable name, even though we all know that is what those orchestrating this drama in the streets want.

You can blame the cops if you want. It’s true, cops generally like being cops, or they wouldn’t do it, I guess. Cops have the excuse that they are just taking orders for money, though.

If all the guns, the tanks, the brute force mean silence; If it’s all about a culture repressing those who are marginalized for others to prosper; If the message, bigger and deeper than any words is for us to accept exploitation and shut up; What do the open hands up in the air mean, then? What does it mean to you?

Open your own hand and hold it up to someone. Chances are you’ll do it soon, in some situation or another. It doesn’t have to mean you fear them. It doesn’t have to mean you love them. It doesn’t even mean you want to talk to them.

For Michael Brown, his hands up may have represented an order to act like a human that his killer couldn’t obey. I don’t know.

For me, open hands say, “Even with nothing – especially with nothing – we are worthy of more, worth more, deserve more, than any of these weapons or money onto which this society puts so much value.”

For some of us, raised hands say, “Put down your goddamned guns NOW!”

Hands up in Ferguson

Panic Fantasy! Love and Doubt.

I have the temptation to copy out what others say about love, but I figure I’ll share with you some words (mostly) of my own. First off, I want you to know how much I appreciate…love… your participation in this experiment. You’ve probably noticed that I’ve jumped into this online radio show head first. If nothing else, I can say that I’m putting something of myself out into the world for posterity – and if I’m going to do that, I want to do it full of love as a reflection of the enduring things in my experience of life – I wonder how it is for you – love, desire, and ecstatic awareness stay with me, and I want to push those things to the front, even if I’m the only one who ever listened to this… I love you so much, I want you to love yourself fully!

I’m calling this particular show “Love and Doubt” because I want to have a conversation with you about yearning, about regret, about some of the things that make us want to want, want to love, want what we can’t have. I mean, it could be possible that the truly magic thing about love is that it seems like it can just sprout up out of nowhere. Something as simple as passing a certain flowering plant every day for a week in the Spring, and then you realize that you’ve come to love it. Or a pet at a friends’ house. Or whatever. It may also be true that what makes love special is the fact that sometimes you can’t shake it. You love someone, even if they don’t love you back, and for a while (maybe a tragically long while) you think that that is what love is – the pain from wanting the touch or attention or simple presence of someone to whom you can’t help but feel attracted.

Are either of those things love – the attraction you weren’t expecting, and the pain that sometimes dominates the attraction itself?

What about in the cold light of day, removed from the passion of the moment? Is love there? What about with the perspective of time, the distance and clarity provided by our understanding of how much there is outside of a love? Maybe that addictive ecstasy is gone, maybe that powerful force wanes. Is love still there? Is love in the everyday things? Is it still there when we’re just trying to get some chores or a job done? Is it present when we are just going about our day to day routines? (I guess that brings up a pretty scary question – would it be possible for someone to push love out of their life, entirely?)

Maybe that leads us back to the beginning – the fact (that I’ve experienced, and I’m sure you have, too) that love can arise unexpectedly. Even if it feels like I’m in a place far away from any good feeling at all, something can happen – I’m not saying it always does, or that it always will, but it can happen – all of the sudden, you are loved, or you feel love enter your awareness. Right?

Here’s probably the right time to share this quote with you (shout out to Grassroots Collaborative in Chicago for this):

“On February 14th, and every day: Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word “love” here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

– James Baldwin

I’ve been struggling a lot with some of what I think Baldwin was writing about there – I mean, it feels kind of ridiculous to try to pin down something like love. I’ve been trying to do the opposite, to act out love in that “…universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Especially in this experiment I’m doing with online radio, the reality is that I find I’m always changing masks. And they may or may not be the masks that Baldwin refers to, but at least it’s true to my experience that the masks required to attempt to communicate the way that I’m attempting are public masks, social masks.

I guess the easiest and corniest way for me to put this is to say that I’m trying to express my experience of that gentle pull that love exerts on me – pervasive and elemental. And even though here I’m writing and feeling very personal about this, I want to be clear that it’s personal to me in the way that loneliness is always about other people.

I’m not trying to skirt the responsibility I have for my own actions and feelings – I’ve inevitably let myself and others down, and that is part of this. In other words, I’m aware of the danger of intellectualizing these things (even though – to be honest – I’m not really sure what the hell that means. I just know that it sometimes happens.)

But I am so far convinced that when we put love at the beginning of the thought, of the agenda, of the intention, we get to the heart (pardon me if you can) of the matter. And if we don’t – we can’t. Other things creep in, especially servitude and fear, and try to say that they should come first, mainly disguised as love itself, you know what I mean?

And that’s a great place for me get back to masks – I am really inspired to do this; to be a performer who tries to describe how he sees love in the world. But I’m scared witless of the power that message can unleash. I’m trying to specifically avoid making propaganda – to somehow exhibit for the world a magic vision in which I find myself. I’m not talking about concepts external to myself. I’m part of reality, and reality is pushing me, compelling me, to speak about it all the time.

That’s why I urge you to join me – look for both sides – look for the power of suggestion, and look for the force of love – in what we’re experimenting with, here.

And I wonder if you share my reason for doing this in the first place, and for forcing myself to keep it up: something has gone very wrong. Something we can’t shrug off. Something that we can’t undo, but we must confront. We’re in it up to here, you know? And if we’re not talking about it – sharing love about it – then we can’t expect to get anywhere good.

Time is precious. Thank you.

Panic Fantasy!, tigers!

Panic Fantasy!

Chapter 1
This is turbo tiger five thousand… a Media Colossus, tiger.
Call me Dave
From Illinois – learn the history, read the treaties – Illinois Country. Occupied by war, and nothing less.
Fantasize about war – that’s a panic fantasy – just like all those movies, and stuff.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/fivethousand/2013/02/09/panic-fantasy

2-8-13
Panic Fantasy!

I’m recruiting you! Turbo Tiger! I’m counting on you!

This is where you – turbo tiger – you come in, right here.

Last night finished up a rough, but fun internet radio show at blogtalkradio.com. That was awesome!

I’m writing this up as if I’m going to read it on the show tonight at 10pm Central time. I’ve got a bunch of other things going on in my life right now, but I’ve got people I love with whom I’ve talked about this stuff. One of them, Jude, was on the show tonight – we talked a little, he freestyled over a Dam Funk track – On The Wings Of Funk. Thanks to the blog, PotholesInMyBlog.com for the tipoff on that, and so many other pieces of music, new and old!

Jude is fresh – he comes at things from an original and whole place. Thanks, Jude! You’re a real turbo tiger for sure!

The blogging – which I really haven’t been doing here – is one piece of this for me. Another is livestreaming. You can read about that on this blog, http://www.mediacolossus.wordpress.com.

For this particular post, I wanted to talk a little bit about another part of it – Panic Fantasy!

It starts with what we think we really want. It’s about being afraid, and liking being afraid. But not just liking being afraid. There’s something else. Do we really want something(s) that is naughty, that is bad? I’m not talking about watching a zombie movie, when it’s a thrill to watch monsters who can’t get enough of killing, and of eating. We’re different from that. We couldn’t possibly want to be like that, right? To want to keep killing and to keep eating, right?

What does it mean to be a consumer? At least it’s easy to figure out if you are one. Do you have to buy stuff in order to live? I would guess that means you’re a consumer. Doesn’t make me a zombie, tiger.

So damn much of what we talk about, and the stories we watch and hear and stuff are about wanting stuff, not needing stuff. It’s hard to tell the difference between what we need in order to live versus what we want.

At least it’s hard for me. Like this – if I watch a story on the TV or in the movie about killing people, does that mean that I want to kill people? Of course not, right? I mean, I’m supposed to switch to wanting things when the commercial comes on, right? Or this – the first time I see a commercial for something I never heard of, and then I want the thing the commercial’s about, does that mean that my ‘want’ just appeared? Or did I already want it, but I didn’t know it yet?

And the naughty things that happen in the movies, like killing people, or being the bad guy, what’s that got to do with what I want? On the one hand, doesn’t the hero of the movie usually need to kill people? I mean, they don’t want to, right? What a hero wants isn’t to kill people, right? I mean, sometimes doing things that you don’t want to do makes you the hero, right?

Maybe I’m not being very clear – in that case, call in tonight.

But here’s the thing; the bank doesn’t want to take your neighbors’ house away from them – they need to, right? So they’re the hero, right?

But on the other hand – back to the movies, tiger – does the bad guy do bad guy things because he needs to do them? Maybe sometimes. Maybe sometimes the bad guy just wants to do bad guy things, right? Like the zombies, right? And he needs to be killed like the zombies, right? That’s a good thing, right?

I guess that thrill (watching the movie or whatever) that comes from feeling good about doing something that you have to do but that you don’t want to do is what I’m trying to get at – that’s what Panic Fantasy! is.

Where does going to work, or going to the store, or hanging out listening to the radio for that matter, come in?

Oh, I’d like to think that you are perfectly comfortable listening in, tiger.

This technology stuff is part of this, for me. I’m really getting off on learning how to use this software, these programs, this tech.

Or at least I think I do.

But I have known a lot of people who are really into the Panic Fantasy!

Who are they?

Who am I, turbo tiger?

Last Minute Open Letter Asking You to Support Independent Media in Chicago

Dear Friends of Journalism, Media, Communication, and Expression,

This year is going to be a big year for independent citizen journalism – and for the sake of the press, civil society, and free expression, I believe our disparate ‘interest groups’ should step up. Some people are building tools to do that and this letter is intended to inspire you to assist the effort – the Chicago Independent Media Convergence Center (CIMCC). Here’s a description from the Center’s website (go to http://natoprotest.org or http://chicago.indymedia.org):

“…Chicago Indymedia is partnering with local and national progressive media makers… to host the Chicago Independent Media Convergence Center — CIMCC.
We’ll provide space to edit and upload audio, video, and photographs, work on stories, connect with fellow grassroots reporters and civilian journalists, get fast-breaking info about actions on the ground, pick up maps and transportation tools, connect with our livestream video/radio and Twitter feeds, learn about how to connect with groups and projects mobilizing for NATO…
Our media convergence center is sited at MultiKulti, a grassroots community space at 1000 N. Milwaukee (at Augusta) on Chicago’s near west side…”

(Media Colossus does not write on behalf of CIMCC, MultiKulti, Indymedia – only for myself.)

Many independent journalists are actively testing new methods of approaching reporting and documenting, as well as new social and technical techniques and technologies for building relationships. The independent writers, photographers, livestreamers, podcasters, and bloggers have many thousands of viewers, listeners, and readers, many of whom participate directly and in real time. The participants share information about events on facebook, tweet about them – they are building online communications infrastructure to widen the base of participation on the internet – in many cases, they have a disability and are contributing with astonishing effectiveness in building connections that more and more people are comfortable using. They are united in that they serve society by documenting, sharing, and creating a vibrant and robust atmosphere in which information serves any and all.

In whose voice do they speak? – What your support looks like is the only possible answer to that question. Propaganda, spin control, and advertising certainly enjoy generous patronage – and cultivating  independent coverage of current events requires actual support.  On this level, your advocacy (engagement/contribution/donation – whatever you want to call it) is literally the substance of independence. You may not agree with certain opinions or spin from independent journalists who give and receive infrastructural assistance through the CIMCC – but independence in any medium will produce a much greater spectrum of voices than its opposite.

If you would be so kind to indulge me, please check out the actual infrastructure being provided by the people at http://www.natoprotest.org. Interactive maps, apps, twitter feeds, cell phone text updating  – all provided free to anyone, all simple and beautiful communications tools – no matter how cutting edge, experimental, or ‘diy’ the technology may be. You may not be attracted to some of the messaging – but if you take a close look, I think you’ll see why I’m so excited about this work: All of it is specifically designed to strengthen the Fourth Estate, whether a paper, a tv station, or an individual who hopes to catch that one image, that one moment, and get it in front of the public – and these are incredibly important tools for the public good.

Send a donation now – it’s tax deductible. Make your donation as large as you can, and even if your donation is small, include your contact info – you email, your twitter handle, etc. so that you can keep in contact and keep building this flourishing element of the press. Please share my appeal with people you know who would like to lend a hand. And to get directly involved, go to http://www.natoprotest.org . Here’s the link to donate: http://chicago.indymedia.org/node/36

Media Colossus is not affiliated with any organization, and does not write on anyone else’s behalf. Please reproduce and disseminate.

What can or should livestreaming do? Some suggested emphases from a Media Colossus.

By now, most livestreamers who know me also know that I’m not an active member of their sororial endeavor. I mean, I am involved – very involved – but I’m not usually personally occupying the event space in which they facilitate such a dynamic budding intersection for communication. Part of the dynamism is an absence of authority, and that leaves an open space; if we don’t show up to get involved in civil society so that we can simply follow orders, then what do we do?

I do not have the authority to speak about how the creative process converses with the unknown  (if not, creation could not occur). But the livestreamers are brave and foolish. We transmit out of ignorance, we receive as geniuses. The streamer situates in between, in the paradox (from the Greek – ‘contrary to appearance’).

While I think that live streaming should incorporate more color commentary and play-by-play voice-over in real time during an event broadcast, in too many contexts, such a formula serves to fill in the noise inside the heads of the ‘audience,’ made up of individuals who are subject to a one-way transmission. In livestreaming, the #streamteam should take seriously their collective power to enable greater and deeper relations between all involved, including online text and voice chatters, tweeters, public speakers and public officials, in addition to the individuals and groups who would like to communicate or perform from the area immediate to the transmission point.   

I’ve been pleased to read Whim’s piece, and this piece she recommended, by Adam Rothstein – although I’m not offering a critique of their essays, my emphases here should show that I’m following this conversation, too.

Here are some emphases I think we need to add to our discussion of livestreaming:

1. PEOPLE DON’T READ – Regarding our essays and posts – keep it brief and to the point.

2. ADVOCATE FOR COMMUNICATION – Communication is multi-directional. We should be leading the way on this.

3. EMBRACE THE GREAT REFUSAL – The main reason people don’t help us is because they resent communication that reminds them how undemocratic their actual lived experience is – at work, at school, at home, at church, in their entertainment. First, we must accept that the only path to a new order is for us to say no to the old order.

4. TAKE SIDES: DO YOU STREAM FOR THE 1% OR THE 99%? – No one is above the fray. The independence of the livestreamer is a lie. The entire point of livestreaming is to smash our isolation – to connect people together.

5. WE ARE THE CUTTING EDGE AND THE TECHNOLOGY IS REVOLUTIONARY – The interface including and surrounding livestreaming could prove pivotal in the development of global democratic victory over centralized elites. We can facilitate a leap in global communications – we need it, because our rivals have built a damn good one for themselves.

6. WE HAVE A SERIOUS RESPONSIBILITY – Our most modest goal should be to get hundreds of millions off of television, and hundreds of millions of others linked into our text/sound/visual network, neglecting no single region on earth. It’s time for the people to talk together and have our say.

7. COMMUNICATION FOR LIBERATION – All television consists of is communication. All propaganda consists of is communication. All advertising consists of is communication. No matter how loud the boss shouts an order, it is simply communication. Us in the livestream world can facilitate communication for liberation – we can make it hotter, cooler, and not this one-size-fits-all culture.

8. SELF-ORGANIZE AND FEDERATE, CREATE AND SPREAD FREE AND SHARED TECHNOLOGY, DEFEAT THE CULT OF PERSONALITIES. Anonymous collaborations, using as much free software, hardware, bandwidth, etc. should far outnumber individual entertainers with cameras (we are not amateur videographer hobbyists) and our reach should be global – immediately!

9. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU – The one thing not to take seriously is your identity. Everything else, take serious.

Chicago Spring – National Day of Solidarity #Apr7