I've been talking to members of the cultural Brazilian elite ans most of them knows nothing about the dictatorship in US. Not even about NDAA.
When I talk to people from other countries it's the same. Most Americans don't know about what is going on in America.
I ask to all for those who have a way of spreading the news to make an effort to show others the crimes US are committing against their citizens.
There are many blogs and groups that are writing daily about what US is doing against Americans and the "rest of the world". As any action seems to come from astrotufers trained by CIA - where are the Occupiers?- the virtual world is a good place to raise awareness.
Please, let's do it!
Aaron Swartzdied yesterday. I'm having difficulty in finding a way to talk about it because he committed suicide and people start discussing about suicide usually condemning because "where there is life there's hope, and if he was depressed he should have done this or that"... Suicide is part of human condition. Period.
The other reason is the trial he was facing and some people are saying that he took his life because "he was afraid of the sentence blah, blah. blah".
I don't understand some people. Seriously.
I'm visiting the sites of those who were close to Aaron and talk about him.
"Aaron had an unbeatable combination of political insight, technical skill, and intelligence about people and issues. I think he could have revolutionized American (and worldwide) politics. His legacy may still yet do so."
Cory Doctorow in the great post about his friend
"Aaron had literally done nothing in his life “to make money.” He was fortunate Reddit turned out as it did, but from his work building the RSS standard, to his work architecting Creative Commons, to his work liberating public records, to his work building a free public library, to his work supporting Change Congress/FixCongressFirst/Rootstrikers, and then Demand Progress, Aaron was always and only working for (at least his conception of) the public good. He was brilliant, and funny. A kid genius. A soul, a conscience, the source of a question I have asked myself a million times: What would Aaron think? That person is gone today, driven to the edge by what a decent society would only call bullying. I get wrong. But I also get proportionality. And if you don’t get both, you don’t deserve to have the power of the United States government behind you"
Cory also wrote about one of Aaron's project a "next-generation electioneering tool that could be used by committed, passionate candidates who didn't want to end up beholden to monied interests and power-brokers."
In September 17, 2012 Aaron wrote at his blog "Cherish Mistakes" and this is the quotation I've chosen for now:
"Mistakes are our friend. They can be an exasperating friend sometimes, the kind whose antics embarrass and annoy, but their heart is in the right place: they want to help. It’s a bad idea to ignore our friends."
Aaron Swartz
Update: January, 14
Aaron's family released a public statement last Saturday where they claim that MIT is partially responsible for his suicide. This is the entire statement:
"Our beloved brother, son, friend, and partner Aaron Swartz hanged himself on Friday in his Brooklyn apartment. We are in shock, and have not yet come to terms with his passing.
Aaron’s insatiable curiosity, creativity, and brilliance; his reflexive empathy and capacity for selfless, boundless love; his refusal to accept injustice as inevitable—these gifts made the world, and our lives, far brighter. We’re grateful for our time with him, to those who loved him and stood with him, and to all of those who continue his work for a better world.
Aaron’s commitment to social justice was profound, and defined his life. He
was instrumental to the defeat of an Internet censorship bill; he fought for a more democratic, open, and accountable political system; and he helped to create, build, and preserve a dizzying range of scholarly projects that extended the scope and accessibility of human knowledge. He used his prodigious skills as a programmer and technologist not to enrich himself but to make the Internet and the world a fairer, better place. His deeply humane writing touched minds and hearts across generations and continents. He earned the friendship of thousands and the respect and support of millions more.
Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.
Today, we grieve for the extraordinary and irreplaceable man that we have lost."
Read about Jonathan James a hacker who also took his life after being prosecuted by the same Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann.
There is something very strange in this stories.
But something puzzles me. How can a revolution forgets to manifest culturally? Is it possible to revolutionize talking about economy, politics and ranting but without creating not even a tiny symbol that communicates what is the desire of people?
This song(?) is the result of the lack of a anti-establishment culture in US and in the whole world.
A song that raises the issues enumerating them but incapable of reaching hearts and minds and with no cultural print.
Appealing to the hippies was the way out but I doubt that people is willing not to wash their hair or behave the old hippie way and it is sad that this soapbox song refers to them the way they are called by those who hate their message.
Again it seems that creativity is way out of reach and without it, without art, literature, music, and all the "humanities" a crucial part of human beings vanishes.
When the imagination is not exercised, exited, and capable of creating, analyzing, and criticizing it is easier to control the thoughts and desires of the population, not people because they don't see people, they see numbers.
Fighting for education that is not financed and dictate by the corporations is also part of this revolution.
The alleged counter-establishment group "Anonymous" took a mask from a movie.
Have you noticed that in this movie, "V de Vendetta", there are books, paintings, sculptures, a whole iconography of the weapons that revolutionaries use to express their ideas?
"Bullets don't kill an ideal."
Take a good look at the black and white photography above and tell us what you see.
________________________________
The Dirty Fucking Hippies were Right!
"Flag planting on Iwo Jima. Tug-of-war with dollar sign. Headline: U.S. economy worsens. Chart heading sharply down “Class Is Now in Recession”.
“There’s a black granite wall in Washington DC that bears 58,260 names on it. All of those whose names that are carved on that wall are dead. For what? Freedom?.
“If this country had listened when kids were screaming to stop that slaughter, that wall would have been one hell of a lot shorter.
“Yet we as a nation still wage wars of choice. Wars encouraged by plutocrats who never have to fight them.
“Peace is never discussed. Peace has somehow become a perjorative.
“Peace is no perjorative. Peace is essential to the survival of the human race. And those who advocate for war are a dangerous and fearful group who should be marginalized and disavowed.
“War is always the last choice. The dirty fucking hippies … were right.
“Now the oceans have been rising. The polar ice is melting at alarming rates. The climate is changing in irreversible ways. Our survival as a species on this planet is on a precipice.
“The science on this is clear. Humans are now in trouble. Because of our reckless stewardship of what we dominated, we have polluted this fragile jewel that hangs in space – our only home.
“We’ve elected sociopath after sociopath for the last 30 years, to every level of government. – many of them slaves to corporate parasites that gorge themselves at the public trough, while the most vulnerable people in our society – the sick, the young, and the elderly – go wanting.
“The food we buy is contaminated. The toys we give our children as presents for Christmas are tainted with poisons. The water we drink is rife with carcinogens. The fish in our seas, lakes and rivers are so full of mercury that it’s only recommended that we eat them once per week.
“We have now come face to face with our own extinction.
“I hate to say ‘I told you so,’ but the dirty fucking hippies … were right.
“Billions of dollars of profits are being snitched up at the expense and suffering of our neighbors by the jackals that comprise our pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. Both of which pipe their diagnostic wisdom and their fake concern right into our homes via TV and radio commercials.
“These legal drug dealers now sell their wares with impunity. And the insurance gamblers perform a slick game of three-card monte right in our living rooms.
“Most of these drugs have a list of caveats that would make even the most dishonest used car salesman blush. And the insurance hustlers change the rules of the game just when it’s time to pay up – profiting from the suffering and pain and others, profiting from human frailty.
“Universal healthcare? ‘It’s too expensive,’ we’re told. Gasbags talking heads on TV and radio have been complicit in this deception, while being handsomely compensated for their assistance.
“I’ll say it again: the dirty fucking hippies … were right.
“Big box discount stores descend upon small towns in America like alien ships, filled with cheap products bought at low prices from countries that pay their workers slave wages. Plutocrats love this business model!
“Mom and Pop shops can’t compete with prices set by these huge corporate parasites and, to no one’s surprise, many small businesses in these tiny hamlets fail, leaving small towns filled with empty storefronts and even, in some cases, forcing these same small business operators to go to work for the very people that ruined their livelihoods.
“Small-town America is subsequently decimated by this invasion. Often helpless in stopping it.
“Wall Street has cannibalized itself. Still hungry, feeling the pangs of their greed, they’ve now come to the government for their daily meal. And still, without a hint of irony, a spokesman for this ravenous tribe mounts his soapbox and has the temerity to rail against the ‘evils of Socialism’.
“Turns out the Socialism is for them. The Capitalism is for us.
“Abbie Hoffman once baited these banksters by throwing cash onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. To no one’s astonishment, they demonstrated their insatiable greed. The gluttons couldn’t help themselves – they stopped trading, got on their knees, and swept up the free loot.
“Wall Street should have been reined in long ago.
“I’ll say it again: The dirty fucking hippies … were right!”
