This is True

Long, so here's the URL: http://youtu.be/KWVsK5QIbEE

As far as it goes, this film is interesting and illuminating, pulling back the curtain on the ways of Our Betters. Of course, it only goes so far, and it is interesting that it only goes up to the pinnacle of the Consumer Society; it doesn't deal with the Crash (though it had already happened when the film was put together) and it doesn't deal with the End of Consumerism, the era we're living in now. Nor, interestingly, does it deal with the primary economic endeavors of Our Rulers, which is to say: Gambling, stealing from one another, stealing from us, stealing from the rest of the world, and War. Our Rulers, in other words, do not operate within the context of that Consumer Society/Economy the rest of us once did -- until it all fell to pieces. They are instead parasitic upon it. And now that it is largely gone, they're just parasites. Why do they continue to rule us then?

Other films in the series are also available at the YouTube link.

There is a problem, though. "Pulling Back the Curtain" -- which these films seek to do and actually do do relatively well -- becomes an end in itself. Potentially a very rewarding one. But knowing what goes on behind that curtain isn't even necessarily useful information if your aim is actually to change things for the better. In fact, knowing how the High and the Mighty "really are" and what they "really do" is pretty useless unless it is combined with or superseded by determined and relentless forward movement toward a Better Future, and that is not really a part of the package being sold as "Pulling Back the Curtain," no matter who is doing it. When curtain pulling becomes its own entrepreneurial industry -- as it has -- then what we're really dealing with is Show. Spectacle. Entertainment.

And who controls that? To what object?

You see how this goes? Wheels within wheels, ne?

(Picked this up at Willyloman's Place. Always an intriguing resource. And no, I'm not in to Truthing... ;-)

A Bit More on "The Shooting"

Jane performs cartwheels to try to explain the Shooter's motivations through analysis of his writings (on the YouTubes) which say to her that he was mentally ill and angry about being expelled from Pima Community College, and so became violent because of that, not for any political reason at all. Just because he shot up a constituent meeting with a congressmember, in the process killing a federal judge and a congressional staffer, it doesn't mean he was acting on any political impulse. When people suffer from untreated schizophrenia, as the Shooter apparently did, they do crazy things. No politics involved at all.

Well, I don't agree with her rather superficial analysis, but I think she has a point nevertheless. As I see it, it's probably less than useful to focus on a political motivation, though it might be worthwhile to understand the overall political melieu.

No, for some time, I've had the sneaky suspicion that these repeated "psychotic break" shootings are potentially not motivated at all. Instead, I see these repeated "shocking" Shootings as "triggered" events, the shooters being effectively acting on someone else's command, without any consciousness of what they're doing.

Manchurian shooters.

Which may be less far fetched than random psychotics who snap.

It would be great to find out, but I have no idea how that might be accomplished.