Zuck the suck has a lot to learn about being cool and hip.
This week Mr. Social proved that neither he nor his little Facebook site have an inkling of hippness away from the Starbuck’s universe, when they decided a historical photograph from counter cultural Toronto, taken in the late 60s or early 70s, was nothing but unacceptable nudity, or worse, porno.
Then again, I could be wrong. This could merely be a case of a computer algorithm with penis envy.
One of the hallmarks of the ’60s’ and early ’70s’ revolution was summed up by The Who’s finale on the 1971 Who’s Next album, “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which ends with the all too prophetic words, “Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”
Recently, when being interviewed by Max Keiser on the RT network’s Keiser Report TV show, Eric Hilton of the Washington, D.C. based band Thievery Corporation used the words to describe the current situation musicians face, now that the music biz jungle has moved from a shrink wrapped buy-it-in-a-store product to the more abstract and ephemeral digital download.
Hollywood and politicians have made strange bedfellows from back in the days of Charlie Chaplin whose independence sealed a lifetime beyond the cherished reels and busy work of the war lords consigning him to distant shores until the final redemptive days. You are either with us or against never upon us.
Lord Louis B. Mayer gave the Republican Party a say in the 1920s in building a solid propaganda machine. Edward G. Robinson fought Nazi’s–Ronald Reagan and George Murphy darlings of the high flying right served as presidents of the Screen Actors Guild. Depending on which side of the aisle you inhabited, politics of the day influenced the type of movies being made. We went from gun toting Vietnamese slayer John Wayne in The Green Berets to Jane Fonda’s Oscar win in the anti-war Coming Home.
We found this ad posted on Other98. It’s an interesting pull-no-punches ad, evidently crowdfunded and scheduled to be aired nationwide this past Tuesday night until it was pulled–according to Other98:
The following 30-second climate change ad has already aired in three major media markets across the United States, to great acclaim as the first nationally crowdfunded climate change PSA. It was scheduled to play during Fox’s State of the Union coverage this past Tuesday. Then Exxon sent a single email, and it was unilaterally taken off the air. Here’s the ad you weren’t allowed to see:
These days, Facebook is where a lot of us do our politicking. Like most soap boxes, we do a lot of preaching to the choir there, but that’s okay for reinforcement is a good thing. What we’re hoping for, of course, is that our arguments, expressed in the cute little graphics we “like” and “share,” will be so brilliant that we’ll bring some fence-sitters over to our way of thinking or, better yet, help some certified tea baggers see the error of their ways.
The trouble is, we’re not going to win anyone over if what we post merely sounds good but upon examination doesn’t represent truth. If it’s not truth, it’s a lie.
Julian Assange at New Media Days 09 in Copenhagen. Courtesy New Media Days
Assange now has help, but seemingly not enough.
He’s surrounded by hostile Brits and a government threatening to storm the Ecuadoran embassy where he’s holed up. Ecuador’s government has granted him political asylum and is calling the Brits’ bluff, pointedly reminding them they’re not a colony and haven’t been for quite a long time.
If he does manage to escape and get his feet safely planted on Ecuadoran soil, he has a good chance of being able to eventually return home to Australia, where he has a strong support base.
For now, the Brits are unlikely to follow through on their threatened raid; that would set a dangerous precident. Ernest A. Canning, writing as a guest on The Brad Blog, explained the danger the threat exposes:
When the feds enlisted the help of New Zealand authorities to arrest Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, I figured there was evidence. I’d forgotten that this is the new USA, where the concept that proof is vital in criminal proceedings seems to have died long ago. This is a fact the New Zealand courts are now realizing, as they delve into the matter of their police’s involvement in the fiasco.
They’re also discovering that New Zealand law enforcement was acting on information that could come out of any cold war spy movie from the sixties. Our feds thought Dotcom had a suicide device, a way to instantly destroy the evidence and escape their justice. New Zealand Herald‘s David Fisher quotes testamony from Detective Inspector Grant Wormald, in charge of the New Zealand raid on Dotcom’s home:
Editor’s note: How about a little political satire. Here’s a send up of the planning session to prepare the Mittmeister for his little visit to the NAACP:
I can’t try to play to the middle anymore, because the middle is downright confused. All I can do is tell the truth as I see it; I can assure you that will usually be far from the middle.
Or will it?
Do we really see the middle? Most of the people I know think a lot like me, we share a wavelength even though we’re on different channels. We support Obama, kind-of-sort-of. We believe in offering our neighbors a helping hand when they need it, and think that would be good policy for our governments as well. So maybe I’m not so far away from the center as I think, it just seems that way because that’s what I hear. The Occupy movement has taught me there are still many people, young and old, who share my wavelength, so it’s not just that I’ve surrounded myself by like minded people.
Editor’s Note: This video makes a well told powerful statement of truth. Although this video has been avaliable on YouTube since 2009, we feel it needs to go viral. If you’re an old hippie from the sixties, don’t be afraid to shout, “We tried to tell you so!” If you grew up in this post hippie world, don’t be afraid to question why all of this is still going on, even though we tried to warn the world over forty years ago. We urge you to post this on your Facebook page, and to send it to every one of your friends!
