[-empyre-] vigilar y castigar

[marc garrett]

Hi Davin,

 > Aside from the practical matter of keeping one's hands busy or putting
 > food in one's belly....  a way of thinking needs to accompany these
 > practices.  And that, I think, is the greatest obstacle.  We have no
 > patience for dialogic cultural processes.  We are in the habit of
 > consuming things as they appear and forgetting them when they go away.
 >  And, while certain models of community necessitate more long term
 > thinking, we also need theories that encourage us to think about
 > history and the future, to plan, to reflect, to be "human."

Yes, this is definitely problematic. And one of the issues around this 
is that 'official' media platforms dominate people's own opinions and 
decisions in how we deal with events, and in particular, the current 
economic crisis and revelations around climate change. Which is why 
Wikileaks for many is a breath of fresh air. If we cannot claim more 
control over the media we will become victims of it.

People like Rupert Murdoch and News International hold far too much 
power over much of our terrestrial airwaves. A study by The University 
of Maryland study called "Misinformation and the 2010 Election," found 
that daily Fox News viewers, regardless of political party, were 
"significantly" more likely than non-viewers to erroneously believe in 
mythologies, climate change is a hoax, their own income taxes have gone 
up under Obama, and there's a strong possibility Obama was not born in 
the U.S. Murdoch owns Fox news, as well as the Sun Newspaper in the UK, 
which unfortunately is a very popular paper that most of the working 
classes read here. As a protest against the Sun Newspaper Ruth Catlow & 
I recently collaborated on a video piece called 'at winter equinox we 
burn The Sun' http://vimeo.com/18325342

I personally think it is important for people to claim social 
territories on the Internet and in physical realms, both for me is the 
best way. But if people are more in tune or better in different areas, 
that's fine because through collaboration things get distributed 
according to particular skills. In respect of movements challenging 
corporate behaviour and neoliberalist domination over or cultures, 
unethically. There are (of course) signs where people are taking it upon 
themsleves in re-assessing their relationships with these dishonourable 
franchises. A group who I recently interviewed 'live', late last year on 
Resonance FM, called 'University for Strategic 
Optimism'(http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/); who 
have a strong connection with many others on-line as well (physically) 
locally. This all makes feel positive.

Wishing you well.

marc