Obama Spin?

Voting for Obama was as much a vote for a different kind of USA gov't as it was about specific policies. It was an electorate exhausted by the lies and manipulation of the Bush/Cheney regime. What is particularly disturbing is that Obama, like his predecessor, enjoys running a touchdown dance in the end zone when there obviously wasn't one. The press lambasted Bush for his "mission accomplished" speech. And rightfully so, but has failed to point out the inaccuracies coming out of Washington. Take two examples:

The obvious misinformation over the Gulf Oil spill - here and here.

The overestimation of success against the Taliban - here

Video Games and War

As the U.S. prepared for total war after the events of 9/11, makers of video games were called in and given the mission to prepare young people for perpetual global war. Game such as America's Military and Call of Duty are preparing the next generation for a life time of no-protest combat. (see our page on war - here).

But the rest of the world is quickly catching on to the idea that video games make great indoctrination tools.

Hezbollah has a game about its battle with Israel - here A far-right Austrian party has launched a game to teach children to hate mosques and Muslims - here Iran has developed a video game to counter negative western portrayals of Iran - here. Another Iranian game has players rescuing captured scientists from American and Israeli hands. China has launched "The Long March: Restart" to teach a new generation to cherish the Red Army - here.

Cuba meanwhile has accused the USA of using the game "Call of Duty" to encourage children to violence as players attempt to assassinate Castro - here

Our question is: where are all the game to teach conflict resolution and peace?

Visit our page on war on Earth - here.

Learn about conflict on Pandora - here.
See also: "Nowhere Left to Run" here

Avatar Revolution updates: mercenaries and lions

What's new at Avatar Revolution Earth?

We recently updated our "corporate soldiers" page with a link to a summary on the UN working group on mercenaries.

And we updated our page on the environment with a link to a thrilling talk on Big Cats in Trouble.

We hope you enjoy our new links.

Wikileaks versus the Empire

It what may be the first popular cyber uprising in history, and the first uprising in the West in the 21st century, the group "Anonymous" launched a cyber (war, protest, revolution) on major companies that have withheld funds from Wikileaks. Learn more

With the advent of popular blogging, twitters, Facebook, etc. the Internet has become the Sixth Estate. With investigative journalism in decline, major journals (the Fifth Estate), have begun relying on the Sixth Estate for information. Without a doubt the most powerful and threatening to Western nation-states has been Wikileaks.

Across the globe nation-states have a history of guarding themselves against the power of the Fifth Estate. Dictatorships routinely shut down and imprison dissident journalists and attempt to control information by launching official news (propaganda) sites. In the West information has been traditionally corralled, as Chomsky informed us, by drawing a close connection between the government, commercial advertising interests and the media. Printing risky articles could endanger future advertising dollars as well as access to official sources.

Government control of the media became particularly pernicious during the early stages of the Iraq War, where journalists were embedded with troops and reporting was limited to either video game-like images or pro-war reporting (with demonstrations against the war receiving minimal coverage). Moreover, the USA engaged in several acts of aggression against Al Jazeera, bombing their stations in both Baghdad (here) and Kabul (here). Moreover, Cheney, Rice and others attempted to pressure the government of Qatar to reign in Al Jazeera (here) With this history in mind, many people question whether or not the accusations against Julian Assange are real or have been fabricated as a way of shutting down Wikileaks? (Learn more)

Following Assange's arrest, a number of companies moved to cut off Wikileaks funding as servers withdrew in the hope of unplugging the site. The internationally coordinated attack against Assange and Wikileaks makes one wonder if there isn't a government(s) orchestrated conspiracy?

What is interesting is the way Wikileaks has survived through mirror sites (here)and the degree of support around the world from both hackers and street protesters (here).

If Bush/Cheney had little problems intimidating the Fifth Estate, it will not be as easy for Obama to play rough with the Sixth Estate as much of his candidacy was built on transparency and mobilizing supporters using new information technologies (here). It may be that the Sixth Estate will rock the nation-state. The question for the future will be: Will historians site the Wikileaks versus Western governments together with the Tehran uprisings as examples of the first new global struggle over information, power diffusion and transparency?

Click on the following links for key articles:

Anonymous - here

Hactivists - here

Slavoj Zizek: "Living in the End Times"

Slavoj Zizek examines why liberal capitalistic society may be heading towards a collapse in an interview here.

Are there still antagonisms or problems that can be kept in check, or problems that can be resolved within the liberal democratic-capitalist domain?

For Zizek the current model won't be able to avert a total meltdown. His new book examines the problems in economics, environmental crises, etc.

For Zizek we all know that we are in deep problem, but we are also in a state of disavowal over what is really happening, where we are heading and what the consequences will be.

Obviously, we all are locked in a frame of mind where we postpone important decisions and continually borrow from the future to pay for the present. Imagine this: a man, in his late 50s, professional, very successful, high salary, severely obese, drinking problem, gambling problem, credit cards maxed out, huge mortgage debt, working hard to pay debt, one paycheck away from bankruptcy, suspicious of all neighbors, convinced that everyone is out to get him, problems at home with the kids, going from one doctor to another without making any lifestyle changes, believing that he has achieved the "dream" but living in terror that it could be taken away at any moment. OK - imagine that and now call him Sam.

November Ninth - International Night of Reflection

We at Avatar Revolution propose that this day in history be reflected upon around the world. It is a day of both tragedy and hope.

Seeing (the film) "Red): Hollywood Takes Aim at Dick Cheney

Red may just be the first in a series of films that takes aim at former Vice President Dick Cheney, though playfully done. The first layer of the plot concerns a former CIA operative, Frank Moses, who has been put on an execution list ordered by the Vice President. At a deeper level the film expresses our collective angst concerning Cheney. The film's rhizome extends into the underlying betrayal the public intuits Cheney had of the CIA. As Moses leads his former peers in a mission to "out" the VP (who allegedly engaged in atrocities in Guatemala before becoming VP), they discover the real villain behind the executions: a defense contractor. Thus, the film turns from Cheney to a second angst inspiring legacy of the Reagan-Bush-Bush-Cheney era: the rise and power of the military-industrial power, especially the recent threat of groups such as the former company called Blackwater.

The VP in the film ends up not quite so villainous as he points the finger at the defense industry. The real Dick Cheney, or so the film seems to (Lucuna) infer, remains Retired and Extremely Dangerous.

To consider corporate soldiers on Pandora click here

To learn more about corporate soldiers on Earth click here

Is the Earth Drying Up?

"Most climate models have suggested that evapotranspiration would increase with global warming...But in 1998, this significant increase in evapotranspiration - about 0.3 inches (7 millimeters) of water per year - slowed dramatically or stopped...Because the data only goes back for a few decades, the researchers say they can't be certain whether the change is part of the natural variability of climate or part of a longer-lasting global change...If that's the case, the consequences could be serious." (Learn more)

Learn more about the environment on Earth here

Discuss the environment on Pandora here

Iraq Civilian Deaths tops 100,000 - Time for Repentance?

It's fairly certain that the civilian death toll in Iraq has now topped 100,000 people (here). Unfortunately, back in the US of A there isn't any sense of national mourning. Wouldn't it be the time for the nation to admit it's tragic mistake as an act of national repentance?

Learn more about current and recent Superpower wars on Earth here

The Zombie Tea Party

Not long ago Former President Clinton warned that "the Tea Party is a Corporate Front." He's probably right in the fact that it did not begin as a wild grass roots organization, sprung from the democratic soil. Instead, it started as a GMO product, spun in some dark cigar filled room as a movement designed to play on the collective White angst of a Black man as president.

Although it pretends to offer new ideas, some of it's ideological roots can be traced back to the Grinch who's been trying to steal Christmas, Newt Gingrich. Throw into the witches brew a mixture of Ayn Rand, nostalgia for Reagan, White Power, gun loving, fear of other, fundamentalist Christian (with a little Mormon thrown in) and you may come close to the brew they're serving. (Tea Party recipe for economics)

The funny thing is that they claim to be offering a new solution to the current crises facing America. In fact, it's the same old - deregulation of everything but the moral landscape.

When a company goes into Chapter 11 and stores remain open it becomes a zombie. Selling off its wares, it begins to feed on revenues from healthy stores, taking them towards bankruptcy. In the same way, the cup they are offering is bankrupt. The current global financial crises is a result of deregulation and runaway capitalist greed. Putting new clothes on a cadaver, and pumping it full of adrenaline, won't bring it back to life. It'll only turn it into a flesh eating zombie. - Beware!