Category: Big thoughts
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Don’t Be a Sucker! Viralize this!
I don’t often recommend “educational films” made by the US military. But this one — “Don’t Be a Sucker,” from 1947 — is brilliant, and essential viewing for all Americans in 2010. (And it’s only 17 minutes long!) Its purpose was to warn Americans against falling prey to simplistic appeals…
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“Peak Oil”: Framing problem?
Someone forwarded a link to this movie tonight: “A Crude Awakening: The Oil Crash.” Looks interesting, & I’ll check it out, but I’ve gotta say that the trailer contains some questionable assumptions. Seems to follow typical “peak oil” framing: Oil is running out & that nothing can quite replace what…
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The Rules Are No Game: Time to End Corporate Rule
Anthony Wilden, with whom I studied communication theory and systems theory in college, wrote a book called The Rules Are No Game. The phrase has long stuck with me as a terse encapsulation of the idea that all systems—from computer operating systems to sporting events to political systems—operate according to…
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The honeymoon is over — time to get busy
I’ve been saying it since before the inauguration: If progressives expect Obama (and the Democratically controlled Congress) to create the kind of policies we want, we have to organize and apply the public pressure to make them do it. We know that the corporate powers, with their enormous influence and…
freelansing in Seattle 