February 1, 2002
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
3:53pm Over the last few days I've been watching a compilation of documentaries sent by Alan in Michigan, who I met through the Institute of Earth Education. "Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh" showed how a village in the mountains of Nepal lived as they had for generations, close to the earth and their families, had a higher quality of life before capitalism and public school education.
Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth(with Bill Moyers) had an interesting few lines that went something like: Seeking the meaning of life is like asking "what is the meaning of a flower?" What we should seek is the experience of life-- to know what it is to be alive. He also mentioned being in a Japanese garden and thinking "I don't know where nature ends and art begins."
"The Ad and The Ego/ Advertising and the End of the World", by Ron English, showed how marketing tells us that we are not okay as we are, and need to buy a product to be happy.
"Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media", told how corporations/government control the media and brain wash the public.
Then I watched a bunch of short docs on the CIA and The School of The Americas, and it seriously scared me.
Searching for Bill Moyers I found "Sheeple", BeMoreCreative.com, World Resources Institutes and THIRD WORLD TRAVELER
The following are quotes from John Stockwell, former CIA agent.
...the CIA has overthrown functioning democracies in over 20 countries.
...stirring up deadly ethnic and racial strife has been a standard technique used by the CIA.
Nothing illustrates the power to rationalize cynicism as well as the Public Safety Program, also called the Office of Public Safety. For about twenty-five years, the CIA, working through the Agency for International Development, trained and organized police and paramilitary officers from around the world in techniques of population control, repression, and torture. Schools were set up in the United States, Panama, and Asia, from which tens of thousands graduated. In some cases, former Nazi officers from Hitler's Third Reich were used as instructors.
The major economic impetus behind the Third World War ... is the production of arms. Every day $3 billion worth of weapons is bought and sold. So-called defense corporations are making 20-25 percent profit. In the 1980s, the United States spent a total of $2.5 trillion (at least those were the announced figures, the total was probably much greater) on the largest arms buildup perhaps in the history of the world and certainly of any country during peacetime.
The U.S. taxpayer is now carrying a gigantic burden. Nearly one-third of the nation's budget goes to the military. According to studies published in the Washington Post, 53 cents of every tax dollar goes to the military to pay for arms, salaries, facilities, overhead, and debts from Vietnam and other wars.
The current War on Drugs, with its broad rationales for aggressive response, police action, and stringent new laws, has quickly replaced the old anti-Christ of Communism in the hearts and minds of the national security establishment.
... the CIA [has] been running thousands of operations over the years. ... there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations-all illegal, and all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries.
For more info... check out John Stockwell's page on ThirdWorldTraveler.com
KOYAANISQATSI
ko.yan.nis.qatsi (from the Hopi Language) n. 1. crazy life. 2. life
in turmoil. 3. life out of balance. 4. life disintegrating.
5. a state of life that calls for another way of living.
Check out www.evoltaste.com and other Art Crimes Artists
