All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

[tazmic]

And there is a real problem here, because the documentary effectively validates two rather nasty bits of propaganda:
1) The people in charge - your Greenspans, your Clintons, your IMFs - are essentially motivated and blinkered by their sincere belief in misguided ideas. It's not that they actively seek to maximise their own material wealth at the expense of a global majority whom they regard as scum. Not at all: they really, sincerely believe Randian objectivism and cybernetic utopianism will lead to the best of all possible worlds. They just haven't been appraised of the downsides yet. (That these beliefs justify and enable massive self-enrichment is purely coincidental, and of no relevance here)

Same as The Century of Self. (I was amused also to learn that 'Made in China' was entirely made in China.)

[8bitagent]

Awww....seeding stuck at 69.9%....

Aw, dude, you've GOT to see "Century of the Self". Everybody should. It's mind blowing, but in an "of course!" kind of a way. It describes how we got here, into this culture of "consumers" where we're surrounded constantly by propaganda (advertising) and how PR and advertising got co-opted by the CIA and the Black Ops criminals and was used against us in politicial shenanigans all over the globe.

It's really fascinating. It was on Google video, that's where I saw it.

Seriously, it should be shown to every 8th grader in the world. And then again in 9th. And again in 10th in case they slept through it the first two times.

Oh whoah, video.google.com is still up? Looks like it's available on multiple sites. I'll definitely watch this soon. I just remember seeing some stuff online regarding Bernays helping to create both modern war propaganda to the masses and madison avenue mind control

[82_28]

Awww....seeding stuck at 69.9%....

Aw, dude, you've GOT to see "Century of the Self". Everybody should. It's mind blowing, but in an "of course!" kind of a way. It describes how we got here, into this culture of "consumers" where we're surrounded constantly by propaganda (advertising) and how PR and advertising got co-opted by the CIA and the Black Ops criminals and was used against us in politicial shenanigans all over the globe.

It's really fascinating. It was on Google video, that's where I saw it.

Seriously, it should be shown to every 8th grader in the world. And then again in 9th. And again in 10th in case they slept through it the first two times.

Oh whoah, video.google.com is still up? Looks like it's available on multiple sites. I'll definitely watch this soon. I just remember seeing some stuff online regarding Bernays helping to create both modern war propaganda to the masses and madison avenue mind control

Dude. I was stuck at 69.97% all day thinking it would restart or something. I wonder why the same failures at about the same amount of data?

[8bitagent]

Awww....seeding stuck at 69.9%....

Aw, dude, you've GOT to see "Century of the Self". Everybody should. It's mind blowing, but in an "of course!" kind of a way. It describes how we got here, into this culture of "consumers" where we're surrounded constantly by propaganda (advertising) and how PR and advertising got co-opted by the CIA and the Black Ops criminals and was used against us in politicial shenanigans all over the globe.

It's really fascinating. It was on Google video, that's where I saw it.

Seriously, it should be shown to every 8th grader in the world. And then again in 9th. And again in 10th in case they slept through it the first two times.

Oh whoah, video.google.com is still up? Looks like it's available on multiple sites. I'll definitely watch this soon. I just remember seeing some stuff online regarding Bernays helping to create both modern war propaganda to the masses and madison avenue mind control

Dude. I was stuck at 69.97% all day thinking it would restart or something. I wonder why the same failures at about the same amount of data?

Could be a fake or corrupted file, or the leeching parts only can encompass a certain amount. I've been torrenting since 2004 and find that eventually enough seeders for even obscure files come through to complete a file. For even more rare documentaries or films, I found emule worked(if one has enough patience)

[8bitagent]

It's on youtube

EPISODE ONE "LOVE AND POWER"
full hour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz2j3BhL47c

[crikkett]

The segment on Silicon Valley illustrated this very well, it was obvious they all thought they were Galtian colossi, bestriding the world, carrying the poor uneducated grasping masses on their mighty techno-shoulders and not borderline sociopaths who'd send their own grandmother to the abbatoir if they thought they could make some money out of it.

Hey! Not everyone.

[Harvey]

This one is seeding pretty fast
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6419799 ... of_3_www.d

I know BBC has long been called the "minister of propaganda"

And it most certainly is, but as with any big organasition, it's comprised of competing ideas and agenda's. As with Fox, every now and then something golden sneaks through.

[8bitagent]

Just watched it. As always, a hypnotic visual/music feast. The song "Suzanne" always gives me goosebumps and a slight tear, and the use of it here was perfect.

Most documentaries deep down are meant to entertain...that's why I can enjoy the ambiance or feeling of even documentaries I find fool's gold(like Loose Change or Obession)
There's very few documentaries I refuse to watch, as I am rarely ever bored by them(by now I've probably seen close to a thousand documentary films)

Anyways, as always Curtis has this very lucid and loose narrative. At times I think he presents things more in a dreamlike state than truly rooted in tangible material.
I didn't think the whole thing was an apologetic white wash. To me the IMF and wallstreet came off as the predatory greedy destroyers of culture and civilization as I've long assumed them to be.

Surprised the film completely skipped over the Seattle 1999 and subsequent 2000-2001 leftist activist awakening of exposing the IMF/World Bank/WTO. Or the fallout of NAFTA.
And I had forgotten how massive the Indonesian/Thailand collapse of 1998 was, definitely on par or worse than some of the Arab spring. Both the IMF and Suharto were evil, just sad so many innocents were hurt. Look how Rockefeller globalists used the genocide in 1965 Jakarta to expand their own empire, as evidenced in Pilger's "New Rulers Of The World"
I love the use of footage of the Clintons and others who don't realize they're being filmed, or odd archival footage. And again, the music...just perfect. He needs to use Roxy Music and Arcade Fire:)

As far as 9/11, I actually have no objections to the notion that "Islamists wanted to destroy the central pillar of Western hubris". That certainly is one aspect, as I do not doubt bin Laden/Zawahiri and al Qaeda(as much as I believe them to be pawns of deeper forces) were convinced of this. 9/11 has many facets to it, all of which are both correct and false.

I had no idea this was essentially a documentary about Ayn Rand...some myths of her were deflated I guess. I would agree she wasn't some philosophical tool of the elite as spiritual writers had been half a century earlier. But the way she saw the world was just so lonely and cold...no wonder she ended up alone.

Anyways, can't wait for part 2 and 3!

[gnosticheresy_2]

2nd episode, ecosystems and ecology: "the balance of nature is an illusion" just as good, will post more when I've had some sleep lol

<on edit: wow>

[8bitagent]

Oh tonight it airs? sweet. I'll check it out on youtube in a few days. I like how not every part is political/corporate, and how its weaving a more explorative narrative toward humans vs nature vs machines in general.

[justdrew]

very good documentary here:

The Net
http://documentarystorm.com/the-net/

More of a film essay – of the type pioneered by Orson Welles and Chris Marker – than a standard documentary, The Net: (The Unabomber, the LSD and the Internet) begins with the typical format and structure of a nonfiction film, and a single subject (the life and times of mail bomber Ted Kaczynski).

From that thematic springboard, The Net branches out omnidirectionally, segueing into a series of thematic riffs and variants on such marginally-related subjects as the history of cyberspace, terrorism, utopian ideals, LSD or the Central Intelligence Agency.

even get's into the Macy conferences

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macy_conferences

[8bitagent]

episode two in full!

[kenoma]

Thanks for the link 8bit!

The second episode was on the whole much more interesting and coherent, filled with those odd little curate's eggs that make Curtis such a compelling editor and storyteller. By contrast the first episode was disappointing and dull because it was framed by very familiar material - Rand, Greenspan, Clinton etc. - padded out with self-indulgent editing and an anachronistic soundtrack. But here he was actually fulfilling the basic duty of a documentarian - showing you stuff you would never have known about otherwise. That was missing in the first episode.

The valuable insight to take from this film is that elites are capable of utopian thinking. The Limits of Growth, however horrific its consequences, isn't just a dastardly plan; it's a utopia. All those racist, imperialist ideas of a quasi-Malthusian human ecosystem, implying as they do a necessary die-off among the 'weak'... they're not compromises that have to be made, they're ideals to be realized. These people really do have a vision of a 'better world', they really are idealists of sorts.

The link between the cybernetic utopianism of various communes and the elites of the Club of Rome isn't actually that unprecedented. The same thing happened in mid-19th century France, when Saint-Simonian 'socialism' was the guiding ideology of the French financial elite.

But anyway... whatever is interesting about Curtis's argument in this installment is almost totally wiped out by the ending. 'The internet' created colour revolutions? Their failure is due to the failure of all non-hierarchal systems?
This is infantile stuff.

[justdrew]

Just wanted to bump this...
This doc is highly related to Curtis's new foray. They fit really well together...

The Net:
http://documentarystorm.com/the-net/

[8bitagent]

I'll check out the Net soon.

I found the first hour last week more hypnotic, but this one was definitely a bit more intriguing overall. In a way it kind of dovetails with the parapolitical belief in a "scientific dictatorship" hellbent on depopulation and controlling everyone. I'm a fan of learning the history of computers, silicon valley, the internet etc so I thought it was interesting on that level as well as the whole notion of chaos vs control.

Also tonight, while not quite related, I saw perhaps one of the more beautifully shot modern documentaries. At only a half hour long, "Undercity"(filmed late 2010), is kind of like a more guerrilla version of a Timothy Speed Levich tour, where the camera follows this guy illegally exploring deep into New York City's vast subway tunnels, original sewers and even climbing to the very most top of the brooklyn bridge. Absolutely stunning to look at in 720p, everyone here should check it out