The cultural obsession in the 50s and 60s (Dead of the Dead) is now often interpreted to have been a way of playing out the mass psyche's anxieties around communism---and about being coming the "organizational" man.

Not sure what it is now; a statement about suicidal terrorists who, to mass appreciation, seem just as senseless and confusing as an assault by zombies? A larger statement about the foreclosure of a sense of opportunity (doom and apocalypse) by the chief audience for movies, teens and 20-something year olds based on the new, new normal of a zombie economy?

Not sure myself. It will probably be blinding apparent with 20/20 hindsight in 20 more years....

Despite that I thought this was well done, I really really really don't understand pop-culture's obsession with zombie apocalypse over these past few years. I really don't get the appeal and subsequent ubiquitous-ness now of it all.

I'm mostly on the same page as you, however I am also obsessed with the politics and pseudo-science of the fictional universe.

Everything is doublethink. I could shit on a piece of toast one second and then eat it the next -- and believe it was nutella.

But that's just me.

The psycho ex bit mirrors very closely an old video and meme of a slightly... obsessive girl who made a nude video of herself where she talks crazy to the camera. this was passed around the internet and set to, for example, the theme from Requiem for a Dream, to illustrate her creepy crazy. Not a great thing to admit to watching, what with the possible mental disturbance and the public mocking of private nudity and all... But it got much worse when it turned out that she was apparently in eighth grade when she made the video. Extra ew, then.

To be fair about being fair there are a lot of assumptions in your post. One they did not arrest him on the spot. That leaves a little dignity for the World War 2 veteran. Although the State picking it up at all is a douche move. Two, he probably will not go to jail at all. They say "Up to 60 days" which really means "We just like to give round numbers that won't ever fucking happen because it's sensational."

You could in theory be sentenced to a year in county time for trespassing, but that will not happen the first 40 times or so. (I have seen people sentenced to that much time. And by people I mean "person".)

Off that subject, if law officers obsessed over every immoral law out there then in no world system would there be any law. The laws against crack rock? Extremely, blatantly racist. Pot laws? I think a bit immoral. Laws against effective protest measures, gay marriage, fuck, even public nudity. All these laws are someone else's bullshit of how things ought to be.

The next problem is that of cause and effect. We have banned child molesters from most of the city areas in an attempt to get them away from "our" children. The side effect is that we really haven't solved the issue. The chronically homeless (Not to be confused with the majority of homeless who actually get out of being homeless) are mentally ill and or on drugs. Although not particularly dangerous or volatile, this is Florida, and even our homeless are more dangerous than other parts of the county.

Lastly, there are no moral jobs out there. If you work for a hospital, business, restaurant, power company, phone company, agricultural etc you are working for an evil, evil place. This is America--money keeps us running. And the homeless have no money.

This is unbelievable. In this video some PEOPLE are stopping some other PEOPLE from giving food to hungry PEOPLE. Did they get so obsessed with their shiny blue uniform that they forgot that they were people with freedom to choose whether to let hungry people eat or not?

I feel like if i'd been one of the police there, i'd have had a sudden existential crisis - what the fuck have i been convinced to do here? I'm here in an authoritative capacity to stop desperate, hungry people from getting access to food. Shit, i'd have tried to organise a mass human shield around them.

I think everyone should take 5 seconds and just think exactly how this came to pass - from the law being written by the guys we endorsed, right down to the chain of command commanding these people apparently raised to obey orders unflinchingly - and then collectively feel embarrassed about it.

Sure, this may have been avoided if the proper 'housing'(?) could be arranged and it may have been inexpensive, but did it really fucking need to when it was going more smoothly than anything the government could have arranged?

The original video attacked the ideology. this guy attacked the person and made it personal. Big diff.

again we're seeing more tearing down of the existing system and no building up of your system. It's a huge strawman. No one says gov't is perfect. We just went through a large wave of criticizing problems with the police. we are quite aware of the many flaws.

Even Lantern's obsessive defense of the cops is far more rational and understandable than advocating complete removal of the police force and disbanding gov't

As for the Ayn Rand thing, another strawman. I never brought up Objectivism. Ayn Rand hates gov't. non-statists hate gov't. it's pretty easy to see how they're linked. taking benefits from something you despise isn't very cool. If she were so principled, she would have left gov't altogether and never paid into it. She also tried to hide taking the benefits by doing so under her husband's name if I recall correctly.

I got recommended to read Atlas Shrugged by a friend of mine. That friend turned out to be a beret-wearing high-art-snob ponce, but i didn't know it at the time.

I managed to finish it and whilst there were reasonable ideas in there that i think in some way we have paralleled in reality - whilst i find that most of her characters are sociopathic to some degree, i can very much sympathise with the idea of being led by the least capable in society who abuse the system of power that they shape and build to implement bad ideas badly.

I like the idea that the world would grind to a halt if the morons in charge did not have the ordinary, hard working people to keep things afloat... but that's about all i like about it. And i think we genuinely can see it happening in the world today in a less exaggerated fashion - the recent recession clearly demonstrated that the people in charge of money and property do not understand what they're doing and ignored the warning signs for years. Furthermore, our feckless leaders have done nothing about it, property bubbles continue to grow and bonuses for the upper echelons are still outlandish whilst the lower workers are struggling to get by in the recession. And then the expenses scandal of the MPs in Britain literally stealing money from the public pocket to have their moats cleaned (that actually happened) and such. Yesterday the watchdog looking into the scandal has decided that the investigation will take place in secret from the public and punishments will also be kept secret. Et voila, two clear instances of those in charge having no clue and no moral compass swept under the rug and forgotten about.

In conclusion, Ayn Rand is a very small minded individual who thinks that everyone in the world must think like she does. That is the only reason i can think of for the approximately 30 pages i read about the female lead character's personal sexual obsession with being taken aggressively by a man and made to feel defiled and used, and how all women feel that and all men wish to dominate and use a woman in turn.

But i think she got it spot on about how being led by those least capable morons will bring the world to its knees, and it won't require the hard workers to quit either. It just requires them to let it happen. And there's no little paradise to run off to, there's just Earth.

@artician - that's exactly it. The characters have no human empathy in Atlas Shrugged. I don't understand why it has to be all or nothing for most people - all conservative or all liberal. Why not the best of both? It IS possible to be ethical, productive and innovative at the same time.

Which America are you talking about? It may "legally" be allowed, but anyone doing anything as simple as spit on the ol' stars and stripes would get you lynched (figuratively in some areas, literally in others). It's not just nationalism, it's worship and it's everywhere.

The only time you see the Australian flag come out everywhere in Australia is during Australia Day (aka Strayaday) or some world sporting/competition event, and you'll find that pretty typical of other countries. Not even Britain (who has/had an actual empire) is obsessive with their flag like America.

America, like your flag, respect your flag, just tone it down a bit. K?

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Stop-Obsessing-Over-This-If-You-Want-To-Lose-Weight

Stop Obsessing Over This If You Want To Lose Weight has been added as a related post - related requested by chicchorea.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Stop-Obsessing-Over-This-If-You-Want-To-Lose-Weight

Stop Obsessing Over This If You Want To Lose Weight has been added as a related post - related requested by chicchorea.

Stop Obsessing Over This If You Want To Lose Weight has been added as a related post - related requested by chicchorea on that post.

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