Here am I spreaking at the Oxford Union, in entertaining mode.
You can see the other speeches in the debate. The Motion “This house still dreams the American Dream” was defeated.
The following week the motion “This house believes that Israel is a force for good in the Middle East” was also defeated. I hear Peter Tatchell was excellent.
I don not think the format of such debates is antiquated and irrelevant. It helps get students thinking, and you get a range of opinion denied an airing elsewhere. I can never get to say those things on the mainstream media.
Craig – could you comment on these below from the previous thread on the perceived lack of applause when you spoke of Palestine.
Indigo 1 Mar, 2013 – 11:54 pm
Mary,
Many thanks for the link to the debate.
Craig got his points across well and seemed to carry the room with him nine times out of ten … but the tenth was notable; Israeli stealing of Palestine land. Not a clap (I don’t think, although I’d have to look at it again to make sure).
Maybe it was my imagination but the atmosphere seemed suddenly strange … almost as if there were a general embarrassment … a fear to applaud?
I found this a bizarre reaction from an audience that apparently accepted his other arguements (and apparently those of his fellow speakers in opposition) and voted in favour of rejecting the motion.
Craig, have I imagined the atmosphere?
Clark 2 Mar, 2013 – 12:52 am
Indigo, 1 Mar, 11:54 pm;
“…but the tenth was notable; Israeli stealing of Palestine land. Not a clap […] the atmosphere seemed suddenly strange … almost as if there were a general embarrassment … a fear to applaud?.”
No, you didn’t imagine it, I noticed it too. But it may have been partly because Craig lapsed from his humorous and light-hearted presentation to a moment of obviously heartfelt and genuine anger. People are scared of anger these days; public speakers are expected to be “objective”, detached, aloof, especially when describing the suffering of people oppressed by the establishment’s allies.
You can delete this after correction 🙂
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=spreak
I was going to offer ‘to spreak – to speak whilst wearing a sporran and having consumed a few snifters beforehand.
The results of Oxford Union debates really are something of an irrelvance – they largely reflect the quality of speakers and that is about all. If as Craig did you set up the American dream as a strawman of materialists, climate change deniers and George Bush then it is not too hard to knock it down. On the other hand if you listen to Ray McGovern’s speech or actually spend some time looking at ordinary Americans then you will see that the pursuit of liberty and happiness and many other good things are still deeply engrained in that society – and that the US is a society where eventually the truth will out. I am 100% certain that if Bradley Manning had been a member of the Russian, Chinese, Syrian, Iranian, Israeli, Uzbek etc. armed forces when he leaked his secrets then you wouldn’t have heard anything of him – the fact that we now hear so much is a sign that the American dream still has something going for it.
Greatly enjoyed your speech, Craig. Glad you mentioned the native Americans. You may know the following story already.
Roosevelt, at a White House lunch, placed Churchill next to the publisher and ardent campaigner for India’s independence, Mrs Ogden Reid, and sat back awaiting the inevitable explosion.
Mrs. Ogden Reid: “What are you going to do about those wretched Indians?”]
Churchill: “Before we proceed further let us get one thing clear. Are we talking about the brown Indians in India, who have multiplied alarmingly under the benevolent British rule? Or are we speaking of the red Indians in America who, I understand, are almost extinct?” —1943
“I am 100% certain that if Bradley Manning had been a member of the Russian, Chinese, Syrian, Iranian, Israeli, Uzbek etc. armed forces when he leaked his secrets then you wouldn’t have heard anything of him – the fact that we now hear so much is a sign that the American dream still has something going for it.”
Rubbish, there would have been a very public show trial just like the one going on in America. This is just the modern day equivalent of the public hanging and head on a spike. America has deliberately abused Manning’s human rights, kept him naked in solitary confinement watched every minute for prolonged periods and made damn sure everybody knows all about it.
Is there an American dream today, or is it just PR cover, like state dreams of many other states, there to justify political actions. Here in the UK we have our dream of democracy.
I agree that state dreams even at their most noble sadly often ignore many groups, especially those indigenous peoples, who are there when the dreamers first arrive, but I query whether the American dream, of Sir Francis Bacon (The New Atlantis) and more recently of Rolf Alexander (The Voice of Talking Valley) was ever one of consumerism.
The dreams of state are best dreamt by the state’s mystics, philosophers and wise men, but sadly they are perverted and distorted for the business of state and become nightmares. Such is the difference between life and sleep, but which is awake and which is sleep?
“……and that the US is a society where eventually the truth will out.”
The US is the most violent nation on Earth, the most corrupt and unhealthy. Of course the Truth will out, if it ain’t already plainly obvious.
But that is not the issue. The issue is one of awareness and self-awareness. But the level of your sights, those that believe in The So-called American Dream, reveals how your eyes are widely shut and the brain non-vital and confused. But then, i suppose both those ingredients are present for those who feel it necessary to dream rainbows and at the same time, ironically, kill other humans in faraway lands, rape and plunder the planet, let their own live in poverty while gorging on the most unhealthy chemically processed foods, being drip fed with propaganda by the media.
I’d rather live in an alchemical world than a chemical one with Weapons of Mass Distraction.
Tell us more about the Truth ResDiss.
Fred
So the evidence to support your assertion should be freely available – happy searching.
Whistleblowers do sometimes get off in the US – just search for Thomas Drake.
Do you really think that blogs like this one function in China?
Resident Dissident
Didn’t take much searching.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Show_trial
Villager
why don’t you listen to Ray McGoverns speech and look into his background before mouthing off more of your simplicities and ridiculous generalisations. Or perhaps you should just go and look at a few US political blogs to see that not a few Americans are not as blinkered as you imagine.
Fool Dream, my comment was written slowly amidst distractions (!), hence i didn’t actually read your comment till i had submitted mine. I think we’re saying much the same thing!? Very reassuring.
Its worth posting this brief video of J Krishnamurti patched into Zeitgeist :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BORmMu1quo
and that very beautiful song by Johnny Cash :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf_De4P48c8
A very human anthem indeed.
Dreaming is not good for human Consciousness while deep thinking is (see later post to follow).
resident dissident, I agree that the American Dream is still alive, but its vital signs are fading and the administrators say its insurance doesn’t cover intensive care…
“Nixon will be remembered as a classic case of a smart man shitting in his own nest. But he also shit in our nests, and that was the crime that history will burn on his memory like a brand. By disgracing and degrading the Presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.”
****
“The ugly fallout from the American Dream has been coming down on us at a pretty consistent rate since Sitting Bull’s time — and the only real difference now, with Election Day ’72 only a few weeks away, is that we seem to be on the verge of ratifying the fallout and forgetting the Dream itself.”
Hunter S Thompson.
And resident dissident, remember that according to the Dreamed American Theory, everything should be fine by now in the former USSR since the replacement of the evil communists with a decent free market; it was an outcome that the US sought for decades.
ResDiss : “why don’t you listen to Ray McGoverns speech”
Which one? Why don’t you post the link?
I shall promise to do so if you promise to watch this :
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-video/the-transformation-of-man-1-full-version.php
and research more into K’s background.
Meantime ResDiss you can respond to my comment directly. We need not have Ray McGov or Krishnamurti or anyone to quote from to stay true to our own originality as human beings. Else we run the risk of becoming second-hand human beings.
resident dissident
2 Mar, 2013 – 12:09 pm
Do you really think that blogs like this one function in China?
你怎么敢这样说，关于中国，你这个混蛋
Can any friendly tech-savvy person here please help me with this one:
While watching a video clip on Press tv my apple macbook went into overdrive with the hard-drive whirring like mad and the battery overheating. I stopped it and restarted the laptop sensing something not quite right. When i switched on Adobe gave me a msg that i needed to re-download their flash player. Curiously, much the same thing happened less than a month ago, i did download so can’t understand what they’re playing at.
It still works with the chrome browser but far prefer safari where now i get a ‘plug-in blocked’ msg!
Sorry to interrupt and thank you!
Des Res
‘Or perhaps you should just go and look at a few US political blogs to see that not a few Americans are not as blinkered as you imagine.’
Quite right, and if the American dream was in part a rejection of everything bad about Europe, Papacy, Imperialism, feudalism, ignorance, then it is worth noting that Europe has not progressed but rather ossified or atrified into a caricature of itself, while the US has clarified and crystalised many intellectual aspects of the American dream.
The dream of self-sufficiency and self-determination is a model which I am going to have to increasingly depend on. Since last week mentioning the stars and stripes of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Saudi savages who are being used to soften up Syria in preparation for the US’ Muslim Brotherhood to take over, the Muslim Brotherhood’s private intelligence agency have taken note of my comments and I have lost a #7,000 contract directly as a result of their spies’ disapproval.
My mother’s family came from Huguenots who were persecuted by the state in France for centuries. They did not become part of the exodus from status quo oppression in Europe to the American dream in the USA. Maybe it would have been better for me if they had been, because my Muslim friends from Middle East or Pakistan are only too aware how to infiltrate the status quo oppression industry in this country and they are fully signed up members of the intelligence community with Baronessdoms and OBE’s rewarded for their services by her Majesty the Queen.
The US and its dream remains, in spite of the prevalence of Zionism, a more fertile soil for Islam, its freedom and its dignity than Europe will ever be. In fact, by the time this country becomes a Muslim country, you will not be able to distinguish the Muslims from abroad from the indigent non-Muslims. They will be calling for drones to protect their drawbridge priveledges and prisons to encarcerate whistle-blowers against their statusquo-ery.
In my book America is still very much the land of the free.
The problem with the American Dream is that it has remained just that, a dream. To make it reality requires wakefulness, effort and dedication.
There’s plenty of effort and dedication in the US, but wakefulness is supplanted by delusion propagated by the corporate media. Over a few decades, the thousands of US media organisations have been taken over such that there are now just a few hugely powerful corporations. Democracy is being subverted by biased feedback of information, and public morality is being degraded by increasingly violent and xenophobic “entertainment”.
So the American Dream propagates globally, but transforms from dream to delusion, while real life for billions of people increasingly resembles nightmare.
Villager, sorry, no help is permitted by Adobe. The Adobe Flash Player is crap, but it’s the only way to play Flash videos due to Adobe’s power within the market; they use legal manoeuvres to stifle all free/GPL alternatives. Your best bet is to e-mail PressTV and ask them to support better formats.
http://rixstep.com/2/20121206,00.shtml
For YouTube etc. you can still use this command-line downloader. presumably, Adobe haven’t litigated it out of existence because they don’t feel threatened by a command-line tool:
http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/download.html
Guano
Please answer my earlier question on the Bradley Manning thread:
guano
1 Mar, 2013 – 11:17 am
“Allah says in the Quran: Kaida shaytana dha’eefa/ Satan’s plan is weak.”
My question:
Which language are you quoting the Quran from here?
You replied:
“Doug Scorbie”
“Google Chrome is getting much much dumber than I remember it being before.”
Not an answer is it?
I replied to you:
“I don’t use Google chrome.
I have a copy of the Quran.
You haven’t answered my question. What language were you using?
I am beginning to suspect that you are not a Muslim at all.”
Why do you not answer my original question?
Perhaps it’s because you are not a Muslim and are here to cause mischief on this blog by saying things like:
guano
2 Mar, 2013 – 12:56 pm
“In fact, by the time this country becomes a Muslim country…”
Hello everyone!
Yes, rather odd title for a debate: “This house still dreams the American Dream”. Sounds like “This house still beats its mother” or how about one on the latest “sex abuse” scandal involving the unseemly behaviour of head Catholic clergyman, Cardinal O’Brien: “This house still bashes the bishop”? (The formulation being that he hasn’t been accused of anything criminal but is still hounded by modern day Puritans, with Puritan hats on). I always find some of these titles to be too subjective. What is the American dream anyway? If it means certain opportunities and some forms of sanctuary then clearly some people do believe in it and vote with their feet. And for some people, sitting on the sofa eating burgers and watching FOX News might actually be their dream. In which case well done to them! There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting consumer goods despite the fact that 1970s ideologues can’t say the words without almost sneering their faces off, and that’s fortunate because there isn’t enough Highland venison to go round.
Cheers!
Interesting recent interview with Julian Assange, by some Norwegian journalist who fancies himself as a thriller writer. But, no matter, some good stuff in there:
“According to Assange’s most recent numbers, there is a WikiLeaks-based article in almost every second issue of The New York Times.”
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14835-resistance-from-a-cage-julian-assange-speaks-to-norwegian-journalist-eirik-vold
Douggie babe
The Qur’an is written in Arabic. Lol. Your fraudie friend, Guano.
Angry
Whilst it’s great that your American dream allows you to stuff your face with goodies, the price of that is often poverty, war and starvation for many others across the planet.
Your dream is their nightmare.
But, not to worry. Keep dreamin.
Herbie! “Whilst it’s great that your American dream allows you to stuff your face with goodies, the price of that is often poverty, war and starvation for many others across the planet. Your dream is their nightmare.”
I never said it was my dream to eat MacDonalds! Here in Japan, I have my pick of raw whale meat or bluefin tuna sashimi. Only the proles eat MacDonalds, so they are the guilty ones, causing all that war and poverty with their ironically-titled Happy Meals.
Doug Scorbie
References from the Qur’an:
Ever feeble indeed is the plan of Satan.” (An-Nisaa’: 76).
“See you not that We have sent the devils against the disbelievers to push them to do evil.” (Mariam: 83).
God: Ever feeble indeed is the plan of Satan
No need to worry about him, then. That’s a relief.
Fancy admitting to eating whale meat. OK for the Greenlanders who have little else to eat but Japan, with sufficient resources not to kill whales, has no justification.
Shame about the Fukushima radiation polluting the land, air and sea though.
Seen this Angry? ’75 whales’. ‘Fewer than usual’. Criminal. They rammed the two Sea Shepherd boats too and have had Captain Watson in jail.
Japanese whalers end hunt, says Sea Shepherd
http://www.theage.com.au/national/japanese-whalers-end-hunt-says-sea-shepherd-20130302-2fdcz.html