The movement from human desire to compelling drive can best be described by the transformation of humans into zombies. That is why zombie movies can be great forms of criticism of capitalism. The object of desire is formed as a way to experience reality, but the need to consume overrides the existence of the particular object of desire. The goal of drive is to perpetuate itself by working through the objects of desire without being satisfied. The drive therefore continues regardless of the life or death of the human individual. Capitalism can then be seen as needing zombies more than humans.

 
In the documentary "An Unreasonable Man", one thing becomes apparent. The major critics of Nader were Todd Gitlin and Eric Alterman, and both dismissed his presidential campaigns as egocentric and based on self interest. Considering the garbage that was heaped on Nader after 2000, his run in 2004 showed how nonegocentric he is. Someone with a big ego would run and hide. Gitlin and Alterman seem to project their own self interest and egos on to Nader since they find it impossible for him to run for president and not be otherwise. In other words they do not understand Nader's sense of public service. The conclusion that can be drawn is that Gitlin and Alterman, a professor and journalist who should know better, have no understanding of Nader, his history, or the history of third parties and therefore do not have full comprehension of the political situation today. Howard Zinn is in the film briefly, and even though he did not publicly support Nader in 2004 or 2000, he at least knew the importance of Nader's campaigns on an intellectual level. Gitlin and Alterman's foolishness only prove that Nader was right to run, and in the larger picture the Green Party is right in its work.

 
China's growing economy in capitalist form is not really a contradiction with its communist government. Historically, capitalism came into being during times of authoritarian governments or limited democracy where many people were dispossesed and forced to become the proletariat. For communist countries the move to capitalism is a promise for prosperity to the people in order to consolidate power, but it appears that real democracy can only develop independent of the economic form.

 
Drive is one of the main components of the capitalist discourse. It is the breaking up of the social where subjects are connected to objects instead of other subjects. There are private contracts and precluded choices instead of social relationships, with the individual formation of social relationships instead of collective formation of social relationships. It is the common structural characteristic of capitalism, applied to all within it. Drive is desire based on lack and it is channeled into small partial objects of desire as commodities. Drive is satisfied by temporary pleasure that perpetuates the system.

 
The following are my predictions for the upcoming Oscar nominations, with an asterix next to the predicted winner in each category. I have a feeling that these predictions are going to be the most accurate in a long time, yet still retain a hope that the more independent films can be recognized by the Academy.

BEST PICTURE:
No Country For Old Men *
The Darjeeling Limited
Lions For Lambs
Redacted
Eastern Promises

BEST ACTOR:
Tom Cruise - "Lions For Lambs"
Owen Wilson - "The Darjeeling Limited"
Javier Bardem - "No Country For Old Men" *
Don Cheadle - "Talk To Me"
Ethan Hawke - "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Armin Mueller-Stahl - "Eastern Promises" *
Albert Finney - "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"
Peter Fonda - "3:10 To Yuma"
Hal Holbrook - "Into The Wild"
Robert Downey Jr. - "Zodiac"

BEST ACTRESS:
Cate Blanchett - "I'm Not There" *
Parker Posey - "Fay Grimm"
Naomi Watts - "Eastern Promises"
Ellen Page - "Juno"
Keri Russell - "Waitress"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Ruby Dee - "American Gangster" *
Amy Ryan - "Gone Baby Gone"
Adrienne Shelley - "Waitress"
Vanessa Redgrave - "Atonement"
Catherine Keener - "Into The Wild"

BEST DIRECTOR:
Brian De Palma - "Redacted"
Werner Herzog - "Rescure Dawn"
David Cronenberg - "Eastern Promises"
Wes Anderson - "The Darjeeling Limited" *
Sidney Lumet - "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"

BEST DOCUMENTARY:
Body Of War
War Dance
Sicko *
For The Bible Tells Me So
Autism: The Musical

BEST ANIMATED FILM:
Bee Movie
Beowulf
The Simpsons Movie *
Ratatouille
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford *
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly
There Will Be Blood
Once
I'm Not There

BEST SPECIAL EFFECTS:
Transformers
The Golden Compass
Sunshine
The Mist
300 *

BEST SCREENPLAY:
Wristcutters: A Love Story *
Superbad
Juno
I'm Not There
The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
No Country For Old Men
Love In The Time Of Cholera
The Kite Runner
Into The Wild
Beowulf *

 
The influence of Spinoza on Marx can be seen as a rejection of Hegel. Where Hegel proposed a transcendent subject of ideas that moves forward toward a goal through the dialectic, and which Marx supposedly inverted as a movement of matter through history, Spinoza proposed that ideas and matter were equal and simultaneous. There is no predetermined movement of the dialectic, but immanent objects that express themselves in various ways. Applied to Marx, this means that the ability of the proletariat to liberate themselves is not dependent upon the movement of history but the actions of individuals and collectives.

 
With the decline of the global oil supply due to Peak Oil, there is a need to restructure communities in order to be more sustainable. Cities now are unable to exist without oil, but the arcology can be a model that implements a more efficient use of space, waste, and energy that can replace the current urban structure.

 
Permaculture is the belief and practice of living in a way that has no negative impact on the environment, and therefore must have the ability to deal with waste and other by-products. Here is an example of a farm that implements permaculture principles and operates with various subsystems in a way that an organism can contain various subsystems.

 
On November 6th, people have the chance to vote for progressive choices in many parts of the nation. The Green Party has many candidates for local office, especially in New York. If voters want to support peace, ecology, justice, and democracy then they must go outside of the two-party system for a real alternative. Vote Green for a change!

 
In regards to power, there is the important question as to why people would accept their own domination in fascist regimes. Even in revolutions where a state is overthrown to fulfill class interests, there is the ignoring of deeper interests of desire which result in a perpetuation of a structure of domination. A true revolution that does not replicate the previous regime must be willing to change all aspects of the system to express desire and not just the interests of a social or economic class.

 
Both Ludwig Wittgenstein and Ernst Cassirer dealt with how language affects meaning in specific ways. Wittgenstein developed the idea that language is a matter of following various rules to achieve specific ends, while Cassirer developed the idea that language allows a process of symbolic forms that are independent of reality. Language moves from the direct relationship with reality as expressed by nouns into logical relationships expressed by verbs, and eventually the designations of "here and there" as well as "this and that" allow for the more abstract designation of subject and object.

 
Mikhail Bahktin contributed greatly to literary criticism and can be considered a philosopher in his work on meaning. He especially explored the ability for a text to incorporate various structures of expressing meaning such as the form of the novel.

 
"Ulysses" by James Joyce is an interesting and complicated work of modern fiction. Here is a site that summarizes the plot of the novel in a way that also parodies the various "For Dummies" books. Knowing the plot before reading the novel can allow one to appreciate the style of the work as art.

 
Here is an interesting contribution to the developing political impact of open source and other methods. It shows that the use of preexisting technology, or any manmade product, in a different and new way is inherent to the human creative impulse that is similar to the phenomenon of art.

 
Here is the site for an artist who uses various mediums such as photography, experimental plays, and clothing design to elaborate on how a sense of space and self is affected by dramatic changes in climate and globalization.

 
Jacques Ranciere wrote a book called "Hatred Of Democracy" that describes how the democratic process is not based on any preexisting hierarchy or inequality and is therefore an inherent challenge to elites. However, the democratic process becomes subsumed under the structure of government where there is a mistrust of the equalizing and disruptive force of democracy.

 
Timothy Leary was a pioneer in the expansion of consciousness, especially through the use of LSD. Over time he discussed other methods such as through technology and space exploration. At one point he used the comic book format to explain his ideas, which resulted in an interesting example of the artform in itself.

 
The interaction between power and resistance requires an analysis of both Foucault and Negri. Foucault stated that power existed in particular relationships which converted human bodies into productive and docile units. Negri proposed that constituent power is the inherent human creative force that can escape the various forms of discipline. Both power and resistance occur on the local level, power developing into transcendent laws and normality while resistance must organize into the multiplicity of the multitude.

 
The use of philosophy within the field of social science recognizes that concepts exist before the experience of empirical facts within a system of meaning. All scientific practices are subsets of a system of meaning which make understanding possible. Systems of meaning create rules that are followed in the relationship between reasons and actions in a social context.

 
Peter Whitehead was a director that was able to portray the 1960's by a movement from documentary to fiction, and sometimes the mixing of the two. His sudden departure from making films leaves a style that was specific to the era and kept it pure in its vision.

 
Foucault described discipline within the enclosures of school, prison, and the factory as the distribution in space and the ordering in time. The transition into Deleuze can be seen within the film terms of movement-image and time-image as well as the idea that control goes beyond these enclosures and always exists as modulations within the overall society.

 
The origins of President Bush's ideology was shaped by the discontent he had during the 1960's as a college student. He mistook the progressive ideals of the counterculture on the college campuses for an elitism and self-indulgence that he was personally offended by. He then took that mistaken appearance and coupled that with the inherent conservative opposition to the 1960's in order to win the presidency backed by neoconservative thought that shaped his policies.

 
The increasing ability of the Internet to record its own contents requires a centralized collection of servers in order to increase the storage capacity of search engines and other sites. This is a trend away from the decentralized way computers are connected as the Internet.

 
The development toward posthumanity is based on the gradual process where subjective being is treated as objects in reality. There is a reduction to biological systems and genetics that determine humans rather than free will. Therefore, the main form of relationships between humans as objects is that of discipline and the regulation of life rather than society.

 
Here is an interesting early film made by Jim Henson that has a more adult subject matter. Coupled with the Muppets, The Dark Crystal, Fraggle Rock, and other projects it shows the wide range of imagination and creativity that Henson had.

 
The idea of society based solely on individuals considers any collective form as an abstraction. This is due to the fact that it is impossible for humans to completely plan a society or economy in all of its details. In fact, the limits created by human ignorance can lead to an emphasis on individual liberty. The actions of society can be only an aggregate of human actions, but any knowledge of reality requires a collective system of meaning.

 
The phenomenon of countercultures has existed for many centuries, periodically emerging in times of static conformity and stagnation. It is a period of revival that stresses freedom and imagination as well as empowerment. The study of countercultures can be a field of history and sociology in itself.

 
The common traits of ecology and economics is that both follow the principles of systems. They have an interior and exterior, go through internal proceses of relationships and exchange, and produce information about themselves. Each system can also be embedded in larger systems. This analysis allows for a more open systemic perspective that prevents friction or tension between ecology and economics.

 
Courtney Love has been a focal point of controversy for some time, to such a degree as to be rumored to be behind the death of Kurt Cobain. She has been an example of a celebrity who is unable to deal with their staus of having acces to everything and engage in the excessive use of fame, drugs, and attention. However, even though these celebrities are criticized for their behavior they do not hold any power over average Americans. Rather, it is the heads of corporations who influence the lives of Americans and should be the target of more critique.

 
The death of Jean Baudrillard marks the end of a philosopher who clearly was able to describe the mediation of late modernity. Even though he worked in hyperbole, he showed that simulation of reality allowed power to be exercised over individuals and collectives. The only response to this mediation is action that disrupts the simulated world and shows the reality behind the image.

 
There is a great similarity between the production of commodities in economics and the production of signs in semiotics. Both begin with a production of a product or sign from matter and personal experience, then moves to the exchange of that product or sign, and ends with the consumption of that product or sign by others. There is a transition from an individual use value to a collective exchange value to another use value by another individual.

 
Claude Levi-Strauss held that anthropology would compare the premodern knowledge expressed through myth with the modern knowledge expressed through science. Myth dealt with concrete things in the world and could only make combinations with those things in order to explain reality. Science dealt with abstract concepts that would open up the possibilities of reality and introduce new ideas. Myth was ahistorical while science implied a movement toward progress.

 
The prisoner's dilemma is an elaboration of the tragedy of the commons where individuals will compete with each other if they are unable to communicate their needs with each other. Both were used to prove that capitalism is the best way to allocate resources, but they ignored the fact that competition would only begin once the commons was enclosed and the working class was unable to effectively organize itself. It became a tactic of control which required the appearance that those in control share the same interests as those who are controlled.

 
Here is a great source of 1960's rock music in the form of Internet radio. It can be considered a companion site to this one. Both of these sites illustrate that one can get access to superior quality music outside of the big record companies.

 
The exchange value of capitalism allows a social relationship between objects to replace a material relationship between people. This creates a kind of haunting of commodities that appear to have a life of their own. Most criticism of this process proposes an alternative that still emphasizes use value and productivity, which is an exercise of a system of power. The real alternative to the commodity form is excess that can not be calculated or contained by an economic system.

 
The tyranny of the majority in a democracy can make it possible for individuals to be sacrificed for the benefit of a larger group. However, it would be possible for a minority to be protected if the conditions of the democractic structure was agreed to beforehand by consensus. If there are those who dissent then they can be placed outside of the democratic structure. Then if a decision arises that takes away from a minority, those in the minority could have a veto option besides their vote.

 
The debate over large wind farms in local areas appears to have only two sides consisting of those who support wind energy outright and those who do not want it in their back yard. There is a third side that states that the best one can get from wind energy is to have it as decentralized and locally owned as possible. This means smaller wind turbines, energy cooperatives, and net-metering. Currently the large model of wind farms are controlled by corporations who take the energy generated away from the community that produced it and inflict a negative environmental impact.

 
Wittgenstein both followed and criticized Freud and psychoanalysis. He believed that psychoanalysis, like language and myth, served to clarify problems rather than solve them. In that respect, psychoanalysis is not a science that revealed objective truth but a method is independent on whether there is an unconscious.

 
In light of the tragedy at Virginia Tech, here is an article that discusses the phenomenon of the event in regards to Columbine. The event is a unique and unpredictable thing that disrupts linear time and history. After each event there will be an attempt to structure the event in order to reabsorb it into a system of meaning and power. The event is redefined in a way where those who are in power are able to make use of it for their own agenda. This was true of Columbine and September 11th, and hopefully people can be made aware of this process and resist it for Virginia Tech.

 
Sociality is the coordination of actions and relationships between people and groups in the social. It comes in four types: common sharing, equality matching, authority ranking, and market pricing. Common sharing holds certain groups as united equals in relationship with other groups, and equality matching seeks to find balance between and within groups. Authority ranking places people in unequal relationships with each other, and market pricing creates a value of common measurement for all relationships.

 
William James was inspired in his philosophy and studies by the experimentation of his life. He found many valuable ideas in a wide variety of texts, and used his experiences to create a foundation for his thought.

 
Here is an expansive site that contains a wide range of psychedelic posters from the 1960's. The graphic art that was used was possibly the most inventive poster design of all time. It borrowed heavily from the Art Nouveau style and incorporated flowing text to simulate the psychedelic experience, used mostly to promote various concerts from that era.

 
The rise of censorship of comics had a parallel with the increasing prohibition of marijuana. Just as comics had a code of content created that had restrictions because of its supposed bad influence, there was the belief that marijuana also contributed to child delinquency and was a public menace. However, for a time beginning in the 1960's there were underground comics that had more freedom of content, and generally showed the positive side to marijuana.

 
Michel Foucault's work on governmentality helped to focus the study of the phenomenon of neoliberalism. The shift has been from politics not interfering with the economic as a natural occurrence, to the economic being the foundation of all social interaction. Here government must protect the market where all individuals are entrepreneurs, including workers who contribute labor. Therefore the responsibility is placed on the individual, but the structural control is retained by owners of capital and the government. Governmentality is a space for this type of rationality that disciplines individuals and groups.

 
There are very inventive ways to edit film that is beyond the simple linear progression of a plot. Directors like Alain Resnais, Jean Luc Godard, and others of the French New Wave began this style of nonlinear editing appreciated by a select audience. Recently, movies like Babel have applied thie style for movies that have a wider audience appreciation.

 
Alain Badiou presented an idea of truth as an event that erupts into the structure of reality. It begins as a singularity that is universalized where the subject can know what is absolutely true and beyond structures. Jacques Lacan was the opposite of this position, in that he proposed a divided subject that is split between a conscious acceptance of law as truth and an unconscious drive to transgress the law. Truth becomes dependent upon the psychological perspective of the subject rather than an outside event.

 
Here is a list of subjects that would make for interesting political reading. There are many well established stories in American politics, but there is also the small hidden anecdotes that may say more about our political history than the we know.

 
The formation of subjectivity within capitalism begins with the creation of a working class in the beginning of a capitalist economy. This changes into the expansion of capitalism into all aspects of social relations in the present. Capitalism thus exists on two levels. One is the eternal level where the appropriation of value from workers is a constant, and the other is the historical level where there is the development of formal subsumption into real subsumption over time. Real subsumption is where economic base and social superstructure determine each other equally.

 
Fernand Braudel described a hierarchy of three levels of civilization, especially in the West. There is the local level of subsistence production and barter, the regional level of markets and artisan workshops, and the global level of flexible capitalism that attempts to subsume all other economic forms. The history of Western civilization is the interaction of these three levels and the increasing control of the global level that creates new goals beyond subsistence and direct trade.

 
Here are my predictions for the winners of this year's Academy Awards. Unlike past predictions there is the highest chance that my choices will actually win Oscars this year.

Best Picture: BABEL

Best Director: MARTIN SCORSESE (THE DEPARTED)

Best Actor: FOREST WHITAKER (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND)

Best Actress: HELEN MIRREN (THE QUEEN)

Best Supporting Actor: EDDIE MURPHY (DREAMGIRLS)

Best Supporting Actress: CATE BLANCHETT (NOTES ON A SCANDAL)

Best Foreign Language Film: THE LIVES OF OTHERS (GERMANY)

Best Original Screenplay: GUILLERMO DEL TORO (PAN’S LABYRINTH)

Best Adapted Screenplay: ALFONSO CUARÓN & TIMOTHY J. SEXTON & DAVID ARATA &
MARK FERGUS & HAWK OSTBY (CHILDREN OF MEN)

Best Original Song: LISTEN

Best Original Score: THE GOOD GERMAN

Best Cinematography: THE BLACK DAHLIA

Best Documentary Feature: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Best Animated Feature: HAPPY FEET

Best Visual Effects: SUPERMAN RETURNS

Best Costume Design: CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER

Best Sound: APOCALYPTO

Best Sound Editing: APOCALYPTO

Best Film Editing: THE DEPARTED

Best Art/Set Direction: PAN’S LABYRINTH

Best Make-up: APOCALYPTO

Best Documentary Short: RECYCLED LIFE

Best Live Action Short Film: WEST BANK STORY

Best Animated Short Film: THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL

 
The rise of classical liberalism in the modern era created a set of techniques that would regulate both the political and the economic. The political and the economic can not converge themselves, but are contained within a larger system of governmentality that imposes discipline while promoting productivity as workers and citizens. Any attempt to liberate oneself through democracy or the proletariat is prevented by a larger structural order that exists as a background for modern life.

 
The creation of commons and communities can be an alternative to the market and state in their combined exploitation. Where the market imposes limits and scarcity, the commons is an opening up of ownership and abundance in creation of social wealth. Communities develop to support commons, and are both local and global relationships where there are multiple abilities to act rather than the one power over subjects within the state.

 
Claude Levi-Strauss wrote about the use of masks in Northwest Native American ceremonies and their structural relationship to each other. Two tribes that had similarly designed masks would use them for opposite purposes, but between the same two tribes masks that were designed differently from each other would have the same purpose. These masks as cultural objects would have meaning in relationships with each other, and had developed this meaning in a dialogue through history where the mythical origins of these masks were determined.

 
There are certain similarities between Foucault and Beckett. Foucault described discipline that developed from a personal relationship between subject and sovereign into a system of internalized surveillance. Beckett wrote plays where there was an implied outside observer that controls the characters, even though the setting of the play did not require an outside reality. Foucault described how discourses created truth, while Beckett has characters in his plays and novels that find they need to examine and describe themselves in order to have an existence. In a way, Beckett is the fictionalization of many of Foucault's ideas.

 
R.U. Sirius is an author and commentator who was influential in the rise of cyberculture during the 1990's. He has recently written a book called "Counterculture Through The Ages" that demonstrates alternative ways of living have always existed and developed in new and interesting ways in history.

 
Science fiction and anarchism can have a supportive relationship with each other. Science fiction supplies anarchist theory and practice with a vision of alternative worlds, while anarchism gives science fiction a purpose and larger political use in everyday reality. Both are enriched by the other, and both require a strong use of imagination and free expression.

 
Samuel R. Delany is a unique science fiction author who has incorporated postmodern ideas into his work. For example he has used the idea of the paradox of finding completeness in a system that closes off possibilities for action in order to be complete itself. He applies this idea to describe the various different societies that can develop on space colonies outside of the planet Earth. These colonies have utopian characteristics, but those who try to find fulfillment in these societies fail because these systems must be limited in order to be coherent.

 
The concept of organs without bodies comes from Zizek and is a response to Deleuze. In film it is the perspective that is taken by the camera that can not occur in reality as the perspective of a person. In revolution it is the spontaneous opposition to the system that is not predetermined or planned by an alternative system. In ontology it is the ability to be outside of the symbolic order that frames meaning which results in a primal freedom but a lack of stability or foundation.