My Democratic Socialism comment under Brad Pitt's 'socialism is fine' Video trending in 2nd Place with 6,126 comments

Someone in my Youtube stream 'Favourited' this the other day:

"Brad Pitt Responds to Socialism in America"

Brad Pitt Responds to Socialism in America (1:43)
Added: 2 years ago
From: Steeper33
Views: 431,742


In comments under the video I wrote this little Canadian centric take:

He says he's been to a socialist country. Let me guess, he thinks Canada is a socialist country - just because we have socialist medicine (which is great) and a third party that calls itself socialist - sometimes. 

The problem is American corporate propaganda has demonized anything that isn't free enterprise, and socialist is akin to the devil in the popular mind. Get over the cold war already- those guys had a socialist economy but a authoritarian civil society - you can do one with out the other.

With 6,126 comments I've got 7 'Likes', holding down 2nd place behind the leader with 12 'Likes'.

Here's a screen shot of the monumental event.

(click to see larger)

Just kidding about the vanity references - I could care a less if I am personally popular - been there, done that - less fun than you'd think. With everything gathered comes a balancing factor.

But I am glad to see that there is a conversation taking place about Socialism.

For too long state owned enterprises as a solution to certain economic issues has been forbidden - a function, I like to think, of the Cold War between the two economic systems - hightened to hysterical proportions by the invention of the game changing Nuclear Bomb technology ---which the xenophobic right and Corporate Power have used to distort the conversation far to the right --- so now we live in a state where free enterprise is a Religion, and a Inquisition is in store for anyone who besmirches the great code:  'All things are fixed through Privatization'. And with this re-writing of reality - all the real history, forgotten.

The great history of Labour Unions and their key win (the eight hour work day), and many other democratic movements over the century have done great service to the forging of this (in very recent history) quite democratic society. It has all been tossed aside and forgotten by the mass media.

These are lessons the 99% needs to know now, more than in generations. We must re-learn, and apply those lessons - or all is lost, I fear - because Capital in the form of a Corporation has no Soul to moderate it's behaviour. Greed and Fear grip the officers 'in charge' of the thing - and if un-opposed by the only force in society large enough to regulate it - Government - eventually Capital it will drive us to the edge of the abyss - and sail on into it full speed ahead.

These are the lessons of WWI and WWII.

Occupy Everywhere, Everyone.  :)


Post Script

Interesting.  The video is 2 years old - uploaded August 15, 2009. It started to iincrease it's rate of views about 6 months ago - and is now officially 'going viral' - with nearly half a million views. Neat.

Here's the 'Video Statistics' drop-down from under the video, for 2:44am EST, 29 February 2012.

Update 5:10am 29 Feb 2012: On how this is going viral


Here's a little 'conspiracy theory' for you people who like that kind of thing. It's a conspiracy because I don't have enough facts to come to a conclusion, just questions.

As I said at the top, I'm sure I came across this video via my Youtube stream (events on Channels I'm subscribed to are listed each time they do something in Youtube). I wrote "someone" favourited the video so, out of courtesy I thought I'd go back into my stream and find their name, and mention them, which is the proper thing to do.

Well, here's a screen shot of my stream at 5:05am, 29 February 2012.

Usually under each post is a note telling me where the video came from; in this case Youtube has noted that I shared the video in Facebook.

That is true - I commented under the video in Youtube, and my Facebook account is set up to list all my Youtube activity in my Facebook Stream. So, from under the video, to my Facebook stream, to my Youtube stream.

But where this originally came from is beyond me. I was not subscribed to Steeper33 (I just did, as I'm writing this) and the Youtube stream provides no indication of who that I was already subscribed to favourited, or perhaps commented, on it.

Is someone inside Youtube experimenting with actively, 'viraling' videos? I could see the monetary value of that for Google; the political value of that ability would be game changing. Or is some radical genius programmer - perhaps a hacker from anonymous - placing video's into the streams of active users who are on the left of the political spectrum?


I may have found the video while surfing Youtube, but I don't generally use Youtube that way - and my memory was that it came from my stream, and my memory is usually spot on about events that recent.

I will ask Youtube about it. Perhaps the stream off loads the original poster's name if you also favourite something.



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