Barack Obama in Prague - review

"The Czech Republic has a long history of puppetry, puppet-making, and marionettes. Czech puppets have been a part of Czech tradition since the middle of the 18th century."Today we saw the biggest puppet show ever held in Prague! The performance was not Czech, nor had it anything to do with Czech puppetry, but seems that they wanted to respect the tradition, so they arranged the only performance of this show in Europe to be held in the puppetry capital of Europe. Being "one time only", I too climbed up the hill to Prague castle and went to see the amazing show. I expected more from the script, even though the performance and delivery was amazingly good. The charisma, the Smile..all of that was there. My main problem with the monologue was, that I found it a bit unlogical and therefore hard to relate to. I understand that Barack addressed the Czech people, and not everyone in the Europe, but I feel that this concerns us all. Like he said himself: "Nuclear missiles are threat to us all." And I agree.

Barack spoke about disarming the world from nuclear missiles, thus wiping out the last remains of the cold war. This is, of course, really good thing to do. But still, the way to do it is, according to Barack, to unite with USA, allowing them to build their military bases around Europe, thus contributing to the cause of pressuring certain countries to disarm themselves from nuclear weapons. Barack also said, that it is cowardice to oppose this action, cause it takes strength and will of power to defeat the evil that lurks in the world.
He said, that USA will start, as an example, to reduce their nuclear weapons, and this should inspire everyone else to do the same. Then he emphasized that every country that "breaks the rules" (in this missile-matter, like for example North Korea just did), has to face immediate consequences, they must be punished. But, USA will definitely keep an adequate resorts of nuclear missiles to be able to protect themselves from their enemies, he said.
I don't support nuclear missiles in any way, for sure, but neither do I appreciate this attitude of "you are either with us, or against us". Because that does not differ in anyway from what Bush was preaching about few years ago. And If we want to unite against the "evil forces" why should that mean that everyone should allow USA to build their military bases around Europe? Couldn't they, just for example, build their own? I mean, who said that USA is the good guy? But oh yeah, a nation which doesn't have nc-missiles already is not allowed to have one (which of course is definitely a good thing.) but that would be breaking the rules.

For me, the country of USA doesn't look like one that everyone should follow, just looking at their internal matters, poverty, education, crime rates for example. If, say like Denmark or Sweden or something started to gather a group against the evil in the world, that group I could join.
And that the countries that brake the rules must be punished? Who makes these rules and who makes the punishments? USA? And, Barack said, that one nuclear missile in the hands of a single terrorist, could spread destruction in enormous amounts in the world, and just 5 minutes before that he had said that USA will definitely keep "sufficient supplies" of these missiles their selves..So, the ending point would be, that no one else has any "big" missiles, but USA would have them, and in addition, bases all around Europe, ready for action...? What do you think, would they get rid of them at that point?
We should fight together, as free nations and individuals, for the freedom and peace on earth, said Barack. So let's do just that, let's unite, and respect each other. It can't be that either you agree with USA or you are considered as a coward or a terrorist.
All and all, it was a good show and I am happy to have been able to experience it.

3/5

Zeitgeist, Loose change, Earthlings and us

When movies were born, first films ever made were documentaries. Back then there was talk about people not having to travel around the world to see things anymore, cause film would bring all the wonders of the world to them. It was to be a new strong medium for education and civilization.
Now we live in a time when everyone (who has the level of wealth as most of Finns have) can buy a decent video camera and a laptop with cheap editing systems and produce films, much easier than Lumiere bros and our subjects could be examined more thoroughly, than the social commentary about workers leaving factory, by Lumiere brothers, because of the infinite material we have for filming, seemingly no cost at all.

When I look at films like Zeitgeist- Addendum, Loose Change, and Earthlings, I feel like "this is what we should all do, this is NOW". These three appear to be some of the flagships of internet distributed indie documentaries.

The internet and the easiness of working with moving images has only now, 100 years later of the first documentary film filmed, reached the level of really starting to work as the medium it was supposed to be. And services like Youtube contribute also to this cause. The fact that writing an essay or publishing an opinion letter on newspaper is not the only way to state your mind and taking part. Of course youtube in all its good has also set an example of the surplus that a good service always produces, and it struggles with not drowning to it.
The documentaries I mentioned are almost completely compiled of archive material or animated material. Only some interviews have been shot and they both work pretty much because of the strong text, read by a voice behind the repetitive images - meaning that the language of cinema they use is quite simple and old fashioned. But this only shows that you wont even have to film anything to make an important, or at least strong and interesting film.

And there has of course been films like this before, but now combining the lightness of digital cinema to the lightness of broadband internet, the information and viewpoints are free to take their place, out of the cages of: festivals, cinemas and the totally lost medium: TV.

The argumentation on both films is clearly simplified to serve the aims of the movie makers, but this is the fact that needs to be understood: There is no way around it that they tell us the things in the light as they want us to perceive them, but never think that this is not the case in all the movies, books, newspapers or news you see every day.
Meaning that they only give a new angle on things and I believe that this is their goal. Even though there is always a slight touch of mass psychology since all these films tell us to "Join" something..But since we already are members of this capitalist-religion, this can be accepted.

So I am not saying that a new age of political movie has begun because of these internet documentaries, but in my opinion there could be something to it. The only problem is that being a new interesting subculture, it won't be taken seriously in the mainstream media. It is partially a good thing, cause it aims to take the lead from the mainstream media. But also gives large amount of people the view that theses kind of docs are just conspiracy jibberish, not to be taken seriously.
The fact that there has not been, at least not to my knowledge, a public statement against the "proofs and theories" that Loose Change gives out, which are quite easy to believe, has two sides. On one hand it gives the image that these theories are ridiculous and therefore not worthy of a official response. But the other side of it is this: Now in the time of freedom of speech, internet, blogs and everything, we drown in opinions and theories. Therefore, to raise one or two from this mass of information, even to deny or criticize, is to state that it has some truth to it.

And since it seems probable that they can not explain for example about "the building 7" in 9/11 attacks, they see it better just not to answer the question. This is the new censorship of information: When asked - don't answer. The people will forget and stop asking and get on with our everyday life with money problems and jobs and entertainment.
We can write to our blogs, even make documentaries, no one says to us we can't do it. But it won't help, as long as the arguments don't get "publicly recognized" (whatever that means). But you still get the feeling that you have said what you had to say. This works only as long as there is the mainstream media that has some authority.

Of course, countries like Finland are still quite safe from this. The circles are so small that even one sms-message sent by some politician goes straight to every paperstand. But that is also a way of restricting our knowledge. Finnish news media tend to attract our thoughts in totally wrong things.

Now a film Earthlings, differs a bit, not building any theories of how governments enslave mankind. It just shows the facts behind our habits concerning our place in this planet,what we eat and so on. Make the connection.

So links at the end, for films to watch:

http://www.earthlings.com/

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

http://www.loosechange911.com/blog/

To believe? Well, I watch them as I watch any other film..And of course there are tons of others, but just these 3 for starters.