SURVIVORS GUIDE TO EARTH: Recent Episodes
Matthew Cooke
From Oscar nominated filmmaker Matthew Cooke the genre-bending series SURVIVORS GUIDE TO EARTH investigates current news, politics and culture... for clues to the meaning of life.
The 300K year history of eating healthy, the shift into treating food as junk, and the result.
Readings from Founding Fathers of Freedom: Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin on the corruption of the church, the post-racial myth, & the American hoax.
A few billionaire-owned monopolies use unregulated secret algorithms to govern our entire experience of the digital world. It's reminiscent of how big tobacco genetically engineered their crops to have twice the nicotine levels. But this time, the big baddies outmatch us so deeply, they've even tricked us into creating the lure, beckoning us into their matrix.
We're well-advised to become as media literate as possible. In this episode we get black belt training from a true master of technology's impact on human nature, Marshall McCluhan. This is a companion piece to Episode 4: Should Society Own Its Social Media. But you can devour them in either order.
America's failure to address the impacts of slavery and over a century of forced segregation is the origin our nation's collective dissassociation from reality.
We'd consider it tyranny to let one person decide who we see and what we do in in Boston Common. Why is it ok in our digital common?
What if social media platforms were standardized to enable inter-network communication? Like our cell phones?
"What if Society Owned Its Social Media?" That's the topic of this week's American Origin Story. Episode 4.
MLK was a founding father of American freedom. Prior to the late 1960s, not all citizens could vote. His voting rights act was to be just the beginning...
King described the social acceptance of poverty "as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism" and called for America to "civilize itself" by redistributing economic and political power more equitably.
King made clear that a moral society should abolish poverty, and make reparations to the descendants of American slavery, to provide the same economic base that was given to European peasants.
He described this mandate as the teachings of the original Christianity. His position was that any American political movement that honors those basic universal values, and liberty and justice for all, would adopt that agenda.
Victor Ochoa was a gunslinger, an inventor of airplanes, a wind turbine, and the pocket protector. He was a revolutionary, a friend of President Teddy Roosevelt, and wanted by the Mexican government, dead or alive.
Ochoa's ancestors came from Texas when it was Mexican territory, overrun by illegal Anglo immigrants. Victor lived through the Civil War, World War 1, and the industrial revolution. The path of his extraordinary life teaches us much about America, its people, and human nature itself.
To the vast majority of America, the identity of the 35 year old man who wrote the U.S. constitution is a secret, hidden in plain sight. Knowing the identity of "The Ghost" changes the entire way we understand the nation and its character, both past and present. Written and Narrated by Matthew Cooke.
Charles Dickens describes the utter insanity of the US House of Representatives just prior to the US civil war in this rivetting reading of an excerpt from Jill Lepore's "These Truths" - my top recommendation for a general US history book.
“America Hater”? There’s a lot of silliness being spread around like “teachers are teaching kids to hate America!
...when they’re told about some of the terrible things that have been done to Americans... by other Americans. The premise is preposterous.
Why would showing the horrors many Americans endured and overcame, cause someone to hate America?
I mean unless we equate “America” with the evil in our history. Most Americans do not want “America” to be a name reserved for bad behavior, nor would we want bad actors to keep the name “America” for themselves.
It’s a hard name to claim anyway - the Latinized, feminine version of an Italian man’s name, given to the continent by a German mapmaker, after a Portuguese explorer landed on Brazil.
A bit absurd to try and enforce one definition of the word — other than that it represents a LOT of complexity.
We teach and learn the real history of America because we love all Americans. And all the people whose land this was before it was America, and who call the place Turtle Island. Another great name for it.
Learning American history in all its glory and terror, means knowing about all the great Americans of every stripe, in every century, who’ve been working toward the greater good – toward liberty and justice for all. Celebrating that - both as an American and as a part of the global tribe of humanity is a pretty loving act.
Our modern image of Santa and the character of Scrooge are icons of Christmas that were born of the era of the civil war and workers rights. Charles Dickens and Thomas Nast were artists in service to human values.
“Conotocarious” was the other name given to George Washington. And his ancestors. And every sitting American president. The U.S. government continues to fail in making meaningful reperations for war crimes and remains in breach of hundreds of legal contracts with the citizens whose nations lived here for thousands of years prior to British settlements.
George Washington’s parting advice was visionary. And while he was guilty of gruesome crimes, to be discussed in another episode, this was prophetic. This is American Origin Stories, Episode 6.
Illegal immigrant is a subjective term. We are all guests here on planet earth. Let us lead with respect, humility, compassion, and perspective. This is American Origin Stories, Episode 5.
A segregated society has dire consequences for everyone, particularly our children. As the US entered WW2, two of our Founding Mothers of Equality took the first steps toward a more free and more United America. This episode celebrates Native American Heritage Month focusing on two American heroes: Elizabeth Peratrovich and Alberta Schenck. This is American Origin Stories, Episode 4.
A whitewashed, romanticized history based in fantasy is a major cause of America's identity crisis. The myths of our past deprive us the opportunity to learn from and build on the legacy of the many real, and more worthy heroes of American history - many we've never heard of. Episode 3, American Origin Stories. How We Got Here, In Under 3 Minutes. New episodes, Mondays at 10am PST / Noon ET, on all the major social platforms.
For Indigenous peoples day, let us recognize the founders of the first democracy in recorded history on the continent now known as the Americas.
New series. Posting every Monday, at 10am PST.
Let us celebrate the ancestors who risked their lives and fought for freedom and liberty for all. Episode 2, American Origin Stories. How We Got Here, In Under 3 Minutes. The struggle to recognize our human rights and human obligations, continues. New episodes, Mondays at 10am PST / Noon ET, on all the major social platforms.
Not the way it's being used in right wing media. Time to stop using doublespeak and call things what they are.
Voters need to stop electing big business bought and bribed republicans and democrats e.g. Scott Peters, Kurt Schrader, Kathleen Rice, Kyrsten Sinema who at this moment are blocking a proposal to allow medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. This is the primary reason our government doesn't work for us - they work for their paymasters often against our interests.
We must have higher standards of vetting - no corporate donations, no conflicts of interest. Otherwise, what is the point?
If we demand our governments institute massive changes today we could begin to see reversals of the climate crisis in as little as 20 years. Share it if you feel it.
A Radical, Fundamentalist Perspective. Shalom, Peace, Salaam.
A radical, fundamentalist perspective. The holy lands of this world are places and also metaphors.
If we visit Jerusalem, Mecca, the promised land, the mountain top, the church, the temple, or the mosque within ourselves, then perhaps we can embody our fundamental responsibility to love and care for one another.
“Pretty much everything turns on a change in U.S. policy. Those of us inside the United States can influence policy. No one else can. If any change is going to take place in Palestine, there will have to be change here... it’s possible.” ~ Noam Chomsky, 2010
We know that nothing can ever justify killing children, seizing homes and land, bombing civilians, blockading their access to basic needs, taking revenge on innocents, randomly firing missiles, or voting for policies that finance crimes against humanity.
Disregarding someone’s humanity because of their culture, because of the way they love the gift of life, or because of our perceived association with a corrupt government or the pain of our past -- means we’ve become what we hate.
If we practice the universal fundamental religions of peace and humility, perhaps this cycle of abusing each other will no longer be the banner, crest and curse of the tribe of humanity.
For more information on the recent violence in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories -- you can find it fearlessly described in Democracy Now’s recent interviews with Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the human rights group B’Tselem (a Jerusalem-based human rights organization). Google “B’Tselem Democracy Now” and you should find links to it.
The War of the Worlds 2021 is a tip of of the hat to Orson's 1938 radio drama which scared America into believing there was an alien invasion.
Well that's what right-wing media has been doing decade after decade - stoking mass hysteria over everything outside the colony walls.
Some amazing folks joined me in making this April Fools video. You will surely recognize a few. Hope you enjoy it. I had so much fun, I made website and am considering turning it into a funny-not funny running gag starting with a little remix. Let me know if you need more or less alien contact in your life.
The real story of The 2nd Amendmentis an incredible tale -- the opposite of everything we've been told, and truly the key to understanding all of American history.
They don't teach our real history to our children and that cripples our ability to co-create a healthy society as adults. The real 2nd amendment "remedy" is knowing what it is. Please share this information as far and wide in whatever manner you see fit.
If you're looking for a single source for deeper exploration after watching I recommend "These Truths: A History of the United States" by Jill Lepore. She's not just a historian, she's a poet.
We are in a culture war, but we often fail to understand it. If we fearlessly dig into what it is - and don't underestimate ourselves, we will win. We have reality on our side. That's a pretty strong advantage. And when we win, everyone wins.
Share it if you feel it from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, or Vimeo.
ACTION STEP
Stop voter suppression:
https://www.fairelectionscenter.org/state-specific-resources
A disaster and its hard lessons - in 6-minutes.
Help Texas:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/aoc-social-20210219
Stop voter suppression:
https://www.fairelectionscenter.org/state-specific-resources
What's happening now is a mirror image of what happened after Lincoln was assassinated at the end of the civil war. We can't afford to make the same mistakes we made 150 short years ago. And the words of Frederick Douglass are ever more urgent. Share it if you feel it.
- Comparing BLM to Qanon terrorists and capitol riots is gaslighting 101
- MLK TAUGHT US: how to overcome racism and poverty
- ROOSEVELT SHOWED US: how to defeat fascism and inequality
- LINCOLN DEMONSTRATED: how to create a stimulus pkg
- PRESIDENT JOHNSON failed to prosecute Robert E. Lee
Will we learn from our past successes and failures?
This is the test of our generation.
The deliberate mass deception campaign that captured your party is a public health crisis.
Red flags you should be noticing:
• You seek spaces that only include group members, pushing everyone else away
• You don't trust anyone other than group "superiors." Scientists, doctors, respected field experts are not trustworthy.
• Your conversations are primarily focused on your group leaders, or the divine "salvation" available only within your group
• Your group includes Nazis
We all share the need to have answers, excuses and ways out of painful situations. When those needs are exploited to distort your sense of reality and excuse and inspire destructive behavior, it’s time for an intervention. It’s time to wake up now.
A fascinating interview with Salon Senior Editor, journalist and author, Keith Spencer, about his recent article "There is Hard Data That Shows That A Centrist Democrat Would Be a Losing Candidate"
We discuss the work of Economist Thomas Piketty and the rigorous data that shows how to beat authoritarianism, restore democracy and fix the corrupted working class party, briefly and formerly known as the democrats.
Survivors Guide to Earth - Episode 2. This week's clue - the answer to an ancient Buddhist riddle: What is the sound of one hand clapping?
SPOILER ALERT: There can be no clap without two hands. And a whole universe.
A single clap takes two hands — and therefore a whole person. For a person to exist, a human species must exist. And therefore millions of years of evolution. And an Earth, and a burning sun formed in a Milky Way. Sneezed out of a big bang...
In other words, for there to be anything, there has to be everything.
And none of us deserve one iota of credit for it. Anyway. I made you a t-shirt.
And this video - to explain.
Congratulations. You are on Earth, the ultimate reality game show.
You're going to get: a game piece (a body), real rules (like gravity), made up rules (21 years before you can have a beer), a mystery time limit (death)...
How to win is going to be a secret. Sorry.
Prepare to get tips, suggestions and maybe even cheat codes... for your brief stay. Talk soon. X
your host,
Matthew