My new Documentary Webpage

Hello everyone, I invite you to check and support my new documentary webpage bestonlinedocumentaries.com. Here you can watch free documentaries which helped me to develop as a person. I hope you like it.

Recess, We will be back soon!

Taken from: wikimedia.org

This is already the post number 19 in a global view!

We want to thank all the people that have been reading the blog during the last 3 months. This is the last post for a while as our team will have a recess.

Don’t worry! the blog will not be over! The inactivity period will last approximately 1 month. Meanwhile we are considering to buy our own domain in order improve and promote the site even more. We are glad for having already some constant traffic from search engines (leading to comments); meaning that we are generating an impact. Nevertheless, this is only the beginning. We are looking forward to become bigger and better.

Do not hesitate in commenting and reading all our articles! If you want to contact us we will be active during the next month in order to answer your questions and receive your support.

Greetings,
A Global View Team

Coltan: A Bloody Mineral

Coltan is an essential mineral  for the manufacture of certain electronic components. Without them, our beloved gadgets would not exist. However, the mining of coltan has condemned more or less directly, to millions of people to death. How far it is ethically correct to get carried away by consumerism, to enjoy our computers, phones and other electronic junk?

There is a component that is part of almost every imaginable electronic circuits: tantalum capacitors, a popular variation of an ordinary condenser. If you  disarm  your computer, GPS receiver, cell phone, netbook, media player or any other gadget you have at hand probably find a few of these  inside. In fact, they have become an almost indispensable piece in the manufacture of electronic equipment.

The tantalum is obtained from a mineral called coltan, which is a more or less proportionate mixture of columbite and tantalite. Tantalum has some physical properties such as heat resistance and some unique electrical properties that make it particularly good for making  electrolytic capacitors. Almost all manufacturers need for tantalum  was supplied by Australia. But in recent years, it is  know that the Democratic Republic of Congo has 80% of the estimated world reserves of this mineral.
Coltan is often extracted by children.

However, contrary to what might seem at first glance, the owning large quantities of coltan has become a disgrace to the Congo. Is that, driven by increasing consumer foot electronic equipment that is experiencing the world, the ore has become so valuable as gold or diamonds. And when there are large amounts of money involved, someone will take the  situation to do business. The first allegations were because of the devastation of national parks in order to mine the  ore;  displacing and threaening wildlife. But then it became suspicious of some more serious issues.

“Zeitgeist: Addendum”

zeitgeist addendum dvd cover

This sequel of the first documental (Zeitgeist, the Movie) is way more serious and accurate. It does not focus only in conspiracy theories as the first part did, but mainly gives us real facts that are openly accepted in order to argument the ideas.

It goes deeply into the ideas, having also a philosophical component. I don’t want to tell you anything about the content of the movie, but if you are normally aseptic from this kind of movies, you should probably watch this second part first. For those of you that ever had a macroeconomics class you will feel really familiar with the beginning part of the movie.

I can assure you will enjoy the movie. It will give you for sure a better understanding from the world, the way it works, and as normally about power and greed among human kind. It also proposes a model to follow in order to have a better world, and a way to start achieving it. Nevertheless it is only a utopia far away from reality. And as always there is not a real or unquestionable truth or solution when it comes to social science.

Here there is a link to this great film!

I invite you to discuss again, let me know if you liked it!

“Zeitgeist”, The movie.

Zeitgeist dvd Cover

I will present you a really controversial movie: “Zeitgeist” (2007) by Peter Joseph. It could be cataloged as a “conspiracy theory movie”.  The movie is quite interesting and states things that you probably never considered. Like a real “Da Vinci code” goes deep into many parts of human history arguing that religion, wars, entertainment, media, and education among others, are just a method of control. That the world as we know it is only is only a distortional image manipulated by a small group of people.

It is really reasonable to think that part of this movie message is totally truth as it is coherent and similar cases has been proved before along human history. By the other hand, the movie also makes many statements without having convincing proves and the usage of quotations without referencing is repetitive, making some of them really questionable.

It is also really interesting to observe that there are a lot of people putting effort in giving this information to the public, and in most of the cases without any clear economical  interest. This movie for example was put inside the internet in a free way with the only aim of being watched.

It also impressive how people along history saying similar things where always killed or silenced. Now a days it is enough just to defame them, treat them as out of mind people, and just ignore them or even laugh about them. Now society itself does the work, when being and thinking in a “normal” way is the only socially accepted way, who is telling us what is normal?

Please watch the movie by yourself this is a really good topic for discussion. Here there is a link to the movie, but you can find it in other sources, probably with subtitles in other languages.

“The Shock Doctrine”

Book cover

I would like to recomend you a book from Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

The Shock Doctrine is the unofficial history of the free market. From Chile to Russia, from South Africa to Canada the introduction of free market responds to a program of social and economic engineering that Naomi Klein identifies as “disaster capitalism.”

After a four-year investigation, Klein explores the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically, and that unfettered capitalism goes hand to hand with democracy. By contrast, Klein argues that capitalism constantly uses violence, shock, and reveals the puppet strings that move the most critical  events of the past four decades.

Klein shows that capitalism constantly uses violence and terror against the individual and society. Far from being the path to freedom, takes advantage of the crisis to introduce unpopular economic shock measures, often accompanied by other forms of shock not so metaphorical: the coup of the PRRA of police, torture with electric prods or in the prison cells.

In this exciting story, Klein looks at recent world history to give voice to a single protagonist : the decimated civilian populations under the ruthless greed of the new owners of the world, the industrial conglomerate, commerce and government for those disasters, wars and insecurity of the citizen are the fuel for the “shock economy”.

Here is  the official promotional video about her book.

Colombia & Venezuela possible WAR ?

Sooner or later, as he had been told by many voices on the continent, the assignment from Colombia to U.S. military bases has resulted in an escalation of military tensions in South America.

While the government headed by Álvaro Uribe Vélez announced the deployment of seven brigades (over a thousand troops) on its border with Venezuela, the president of this country, Hugo Chávez, denounced by Washington military spy flights over Venezuelan territory by aircraft unmanned airfield departing Colombians, and announced that his country is preparing to defend against a possible armed aggression launched from the neighboring country.

Threat to Venezuela in 2010 will come from Colombia, ‘the Israel of South America’, says Chavez

Hugo Chávez, President of the Republic of Venezuela called on his countrymen to prepare themselves to defend their sovereignty at all costs.

The President of Venezuela expressed in ‘lineas de Chavez’ that “the agents of international reaction are preparing the script to reverse the process of emancipation that our America lives.”

He explained that one of the most important factors in that script will be the permanent presence of U.S. troops in Colombia.

“See the fledgling imperial threat against Venezuela from Colombia: Colombia the brother country,  turned into the Israel of South America,” Chavez said in his letter.

“Sicko”

This time I will recommend you another Michael Moore movie: “Sicko”. Now Michael Moore criticizes the health system in the United States. By Using 50 different stories he points the weaknesses of the private health system from the U.S.A.

The problem with health care is the lack of morality rather than if it is private or not. It is amazing how people can adversely affect others to earn some money. There is a parallelism between this movie and his new movie “Capitalism: a Love Story”. It is always the case that the greed of some people affects the majority.

Here you can watch the movie online and other interesting documentaries. Have fun.

“Capitalsims: a love story”

This time Michael Moore bring us “Capitalism: a Love Story”. The film might be a bit radical, and probably needs more cohesion among the different arguments, but it gives hope. It calls for a revolution in order to have a more social and “moral” system by taking in concern general people wellness; as it should be in a real democracy. For people willing for a change, it shows cases of how there are some people working for it, and that there had been already some wins in this fight.

Perhaps not so entertaining as his other movies, but probably being capable of a mayor impact. I strongly recommend you to watch it. You will probably end with a nice feeling, realising that it could be possible to make a difference. Here there are several links to the movie, but you can also watch it at cinemas right now.

After watching the movie; do you think is there going to be a change soon? or are we far away from it?. Remember that “revolutions” have already taken place in history, and that despite all the control of the system they did happened.