#but like. when reading the reboot so much of its criticism of the government falls flat

[dabruzzy]

I may not like the Threeboot but I do appreciate that there's one version of the Legion that isn't government-sponsored

[deltastorm101]

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst - A (critical) love letter.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of “a review I thought I could never write because I’m way too emotionally attached to this game which I know insanely, almost creepily well”, mixed with a healthy dose of “I should do everything but write this review because I want to finish school at some point but I have to use the surge of inspiration while it lasts”!

Today we will be talking about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which was released 2016 as a prequel-ly reboot (saying it like this because for the longest time I’ve thought it to be a prequel but turns out it’s a lot more like a reboot... my bad) to the first Mirror’s Edge from 2008 (which, by the way, still looks fantastic today considering its release year). I will occasionally throw in references and aspects from the first game as well, but this will primarily be about Catalyst.

Time for game 👏 review 👏!

And as always - warning: spoilers. I’ll try to keep the really huge ones out of this or at least mark them well, but going off and playing for yourself first is recommended.

To start this off, I want to say that I initially loved the first Mirror’s Edge - however, only after playing Catalyst, I realized how bad the controls and bugs in it actually were, which is another way of saying Catalyst is a miracle when it comes to naturally flowing controls and crisp and polished looking environments. The city it takes place in, “Glass”, is breathtakingly gorgeous, period. Shiny, clean, it is just on point and one of the biggest reasons I consider it to be my favourite game from the day I first played it, hands down. Not even one of the new Tomb Raider games or one of my childhood-reminiscent games were able to top it and that means something.

The game takes place in an open world map complex under a totalitarian government, drawing parallels to George Orwell’s “1984” – big brother is watching you, all that. A dystopian world if I’ve ever seen one. The open world aspect is one of the best decisions the developers could have made; I have no words to describe how beautiful the different city districts are, and being able to run in freeroam through the city of Glass like parkour runners are meant to feels so much better than being trapped in closed-off levels like it was the case in the first game.

When I first wrote down some key aspects for this review while I was playing it once more, I noted that apparently, you only truly understand the game’s backstory and the protagonists’ origins if you’ve bought and read the comic, Mirror’s Edge Exordium, and that I think it’s not that important because you can well understand what’s going on at the beginning without it – the game starts with Faith, the main protagonist, getting out of jail/a sort of juvenile detention, making her way back into her old circle of friends and family and, of course, old unresolved and new unconsidered problems and conflicts. The comic basically explains what has been messed up by who to make her end up in juvie in the first place and, as I said, it’s not really necessary to know. But, after having bought it now after literal years of consideration, I can say that it’s definitely very nice to know, and totally worth it. There are a lot of elements from the game carefully and lovingly worked into the comic and vice versa (I don’t know what was written first, comic or game, but they fit together very nicely), and just having more reasons, more answers, a larger overview and even partly some explanations for the first game feels... right.

The voice acting is good overall – not strikingly awesome but definitely up there, especially during emotional cutscenes. Sometimes the controls are a bit wonky and Faith might not immediately do what your fingers tell her to but that could definitely be on me - in games where fast reaction is important, quick time events can go wrong occasionally, nothing new. There are some passages you could consider a QTE but they’re being displayed early enough for you to be able to mentally prepare for them as far as I see it. And in my book, that’s a massive improvement from the first game, where you were able to press a button perfectly in time even while having reaction time (= a temporary slow mode) activated, and still watch Faith gracefully fall down the side of the building while flailing her arms in fear because she didn’t grab onto that perfectly grabbable practical white ledge. Why, you ask? I don’t know, ask Faith. Oh, you can’t, obviously made clear by the nasty sound of her hitting the road and her neck being snapped apart. Seriously, I cringed to the moon and back when I first heard that ugly sound. Which is another thing they improved in Catalyst; now all you hear is her quick, raspy, fear-filled breaths and a blissful silence paired with a white death screen after you’ve hit a death barrier. Not the ground, a death barrier. There’s a shitload of them. Which is a pity regarding the fact that a whole lot more out-of-bounds areas would be reachable and playable if there weren’t. Honestly, I find it kind of disappointing that there’s this many invisible walls, fall-through grounds and death barriers. I can see why, conserving computing resources to avoid loading screens, blah blah, but still... let me go off the map, dammit. The game is about a group of people living “off the grid”, why can’t the player actually do that? Hm? Hmmm?

Another aspect tying into this is the social playing mechanic(s), which I found interesting but indeed totally unnecessary. We all know leaderboards of races and stuff, which were incorporated here as setting the best time in short, timed courses (“dashes”), which naturally have been hacked and cheated into ridiculousness. No, RunnerMaster69, I do not believe you ran that dash in three seconds and 420 nanoseconds, I just don’t. Upon completing a dash, you leave an ‘echo’, so basically a ghost other players can compare themselves to, and for you to see which route another player took. Nothing too groundbreaking on that front. There’s a way of tagging locations you’ve been to: so-called Beat Link Emitters (Beat L.E.s) are like little chips shining red in the world you can put down wherever you’re able to stand safely and have them appear in other people’s games to touch, which is a nice way of incorporating a way of saying “Hey, look where I was able to climb!” (And yes, I have abused this system; there’s a glitch making it possible for Faith to float down high buildings onto lower ones, which aren’t death-barriered but not reachable on a normal way. You bet I was a floating gurl putting down Beat L.E.s whereeeeever I could. So much fun. Sorry.)

The same goes for hackable billboards, which can also appear in your friends’ games, but they could have been designed a lot more interestingly. If you hack a billboard, your runner tag appears on it, which consists of a visual symbol, a frame around it, and a background. You can customize the tag in a companion app, which again I didn’t really find necessary. But it is pretty self-explanatory and a nice gimmick if you’re into that kinda stuff.

Maybe an irrelevant aspect: Faith is wearing the same outfit (almost) throughout the whole game. Only at the beginning while getting to the runners’ lair she’s wearing something different and I see missed potential there: let the player run in these clothes, or in the prison clothes, or in the clothes from Mirror’s Edge 1, or in some of the fancy clothes Glass’ high society is wearing, or generally different runner’s attire which still stays true to the style, or Black November garb... endless opportunities, missed. Not at all crucial, but in my opinion maybe better than some different-looking billboard...

Coming back to the (back-)story aspect once more; as with all of today’s big triple-A games, there’s a looooot of documents and recordings to find, to give the player a loooot of backstory, which I found terribly overdone. It always felt like there was too much to collect and too few actual story told; not to mention some story bits not being in either of the games or their collectables, but in a separately sold comic, well done EA, well done.

Additionally, a lot of the documents were about literal history of the state called Cascadia and the ‘conglomerate’ and Omnistat and the November Riots (don’t worry if you have no idea what these words mean, I don’t either...) and regarding the fact that I finished taking history in school with a D ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... you can imagine I wasn’t that interested in the actual history elements. Give me story anytime, but get the hi- prefix outta here please.

Another thing that I just very recently discovered: Some of the performed parkour movements are inaccurate. Thanks to my new interest of binging parkour tutorial videos I’ve seen actual mistakes in movement (in both games), which I can understand sometimes because some of them have been implemented on purpose and for a reason. For example: A parkour safety roll is performed sideways, with one of your shoulders hitting the floor first and the impact being absorbed and reduced by your whole back rolling over the ground in a diagonal line, ending in one of your feet carrying over the fall’s momentum for you to be able to stand up and run right along, probably even faster than before the drop. In the first game, this was handled straight up terribly; not only did Faith not roll diagonally but straight on her spine, which fuckin hurts if you perform it after you took a fall and is dangerous as all hell, but all her momentum got lost as well - it didn’t make any difference if you took a hard fall, the screen flashed red and you had to build new momentum, or if it was a soft fall with a nice (hurting and dangerous) roll, her stopping dead in her tracks like “Oh wow, did you see that, I made a roll” and then continuing to build new momentum because it all got lost. BUT since this is about Catalyst: Faith is still performing a straight spine-hurting-dangerous-as-all-hell-roll, but at least she keeps her momentum when she does it. Regarding to what I said at the beginning of this semi-rant-paragraph because I’ve “studied” (emphasis on the quotation marks) parkour theory so much at this point, yet am not able to actually perform any moves because I don’t have the strength, stamina or willpower to- Uh, where was I...? Ah, yeah, the reason for the incorrectly performed roll. It’s obvious when you think about it: motion sickness, a gamer’s best friend when it comes to first-person perspective. If Faith was performing a correct roll, it would turn and shake the camera around too much, which could potentially make the player motion sick over time. Period. Look up some first-person safety roll footage on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean. So, there’s a reason, and we should be thankful the roll is a straight gymnastics roll. Sorry Faith, looks like your spine and neck have to suffer a little longer. However, I can and will not understand why they have Celeste, a character from the first game, climb up ledges with her knees and elbows. No. NO. Feet first. If you can’t do feet first, then do one foot first and then pull up the rest. If you can’t do that, train more and don’t call yourself a runner yet, doing this for a living on top of I-dunno-how-high-rooftops.

My feelings are kind of ambivalent on the no-guns mechanics - all you can defend yourself with is your fists (and legs and momentum, of course), while in the first game, you could snatch people’s guns and start some weaponized combat. I liked both of these strategies, not really caring when they announced Faith not being able to do shootieshootie-pewpew this time around.

One thing I liked a lot considering the open world aspect is that if you die, you respawn exactly where you last stood on safe ground before dying (except in missions, of course). It makes freeroaming very comfortable because you don’t have to worry about respawn- and checkpoints; you can just try again when you messed up a jump.

They also changed the beacon- and navigation system (“runner’s vision”) a bit too, which was also definitely necessary for the open world (which they’ve praised as a lot less linear, but honestly? It isn’t really. I knew my way around in Glass pretty well after a mere month of playing), but they did include options for how much you want the game to help you. There’s normal runner’s vision, with a red streak appearing every few seconds, showing you exactly where to run; there’s classic runner’s vision, made to be like in the first game, with environmental beacons and indicators being coloured in red when coming close to them and without the red streak; and of course, you can switch it off completely, which I occasionally like to do to test how well I really know my way around in Glass.

The soundtrack is outstanding. Straight up phenomenal. It can empower and hype you up, but can also be relaxing during a relaxing sightseeing trip through Glass. And it’s also great to leave on as background music while studying (I’m making use of that when preparing for graduation exams), or driving.

There is dynamic day- and night time - I liked that a lot, it’s a good way of showing off the lighting at all sorts of times. Only problem I had: a night sky is supposed to be black, not royal blue.

Note: almost all the “problems” I’ve listed here have been made mods for (e.g. more exciting looking billboards, more outfits, a changeable day-night cycle and a black night sky). If I had enough experience with (and patience for) modding, I’d definitely try it myself but the ‘flaws’ aren’t grave enough for me to feel a desire to manipulate and tweak some game files.

Okay, time for a spoiler. Not a bad one, but one that could give you ideas if you know how Mirror’s Edge rolls, or if you’ve played the first game... which is basically a spoiler in itself too. Ahem, anyway.

Towards the end of the game, when I was profoundly convinced of it being one of my all-time favourites, I was like “Yes, finally a game that improves and learns from past mistakes and listens to their players and what they want”... and then came Noah. I bawled my eyes out and I will be forever angry at the devs for doing this. That’s all I’m saying.

That ultimately didn’t stop me from loving the game though. From an objective standpoint I’d say it’s an overall good prequel/reboot/requel/preboot. Faith’s universe became a bit more mainstream but also a lot more polished and they definitely listened to their fans to some degree. From the very subjective standpoint I have written this review from, I’m saying that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst holds a very special place in my heart and I am truly glad it saw the light of day, after everyone waiting 8 years for it to be released after the first game. (I didn’t wait quite that long; I got Mirror’s Edge 1 in January 2016 and was completely and utterly hooked and hyped for Catalyst in May 2016.)

And that concludes it. If you’ve read this far – thank you. I’m aware that this is a bit different from my other reviews tone-wise - I have put every ounce of sass I possess into this because I... felt like it :D I hope it was fun to read!

[googlenewson]

The Federal Reserve, normally a staid institution, became a viral meme this March after it printed $2.3 trillion to help the COVID-battered economy. The meme, known as “Money Printer go Brrr” or simply “Fed go Brrr,” shows central bankers cranking out an infinite supply of dollars and even has a dedicated website.

The meme has resonated with the many people who wonder just much money it is viable for the Fed to print. But it has gained special resonance with one sub-culture in particular: longtime Bitcoin believers who see the Fed’s latest intervention as further proof that monetary policy has spun out of control.

Among them is Erik Voorhees, a Denver-based cryptocurrency entrepreneur who has advocated for Bitcoin for nearly a decade.

“I approach it from the basic economic concept that printing money doesn’t create wealth. Printing money is an illusion of wealth,” says Voorhees. “In 10 or 20 years, this won’t be viewed favorably. It will be viewed as mass hysteria.”

Voorhees, a staunch libertarian who keeps his wealth in “crypto, gold and real estate,” is especially wary of sovereign debt, which he claims has piled up in quantities far beyond governments’ ability to honor it. And while he concedes the Fed’s intervention in financial markets in 2008 helped stave off a crisis, Voorhess believes the central bank made a critical error in failing to unwind its balance sheet once the crisis had past. The government, in his view, has simply printed too much money—and that “Fed go brrr,” is not just funny, but dangerous.

Governments printing too much money raises the specter of the 1930s and hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, which produced iconic photos of workers carrying their wages home in wheelbarrows. Those images have mostly faded from popular imagination, but not for Voorhees and other Bitcoin advocates who have long feared today’s finance ministers and central banks could trigger a repeat of that era.

This suspicious of profligate governments is even baked into the code of Bitcoin itself. When the digital currency went live in early 2009, the first block of its transaction record, known as the blockchain, quoted a newspaper headline about the UK government bailing out banks. And this week, another milestone block on the Bitcoin blockchain cited a New York Times‘ story about the Fed’s unprecedented $2.3 trillion cash infusion.

#Bitcoin block 629999 coinbase message contains "NYTimes 09/Apr/2020 With $2.3T Injection, Fed's Plan Far Exceeds 2008 Rescue". "Money printer go brrr" meme is officially immortalized on the blockchain.@_TaxMeIfYouCan_ pic.twitter.com/ngdGnbdmpG

— Jan Neduchal (@neduchaljan) May 11, 2020

Jesse Powell, the CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is another skeptic of U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. He believes that government’s recent cash infusions only strengthens the case for Bitcoin, which—unlike the Fed’s money printer—has a finite supply.

“I think it is validating for Bitcoin,” said Powell. “Seeing the government print trillions of dollars and maybe needing to print trillions more ought to be disconcerting people.”

Powell adds, however, that the U.S. doesn’t face imminent risk of hyperinflation, in part because the greenback is used in so many parts of the world. But he believes the value of U.S. dollars is eroding and that this trend will accelerate due to the inability of most Americans to save.

Both Powell and Voorhees, along with the vocal chorus of acolytes known as “crypto Twitter,” see Bitcoin as a store of value that can’t be debased. Their evangelism has only increased in the last month as the cryptocurrency has posted better year-to-date results than gold.

There is a sense of smug prescience among many in the cryptocurrency community, and not only because of the Fed’s response to the COVID crisis. Several leading crypto figures sounded early alarms on social media about the pandemic itself—leading the New York Times to describe them, and other Silicon Valley prepper types, as “vindicated.”

Meanwhile, crypto exchanges like Kraken and Coinbase, buoyed by a surge in trading revenue, are in the enviable position of going on a hiring spree even as much of the economy reels.

“We hired another 100 people in the last three weeks, many of them household members of existing staff. Priority went to those affected by COVID,” said Powell.

But while Bitcoin believers may be thriving, it’s unclear if their libertarian-centered worldview can rescue the U.S. economy, or offer solutions for the millions of Americans struggling to obtain food and medicine during the crisis. The federal government may fall short in many respects but the reality, for most people and businesses, is that it’s the only institution big enough to address the problems of the pandemic.

Voorhees, however, is adamant that he and other private citizens can provide more help than the government. He says he is using his wealth to help food and medical charities in Denver—an approach he believes is more efficient than giving tax dollars to people in Washington, DC to distribute. Meanwhile, he feels Bitcoin will only grow stronger.

“The Federal Reserve is our best marketing brochure. The printing of dollars is good for Bitcoin over the long term, but not something I want to cheer for as it’ll cause so much misery .”

More must-read finance coverage from Fortune:

—Saving lives vs. saving the economy is a false tradeoff, economists say —ExxonMobil’s CEO is banking on a return to normal, but most others aren’t so sure —Cybercriminals adapt to coronavirus faster than the A.I. cops hunting them —How cannabis purveyors are coping during the pandemic —Inside the chaotic rollout of the SBA’s PPP loan plan —Listen to Leadership Next, a Fortune podcast examining the evolving role of CEO —WATCH: Why the banks were ready for the financial impact of coronavirus Subscribe to How To Reopen, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on what it takes to reboot business in the midst of a pandemic

from Fortune https://ift.tt/2WOIbHH

[unicron-x]

[yourandyourbs] explains how economics have changed in the last 80 years, how economic objectives are the key (employment vs inflation targets), and why traditional orthodoxy will fail us all in modern world.

Now, I have to tell you Kennedy isn’t making these rules up. They did become orthodoxy in advanced-economy treasuries in the 1980s. They’re the reason John Kerin’s budget of 1991, delivered in the depths of "the recession we [didn’t] have to have" contained zero stimulus, meaning the stimulus, when it came in February 1992, came too late.

This view isn't wide enough and lacks all the details. The worlds entire global economy software was changed, not just ours, under the guidance of Milton Friedman.

1945-1980 - Computer software No.2:

After WW2, the world's economy would be restored with the USD. The policy target would be full employment as this was believed to stop the rise of fascists again (they need to look at this again). We had homogenous national economies, we all produced most of the same stuff, fridges, cars etc... There was restricted financial markets. Growth would be lead by wage growth, high taxes and transfers would be the government's steering mechanism for the economy, and the government kept much of the commanding heights of industry under democratic/national capital control - Telecom, Qantas etc - again a steering mechanism to make sure this form of capitalism worked. No one gave a shit who ran the central bank and no one knew their name.

A lot of this came from the ideas of economist John Maynard Keynes, and his ideas are credited for getting the world out of the great depression when the Friedmanite types wanted to do nothing (let the market fix itself, it's magic!)

I've posted this quote from Keynes' book - The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money - here before, but I'll do it again, as it's a good summarisation of the key concept behind the 1945-1980 era.

"If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing."

As opposed to Milton Friedman's right wing capitalist fairy tale of the market will fix itself.

There is a bug in this post WW2 software, as is with all forms of capitalism (why people like Marx thought capitalism was always in a crisis), which led to the stagflation crisis - which led to the global software reboot. We are led to believe that creating money creates inflation. While this can be true in certain circumstances and if it is abused too far, it's not the key driver. During this post WW2 era, full employment and strong labour led to high wage growth. For capitalists to keep paying workers more and to see their ROI's, they needed advancements in productivity and they had to raise prices. Eventually, the bug hit and inflation rose so high they didn't want to invest - so they withheld their capital, a capital strike.

The stagflation crisis. During this post WW2 era, it was a debtors paradise. You'd borrow money for houses and whatever, and because of the inflation, it was easy to pay the money back. Boomers had banks eat half their mortgages in inflation. The problem arose when it went so high that capital didn't want to invest. Inflation can be a good thing, right now, we're in a private debt hole and inflation would help us get out of it. Inflation too low is as bad as too high. Today, it is too low. Money creation is not raising inflation, not even when many trillions were dumped into the global economy after 2008 - Milton Friedman and his laissez-faire hacks were wrong. Full employment and strong labour drove inflation, not money creation.

We see an immense amount of money creation today both through governments and through the financial system, and inflation is extremely low. I remember watching all the laissez-faire hacks screaming after the 2008 crisis that QE would bring hyper-inflation (and they urged you to buy their gold)... It of course never happened. Inflation didn't budge.

While something had to be done to fix the stagflation crisis, capital took advantage of the crisis and swung everything too far in their favour. We just needed to bring down inflation partially, not all the way. There's a few mechanisms for this and we didn't need to destroy labour in the process.

So we get to 1980-2008, computer software No.3:

The policy target changes from full employment to price stability. The value of capital is to be "restored". The mechanism is maximum global integration and deregulated financial markets. The price of money shoots through the roof to slow inflation. The welfare state is to be wound back. Labour markets would become "flexible". Growth would now be led by profits, not wage growth (any wonder why wages are going flat). The steering mechanism of democracy and national capital would be ended and this would be handed over to private capital. Suddenly, everyone knows who runs the central banks - because the price of money becomes so important.

There would be low taxes and low transfers (the redistribution). Inflation is brought to extremely low levels. Because wage growth no longer drove growth, it's now dependent on a credit bubble - and thus the bug of this Milton Friedman/neoliberal software hits. People can only borrow so much money, especially when their wages aren't rising and the low inflation isn't eating any of the debt. The extremely low inflation is a creditors paradise - until the debts can't be paid back. The whole thing blows up in 2008 and we're in a kind of limbo, transition phase.

It's near dead, but the capitalist class have put the system onto life support by dumping massive amounts of money into the world's economies (money that goes mostly to the top) while telling the plebs they need to live within their means.

This should all sound really familiar to people across the world. It wasn't something that was just done in Australia. For some reason, we're in a global economy and people still view the system through a national lens. Australia doesn't matter much to capitalist power, and we're just along for the ride. Just as in the past, we'll change our software when capitalist power changes theirs. We seem to be unable to deal with it democratically and nationally, with a neoliberal media filling heads with bad ideas.

From a capitalist perspective (I don't even consider myself a capitalist, I think the world has to do better for many reasons - especially environmental sustainability), we need to bring back some of the 1945-1980 software. We see fascism rising across the world today, and full employment is what deals with that, just as it did in the past. We need higher inflation and wage growth, just not too high. The problem is capitalism is near impossible, perhaps impossible to manage well. It always falls into a pile of shit. Albert Einstein did not call capitalism "economic anarchy" for no reason.

In a globalised world, it won't be possible to go back to completely homogenous national economies, but we can partially do this. The key is the policy target. Full employment and wage growth over price stability and profit growth. There is also another key. Stop listening to the cheerleaders of free-markets. They believe in 18th-century fairy tales about what capitalism is and what it can achieve. They are ideological and frankly, religious about markets. Their economic models have numbers that stack up on paper, but they don't reflect the reality of capitalism. They've never been taught anything critical about capitalism.

Professor Richard Wolff is an economist who has degrees from Harvard, Stanford and Yale, and he says it clearly - I was never taught anything critical about capitalism, just a big song and dance about how perfect it is. If you want to understand the flaws of capitalism, you need to hear its critics, not its cheerleaders. Some capitalists are rational... Business Insider recommends their viewership to read Karl Marx - so they can better understand the flaws of this system. They don't play a childish propaganda game that Marx was Satan himself.

I am by no means a Paul Krugman fan. Krugman's idiocy (and most of the economist class) is what led us down this hole. But I'll give him this. Eventually, he saw that his globalised, neoliberal capitalist fairy tales from the 90's were wrong.

“Economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth.” - Paul Krugman.

[thisdaynews]

Stalled Sanders campaign orchestrated reboot after first debate

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/stalled-sanders-campaign-orchestrated-reboot-after-first-debate/

Stalled Sanders campaign orchestrated reboot after first debate

Bernie Sanders said he sees Medicare for All as the “defining issue” of the 2020 campaign. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

2020 elections

The senator is betting that a renewed focus on his signature proposal — Medicare for All — is the key to jump-starting his candidacy and overtaking Joe Biden.

DES MOINES — A little over a month ago, despite putting on a brave face publicly, Bernie Sanders’ aides privately concluded that a shakeup was needed for his presidential campaign.

The Vermont senator had neglected to practice in mock sessions before the first 2020 debate, and failed to aggressively take on former Vice President Joe Biden on stage. On the trail, he was sticking to the old hits: His stump speech sounded remarkably similar to the one he delivered in his first presidential bid, and he gave a major address touting democratic socialism that mirrored his talk on the same subject in 2015. Even some of his diehard supporters wondered how he would distinguish himself in a crowded field of candidates, especially when many claimed to embrace his left-wing ideals.

Story Continued Below

Now, Sanders and his team have settled on a new strategy designed to make him stand out in the massive field: They’re betting that a renewed focus on his signature proposal of Medicare for All is the key to jump-starting his candidacy and overtaking Biden as the race ramps up this fall.

Sanders has raised more money and has more donors than any other candidate in the Democratic primary — upwards of $36 million from over 850,000 people. But as support in some national and early-state polling stalled or gradually eroded after Biden jumped in the race, it became clear that what worked in 2016 in a one-on-one primary against a moderate wouldn’t necessarily succeed in a multi-candidate race with more than one progressive.

Over the past several weeks, his staffers have organized a flurry of events centered around the failures of the current health care system and highlighting his role as the author of the main Medicare for All proposal in the Senate. His aides also brainstormed before the second debate to establish a game plan to put Medicare for All at the center of the showdown.

Sanders told POLITICO he is now talking about Medicare for All more than ever before and that he sees it as the “defining issue” of the 2020 campaign.

“It could be the winning issue for me in the primary, it will be the winning issue for me in the general election,” he said. “I’m campaigning on the legislation that I wrote. As you know, I wrote the damn bill,” he added, referencing his quip from the second debate that went viral.

Campaign staffers argue the new tack is working, pointing out that Sanders received the biggest polling bump (1.8 percent) of any candidate after the second debate, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight. That was especially encouraging given that health care dominated much of the conversation.

But the focus on Medicare for All does come with risks. Some recent polls show that a public option — essentially an ability to buy into Medicare, which Biden supports — is more popular than the sweeping single-payer proposal that Sanders backs. Several 2020 rivals have also argued that any candidate who supports Medicare for All is unelectable given the disruption it would cause for people who like their private insurance.

But the Sanders campaign believes they are seizing on his natural strength. Primary voters already see Sanders as the strongest Democratic candidate on health care, usually followed by Biden and Elizabeth Warren, according to recent polls by Morning Consult, Reuters-Ipsos, Washington Post-ABC News and CNN.

“Health care is the No. 1 issue with voters, especially Democratic primary voters, and Bernie is the most trusted candidate on health care,” Sanders’ pollster, Ben Tulchin, said in an interview. “So it became increasingly clear over the last few months, as the campaign talked more and more about it, that health care was a real strength and opportunity for us to focus on. And as a result of doing that, we’ve gained in the polling.”

Nina Turner, a co-chair on the Sanders campaign, said his team was by no means ignoring Medicare for All earlier in the primary. “But it’s his signature issue and he needs to go all in on that, and the polling shows that,” she said

The strategy has begun to take form over the past several weeks. Sanders has rallied with protestors in Philadelphia over a hospital closure, given a high-profile speech about Medicare for All in Washington, D.C., and traveled across the border into Canada with two buses full of reporters and diabetic patients looking to buy lower-cost prescription drugs.

“To be honest, I wasn’t taking notice of Bernie Sanders before,” said Rachael Lockwood, a Michigan-based mother of three diabetic children who rode with Sanders to Canada but hasn’t decided yet who she is voting for in the Democratic primary. “I’m definitely paying attention now.”

The Sanders campaign is also considering doing additional Medicare for All events, such as health care-focused town halls in the early states. “I wrote the damn bill” — his rejoinder at the second debate to criticism of Medicare for All — has become a campaign rallying cry, fit with printed stickers.

Beyond playing to the candidate’s sweet spot, Sanders’ team believes that Medicare for All provides a sharp contrast in a large field — and is an issue he knows inside and out — at a time when several surveys show health care is a top concern among voters. Though he has pushed for Medicare for All for decades, his aides think it is critical to remind voters of that fact — and that they can use his health care-related campaign events to shape media coverage of the race.

Advisers also say the new focus especially allows Sanders to distinguish himself from Biden, who is opposed to Medicare for All, and could eat into Biden’s support. Despite coming from opposite wings of the Democratic Party, polling shows there is significant demographic overlap between Biden and Sanders backers, particularly among white voters without a college degree. Biden’s voters often list Sanders as their second choice.

“The health care discussion allows us to highlight a number of differences between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden,” said Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to Sanders. “Obviously health care, but it’s also a willingness to take on special interests and a willingness to act decisively to lower prescription drug prices by half, and speaks to broader themes of whose side people are on.”

The new strategy was put to use in the second debate late last month. The campaign’s plan was to use John Delaney and John Hickenlooper as anti-Medicare for All foils. They served as stand-ins for Biden, too. And by making his health care-focused trips to Canada and Philadelphia before the second debate, as well as battling with Biden over Medicare for All, Sanders’ aides believe they made it more likely that moderators would focus on the issue.

They were aided by Kamala Harris, who released her own health care plan shortly before the event. Harris’ campaign claimed that its proposal also constituted Medicare for All, and the Sanders campaign pounced, with campaign manager Faiz Shakir emailing supporters that “[h]er plan is centered around privatizing Medicare, enriching insurance executives and introducing more corporate greed and profiteering into the Medicare system.”

Harris’ proposal lets private insurers compete with the government-run system and takes 10 years to implement, whereas Sanders proposal essentially replaces private insurance with Medicare in four years.

“You can call something anything you want, but the bill that I wrote is guaranteeing health care to all people,” Sanders said. “It is eliminating all premiums, deductibles, co-payments, out-of-pocket expenses. It is allowing people to walk into any hospital or doctor’s office they want.”

Along with moderates who argue that Sanders’ embrace of Medicare for All makes him unelectable, some on the left are also skeptical about his new strategy. A delegate for Sanders in 2016, who asked to remain anonymous, questioned if the renewed focus on health care would actually help him contrast himself against anyone other than Biden. Warren, in particular, has said she’s “with Bernie” on Medicare for All. And Harris continues to characterize her plan as Medicare for All despite the Sanders’ teams protestations.

“If everybody’s using the same rhetoric, do people actually dive down into the weeds to understand the difference?” asked the former delegate. “If everyone is saying these insurance companies are ripping you off and we’re going to have universal coverage for everyone, and the theory is that what people are looking for is someone to defeat Donald Trump, I’m not sure the distinction is that easy on health care.”

But Sanders’ team is confident that voters will recognize the difference between him and his opponents.

“Look, there are enormous issues out there,” Sanders said in the interview. “[B]ut I think that the defining issue of this moment in America is whether or not we have the courage to take on the health care industry, which made $100 billion in profits last year, and move toward a Medicare for All, single-payer program, which will provide health care for all without deductibles, without co-payments, without out-of-pocket expenses, without premiums.”

Read More

[coopdigitalnewsletter]

14 Sep 2018: Apple Watch over you, Amazon the procurement channel, BA hack, fewer cars

Hello, this is the Co-op Digital newsletter - it looks at what's happening in the internet/digital world and how it's relevant to the Co-op, to retail businesses, and most importantly to people, communities and society. Thank you for reading and please do send ideas, questions, corrections etc to @rod on Twitter. If you have enjoyed reading please consider telling a friend about it!

[Image: Expert Reviews]

Apple will Watch over you

A lot of grandparents are going to get Apple watches in the gifting season.

Apple launched a new watch that can take an electrocardiogram and monitor irregular heartbeats, and detects falls and slips, alerting friends or emergency services. (This is interesting on the detail of FDA signoff for medical devices. Apple’s is not the first device to be approved.) They also introduced some new mobile phones that are notable for being much more adept at machine learning because they have custom chips running locally on the mobile. And a strategy to make products last longer, which is interesting because consumer electronics companies usually need _rapid_ product replacement rates. Apple is betting that sustainability will become a product differentiator, providing a reason to buy and lock in customer loyalty.

Looking at Apple’s results in recent years, mobile phones have surprised critics by _not_ yet running out of room to keep improving. You might conclude that Apple will keep improving them and doing well until the moment that Something New comes along that renders mobiles a bit pointless. A wearable perhaps, or more likely glasses that bring the digital world into your field of vision. And after that, maybe some kind of digital pâté that can replace half of your brain.

Last week newsletterbot wrote about crossing moats. In truth, usually it’s more that the moat becomes irrelevant. (For instance, in the case of Amazon you’d either try cross their logistics-and-customers moat by out logistics-ing them - which UPS may try - or you’d come up with something new and brilliant that makes Amazon’s warehouses and delivery capability suddenly look a bit meh, turning Amazon’s strength into a weakness.)

Apple’s moat isn’t the mobile phones though. It’s the integrated hardware and software (which makes those custom ML chips possible), the design competence and the aspirational brand value.

Related: designing end-of-life for devices.

Amazon the procurement channel

Is there any Amazon news this week? Yes, every week.

Amazon Business sells to half of Britain’s large listed companies and is now a $10bn business globally. Interestingly it characterises itself to vendors as a convenient procurement channel - a way into the big customers that might not otherwise be available to smaller vendors.

Amazon is increasing the number of adverts on its search pages. Amazon figures that customers don’t yet know exactly _which_ book they’ll buy about how to do effective newslettering but they _do_ know that, whichever it is, it’ll be bought on Amazon. So it might as well monetise the product discovery side as well as the product retail bit.

85% of insured Amazon Prime members are open to buying medicines on the site, says a bank.

BA hack

British Airways got hacked, payments details of 380,000 customers were taken. The culprit was third-party Javascript that acted like a digital equivalent of an ATM credit card skimmer, grabbing card details and sending them to another server. Banks are reissuing cards and looking for compensation.

Fewer cars and no car ownership

Lyft Design: “Our mission is to improve people’s lives through the world’s best transportation. [...] Getting more people into fewer cars is a means to this end. And it’s no easy feat. Our greatest competition is the status quo of personal car ownership and getting people to change their behavior. To do this, we have to build something far better than the status quo”.

Brexitwatch

UKGov is publishing more What-if-no-deal?! papers. An example: “In recognition of the unprecedented degree of alignment between the UK and EU’s data protection regimes, the UK would at the point of exit continue to allow the free flow of personal data from the UK to the EU”, once the EU decides that UK’s personal data safeguard are adequate.

Mondelez (Cadbury owner) is stockpiling biscuits and hopefully several zillion glass-and-a-half of milks because Brexit. The Bank of England Governor warns that a “no deal” Brexit could make the housing market fall over.

New books that look interesting

Hillary Cottam, Radical Help: How we can remake the relationships between us and revolutionise the welfare state. Jason Stockwood, Reboot: A Blueprint for Happy, Human Business in the Digital Age. Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons.

Other things

Ten years ago, the 2008 financial crisis was starting with Lehman Brothers’ collapse.

From a piece about expensive stealth bombers: “the rest of the bombs had to be programmed in flight based on the latest information coming from the drones [. It] began to flow to the airplanes two hours shy of their reaching the Mediterranean. The programming-and-confirmation process took hours. Scatter told me, “It’s not like Steve Jobs designed the interface.” It is good when technology is usable. But also bad if it were as easy to drop a bomb as like a social media post.

A London team is converting existing cars to run on electricity.

Mass surveillance: the European Court of Human Rights ruled that bulk interception of internet communication by governments “is by definition untargeted” and that safeguards were not sufficiently robust. Questions as to whether this ruling will affect the lawfulness of the IP Act.

What’s happening with platform co-ops? - notes from a conference.

Crypto’s 80% plunge is now worse than the dot-com crash. If you’re a glass-half-full person and you think you can see real-world value being realised by your crypto of choice, maybe now’s a good time to buy. (Not financial advice!)

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Co-op Digital news

Why FAQs aren’t the answer you’ve been looking for - better to give clear information, once, at the point the user needs it.

Co-op Group interim results for the first half of the year, and the acquisition of a repeat prescription startup.

Events

Delivery community of practice meetup - Mon 17 Sep 1pm at Federation House.

Engineering community of practice meetup - Wed 19 Sep 1pm at Federation House 5th floor.

ProductTank Manchester - Wed 19 Sep.

Line management drop-in clinic - Thu 20 Sep 1pm at Federation House.

Diverse and equal tech conference - 3-4 Oct at Federation House.

Delivery community of practice meetup - Mon 24 Sep 1pm at Federation House.

Engineering community of practice meetup - Mon 24 Sep 1pm at Federation House.

Is a co-op right for you? - several sessions in several towns 11 Sep - 27 Nov.

Funeralcare show & tell - Tue 25 Sep 2pm at Angel Square 12th floor.

Digital all-team - Wed 26 Sep 1pm at Federation House ground floor.

Web team show & tell - Thu 27 Sep 11am at Angel Square 8th floor.

Line management drop-in clinic - Thu 27 Sep 1pm at Federation House.

Heads of practice community of practice meetup - Thu 27 Sep 2pm at Federation House 5th floor.

More events at Federation House. And TechNW has a useful calendar of events happening in the North West.

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Thanks for reading. If you want to find out more about Co-op Digital, follow us @CoopDigital on Twitter and read the Co-op Digital Blog.

[mrmichaelchadler]

Thumbnails Special Edition: Women Writers Week 2018

Women Writers Week has been an outstanding success in every respect. I am so proud of all the amazing female writers who have contributed their voices to our site over the past five days. For this special edition of Thumbnails, I am celebrating all of them, while highlighting a handful of excerpts showcasing their talents. For our official table of contents, click here. You can also find my personal introduction to #WomensWritersWeek here. And please know that each of our contributors write powerful articles and reviews either here, or at their own websites and print media all year long. A hearty thanks to all!—Chaz Ebert

1. 

"It Takes an Army": Carrie Rickey takes a close look at the disparity between male and female directors and the people fighting to correct it. See also: Jennifer Merin's optimistic take on the future for women in the industy; Olivia Collette's reflections on the documentary "Searching for Debra Winger"in light of the #MeToo movement; and Joyce Kulhawik's conversation with legendary burlesque queen Tempest Storm.

“Since 1998, Martha Lauzen, professor at San Diego State University, and head of the Center for Women in Television and Film, has published the annual Celluloid Ceiling report tracking film employment, the ‘Boxed In’ report, that does the same for women’s employment in TV, and ‘It’s a Man’s World,’ tracking representation of women on the big and small screens. In the 1990s, she read newspaper articles about how women were doing better in film and TV. The reports were anecdotal—they were about the unicorns, or exceptions—and had no correlation with what she was seeing on the big and small screens, and in the credits. ‘I started conducting research on an annual basis to accurately document women’s underemployment, and to build industry awareness,’ she wrote in an email. It didn’t occur to her that it would take decades to build momentum and ‘for the demographics of the country to help push it along.’ The Center tracks employment for women in all areas behind the camera, from cinematographer to screenwriter. (Lauzen was the first to provide statistics showing how a woman director boosts the number of women on the set: on films with exclusively male directors, women accounted for only 15% of editors and 5% of cinematographers. On films with female directors, the percentages of women editors rose to 35%, and cinematographers to 26%.)”

2. 

"How to Create Sex Scenes That Women Will Enjoy as Much as Men": An undervalued topic is given a wonderful analysis by Olivia Collette. See also: Violet LeVoit article on the representation of C-sections in American movies; and Kristen Lopez's two excellent articles, "On the Representation of Disabled Women in Cinema" and "Disability Theater Access in 2018."

“When critics focused on Lena Dunham’s body during her sex scenes in ‘Girls,’ they often missed how much women enjoyed watching those scenes. It wasn’t just the comedic awkwardness of some of it; it’s that we were seeing women with developed sexual appetites enjoying sex on their own terms. Marnie runs to the bathroom to masturbate after an artist speaks to her commandingly. Jessa wears her sexuality like armor. And Hannah loves to experiment, even if it garners mixed results. They govern their sex lives, and they have fun doing it. Elsewhere, ‘Basic Instinct’ is a fucked-up film, and though it ultimately equates Catherine’s murderousness with her ravenous bisexuality, it also has the balls to show us a woman who loves sex and is in complete control of the sex she’s having. Not only is it hot to watch, the movie makes it quite clear that sex with Catherine is amazing.”

3.

"'Phantom Thread,' Jane Eyre and the Power Dynamics of the Hetero Romance": An amazing, in-depth exploration of the literary legacy of Paul Thomas Anderson's latest Oscar-winner. See also: Jessica Ritchey's case for how "Night of the Living Dead" destroyed Hammer films; Elena Lazic's impassioned defense of "The Greatest Showman"; and the 30th anniversary of "Working Girl," as commemorated by Christy Lemire, Sheila O'Malley and Susan Wloszczyna. 

“While this resolution has the thrill of the unexpected within the context of the film’s narrative, it also had a ring of familiarity, recalling another great story of a man’s domestication: Jane Eyre. Jane is a small, poor young woman who works for the rich, overpowering Mr. Rochester. They fall in love, though their relationship is an ongoing battle of wills, as strong-willed Jane attempts to remain her own master while Rochester both loves her strength and treats her as something of a possession, expecting the ease and subservience his maleness and wealth and power have always afforded him. Jane leaves Rochester (mad wife in the attic—you know how it is), grows, turns down a proposal from a man who doesn’t love her, and conveniently inherits her own wealth. When she returns to Rochester, she finds him scarred, blind, and short a hand (that mad wife, again!). Rather than harming their relationship, this development—which has calmed him, made him meeker, less certain, more dependent—is the linchpin that finally makes their relationship tenable. Like Alma and Reynolds, it allows them to settle into an ideal and idealized marriage, complete with baby.”

4. 

"Return of 'Roseanne' Marked by Notable Highs and Lows": The popular TV reboot is given a sublime review by Allison Shoemaker. See also: Shoemaker's review of FX's "The Americans"; and Jana Monji's essays on ABC's "The Good Doctor" and Netflix's "Lost in Space".

“If the show has a weakness outside of its off-putting ‘topical’ moments, it’s Barr’s portrayal of the still-compelling central figure. She’s as charismatic as she ever was, with great timing and that terrific laugh, but there’s a hesitancy to her performance, particularly in the first episode, that was rarely, if ever, in evidence the first time around. That’s a quality that does eventually seem to fade—in the second episode, she’s back in fine form—but whether due to nerves, a little rustiness, or some other factor entirely, the spark is somewhat diminished. The same can be said of both Goranson and Fishman, though like Barr, Goranson seems more at ease as the series progresses. And while you couldn’t call the newest Connor kids rusty, the young actors recruited for this go-round lack the relaxed quality that made the young Goranson and Gilbert’s performances so memorable. Still, they all have a quality that’s essential to the show’s DNA: they can layer in the world-weariness, sorrow, or slight touch of bitterness that allow the jokes to land all the harder, because they feel so real. These characters are funny. They find life funny. But the reality isn’t funny at all.”

5. 

"King in the Wilderness": A must-read four-star review penned by Arielle Bernstein. See also: Monica Castllo's review of "Acrimony"; Tomris Laffly's review of "Birthmarked";  Tina Hassannia's review of "The China Hustle"; Susan Wloszczyna's review of "Finding Your Feet"; Jessica Ritchey's review of "First Match"; Justine Smith's review of "Gemini"; Sheila O'Malley's reviews of "God's Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness" and "The Last Movie Star"; Nell Minow's review of "Love After Love"; Allison Shoemaker's review of "Outside In"; and Christy Lemire's review of "Ready Player One".

“‘King in the Wilderness’ is a quiet and understated film, which lingers lovingly on its subject. We see Dr. King’s famous sermons at the pulpit, and also see him sitting quietly with family and friends. Regardless of whether King is performing to a crowd or sharing a private moment with someone dear to him, his gentle and determined spirit permeates every scene. This is true in the actual found footage, as well as moments that capture his friend’s recollections about the kind of man he was. These interviews convey King’s private hopes, as well as fears, frustrations, and doubts. We learn that King had a great sense of humor, worried about his ability to be a good father and husband, and wrestled with his ability to lead under the threat of violence to his own person. At one point, he develops a tic when he speaks, which eventually resolves on its own. When his friend asks about it, he explain ‘I made my peace with death.’”

Image of the Day

Filmmaker Andrew Haigh chats with Tomris Laffly about his acclaimed, beautifully shot new movie, "Lean on Pete."

Video of the Day

The Life of a Woman, Directed by Women from emma piper-burket on Vimeo.

I absolutely love Emma Piper-Burket's new video essay, "The Life of a Woman, Directed by Women," spanning 122 years and containing clips of trailblazing artists on every content.

from All Content https://ift.tt/2IgokZ4

[craigmoore-blog]

THE UNDERLINING FAILURE OF WARNER BROS AND THEIR DC FILM UNIVERSE

Poisonous work environments, an incompetent studio, well-meaning directors, rushed scripts, a rebellious mustache, and the Wonder Woman who nearly saved them all.

Just under five years ago, following the finale to Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, Warner Bros. released their Superman reboot, Man Of Steel. Directed by Zack Snyder with Nolan serving as Executive Producer, Henry Cavill’s modern version of the Big Blue Boy Scout was met with a polarised reception; many praised Snyder’s visual style and the blockbuster action, along with the attempts made to fit Clark Kent in to the paranoid, “all seeing and all knowing” internet age, as well Michael Shannon’s take on Krypton’s genocidal General Zod. Just as many people, however, found these attempts to be dour, plodding and far too clinical - completely missing the warmth and heart that made Christopher Reeves’ Superman so special in the 70s. (For the record, going forward, you should know I am firmly amongst the former, despite not being a big fan of it when it came out. It has grown on me immensely.)

Despite the mixed reviews, the film was a modest success at the box office, earning almost $700 million (a big jump from Superman Returns’ $390million in 2006) and was considered by many fans to be a reasonably strong start from which to build upon. And while the box-office returns would be more than acceptable for a first film in almost any franchise (Batman Begins, Nolan’s first Batman film, made about half that), Warner Bros. viewed it as a lacklustre start to their rebooted franchise, and sought ways to improve upon the film’s “modest” success. Man Of Steel 2 seemed like an exciting prospect for many.

Before we get too far down the rabbit hole, lets take a small step back to 2008. Marvel Studios, under the guidance of their President Kevin Feige, have just released Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau and starring Robert Downey Jnr. as the title character - a billionaire weapons manufacturer and technology developer named Tony Stark who is captured by a terrorist organisation in Afghanistan. With a piece of shrapnel about to enter his heart and kill him, Stark designs and assembles a weaponised suit of magnetised armour which allows him to escape. Upon returning home, Stark abandons his industrialised ways to make a difference as the superhero Iron Man. The film received rave reviews, with Downey Jnr. being lauded for his performance as the CGI-enhanced Shellhead, and it went on to gross over $500 million worldwide.

As the first film in what has popularly become known as Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man laid the groundwork for what was to evolve over the next ten years for Marvel Studios. Biannually, Feige and his studio released one film after another, beginning with solo adventures and origin stories like Iron Man, Iron Man 2 Captain America: The First Avenger, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk, alluding to a greater universe without directly hinging each story on other character’s involvement. After four years and five films, Marvel Studios brought together their band of heroes for their first team-up adventure - the Joss Whedon helmed The Avengers. A box office smash, The Avengers pulled in nearly $1.5billion at the global box office and received strong reviews, with critics praising the seamless and organic culmination of the characters previous trajectories into the same story.

Following on from the success of The Avengers, Marvel then expanded their cinematic universe by bringing in new characters and continuing to evolve their existing ones - Phase Two included Guardians Of The Galaxy and Ant-Man, alongside Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier which led themselves into Avengers: Age Of Ultron, again directed by Joss Whedon. This is the template that Marvel have followed right up until the very moment that you read this article. Feige runs a tight ship; giving directors just enough room to create something for themselves, while maintaining the overarching goal that the series will be heading towards next.

What is the relevance of all that to DC, you ask? Well, we jump forward to the Summer of 2014, where Warner Bros decided to amp up their plans for their DC properties following Man Of Steel using the Marvel model. At the San Diego Comic-Con, Zack Snyder took to the stage to announce that he would be directing the follow-up to his Superman film. There was further rapture among the attendees as it was announced that Warner Bros. were using the film to launch their DC Extended Universe and that the sequel was to be Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice; Batman and Superman were to share a cinema screen for the first time in history, with Ben Affleck playing the The Dark Knight opposite Henry Cavill. The film would also mark the first big-screen appearance of Wonder Woman, played by Gal Gadot. 

On top of that, David Ayer, the scriptwriter/director behind films such as Training Day, Harsh Times, End Of Watch and Fury, was given the job of bringing Suicide Squad to the big screen for the first time. A rather left-field project considering the universe’s infancy; Suicide Squad focuses on a rogue gallery of villains (mainly from the Batman universe) who are forced together to complete a near-impossible mission for the Government. The film had an ensemble cast which included Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, and Jared Leto as the new version of The Joker, Batman’s arch-nemesis.

Sounds great right? Well, unfortunately we all know how it turned out. In a desperate bid to achieve Marvel level incomes in a much shorter space of time, Warner Bros. essentially coerced Snyder into packing Batman v Superman with nods, Easter Eggs and groundwork for their planned Justice League film (which would end up being released in November 2017) as well as teasing The Flash, Aquaman, Cyborg and many subplots lifted from various comic book arcs. As a result of this constant studio meddling, the film became a bloated behemoth of absolutely mind-blowing proportions. It’s first rough cut was nearly four hours long. At this point, Warner Bros. realised that the film could not be any longer than two and a half hours - this was to ensure a maximum number of screenings could be held on any given day during its theatrical run; more tickets, more money. 

Snyder originally intended to tell a modern Superman story - where Kal-El would slowly and progressively accept his destiny as the Man Of Steel in a world that doesn’t trust heroes anymore, and sees him as a potentially dangerous illegal alien (cough). All very ambitious and interesting, despite the often heavy handed religious metaphors that he uses to frame the character through. However, the compromises forced upon him by a naturally money-driven but irrationally thinking studio resulted in his arc for Cavill’s version of the character being condensed, diluted and sucked of any and all impact - despite his best efforts to provide Superman with the strong sense of morality and righteousness that the character was known for. 

When Batman v Superman was released in March 2016, it was greeted with strongly negative reviews, and its record-breaking opening weekend ($400million+) quickly tapered off and it finished its run with a $873 million - earning a profit but falling short of the studio’s $1billion+ expectations. Taking into account the film’s massive budget, rumoured to be just south of $400million, this final tally was a massive blow for both the studio and for Snyder, who suffered the wrath of online critics and keyboard-happy but overall very disgruntled fans. An extended “Ultimate” Cut was released on home video, which added nearly 30 minutes of footage - but while this certainly improved the film overall by reinstating vital subplots and was much better received by fans, it didn’t remove the bad taste left behind by the version that was released in theatres.

Suicide Squad didn’t fare much better in the end, either. In order to meet the August 2016 release date, David Ayer was given less than six weeks to write the script for the film before it needed to start filming. Upon the reveal of the first teaser at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2015, many fans reacted negatively to its dour, dark tone. Following the release of a much more brisk and light trailer (complete with “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen thumping away on the soundtrack) in January of the following year, the studio decided to go back and “add some jokes” along with more action to the film through re-shoots. It was after these re-shoots that the film’s marketing campaign began to pick up speed, with a number of pulpy trailers making a conscious effort to emphasise how much fun Suicide Squad was going to be following the criticisms of over-seriousness towards Batman v Superman in March. The re-jigging and re-adjustments did not end there, however.

Warner Bros., worried that Ayer’s cut of the film would not meet the expectations they had set, had the film taken away from him in secret. All shot material was handed over to Trailer Park, the same company who had been responsible for editing together the well-received trailers for the film. Ayer, meanwhile, turned in his version. Warner Bros. took both versions and amalgamated the two. The result? The visually incoherent, music video style film that was released in theatres and ended up receiving the same brutal reviews that Snyder’s film had. Suicide Squad did however make significant bank for the studio - it brought in $745million against a $200million budget. Ayer would go on to publically claim that it was still his film, and that the released cut was true to “his vision”, despite evidence to the contrary and claims from various sources (including Jared Leto) that there was enough footage excised “to make another movie”. The film also had an Extended Cut on home release, but it wasn’t nearly as impactful as the Ultimate Cut for Snyder’s superhero smackdown.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a pattern emerging here. And if you genuinely hadn’t noticed, then just wait til we start talking about Justice League.

The one slam-dunk that Warner Bros. have had so far came in 2017. No, it wasn’t Justice League. It was Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot’s version of Diana of Themyscira made such a strong impact in Batman v Superman that she deservedly received her own solo film - an origin story set during the First World War. Directed by Patty Jenkins, the film became the highest grossing female-directed film of all time (as well as the highest grossing Superhero origin story) with a take home of over $800million worldwide. The film was also acclaimed by critics; praise was afforded to Gadot’s performance as the title character and the chemistry between her and Chris Pine, the story, score and Jenkins’ direction. Jenkins had to fight for a number of sequences to be included, including the now famous “No Man’s Land” scene which features Diana taking on a horde of German soldiers who have besieged a French town. Warner Bros. immediately greenlit a sequel (to be directed by Jenkins) and pushed Gadot front and centre for marketing materials on Justice League - where she essentially took over the team leader position usually occupied by either Batman or Superman. Wonder Woman became the DCU’s bright spark of hope.

Zack Snyder immediately began work on Justice League, the DC Film Universe equivalent to The Avengers, after he had finished work on Batman v Superman. The ensemble team-up film began shooting in London in the Spring of 2016. The relationship between Warner Bros. and Snyder could be described as shaky at best by this stage, and the negative press following the release of Batman v Superman going into the start of shooting for Justice League was constantly hanging over the heads of all involved. Snyder (along with his wife, Deborah), as a producer, was the official creative driving force behind the universe up til that point. Unofficially, as you will have gathered from the above, there was no singular driving force. However, prior to the release of Suicide Squad, Geoff Johns was drafted in by Warner Bros. under the title of Chief Creative Officer of DC Films. Johns is a well known comic-book scribe and has penned works for a variety of DC characters, including The Flash, Aquaman and Superman. A lot of creative control was wrestled away from the Snyders, despite filming on Justice League not yet being complete. A continuing trend of requests and alterations were made by the studio. Despite this, filming for Justice League wrapped in October 2016, after a six-month shoot. Re-shoots were planned for early 2017, with Avengers director/writer Joss Whedon coming on-board to assist Snyder with “adding more jokes” to what was described as a film that was tonally continuing the motifs established in Man Of Steel and Batman v Superman.

Approaching what we thought was the middle of a long period of post-production work, Snyder announced he was stepping away from the project to be with his family - as his daughter had recently committed suicide. The decision was presented as an mutual one, with Warner Bros. insisting that Whedon remain on the film to finish Snyder’s “vision”. Whedon then proceeded to re-shoot approximately 30-35% of the film, change the ending and remove several subplots and key scenes that had been already shot. Henry Cavill had to re-shoot 90% of his scenes as Superman, a fact very-obviously revealed by the awful digital removal of his (rather wonderful) mustache that he was contractually obligated to grow and keep for Mission Impossible: Fallout.

The real kicker here is that not all of this is accurate; it’s merely the official version. In the months following Batman v Superman’s release, Warner Bros. executives were eager to remove Snyder from Justice League. Their Head Of Production at the time was Greg Silverman, who refused to fire Snyder. Silverman was later removed by Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara. In January 2017, Snyder was fired from Justice League - with Silverman gone, Snyder was finished; he never even got to finalise a cut of the film he had been planning for nearly two years. Obviously fearing more negative publicity towards the film, Snyder’s removal was kept under wraps until the death of Snyder’s daughter became public knowledge, and at that point Warner Bros. choose to reveal that he had stepped down to be with his family. Make from that what you will.

In November 2017, like Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad before it, Justice League was released to miserable reviews. Critics and audiences pulled the film apart - citing its uneven tone, short running time and poor pacing, a boring and underdeveloped villain, and subpar visual effects. While a number of people considered Whedon’s more joke-focused dialogue to be an improvement, many found it completely out of place with the visual look and feel of the film, as well as being completely out of character (referring to Batman). Despite the amount of tinkering done to the original version of the film (which also had an hour cut from the runtime as well as the other structural changes), Snyder’s name remained on the credits as director. Whedon received a screenwriting credit. Factoring in the re-shoots on top of its extensive and expensive principal photography, the film apparently cost Warner Bros. nearly $300million before accounting for marketing costs, making it one of the most expensive films of all time. So expensive was it, that it would have had to generate over $700million just to break even thanks to distribution revenue shares.

Justice League made $656million worldwide.

Meanwhile, Black Panther - a character first introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016′s Captain America: Civil War but who I think it’s fair to say was not very well known compared to say, Batman or Superman - is on track for his solo film to open to $170million in its opening weekend alone. Avengers: Infinity War is looking like it’s going to be one of the biggest films of all-time, both physically (with over 90 speaking main cast members) and financially (it’s likely to cross the $2billion mark by the time it’s all dried up).

What will Warner Bros. learn from this? Probably nothing. What should they learn from this? Well, it seems that the studio executives watched the Marvel Cinematic Universe develop with one eye watching the spreadsheets, but with no idea on how you get the numbers on those sheets to spike they way they did. Instead of organically building on the foundation laid by Snyder with Man Of Steel (a film that admittedly is not perfect but is still very solid), a rush job was enacted in order to join the Billion Dollar club as quickly as possible - a feat they have yet to accomplish despite having films that have such iconic characters in them. Unfortunately, the damage seems to be done. Ben Affleck seems to be on his way out as the Caped Crusader due to having multiple scripts for his proposed solo film rejected along with his deteriorating relationship with the studio - a massive blow considering how strong he was in the role in the face of frustratingly under-developed material given to him. The only DC films currently guaranteed are Aquaman, Shazam, and Wonder Woman 2, while both The Batman and Man Of Steel 2 look to be going nowhere. Quite incredible, really.

The overall consensus at the moment is that while these films will continue to be loosely connected in some way or another, going forward they will ultimately be standalone projects. Warner Bros. seem to be signalling that they will instead focus on hiring higher-end filmmakers and making good films again. However, the allure of the ensemble superhero film will always be there as long as connected movie universes continue to be popular, and the flipside to working with higher-end filmmakers on standalone projects is that they will always want more control - just like Christopher Nolan did on The Dark Knight trilogy, which were successful thanks to the fact that there was little interference. It’s telling that the two highest rated DC Universe films, Man Of Steel and Wonder Woman, were the ones least meddled in. For the moment, though, the DC Universe seems to be stalled over very high ground. Marvel fans should count themselves lucky that they have Kevin Feige.

It’s a massive shame that instead of sitting here typing about how great this universe is, I’m wondering when the final nail is going to be put into its coffin. What a waste. Many people online will be quite happy to lay the blame at Zack Snyder’s feet, but considering what his original plans for the development of the universe were compared to what we got, I find it hard to not acknowledge that there is a serious problem at the top of the food chain concerning how these films, and the people behind them, have been handled and treated. One thing is for sure - these films and “their vision” will likely continue to divide critics and audiences alike for some time. It’s not an S, in our boardroom it means $.

[uniteordie-usa]

Ground Zero » OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD: WAKE UP PSY-OP

http://uniteordiemedia.com/ground-zero-operation-mockingbird-wake-up-psy-op/ https://uniteordiemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/CocaineImportAgency-465x600.jpg Ground Zero » OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD: WAKE UP PSY-OP JUNE 5, 2015 BY RON PATTON Today, the citizenry polices itself, and the herd moves as one body. Even the surveillance of innocent citizens by the state is brushed off as a necessary evil. Unfortunately when it is pointed out to them that their ability to move freely is eroded they tend to...

JUNE 5, 2015 BY RON PATTON

Today, the citizenry polices itself, and the herd moves as one body. Even the surveillance of innocent citizens by the state is brushed off as a necessary evil. Unfortunately when it is pointed out to them that their ability to move freely is eroded they tend to walk away or tune out because they are not comfortable hearing that we have gone from Democracy to despotism.

Power has been so far removed from the people by those with money and influence that most see any type of political move as a planned attempt at a power grab from our so called leaders.

It is hard to prove that such a power grab exists or that the World order is about to be established because it is not clearly in the public dialogue or the grand narrative. So what we are faced with is being a lonely “Paul Revere” warning people we see form day to day that there are changes ahead. Some changes will be so devastating that they will direct the way we live for the rest of our lives.

We must now tell ourselves that our institutions, our traditions, the barriers that protect us from absolute and authoritarian powers, have been broken down.

I admit it doesn’t seem to happening all at once but the foundation for a solid freedom and democracy is being dismantled a brick at a time. The separation of powers has already been annihilated. It is the silent fascism, not yet marching down your street or pounding upon your door in the dead of night. But it is here, and it is laying deep psychological roots.

Abraham Lincoln once said,

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

Lincoln’s words were deeply rooted in the aspect of civil war. They are also paraphrased by Barack Obama in many of his speeches. Now perhaps you can see why it seems so evident that revolution is in the air. That change will not come only by the stroke of the President’s pen. It will come by the actions of people who are no longer capable of living in impossible conditions.

Even Though Lincoln advised us that new thinking is an imperative when making revolutionary changes in a country that seems to be out of control, the ability to do so is often laden heavy with obstacles and problems because there are people who absolutely do not what your message to be heard. They are paid great sums of money to impart information that benefits the global order and pushes the continued agenda of unparalleled corruption that we hear about every day.

We read about it on the internet, we trust independent journalists to inform us, and yet the mainstream avoids adding any kind of organized retort to the general operations of government.

It is this policy of imparting dishonest propaganda that thwarts liberty and even taints the very purpose of our right to free speech and free press.

For many years we have known that not only does the NSA and other alphabet agencies spy on our internet conversations, they also move our conversations in a subtle way. It was confirmed in recent years that the U.S. Military has been manipulating social media by using fake identities to influence conversations and spread pro-American propaganda. It’s called “Online Persona Management Services.” Under the Centcom contract, it allows the creation of up to 10 fake online personas, known as “sock puppets,” for every service man or woman working on the program.”

Sock puppets as the military calls them have been called trolls in social media. A troll simply sets up a fake Facebook account, makes up a name, puts up a few pictures to make it look as though they are legitimate participators is social media.

They are more than likely special psy-ops agents who are there to discredit anyone who post what can be determine to be an anti-government slogan or an anti war statement.

Its purpose is to control free speech according to an article that appeared in the Guardian titled Revealed: US spy operation that manipulates social media: “The project has been likened by web experts to China’s attempts to control and restrict free speech on the internet. Critics are likely to complain that it will allow the US military to create a false consensus in online conversations, crowd out unwelcome opinions and smother commentaries or reports that do not correspond with its own objectives.”

According to Centcom, their only objective is to counter extremists and enemy propaganda outside of the U.S., saying that it would be unlawful to address U.S. audiences.

The Pentagon already spends four billion dollars per year to influence public opinion, and the DOD spends hundreds of millions on information campaigns in countless countries occupied by the U.S. military.

But, perhaps even more disturbing than all of this is fact that the CIA has infiltrated the biggest press institutions since the early 1950s. One has to look no further than Operation Mockingbird – a secret CIA campaign to spread disinformation and false stories to foreign governments during the cold war. The CIA did this by manipulating the media into focusing on propaganda, sabotage, and subversion.

It was later revealed in Congressional hearings consisted of literally paying off editors and reporters and most mainstream news outlets: the New York Times, CBS, Washington Post, Newsweek, AP, Reuters, and countless others.

That is not all, you can go back to 2003 and dig up the fact that the Pentagon’s strategies of Psy Ops were transitioning to an “Info war Operations Roadmap” to “dominate” the electronic media spheres, and soon thereafter we learned the Bush Administration invested 1.6 billion into fake news and targeted psychological warfare broadcasts to synthesize Washington’s propaganda line for both domestic and foreign audiences.

These strategies were put into place immediately after the attacks of 9/11. The citizens of the United States including members of the foreign press agencies have always been the target of advanced psychological warfare and disinformation, much of it going unquestioned into the grand narrative.

“U.S defense, Intel and homeland security officials are constructing a parallel world. Where the majority of sheep can be swayed into the coercion of giving up their sovereignty for the plans and visions of the elite Globalist order.”

There are others that see the world differently and attempt to describe the mounting evidence of despotism without facing dire consequences.

The technocracy has provided for everyone a fountain of information that is intentionally given for an action and a solution.

Information on leaks, whistleblowers, false flags, all are controlled in order to little by little spark civil upheaval, reveal who we consider enemies or undesirables, changes in civil liberties, and provide misdirection.

Entertainment is also directed by the state department and the DOD. Movies like American Sniper and Zero dark thirty provide pop heroes with even bigger mythologies written about them. Your video entertainment and gaming provides predictive war exercises and simulation.

As the surveillance net has been rebooted and cast across the globe it is important to visit and examine all portals that provide information that can lead to psychological warfare operations, the provide the brainwash needed to accept immoral concepts that would get you marching towards the globalist state.

The previous administration was accused of fostering nightmare scenarios in order to facilitate a crisis to maintain two wars. These wars were unnecessary and have placed our economy in the red. They have also placed this country at a higher risk for future attacks.

The Obama administration now has not really created any new nightmares; however they have been able to keep up the pitch of unnecessary dread amongst the populace. This most definitely is not progress.

Keeping us under the gun with the Jade Helm 15 exercises and the psy-op that ISIS is just over the border or are here among us and the constant goading of Islam by Muslim haters is enough to keep the monkeys occupied with worry and cognitive dissonance.

We are told that homeland security are looking for “heretical operatives” that seem to be playing for a right wing extremist conspiracy, although many of the so called protesters seem to be moderate democrats that have lost their faith in Barack Obama’s dogmatic prose.

When the mind loses control out of fear sometimes we begin to see a form of voodoo take hold and soon we see many people act as if they were a deer in the headlights.

They will believe almost anything. This is what has been called by Hitler and others “The Big Lie.”

Adolph Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

“In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.”

Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”

When lies are told to inflict dread or harm there is also that progression which leads to betrayal. Where promises that are made are easily broken and you are convinced that it is up to you to be an apologist for that betrayal. In a sense you develop Stockholm syndrome and you become a willing slave to your master.

It is common for People to get deeply attached to their beliefs, and form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in their personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter. They have so many things that okay a part in their decisions. From patriotism to religious upbringing to political ideology. Their inferred justification is creating cognitive dissonance. Left unchecked and with the negative thought forms being generated by authorities we can only await the moment where the powder keg will see its spark. Social wars can lead to civil wars and various “mobs” could spring up creating an uncontrolled despotism.

There are many who are suggesting that the United States is well on the way to martial law. This means that not only would we see the increase in police forces, we would also see private Military forces being hired and the National guard being deputized as law enforcement as well. People are economic budgets being depleted and the threat for pandemic on the horizon. This can create subtle panic and little by little other people are beginning to wake up and see the psy-op…