There has been a lot of talk about rights lately, and rightly so. The main right we're seeing in action is the right of the public to congregate and peacefully voice their dissent.

Check out Andrew Napolitano's Daily Show Interview here.

Peter Oakley works at The Collective on Depot in the studio space next to mine, and he and I tend to be the ones who are there most often, lately. Here are some images from his show at Flanders Gallery in Raleigh, NC

I've been following the developments of OWS whenever something comes up on the twitter feed, and there have been some fascinating developments. There are a bunch of articles and videos after the jump.

It was Freud who said that, at least within dreams, it's precisely that which is non-sexual that is the most sexual.

I leave you with a video of an inflatable Santa, popping out of a tree. Happy Holidays!

I've written about Avatar before, but it's only recently that I've been able to articulate the exact reason I despise the film. The real tragedy of Avatar is not the destruction of the natural way of life on Pandora, though this is the surface level interpretation. The real tragedy within the plot is that salvation comes from the antagonists.

Remember back in 2001, you know, when 9/11 happened? Remember how very soon after the event, in October-November 2001, Hollywood and the US government (the Pentagon) got together to plan out how Hollywood could help with propaganda? Well, there are some obvious connections, but Avatar is one that, while seemingly against imperialism and environmental takeover, actually perpetuates America's exact style of imperialism, throwing it in a positive light, ultimately.

Let's review the overarching plotlines of our last couple of imperialist endeavors. First, in Iraq, we invaded to depose Hussein and to remove any WMDs, while freeing the country, saving the people, installing democracy, and rebuilding everything we destroyed. We assumed that the people of Iraq would be happy about this. Quite simply, they were, and still are, pissed at us and want us to leave. We were both the antagonists and the saviors, at least from our perspective. We destroy with one hand while rebuilding with the other. Second, we did the exact same thing in Afghanistan. We invaded to go kill Bin Laden, free the country, promote democracy, and rebuild everything we blew to bits. The Afghanis are not happy with us.

Let's take a look at Avatar's plotline. The earth's military (read: America. The general even has the accent.) has invaded Pandora to mine out its natural resource of "unobtanium" (read: "oil"). Jake is sent, via his avatar, to get the natives to move out of the way or to force them out, if necessary. He attempts to integrate into the native society, and in the process, angers them. Eventually they become accepting of him, and he ends up leading the natives against the foreign invasion. Without Jake, the natives are doomed. The natives transport Jake's soul fully into his avatar, and the natives wind up ejecting the military presence from Pandora.

Is this not the exact way we (our government officials) see our invasions of other countries? It is our new myth and method--the hero is the man who is the benevolent antagonist. The man who can work for the invading powers while saving the natives. It suggests that the natives can't take care of themselves--that they require the foreign presence for their salvation. The antagonist eventually becomes accepted as a hero by both the natives and the antagonists. It is our contemporary ideology par excellance, and it is unquestionably misguided. It's so fundamental to our existence that we don't even notice it when it hits us in the face within cultural products such as Avatar.