Knowledge is King

I cancelled my Sky subscription on ethical grounds

And today I realised the age of the opensource documentary officially arrived awhile ago
The more detailed account:

Last week I woke up and joined thousands if not millions of enlightened people who choose not to give Rupert Murdoch a penny of their money; I cancelled my sky subscription. And I gave them detailed reasons why when asked - not only should they record this information but it also costs Murdoch money in employee time and makes an impression on the consciousness of the employee. This made me feel really good about myself as a person, and powerful as an individual. If you’re educated and subscribe to Sky you’re complicit in what Murdoch stands for. Shame on you. Lets be clear, Murdoch is the devil here to test you.

On an actual personal amateur dramatic note: during the pleasant wait on my hands “how you play the game” free phone during which time I was being very feminine and multi-tasking, I had an idea pop into my head that prepared me for the million dollar question. Which dutifully came at the end of the phone conversation.

the question bearer: “Now I’m slightly scared to ask but is there anything else I can help you with today?”
me: “Ah, yes actually there is. This might sound a bit strange but there was a tune on ‘Goals on Sunday’ a long time ago, that was also on a nescafe advert that featured a hot air balloon, an instrumental number, that went a bit like this” :::hums the tune::: “you couldn’t tell me who it was by could you?”
the question bearer: :::laughter::: “No I’m sorry, I have no idea, but do have a good day.”
me: “Thanks you too.”

Am I worried about my sanity? Not overly. Am I worried I’ll have nothing to watch? Hardly.

If you have the time or the skills, know the right people or have the money, you can archive thousands of hours of quality independent media you can watch in high quality on your television. (EDIT: sorry I got carried away in the moment and accidentally embellished, it’s not HD but it’s not bad.)

Then there’s also the excellent google video and youtube but they are of course a more hands-on, less comfortable, less convenient viewing with lots of distractions. (UPDATE: I recently learned of VeohTV that lets you download from google video, youtube and many more)

If you’re still not very aware of why Rupert Murdoch is the Devil but somewhere inside of you there’s a little voice that says you should really find out, let the monumental OUTFOXED have a couple of hours of your time. Then arm yourself with some of the facts from Tío Catire’s excellent Boycott Murdoch’s Media Monopoly post over at Bala Fria.

The only ethical thing is to not give that bastard a penny. Right?

Thanks to Tio’s post I can do a copy and paste on what I’m going to try and avoid giving a penny to (I’m in the UK but for a pretty comprehensive world wide list check out Tio’s post):

UK newspapers, published by subsidiaries of News International Ltd.

• News Group Newspapers Ltd.
• the tabloid The Sun
• the tabloid News of the World
• Times Newspapers Ltd.
• the broadsheet The Sunday Times
• the ‘ex-broadsheet’ (Now in compact form) The Times
• the broadsheet The Times Literary Supplement
• the free paper circulated in London - The London Paper

And other stuff to remind myself of

• 20th Century Fox film production company
• BSkyB, United Kingdom (39.1% holding).
• ITV (17.5%) (who are screening Pilger’s War on Democracy on the 20th of this month)
• Premiership viewing revenues* **
• MySpace

I also learnt that from the aforementioned excellent post that from the monumental documentary OUTFOXED from Robert Greenwald they’ve cc-licenced a whole bunch of interviews from the documentary. Even FOX footage! Rich pickings indeed. We’re entering the Opensource documentary age. Can anyone else tell of any more other quality archives out there for similarly licenced film?

Robert Greenwald is also behind the excellent Brave New Films.

They should obviously change the constitution in America to replace the word gun with the word camcorder, and add that people are allowed to film anywhere they’re allowed to walk. Proposed new ridiculous laws for New York show there are already legal moves to try and counter the power of the camcorder.

Witness.org is also another great similar initiative for empowering people and camcorders but for people living in much worse places than the states or here. Peter Gabriel did a good TEDtalk on Witness.

I also learnt from one of the excellent OneWorldTV video podcasts of the excellent initiative Insight by Nick and Chris Lunch. Read more about Insight at oneworldtv.

If you want what’s right do what’s right and be the change you want to see in the world.

Join Me, Tio and a million others and boycott Murdoch’s DEHUMANISING brainwash.

* whilst being jealous of how much money footballers make, on the flip side it is refreshing and quite (r)evolutionary in that the people on the shop floor delivering the goods are actually reaping the most from the rewards of their work, and I believe a future trend will see footballers following the example visible in Beckham of educating oneself and trying to be a good role model.)
** one of the teams I support is FC St Pauli - disengaging from what is in IMO the greatest sport on the planet is not a positive way forward, even if when you were younger you thought you were pretty good and wish you hadn’t f**ked it up! - sport after all makes gentlemanly our human need for War competition.