Glossary of Broken Dreams

My name is Johannes,

and I have a condition.

I'm human.

I first realized that when I fell on my face on a concrete slab

on a beach in Italy.

I was four.

And it was clear to me:

beaches cannot be trusted,

I hated Italy,

and dreams can be broken.

The human is a narrative being.

We construct emotional machines...

so called stories, to communicate

to share the world in which we live

and make it collectively experienceable.

And we're pretty good at doing that.

Since the primoridial zoo Mendelized into primate brains,

we have either been fleeing from big cats

or telling others about our escapes

from the clutches of big cats.

Sitting around a campfire

interpreting and breaking-down the world,

charging it with meaning,

regardless of whether the details hold up to a Wikipedia check, or not.

The human is also a political being,

although many members of my species don't like that idea.

Get used to it.

You can't avoid being politcal.

The moment you choose to buy a sugar-free Red Bull™ at Walmart™,

you commit a political act.

The same is true when you drag a royalty-free

hip-hop version of Pachelbel's Canon in D

into your shopping basket @

Politics is the practice of distribution of power and resources

within the given community as well as the interrelationship between communities.

Period.

We project a certain story out to the world.

The story differs if you are a leftist, a progressive, or conservative,

but be assured,

most people I know who call themselves anarchists

are just stupid libertarians.

We communicate our views by using narrative and conceptual shortcuts.

Abbreviated terms like:

"freedom" or "privacy" and so on.

These shortcuts are important.

If someone had called 'global warming' something different,

let's say, 'atmosphere cancer,'

you wouldn't have problems explaining why it's a bad thing.

I always wanted to create a glossary of all-important terms.

Because Jesus Fuckin' McChrist,

they're always used and abused in common sections on the World Wide Web.

I wanted to give some of these golden calfs of discourse a second look,

to explain, re-evaluate, and maybe even sacrifice them.

I teamed up with my good friend Ishan Raval,

who definitely matches me in my political leanings.

I mean, look, we both have our hands on our chins

in our Google profile pics.

Pompous little fucks we are.

And because I know a lot of creative performers

who will do pretty much anything for almost nothing,

I decided to make this film.

How much longer do I have to hold this shit? It's heavy!

Well, y-you can put it in your resumé. I mean come on... a little bit longer.

And we used my car.

You're the head of transportation fleets, okay?

So, well, never forget,

you don't hate Italy,

you hate capitalism.

What a big word! So big!

Capitalism.

One of the biggest words I know... and I know a lot of words.

There's

"Market" (true, but that one sounds a bit too mystical).

Oh! I think that's Brian Ewok.

Good to have a comfy seat

at my favorite hippster coffee shop and wine bar

enjoying free Wi-Fi

from a network whose password is "Helvetica."

I'm just minding my own business,

when I get spotted by Madame Juju,

the friendly hippster coffee shop and wine bar owner

who does sweat yoga.

Hello. How can I help you?

A double eggnog frappucino with tofu-breaded halibut?

There's a sticker for the Green Party candidate behind the bar.

Oh, I love the Greens!

So friendly! So caring!

So cuddly!

Marx once called the State

a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

Thank the non-existing God for it!

Because where management is possible, so also is mismanagement.

And some parts of the bourgeoisie,

especially those who do sweat yoga and keep their hearts wholesome,

might be persuaded to use that committee against their interests.

Basically, there are people who own the means of production.

Let's say fancy coffee machines, or servers, or farms, or server farms.

That's the bourgeoisie.

And then there are people who don't own the means of production or capital,

so they have to sell their work.

The workers. That's all the barristas and sandwich artists

and Ryanair® check in personnel.

But even if the bourgeoisie, which includes Madame Juju,

might not be united in its political allegiances

they play the same purpose.

It isn't her fault.

It isn't my fault.

In all corners and cortices of her brain,

she might just regard this as her job.

An innocent livelihood.

And even, a community service.

Oh, absolutely! People love me.

I am the Maggie Gyllenhaal of safron-based cake frosting.

All of that, it might be.

But capitalism is bigger than any of our lives and wills.

It produces net effects some capitalists don't realize.

Madame Juju's heart may not be driven by profit,

but her business must be.

Money must make more money.

More money must be made

so that it can keep up with competing coffee shops and wine bars,

which are constatly coming up and trying to out-perform Madame Juju.

It makes me cry.

It's not even enough for me to earn back the money I invested.

There has to be a good return on investment.

There have to be upgrades to match the latest

speedy, spicy, sprinkle trends;

or to keep paying an increasing rent

so that the coffee doesn't get more expensive.

Otherwise, everyone will go to...

Monsieur Dudu's down the street.

It's true.

His coffee is okay,

but his wine selection is out of this world.

So, Madame Juju is forced to cut costs

by not protecting the environment,

or by paying super-low wages.

It is so very sad

but, I donate to Amnesty International.

Overall, the wealth of the world increases on the side of the capital,

be it money uninvested and stagnant...

There are some trillions of dollars around like that today.

or the things required for and by business.

And wealth decreases on the side of the world

where costs are cut.

People working for wages and the world itself.

Take atmosphere cancer.

Sadly it's not capitalism's side-effect,

but a sign of its normal functioning.

The system was for the last one hundred years,

running on cheap oil and making a huge profit with it.

Money still needs to make more money.

So more and more things have to be exchangeable for money.

Everything from gummy bears to DNA sequences,

to carbon dioxide emissions.

But Friedman says that

economic freedom is the precondition for political freedom.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

Not so fast, Madame Juju.

Well, freedom is a huge word too, yes, yes, but

in the capitalist society

there is only one freedom:

the freedom of the market.

At its root, capitalism is based on three simple things:

working for a wage,

private ownership, or control of the means of production,

and production for exchange and profit.

And, it's all sold with the promise of liberty.

But that has been true since the beginning of time.

Capitalism didn't arise according to natural laws

that stem from human nature.

It was spread by organized violence.

The concept of private land

and means of production might seem like the natural state of things now,

however, we should remember it is a human concept... .

First in places like England:

enclosures drove self-sufficient peasants from communal land

into the cities to work in factories.

Under the reign of Henry the Eighth alone,

72,000 people were executed

for vagabondage.

Is that freedom?

Later, capitalism was spread rapidly and violently around the globe.

Do you remember that nice little girl, Alice?

Oh, yes, certainly!

Lovely!

She fell into Wonderland, used its resources,

and was highly judgmental of the natives.

A spoiled British imperialist brat!

But the Germans weren't much better.

It's the year 1818.

Powerful German merchants started to profit

from overseas commerce in Asia and Africa.

The German Empire supported this expansion by conquering large amounts of land

and established so-called "protectorates."

With fraud, Bible, alcohol and violence,

the German Empire grew to a staggering 2.6 million square kilometers,

five times the size of Germany...

reaching the third place in colonial power,

right after England and France.