Day: October 27, 2009

Music video: Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society

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Since first putting this up, I’ve immersed myself in this album so I’ve junked some of what I wrote earlier, but as I said I came across this album on my one and only Internet ‘radio’ station, Rootdownfm.com and was blown away by it. The main influences on Argue’s music are to my ear Gil Evans and Charles Mingus, but just when you think you have his music pinned down, Argue comes up with something else! He calls his music steampunk big band. Like Gil Evans he knows how to score the band’s voices, playing them off against each other, building complex tonal patterns and then the music will move into the emotionally charged groove of a Mingus big band score. And this band swings (well it is a New York band). Great trombone work which is the dominant solo instrument (check out the solo on ‘Habeas Corpus’). Beautiful stuff. Five stars from Creative-i.

Track 4 ‘Redeye’ off Infernal Machines (2009), an 18-piece band from New York directed by composer Darcy James Argue.

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Bring ALL British Troops Home By William Gladys

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27 October, 2009

Will Prince Harry ever say sorry?

Democracy is still alive – well only just – in the British Isles.

Although Prince Harry failed to march with the Anti-War Majority on the streets of London recently, a fearless Peace Seeking Lance Corporal bravely hoisted a Flag of Peace to the mast for the entire world to see. To observe a serving soldier marching in opposition to the Queen’s foreign policy in the Middle-East was heartening to say the least. Perhaps after all there is still hope for this country? Like millions of voters in the British Isles the Lance Corporal is plainly sick to death of the relentless slaughter and body and mind maiming of hundreds of British soldiers, and hundreds of thousands of blameless Muslims: men, women, children and babies.

The rhetoric that “Monarchical Britain has sent its troops to occupy the Middle East to safeguard the people of Britain” will not wash anymore. It is hypocrisy and poppycock of the very worse kind, and one reason why millions of us want ALL military personnel returned to the British homeland, and not only a highly privileged and pampered Prince Harry, who stated not verbatim, that “he would loyally stay with his men”. This was established when we witnessed this trigger joyful royal on camera disgracefully unleashing killing rounds from his heavy machine gun in the direction of Muslims who were valiantly resisting occupation of THEIR homeland. As we in Britain no doubt would also valiantly resist “with our backs against the White Cliffs of Dover” if need be any foreign troops endeavouring to invade OUR Homeland and intervene in our affairs, our Sovereignty.

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Pranksters Fixing the World By Mark Engler

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21 October, 2009 — Foreign Policy In Focus

yesmen2.jpgOver the past 10 years, the Yes Men have emerged as an infamously daring and creative duo of anti-corporate pranksters. In their new movie, The Yes Men Fix the World, Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (known in their non-activist lives as Jacques Servin and Igor Vamos) explain their methodology: ‘What we do is pass ourselves off as representatives of big corporations we don’t like,’ they say. ‘We make fake websites, then wait for people to accidentally invite us to conferences.’

When they are invited, the Yes Men pose as spokespeople for companies such as Halliburton and Exxon, or bodies such as the World Trade Organization, and they give presentations that highlight the logic of corporate greed.

In one instance, on the 20th anniversary of the notorious chemical plant disaster in Bhopal, India, Bichlbaum appeared on the BBC as a representative of Dow Chemical, which now owns Union Carbide, the company responsible for the 1984 calamity. He announced a $12 billion plan to provide medical care to the 120,000 victims of the disaster and to fully remediate the factory site. The company’s market value dropped $2 billion in 23 minutes before the hoax was discovered and Dow rushed to explain that it was still refusing to meet the victims’ demands for justice.

The Yes Men Fix the World opened in New York City on October 7 and begins showing in cities around the country on October 23. Shortly after the start of the New York run, the perpetually mischievous Bichlbaum spoke with Foreign Policy In Focus senior analyst Mark Engler.

MARK ENGLER: How have you felt about the reception of the film so far?

ANDY BICHLBAUM: Great. People have loved it. They’ve taken to the streets. Every day last week, they left the theater and stormed to a nearby destination. [Laughs.]

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The Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex Pt2

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27 October, 2009 — The Real News Network

Wilkerson: From US debt to the geopolitics of oil, the US empire will come to an end

Bio
Lawrence Wilkerson is a retired United States Army soldier and former chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on US national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled “National Security Decision Making.”

Watch Part 1 | Watch Part 3

Obama: Manufacturing A Savior A Case Study In Social Engineering – Fabricating Myths, Mantras, Consent and Dissent, for Imperial Mobilization By Zahir Ebrahim

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27 October, 2009 — Atlantic Free Press

Edward L. Bernays began his seminal 1928 book, egregiously titled ‘PROPAGANDA’, with these revealing words in the very first chapter ‘ORGANIZING CHAOS’:

‘THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.

‘We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity of their fellow members in the inner cabinet. They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses to take toward this condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons—a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty million—who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.’

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Insanity and the Nobel Peace Prize: Obama and the Rule of Law By Felicity Arbuthnot

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27 October, 2009 — Global Research

‘The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.’ — Edmund Burke, 1729-1797.

‘Oh God! That men should put an enemy in their mouths and steal away their brains.’ — Othello, William Shakespeare, 1546-1616.

Ten months of an Obama Administration seems an eternity away from the hope he had inspired in so many.

‘Let’s seek a better world in our time’, said Obama, as he travelled Abraham Lincoln’s path to the January 20th inauguration – coincidentally paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri (5th March 1946) where he was introduced by President McClure.

As the President-to-be headed for Washington, to swear the oath on a bible used by Lincoln, did he ponder on Lincoln’s: ‘With malice toward none; with charity for all’?

In the inaugural address Barack Hussein Obama vowed: ‘To the Muslim world, we seek a way forward, based on mutual respect.’ The following day, he stated: ‘Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstone of this Presidency.’ On 24th January, the (London) Independent opined: ‘With a stroke of the pen, Mr. Obama halted his predecessors … policy to (bend) the U.S. Constitution and international legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions.’

Eight days in, he told Al-Arabiya: ‘My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that Americans are not your enemy’ (as he prepared to send thousands more troops to cull humanity in the villages and valleys of Afghanistan.)

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