The ever insightful Ted Swedenburg does it well here: "One of the many fine songs on Fun'Da'Mental's powerful 2006 release, All Is War: The Benefits of G-had, is "Srebrenica Massacre," featuring vocals in Bosnian (a variety of Serbo-Croation, according to some) by Alma Ferovic. Since April I've given several talks about Fun'Da'Mental, which have included analyses of several songs from All Is War, but I've not had much to say about "Srebrenica Massacre...."
Elena tells me: "Marc Twain said: "While the rest of the species is descended from apes, redheads are descended from cats". And sends this pic from Vienna to add to the buses as trinkets collection no doubt - we will take over the world eventually. Thx.
Good pre-Goldies rectification stuff here from Leila on CASA [CASA is a Spanish acronym for Colectivos de Apoyo, Solidaridad y Acción. In English, that's: Collectives of Support, Solidarity and Action]:
The ideal Present has arrived.
Find out more here
This pic shows the now empty set of Galactica where shooting for series four stopped at episode 4.13 because of the Hollywood writers strike. Ronald Moore's site has some reports on what Galactica writers have (not) been doing for the strike. Pencils anyone? A ball game ticket with the Chief...? Recall his problematic negotiations with Admiral Adama in the strike episode in series three (3.15, discussed here), but before they get to earth, lets sort the workplaces out. Police in UK going out too - for all the wrong reasons, but in any case, Support the strikers.
I was asked to provide a response - well paid - to a questionnaire on New Media and Europe's Muslims by the Ergo Advisers research group out of New York. As the 'vanguard of a new model of advisory services', they provide their clients with 'honest and actionable' research (this action bit will make the question quoted later seem, well, interesting). Ergo clients include: Fortune 500 firms, hedge funds, corporations, private investors, and NGOs - who will use this research, and feel secure because 'Ergo stands alone in its ability to deliver the precise knowledge needed to thrive in today's dynamic information environment'.1. How successful have European governments been at counteracting the effects of organizing/mobilizing possibilities of new media tools for European Muslims (especially uses perceived as subversive or revolutionary)?
After 11 long reactionary years, Johnny bye bye Howard's concessions speach in the Austraian 'election' just now on SkyNews included a tribute to the First Australians and his recent 'intervention' - given the blunt racism of that intervention, this was just one final kick in the knees. I am so glad to see him fuck right off. And I don't carehow much the swing was, or if Benelong's revenge is that he loses his seat or just withers away in office. Bye Bye Johnny Bye Bye.
'To our frineds and allies ... [Rudd] will work with them to face the challenges of the future' - what could that possibly mean? Especially followed by mention of our great friends in the USA straight after. Mate - 'eeew' Leadership or 'new' same old same old'.
From WPRM
October 9 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the death of Ernesto ´Che´ Guevara. Since his image, writings and influence has spread across the world, the thought of putting a compilation album to commemorate his life has been in my head for a few years. Our small team has tried to get record company interest in this but it has not materialized, which in reality is how it´s supposed to be, and i was stuck in the mental time-zone of CD format ideology. Use what is at my fingertips,
Beep Beep - 50 years ago today. Happy Birthday.
The following statement is from Engage! A Committee to Project and Protect the Voice of Bob Avakian…
Reading The Telegraph from Kolkata, I guess we have to see this below as good news - coming from Melbourne to work in the capital of West Bengal, I always thought there was a major similarity between both cities. Not obviously, but it was something to do with the same architects working for the East India Company and the big old merchant banking firms of Victoria. These two affable guys (pic) I spent part of New Years Eve 2005 with might not be 'youth' or 'students' but they had very positive views about the livability of Cal. I agree, place just needs a little less exhaust, and reparation payments for hundreds of years of colonial theft... (Ah yes, city links are also a reminder of the Tram Jatra - another good reasonfor twinning these two places - see here and - for the Karachi linkage - here) 
CoRIM received the following urgent message:
I keep getting asked to comment on what is going on in Australia, but my response is a) WHAT is going on in Australia? I mean, when TNT Magazine rang me to comment on whether I thought the British view of Australia was outdated; wanting me, I suspect, to trash the old routines of cork hats and bbqs, in favour of the new sophistication on show at, then upcoming, Australian Film Festival in London, I was non-plussed. Yes, the British view of 'Oz' is outdated - and it varies interestingly according to how alert to racism people are: black friends agree its the new apartheid, white friends want to move there because of Neighbours. But my second response is b) I've been away 14 years, please go read some of the people writing about Australian politics who are there today. There is no excuse for cork hats, crappy movie reruns, or uninterested dismissal. Settler colonialism is rampant, the frontier is being remade. You can read whatever Pilger will come up with in his cult-journalist persona, and that would not necessarily be wrong, but you could more usefully follow the discussions of the people who tread the paths that cult-journos will not even find out about until they have their cheques signed and broadcast slot assured. So, have a look at Ange's stuff here and Ben here where there is at least an attempt to work out what the fuck is going on in Australia.exceptions (iii)
to discipline the colonised
There have been sporadic reports of resistance to the intervention by people in “affected areas”. Some have responded by saying these reports are further efforts to besmirch the image of Indigenous people, while others have viewed the media as suppressing stories of resistance and refusal as part of the corporate media’s agenda to deny the existence or significance of such struggles. It is genuinely hard to get a picture of what people are doing in response, and many of the forms of response and resistance will undoubtedly remain invisible to me and maybe to the intervening authorities. Will any leak in visibility or declare themselves as a rupture of compliance and a smoothly managed takeover?
Other themes I want to develop:
Purpose and form of the the NT intervention : a re-imposition of capitalist social relations - most centrally, in relation to property/ land and wage-labor/work - through government control of consumption (where and on what welfare can be spent), distribution of commodities (control of stores, policing of alcohol), reproduction/welfare (control of services, community organisations etcetera through the new “managers” powers to take over at will any uncooperative organisations), labour (work-for-the-dole in places of extremely high unemployment making the bulk of the population conscriptable into the work of the intervention itself and anything else). Managed through every type of coercion available to the state - dependence on welfare, the use of police, potential of child removal, imposition of forced labour.
Origins of the NT intervention: not out of nowhere in response to any report, but developed over time by elites such as, but not limited to, those supporting and working in the Cape York Institute, promoting quasi-neoliberalising but statist experiments in management of the Indigenous and the neo-lumpen proletariat, to be integrated into general strategies for the reproduction (and expansion) of capitalist social relations. A conservative Third Way, intensive state management combined with the imposition of money-as-command. Moral panic over child abuse as a tactic for imposition integrated into the agenda enough to maybe appear a response.
POSTED BY theoryoftheoffensive ON 08.30.07 @ 4:39 am
Rio Tinto is raising money to buy Alcan (no debt crisis for the fat cats then), and there are rumblings about a plan to build a smelter in Sarawak, in conjunction with the chief minister of that jungle paradise (oops, I meant logging and mineral-extraction opportunity). I quote from the Herald Tribune of 7 August 2007. "Rio Tinto will hold a 60 percent stake in the venture to be known as Sarawak Aluminium Company. The remaining 40 percent will be owned by Cahya Mata, in which the family of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is a key shareholder".
Press Statement: 24 August 2007
SUARAM DIRECTOR DENIED ENTRY INTO SARAWAK
MYKAD IS AN ACCESSORY OF A MALAYSIAN POLICE STATE
Dr Kua Kia Soong, a director of SUARAM was denied entry into Sarawak at 9pm, 23 August 2007. Kua, who is also principal of the community-funded New Era College, was on his way to officiate the graduation ceremony of teachers who have attained the New Era College Diploma in Education at Kuching and Sibu.
After screening Kua’s MyKad, the immigration officer at Kuching airport informed him that he had been refused entry into Sarawak because he is on the “blacklist for involvement in anti-logging activities”. From the computer reading of Kua’s MyKad, the officer also knew that Kua is a former member of parliament.
Dr Kua has been an active campaigner against the Bakun Dam project and was a member of the fact finding mission to enquire into the conditions faced by indigenous peoples displaced from the Bakun area to Sungai Asap resettlement camp in 1998.
This action by the Sarawak state government is a gross violation of Malaysians’ right to freedom of movement in their own country. How can we celebrate fifty years of independence when our state governments can arbitrarily decide to deny a Malaysian the sovereign right to move freely in their own country?
More insidious is the way the new Malaysian identity card ‘My Kad’ has become the accessory of a Malaysian police state. This is a most serious abuse of Malaysians’ human right to privacy. It is clear from this incident that the My Kad is now used to store updated information and to be used arbitrarily by the authorities without any explanation being given. The immigration officer had at first refused to divulge the reason for refusing entry to Kua. The reason was only forced out of the officer through persistent demands by Kua.
In recent years, Kua has been going in and out of Sarawak using his old identity card without being refused entry. Clearly, the new “smart” My Kad carries an entire dossier about every Malaysian and has given authorities new resolve to settle old scores!
This incident shows that all information about Malaysians is used interchangeably between federal and state governments. For certain, all government departments have access to MyKad dossier about every Malaysian. Is this dossier also available to banks and credit companies? Who decides? Do we know?
As we reach the 50th anniversary of independence, we grieve the death of our right to privacy and the coming of age of a Malaysian police state. We baulk at the fact that one who cares for the forests, resources and indigenous peoples of Malaysia can be cast out of a Malaysian state while tycoons and politicians who rape an entire forest are feted as “towering Malaysians” and patriots. This brings to mind Samuel Johnson observation that “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel!”
Suaram condemns the Sarawak government for this arbitrary exercise of state power to refuse entry to a Malaysian who has been actively concerned to protect Sarawakian forests, resources and indigenous peoples’ rights.
Suaram calls for an explanation from the federal government regarding the information about Malaysian citizens that have been encoded in the My Kad and the extent of interchangeability of this information with other authorities and bodies.
Suaram calls on the Malaysian people to demand accountability from their government regarding the invasion of their right to privacy and an end to the makings of a police state in Malaysia.
Here is again the 1857 site, which now carries videos from the Manchester conference which are great - informative discussion of links between 1857 and imperialism today (oil, Iraq [EIC was in Basra from 1863], definition of terrorism, evaluations of Marx as journalist of 1857 etc). There is a good two hours to watch, but its informative and worth the time.
Here is a taster (links not imported) from Lenin's Tomb... It really is worth going to visit to follow the linkings:
This is for the very wonderful Camille and Nick:"I just mentioned 'secularism'. Please allow me a long parenthesis here. It is not about the veil at school but the veil of 'marriage'. I unhesitatingly supported and endorsed with my signature the welcome and courageous initiative taken by Noel Mamere, even though same-sex marriage is an example of that great tradition inaugurated by Americans in the nineteenth century under the name of civil disobedience: not defiance of the Law but disobedience with regard to some legislative provision in the name of a better or higher law - whether to come or already written in the spirit of the constitution [Mamere presided over the first same sex marriages in France - relieved of his duties, unions annulled by the courts, vive la republique!]. And so I signed in this current legislative context because it seems to me unjust for the rights of homosexuals, as well as hypocritical and ambiguous in both letter and spirit. If I were a legislator [JD!], I would propose simply getting rid of the word and concept of 'marriage' in our civil and secular code. 'Marriage' as a religious, sacred, heterosexual value - with a vow to procreate, to be eternally faithful, and so on - is a concession made by the secular state to the Christian church, and particularly with regard to monogamy, which is neither Jewish (it was imposed upon Jews by Europeans only in the nineteenth century and was not an obligation just a few generations ago in Jewish Maghreb), nor, as is well known, Muslim. By getting rid of the word and concept of 'marriage', and thus this ambiguity or this hypocrisy with regard to the religious and the sacred - things that have no place in a secular constitution - one could put in their place a contractual 'civil union', a sort of generalized pacs, one that has been improved, refined, and would remain flexible and adaptable to partners whose sex and number would not be prescribed. As for those who want to be joined in 'marriage' in the strict sense of the term - something, by the way, for which my respect remains totally intact - they would be able to do so before the religious authority of their choosing. This is already the case in certain countries where religiously consecrated same-sex marriages are allowed. Some people might thus unite according to one mode or the other, some according to both, others according to neither secular law nor religious law. So much for my little conjugal paragraph. It's utopic, but I'm already setting a date!"
This disturbingly interesting post is from youth worker Mark Oestreicher. The convolutions of owning and believing are curious indeed. I normally would not bother with god-botherin' types, but this is almost authorisation from above when he wants to get the law involved in terminologies/normative ideal typologies or whatever we might call em, that I am prone to use on the main pages of this blog, am I right? I reckon he can go ahead and copywrite "Trinketization of Jesus", but I do hope (and pray?) he will give me a free chain to put on the altar to Trinketization that I keep in my office at Goldsmiths. Whatever the ins and outs on smoking with the lord and so on, I think the best bit is the comment on the ipod picture by Patrick... Here is Mark O's post in its glorous entirety:
An Invitation To The Gatwick No Border Camp 2007 
Europe launches her own presidential candidate for the US Election in 2008
I promise there will be more reports here and on Trinketization about our visit to Camp Taussig, where we have much discussed over and under, inside and outside (by the river, by the campfire) the anthro predicament, the writing premedicament, the global indictment... and despite my well rehearsed reservations, there is something to be said for gatherings that challenge and provoke a revaluation/change of temperament... So, more to come, but for the moment this little bit will have to serve as a holding report on a talk Mick gave here in High Falls (I am writing by the river now) and just this gap in time will be all there is to evoke the deep method-anti-method thought that has churned out Indigo lives here. Hate to have to say it, yet there are reasons to think anthro can still be redeemed (if it changes completely). Yet even this only if everyone takes the time to work through politics/ghosts/writing/voodoo/imperialism/beauty/institutions/... and much more besides.
Some years ago, I wrote a piece about the coins Job Charnok used to buy the three villages that eventually became the city of Kolkata. These were pieces of silver arned from the slave trade, making an interesting if brutal link between the great british adventure of exploitation in India and across the Atlantic. Coins are of course the potent symbol of capitalism. And I guess of stereotypes about Calcutta too - that scene with the coin tricks in the Swayze film City of Joy. THere is much more to say (so dig out my chapter on Calcutta coinages in Bell and Haddour's book "City Visions" 2000), but this little item caught my eye today as I was perusing the northern press (as one does):
This post from Anti-Popper is brought forward to here to inaugurate a new series of 'posts from the past' - historical division - sci fi. Heh heh. The humanity of Adama and Jameson - is doggited."I can’t find my ancient copy of Battlestar Galactica 2: The Cylon Death Machine, and it hurts. Of course, because I’m such a fan of the current series, it doesn’t seem likely that a novelisation of the original, cheesy Battlestar Galactica would have a place in my heart, right? I mean, my brother got me Fredric Jameson’s Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions for my birthday — I couldn’t possibly like this kind of trash, which barely passes for “real” science fiction, right? But I was a big fan of the original Galactica, for two reasons:
While it was undoubtedly drab in comparison to Star Wars, Galactica was shown frequently enough on TV to simply work its way, on a rhythmic level, into my playground fantasies when I was seven years old. And it’s not as if I hadn’t found “finer” sf, either — I was also reading Isaac Asimov’s robot stories at the time.
By fleshing out all the aspects of the show that were atrophying under the family-oriented network TV regime of the day, the novelisations made Galactica seem so much better than it really was. Like many media tie-ins, Robert Thurston’s first couple of Galactica novelisations were based on the original scripts, and written several months before shooting. In Galactica’s case, this meant Cylons that weren’t clumsy walking toasters who couldn’t shoot straight (a last-minute change dictated by the network), but murderous lizards who (according to Thurston) thought bitchy thoughts about their superior officers, waited impatiently for promotions, and were driven crazy by the itches that developed under all that heavy armour!
Writing about my loss of The Cylon Death Machine is particularly poignant for me because the event is so recursive. From what I can remember, the novel’s narrative was interspersed with extracts from Commander Adama’s personal log — The Adama Journals — in which he muses about all sorts of seemingly random and inconsequential shit in the middle of the tactical emergencies of the time. Adama’s log is, of course, very bloggy. In this log, he finds the time to mourn how so much Caprican culture was destroyed in the apocalyptic Cylon attack on the Colonies. But rather than honour high culture, Adama chooses to remember pulpy kids’ science fiction: his own favourite childhood book was called something like Sharkey the Star Rover, and featured the insterstellar wanderings of an orphan human boy, Sharkey, and his best friend, an alien blob called — of all things — Jameson. Adama requests of a search of all the archives in the fleet, but alas, the book is lost forever. Just as I’m not quite sure whether I remember this book correctly, Adama wonders if his memory of Sharkey The Star Rover is accurate. Sharkey loves his alien friend Jameson, who receives much racist abuse from other humans. And yet Sharkey also wishes Jameson were a real boy, instead of a blob, so that he could hold him, and thus physically express his love.
I miss The Cylon Death Machine, and thus, Sharkey The Star Rover."
[ tags: battlestar-galactica, culture, pop-culture, science-fiction, sf ]
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