Sunday, October 9, 2011
THE SEARCHER STEPS OFF INTO THE ABYSS
It does not matter what path you take.
For if in your heart you know it is your path?
There is only one destination.
"Where are we going?
Home, always home"
Novalis
For if in your heart you know it is your path?
There is only one destination.
"Where are we going?
Home, always home"
Novalis
Monday, April 25, 2011
MUSINGS -- IS IT ALWAYS WRONG TO WANT TO CHANGE SOMEBODY?
To every lover I have always said
& they have always said to me -
"It is always wrong to want to change somebody
you must accept me as I am"
But now it occurs to me? -
Do I want to be accepted as I am? Yes, I do, I do,
As much as I want to be different, to be unbroken, to be healed,
I need you not to want to change me - only then can I change myself
...for if I am beautiful in your mirror, baby,
in the mirror of your eyes...
I will see that I am good -
Only then can I be healed.
I can see that you are good -
Do you really see this in me?
Is it possible for us not to change each other
If we can accept each other as we are?
Will I not change into someone who is not lonely?
Will you not change into someone who is not alone?
You will change into someone loved, this cannot be helped
I will change into someone who loves,
Someone who feels loved,
Someone who can say "I love you",
Someone who can love,
For whom love no longer hurts
I want to change into someone who is not ashamed,
It is always wrong to want to change somebody,
For change must always come from within
Therein lies the paradox
x
& they have always said to me -
"It is always wrong to want to change somebody
you must accept me as I am"
But now it occurs to me? -
Do I want to be accepted as I am? Yes, I do, I do,
As much as I want to be different, to be unbroken, to be healed,
I need you not to want to change me - only then can I change myself
...for if I am beautiful in your mirror, baby,
in the mirror of your eyes...
I will see that I am good -
Only then can I be healed.
I can see that you are good -
Do you really see this in me?
Is it possible for us not to change each other
If we can accept each other as we are?
Will I not change into someone who is not lonely?
Will you not change into someone who is not alone?
You will change into someone loved, this cannot be helped
I will change into someone who loves,
Someone who feels loved,
Someone who can say "I love you",
Someone who can love,
For whom love no longer hurts
I would change into someone loved, this cannot be helped
You would change into someone who loves,
Someone who feels loved,
Someone who can say "I love you",
Someone who can love, for whom love no longer hurts
I want to change into someone who is not ashamed,
It is always wrong to want to change somebody,
For change must always come from within
Therein lies the paradox
x
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
LEONARD COHEN AND JUDY COLLINS SING "SUZANNE"
I couldn't sleep tonight, so I continued my quest to listen to everything ever recorded by Leonard Cohen. I was rather struck by this duet with Judy Collins that I unearthed on Youtube -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGGSo530bdA
Fool that I am - instead of maximising Leonard-Cohen-listening-time I turned my eye to the comments that had been posted, and as always I had to have my say - mouthy little shit that I am.
But how could I resist disabusing "e61807" from the notion that he wrote Suzanne - he can't even spell Suzzane [stet]! ...
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGGSo530bdA
Fool that I am - instead of maximising Leonard-Cohen-listening-time I turned my eye to the comments that had been posted, and as always I had to have my say - mouthy little shit that I am.
But how could I resist disabusing "e61807" from the notion that he wrote Suzanne - he can't even spell Suzzane [stet]! ...
e61807, 8 months ago...
This song was actually written in 1967 as a poem, then aquired by Cohen from a ghost writer. One of the songs that inspired Cohen to start singing. This song was first writen [stet] by James C. Ronning (See "Story of a Ghost Writer") and sent to Leonard Cohen to find an artist to record it. Leonard bought the rights which legally means he "wrote it". He added the last few words himself. [Neil!] Diamond sung the song with it ending with ...."and Suzzane [stet] looked in her mirror....." thus leaving a completely different slant. My origninal [stet] did not have the last words and Diamond sung it that way. I still got the contract. Listen to" Lady Magdalene" by Diamond.
jestertick, today...
Dear e61807 - it is absurd to claim that Suzanne was written in 1967 by James C Ronning, because Cohen published the lyrics as a poem in his 1966 book "Parasites of Heaven". Even if you had the dates wrong I cannot think of any other authors who could have written these words, they fit perfectly into his coded cosmology, only he possessed the cypher. I am afraid you have been duped or you are insane. Take your pick.
sweetgypsywife, 2 months ago...
I believe this song is about Suzanne Verdal, who made more of an impression on Leonard than she realised at the time. Judy Collins saw the potential of the song and recorded it herself. She encouraged Leonard to record this song. He also sold the rights to it....
TheBlindPig, 12 months ago...
sweetgypsywife, Please for gods sake and mine explain your prosaic interpretation of suzanne, just a little. When Cohen say's "The sky would open" do you interpret this as the sky in a masculine or feminine role, either to pour fourth(open - Rain) OR open recieve christ. Do you think the sky the limit and death?"O rivers mingling toward the sky" water mans chained freedom? If you think Cohen is a beefcake who uses cool words like fire and christ and razor and snow, ignore. You want to travel blind", The bottom of the sea is cruel, which is where the lovers search and rest. Perhaps its better to listen and anyway "We see through the eye not with ". Love makes the flowers grow, it is the only force consistent with vision, although this growth is only reaching. Is wisdom a stone? Knowleage like Suzanne, takes us down. "And so it was I entered the broken world To trace the visionary company of love" Counter - part of the stern above water. salvation - salvage.
jestertick, today...
Cohen seamlessly juxtaposes the microcosmic & macrocosmic relationships between the individual & their other - he reveals the man/woman mystery & the I/thou relationship with God as different aspects of one thing. In his poetry he adopts the practice of omitting the "o" from God, reminding the reader that G-d is beyond naming, and also misses the "e" from s-x. The goal of being is to realise we are not two fish swimming in opposite directions - we are the Sea.
lenahjonsson, 10 months ago...
Never trust "a stranger".... (It's you my love, it's you who are the stranger....)
jestertick, today...
Cohen thinks hes the voice of one crying alone in the wilderness - but if 'the kingdom of heaven is within' us? Then all men will be sailors. Cohen performed in sackcloth, referencing Revelations - "I will give power unto my 2 witnesses & they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred & threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the 2 olive trees & the 2 candlesticks standing before the God of the earth". It is insane not to have a messiah complex, we are One.
TerrySleeper, 5 months ago...
He's not a patch on Bob Dylan, and he admitted as much when he described Dylan as "The Picasso of song." QED.
jestertick, today...
If Dylan is the Picasso of song? Cohen is Michelangelo.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
THE ALL AND THE EVERYTHING
Last year I posted the following sacred geometrical diagrams (and a brief cryptic clue as to their interpretation) to Facebook , by way of an esoteric riddle.
The single respondent made some very informed and elegantly phrased observations, with which I concur entirely.
I further expanded upon these themes in response, illustrating these points with quotes from The Dao De Ching and the writings of William Blake and Aleister Crowley, partly for context, but mainly because they are not my ideas - they are as old as time.
I have copied this conversation in its entirety below - if you should stumble upon this page I hope you might find some of what is said thought provoking. Of course - it is not intended to be taken as gospel, for it is but words and pictures, a shadow play, it is not what it describes, though it is of it.
The Cherubim of Ezekiel before & after the Reversal. The Seal is broken & that which is unseen becomes seen. The Seal of David & Solomon is the seal of a broken heart, 2 trinities suspended in opposition. When these 2 trinities unite, in the universal hexagram, they are now the same, they are One - the Seal of the Federation.
Before the Reversal? What was unseen?
After the reversal? Where is he who endures until the end?
*
Please comment, I am very interested to know how much of this is understood. This information is concerning the transition to a higher illusion.
http://www.jester.me.uk/
Before the Reversal? What was unseen?
After the reversal? Where is he who endures until the end?
*
Please comment, I am very interested to know how much of this is understood. This information is concerning the transition to a higher illusion.
http://www.jester.me.uk/
Sunday, February 20, 2011
INDECENT EXPOSURE
Just discovered this lost ramble in my draft folder - thought I'd publish it, what it lacks in structure it (arguably) makes up for in passion! ...
I find people who are offended by the sight of the human body deeply offensive.
This is a gut reaction, perhaps it is unreasonable of me to feel this way - after all, the covering of the body is generally held to be a symbol of shame, & Mankind has plenty to be ashamed about- war, ethnic cleansing, greed, the rape of the planet, putting cats in wheelie-bins - the list goes on and on. Even if you're a politically active pacifist who recycles - it is clearly perfectly reasonable to harbour a sense of collective guilt at our species' seemingly limitless capacity for utterly appalling behaviour. If I was to attend an intergalactic conference I would most certainly wear a Burkha - it is embarrassing being a Human Being (am I just paranoid, or are the other extra-terrestrial delegates whispering behind my back & sniggering, just as we laugh when a bear covers his eyes with his paws, "poor simple, deluded creature - he thinks we cannot see him!")
Yes, we have much to be ashamed of, it is no wonder we spend our lives devising more and more ingenious distractions. But if we sedate ourselves, if we choose to forget, then we will have learnt nothing, & if we have learnt nothing then we will make the same mistakes again, again, again & again.
Yes, it is easy to forget - but if each of us, as individuals, should choose to forget - then society forgets, for society has no memory outside of existing beings of men. We must remember - not to make our lives easier, but so that we can collectively learn from our mistakes, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past, the mistakes that we find so hard to face (reminds me of the vampires in the TV series 'Being Human', who have to keep killing people & drinking their blood, or they start to remember all the people they've killed and the suffering they have caused)
We should neither forget the Holocaust, nor should we deny it - no, we must strive to understand it. Consider this - it is comforting to tell ourselves that we wouldn't collaborate with the Nazis, because we are better than them. How many times have you heard words to that effect? It is understandable if you have thought it yourself. In what way might we be better than them? Its simple, everybody knows - we are better than them because they think "we are better than them" and we don't think "we are better than them".
In the twentieth century Hitler became a political activist - his ideas were wrong, and terrible atrocities were perpetrated by him - but was he, himself, 'evil'? Or was he just doing what he thought was right? When we watch a film about Aliens who think they are better than us we are happy when the heroes defeat them. The less enlightened Jews of today still think they are the 'chosen people', a philosophy of hate entrenched in their scripture in a less enlightened age, a perfectly reasonable reaction to their persecution in a more primitive age. Hitler should have known better than to adopt this philosophy himself, but while he was a brave and passionate man he lacked wisdom. Hear the words of Martin-luther King Jr -
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."
If Hitler had this wisdom? Then there would have been no Holocaust, no WWII. We have had the experience of WWII and the Holocaust, and still we appear to be having tremendous difficulty collectively assimilating the obvious lessons these horrific, shameful events should have taught us - so it is patently obvious that without these experiences to learn from we would stand no chance whatsoever of collectively evolving to a point where such things could never happen again. If we can learn the lessons of time? Then WWII and the holocaust could be the best thing that ever happened to Mankind, & the terrible would not have been in vain. If we cannot learn? Then we are doomed,
Everyone has heard this phrase, but I think few understand it -
SEE NO EVIL HEAR NO EVIL SPEAK NO EVIL
Hate is an affliction, a disease - those who suffer from it are to be pitied. Feel sorry for them, they are filled with the cancer of Hate - how terrible for them. The disease of Hate burns inside them & consumes them, it is a pain inside, a fever that drives them to do unspeakable things. When we have a pain it is telling us something is wrong with our body, & so we take appropriate action. If there is a thorn in our side? We remove it. If we have a cold? We take a remedy to relieve the symptoms - as there is no known cure for the common cold.
Imagine your family is killed by people infected with hate. Sadly, some people reading this might not need to imagine this. Feel the terrible pain of your loss. What can be done about it? What is the cure for this pain inside? Without the benefit of scientific insight it is as natural as assuming the Earth to be flat to perceive the perpetrators of the atrocity to be the sickness itself, for hate is a contagious disease, and it is spread by anger. If you have become infected with hate the likelihood is that you will do something equally despicable in vengeance - and thus the endless cycle of escalating atrocities continues. You may have removed the thorn, but today's fresh wounds will become the festering, infected cancerous buboes that will disfigure your children's children's children.
But their actions and your reactions are the symptoms of this disease - the disease of hate is spread by its inappropriate treatment. In the past ailments were treated with leeches, mercury, blood-letting - all manner of useless & often counter-productive measures. We no longer use these treatments as they have been proved ineffective.
If only we could find a physician with a cure for hate! There was, once, a maverick doctor who proposed a radical cure, but he was widely misunderstood - his ideas were too advanced for the time.
I never thought I'd say this, but I think Maggie Thatcher was right when she said this -
Lets face it, two hundred years ago almost everybody thought "we're better than them". We're better than them because they live in huts and dance naked in the moonlight. We're better than them because we're better at killing people. We're better than them because we're better at enslaving people. We're better than them because we're better at selling things. We're better than them because our holy books are more accurate and yours are perverted (who gives a flying fuck what it says in your fucking scripture, it could say 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL' and you'd probably ignore it, actions speak much louder than words).
It doesn't fucking matter what country your great-great-grandparents were born in or what colour you are, for crying out loud - we're a dysfunctional family, I'll grant you that - but we're all fucking related. Nor does it matter what pet name you have for G-d, its just a word, a grunt, some squiggles on paper you've agreed amongst yourselves indicate something inexplicable that you've felt in your hearts, something utterly beyond naming -yes, you gotta have a word for it - but as soon as you think your word is summat special you're worshipping a Golden Calf.
We're better than them because.. because.. because we fucking are, alright?
If there is one lesson that time should have taught us by now - when you say "I'm better than you" then whoever you say it to will resent it, and try and prove they are better than you are at the first opportunity. Its playground politics.
Pride is not a sin, to be proud to be part of this magnificent universe is natural - be proud to be a part of the glorious Nature of things! Be proud to be an animal! Pride is not a sin. So why is it so hard to be proud to be a human being? We feel pain for a reason, to tell us there is a thorn in our side, so that we can remove it. We are right to be ashamed to be human at the intergalactic conference, this shame is a pain, a pain telling us that there is something wrong. What is this thorn that needs to be removed? Its name is 'hate'. It is not a sin to be proud of your people - but there is no call for this pride to make you think 'we are better than them', your pride in who you are is a qualitative pride, not a quantitative one.
Is it just human nature, or is there the potential for change? Look at the past couple of hundred years, change is not just possible, it is inevitable. We are evolving, collectively. The rising values of 'tolerance, diversity & equality' are platitudes, but they are cornerstones of the global paradigm shift that is occurring. In Britain they are rightly enshrined in all the mission statements of public sector organisations. To me it seems one word is missing, one word that could replace them all - love.
I find people who are offended by the sight of the human body deeply offensive.
This is a gut reaction, perhaps it is unreasonable of me to feel this way - after all, the covering of the body is generally held to be a symbol of shame, & Mankind has plenty to be ashamed about- war, ethnic cleansing, greed, the rape of the planet, putting cats in wheelie-bins - the list goes on and on. Even if you're a politically active pacifist who recycles - it is clearly perfectly reasonable to harbour a sense of collective guilt at our species' seemingly limitless capacity for utterly appalling behaviour. If I was to attend an intergalactic conference I would most certainly wear a Burkha - it is embarrassing being a Human Being (am I just paranoid, or are the other extra-terrestrial delegates whispering behind my back & sniggering, just as we laugh when a bear covers his eyes with his paws, "poor simple, deluded creature - he thinks we cannot see him!")
Yes, we have much to be ashamed of, it is no wonder we spend our lives devising more and more ingenious distractions. But if we sedate ourselves, if we choose to forget, then we will have learnt nothing, & if we have learnt nothing then we will make the same mistakes again, again, again & again.
Yes, it is easy to forget - but if each of us, as individuals, should choose to forget - then society forgets, for society has no memory outside of existing beings of men. We must remember - not to make our lives easier, but so that we can collectively learn from our mistakes, rather than repeating the mistakes of the past, the mistakes that we find so hard to face (reminds me of the vampires in the TV series 'Being Human', who have to keep killing people & drinking their blood, or they start to remember all the people they've killed and the suffering they have caused)
We should neither forget the Holocaust, nor should we deny it - no, we must strive to understand it. Consider this - it is comforting to tell ourselves that we wouldn't collaborate with the Nazis, because we are better than them. How many times have you heard words to that effect? It is understandable if you have thought it yourself. In what way might we be better than them? Its simple, everybody knows - we are better than them because they think "we are better than them" and we don't think "we are better than them".
In the twentieth century Hitler became a political activist - his ideas were wrong, and terrible atrocities were perpetrated by him - but was he, himself, 'evil'? Or was he just doing what he thought was right? When we watch a film about Aliens who think they are better than us we are happy when the heroes defeat them. The less enlightened Jews of today still think they are the 'chosen people', a philosophy of hate entrenched in their scripture in a less enlightened age, a perfectly reasonable reaction to their persecution in a more primitive age. Hitler should have known better than to adopt this philosophy himself, but while he was a brave and passionate man he lacked wisdom. Hear the words of Martin-luther King Jr -
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
"Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."
If Hitler had this wisdom? Then there would have been no Holocaust, no WWII. We have had the experience of WWII and the Holocaust, and still we appear to be having tremendous difficulty collectively assimilating the obvious lessons these horrific, shameful events should have taught us - so it is patently obvious that without these experiences to learn from we would stand no chance whatsoever of collectively evolving to a point where such things could never happen again. If we can learn the lessons of time? Then WWII and the holocaust could be the best thing that ever happened to Mankind, & the terrible would not have been in vain. If we cannot learn? Then we are doomed,
Everyone has heard this phrase, but I think few understand it -
SEE NO EVIL HEAR NO EVIL SPEAK NO EVIL
Hate is an affliction, a disease - those who suffer from it are to be pitied. Feel sorry for them, they are filled with the cancer of Hate - how terrible for them. The disease of Hate burns inside them & consumes them, it is a pain inside, a fever that drives them to do unspeakable things. When we have a pain it is telling us something is wrong with our body, & so we take appropriate action. If there is a thorn in our side? We remove it. If we have a cold? We take a remedy to relieve the symptoms - as there is no known cure for the common cold.
Imagine your family is killed by people infected with hate. Sadly, some people reading this might not need to imagine this. Feel the terrible pain of your loss. What can be done about it? What is the cure for this pain inside? Without the benefit of scientific insight it is as natural as assuming the Earth to be flat to perceive the perpetrators of the atrocity to be the sickness itself, for hate is a contagious disease, and it is spread by anger. If you have become infected with hate the likelihood is that you will do something equally despicable in vengeance - and thus the endless cycle of escalating atrocities continues. You may have removed the thorn, but today's fresh wounds will become the festering, infected cancerous buboes that will disfigure your children's children's children.
But their actions and your reactions are the symptoms of this disease - the disease of hate is spread by its inappropriate treatment. In the past ailments were treated with leeches, mercury, blood-letting - all manner of useless & often counter-productive measures. We no longer use these treatments as they have been proved ineffective.
If only we could find a physician with a cure for hate! There was, once, a maverick doctor who proposed a radical cure, but he was widely misunderstood - his ideas were too advanced for the time.
"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you" Luke 6:27-37
I never thought I'd say this, but I think Maggie Thatcher was right when she said this -
"There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."If we can truly penetrate & internalise the lessons of time? Treat the past as a valuable & incomparably powerful lesson & it will become our greatest asset, our teacher - for every life cut short countless will be saved, lives lived to the full in a brighter world. Ignore that ol' teacher Time? I guarantee you, should we persist in striving to prove that we are better than them - then we'll prove just one thing, to no-one - that we were an irredeemably brutal & selfish species, hellbent on pursuing endlessly repeating cycles of escalating violence, persecution & exploitation.
Lets face it, two hundred years ago almost everybody thought "we're better than them". We're better than them because they live in huts and dance naked in the moonlight. We're better than them because we're better at killing people. We're better than them because we're better at enslaving people. We're better than them because we're better at selling things. We're better than them because our holy books are more accurate and yours are perverted (who gives a flying fuck what it says in your fucking scripture, it could say 'THOU SHALT NOT KILL' and you'd probably ignore it, actions speak much louder than words).
It doesn't fucking matter what country your great-great-grandparents were born in or what colour you are, for crying out loud - we're a dysfunctional family, I'll grant you that - but we're all fucking related. Nor does it matter what pet name you have for G-d, its just a word, a grunt, some squiggles on paper you've agreed amongst yourselves indicate something inexplicable that you've felt in your hearts, something utterly beyond naming -yes, you gotta have a word for it - but as soon as you think your word is summat special you're worshipping a Golden Calf.
We're better than them because.. because.. because we fucking are, alright?
If there is one lesson that time should have taught us by now - when you say "I'm better than you" then whoever you say it to will resent it, and try and prove they are better than you are at the first opportunity. Its playground politics.
Pride is not a sin, to be proud to be part of this magnificent universe is natural - be proud to be a part of the glorious Nature of things! Be proud to be an animal! Pride is not a sin. So why is it so hard to be proud to be a human being? We feel pain for a reason, to tell us there is a thorn in our side, so that we can remove it. We are right to be ashamed to be human at the intergalactic conference, this shame is a pain, a pain telling us that there is something wrong. What is this thorn that needs to be removed? Its name is 'hate'. It is not a sin to be proud of your people - but there is no call for this pride to make you think 'we are better than them', your pride in who you are is a qualitative pride, not a quantitative one.
Is it just human nature, or is there the potential for change? Look at the past couple of hundred years, change is not just possible, it is inevitable. We are evolving, collectively. The rising values of 'tolerance, diversity & equality' are platitudes, but they are cornerstones of the global paradigm shift that is occurring. In Britain they are rightly enshrined in all the mission statements of public sector organisations. To me it seems one word is missing, one word that could replace them all - love.
J
X
Thursday, January 6, 2011
ARE YOU A CAPITALIST COLLABORATOR?
Probably, yes - unless you live in a squat and steal absolutely everything you need to survive. When we make financial transactions with privately owned companies we are collaborating with the competitive Capitalist system.
The world sure ain't perfick - and I view Capitalism, at least as we understand it and as it is practised today, as a big part of the problem. The word is just a word, a means of fair distribution of goods/services recognition for labours and achievements is nessary Are you part of the problem? Yes. It is currently impossible not to be part of the Capitalist machine, however hard we, as individuals or as organisations, might try not to deal with profit making organisations - there are simply not enough alternatives to escape being a cog in the global economic machine.
The way we buy, sell & distribute music (and everything else) is in flux at this time. As individual artists/consumers of music the manner in which in which we interact now will dictate the future of how music is distributed in the future -we are voting with our feet. The same goes for all forms of Capitalist transactions - in my view it is imperative that we continue to develop alternatives to private/shareholder ownership of the means of communication and distribution, collectively owned by the producers, consumers and service providers.
There are many reasons why I feel the means of distribution should be collectively owned by the producers/consumers, in the case of music these are the artists and their audiences. The structure of the free-market is controlled by those that do not create product (while consuming a vastly larger quantity than those that do), while the producers and consumers have largely had to rely on bowderlised unions and impotent consumer organisations to represent them.
Those that buy from the producers and sell to the consumers have rarely showed remorse for the producers when technologies have become available that can do the job more quickly and cheaply without the need for skilled labour (eg- when Murdoch layed off 6000 striking skilled and semi-skilled employees, secretly opening a hi-tech printing press at another location). I think the elimination of unnecessary labour is a good thing - the competitive system is inefficient, unsustainable and generates meaningless menial alienated jobs - research is duplicated by competing companies, while unnecessary products with built-in obsolescence are churned out and sold to people by a constant stream of Capitalist propaganda - everywhere we are bombarded with adverts, telling us we need what we don't need, that we need this to be like this, pummeling our every sense with incitements to consume, consume, consume.
The mass media has homogenized our culture - for example, for economic reasons the record industry ensures that a few acts dominate the air-waves across the country, even the world, and are disproportionately rewarded, while local acts of not inconsiderable talent are unable to find the support to break even and are all too often signing on. Local culture is steamrollered by acts that are basically corporate investments - is at any wonder that local communities are so fractured and alienating when they have been robbed of a
At first the mass media was almost entirely passive for the consumer - Newspapers, Movies, Radio, Television - they all give out, but they do not take back - and what they dish out is largely propaganda for the appeasement of the masses. I do not believe in "us and them" conspiracies - we are all complicit in our own brainwashing, for it is the masses themselves that drive what is produced - WE WANT TO BE SEDATED - and who can blame us? - just look at the state of the world. As an aside it is an interesting observation that the aspiational American psyche is more demanding of aspirational propaganda, their films, soaps and dramas are predominantly set in glamorous locations with an attractive cast, and many of them marvel at why we want to watch Eastenders or Steptoe and Son - "isn't television about escape" they ask - American viewers seem to want a drug to escape, and that is what the networks provides - the British? Perhaps they seek a drug that provides reassurance - that makes them fell like their real lives are of worth as they are, are worth making television programmes about. A Marxist might argue that this is a conspiracyto brainwash the working classes into accepting their place in society - but again I would say that while this phnomonon stems from the class system it is a self-perpetuating institution in which both supplier and consumer are complicit, supply and demand. Perhaps it is because I am british, but I prefer our approach, while oiur dramas might placate the masses at least they do not, for the most part, conspire to motivate the consumer to higher and higher levels of consumption.
the ICT revolution unfolding around us
This is not a time to step up industry to buoy up the economy, we do not need so many things, and it is unsustainable to keep producing them - it is a time for industry to stop competing and started collaborating globally. A lot of what Marx said in the Communist Manifesto seems to make a lot more sense now, for example that true Communism is only possible in a united world - and now that the internet is beginning to democratise the media and give the masses the potential to speak with a global voice. If a global referenda were possible now the aspirational capitalists and starving millions alike would place a tick in the box "would you like to see the world's wealth distributed more fairly" because for 99% (thats a guess) of the respondents this would be the same as asking "do you want a fairer share of the world's resources?" or "do you want more"? Please, Sir, can I have some more?
The internet has the potential to reduce the intermediary to an automated process, cutting out the middle-men, who have control over the market and find it most beneficial to the lining of their own pockets to please the share holders, redistributing the wealth that the producers and consumers have generated to a group of people who largely toil not, nor do they spin, share-holders whose only virtue is an obscene bank balance made possible by a system that offers disproportionately high dividends to people for making money or having rich parents - yes, some kind of system is necessary to ensure the fair and proportionate distribution of goods and services based on people's contribution to the community, yes - but the global economy as we know it is a system for keeping the rich very rich, and the poor very poor.
Steps are being taken in the right direction - many of the super-rich in the world today made their millions in the trading rooms or in the ICT revolution. It seems surprisingly common that these
Or if some leak should shatter the global economy we must be ready with our non-profit collectively owned alternatives ready to fill the void it leaves before chaos sets in.
The world sure ain't perfick - and I view Capitalism, at least as we understand it and as it is practised today, as a big part of the problem. The word is just a word, a means of fair distribution of goods/services recognition for labours and achievements is nessary Are you part of the problem? Yes. It is currently impossible not to be part of the Capitalist machine, however hard we, as individuals or as organisations, might try not to deal with profit making organisations - there are simply not enough alternatives to escape being a cog in the global economic machine.
The way we buy, sell & distribute music (and everything else) is in flux at this time. As individual artists/consumers of music the manner in which in which we interact now will dictate the future of how music is distributed in the future -we are voting with our feet. The same goes for all forms of Capitalist transactions - in my view it is imperative that we continue to develop alternatives to private/shareholder ownership of the means of communication and distribution, collectively owned by the producers, consumers and service providers.
There are many reasons why I feel the means of distribution should be collectively owned by the producers/consumers, in the case of music these are the artists and their audiences. The structure of the free-market is controlled by those that do not create product (while consuming a vastly larger quantity than those that do), while the producers and consumers have largely had to rely on bowderlised unions and impotent consumer organisations to represent them.
Those that buy from the producers and sell to the consumers have rarely showed remorse for the producers when technologies have become available that can do the job more quickly and cheaply without the need for skilled labour (eg- when Murdoch layed off 6000 striking skilled and semi-skilled employees, secretly opening a hi-tech printing press at another location). I think the elimination of unnecessary labour is a good thing - the competitive system is inefficient, unsustainable and generates meaningless menial alienated jobs - research is duplicated by competing companies, while unnecessary products with built-in obsolescence are churned out and sold to people by a constant stream of Capitalist propaganda - everywhere we are bombarded with adverts, telling us we need what we don't need, that we need this to be like this, pummeling our every sense with incitements to consume, consume, consume.
The mass media has homogenized our culture - for example, for economic reasons the record industry ensures that a few acts dominate the air-waves across the country, even the world, and are disproportionately rewarded, while local acts of not inconsiderable talent are unable to find the support to break even and are all too often signing on. Local culture is steamrollered by acts that are basically corporate investments - is at any wonder that local communities are so fractured and alienating when they have been robbed of a
At first the mass media was almost entirely passive for the consumer - Newspapers, Movies, Radio, Television - they all give out, but they do not take back - and what they dish out is largely propaganda for the appeasement of the masses. I do not believe in "us and them" conspiracies - we are all complicit in our own brainwashing, for it is the masses themselves that drive what is produced - WE WANT TO BE SEDATED - and who can blame us? - just look at the state of the world. As an aside it is an interesting observation that the aspiational American psyche is more demanding of aspirational propaganda, their films, soaps and dramas are predominantly set in glamorous locations with an attractive cast, and many of them marvel at why we want to watch Eastenders or Steptoe and Son - "isn't television about escape" they ask - American viewers seem to want a drug to escape, and that is what the networks provides - the British? Perhaps they seek a drug that provides reassurance - that makes them fell like their real lives are of worth as they are, are worth making television programmes about. A Marxist might argue that this is a conspiracyto brainwash the working classes into accepting their place in society - but again I would say that while this phnomonon stems from the class system it is a self-perpetuating institution in which both supplier and consumer are complicit, supply and demand. Perhaps it is because I am british, but I prefer our approach, while oiur dramas might placate the masses at least they do not, for the most part, conspire to motivate the consumer to higher and higher levels of consumption.
the ICT revolution unfolding around us
This is not a time to step up industry to buoy up the economy, we do not need so many things, and it is unsustainable to keep producing them - it is a time for industry to stop competing and started collaborating globally. A lot of what Marx said in the Communist Manifesto seems to make a lot more sense now, for example that true Communism is only possible in a united world - and now that the internet is beginning to democratise the media and give the masses the potential to speak with a global voice. If a global referenda were possible now the aspirational capitalists and starving millions alike would place a tick in the box "would you like to see the world's wealth distributed more fairly" because for 99% (thats a guess) of the respondents this would be the same as asking "do you want a fairer share of the world's resources?" or "do you want more"? Please, Sir, can I have some more?
The internet has the potential to reduce the intermediary to an automated process, cutting out the middle-men, who have control over the market and find it most beneficial to the lining of their own pockets to please the share holders, redistributing the wealth that the producers and consumers have generated to a group of people who largely toil not, nor do they spin, share-holders whose only virtue is an obscene bank balance made possible by a system that offers disproportionately high dividends to people for making money or having rich parents - yes, some kind of system is necessary to ensure the fair and proportionate distribution of goods and services based on people's contribution to the community, yes - but the global economy as we know it is a system for keeping the rich very rich, and the poor very poor.
Steps are being taken in the right direction - many of the super-rich in the world today made their millions in the trading rooms or in the ICT revolution. It seems surprisingly common that these
Or if some leak should shatter the global economy we must be ready with our non-profit collectively owned alternatives ready to fill the void it leaves before chaos sets in.
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