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Tag Archives: Democrat Party

“World Peace Is None of Your Business” (2014) by Morrissey

13 Wed May 2015

Posted by ztnh in Anti-Capitalism, Anti-Imperialism, Anti-War, Free Speech, History of Rock and Roll, Music, Police State

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Democrat Party, DJ León-Ferman, Morrissey, Republican, UMKC, World Peace Is None of Your Business

533px-Morrissey_World_Peace_Album_ArtWikiUserLUMPENPROLETARIAT

The carelessness of our society (passively or actively) supporting corporate/capitalist political parties in the USA—Democratic and Republican parties—like those in virtually all ‘advanced’ nations, which incrementally strip us of our human rights at home and engage in capitalist imperialism abroad, reflected in Morrissey‘s brilliant song, “World Peace Is None of Your Business“, reminds me of the impassioned frustration my UMKC colleague DJ León-Ferman has expressed recently in his socioeconomic analysis.  Many of us do not feel in the most profound depths of our being the injustices committed against others. 

The politics of resignation mean that even people of conscience, even brilliant economists I’ve met at UMKC’s radical heterodox economics department, are satisfied with the status quo, such that they are content with doing nothing to help eliminate the suffering of our neighbours and those in foreign nations, which our imperialist armed forces bully with their military bases and self-serving foreign policies.  Our society has forgotten the meaning of civic engagement.  Many of us, with ways and means, feel that just going to work and making ourselves happy is enough to constitute a humanely-lived life, whilst others suffer greatly.  Perhaps, it is; that is, until our police state is no longer satisfied with preying on the most vulnerable in our society.  First they came for the most vulnerable…

—Messina

***

“World Peace is None of Your Business” (2014) by Morrissey

World peace is none of your business
You must not tamper with arrangements
Work hard and sweetly pay your taxes
Never asking what for
Oh, you poor little fool; oh, you fool

World peace is none of your business
Police will stun you with their stun guns
Or they’ll disable you with tasers
That’s what government’s for
Oh, you poor little fool; oh, you fool

World peace is none of your business
So, would you kindly keep your nose out
The rich must profit and get richer
And the poor must stay poor
Oh, you poor little fool; oh, you fool

Each time you vote, you support the process
Each time you vote, you support the process
Each time you vote, you support the process
Brazil and Bahrain
Oh, Egypt, Ukraine
So many people in pain
No more, you poor little fool
No more, you fool

Songwriters: BOORER, MARTIN JAMES / MORRISSEY, STEVEN

World Peace Is None of Your Business lyrics © Artemis Muziekuitgeverij B.V., Domino Publishing Co. Ltd.

***

“Action Is My Middle Name” (live, David Letterman Show 8 JAN 2013, USA) by Morrissey

***

[“Morrissey World Peace Album Art” by Source (WP:NFCC#4). Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia]

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Hard Knock Radio: Davey D and Kevin Powell Discuss the Current State of Police Terrorism in the USA

24 Fri Apr 2015

Posted by ztnh in Democracy Deferred, Police State, Racism (phenotype)

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activism, Davey D, Democrat Party, Dr. Richard D. Wolff, Hard Knock Radio, Kevin Powell (b. 1966), Presidential Election 2016, Tupac Shakur, Two-Party Dictatorship

hard-knock-radioLUMPENPROLETARIAT—On 13 APR 2015, Hard Knock Radio’s Davey D (Pacifica Radio, KPFA, 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA) [1] broadcast an interview with activist and author Kevin Powell (b. 1966) to discuss the current state of police terrorism in the USA.  Powell likened modern day state executions of unarmed civilians, particularly black males, to a modern-day form of lynchings.

Older folks, such as myself, may recall Kevin Powell from MTV’s original reality TV show, The Real World in the early 1990s.  Powell may not be the most revolutionary cat in the struggle.  But he is in the struggle.  And Powell seems to be a sincere advocate against police terrorism, racism, and poverty.

We know any of our peers, who have read more radical literature, books, and journals, with a stronger grasp of social, economic, and critical theory, may be disappointed with much of our analysis at Lumpenproletariat, just as we may be disappointed with some of Kevin Powell’s analysis.  But it is incumbent upon the more enlightened to help enlighten those of us still in the dark by also speaking our language from time to time in order to build bridges across divisions of intellectual capacity and help us develop more ample rhetorical and conceptual tools because, surely, the working classes and the lumpenproletariat are not expected to all go out and get graduate degrees before we can be meaningfully included in sociopolitical discourse about our own lives.  Surely, academics, with the most intellectual training and potential for wisdom, can communicate with activists on the street who may have less education, but just as much heart to fight for socioeconomic justice.

We encourage academics to come out of their insular echo chambers up in the stratospheric heights of graduate-level dialectic and speak to the people, to the working classes, and, especially, to the lumpenproletariat.  This is what makes Dr. Richard Wolff (b. 1942) so cool, despite the apparently valid epistemological complaints levelled at his theories.  We must parse the best from all angles and sources.  In that spirit, we welcome all critical, but mindful, critique.

Ultimately, Kevin Powell, in conversation with Davey D, largely echoes the words [2] of Tupac Shakur (1971—1996), possibly, the kinds, which ultimately led to Tupac’s murder (or political assassination):

“I mean I think this country was built on gangs.  This country is still run on gangs—Republicans, Democrats, the police department, the FBI, the CIA, those are gangs.  You know what I mean?  The correctional officers.  I had a correctional officer tell me, straight up:  We’re the biggest gang in New York State.  Straight up.  You know w’ I mean?  This whole country is built on gangs.  We just have to not be so self-destructive about it.  Organise.  You know?”

Listen to the interview here. [3]  Lumpenproletariat will transcribe and archive this radio broadcast here, as time and resources allow.

—Messina

***

[1] Hard Knock Radio is not only broadcast nationally, across Pacifica Radio’s national network of five listener-sponsored free speech radio stations.  HKR is also syndicated across many other community radio, listener-sponsored station across the nation.  Davey D has been an influential fixture in the SF Bay Area since, at least, the 1980s—to the best of your author’s recollection from personal historical memory.

[2] Taken from a sample used in the unidentified song played at the end of the broadcast about “black and brown people” facing lynchings with a hook singing “fire in the sky…”

[3]  Due to copyright limitations associated with musical selections incorporated into the Hard Knock Radio broadcasts (and, apparently, due to the lack of volunteers to re-edit, sans music, broadcast archives), audio streams are taken down two weeks after the broadcast date.

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Historical Archives: MR Original – State Tyranny and Two-Party Apathy

21 Tue Apr 2015

Posted by ztnh in Democracy Deferred, Free Speech, Historical Archives, Police State, Racism (phenotype)

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Democrat Party, Felipe Messina (Media Roots), KPFA, Pacifica Radio

LUMPENPROLETARIAT—The article below was originally published at MediaRoots.org on 24 FEB 2012.

We will continue to archive past articles published at MediaRoots.org by Lumpenproletariat.org founder, Felipe Messina.

-Lumpenproletariat

***

MEDIA ROOTS—(24 FEB 2012) Doubtless, many have heard of the U.S. targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki under Obama. But many may not know that al-Awlaki wasn’t the last U.S. citizen arbitrarily killed by the state, as investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill recently reported:

“You know, President Obama authorised strikes that resulted in three U.S. citizens being killed within less than a month in Yemen: Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico; Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son; and then Samir Khan, who was another U.S. citizen from North Carolina and was the editor of Inspire magazine, the English-language publication of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. All three of those U.S. citizens were killed within one month.”

Obama drone strikes have arbitrarily killed hundreds of civilians worldwide including three U.S. citizens without conviction, trial or due process. One might expect more public outcry. Yet, in light of a recent Washington Post ABC News poll revealing that 77% of self-proclaimed liberal Democrats approve of Obama’s drone policy, it seems most progressives are prepared to re-elect Obama or sit idly by as he purchases a second term.

But while we’re all indignant about the profoundly disturbing killings by the U.S. under Obama in Yemen and elsewhere, we forget the U.S. establishment is killing many more in the U.S. Many U.S. citizens, such as Kenneth Harding and Oscar Grant, are gunned down daily by the state, igniting uprisings of a different sort in this country.

Jeremy Scahill recently joined Amy Goodman to discuss U.S. intervention in Yemen and the arbitrary state killings of U.S. citizens. However, it seems important to broaden discussions to allow investigative journalists to reflect upon U.S. violence abroad as well as state violence domestically. The state killings of Anwar al-Awlaki and Oscar Grant are related, because they are all manifestations of the police state violence necessitated by U.S. imperialism under capitalism.

Mickey Huff, of Project Censored, has recently notedhow the rise of U.S. targeted killings stems from the rise of torture perpetrated by the U.S., as the citizenry becomes increasingly complacent toward its continued use in a post-9/11 sociopolitical climate. It may also be argued the rise of torture is, really, a continuation of poorly reported domestic torture of U.S. citizens, particularly people of colour and/or low-income.

The bold-faced tyranny of the state shows itself quite plainly, if we observe the historical record against labour, civil rights, and activists throughout U.S. history. As Naomi Klein noted, it’s important to look at history and roots to survive the shocks intended to derail nations. But then what are the people to do? Protest or petition our masters? Petitions are easily ignored, but also part of proving the futility of working through the system. Protests are ignored, downplayed, or distorted by the United States’ mostly corporate-owned media machine, which reaches the most U.S. minds. Protesters are intimidated, bullied, beaten, arrested, and worse for exercising their inalienable rights. Yet, they must endure.

Voltaire wrote:

“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannise will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”

Something is glaringly amiss beyond the Election 2012 hyperbole—our political discourse sorely lacks a culture of resistance to the two-party electoral system underpinning U.S. imperialism. Today, many seem to enjoy an apathetic stance toward electoral politics because the only two choices are owned by the same corporations. Yet, political parties rule this nation, in the Legislative and Executive branches, some would even say in the Judicial. And although the people need a grassroots people’s party to pose a serious Left challenge, U.S. progressives throw their lot in with their chosen political organisations, which may focus on advocacy but leave electoral politics in the unchallenged hands of Wall Street.

A serious debate about U.S. democracy must be undertaken. Virtually everyone says they want democracy, but few vote and less do so from an informed perspective. Progressives put their faith in the Democrat Party and get swindled every time. We lack a culture of reflection to learn from the past. Perhaps, new generations of progressives are fooled by Democrat Party promises because older generations do not own up to the consequences of supporting the two-party system. We have a captured political system or, perhaps, a subservient and brainwashed body politic. Both yield similar results.

Observing the U.S. in its youth, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

“The instability of the administration has penetrated into the habits of the people: it even appears to suit the general taste, and no one cares for what occurred before his time. No methodical system is pursued; no archives are formed; and no documents are brought together when it would be very easy to do so.”

They say, in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve or allow. If one doesn’t like the choices one can work to change them, or open up the process to consider alternative candidates like Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party in 2012. Otherwise, how can one complain about the next Democrat’s policies when one supported, or acquiesced in, that candidacy? In the U.S., too many are more committed to their favourite celebrity or sports team, than they are to the political candidates or parties they choose or ignore and which impact their working lives.

Progressives must analyse this question of apathy towards electoral politics or leave the task of influencing electoral politics to the highest bidder, which always hedges its bets between either side of the same two-party coin.

Written by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo [used in original article] by Flickr user Mark Z

***

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