NOT BORED! writes :

Pete Townshend Gets His Wish

As far as I know, this shit started in 1986, when Michael Jackson allowed the Nike Corporation to abuse the Beatles' song "Revolution" in one of its TV commercials. I'm sure that plenty of great rock 'n' roll songs had been licensed for commercial use before 1986, but Nike's use of "Revolution" was a watershed event, and not only because its composer, John Lennon, had died six years previously and no doubt would have been violently opposed to the idea had he been alive to hear it. (Neither Paul McCartney nor Yoko Ono were able to do anything to stop Jackson, because he'd successfully outbid them both to acquire the rights to all of the Beatles' songs.) The commercialization of "Revolution" was a watershed event because the song itself was so obviously ill-suited for use in a commercial.

I usually reject submissions like this one. Crackpot, delusional ideas that might be great in sci-fi novels. Ignoring the lack of reality and the authors taking themselves way too seriously, I gave in and decided to post this one. --U.F.

Anonymous writes "Why was the World Trade Centre at least twice chosen as a target to be attacked? It probably was perceived as a symbol of America's pride, success, arrogance and capitalism and the Towers were by their sheer size and shape easy to hit. It could be a grave mistake to recreate such a challenge by building another high-rise, that would be perceived to symbolise the above all over again.

Instead we could build something which is a living testimonial to what happened and which symbolises the value of internationalism and becomes an icon for a desire to learn from what happened and to prevent a repeat. A beacon of hope for the future.

The CUBE.
Imagine a super giant CUBE, as transparent as possible, with many cubes inside it, which perform/enable different functions 24 hours a day. Each inside cube ought to have a 100% international orientation. There could be cubes dedicated to the visual and performing arts, books, travel, clothing, body culture, health, sex, music, food and drink, furniture & housing, religion & rituals, government systems, law practices, sports, entertainment etc. Perhaps even include a hotel facility from one to three star rating.

dr.woooo writes "From: "David Bedggood (FOA SOC)"

"Empire and the Multitude: the Case of Argentina."

David Bedggood, Sociology Department, University of Auckland.
dr.bedggood@auckland.ac.nz

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire has posed a challenge to right and
left to rethink the nature of the global economy. However, the main concepts
of 'Empire' and 'Multitude' are difficult to define and apply to the
realities of class exploitation and oppression. This paper is part of a
research project that attempts to put these concepts to the test in the case
of Argentina -a country currently undergoing a major economic and social
crisis. Can it be said that Empire is able to explain the momentous events
in Argentina better than other theories including that of the Marxist theory of Imperialism?

Michael Hardt and Toni Negri's book Empire (2000) has created a stir in
academia in the last two years on both right and left. It argues that today
world capitalism has entered a new stage of development. 'Empire' is
different from imperialism and is bigger than any particular country
including the US. 'Empire' is opposed by the 'multitude' which is different
and yet has greater potential for resistance than most former conceptions of
class organisation.

On finding this rant in the submission list, I refused to resist.spartacus writes

"SLAVE-WAGE MEANS LIBERATING THE FORMER AND ABOLISHING THE LATTER

TOTAL AND COMPLETE POVERTY = THE POVERTY OF CAPITALISM EVERYDAY LIFE (EXPLOITATION)

Revolutionary minority causes mass emancipation and advancement of consciousness for the creation of a different world. A revolution without a party and leadership without centralized democratic control or dictatorship. A revolution without the bourgeoisie Intellegensia or any other form of organization, or leadership. A mass conscious, spontaneous post-proletarian anarcho-communist social revolution, directed from bellow and from behind = The invisible hand of conscious navigation and anarcho – orientation.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"But He IS A Moron!”

By John Chuckman, YellowTimes.org (Canada)

Printed on Monday, November 25, 2002

(YellowTimes.org) – Françoise Ducros, director of communications for Canada's Prime Minister Jean Chretien, said in a private conversation that Mr. Bush was a moron for the way he pushed his obsession over Iraq at a NATO meeting in Prague that had other, important issues to treat. Most informed people on the planet would classify her observation in about the same category as "sugary cereal makes a terrible breakfast," but it is so rare to hear even the slightest truth expressed regarding America's pathetic chief executive that a bit of a flap has arisen.

Anonymous Comrade writes

Economic Migrants

Jess Whyte

A man - a worker - risks death by machine gun to escape what he is told is a 'workers' state'. He flees East Berlin through a tunnel, dug beneath a cemetery.

A woman risks death by stoning to escape persecution and poverty under a regime installed by the CIA. She sells all she owns and leaves by boat.

In West Berlin a museum has been built to commemorate 'the Wall', and to honour those who have made 'great escapes' to the West. Their stories have become mythology. They are heroes.

In Australia concentration camps have been built to intern those who arrive from the global south. Their stories remain unheard. They ask if we know they are human.

Depth Squad Distro writes:

"Another Stupid War"

Will all great Neptune’s ocean this blood clean from my hand?
No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine,
making the green one red murder. — Shakespeare, Macbeth, II.ii

Those who defiantly survive police-state violence tend to develop a wracking, dark humor. In 1970, our friend and surrealist co-worker Haifa Zangana* was jailed in Saddam Hussein’s horrendous Qasir al-Nihaia political prison as an enemy of the State. In her grim but poetic memoir, Haifa recalls the taste of blood in her mouth and the sight of blood on her thighs, the hot tears she shed for friends executed by security police, and the cool gorgeous springs of water in her ancestral homeland of Kurdistan that were plugged silent with cement by Hussein’s troops. Yet today, she says with a tough, sad chuckle, she finds herself (objectively at least) on the side of the dictatorship that tortured her and against the Western governments who vow to "liberate" Iraq.

nomadlab writes: "A long time lower east side squatter and activist has passed away.

Donnie was an icon in the neighborhood scene for (15? 20? more?) years.

One of the orgnizers of the yearly events in Tompkins Square Park, commemorating the uprising of 1988, Donnie has been fighting complications related to hep-c for a while.

I will miss his energy, sense of humor and insanity.

Please post your stories about Donnie below."

A BOY NAMED BUSH

Sing along to the tune of "Beverly Hillbillies......"



Come and listen to my story 'bout a boy named Bush.

His IQ was zero and his head was up his tush.

He drank like a fish while he drove all about.

But that didn't matter 'cuz his daddy bailed him out.

DUI, that is.

Criminal record.

Cover-up.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Here's is the complete poem "Somebody Blew Up America" by Amiri Baraka, which is widely reported as the cause which prompted New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy to ask for the immediate resignation of the state's "poet laureate."