Jun 162019
 


David Hockney A Bigger Splash 1967

 

Just trying to find angles here. Trying to find people who could help Julian Assange. But so many of them are already dead. Can you imagine how different things might have been if Martin Luther King had still been alive to speak out on his situation? Or Muhammad Ali, JFK and Bobby Kennedy? Nelson Mandela? How about Bob Marley? Or, you know, Johnny Cash? Joe Strummer? We lost so many voices, and so few appear to have emerged to take their place. Have we lost too many? Are we done? Is this it?

I was thinking about Jerry Dammers recently. Not a well-known name to many. But he wrote and produced an incredibly strong song and video in the last days that Nelson Mandela was still in captivity. And I was thinking why doesn’t anyone produce something equally as strong for Assange today? And no, I couldn’t come up with an answer. The world has changed enormously, but if the P. Diddys, the Coldplays, Radioheads and Beyonce’s of this world would want to release a song like Jerry Dammers did 35 years ago, they could, and through social media, they could give it as much weight as back then. And where’s Bruce Springsteen anyway?

So here’s calling on all those people. Here’s what Dammers and his brilliant crew did in 1984, and I can’t not notice how it involves both black and white people working seamlessly together. At that time in Britain, that was normal. Try that today with all the Brexit crap and the Hostile Environment nonsense.

 

 

So why can’t we have an equally powerful song for Julian Assange? What happened to music? Was Mandela’s situation that much worse than Assange’s? Was the pressure to free him that much stronger? And if so, who applied that pressure? Sure, 21 years in captivity is more than 7, but is there an essential difference? Are you so blind that you cannot see? Are you so deaf that you cannot hear? In the end both men were locked up for all the wrong reasons, no?

Sure, that could have been contested by the South African apartheid regime back when, just as it is by the US apartheid regime today, but does anybody in either case really think any of it is justified?

A month ago, I wrote Julian Assange Is Today’s Martin Luther King, and many people said something in the vein of: “he’s nowhere near”. But is that even true, and even if it were, does that justify the way he’s being treated?

Julian Assange has been smeared with sexual allegations, just like MLK. In MLK’s case it was courtesy of J. Edgar Hoover. In Assange’s case, it was -is- way more elaborate, they have 3-4 governments involved. Imagine Hoover having the tools the FBI and MI6 have today. How scary is that? Well, we’re not so far removed from just that, and Assange was the primary person to warn us about exactly this.

He saw it all coming. It’s why he was brought down. Too smart. He fought the law and the law won (well, the law…). But that is not a good thing for you or me, at all.

 

 

But, you know, where is Jerry Dammers? We know where Johnny Cash and Bob Marley are, and Joe Strummer and Nelson Mandela. They’re long gone. But we’re supposed to replace them with equal voices of our own, or whatever they’ve done, the sacrifices they’ve made, will fade into some distant haze.

What’s going on here? Everybody values their bank accounts more than their freedom now? Would you like to talk to Johnny Cash or Bob Marley about that choice? Are we just dumbing down, no more opinions of our own, no more principles?

You too want to be breaking rocks in the hot sun? You’re well on your way.

 

 

 

 

 

Home Forums Where’s Jerry Dammers When You Need Him?

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  • #47992

    David Hockney A Bigger Splash 1967   Just trying to find angles here. Trying to find people who could help Julian Assange. But so many of them ar
    [See the full post at: Where’s Jerry Dammers When You Need Him?]

    #47994
    V. Arnold
    Participant

    Just trying to find angles here. Trying to find people who could help Julian Assange. But so many of them are already dead. Can you imagine how different things might have been if Martin Luther King had still been alive to speak out on his situation? Or Muhammad Ali, JFK and Bobby Kennedy? Nelson Mandela? How about Bob Marley? Or, you know, Johnny Cash? Joe Strummer? We lost so many voices, and so few appear to have emerged to take their place. Have we lost too many? Are we done? Is this it?

    The U.S. public educational system has done its job all too well.
    What I see is a broken, sick, society, no longer functional in any real sense of that term.
    The UK is roughly in the same position; functionally broken.
    Your last three questions (Have we lost too many? Are we done? Is this it?) are all likely in the affirmative.
    OAC, Ilhan Omar, and Tulsi Gabbard; look at what’s being done to them for speaking truth to power.
    Chelsea Manning and Assange are being led to slaughter as examples for us unwashed.
    So much has happened in the last 16 years in particular, I can not even point out tipping points along the way (too many or just one big one?) I don’t know.
    The only bright spot I can see is that the world has awakened to the myth of the exceptional country.
    Will that eventually help Manning or Assange?
    I don’t know…

    #47995
    Maxwell Quest
    Participant

    The Scottish nobles turned William Wallace over to the English, partly out of jealousy, but mostly to secure their lands and titles, or lives of privilege, exchanging the freedom and the self-determination of the kingdom’s clans for “the scraps from Longshanks’ table”.

    After more than 700 years, it’s interesting that the little island is still hard a work in the persecution of freedom-lovers and other dissidents — endless game of whack-a-mole to ensure their domination over all vassals.

    I see a modern parallel with Julian Assange, in which every second-tier state functionary (media, politicians, etc.) is willing to see Julian “drawn and quartered” in the belief that it will ensure their status and the continued good graces of their master. In essence, putting self-interest above the welfare of the people, who it is their responsibility and duty to serve. Believing that their positions of wealth and power are a right and privilege, instead of an obligation for which the gods will one day require an accounting.

    They truly sell their souls for scraps, which is all that social status and possessions really are.

    #48005
    Dr. D
    Participant

    As Max says, it’s because they never really cared then either. MLK? They HATED MLK. Even the blacks hated MLK as he was controversial and many thought he was making trouble for them – which he was. Obviously the establishment hated him. And a slice of people on all sides, because with any two people or campaigns will disagree on tactics and approach. Even to now, as Christians say, “Christians execute their wounded” and Obama says the Left is in the usual “circular firing squad”, attacking each other for the slightest transgressions of ideological purity. Not related, but this morning’s news, mega-pop – and “country” — star Taylor Swift joins in to support Gay Pride month! …And is promptly attacked by everyone on the left, including LGBT(etcetcetcetc) community. For…supporting them??? For not really meaning it ENOUGH? In short, they say she’s a poser, trying to monetize popularity…by supporting them? So she shouldn’t support them? Or she should? Or do it better somehow? Differently? Exactly, EXACTLY, precisely SLAVISHLY like THAT PARTICULAR Twitterati would have done it, and no other way, or else you’re DONE, Mister. We slander, ban, boycott you, kick you off the Oscars. …Yet the way THAT Twit would have done it is the opposite of how the OTHER Twitterati would have done it. …Oh and the irony is that she may be gay, so the LGBT are attacking both a definite ally, but also a prospective convert to come out of the closet. But who cares, right? when HATE FEELS SO GOOD.

    To Bruce, to Hamilton, to Mandela, to MLK and so on, THIS is what you get on the ground in real time. They’d say he should agitate, but in sermons. He should march, but not in Birmingham. Once violence happened he should have stepped back. Malcolm X says once violence happened he should have gone forward. Should do this, should do that.

    Point is, it’s ALL FORGOTTEN. People HATED Joe Strummer, hated Johnny Cash. Why couldn’t they shut up and just stick to music? It’s only later the reality is replaced, completely and entirely, with an entirely fake cutout that ANYBODY cared. Suddenly, after Civil Rights was won, everybody in that generation had always supported it. They were deeply – so deeply – involved. Instead of going to work, safely staying out of it and seeing it on TV, as statistically, actually happened, they were there! They were involved! Look at Joe Biden right now. No slight to him for doing other things, but you can’t air-brush yourself into the photos either.

    Nobody ever wrote songs for any Assanges. Not for the MLKs. Not for the Robert the Bruce. Not until they are dead and it’s entirely, perfectly, provably, testably, totally safe again. Then suddenly we always loved them and had always supported them. Yet somehow despite 100% of us supporting them, they lost!

    So now is NOT different. It’s the same. Men are still all cowards, and liars, and weasels as well. When I support him, far from joining, they attack ME instead for having the principles they do not. But such is life in the land of the immoral, the irreligious, who believe in nothing and stand for nothing. Because it’s only an unshakable belief in a larger life that will make you stand up for principles and against the difficulties in this one. That’s why religion, principle, is the #1 enemy right now, to be discredited and slandered at every turn, even getting out of bed at midnight to do some slander on the side.

    And if you have principles, YOU are a target for those who don’t, because the two worlds, the two outlooks are entirely incompatible. You’re either #Logos, WITH reason, Logic, or as the old-timers called it, “Natural Law” – or the VERy old-timers, the Tao, the “Way”; or you are #AntiLogos, and believe the world, reality, is anything you tell it to be, anything you make up in your mind, reality-optional, in fact. “when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality … we’ll act again, creating other new realities.” That is, reality just obeys your EGO, it is something that is optional, is decided by a popular vote or consensus that is run for and decided by narcissists. The world has to conform to MY ego, instead of vice-versa. The two cannot co-habitate. Either the world, reality, God is in charge, or else ME, a 20-year old, 100lb sack of meat runs the entire universe and the universe obeys ME. I AM YOUR GOD. Ask Zuck. He will cast you, and Assange as well, into outer darkness for the good of the saints and all things holy.

    If you have principles…of any kind…you will always run afoul of ME and my popularity, my wishes, eventually. Then King John will have you quartered, we will slander, jail, de-bank, de-monetize, de-platform, erase all news of you because “The Law is in My Mouth.” It’s either ME, or God. Either you obey ME, or your principles, your lying eyes.

    But as you see, no one has any principles. They don’t now just as they never did before. Not 60 years ago and not 600. The song will only be written after the battle is lost and the heroes are dead. And if we don’t stand for them, perhaps that is all we deserve, yes? Still, I stand, because the requirement is not in the winning, but in the DOING.

    #48013
    PlanetaryCitizen
    Participant

    Great music, had me dancing in my desk chair. I didn’t remember the name Jerry Dammers but I certainly remembered the music. My status as troll and snowflake aside, let me offer this. Shadowproof”s protest song of the week project.

    https://shadowproof.com/category/dissenter/protest-music-project/

    Further, it’s a biological fact that when overwhelmed, the autonomic nervous system (aka the reptilian brain) will immobilize into a state of freeze and collapse. The only thing that brings the organism out of that state is the prospect of success, or said another way, hope! Movements by groups and individuals all get their motivation through hope. Dammers inspired hope and did it extremely well. Orienting is the first response to threat and in the case of a constant negative input stream (in not knowing what to believe, all information becomes negative) avenues of real success become few and none, and the human being will just check out into it’s own internal world and immediate personal eddy of its own needs. Of course the solution to cognitive dissonance is to just choose a belief. Feels better even if it is just hate. Entertaining opposing possibilities and concepts opens the door to perception but it’s not a comfortable state. Wouldn’t Aldous Huxley be proud.

    Ilargi, I think many of your points are quite salient and I don’t have any desire to quibble with them. That said, the entire thrust of this particular thread, and less you than your comment section, is one of accusation, condemnation, nihilism, and general negativity. Most people just won’t care or listen unless they happen to personally resonate with that particular approach to life. Entire countries and their people are maligned with little regard to the diversity of opinion and efforts at just society within them. Australia the other day was a perfect example. With V. it’s all day everyday with the U.S. It’s not what you say, its how you say it. Inspiration doesn’t come from condemnation. Ask any kid.

    I think there is value with a lot of what you do here, and, some of the content I take strong exception to and occasionally make a comment. As to my being flounced, some arguments are just too stupid to be continued. But more to the point, my life does occasionally supercede my “trolling.” No doubt I’ll catch shit anyway.

    Enjoy your day! It’s pretty much all we have at the end of it!

    #48016
    Rototillerman
    Participant

    I would expect David Rovics will be the one to write the definitive song of Assange. I listen to his podcast, and haven’t heard him sing about Julian Assange yet, but he has the chops and the ethos to recognize the importance of what role Assange has played in the world.

    #48034
    Olduvai
    Participant

    Perhaps something along these lines: Edge of a Revolution by Canada’s Nickelback: https://youtu.be/6xaKgGUwynU

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