Monday, 12 September 2011
Alan McGee: I Have no Issue With PIAS but I do Hate Sony
My crime? I laughed at Sony's Enfield warehouse burning down when people were rioting. I thought it was funny then and still do now. It was during the Q&A at the conference I said I thought it was funny - all I did was tell the truth. All that shit music burned into the ether - why wouldn't I laugh?
I actually walked away from music four years ago so I was unaware PIAS (an indie) had any offices or records stored there. I have no issue with PIAS but I do however hate Sony - it's personal. So there is no apology and there is no retraction. In a 30 minute speech in Brisbane, this was a ten second comment. The British PC media had a field day that evening on that 10 second statement and as I said, my name trended on Twitter from language to language worldwide which was interesting watching it.
I now realise you don't need a police force to police you when you have liberals doing the job for them. To be clear, I am talking about people who work at the Guardian and the BBC specifically.
The Australian media to be fair are cool. They got how ridiculous it was that the British PC media had blown it up out of nothing. Me personally? I liked it. All that Twitter attention has now doubled my price for speaking engagements, so my agent has informed me, so I thank the PC police for upping my future fees.
It also shows how the world is so small through technology. A story can be massive and yet still burn out by the time I am on another plane to Tokyo two days later. It seems it was Morrissey's turn last month to be demonised and mine this month - who will the PC police turn on next?
All I can say is my ''crime'' didn't include criticism of people's sexuality, race or religion. I just thought a load of shit music getting destroyed was doing the world a favour! So there is no apology and there is no retraction. In truth, Sony and PIAS will be insured for every single unit at cost and so will get their money back on a load of CDs which were never going to sell anyway! It is all wet liberal bullshit basically. Anyway that was Australia...
Here are some thoughts:
LIFE IS A GAME, SO PLAY IT!!!!
CASUAL CURSES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE.
THE WORLD IS RANDOM AND CHAOS WHEN IT REIGNS IS A BEAUTIFUL THING.
EVERYTHING YOU EVER NEED TO KNOW IS ALREADY IN BOOKS. IF YOU'RE BRIGHT, FIND THEM.
@'HuffPo'
Listen: Alan McGee Responds To Sony Warehouse Fire Controversy
The Midflight Musings of a Music Svengali
Hmmm!
david leigh wrote:
Sep 10th 2011 8:13 GMT
Just to clear up a couple of factual points.
1. Yes, I understand the archive with z.gpg somewhere in it was posted by Assange or his friends in an obscure location around 7 December 2010, the day Assange was arrested for alleged sex offences. No-one told us this had been done. Assange apparently re-used the password he gave me earlier [although the file title - z.gpg - was different.]
2, Assange filmed the meeting on 4 August with Rusbridger. So the Guardian openly recorded it.
3. The relevance of that meeting is that Assange made no complaints to the Guardian whatever for publishing the password months previously. He was cordial and tried to conciliate us. Assange's present story that he had been angry for some time because of our 'security breach' is therefore a pretty obvious lie.
4. Obviously, I wish now I hadn't published the full password in the book. It would have been easy to alter, and that would have avoided all these false allegations. But I was too trusting of what Assange told me.
Via
1. Yes, I understand the archive with z.gpg somewhere in it was posted by Assange or his friends in an obscure location around 7 December 2010, the day Assange was arrested for alleged sex offences. No-one told us this had been done. Assange apparently re-used the password he gave me earlier [although the file title - z.gpg - was different.]
2, Assange filmed the meeting on 4 August with Rusbridger. So the Guardian openly recorded it.
3. The relevance of that meeting is that Assange made no complaints to the Guardian whatever for publishing the password months previously. He was cordial and tried to conciliate us. Assange's present story that he had been angry for some time because of our 'security breach' is therefore a pretty obvious lie.
4. Obviously, I wish now I hadn't published the full password in the book. It would have been easy to alter, and that would have avoided all these false allegations. But I was too trusting of what Assange told me.
Via
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Brian Eno: How has the internet changed your thinking?
Brian Eno @ German news magazine Der Spiegel:
"I notice that certain radical social experiments that even the most idealistic anarchists seem utopian, fifty years ago, had to take place now smoothly and without fanfare. These include the open-source development, shareware and freeware, Wikipedia, MoveOn and UK Citizens Online Democracy.
I notice that the power of the world is not entirely liberated in the same way as we had expected. Repressive regimes can turn it off, and can use it as liberal propaganda. On the positive side, I notice that the difference in the trustworthiness of the network has made people more skeptical about the information they receive from all other media.
It occurs to me now that I know as my patchwork of a wider range of sources digest than in the past. Also, I notice that I'm less inclined to look for through-composed, finished stories, and more prefer to make my own collage from, what I can find. What strikes me is that I read books cursory and they scan in the same manner as I scan the network - when I "bookmark" set.
It strikes me that to make the turn of the century dream of bioethicists Darryl Macer, a map of all the concepts in the world, an autonomous way is reality - in the form of the network.
It occurs to me that I communicate with more people, but less detail. It strikes me that it is possible to have confidential relationships that exist only in the net and have little or no physical components. It strikes me that it is even possible to engage in complex social projects, such as making music, without ever seeing the other employees. From the value of these changes I'm not convinced.
It occurs to me that was the idea of "community" is changing: While the term once described a certain physical and geographical ties between the people, he can now "the pursuit of common interests" mean. What strikes me is that I now belong to hundreds of communities - the community of people who are interested in active democracy, the community of people who for synthesizers, for climate change, Tommy Cooper jokes, for copyright, for A cappella singing, for speakers interested in the philosophy of pragmatism, the theory of evolution, etc..
It strikes me that the desire for community with millions of people so strongly that they belong entirely fictional communities such as Second Life and World of Warcraft. My concern is that this could work to the detriment of real life.
I notice that I have more time than before to spend with words and language - because that is the currency of the net. My note books may take longer to get full. I notice also that night I rougher the disappearance of the fax machine because it is a more personal communication tool than e-mail because it allowed drawing and handwritten letters. I notice that my mind is primarily a linguistic one, for example, compared to visual functioning is established.
It occurs to me that has changed the concept of "experts". An expert was usually "someone who had access to particular information." But now since so much information accessible to everyone equally, the notion of "experts" to "someone who can interpret the information better." The ruling has replaced the access.
I notice that I've become a slave to the network - that my e-mails several times a day look that I worry about the pile of unsolicited and unanswered emails in my inbox. It strikes me that it is difficult to find a whole morning to think without interruption. I notice that you expect from me that I will answer e-mails immediately, and that it is difficult not to do so. I notice that I am consequently impulsive.
I notice that I frequently donate money in response to calls on the Internet. I notice that "memes" are now directly spreading infections such as malignant by the vectors of the network can - and that's not always good. I notice that sometimes I'll sign petitions for things I do not really understand, and only because it is so easy. I suppose that this kind of irresponsibility is rife.
It strikes me that what pushed the network to another location in a modified form reappears. For example, musicians were usually on tour to make their records for advertising, but since vinyl records or CDs because of illegal downloads are not earned much more money they make records now, to promote her tours. Book stores, their employees are familiar with books, and familiar record stores, their employees, with music, are frequent.
It strikes me that the more the power of free or cheap versions of something provides the "authentic experience" - the unique, unmediated experience - is valued more highly. It strikes me that the authors devote more attention to those aspects of their work that can not be duplicated. The "authentic" has replaced the Reproducible.
I notice that hardly anyone has thought of us about the chaos that would result if the power would crumble.
It occurs to me that my life has changed more by my mobile phone than through the internet."
translated with Google from the original German article
Ten Years After September 11
A decade’s perspective highlights the enormous damage that the attacks of September 11, 2001 did to the human rights cause. There was, first of all, the irreparable damage of lives lost that day – some 3,000 people from many nations. Terrorism – the deliberate targeting of civilians for political ends – is an affront to the human rights movement. The values of human rights place respect for the individual at their core. Terrorism treats individuals as pawns, to be disposed of for political ends.
Suicide attacks have long been a tool for terrorists, but the magnitude of the September 11 assault spawned replication. Most people were repulsed by this killing, but enough were inspired that it contributed to an epidemic of suicide attacks on civilians in the ensuing decade. Victims multiplied in many countries. The growing willingness of some to sacrifice themselves for a cause has further complicated the defense against terrorism. And the realization that there are no limits to what terrorists might attempt made the quest to stop them all the more urgent.
Yet the damaging legacy of September 11 can also be found in the reaction. Some recognized that the best antidote to terrorism was to reaffirm the values of humanity it flouted – that the most effective way to counter the appeal of mass murder was to scrupulously respect human rights and the rule of law. Yet all too often, those leading the counterterrorism charge adopted the ends-justify-the-means logic of the terrorists. The result was a litany of practices whose names are now synonymous with blatant disregard for human rights: Guantanamo, military commissions, CIA “black sites,” water-boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques,” extraordinary rendition to torture covered up by meaningless “diplomatic assurances,” among others.
Undertaken in the name of expediency, these abuses may have spurred more terrorist attacks. Those who deployed them lost the moral high ground, undermined trust in law-enforcement officials, and discarded lawful techniques for piercing secretive criminal enterprises that had long proved effective.
They also bred copycat responses by governments whose interest was less stopping terrorism than using the latest rhetoric of convenience to silence political opposition. Overbroad and vague anti-terrorism laws proliferated. Peaceful dissidents were labeled terrorists and detained without trial. Torture and arbitrary detention became harder to combat because “that’s what Bush did.” Many governments best placed to reverse these damaging trends were silenced by their own complicity in them – and by their tendency to welcome virtually anything said to be done in the name of fighting terrorism.
Today, there has been global progress in curtailing counterterrorism abuses, but little willingness to hold abusive officials to account. For example, saying that he would “look forward and not backwards,” President Barack Obama has decreed an end to torture by US agents but refused to prosecute those who ordered it. Nor have most governments investigated, let alone prosecuted, their own abusive officials. This failure to uphold the rule of law risks transforming torture and other serious human rights violations from blatant criminal offenses to permissible policy options.
The tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is thus an occasion to remember its victims and to reaffirm the importance of human rights, to oppose the terrorist who kills civilians in the name of a cause and the official who “disappears” or tortures suspects in the name of fighting terrorism.
@'Human Rights Watch'
Suicide attacks have long been a tool for terrorists, but the magnitude of the September 11 assault spawned replication. Most people were repulsed by this killing, but enough were inspired that it contributed to an epidemic of suicide attacks on civilians in the ensuing decade. Victims multiplied in many countries. The growing willingness of some to sacrifice themselves for a cause has further complicated the defense against terrorism. And the realization that there are no limits to what terrorists might attempt made the quest to stop them all the more urgent.
Yet the damaging legacy of September 11 can also be found in the reaction. Some recognized that the best antidote to terrorism was to reaffirm the values of humanity it flouted – that the most effective way to counter the appeal of mass murder was to scrupulously respect human rights and the rule of law. Yet all too often, those leading the counterterrorism charge adopted the ends-justify-the-means logic of the terrorists. The result was a litany of practices whose names are now synonymous with blatant disregard for human rights: Guantanamo, military commissions, CIA “black sites,” water-boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques,” extraordinary rendition to torture covered up by meaningless “diplomatic assurances,” among others.
Undertaken in the name of expediency, these abuses may have spurred more terrorist attacks. Those who deployed them lost the moral high ground, undermined trust in law-enforcement officials, and discarded lawful techniques for piercing secretive criminal enterprises that had long proved effective.
They also bred copycat responses by governments whose interest was less stopping terrorism than using the latest rhetoric of convenience to silence political opposition. Overbroad and vague anti-terrorism laws proliferated. Peaceful dissidents were labeled terrorists and detained without trial. Torture and arbitrary detention became harder to combat because “that’s what Bush did.” Many governments best placed to reverse these damaging trends were silenced by their own complicity in them – and by their tendency to welcome virtually anything said to be done in the name of fighting terrorism.
Today, there has been global progress in curtailing counterterrorism abuses, but little willingness to hold abusive officials to account. For example, saying that he would “look forward and not backwards,” President Barack Obama has decreed an end to torture by US agents but refused to prosecute those who ordered it. Nor have most governments investigated, let alone prosecuted, their own abusive officials. This failure to uphold the rule of law risks transforming torture and other serious human rights violations from blatant criminal offenses to permissible policy options.
The tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is thus an occasion to remember its victims and to reaffirm the importance of human rights, to oppose the terrorist who kills civilians in the name of a cause and the official who “disappears” or tortures suspects in the name of fighting terrorism.
@'Human Rights Watch'
Hmmm!
Disgusting. Check out this ad the Recording Industry Association, the Motion Picture Association, and others just took out as they try to push their Internet censorship legislation: They think their customers should be treated like criminal suspects.
Urge Congress To Reject The PROTECT IP Act
Sifting through the debris for real legacy of attacks
Less than a week before Osama bin Laden was killed, I visited Ground Zero. Most prosaically, it is a building site. Even with the contours of the inevitably spectacular Freedom Tower becoming more visible, it is the rougher elements that dominate: the cranes; the unpolished, uncovered concrete; the barbed wire on the fences that rim the former site of the twin towers. There's dust in the air and you can't help breathing it in. At first blush, it's all profoundly ordinary.
But stay a while and you are struck by the silence. The sounds of construction may punctuate it, but they do not obliterate it. There's an eeriness here that is anything but mundane. In a town of boundless, infectious, magnificent energy, this site is an island; a place of stillness in a city set to vibrate.
Silence. Stillness. Reverence. It's a new sort of cathedral, haunted by the ghost of what happened a decade ago today. This is the nature of terrorism. It is designed to invade the psyche and haunt it. To change the way you think, and then act. Ultimately it has little to do with those it kills - even if there are 3000 of them. It is about those who remain.
In that sense, the fact that every mainstream media outlet is marking this terrible anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks is a victory for the perpetrators. Terrorism is least successful when it is ignored; when it is denied what Margaret Thatcher called the ''oxygen of publicity''.
But it is impossible to ignore this. It was more than merely symbolic or spectacular. It was cinematic. When the first plane struck the north tower, the cameras of the world rushed to film the carnage. Al-Qaeda gave them 17 minutes to set up. With lenses now trained on the World Trade Centre, images of the second plane smashing into the south tower were beamed live across the globe. You've seen them a thousand times since. Their presence is permanent. But beneath its cataclysmic appearances, the component parts of this attack were surprisingly modest. This was not the product of expensive, high-tech weaponry. It was the work of 19 men with box cutters. In fact, this was their greatest asset. It is difficult to imagine a nation being able to destroy the World Trade Centre. Its weapons are too detectable, its visibility too obvious and the political consequences too grave. The sheer size of this attack conjured up the image of a colossus that could strike anywhere at will, but it was misleading; a vast overstatement.
There was always a danger of misreading these attacks, and we did. From the beginning, we failed to understand what we were confronting. The story of this decade is how this misreading led us to dark places with some lamentable consequences. In the process, hundreds of thousands died, and societies became divided. No doubt much of this pleased bin Laden, whose guilt is plain. But it is worth considering how we got sucked into contributing to the process...
But stay a while and you are struck by the silence. The sounds of construction may punctuate it, but they do not obliterate it. There's an eeriness here that is anything but mundane. In a town of boundless, infectious, magnificent energy, this site is an island; a place of stillness in a city set to vibrate.
Silence. Stillness. Reverence. It's a new sort of cathedral, haunted by the ghost of what happened a decade ago today. This is the nature of terrorism. It is designed to invade the psyche and haunt it. To change the way you think, and then act. Ultimately it has little to do with those it kills - even if there are 3000 of them. It is about those who remain.
In that sense, the fact that every mainstream media outlet is marking this terrible anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks is a victory for the perpetrators. Terrorism is least successful when it is ignored; when it is denied what Margaret Thatcher called the ''oxygen of publicity''.
But it is impossible to ignore this. It was more than merely symbolic or spectacular. It was cinematic. When the first plane struck the north tower, the cameras of the world rushed to film the carnage. Al-Qaeda gave them 17 minutes to set up. With lenses now trained on the World Trade Centre, images of the second plane smashing into the south tower were beamed live across the globe. You've seen them a thousand times since. Their presence is permanent. But beneath its cataclysmic appearances, the component parts of this attack were surprisingly modest. This was not the product of expensive, high-tech weaponry. It was the work of 19 men with box cutters. In fact, this was their greatest asset. It is difficult to imagine a nation being able to destroy the World Trade Centre. Its weapons are too detectable, its visibility too obvious and the political consequences too grave. The sheer size of this attack conjured up the image of a colossus that could strike anywhere at will, but it was misleading; a vast overstatement.
There was always a danger of misreading these attacks, and we did. From the beginning, we failed to understand what we were confronting. The story of this decade is how this misreading led us to dark places with some lamentable consequences. In the process, hundreds of thousands died, and societies became divided. No doubt much of this pleased bin Laden, whose guilt is plain. But it is worth considering how we got sucked into contributing to the process...
Continue reading
A must read from today's Age...
Crash Test Dummy
@'daviesandstarr'
Subatomic Sound System meets Ari Up & Lee Scratch Perry - Hello, Hell is Very Low 7"
The “Hello, Hell Is Very Low” vinyl 45 features a dub and vocal take of a rootical dubstep reflip of the rare and classic “Underground Roots” riddim, known to have been used by Studio One’s Sir Coxsone Dodd’s sound system to lay waste in Jamaican sound clashes (typically played back to back with the only known vocal version, a closely guarded special rumored to have been done for Coxsone by Junior Byles). On this 45, Subatomic Sound System dubs the riddim up proper with maximum respect to the tradition of the masters, Lee Perry & King Tubby, while also turning out the low end, delivering drums and bass big and bad enough knock out even a modern day dubstep club crowd. It also must be mentioned that, this is the first time EVER that Lee “Scratch” Perry and Ari Up of the Slits appear on the same recording, even though they both worked extensively on On-Sound projects with Adrian Sherwood during the 80s. The combination proves strong as they both succeed in striking a clever lyrical balance, delivering vocals that juxtapose conscious culture and spirituality with humor and wordplay.
On the A-Side, “Hello, Hello, Hell is Very Low” features tough lyrics from Lee “Scratch” Perry alongside Ari Up of the Slits and original melodica from Subatomic Sound’s Emch that summons the ghost of Augustus Pablo for some classic melodies. The dubbed out track is centered around Perry riffing on the line “Hello, Hell is very low and Heaven is very, very high!” linguistically playing off the greetings “Hello” vs. “Hi” and with the metaphysical concept of “Hell” being “lo(w)” and “Heaven” being “(hi)igh” in what is on one hand slapstick humor and on the other hand profound moral philosophizing. Ari Up meanwhile shows her respect for dub history and the people of her second home, Jamaica, with lyrics “Underground roots, what we bring to you, rub-a-dub roots, message to the youth…time to know the truth!” exorting the “underground youth” to rise up “overground” while at the same time sending a message to the dubstep generation about the origins of dub and respecting its founders.
On the B-Side, Ari-Up of the Slits delivers “Bed Athletes” a singjay vocal tune in a classic dancehall style. Lyrically she twists the original children’s song melody into a positive minded and humorous sex education course for the “underground youth”, with a verse for the men and another for the women, emphasizing the importance of physical fitness and mental training for mutual enjoyment of each others company in bed, even suggesting that men “learn Ninjitsu” so the art of “Japanese fighting” can be “used ‘pon daggering”.
:)
ActivismPROTIPS Activism PROTIPS
All the best revolutionaries have facial hair. Regardless of gender, to be a successful activist do everything you can to grow a moustache.
Massive Attack - Live PA, Mezzanine Tour, Royal Albert Hall, London, UK: Lamacq Live - BBC Radio 1 1998-06-07
Tracklist:
1.01 [0:00:00] "Angel" (6:19)
1.02 [0:06:19] "Risingson" (5:03)
1.03 [0:11:22] "Man Next Door" (5:54)
1.04 [0:17:16] "Day Dreaming" (5:21)
1.05 [0:22:50] "Tear Drop" (5:34)
1.06 [0:28:24] "Karmacoma" (5:16)
1.07 [0:33:40] "Hymn Of The Big Wheel" (6:21)
1.08 [0:40:01] "Eurochild" (4:54)
1.09 [0:44:55] "Spying Glass" (6:39)
1.10 [0:51:34] "Mezzanine" (5:44)
2.01 [0:56:49] "One Love" (5:15)
2.02 [1:02:04] "Safe From Harm" (7:09)
2.03 [1:09:13] "Heat Miser" (5:28)
2.04 [1:14:41] "Inertia Creeps" (5:26)
2.05 [1:20:07] "Unfinished Sympathy" (5:52)
2.06 [1:25:59] "Group Four" (13:21)
via
How Special Ops Copied al-Qaida to Kill It
One of the greatest ironies of the 9/11 Era: while politicians, generals and journalists lined up to denounce al-Qaida as a brutal band of fanatics, one commander thought its organizational structure was kind of brilliant. He set to work rebuilding an obscure military entity into a lethal, agile, secretive and highly networked command — essentially, the United States’ very own al-Qaida. It became the most potent weapon the U.S. has against another terrorist attack.
That was the work of Stanley McChrystal. He is best known as the general who lost his command in Afghanistan after his staff shit-talked the Obama administration to Rolling Stone.
Inescapable as that public profile may be, it doesn’t begin to capture the impact he made on the military. McChrystal’s fingerprints are all over the Joint Special Operations Command, the elite force that eventually killed Osama bin Laden. As the war on terrorism evolves into a series of global shadow wars, JSOC and its partners — the network McChrystal painstakingly constructed — are the ones who wage it.
These days, McChrystal travels around the country to talk about his leadership style. His insights reveal a lot about how the JSOC became the Obama team’s go-to counterterrorism group. “In bitter, bloody fights in both Afghanistan and Iraq,” McChrystal has written, “it became clear to me and to many others that to defeat a networked enemy we had to become a network ourselves.”
McChrystal’s career also reveals a second irony: At the moment of his greatest ascension, to overall command in Afghanistan, McChrystal couldn’t take his own advice.
McChrystal declined to speak for this article. He’s working on a book, due out in 2012, that will probably shed some light on his tenure at JSOC. This piece is drawn from his speeches, interviews I’ve conducted over the years with special operations and intelligence veterans — usually off the record — as well as two insightful new books: Counterstrike by Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, and Top Secret America by Dana Priest and William Arkin...
Continue reading
Spencer Ackerman @'Wired'
Let me put it in black and white: racism has no place in football
Meanwhile out here in Australia the Collingwood fans at yesterday's game proved once again that they really are a class act!
Real Scenes: Berlin
For the third edition of Real Scenes, RA and Bench go to one of the most special places for electronic music in the world: Berlin. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, techno became the underground soundtrack to the reunion between East and West. In recent years, it's become an international destination for ravers—a cheap place to party with clubs that are renowned throughout the world.
Techno has become a business in the meantime. Yet Berlin still maintains a credibility that other cities lack. To understand why, RA and Bench went to the German capital eager to find out about its unique history and the reasons behind its continued relevance.
Visit the feature page on RA: residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1405
George Orwell: War Is Peace
In one combination or another, these three super-states are permanently at war, and have been so for the past twenty-five years. War, however, is no longer the desperate, annihilating struggle that it was in the early decades of the twentieth century. . . .(1984)
This is not to say that either the conduct of war, or the prevailing attitude towards it, has become less bloodthirsty or more chivalrous. On the contrary, war hysteria is continuous and universal in all countries, and such acts as raping, looting, the slaughter of children, the reduction of whole populations to slavery, and reprisals against prisoners which extend even to boiling and burying alive, are looked upon as normal, and, when they are committed by one's own side and not by the enemy, meritorious.
But in a physical sense war involves very small numbers of people, mostly highly-trained specialists, and causes comparatively few casualties. The fighting, when there is any, takes place on the vague frontiers whose whereabouts the average man can only guess at, or round the Floating Fortresses which guard strategic spots on the sea lanes. . . .
To understand the nature of the present war -- for in spite of the regrouping which occurs every few years, it is always the same war -- one must realize in the first place that it is impossible for it to be decisive. . . . The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.
What is concerned here is not the morale of masses, whose attitude is unimportant so long as they are kept steadily at work, but the morale of the Party itself. Even the humblest Party member is expected to be competent, industrious, and even intelligent within narrow limits, but it is also necessary that he should be a credulous and ignorant fanatic whose prevailing moods are fear, hatred, adulation, and orgiastic triumph. In other words it is necessary that he should have the mentality appropriate to a state of war. It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.
The splitting of the intelligence which the Party requires of its members, and which is more easily achieved in an atmosphere of war, is now almost universal, but the higher up the ranks one goes, the more marked it becomes. It is precisely in the Inner Party that war hysteria and hatred of the enemy are strongest. In his capacity as an administrator, it is often necessary for a member of the Inner Party to know that this or that item of war news is untruthful, and he may often be aware that the entire war is spurious and is either not happening or is being waged for purposes quite other than the declared ones: but such knowledge is easily neutralized by the technique of doublethink. Meanwhile no Inner Party member wavers for an instant in his mystical belief that the war is real, and that it is bound to end victoriously, with Oceania the undisputed master of the entire world. . . .
War prisoners apart, the average citizen of Oceania never sets eyes on a citizen of either Eurasia or Eastasia, and he is forbidden the knowledge of foreign languages. If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. . .
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair. . . .
In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.
♪♫ Los Lobos w/ Jerry Garcia - Born On The Bayou/Suzie-Q (New George's San Rafael, CA, May 26 1989)
Bonus: Bertha/Not Fade Away (2009)
Conservatives given millions by property developers
Developers are also paying thousands of pounds for access to senior Tories through the Conservative Property Forum, a club of elite donors which sets up “breakfast meetings” to discuss planning and property issues.
The disclosures are likely to provoke a new “cash-for-access” row and will give rise to fears that planning policies could have been influenced by powerful figures from the property industry.
The Coalition will also face a backlash next week from more than 80 rural MPs and peers, who will meet to discuss concerns that relaxing planning policy will see hundreds of wind turbines built in the countryside. The Daily Telegraph has launched the Hands Off Our Land campaign to urge ministers to rethink the measures, joining opposition from the National Trust, English Heritage and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. The guidance states that there should be a “presumption in favour of sustainable development”, which campaigners have warned would give developers “carte blanche”.
Bill Cash, who is organising the meeting of back-bench MPs and peers, said last night: “This is a demonstration of the deep concern and the first shot across the bows.
“The developers will have the whip hand. When you are talking about economic benefit, the benefits of England’s green and pleasant land to tourism and the scenery is as important as anything else.”
The Conservative Planning Forum raises around £150,000 a year for the Tory party and charges members £2,500 to meet senior MPs to discuss policy and planning issues.
Mike Slade, its chairman, has given more than £300,000 over the past decade, individually and through his property firm, Helical Bar.
Mr Slade advocated reforms to encourage local authorities to “see the benefits of development” three years ago, when he warned the Tories to “get over” their image as “nimbys”.
The forum met Grant Shapps, who is now housing minister, while the Conservatives were in opposition early last year, after Mr Slade had written an article strongly critical of plans to devolve more planning powers to local authorities.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, will meet some of the nation’s biggest housebuilders at a conference next week where he will give the keynote speech.
His presence is likely to lead to further claims that ministers are “stacking the deck” in favour of developers.
Conservation groups have complained bitterly of a lack of access to ministers over the proposals and the National Trust has demanded a meeting with David Cameron. Some of the Tories’ biggest donors are from the property world. David and Simon Reuben, billionaires who own Millbank Tower in Westminster, have given almost £500,000 over the past decade, while Terence Cole, a London-based developer, donated almost £300,000. IM Properties, which is expanding Birch Coppice Business Park, near Tamworth, Staffs, has given around £1 million since 2009.
A senior Tory MP, who did not wish to be named, accused the Chancellor, George Osborne, of “shoe-horning in” the presumption in favour of development in a bid to stimulate the economy.
He said: “This is a clear example of localism being hijacked. Developers will have state licence to print money and we will see a proliferation of identikit suburbs springing up in the countryside.” The Conservative party last night strongly denied that planning policies had been influenced by donations from developers. A spokesman said: “These are Coalition policies based on principles laid out before the election by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. There is absolutely no link between donations to the Conservative party and Conservative planning policy – to suggest otherwise is untrue, misleading and unfair.”
He said that reforms would “maintain the protection of green space”.
A spokesman for the Reuben brothers said neither had talked with ministers about planning at any time, while Terence Cole said he had not met ministers or Tory MPs to discuss planning reform.
Mr Slade and IM Properties were unavailable for comment.
Heidi Blake @'The Telegraph'
What a surprise!!!
The Conservative Planning Forum raises around £150,000 a year for the Tory party and charges members £2,500 to meet senior MPs to discuss policy and planning issues.
Mike Slade, its chairman, has given more than £300,000 over the past decade, individually and through his property firm, Helical Bar.
Mr Slade advocated reforms to encourage local authorities to “see the benefits of development” three years ago, when he warned the Tories to “get over” their image as “nimbys”.
The forum met Grant Shapps, who is now housing minister, while the Conservatives were in opposition early last year, after Mr Slade had written an article strongly critical of plans to devolve more planning powers to local authorities.
Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary, will meet some of the nation’s biggest housebuilders at a conference next week where he will give the keynote speech.
His presence is likely to lead to further claims that ministers are “stacking the deck” in favour of developers.
Conservation groups have complained bitterly of a lack of access to ministers over the proposals and the National Trust has demanded a meeting with David Cameron. Some of the Tories’ biggest donors are from the property world. David and Simon Reuben, billionaires who own Millbank Tower in Westminster, have given almost £500,000 over the past decade, while Terence Cole, a London-based developer, donated almost £300,000. IM Properties, which is expanding Birch Coppice Business Park, near Tamworth, Staffs, has given around £1 million since 2009.
A senior Tory MP, who did not wish to be named, accused the Chancellor, George Osborne, of “shoe-horning in” the presumption in favour of development in a bid to stimulate the economy.
He said: “This is a clear example of localism being hijacked. Developers will have state licence to print money and we will see a proliferation of identikit suburbs springing up in the countryside.” The Conservative party last night strongly denied that planning policies had been influenced by donations from developers. A spokesman said: “These are Coalition policies based on principles laid out before the election by both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. There is absolutely no link between donations to the Conservative party and Conservative planning policy – to suggest otherwise is untrue, misleading and unfair.”
He said that reforms would “maintain the protection of green space”.
A spokesman for the Reuben brothers said neither had talked with ministers about planning at any time, while Terence Cole said he had not met ministers or Tory MPs to discuss planning reform.
Mr Slade and IM Properties were unavailable for comment.
Heidi Blake @'The Telegraph'
What a surprise!!!
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