this is glorious!
thanx pz
find it!
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
got any money?
these guys are groovy, if you have any spare cash at all please help 'em out! (for the leninists amongst you think of it as paying a wage not giving to charity.
An Urgent Appeal
We had enormous fun writing NEWSPEAK, but it was a real challenge to maintain a regular flow of Media Alerts. Readers may be surprised to learn that after nearly eight years, David Cromwell continues to work on Media Lens entirely in his spare time after finishing paid work. Our other writer, David Edwards, spends most of his time on Media Lens and related freelance journalism.
Our hopes that both of us might be able to work full-time on Media Lens - a not unreasonable goal, one would think - suffered a serious blow last month when Edwards lost the additional income he had been earning from freelance journalism. We have sufficient funds from donations to continue supporting him for the rest of the year. But without a substantial increase in financial support he may also be forced to resort to other paid work.
This is the harsh reality facing anyone who challenges the corporate media. People sometimes write to us praising our “courage” and warning us to take care because we are surely attracting attention from “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic” (perhaps not “vast”!) among the powers that be. But this is not how control is managed in our society.
The first result of choosing a life of dissent is that one is simply starved of resources. The corporations that dominate society are not interested in publishing material criticising the corporate media, no matter how important and insightful it might be. Even progressive publishers are afraid to handle this criticism because they fear reprisals (fewer book reviews, for example) from the big newspapers.
The second, related result is that one is starved of publicity and public outreach. Pilger may rank NEWSPEAK alongside the work of Orwell and Chomsky; but our previous book, Guardians Of Power, has never been mentioned, let alone reviewed, in any national UK newspaper. People can't support us if they don't know we exist.
As regular readers will know, the issue of motivation is paramount for us. In ‘Leaves of the Heaven Tree’, the 11th century Buddhist poet, Ksemendra, denounced his own thoughts:
“I am ashamed of my own mind! When I give in to such destructive thoughts, my mind becomes unstable. The thoughts of wealth and glory that arise first are like poison ivy: they harm merely by a touch, enchanting and paralysing the mind.”
We also believe that the craving for money and respectability subtly poisons the mind, degrading the capacity for compassion, the ability to perceive clearly the causes of suffering.
But the fact is that we only have so much time and energy, which means we +do+ depend on financial support to free us from other kinds of work. At present, we have around 12,000 ‘subscribers’ who receive our free Media Alerts and Cogitations - tens of thousands more read them via allied websites. Of these, just 122 currently donate money on a fixed monthly basis.
We are extremely grateful for these regular contributions, as we are for the one-off donations. But without receiving greater financial support from somewhere, Media Lens cannot grow and may well shrink. This is so frustrating for us because we are very keen to develop the project, for example by capturing news broadcasts for use in enhanced online Media Alerts, and by producing our own video blogs for websites like YouTube.
Please support us if it is comfortable for you to do so. One-off donations are welcome: you can make payments via bank cheque (in pounds sterling), transfer between bank accounts, credit card or PayPal. You can also support us long-term by making regular monthly donations. You can do so by setting up a standing order with a UK bank or paying online via PayPal. All the various options for contributing to Media Lens can be found at the page below:
donate to medialens
An Urgent Appeal
We had enormous fun writing NEWSPEAK, but it was a real challenge to maintain a regular flow of Media Alerts. Readers may be surprised to learn that after nearly eight years, David Cromwell continues to work on Media Lens entirely in his spare time after finishing paid work. Our other writer, David Edwards, spends most of his time on Media Lens and related freelance journalism.
Our hopes that both of us might be able to work full-time on Media Lens - a not unreasonable goal, one would think - suffered a serious blow last month when Edwards lost the additional income he had been earning from freelance journalism. We have sufficient funds from donations to continue supporting him for the rest of the year. But without a substantial increase in financial support he may also be forced to resort to other paid work.
This is the harsh reality facing anyone who challenges the corporate media. People sometimes write to us praising our “courage” and warning us to take care because we are surely attracting attention from “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic” (perhaps not “vast”!) among the powers that be. But this is not how control is managed in our society.
The first result of choosing a life of dissent is that one is simply starved of resources. The corporations that dominate society are not interested in publishing material criticising the corporate media, no matter how important and insightful it might be. Even progressive publishers are afraid to handle this criticism because they fear reprisals (fewer book reviews, for example) from the big newspapers.
The second, related result is that one is starved of publicity and public outreach. Pilger may rank NEWSPEAK alongside the work of Orwell and Chomsky; but our previous book, Guardians Of Power, has never been mentioned, let alone reviewed, in any national UK newspaper. People can't support us if they don't know we exist.
As regular readers will know, the issue of motivation is paramount for us. In ‘Leaves of the Heaven Tree’, the 11th century Buddhist poet, Ksemendra, denounced his own thoughts:
“I am ashamed of my own mind! When I give in to such destructive thoughts, my mind becomes unstable. The thoughts of wealth and glory that arise first are like poison ivy: they harm merely by a touch, enchanting and paralysing the mind.”
We also believe that the craving for money and respectability subtly poisons the mind, degrading the capacity for compassion, the ability to perceive clearly the causes of suffering.
But the fact is that we only have so much time and energy, which means we +do+ depend on financial support to free us from other kinds of work. At present, we have around 12,000 ‘subscribers’ who receive our free Media Alerts and Cogitations - tens of thousands more read them via allied websites. Of these, just 122 currently donate money on a fixed monthly basis.
We are extremely grateful for these regular contributions, as we are for the one-off donations. But without receiving greater financial support from somewhere, Media Lens cannot grow and may well shrink. This is so frustrating for us because we are very keen to develop the project, for example by capturing news broadcasts for use in enhanced online Media Alerts, and by producing our own video blogs for websites like YouTube.
Please support us if it is comfortable for you to do so. One-off donations are welcome: you can make payments via bank cheque (in pounds sterling), transfer between bank accounts, credit card or PayPal. You can also support us long-term by making regular monthly donations. You can do so by setting up a standing order with a UK bank or paying online via PayPal. All the various options for contributing to Media Lens can be found at the page below:
donate to medialens
Thursday, 12 March 2009
moazzam begg buys bbc
oh yes he did! not sure what he paid for it but he sure as shit owned those muthafuckas tonite! i jus' watch it wiv ma own eyes! will post link once the beeb pull finger out (if they dare!)
a highlight...
presenter: the pentagon says 61 [guantanamo inmates] have returned to jihad.
my man: well, the pentagon said we were all members of al qa'ida; why do we need to take their word for anything?
oh. yes. he. did. whoop!
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Sunday, 1 March 2009
workin onna chain gang, ho ha!
years ago i read a book by one walter mosley called "working on the chain gang" (ama/abe). boy, was that a mistake! if i hadn'ta read it i'd by runnin tings propa by now, but still.
what it did expose me to was the concept that slavery did not die with the emancipation proclamation, oh no. it's still going strong today. basically if you have to work, you is a slave; the only difference between a whip and a mortgage payment is one of degree. gotta be up in time to not be late coz you gotta pay the rent? slave. can't risk missing a day & losing your job coz you got a car payment to fill? slave. simply must get the children into a private school & that's why you working the mile? slave, slave, slave!
see now, don't be getting all panicky on me. there is a way out. the easiest way today to not be a slave is to be born so rich you never have to work unless you want to. "wealth's precipititous, though..." pointed out the sainted one "doesn't that mean rainy?" i answered. however, it is a good point. yet the insecure nature of money does not detract from its power, if you got it.
it also does not detract from the fact that most of us haven't got a lot of it. so what can we do? there is another solution, of course & it is fairly obvious. all you have to do is make sure nobody has to work. "but how? likkle drumma, how?" i hear you cry, in unison. heck, even the unaffiliated amongst you are probably wondering what the solution is (union based humour, eh? you can't beat it!) all you have to do is have the state contribute toward a basic level of housing and nutrition (like they do with healthcare & education) there, that wasn't so tough now was it?
problem solved! no more having to work! and no more minimum wage jobs - employers would have to offer more than the bare minimum cause everyone would get that for free! "but wait a minute" i hear you muse "how would you possibly pay for such a scheme?" good question, there is, after all, no such thing as a free lunch! and to be sure we'd probably have to lose a few billionaire's (by, say, reducing them to mere millionaires) but hey, most of 'em ain't millionaires anyway (actually milliardairs) they just cheatin!
if you are a regular reader of the daily mail or a similar publication you're probably now thinking: "harrumpf! you'd just get everyone eating free meals and taking free housing! the economy would collapse!" which is a fair point. except the evidence doesn't quite bear it on out. for inkstains: all kids get offered free education, yet they are having to threaten parents with jail just to make sure they go! ditto with healthcare. if people go for proper checks it works out a lot cheaper and easier for everone involved. but do they? do they bollox! most people wait until thy're at death's door before they dare to trouble a health professional with their presence.
also, i know people. and most people like nice things. and will happily work to pay for them. most people wouldn't be caught dead taking state freebie's unless they absolutely have to. someting to do with 'pride' or summink. no, i've got no idea either. but suffice to say the economy would not be under any form of threat. in fact, it would be better off, as several studies have shown that homeless, starving people don't make for very productive staff members.
now i know what some of you're thinking: "ain't this sposed to be a nihilist blog? that sounds suspiciously like socialism to me!" and you'd have a point. but if you think about it, doing away with the state is an anarchist concept. one i do not have a lot of time for. for, without the state, we are merely 9 billion apes shitting over anything & everything (who do you think builds & mantains sewer systems?) and who wants that?
not me mate, not me.
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