LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Ralph Klein promised consultation with the Volk of Alberta over his "discussion paper" on Third Way Health Care reform. When challenged by the Liberals to speak to Albertans at open forums they are sponsoring or in a televised debate, he balked and said the only discussion will be in the Legislature. Then he traveled to B.C. to discuss his ideas at a closed meeting where tickets sold for $100 per and $500 if you wanted to sit with Ralph.


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Belarus held a farcical election today, with police patrols in the main square in order to avoid a Ukrainian like Orange Revolution. The people apparently voted for the dictator by over 80%. Mr. Lukashenko who rules Belarus was once a prison guard. Poor Belarus is a prison nation. Belarus vote ends in dubious landslide
Even in One Party State Alberta King Ralph only gets 72% in the popular opinion polls.


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An excellent article in New Left Review, available online, is a review of NLR's Verso publication Afflicted Powers Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War
by the Retort Collective based in the Bay Area of San Fransisco.

A collective effort they use Situationist theory of the Spectacle to analyze the current Bush phony war on Terror.

In light of the Pentagon release of Al-Qaeda materials this weekend that show Osama bin Laden understood the importance of media imaging of his war on the U.S. especially the attack on 9/11. It was the unreal reality of TV imaging, that then created the market response of 'reality' TV.

Retorts analysis of this as a Spectacular War, a media war fought in images and through media including the internet, becomes important for the Anti-War movement and the Left to understand.

They also use the theory that the permanent war economy that the US has embraced is a form of primitive accumulation of capital, which is also discussed in an earlier article in NLR.

It is this analysis that I have also posited here, that capitalism as globalization still requires primitive accumulation of capital, war zones with the consequential piracy and brigandism that marks the earliest form of capital accumulation.

Julian Stallabrass: Spectacle and Terror

The central claim of the book is that, with the attacks of 9-11, the us state was wounded at the level of the spectacle and cannot endure this ‘image death’ or ‘image defeat.

The perpetrators were fully conscious of what they were about, were in fact Debordian in their thinking, reasoning that capitalism is dependent on the colonized social circuits that comprise spectacle—including confidence in the market and the state, and an identification with commodity culture—and that to disrupt spectacle may have great and unpredictable consequences. The attacks, Retort claim, were not atavistic pinpricks but modern politics, an assault above all on the ‘ghost sociality’ purveyed by the media The assault on spectacle, not on economic power or even people, was their main business, and in this sense they were for a short time remarkably successful.

There is much that can be said to qualify this view. The motivations of the bombers themselves may never be known, although Retort point to tracts on media theory found in Al Qaeda camps. They must indeed have known that the consequences of their acts could not have been accurately predicted, and this makes their political motives—as opposed to their religious ones, or the desire for just revenge—murkier still. Retort are correct that the void at the level of the image in the mainstream broadcast media was remarkable

In any case, it may be that the point of terror is not merely to disrupt spectacle by producing indigestible images, but to exceed it. Retort highlight the paradox of the vanguard Islamic revolutionaries, who deny themselves all that capitalist spectacle has to offer, and harden themselves against mundane sentiment and appetite, yet who still hold to the effectiveness of the image, and propagate images of their acts through websites. Just as in their lives and deaths they seek the unmediated, so their atrocities perform it, being designed to produce real, bodily fear (not the sublime of air shows), to blanket a city with the smell of fire and blood, to bring to a people sunk in spectacle the ineluctability of arbitrary death. The July 2005 London underground bombings were not meant primarily to create images, but to spread the terror of living burial among the cityÂ’s populace.

Retort argue that the result of the spectacular defeat of 9-11 has been to push the state into actions that are as much governed by spectacle as by material considerations. Warfare has been elevated from an intermittent action to permanent imperial conflict. They claim that one frequently repeated charge of the anti-war movement—that the war was fought for oil—when taken too simply, ignores the ‘partially non-factual imperatives of capital accumulation. These include the effort to repair spectacle, and the drive to normalize war in the minds of citizens.

Retort are surely correct to point to the state’s efforts to create images that can counter the memory of 9-11, and to their insufficiency: Bush on the flight-deck proclaiming victory in Iraq, Saddam’s statue toppled, the dictator captured, the SmokinÂ’ Marine who was supposed to embody the cool courage of the us armed forces, and so on. It is not that these were ineffective pieces of propaganda, but they have subsequently soured as the war and acts of terror have continued. The most memorable images so far gathered by the us armed forces in Iraq are those taken on the phone-cameras of the torturers of Abu Ghraib. Similarly, us political support for Israel is seen as no longer being driven by strategic or military considerations, which now would operate against such an alliance, but rather as an attachment at the level of the image: both are simultaneously democratic consumer societies and highly militarized states with a pioneer ethos, and both harbour the guilt and pride of having taken their land by expelling and exterminating another population. The us in seeing Israel looks into a mirror and cannot abandon its own reflected image.

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As I said here the other day; Iraqi Distraction, the sturm and drang in the media about Operation Swarmer in Iraq was a distraction in order to boost Bush's poll ratings. Galloping Beaver follows up with an excellent essay pointing out that the whole mission was a hoax, an elaborate media build up for a basic excercise with joint U.S. and Iraqi forces.

An excercise folks. A flexing of muscle to coinside with the muscular speeches given by the President this week. And here is the irony it was all made for the 24/7 TV news networks.

As Time magazine reported, though they own CNN which played right into the Defense Department/Pentagon PR campaign,

But contrary to what many many television networks erroneously reported, the operation was by no means the largest use of airpower since the start of the war. ("Air Assault" is a military term that refers specifically to transporting troops into an area.) In fact, there were no airstrikes and no leading insurgents were nabbed in an operation that some skeptical military analysts described as little more than a photo op.

Meanwhile with all the photo op material provided by the Pentagon, no media were allowed on this secret mission, it still was part of the attempt by the US to pretend its Iraqi puppet army was ready to deal with security. Which of course it isn't.

In fact this whole operation has managed to further upset the Sunni's and provide further fuel for political sectarian differences, and all they got out of it was peoples personal weapons. So much for defending the Second amendment.

One leading Sunni Arab, Iraqi presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie, urged that the operation ease restrictions on traffic across Samarra's vital Tigris River bridge, and cease "disarming the people of Samarra of their own authorized weapons."

But the US has to start pulling out troops this year, as the Brits have already begun. That was their timetable all along. However as much as the US has pushed for a government and army in Iraq that could take over based on this timetable, to extract troops prior to the November elections in the US, the Iraqi's have failed to live up to US expectations.

This excercise was a fake, it was nothing more than a regular police action, in order to distract from the serious failure of the US military and political strategy in Iraq. Three years after "Mission Accomplished".

WASHINGTON — Three years ago today, as they ordered more than 150,000 U.S. troops to race toward Baghdad, Iraq, Bush administration officials confidently predicted that Iraq quickly would evolve into a prosperous, oil-fueled democracy. When those goals proved optimistic, they lowered their sights, focusing on a military campaign to defeat Sunni-led insurgents and elections to jump-start a new political order.
Now, as the conflict enters its fourth year, the Bush administration faces a new challenge: the prospect of civil war. And, in response, officials appear to be redefining success downward again. If Iraq can avoid all-out civil war, they say, if Baghdad's new security forces can hold together, if Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds all participate in a new unity government, that may be enough to allow the administration to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops in the country by the second half of this year.
In increasingly sober public statements — and in slightly more candid assessments in interviews with officials who refused to be identified — administration officials are working to lower expectations.
"It may seem difficult at times to understand how we can say that progress is being made," President Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday, acknowledging that much of the recent news from Iraq has been bad. "But . . . slowly but surely, our strategy is getting results."
"We may fail," warned a senior official directly involved in Iraq policy. "But I think we're going to succeed. I think we're going to nudge this ball down the road. . . . It's not going to be easy, and it's going to take time."


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Well the Conservatives under Harper have shown their true nature, they are definitely NOT a federalist party. Conservatives pull plug on federalist agency
This allows them to satisfy their anti-bilingual Western right wing rump and consolidate the BQ's support for their minority government."Last night, Bloc Quebecois party whip Michel Guimond welcomed the news."We are happy that the contributions of citizens will no longer serve to finance this partisan organization, which has had its credibility called into question so many times," Guimond said."

Tories axe unity council funding
Toronto Star -
OTTAWA—The Conservative government is cutting off funding for the Canadian Unity Council, one of the most venerable Quebec-based federalist organizations, as part of a broader review of the way Ottawa promotes the federation.

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Another NAFTA victory for Canada over the softwood dispute with the U.S. and as usual another challenge by the U.S. protectionist lobby. Over to you Mr. Harper.

Canada wins final lumber ruling
National Post - 19 hours ago
WASHINGTON - Canada hailed a major victory yesterday in the long-running softwood lumber battle with the United States after a NAFTA panel made a final ruling in its favour. Spokesmen for the Canadian lumber ...
NAFTA panel ruling removes softwood duties if US doesn't appeal CBC News
Canada wins second NAFTA decision on softwood tariffs


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France's global warning Once again, French students are leading the march - this time against an unpopular employment law - but these protests are also about the country's future on an increasingly globalised planet, writes Alex Duval Smith in Paris

Sunday March 19, 2006
The Observer

It was the same bright spring sunshine and the same familiar elegant landmarks, but the hundreds of thousands of young demonstrators on the streets yesterday were a whole new generation. Almost 40 years since the great student protests of 1968, France's students are again manning barricades, café tables are being thrown at police riot shields, and tear gas hangs over the Left Bank.

France was again showing its revolutionary fibre and, in the republican tradition, it looked last night as though victory was close to being with the people.

Flames erupt from a car and a motorbike in front of a hotel during clashes between youths and police that followed a student protest against the First Employment Contract (CPE), in Paris, March 16, 2006. REUTERS/Charles Platiau


It was only months ago that the sans papier, the immigrant youth outside of Paris began their protests with the burning of cars.

The torching of the French banlieues as both sequel to the No vote of May 2005 and symptom of a wider Western malaise. Rejection of official pieties of integration, and flames of revolt against an automated Europe. Jean Baudrillard: The Pyres of Autumn

Today half a million families along with students and trade unionists demonstrated across France peacefully against the new French Labour Law.

The best coverage was on BBC World News TV which distinguished between the demonstrations during the day, peaceful, with the later night time police instigated rioting. It was like night and day.Riots erupt after French protests BBC

The 24/7 cable news stations in the U.S. covered it as if only the rioting had occured. Why am I not surprized. Student-Worker Protests in Paris Turn Violent
FOX News

Also See:

May 68 Redux

Tout va Bien

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David Horowitz is a classic case of the the Trotskyist who becomes his opposite. The New Left idol who no longer idolisized becomes the 'other', in order to become famous once again. It happened with Shactman and Burnham, in whose shoes Horowitz has stepped. Nothing new here, except of course his whining and historical revisionism.

Such as this recent quote from the dweeb;

"If not for the sacrifices of white soldiers and a white American president who gave his life to sign the Emancipation Proclamation, blacks in America would still be slaves. If not for the dedication of Americans of all ethnicities and colors to a society based on the principle that all men are created equal, blacks in America would not enjoy the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world, and indeed one of the highest standards of living of any people in the world. They would not enjoy the greatest freedoms and the most thoroughly protected individual rights anywhere. Where is the gratitude of black America and its leaders for those gifts?"

And to think Horowitz was the darling of the White Left who identified with the Black Panthers, back when he was editor of Ramparts. And then after his breakdown, and drift into paranoia claiming the Panthers were out to kill him he becomes a born again Conservative.

Of course he convienently forgets his Civil War history. Including the fact his White President, Lincoln, freeing the slaves, which of course he was reluctant to do, was only accomplished when the Federal Government needed more troops for the final big push on the Confederate army. Guess Horowitz missed the movie Glory.


What twit. But thats what you get from Trots who become Neo-Cons. Emphasis on the con. As in con artists.

In this case Horowitz the red diaper baby came from Stalinism, remained a Stalinist, despite toying with Trotskyism, so its no wonder he became a red baiting neo-con, and a white supremicist.


In addition to political alchemy, Horowitz has another new fixation: race, exemplified by his recent book, Hating Whitey and Other Progessive Causes. Last August, in a piece titled "A Real, Live Bigot," Time columnist Jack White took issue with an essay Horowitz wrote for Salon. In that piece, Horowitz excoriated the NAACP's class-action suit against gun manufacturers and wondered, "Am I alone in seeing this as an absurd act of political desperation by the civil rights establishment? What's next? Will Irish-Americans sue whiskey distillers, or Jews the gas company?" White, who is African-American, retorted that Horowitz's column was so repellent that it "made the anti-black rantings of Dinesh D'Souza seem like models of fair-minded social analysis."


He has become his own enemy, and his rantings are an attempt not to atone for his Left wing past, but to claim he always was a conservative. He has gone from Red to Red Neck.

In his book Hating Whitey, Horowitz dismissed Dr. Cornel West as "an intellectual of modest talents whose skin color has catapulted him into academic stardom with a six-figure income."

Do I detect the tone of green with jealousy in this statement? Of course.

A tip o' the blog to A Class Act.

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Politcal power grows out of the barrel of the gun. Mao Tse Tung

OROPOYI, Kenya - Akiru Lomukuny's clan already has seen one boy killed, a girl raped and dozens of women beaten just for trying to get a drink of water. Now, she says, things are about to get a lot worse.Generations of east Africans have clashed sporadically over cattle, pasture and, most importantly, water. The drought sweeping the region is making the fight for resources more desperate.

"The route through Uganda is like going between two dogs," Lomukuny said. "During the migration, the fighting is perpetual, all the way through, until we find a place to settle."

She said the biggest concern was the supply of bullets, because unlike in Uganda, the Kenyan government doesn't provide the nomadic tribes with arms and ammunition. She said if the government would only give them more well water, things would be different.

But Lomukuny said her clan has to take its chances and cross the border.

"I don't care if I lose a child, or my husband, it is a desperate state now," she said. "We have to go."

She looked a reporter straight in the eye.

"If you want to help me," the grandmother said with immense dignity. "Give me a gun."

Starving Kenyans are on the brink... "The Kenyan government has declared a national emergency. Dozens of people have already died in northeastern and eastern Kenya, while dead cattle and other animals dot the landscape. The UN estimates that hunger and thirst killed hundreds of people and tens of thousands of livestock in Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia."


A tip o the blog to News Trolls for this.

Also See: Free Trade; Hong Kong & Somalia




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King Stephen the Harpocrite has taken his cone of silence politics to their ultimate conclusion, he is now silencing his Ministers so that everyone is singing from his songbook.

Harper's new gag order
London Free Press - 4 hours ago
Retreating into a bunker mentality, the new prime minister has proclaimed that his office must approve all information, comments and even letters to the editor from government officials and cabinet ministers,

This is good old fashioned Alberta-Style politics, so reminiscent of another King.

King Ralph.

Alberta ministers must quit early to seek Klein's job CBC News


Could this new Stalinism in the PMO be because the Tories intend to introduce TAX INCREASES in their new budget?

So says the Canadian Taxpayers Federation;

Yet to finance their tax cut package (highlighted by the GST reduction), the Conservatives have said they’ll raise the bottom income tax rate back up to 16 per cent from 15 per cent. They’ll also cancel the $500 increase in the BPE. This increase would kick in for 2006 and not affect the income tax cut granted for 2005. Nonetheless, should Mr. Harper go this route, he will correctly be labelled a tax-hiker, and rightfully incur the wrath of taxpayers.


More Stories On: Harper


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Stageleft has published a particular nasty racist little email that was sent to some Northern folks, the Inuit. It attacks them for seal hunting.

The Inuit who also are affected by the anti-seal hunt activists they have produced a new pro sustainable development video promoting the Seal Hunt in the North as part of a sustainable fishing/hunting economy.

But of course their video is nothing like the corporate campaign the Green NGO's do because of their deep pockets. Pockets filled annually by the fundraising campaign around the seal hunt.

In 1974 IFAW hired the same advertising agency as Coca-Cola to co-ordinate a $100,000 "Stop the Seal Hunt," campaign. Seal pup products are now banned in Europe and the U.S. Marine Mamal protection Act prevents any importation of seal products into Canada's largest trading partner. With annual revenues of $60 million a year and support from U.S., Canadian and European celebrities, the IFAW represents a publicity juggernaut, Simpson said.

The Reality

The Propaganada Image




Amongst Northern peoples, those in the Circumpolar Arctic, sealing is part of the traditional economy. The Green NGO's like to claim that the Inuit and other aboriginal peoples are simply dupes of the fur industry! The fact that traditional hunter gatherer economies are based on hunting, duh oh, might have something to do with it of course doesn't cross their minds.

This is a morality play about the angst people in the south feel about the North, urban sophisticates living in the metropoles versus the rural rubes and rednecks who live in the Southerners much cherished 'wilderness".

Its people in the south versus Peoples in the North, and by the way the Newfoundland Hunt is in Labrador where it is part of the traditional way of live of the aboriginals who live there as well as the Fisher folk from the Rock.

Its about old economies based on fishing and hunting which are suffering from underdevelopment, but that underdevelopment, is in the eye of the beholder, sustainable fishing and hunting economies can exist. But not for PETA and others who want to end all use of animals so we can become vegans.

Unfortunately the Green moralists believe that the Hunting and Fishing Folk should pay the price for urbanites to wander in a people-less wilderness.

McCartney called the hunt "barbaric" and a "stain" on the country, and urged Ottawa to replace it with subsidies for fishermen and an eco-tourism industry.

It comes from all those cutesy wilderness movies put out by Walt Disney that generations have grown up on. The ones with the anthropomophic animals that talk. Which maybe why Ms.McCartney almost got bit by a baby seal, because she was probably trying to have a conversation with it.

POSED UNPOSED





Also See:

Seal Hunt Articles 2006

Seal Hunt Articles 2005:

Green Opportunism

Green Party Seal Hunt Flippers

SEAL HUNT DEJA VU

Did Viagra impact the Seal Hunt

A Rational Observation on the Seal Hunt


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V for Vendetta is out today, not Guy Fawkes Day but not far off, as it is Saint Paddy's day.

And the links between V and the IRA struggle back in 1916, could be made.

As could links to the current State of Terror that we are facing with our new Security States. Those in power who claim that we are under attack and thus must give up our civil liberties for the good of the State.

Now while this V guy is kinda of violent, he is the opposite of our poor Windsor Smith in 1984. Servility or Liberty.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” Thomas Jefferson

Which makes this review from CTV all the more interesting in that it is well balanced.

At the center of the story is the mysterious V, (Hugo Weaving, The Matrix, Lord of the Rings) a Guy Fawkes mask wearing anarchist who saves a woman named Evey from being raped by state police. After their chance encounter, V inspires her to join his crusade to restore civil liberties through acts of terrorism.

"It's less of a message and more of a question which is 'when if ever is violence justified'? And you can say that there are certain situations when it is justified," Natalie Portman, who plays Evey, told eTalk.

Vendetta explores the idea that one person's terrorist may be another person's freedom fighter.

The debate over the politics of the deed versus mass mobilizations will be taken up again as they did over the Black Bloc.Already some anarchists are planning to leaflet the movie to use it as a chance to clarify that Anarchy really is. Good on them. It will help counter the Anarchist as Terrorist mythology.

THE TERROR LAST TIME
New Yorker, United States - 5 Mar 2006
... When the war was over, his politics shifted. ... Merely by virtue of what the Haymarket eight had said and written about anarchism and dynamite, they were ...

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The streets of Paris have ignited in days of rage as students strike against the new employment laws. Reminding us once again of the Paris Maydays of 68. Complete with cops attacking protesters. It's a Flashback; Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

About 250,000 students took to the streets of major cities. Some wore black garbage bags to symbolise their charge that the Government treats young people as disposable workers.The student rallies have worried the Government because of their rapid spread, the threat of participation by trade unions and the historical power of students in France. A student protest that began at the Sorbonne in 1968 led to the resignation of the President, Charles de Gaulle.

France's newly passed labour law

Due to come into effect next month, it will make it easier to hire and fire young people at a time when the youth unemployment rate averages 23 per cent.

The protesters' anger focuses on provisions that will allow companies to fire employees under 26 at any time during their first two years of work, without cause.

"They're offering us nothing but slavery," said Maud Pottier, 17, a student at Jules Verne High School in Sartrouville, north of Paris.

"You'll get a job knowing that you've got to do every single thing they ask you to do because otherwise you may get sacked. I'd rather spend more time looking for a job and get a real one."

Business leaders complain that existing French labour laws make it virtually impossible to dismiss incompetent employees without giving them prohibitively costly severance package

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I have updated links in my blog article; A Philosophical Dilemma

I have included a link to Tony Negri's work on Spinoza; The Savage Anomaly
THE POWER OF SPINOZA'S METAPHYSICS AND POLITICS

This is an online edition of the full length book.

As well I have included a link to Eric Hollands article Spinoza and Marxism. Enjoy.



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It is the hundredth birthday of the Russian avante-garde/modernist composer Dimitri Shostakovich.

His work was always heroic, some say bombastic. It was played by the orchestra in Stalingrad as the Germans advanced, and Shostakovich himself composed during the seige of Lenningrad.

The Leningrad Blockade Museum

September 16, 1941

"An hour ago I finished the score for the two movements of a large symphonic composition.

If I succeed in bringing it off, that is if I manage to finish the third and the fourth movements, I'll be able to call the work the Seventh Symphony.

Why am I telling you this?

I am telling you this to show that life in our city is normal.

We are all at our battle stations.

Soviet musicians, my dear numberless comrades in arms, my friends!

Remember, our art is in peril. So let us defend our music, let us work honestly and selflessly!"

Dmitry Shostakovich, speaking in a Leningrad Radio broadcast

His work was critical of the Stalinist regime while a paen to the revolutionary struggles of 1905 and 1917. The hero in his music was not an individual but the people and their struggles. His music ironically spoke to the soul of the listener. His is the voice of the dialectic, the struggle of humanity is also the struggle of the individual. He remains a major Socialist voice in modern music.

He was trashed in the West during the Cold War as a Stalinist hack. Without regard for the rigours of trying to remain within that regime while existing with personal and musical integrity.

As in death, he was fated to be at the heart of controversy during his life. However, if, during the Thirties and Fifties, Shostakovich was subjected to so-called 'right-wing' criticism from official circles professing the most reactionary conservatism, today he often becomes the target of attacks from the 'left', either from those post-war avant-garde adepts who see him as a traditionalist, or from 'truth lovers' bitten by the bug of unmasking, who smirk at his imagined conformity. Today it is very easy to be more Catholic than the Pope. It is more difficult to find what can be called the historical ear -- something that anyone who has pretensions to the title of music historian or music theorist should actually possess. Naturally, it is naive to expect younger generations to be informed of the social experience of the previous generations, for they will never be able to bridge this gap. They hear and see the recent past differently from those who experienced it, and that is not in the least surprising. Nevertheless, those who study the art of the past ought at least to try to correlate it with what used to be social practice during that time. The lack, among the young, of personal knowledge of these matters can be compensated by the study of historical facts and, naturally, as far as possible, by their correct interpretation. Otherwise, distortions -- or, at the least, superficial judgements -- will become etched in stone. To restore the historical truth and take a fresh look at Shostakovich's work are endeavors that are equally imperative today.

Shostakovich was an artist with a complex and tragicfate. Persecuted for almost his entire life and almost sharing the fate of Meyerhold, Mandel'shtam, and [the writer Varlam] Shalamov, he courageously endured hounding and persecution for the sake of what was most important in his life: his art. Occasionally, however, during the most complex conditions of political repression, he had to manoeuver. Without this manoeuvering, there would have been no Shostakovich art at all. Many of those who had started with him perished, while many others were brought to their knees. He survived and persevered, endured everything and, in the end, fulfilled his calling. And we can only bow before his fortitude and steadfastness.

What is important is not only how he is perceived and listened to today, but also who he was for his contemporaries. For those who listened attentively to his strong voice, filled with anxiety and, at times, breaking with despair, Shostakovich became a crucial symbol of intellectual integrity. For many years his music remained a safety valve which, for a few short hours, allowed listeners to expand their chests and breathe freely. At the time, his music was that truly indispensable lungful of freedom and dissidence, not only in its content, but also -- which is no less important -- in its musical form. However, first and foremost, we were grateful to Shostakovich for the fact that during those precious minutes of communion with his music, we were free to remain ourselves -- or, perhaps, to revert to ourselves. The sound of Shostakovich's music was not only always a celebration of high art, but also an interlude of truth. Those who knew how to listen to his music would take it away with them from the concert hall. His music became an emblem of spiritual experience and of hope for the future. It can be said, without exaggerating, that Shostakovich was the authentic conscience of his time. I would suggest that it is our task to carry over that understanding of his work into the present and to instill it into the coming generations of musicians and listeners.

The Dissident
Mark Aranovsky's introductory article in the Shostakovich issue
of Muzykal'naya Akademiya, Winter 1997

COMPOSITIONS by DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH Internet Edition compiled by Onno van Rijen


Listen to: Written With The Heart's Blood

The five parts of Quartet No. 8 depict significant moments -- both positive and negative -- in the composer's life. The piece is dominated by the repeated use of Shostakovich's musical "signature" of D, E flat, C, and B. This recurring motif both binds the piece together and gives it an oppressive, almost inescapable quality. In the second movement (Allegro Molto, featured here as arranged by Barshai for the New Century Chamber Orchestra), the relentless repetition conjures images of prison or endless pursuit: the strings race around each other with a manic urgency, swelling and spreading until they form a seemingly inescapable web. The piece's breathless, unsettling quality influenced both the work of Bernard Hermann, who composed the music for Psycho, and the band Faith No More, who sampled it in "Malpractice," on their 1992 album Angel Dust.

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"Wow you are right Hamid that opium is great, thanks for the taste."

"Yep Stephen it gives you something to smile about."

"Better than Timmies."

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Afghanistan, Canada, Harper, Karzai, opium, PM, President

A debate yesterday on Mike Duffy live between the advocate of a ban on seal hunting, and a Senator from the Rock (Newfoundland).

No matter how often the Senator tried to convince Duff and the anti-sealing advocate that clubbing baby seals does not happen, it was blissfully ignored. The hunt is not for babies. Killing baby harp seals has been illegal since 1987.

Yep never let the 'facts' get in the way of propaganda, since of course this IS NOT ABOUT SEALS. Its about the annual fundraising drive for Green NGO's. How many times do I have to say this?

Well until the deaf grow ears I guess. Besides think of all that Green Anti-Sealing propaganda that would have to be changed. Yet you still see this everywhere;



Which is a baby seal. Not a Harp seal, a white coat. And the hunt on them has been banned since 1987, and skinning seals alive, which is another piece of this propaganda, is also banned.

And this is the image of the hunt that is still used by those who want to foist their morality on fishers on the Rock.

And that's what it's about. It's not about the seals being endagered, its about the morality of the hunt. Its linked in many cases to the Animal Rights movement which is not about animals but about the moral superiority of the vegan diet.

Of course with the usual stars arriving on the ice flows to continue the propaganda campaign, like the McCartney's and Bridgette Bardot, folks on the Rock are getting a bit upset. Not only Senators and the Premier but ordinary bloggers. Which leads some of them to start their own campaigns. Like this one;





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Wait a minute this isn't new, or news, this is the same policy that led to the invasion of Iraq.

US document cites Iran ‘confrontation’
Deccan Herald - 1 hour ago
A new US national security strategy document warns of a possible “confrontation” with Iran if “diplomatic efforts” fail to pressure Tehran to give up its aspirations to develop nuclear weapons. Preemption remains US policy option


Also See: Making Iran Nervous


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When you get bad news;

Like the lowest poll numbers ever, for both your Presidency and your private war.

The folks that are supposed to govern Iraq meet for for less than an hour and adjourns.34 Iraqis Killed, Sectarian Parliament Meets for Just 30 Minutes

Your allies the Brits announce they are withdrawing 10% of their troops.

The leader you have deposed is calling on his people to end sectarian violence and unite against you. Saddam Urges Iraqis to Unite Against GIs

The people you were supposed to liberate burn down a monument to the masacre of their relatives because they still don't have housing, water or electricity, Kurds attack Halabja memorial and govt offices

And you want to let folks think that all is going well, than make a big announcement about a standard training mission for the Iraqi Army. Don't include the press, and you create a distraction from a bad news week.

Which is what this is all about; US launches major air assault in Iraq


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The saying goes is that the Red House, the Senate is where the dead play.

Hmmm perhaps this is why the Harpocrite's newly appointed Conservative Senator Michael Fortier looks like Nosferatu.

See: Abolish the Senate






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Does the carrot scream like mandrake when you put it in the blender?

You have to listen vewy , vewy carefully.

Which is probably why the makers of vegimatic blenders make them so loud,
so you don't hear the screaming.

I missed the meeting the other day of People for the Ethical Rights of Vegetables, or I could have raised this point there.

I love those PETA folks who want to stop us from having any relationships with our animal friends other than petting them and taking care of them.

I too support helping our animal friends and relations since we are animals too. So when right wingers get their knickers in a twist over animal rights being different than human rights, they forget that point. We are animals too. So it should behoove us to protect all our rights as sentient beings.

But in being animals and thus members of the animal kingdom we also eat our fellow creatures. We are not naturally vegan or vegetarian, never have been never will be. At best we have evolved into omnivores, in the transition from Hunter Gatherers to agriculturalists.

Veganism and Vegetarianism is a moral dietary choice. Sort of like not drinking milk. Which PETA also promotes. PETA's agenda has never been about saving animals or even animal rights its about getting us all to become something we aren't, vegans.

Killing, per se, is not the central concern of AR philosophy, which is
concerned with the avoidance of unnecessary pain and suffering.
Thus, because plants neither feel pain nor suffer, AR philosophy
does not mandate fruitarianism (a diet in which only fruits are eaten because they can be harvested without killing the plant from which they issue).
Animal Rights FAQ

In doing so they forget the fact that vegetables and fruits, members of the flora family, also have feelings. Indeed one could argue that the inherent nature of living, of being alive is to have 'feelings'. How of course one expresses those feelings is another question. If one is mute like most veggies then it is hard to communicate, to humans, however they do communicate.

But like lobsters, which PETA also opposes eating, we know when veggies are done, are cooked, are dead, because they change colour in boiling water. And again you don't hear them scream cause you drowned them you cad.

Now as far a moral diets go there are those out there that do go further than PETA and the vegans. Such as fruitarians a particular cult from good old cult heaven, California. They believe you should only eat fruit. Tell that to the Inuit.

But better yet are the breatherians, who believe you should not harm any living creature, and should survive only on breathing and sunlight. Of course by breathing you do obsorb bacteria, spores, germs etc. and thus are consuming some innocent creature. And living on sunlight only would again be hard for Inuit and northern peoples where sunlight vanishes completely. Which maybe why this is the only honest moral diet, since very few breatherians exist. Thank goodness.





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