coffee.thoughts [2.5] -- the rise & fall of: the RIAA; The Modernist; the New American Century & Mein Kampf




The world is passing at a weird rate.



[1] Right -- before we move on -- don't buy your kids any CDs for x-mas (that is, unless they are independent CDs). Or, how about some anti-RIAA stickers for them stockings? The general sentiment here is lovely, from Downhillbattle.org, although the vastness of the claims made are somewhat all-encompassing in a conspiratorial way. Nevertheless, the stickers are brilliant.




[2] Abe passed on this new magazine of 'New Internationalism' known as The Modernist. But what is this furniture + naked girl thing about? Positive festish photography or same-old female naked exploitation in service of consumerism? We'll see what bares in the following updates. Of note, another section of the sitemag focuses on 'Citizens' of this apparent world -- the first being 'Robin Suicide', one of the first SuicideGirls. Third Wave Feminism or again, tit & ass done with panache? The debates will no doubt roll in. But think of this: a small blurb is all that accompanies this photoset. Change the words a bit, and it's a Playboy Paragraph. Don't be tricked -- we're still looking at naked females, and at that, white naked females, under the guise of what -- 'Modernism'? The band The Registrators receives more words, attention and space to talk than these two naked women. And that's, as we say in academic-land, 'problematic'.

[3] I will be using the Creative Commons music license for future works -- waiting for the details. Nice work -- this allows sampling at different levels as well as sharing and remixing.

[4] Reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I was struck by William Shirer's assertion that if anyone had bothered to take Hitler's Mein Kampf seriously--actually indulged in reading the programme--certain actions by Nazi Germany could have been anticipated. Shirer's indignation is legendary, yet as world events revolve there arises, true to form, the same culpability today. Almost everything Hitler executed was laid out, in print, in Mein Kampf and the constitutional points of the Nazi party. Well--this time, take notice-- Fascist hitlists are back -- & they're using secure email networks, websites & facial profiling to form target databases. This is the world of the British National Party, Combat 18 and the Mole Intelligence Bureau. From The Guardian's Mathew Taylor:

[ The home secretary, David Blunkett, is coming under increasing pressure to shut down an extreme rightwing website following the discovery of a secret hitlist of targets - including social workers, journalists and politicians. The Guardian has seen documents from a secure email network which show hardline fascists are planning a campaign of "violence and intimidation" and are swapping information on bomb-making and details of possible targets. The group is linked to the Redwatch website which carries hundreds of pictures and details of anti-fascists - many taken during protests against the British National Party - alongside the slogan "Remember places, traitors' faces, they'll all pay for their crimes." ]

The question arises, as it did then--and do what, exactly? The blueprint for the New American Century is little different than Mein Kampf. As I make my way through Shrirer's tome (which has its own failings, including homophobia, sexism & a penchant for its own analyses based on race), I'll see what parallels can be drawn between then & now. Rest assured, 300 pages in, there are frighteningly many.

posted. Wed - December 17, 2003 @ 01:35 PM           |

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