Our Authentically Fake and Hypocritical Society of Copies
Edward Curtin
“Ditto,” said Tweedledum.
“Ditto, ditto!” cried Tweedledee.
Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking-Glass
Sometimes a trifling contretemps can open a window onto significant issues.
As a case in point, The New York Times, a newspaper that regularly publishes U.S. propaganda without a bit of shame or remorse, recently reported on a controversy involving Simon & Schuster and Bob Dylan’s new book, The Philosophy of Modern Song. The report with the same information was repeated across the media.
The publishing company had offered limited-edition, authenticated, hand-signed copies of the book for $600 each. Nine Hundred collectors and die-hard fans bought a copy, many, no doubt, caught in hero worship and the thought that a Dylan-penned signature would grant them a bit of his fame through the touch of his hand upon their lives.
The quest for immortality takes many forms, and the laying on of hands, even when done remotely through a signature, has long been a popular form of sleight-of-hand.
I once shook hands with an Elvis hologram impersonator and the thrill vibrated for days.
But these Dylan aficionados noticed something strange about the signatures: They didn’t seem to be actual signatures individually written with a pen by Dylan. As anyone knows from their own handwriting, no two signatures are the same, since the human hand is not a copy machine. These signatures were identical.
It turned out that those who smelled a deception were right. Under pressure from astute purchasers, Simon & Schuster had to come clean – sort of. They offered to refund all purchasers for the deception. They released the following statement:
To those who purchased The Philosophy of Modern Song limited edition, we want to apologize. As it turns out, the limited editions books do contain Bob’s original signature, but in a penned replica form. We are addressing this immediately by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.
This statement is a perfect example of double-talk, and more.
Then Dylan also apologized, saying that he used an auto-pen since he was suffering from vertigo and “during the pandemic, it was impossible to sign anything and the vertigo didn’t help.” His apology seems sincere compared to the publisher’s double-talk, but then again, so did his signatures.
And the controversy has spread to the limited edition prints of his artwork.
“Limited edition prints” – a deception in itself, as if limiting the number of copies of an original painting makes them more original. Ten dittos instead of eleven.
However, I am not primarily concerned with the nuances of this tempest in a teapot, which might disappear as fast as yesterday’s bluster, or it may forever tarnish Dylan’s reputation, which would be a shame if it also damaged the genuine greatness of his songs.
I would like to focus on the following matters that I have seen through its window: language usage, a society of copies, reading texts closely, and the degradation of literacy, all of which are tangled together with non-stop government propaganda disseminated by the corporate mass media to form a major social issue.
First, language. Note in the Simon & Schuster apology the words:
As it turns out, the limited editions books do contain Bob’s original signature, but in a penned replica form.”
This is a clear deception twice over. The books do not contain original signatures; they contain machine copies of it. Phrasing it that way allows the company to plead innocent while also apologizing for its innocence as if they consider themselves guilty.
What exactly are they saying they are apologizing for? Deceptions dittoed?
And the phrase “As it turns out,” implies that Simon & Schuster was surprised that the signatures were machine generated, which is highly improbable. It also suggests they are not responsible; such verbiage approximates the common, passive introductory phrase “it so happens” or the equally non-literate “hopefully” to begin a sentence.
“It so happens” that I am writing these words and “it so happens” that you are reading them…as if we are victims of our own free choices. Passive language for victims of fate who have learned to write and talk this way to avoid responsibility even for their own hope, as in: “I hope.”
Or maybe the widespread copycat use of “hopefully” is an unconscious attempt to deny pervasive hopelessness. No matter how many times you repeat something doesn’t make it true.
The use of such language is a reflection of an age in which determinism has for decades been repeatedly promulgated to extinguish people’s belief in freedom. Ditto: Saying “the exact same” doesn’t make the same more same through redundancy. You can’t get any more same than same since same means identical, or any more opposite than opposite even if you say “the exact opposite.”
The English language is suffering.
To top it off, an esteemed book publishing company nearly a century old concludes with a sentence that a high school freshman – circa 1960 before all the dumbing-down of schooling – would realize was redundant with the words “immediately” (misplaced) and “immediate,” as if repetition would emphasize their contrition. “We are addressing this immediately by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.” Ditto.
But who notices these things?
Discerning readers – whether of the examples above or of a subtle controlled- opposition media article suggesting one thing while meaning another – are becoming rarer and rarer. Ideology, political party allegiances, and plain stupidity block many from grasping propaganda and media claims made out of thin air.
Anonymous sources, subtle phrasing, real or imagined intelligence sources, the use of words such as may, might, possible, could be, etc., are a staple of so much writing and broadcast news that they fly by people used to the speed of the digital life with texting and internet browsing where repetition and copying are king.
Yes, speed kills in so many ways. The repetition of talking points across the major corporate media, something carefully studied and confirmed years ago, has become so obvious to anyone who chooses to take the time to investigate. It’s not hard to do but few bother; they are too “busy.” Thus propaganda and gibberish pass unnoticed.
Just as “The Real McCoy” (see the opening “Refrain” of Hillel Schwartz’ The Culture of the Copy) was a fake and the phrase came to represent the genuine to supposedly confirm authenticity, we are now living in an era of the counterfeit everywhere.
Counterfeits of counterfeits. Imposters. Actors playing actors. Counterfeit traitors. Fabricated reality and copies of copies.
Ditto. Ditto. Ditto. Lies about not lying. (See The New York Times’, The Guardian’s, etc. deceptive, hypocritical, and self-serving joint letter asking the U.S government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange for publishing secrets.)
The Dylan controversy is a very minor example of a major issue that is little appreciated for its devastating impact on society.
For another minor example, we may ask how many times does one have to see the replay of Christian Pulisic’s recent goal against Iran in the 2022 World Cup to grasp its brilliance and to see that he was injured? Two, three, five, ten? And this is a sporting event, not some mall shooting or serious issue of war. In a digital high-tech world repetition is the norm. What does repetition do to the mind?
What does repetition do to the mind?
Despite the great sportsmanship shown by the players from both the U.S. and Iran on the pitch, U.S. Men’s Soccer executives, by deleting the Islamic Republic emblem from Iran’s flag on its social media sites, and the U.S. media tried repeatedly to politicize the game into a battle between the good Americans and the evil Iranians, even while a U.S. regime change color revolution was being attempted on the streets of Iran.
What does repetitious propaganda do to the mind?
Technology has not just allowed for machine signatures but has made us in many ways machine people who need to be hammered over the head time and again – and to like it. To go back again and again for more. Everything but life has become repeatable.
Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby’s reply to Nick’s statement In The Great Gatsby – “You can’t repeat the past,” Nick tells Gatsby, who responds, “Can’t repeat the past? Why, off course you can!” – perfectly captures the “reality” of a digital screen culture of illusions in which many people have unconsciously come to believe that you can instantly replay life as well.
Indeed, to make people into machines is the goal of trans-humanists Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum with its Great Reset and the UN’s 2030 Agenda. Artificial intelligence (AI) for artificial people.
While there are innocent examples of repetition, the use of it is a fundamental tactic of propaganda, whether that be through words or images. And we are drowning in repeated media/government propaganda about the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine, Covid19, Iran, China, Syria, etc.
It’s as easy as pie to innocently repeat, as I learned recently when my wife asked me to use her cell phone to take a photograph. Bumpkin that I am who despises these machines, rather than briefly hitting the button I held it down for a few seconds and took the same photo 67 ½ times. It just so happened.
But the propagandists’ repetitions are no accident. You can’t condemn Julian Assange year after year for posting U.S. war crimes – the Afghanistan War Logs – and then try to save your own ass after the man has been persecuted for more than a decade and counting.
The media who did this and then wrote the recent letter are counterfeit traitors to the truth and agents of the war criminals. To call them journalists is to misuse language: They are imposters.
What does repetition do to the mind? asked Tweedledum to his identical twin Tweedledee.
Tweedledee replied, Look what it’s done to us.
Edward Curtin is an independent writer whose work has appeared widely over many years. His website is edwardcurtin.com and his new book is Seeking Truth in a Country of Lies.
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one of the little stories that StanislaW Lem wrote, have nice little line about art in the future, im paraphrasing, but it was in lines with that computers can reproduce any art in a form that you will not be able to distinguish original from fake,
they know those artist that their days are numbered so they try to squeeze every penny, they have chosen devils side and now this side is making them redundant touche,
I wake up every morning and exclaim -oh my God… I’m dreaming again.
A Puzzle: Can a persons politics be guessed at from their belief in ‘covid’, or ‘climate emergency’ ? That is, if i’m a full-on supporter of lockdowns, would that label me leftwing ? What if i aggressively promote belief in ‘climate crisis’, does that indicate that my politics is leftwing ?
I’m a lefty – 1970s model…To me there is no climate emergency, and the ‘covid’ virus hasnt been shown to exist – so where on the spectrum am i ? I’m certainly NOT a conspiracy theory believer – i KNOW the bastards are out to get me…
believing in ‘covid’ has nothing to do with politics, it speaks to a certain insufficiency of critical thinking ability. Believing in lockdowns, however, clearly puts you on the authoritarian ‘true right’, whose basic characteristic is the belief that a small group of people have the ‘right’ to tell everyone else what to do. The ‘true left’ believes in the maximum application of freedom of choice and democracy. A longer exploration of the concepts of ‘true right’ and ‘true left’ here – It’s not ‘the left’ trying to take over the world and shut down free speech and all that other bad stuff – it’s ‘the right’!! https://www.rudemacedon.ca/vgi/backgrounders/collectivist%20plot%20omg.html
‘believing in ‘covid’ has nothing to do with politics, it speaks to a certain insufficiency of critical thinking ability.’
I’m not sure that’s even right. Thinking suggests one step removed. I think the skeptics weren’t buying it all along, as it was happening.
Wish I could use this to wash my hog …
Look at it this way: people who don’t believe in covid, climate change, etc are labelled by the left as far-right, antivaxxers, nazis, racists, homophobes, transphobes and misogynists. Conversely, people who do believe in covid etc must be lefties. Don’t look for logic, that’s just the way it is.
I didn’t believe in covid from Day One but – so far at least – I accept the science put forward supporting dangerous man-made climate change. I can see how they’ll use climate change to control us and I certainly don’t like that but so far I still accept the science. When I first heard of AGW in about 2008 I knew nothing of psyops or anything of that nature and the phenomenon seemed to make sense to me. If CO2 has a warming effect at a trace level which I learnt at school and even climate change deniers don’t challenge that then it seemed reasonable that pumping huge quantities into the atmosphere would have a big impact. Even though it made sense and what I saw of the science presented looked reasonable and I felt I had no particular reason to doubt it I still looked as best I could at the denial arguments and I always found them lacking. I still look a little and can’t see anything that hasn’t been argued against compellingly. Quite honestly if I eventually discover it’s a complete hoax I’m not sure how I’ll cope as I feel I’ve done the best due diligence I can and it will make me lose all sense of being able to trust my judgement.
I’ve come to recognise many things I believed aren’t true but discovering the truth didn’t worry me because I had no idea about them. When you do the best you can but discover you’re wrong that’s a totally different ball game.
Thank you for this comment. It largely depicts my own view of the climate issue – with one glaring exception: I can’t stop being skeptical for even five minutes. I agree with you that the climate “denier” claims hold far less water than the claims for climate crisis (I loathe the term “climate denier” because it seeks to impugn the integrity of those who might genuinely doubt the climate claims: it’s a cheap substitute for an argument).
Even so, I perceive holes in the arguments put forth for climate change. Mainly because I don’t have the resources to personally verify the data used to bolster those arguments.
I am a righty, not sure what model. But there is no politics any more, nor any political spectrum. There is only “lying is not OK” and “even asking whether a statement is true or a lie is not OK”. It’s binary. There is “in” and “out”. “Slave” and “free”. All that matters now is where you fall on the political binary… forget about the political spectrum.
‘You can’t get any more same than same since same means identical’
I pulled cable from the house at about the same time ER was boasting of “All-new episodes.”
“Subtle phrasing”
Beware of “pointed out” and “explained” instead of “he said.”
As for “separation barrier”….
Oh for fuck’s sake:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/12/08/celine-dion-stiff-person-syndrome/
“What is stiff-person syndrome? Celine Dion reveals rare condition.
Celine Dion announced that she was diagnosed with a rare and incurable neurological condition known as stiff-person syndrome, and that she will cancel or postpone dozens of shows in her “Courage World Tour.”
….
Stiff-person syndrome (SPS) is a rare, chronic neurological disorder that causes muscle stiffness and sometimes intense muscle spasms in the trunk and limbs, affecting posture, balance and the ability to use certain muscles. It usually has an autoimmune component and, in some cases, it can be progressive and painful, experts say.”
It seems that this odd condition was “first described” in 1956. It’s the first time I’ve heard of it.
Wow, that’s funny. RSV originated/was first described in 1956 too. Coincidence? Polio vax responsible for this stiff person syndrome also??
I have heard of the stiff d**k syndrome as a possible, though not lethal, side effect of Pfister VIAGRA. I have also heard of women who take Viagra and also participate in genetic research. It’s all so confusing but only rarely …
Oh mamma can this really be the end: to be suffering from vertigo with the covid blues again.
I, for one, dont mind that the magpie, Bob Dylan, plagairised.
It would seem to be: the first mass deception is pairing ‘artificial’ with ‘intelligence’ (even pairing ‘machine’ with ‘intelligence’)…The moment you accept Their meanings then They have you thinking on Their terms…
It seems he was plaguerised by the pandemic.
On the topic of who is and isn’t a “true hero” amongst the figureheads of what might charitably be described as “our culture”, the whole matter seems to be getting presented in such a cardboard black and white way.
Bob Dylan is a singer who writes songs. Some of them are great. Some of them seem to me to be astonishingly perceptive. A lot of them are crap and even despicable. “Neighbourhood Bully” is a Zionist rant. Also one of the world’s biggest Dylan fans, Michael Gray, wrote exasperatingly about Dylan’s “Born Again Christian” phase that it’s tedious to be subjected to the world view of rich Americans with no concept of international politics. Which brings up an important point: everyone fits into a certain milieu. Dylan is a rich American. Furthermore, as someone else once noted of Dylan’s hero Woody Guthrie: “At least Guthrie had the decency to be part of the class he represented”. Dylan was middle class. His father owned a hardware store.
But Dylan was never political and always affected ignorance of e.g. communism. This may have been self-defence. Fundamentally he was part of that generation that was fired up by rock ‘n roll and the idea of changing the world in an admittedly indefinite way. He got into folk because by the time he was old enough, the original rock thing was over. And the reason Woody Guthrie meant so much to him wasn’t the proletariat thing but the romantic notion of hopping on a train and reinventing yourself somewhere else. Yup essentially the American Dream no less. And perhaps no more.
Yes – so Dylan was opportunistic. Anyone who wants to go somewhere always is. But he was a genius songwriter who could “tune in” to the spirit of the time and give some of its best songs.
Of course he was perfectly aware of the assassinations going on around him and realised that, being perceived as a “protest singer” with an enormous following, he was scared shitless and wanted out. And if that seems cowardly then bear in mind that in the West of the 60s – and for quite some time after – it was a booming affluent society. He wasn’t about to get shot for something he wasn’t i.e. a political idealist.
Lennon of course did get shot. And I reckon that’s because he was an idealist. He never adopted the hide-and-seek strategy of Dylan or Jagger too for that matter. If you want “a hero” then maybe Lennon’s your man.
But all of this history is such a muddled thing. Everything has an ambiguity. Consider this: Let’s take the most despicable phony piece of crap you can imagine. Let’s say you have a hack writer who drums up a protest song which is purely intended to “mislead” people. In order to draw people in, this song must conform to certain requirements i.e. it has to have a genuine protest element. And that may work against the intentions of the writer. There’s always a tension.
But neither Dylan nor any other celebrity is going to lead the revolution. That very idea is a contradiction in terms. A revolution will come from a groundswell of the whole public who eventually cotton on to what’s happening. And if the odd protest number here and there helps this swell then so much the better.
Astute and accurate George. Dylan, like the vast majority of his peers, fell under the spell of Mammon.
Revolution will certainly come when the food or water runs out.
It won’t especially in Britain
One of the crucial cultural questions follows the “chicken/egg” dynamic. Namely, which came first: the “new” cultural trend or the purveyors of it?
Vis-a-vis Mr. Dylan: did he perceive a shift from the Folk back to the Rock? Or did he wish to spearhead that shift? As an artist, he may very well have intuited that Folk had run its course, so it was time for something like his “Like A Rolling Stone.” (If so, I kind of curse him for it: I wanted Folk to last forever.)
Bob Dylan could make the transition from Folk to Rock. Many of my favorites could not: The Seekers, Buffy Ste. Marie, Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary. So they were left hanging in a trend which Bob Dylan – perhaps more than anyone else – popularized.
Perfect explanation for that glazed nothing-behind-the-eyes look given off by most politicians. Especially Democrats. Leftist governors are prime examples. California, Michigan and New York are the most obvious. Then look at Nancy Pelosi. (It’s not all vodka induced.) Adam Schiff could have been Andy Kaufman’s twin. The persona has become normalized because everything they say is a lie. The worse part about it is they actually believe their own lies. There is no longer a distinction between falsehood and truth. At least, they don’t think so.
This is the problem with you yanks you still think capitalist shysters like pelosi and schumer or any dem is left wing. It’s a center right party pretending to care about gays etc so that an awful lot of people get side tracked
“Artificial intelligence (AI) for artificial people.”
The “representation” problem discussed in the article, is the root Achilles heel of 21st C human culture. Plato’s Allegory of the Cave 2500 years ago pointed out the base problem. Guy Debord and the Situationists of France described the power of a representations Spectacle consuming and alienating people from physical reality. Jean Baudrillard and many other contemporary philosophers discuss the simulation of reality Human “civilization” has created, to supposedly succeed, once useful, now a freefall to nowhere, imho. Then the first “Matrix” film laid it out to Humanity on a Pop Art platter for all to get, or not. Artists like Duchamp and Magritte tinkered with manifestations of the problem. Marshall McLuhan drove a wooden stake into the problem by asking, if the end purpose of human communications and technological advances is to provide for the social needs of Humanity, why have these tools failed so miserably?
Exactly. And for me, the solution is for humans to ignore the “authority” cast by words and images from The System (“civilization”) and even personal use, and respond positively only to the desired result: “providing for the social needs of Humanity”. The fluff and bullshit of advertising is easy to spot. But admitting to authorizing and not stopping repeated future iterations of atrocities like having killed a million innocent civilians in Iraq based upon multiple completely and admitted fictitious assertions (lies)… seems an insurmountable task. But this is only because we pay attention to form and not content, the result, of our representations and technologies. If Humanity does not snap out of the trance of representations and technology cast by our Parental ruling class and learn to only accept the Adult results we desire, bettering Humanity, we are in for more dark times.
I find it quite ironic that one of my points about the media is their use of anonymous sources while those who criticize me as a Dylan worshiper do so anonymously. To suggest I idolize Dylan the man is absurd. I have always emphasized that there is a difference between the artist and the art, in this case Dylan’s songs. To say that Dylan is deep state is just a bad joke. Of course he can be criticized for certain things, but so many of his songs are the works of genius. If you want your poets straight-up, forget T.S. Eliot and thousands of others. Dylan is a poet/songwriter in love with language. As Karl Kraus has said, “The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood.” They think art is journalism, and when they are anonymous commentators who can’t (or won’t) spell an author”s name correctly, they seem to have trouble reading also.
That your opinion Curtis so except others. You seem hurt not all commentators haven’t idolized / excepted your
religion political party sports team= pop hero.Oligarchy created Dylan is lame Gallagher to people of the 90;s
each generation needs a pseudy wanderer to keep the masses in check and the slave to 9 – 5 mind set with hope they get can get a record deal and maybe just maybe they can be like the false idol sold to them via the media.
Whilst others only release from the slave game is seeing there fake idol live once in a while.
Thats really Sad.
Totally with you there Ed. Trust the song, not the singer. But from some of the posts below, you’d think our bold commenters (who may only list themselves by initials) would give us a really direct statement listing names and all. Sure you can do that from your anonymous bedroom. But let’s see you do that on a stage in front of the whole world. And here’s a further thought: Even if you did that, maybe you’d be co-opted or sidelined anyway. Or “taken care of”.
Mr: Curtin, I’m not sure why you find anonymous posters problematic: Jordan Peterson has also lately been on a warpath about this issue and I frankly don’t get the point, why try and force identity on someone who doesn’t want it?
I note you completely ignore my point, made here and made in response to your previous article: Dylan is constantly paraded/promoted as a voice of concern for humanity, yet where his voice of support would count the most, concerning the attempted Israeli genocide and ongoing Apartheid in Palestine, he has always been silent, and even once penned a song in support of the oppressors
As far as judging his art, well it’s as always a question of taste I’ll be the first to say Dylan is a good songwriter, but surely it’s possible to stop there and not be tempted into the chorus line of those kicking out in unison ‘oh he’s such a genius’!
Yes I see that artists and their work must be separated. It’s also the case with Orwell, Huxley, Conan Doyle and other names which often get bandied about here without raising too many eyebrows, whose politics/beliefs were definitely questionable. Often you ask yourself, ‘how could this artist create such beautiful, perceptive things and be so vile in other respects?’ I’m including in this Joni Mitchel, Neil Young and other artists who’ve outed themselves during Covid. It’s always disappointing, but maybe it also serves to further demonstrate these are people channelling something beautiful from outside themselves. They are a conduit to something we can’t define, something ineffable, something divine even. A2
He is a genius. That’s not to say he’s consistent or even admirable as a person.
Geniuses solve mathematical and scientific equations NOT pen mediocre songs
Show your face. Why are you hiding? It’s quite simple.
The merest brush of a feather, and not an eagle feather, the downy feather of a baby duck, and not even that, the slightest pushback from a floating piece of lint against the swelling chest of the public intellectual and poof! With he release of hot air the serene thoughtful Zen Grin deflates and the authoritarian ugly scowl is revealed
Who demands ‘show your face’?
The authoritarian at the border demanding your passport?
The authoritarian at the airport ordering you to ‘face the camera’?
The Duke of Parma during carnival when the masked revelers make fun of Popes and Potentates?
There are a million reasons for anonymity, granted a few are nefarious but the vast majority are not, and my reason is not nefarious
One could also ask ‘who is ALLOWED to mask their identity and who is not allowed? The CIA is allowed, the Great Fortunes hiding their stolen gold in numbered bank accounts are allowed: But Mr Curtin, taking off his mask, says YOU pipsqueak poster on Off Guardian’s comment section, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED!!!
Shall we not chuckle at such presumption? I say yes
Off-Guardian, we’ll recall, was founded precisely because the Guardian disallowed anonymous and non-anonymous posters from questioning the Holy Ones
Why name yourself? Usually it’s for fortune or fame, ownership and the desire for renown, even a smidgen of renown is coveted by some people, that’s fine, that’s our culture, people still talk about Achilles and make films about him, we all do it I suppose, but my ten likes on the Off Guardian comment section really don’t give me much of a dopamine high
Who would deny Robert Zimmerman’s right to anonymize himself and his past and go from a middle class Jewish kid to a drifting Guthrie-esque vagabond without a history and with a Welsh poet’s name? Certainly not me, I say name yourself, and naming yourself anonymous is perfectly fine with me, but Mr Curtin would disagree
Perhaps the internet’s greatest gift can be summed up in the following formula:
Anonymity Punctures Pomposity
Hmm I think Ed’s point is rhetorical.
And truly the only person being a little bit pompous here is you. Downy duck feathers? Oh jog on 😂 The point is simple: please enjoy this rare resource, it’s a genuine indie alt. news outlet, we don’t beat around the bush and we offer a direct line to authors in our much-respected comment section. However, if you waltz in with an entitled attitude and zero etiquette it’s probably fair to point out that, yes, while we all have the right to anonymity we must also concede that it comes with certain advantages and certain sacrifices. It’s a safe position from which to criticise with low stakes. Unless we submit a rebuttal for publication and public scrutiny there is nothing riding on our words. It’s easy to be pretty bold in that situation.
Dismissing someone as a ‘boomer’ isn’t very polite. Apart from making you sound about 13 it does cross a line. By all means disagree with Ed’s opinion but stick to the issues in hand and be polite. It’s quite simple.
Also, do you mind refraining from lecturing authors who have been around far longer than you about OFFG’s ethos? 😅 The Guardian prohibited a lot of people from expressing themselves freely – black, white, Asian, gay, homeless, male, female, gun-owners, pet owners, rock climbers etc. – it had nothing explicitly to do with anonymity or anything else, as far as I’m aware. It was mostly determined by the Guardian’s mission (or order?) to eliminate all WrongThink, regardless of demographic 😅
A2
This reply is part of why more and more people aren’t coming here and are starting to ask questions on why you haven’t been taken down.
These two points are contradictory, surely? Unless you’re implying internet censors make a habit of removing controlled websites, rather than legit ones? Because I can assure they do not. XD
So I’m confused.
BTW I can also assure you we aren’t controlled. So try to appreciate a good thing while it lasts 😉
By all means clarify, but a bit of a daft comment from you IMO. A2
Fuxk me you are beyond sad and pathetic son..
“How dare you mock my hero show yourself”
What the actual fuck you dozy saddo
If judging Art is a question of taste then I finally understand why Edwige’s fave is Barry Manilow … Oh Mandy!
Dylan is quite obviously a “deep state” (whatever the fuck that is, we just used to call it the bourgeoisie and it’s intelligence agencies) operative. You don’t last as long as him and be a very well known name even amongst many young people who haven’t heard a single second of his songs without being an asset of some kind. Don’t be surprised if he was on the 1950/60s version of Epstein’s island
Why is it a bad joke, Edward? The deep state has lots of these types who perform a valuable function – entertaining and programming the people.
Following a dramatic penalty shootout, Morocco became the first Arab side to make it to the World Cup quarterfinals. now it is semi finals.
This is the second time Moroccan players have raised the Palestinian flag after winning a match. Morocco’s player Jawad El Yamiq raised the Palestinian flag while celebrating his country’s 2-1 victory over Canada last week.
Moroccan football fans were also seen waving a “Free Palestine” banner during the North African country’s 2-0 victory over Belgium in Group E earlier in the tournament.
Morocco’s team makes a group photo on the pitch, holding the Palestinian flag after beating Spain.
“The promotion or announcement of political or religious messages or any other political or religious actions, inside or in the immediate vicinity of the stadium, by any means, is strictly prohibited before, during and after matches,” FIFA regulations state.
Football authorities have occasionally issued fines for displays of the Palestinian flag inside grounds. (imagine that.. wave flagging is now not allowed as it causes offence to the certain group of people).
The flag bearing move was hailed by Arabs on social media, as users from Libya, Morroco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia celebrated the Moroccan win.
Videos on social media also show Palestinians celebrating Morocco’s win in the streets of several cities in the West Bank and in Gaza.
CNN has reached out to FIFA for comment.
what there trying to imply is. Maybe Morocco should be banned from the world cup for it anti behavior, which has clearly caused offence to..
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/12/07/football/morocco-palestine-world-cup-spt-intl/index.html
Why should Moroccan players not be allowed to wear Palestinian flag armbands when Western nations’ players are allowed rainbow flag armbands? Either allow all political statements or none at all. The latter would be my personal preference.
They have the right to go Nazi on the Palestinians because some Austrian guy (who happened to be christian and not “pagan” as some here think) went Nazi on their parents a few decades ago. Make sense. They have the right to not be offended by the waving of the flag off their victims. Is it guilt?
“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus
I was listening to the James Delingpole podcast with Simon Elmer when the latter mentioned how Naomi Klein is rubbishing the stuff about an emerging technocracy and how she is significantly a lockdown fanatic. A little idle surfing outlined the fate of the two Naomis – Klein and Wolf. Klein is the darling of the media whose robotic followers are penning stuff like the following doggerel:
“If the Naomi be Klein
You’re doing just fine
If the Naomi be Wolf
Oh, buddy. Oooof!”
Klein’s latest “project” is called How to Change Everything: The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other i.e. the boilerplate infantile idiocy of the Reset mantra.
Naomi Wolf meanwhile has been banned from Twitter and her Wiki page starts off
“Naomi Rebekah Wolf (born November 12, 1962) is an American feminist author and journalist, and conspiracy theorist.”
Once again – the realm of the now universal technocratic Orwellian language, this time signalling social and intellectual illegitimacy.
music industry is based on selling copies.
Dominated by “Big Tech” – with Spotify controlling 35% of the market, Apple with19%, Amazon 15%, Tencent 11% and Google 6% All pushing the same playlist culture and for the same reasons …
A fact which nevertheless bears repeating . . .
Music is a tragic victim of rampant consumerism, and what passes for ‘music’ these days is mostly junk, with up-to-the-hilt media support.
If you’re lucky, the lyrics might have an inspiring message, but they too consist mostly of banal repetitions of something somebody said 60 years ago.
The actual music can’t get a note in edgeways . . .
Now tell me why this comment is ‘Pending’, please . . .
I think you underestimate our masters – the 60s music was to a large extent about rebellion and freedom and peace, and the rulers did not want that kind of talk/music getting out of hand, so they stepped in, you may recall in the 70s all talk of ‘peace’ etc was drowned in disco – organic progression or planned????? – and then the ‘heavy metal’ etc, instead of taking the best impulses of young people, we’re into aggression and ‘sex and drugs and rock and roll’ (I was well into that in the 60s, but that was only part of the bigger culture which included ‘all you need is love’ and ‘give peace a chance’ and ‘blowin in the wind’ and all the rest of the great protest music of the 60s) – and the rulers progressed us into ‘hiphop’ or whatever you call it, where ‘slappin yo ho’ and all the rest of it -divisive violence – is the main stage. As always, ‘we’ are being manipulated almost completely, and the music is a central part of that.
The rulers did not progress us into hip hop. African American musical geniuses and pioneers progressed music into hip hop. Nearly 50 years after its birth, it is still the most relevant, adored and popular music form. You may not like it, but it’s the music style kids throughout the whole world aspire to create. Hip hop often has an anti-government message which of course had to be concealed. Gangsta rap was heavily promoted in the MSM to obscure this and to serve other agendas. Disco was the source of some of the greatest most creative and advanced music ever made, so many incredible musicians in the talent pool. It became too commercialised, with many fakes stepping in to cash in, but that does not detract from the actual, off the scale musical talent being tapped into. Disco was like the culmination of all the genres of music that had been pioneered by African Americans in the C20, with blues, soul, funk and jazz flowing through it in abundance.
From the pioneers of hip hop, prophetic and genius:
The Last Poets – Mean Machine + lyrics – YouTube
Meet the new global protection racket:
https://www.who.int/news/item/07-12-2022-who-member-states-agree-to-develop-zero-draft-of-legally-binding-pandemic-accord-in-early-2023
The device is described here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket
“A protection racket is a type of racket and a scheme of organized crime perpetrated by a potentially hazardous organized crime group that generally guarantees protection outside the sanction of the law to another entity or individual from violence, robbery, ransacking, arson, vandalism, and other such threats, in exchange for payments. The perpetrators of the racket may protect vulnerable targets from other dangerous individuals and groups or may simply offer to refrain from themselves carrying out attacks on the targets, and usually both of these forms of protection are implied in the racket. Due to the frequent implication that the racketeers may contribute to harming the target upon failure to pay, the protection racket is generally considered a form of extortion. In some instances, the main potential threat to the target may be caused by the same group that offers to solve it in return for payment, but that fact may sometimes be concealed in order to ensure continual patronage and funding of the crime syndicate by the coerced party.”
German leader makes vaguely peacemongering-sounding speech about Ukraine. Send for Tisdall!
https://dumptheguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/11/putin-has-to-escalate-to-survive-there-can-be-no-lasting-peace-until-he-falls
Remember when the left used to be for peace? THose were the days. Nothing is faker than fake left.
BTW they know seeking regime change is against the UN Charter which just goes to show how fake their “rules-based international order” is.
I call it marketing language, in the manner Bill Hicks might have taught me, and it is everywhere including most of the comments below. Smartphones and internet have been training everyone, young and old alike, that lying is the norm and any kind of dishonesty is perfectly fine. You appear to have only noticed a few examples so far, so good luck when the sheer mass of it becomes clear to you.
The fad for signed works by rock stars seems to have kicked in after investigators started questioning who really wrote their songs. See Mike William’s (Sage of Quay) analysis of whether The Beatles could possibly have written ‘Rubber Soul’ given the public record of their activities. The Fraud has given repeated prominent coverage to “handwritten lyrics” selling for £xm at auction in the last couple of years. Why? Is it “news”?
Nobody ever witnessed Jim Morrison, for example, write a lyric. He arrived on the LA scene with all the lyrics pre-written. People still to be confused that rock lyrics backed causes that seem oppositional (although if one looks closely, far fewer lyrics opposed crucial elite projects than one might think). They run both sides.
I seem to remember Blair hand-signed the Northern Ireland peace settlement. It was meant as some sort of guarantee of authenticity. The “honest broker” of that deal George Mitchell later tuurns up in the black book of visitors to Epstein Island.
Which is what makes your fave, Barry Manilow, so great. Who would even care who wrote his lyrics?
I think one of the biggest problems is entities describing themselves with terms which are the polar opposite of what they really are. Specifically, the ‘liberal left’ calling themselves progressive, tolerant and democratic. The general public then subconsciously associates the liberal left with those words, when the reality is that they are intolerant fascists hell-bent on taking us back to the dark ages. This is why we get knee-jerk ‘cancellations’ instead of rational analysis in cases such as the Hussey affair.
https://vernoncoleman.org/articles/long-covid-another-successful-fraud
“Long covid” (henceforth LC) will increasingly become an overt “public issue” for the reasons given by Dr Coleman. LC is of course currently only one strand of the continual media barrage of scare mongering whose purpose is to psychologically “impregnate” as many as possible with the (barely) subliminal message: “Illnesses are skyrocketing and there’s nothing we can do and you better just curl up in a corner and prepare for death because you are all ill!”
The importance of LC is that it is by definition infinitely extendable. And as the doctor notes:
“The evidence shows that long covid is a combination of hypochondria and malingering.”
Naturally “The Left” will latch on to that word “malingering” as indication of a “heartless Right Wing” sentiment. But the psychological effect of LC is undeniable and follows like clockwork: Doing nothing for an extended period renders one increasingly supine and “unemployable”.
As C S Lewis noted in The Screwtape Letters, offering advice from a head demon to a novice about how to snare a soul:
“The great thing is to prevent his doing anything. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance. Let the little brute wallow in it. Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilising the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul. Let him do anything but act. No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his will. As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel, …”
And the ever present ruling class desire to render the masses into an indolent herd gets the biggest boost ever.
Dickie Tax Man is certainly getting into the spirit:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/12/09/discussing-long-covid/
“I am, of course, also aware that I am not as badly impacted as some, for whom it is is much more disabling.”
So you’re not really THAT bad, Dickie? So why this?:
“I went into Radio 2 for the Autumn Statement three weeks ago. I have known Jeremy for more than a decade now and he was surprised I was wearing a medical grade mask. I explained my risk aversion, suggesting that as I already have long Covid I was very keen not to get another batch of Covid itself if I could avoid it.”
I mean really Dickie, you fucking little drama queen. You knew the reaction you would get and you played in to it. Lights! Camera! Action!
“I do not pretend to be an expert. I do not have all the answers. But I do think there is a real issue here, so I agreed to talk about it.”
Well I don’t know … maybe …. maybe not …. ooh – Let’s get the experts in!
It’s all a rich tapestry:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/01/18/i-sincerely-hope-blackrock-is-woke-the-worlds-largest-fund-manager-had-better-be-aware-of-issues-relating-to-racial-gender-social-and-other-injustices-or-its-failing-us-all/
Dickie on “woke” (from the comments):
Donella Campbell says: “Does being woke include issues relating to women’s rights?”
Richard Murphy says: “It is about awareness of injustice, so why not?”
So …. women’s rights – one of the oldest and most fundamental issues inspiring the suffragette movement etc. is now relegated to a “Why not?”
Thus another example of the disgusting submission of “The Left” to the now seemingly unstoppable ruling class assault on the population.
Long Covid was an obvious fake right from the start. I’d never heard of long flu, long common cold or long SARS before, and covid is supposedly not far removed from them.
The “Left/Right” thing is revealing. For four decades we had “The Right” with neoliberalism and all that Thatcher/Reagan stuff. And of course THERE WAS NO ALTERNATIVE! And then – lo and behold! – in the blink of an eye, spring 2020 brought a total about-turn and suddenly the media started to talk as if The Revolution (the commie one) was here. AND THERE WAS NO ALTERNATIVE TO THAT!
The most dazzling feat was the effectiveness of the switch despite the screamingly obvious giveaway that the media itself, i.e. the voice of the establishment, was (GASP!) speaking against the establishment!
Left/Right/Left/Right …..
What commie one? What’s communism mate? I can tell if you Google it
“His apology seems sincere compared to the publisher’s double-talk, but then again, so did his signatures.”
“or it may forever tarnish Dylan’s reputation, which would be a shame if it also damaged the genuine greatness of his songs.”
The one thing boomers like Curtain can simply NOT do is ‘Question Dylan”: Note the marketing repetition: Curtain told us in his last article how ‘great’ Dylan’s songs were:
So let me repeat more or less something I said in my comment to Curtain’s previous article: Dylan has no moral courage: where is the song from Dylan concerning the suffering of the Palestinians and the daily oppression meted out by the Israeli fanatics?
In fact Dylan is a very talented wave rider and marketing expert with a never ending lust for fame: hence the fact that his ‘brand’ never disappears for long from the media landscape:
Dylan in fact has never taken a controversial position about any issue of importance, if you really look into his body of work: He has tiptoed through the culture tulips quite carefully, using his talent to become incredibly rich and famous But he ‘seems’ to be, shall I repeat, he ‘seems to be XYZ,, just as, according to Curtain, he ‘seems sincere’ based upon what? A few words that Curtain read? Enough hero worship, it’s un-seemly!
Funny thing is, and maybe Ed can confirm (given that he is a fan), that Dylan in his later years, when asked about the meaning of his songs, seems to have completely forgotten what the songs were about.
To me it’s all Milli Vanilli, but with a different coating.
Lesson learned is that you should not worship idols, although the music these idols played might still be good to remember.
Dylan was no working class hero but wrote very perceptively and gave us what I consider to be the most relevant political song of modern times: “Desolation Row” which envisages our society as a non-stop carnival in which everyone is encouraged to participate or at least watch whilst sinister figures patrol the edge and “take care” of those who stray. That Dylan was aware of the risk he was taking re: dissident figures being “dealt with” is prefectly clear from his pragmatic (or if you prefer cowardly) retreat via a convenient motor cycle accident after which he “went country”. He has never “been back” and, if you like, he’s a “fraud” but he did tell us what it was about at least some of the time.
I don’t think Dylan is a fraud, a fraudulent what? He’s intelligent enough not to pose, and to let others do the posing for hime:
As for Desolation Row: George, surely you’ll agree that if you asked ten people who had never heard the song to ‘explain’ the song as you did above, would you not agree that you would get ten different ‘explanations’? The song ‘sounds’ profound but is it really? Or is it simply very suggestive?
As Joan Baez said, Dylan was ‘so good with words, and at keeping things vague’, So, why not be direct? Dylan convinced a generation or two that evocative songwriting/art was good songwriting and being suggestive and vague was ‘better’ and ‘more profound’ than being direct, but is that really the case?
I’m not denying his talent at all, I just find endless idolotrous Dylonology tiresome and shallow:
Being poetic is being vague. Unless you want a song that just lists the names of deep state actors. Ironically the former can actually be more precise. In any case, this seems pretty unambiguous to me:
Note: heart attack machine. Prescient or what?
And the stunning prescience continues when considering the opening:
“Postcards of the hanging” is exactly that. Lynching postcards that used to go on sale for the kids’ picnics in the deep south. “Beauty parlour filled with sailors” suggests the transgender farce of today. And as for “painting the passports brown”, how much longer will international flights be available?
Sure – it could all be far fetched coincidence. Would you prefer a little list of the actual killers of Kennedy?
When Dylan got booed in the UK for going full-blown electric, he was also called “Judas” by the crowd.
He turned to his band (The Band) and snarled, “Play it fuckin” loud” as they kicked hard into “Like a Rolling Stone”.
Check it out, it happened. Seems Booby was “sincere” to me. I give him a lot of credit for this as I do for his performance at the Newport Folk Festival.
https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/aerosmith-cancels-vegas-show-leann
I wonder at all those celebs so eager to push the vax. Is it entirely down to their ever present vanity and narcissistic ambition to present themselves as “great philanthropic public health guardians”? No doubt many of them really are that dumb. And the ones who might have resisted at an earlier phase have now, through the corruption of media adoration, enthusiastically submitted. Also, the media is clearly going to give maximum publicity to the vax floggers. The ones protesting (all three of them – ho ho!) will be getting quietly side-lined OR in the case of Van, loudly condemned. But I wonder if there was some more active and very persistent programme to get the celebs on board. Agents giving advice, sponsors pressurising etc.
“Push this agenda, or remember that film we have of you…. “.
https://www.allure.com/story/jennifer-aniston-december-2022-cover-interview
Jennifer poses in soft porn mode for the eager cameras and talks about her intimate etc. whilst this article goes for the “Aw shucks she’s just the girl next door” angle. All very dreary (and at least she holds back from playing the Elton “outrage at disinfo” bollocks) but see here:
If you really care about the environment Jenny then don’t flog any product whatsoever! All those wretched products are precisely what is killing the environment!
Equally to those people who buy all that shite and then claim to care about the environment, you don’t do as you say that you think, so you don’t really think that at all. The same goes for smartphones and TV for people who say that they care about freedom.
The same goes for smartphones and TV for people who say that they care about freedom.
💯
Jennifer went out of style when she stated that she had to end friendships with unvaccinated.
Actually George
Jennifer used to be quite hip in the alt fringe circles of food and supplements and what was ethical goods back then.
She was a regular user of Monatomic Gold and gave her full personal consent to have a very fringe outfit say she brought it from them. 12 – 15 years back.
I very much doubt she would take the 96.66% safe and effective, How ever her agent would say she would as that is what a agents management do to keep within the theme of what is correct to keep the work coming in and for them to get there 15+%.
She is also J*wish so that helps alot in Hollywood and within that management system.
She isn’t Jewish unless you can prove otherwise
Just did a search she is certainly very pro Jewish but no where says she definitely is
Aniston is a man (or might be: Google Richard Green)
Liked her in office space, maybe that’s more important than all the views of these characters.
They act, and if it’s good acting, it’s good acting.
All their personal views… couldn’t care less..
Is Richard Green Rachel’s father? Or might be …
Just Googled it. You’re a mental case mate. It was an app! Are you American cos it would explain a lot?
Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking Glass
When </span><em> </em><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I</em> <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.’Yes words mean what you want them to mean. The law and insurance companies are great at using there own interpretation.
The BBC and Ofcom have there own definition of accuracy.
Try this for a bit of mind fuck
“The BBC is committed to achieving due accuracy in all its output. This commitment is fundamental to our reputation and the trust of audiences. The term ‘due’ means that the accuracy must be adequate and appropriate to the output, taking account of the subject and nature of the content, the likely audience expectation and any signposting that may influence that expectation”
I have had a recent dispute with an insurance company over the use of the words Trip and Destination. If one goes on Holiday one might call that you Trip. But if while on Holiday if you go on an excursion. Would that also be a Trip . Is not where you are intending to reach when you go on Holiday your Destination. But what about every stop on your way to your Destination would they also be a Destination. Yes on both accounts according to the insurance company.
Caveat emptor “let the buyer beware.”
(I looked this up I don’t know any Latin it was not included in any of the nine schools I attended)
I often do wonder if this was staged as it launched Alex Jones and internet controlled conspiracy news outlets which virtually all of them eventually it was found out, they all had links to the intelligence services.
I have been involved in bookselling and publishing for all my adult life The business is as grubby and corrupt as medicine (almost). I remember how that wonderful human being Richard Branson wrote (or said he did) ‘Losing My Virginity’ towards the end of the last century. A somewhat ironic title for a man whose hymen of respectability was the tensile strength of tissue paper. He ran up several hundred copies all with the handwritten (but printed) message of Xmas greetings etc. from him to people he wanted to impress or feel close to him in thick black marker on the inside cover. Always was a noxious nematode.
I have ghost written all sorts of books and articles to help people I knew who were struggling somewhat and came to me for help, but took no payment and preferred the anonymity.
Two other human ‘heroes’ on sturdy pedestals to protect their feet of clay: Sebastian Coe and Victoria Beckham, both had their ‘autobiographies’ ghost written for them by the same entity drafted in by the publishers. A well known woman confided this to me because the same person wrote hers, somewhat soppily and sloppily in my opinion. That is why most ostensibly self-penned efforts are often stylistically similar; you can carefully peel off the dried ectoplasm like skeins of old vomit from many of the pages.
It seems like writing a book is the last resort for deploying an asset they’ve no further use for. The number of ex-comedians, ex-artists and so forth who do it is mind-boggling.
Does any of this make money – or has it really become entirely just propaganda?
the other way around.
Think if it as a record deal. They are funded in advance to do tours colleges uni, town halls private clubs etc. this cost serious money in advance. the people new fanbase we call them rent a crowd are paid to turn up either with comp tickets free drinks etc food etc in some cases there new rent a crowd fanbase is bus;d in free from all over.
The merchandise sold at the events are all organised in advance and called a lost leader. the video film editing of the events is all paid for in-advance to create a image, this used to be a very costly process.
The videos are heavily posted in every different forum / commentator boards paid commentators will repost the videos to eventually one which will go viral and that is all you need when it happens, stage 2 happens then.
The full scale paid ads campaign on every different search engine facebook etc will have this person name / videos in your feed.
What i have explained isnt a music artist, it how they launched Brian gerrish, Alex jones , Tommy 10 names. Candice owen. Ben shillco , Milo. Carl benjamin (saggon), Juden Peterstein, Luke shillskay we changed fuck all, most of the rebel media shills. etc etc etc
Imagine ever falling for the rebel media/Breitbart gang fuck me
Just like when Tommy 10 names, Ben shillo or Candice Owen or Juden Peterstein. etc etc etc
Notice how the books they didnt write then becomes New York Times best sellers list.
THEY HAVEN’T WRITTEN Dilly Swat it mindcontrol food for the fruitcakes that follow them.
Article
I am not very impressed by this article. The anecdote about the fake hand signature took up more space than it is worth. I am less appalled by this “crime” than the innumerable lies and distortions that the establishment has foisted on us over the millennia. Including the myth that Assange is an anti establishment hero.
It just so happens Dylan’s song Vertigo is pure genius.
hopefully it will be, when he writes it.
Bob Dylan is a Deep State creation and a fraud. No wonder he won the Nobel Prize.
http://mileswmathis.com/dylan.pdf
Does that mean Deep State operatives wrote Bob Dylan’s songs? All of them or just some of them? Which operative wrote “Masters of War”? Was it the same operative who wrote “Tomorrow Is a Long Time” and perhaps “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest”?
Or does one have to consult Mr. Mathis to get the poop?
This notion of Dylan as deep state operative comes from the same stable as the one about Adorno writing the lyrics to the Beatles. It’s kind of quaint really.
Well, what did Dylan mean by this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKnX23SrGnk
As for Adorno and The Beatles, Adorno had been involved in the atonal music movement as had George Martin. I don’t think Adorno wrote every lyric as John Coleman claimed but that he had some sort of oversight role isn’t implausible to me. It’s certainly more plausible than John Lennon knew a Boer War marching song in ‘I am the Walrus’ or Paul McCartney knew the melody of an 1890s’ Neapolitan song for ‘Yesterday’.
Dylan and The Beatles were major change agents who left more profound legacies than, say, Harold Wilson. There’s nothing “quaint” about seeing the hidden hand in that.
The “Chief Commander” is God from what I gather. Adorno loathed pop music and even most classical music because he had a puritanical notion of music as a reflector of the social situation. The “hidden hand” notion is apt for the Frankfurt School being funded by CIA forerunner, the OSS. The “Adorno wrote the lyrics” thing seems to me to be not only quant but charming in its ludicrous naiveté. (Though admittedly Adorno was a curious collection of contradictions. It seems his favourite TV programme was the kid’s show Daktari!)
Fun fact: Lennon’s Walrus song was partly a response to Dylan (“If he can get away with this crap, so can I!”) but I see that song as a sinister nightmare in which the singer’s words turn back and attack the singer himself. (Quite an Adornian idea.) cf. “Semolina pilchards climbing up the Eiffel Tower” – a reverse ejaculation no less! I also know that Walrus was inspired by a police siren. That was a question on a pub machine which I didn’t actually know the answer to – but there’s only one Beatles song it could be, with its dreary menacing two note intro and melody (Nee-nah, nee-nah, nee-nah)
For Lennon and McCartney to know various songs from the past is scarcely “implausible”. It’s what you’d expect. I can see Adorno being a “useful idiot” backed by the CIA. But the notion of him getting involved in that Dave McGowan type Laurel Canyon scene seems daft. Incidentally I am not sceptical about McGowan’s claims. I am sure the shapers in the background had their fingers in as many crannies as possible. And they manipulated as much of that 60s scene as they could (see Martin Lee’s Acid Dreams). But some conspiracy notions are just too cute to be true.
Also, the “atonal movement” was the serial stuff from the so-called Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg and Webern) which led later on to more radical stuff from e.g. Stockhausen. The latter appears on the Sgt Pepper cover. But it is clear that the Beatles interest in such music could only be very sporadic – and limits itself to intruding snippets of various recordings and sound effects behind conventional songs e.g. “All You Need is Love”. The most extreme case of “atonality” was Revolution No. 9 from the White Album which someone once, with almost certain correctness, referred to as “the most skipped Beatles track”. It isn’t really “atonal” since that mode had to be restricted to a very rigorous compositional plan.
Thank you, George. Helpful.
I find it intriguing that some of those eagerly touting this or that popular figure as fraudulent are so quick to believe this or that debunker of this or that popular figure.
Dylan et al as frauds titillates; but the notion that barely known exposers of fraud might themselves be frauds holds very little water, or interest. Therefore, the exposers MUST be authentic – or else they’d be household names!.
I noticed that Mark Devlin in one of his “Musical Truth” books was eager to jump on the accusations that Dylan raped an underage girl in the 60s. No hesitation there about the usual bland assumptions throughout the media that an accusation was totally true, not to mention some nauseating articles that had Dylan already set up to be cancelled and which tried to incite your moral indignation that “he would probably get away with it”.
I prefer the word “fraud” to describe all the examples Mr. Curtain put forth above. Is there anything in the public discourse or system of economic transactions that is not now fraudulent. Perhaps the Bureau of Labor Statistics (USA) could come out with a new statistic labelled the “Fraud Index.” I would like to believe that we have achieved peak fraud, but I am afraid that it is still increasing exponentially. But the BLS is itself notoriously fraudulent and often referred to as the Bureau of Lying Statistics. They now publish statistics that annual price inflation in the USA is about 8% when it is “really” about 17% when based on the methodology of 1970, a somewhat less fraudulent era.
Many lawyers have made fortunes advising clients how they can avoid prosecution by skirting the letter of the law regarding various sorts of fraud. This noble aspect of the law is no longer worth pursuing as now the most egregious, slam dunk frauds are never punished. They are simply investigated by Congressional committees. What are the odds that Sam Bankman Fraud will be encelled with Buba (7-11 armed robbery) for embezzeling his billions? Zero.
Fraud is not a necessary part of human interaction. There are fine carpenters who build individual beautiful furniture. They give a price for it and a potential buyer can take it or leave it. What you see is what you get. This is a simple example of a disappearing human interaction, an honest and free transaction.
Is it clearly written?
Yes, the article is clearly written and easy to understand.
I’ve been continuously posting something like the following on Yahoo new articles in the U.S.:
“Read the side effects. If one of them is death, think again. If they don’t want you know the side effects, think again. Do not get the boosters because the poison adds up.”
Keep repeating it and like Edward says, the doubts will creep in like nasty little gremlins in a horror movie.
Works best under articles reporting the death of the latest jabbed important person or celebrity fool. They’ll call you names and then sit back and wonder, death? Plant the seeds, it can work both ways.
Stop warning the herd about bad medication. Let them go via their own stupidity. Friend, family or foe.
“Your hamburger does contain protein, but in a mealworm, maggot and cockroach form”. Coming soon to packaging near you.
Well, at least Dylan “apologized” for this. After they all got caught, of course. No one apologizes until they get caught. Myself included, I suppose. Now Dylan can “apologize” for helping to set Hurricane Carter free. I like Dylan’s music. I do. But his reluctance to perform this hit song for so many years confirms that he knows the truth.
I’m not usually into Edward curtin, usually feel like it’s from another society that i grew up in. Mind you, cj Hopkins always feels close to me… https://consentfactory.org/2022/12/10/swimming-with-sharks/
but damn Edward this was good, and I feel spoiled that both you and cj hit with such precision on the root of why we are in this mess over and over
Musk’s Twitter continues to disclose prior censorship on Twitter– including doctors’ cautioning about the effect of lockdowns on kids. But nothing really big about the vaxx yet.
Republicans want him to testify before Congress on censorship.
Your alternative update on #COVID19 for 2022-12-10. FDA Says IVM Doesn’t Work but only job is to approve. Twitter files: FBI/DHS/DNI interfered in elections (blog, gab, tweet).
Maybe the signature is a valid physical signature made by a copy of the author?
What happened to Dylan in that “motorcycle accident” is a valid question. There is certainly strong physical evidence that other “rock stars” have been played by different people at different times. Paul McCartney is the most studied example because it was the one where they chose to reveal the method.
There is a book called Things Beyond Resemblance: Collected Essays on Theodor W. Adorno by Robert Hullot-Kentor which has this passage:
“….real suspicion must mingle somewhere with the act of setting the needle back to the beginning of a record that a second earlier claimed to be in the process of transforming the universe.”
The context of that is typically complex and contorted but the topic it touches on seems devastatingly critical of all recorded music (and indeed of our entire mass produced consumer culture). We live in a world saturated in copies. So much so that it is difficult if not impossible to determine where the originals are or even what the word “original” means. This is particularly problematic with music which is an art form which by definition must exist in time and relies on live performances which could never have been repeated until recording technology arrived. At which point any performance could be repeated indefinitely. But what is being repeated isn’t the live performance itself which is now gone but a machine’s reproduction of that performance.
Thus the above quoted wry remark that the most seemingly apocalyptic revolutionary music from a recording is instantly neutered and even negated when the repeat button is hit. At that point it becomes painfully obvious that this glorious sound is indeed a repetition supplied by a machine. Thus the “dead” quality in all mass consumer goods. Anyone – and it must surely be everyone – who has heard recorded music in a public place knows that there is an anonymous non-human feeling about such music. It is sound that carries on regardless. It cannot be affected by those present – except insofar as they can turn it off or change the volume. The “performance” is incapable of change. When listened to privately, the music can impress. But it still appears immobile. Such is consumer culture.
Granted, music is in a class by itself where the final product and its creation are one and the same (omitting the actual writing of notes, etc.). And therefore the act of creation cannot be separated from the presentation.
But not all art follows this trajectory. A painting need not be witnessed in its creation phase to attain full presentation. Nor does a novel have to be seen being written before it can be read as a complete entity. In fact, unless reading the manuscript itself, a novel must and can only be read as a copy.
“As it turns out, the limited editions books do contain Bob’s original signature, but in a penned replica form.”
I am emphatically not a Stephen Colbert fan, but way back in 2005, Colbert apparently coined the original neologism “truthiness”, referring to the increasing trend in public discourse of relying on assertions that are not objectively factual or provable, but are accepted (often vehemently) as “truth” based on a visceral feeling.
Colbert’s an odious schmuck, but I give him credit for coining “truthiness”. In that spirit, Simon & Schuster’s doublespeaky apology might have concluded with:
“… but in a penned replica form– which, ya gotta admit, is originalish“.
Relevant :
Jean Baudrillad’s rather impenetrable Simulacra and Simulation
-Pre-empted in fiction by Philip K Dick- from whom most sci-fi ideas have come from. Many of his novels explore the fake culture of virtualisation and simulation taken to its logical conclusion- where there is nothing left but imitation fakes.
-Pre-empted by centuries by whoever “gnostic” teacher spoke about counterfeiting spirits in the Nag Hammadi codices, and examined by Jung.
https://www.reddit.com/r/JungTerms/comments/y9501s/antimimon_pneuma/
This is the primary mode of operation of the parasites preying on humanity: mimicry, countermimicry, simulation, co-optation. The WEF and social justice/climate warriors are co-opting and faking what once was grassroots activism – see Extinction Rebellion.
Also Frank Herbert had simulacra in the Dune series. Fantastic writer as was Philip K. Dick.
Obtaining zero covid was easy, since it was never a thing. It only exists in the minds of the weak. The ones easily manipulated by fear.
By far the majority if you include all the people pretending so they can be part of the crowd.
I want real physical (and anonymous) money, not digital copies.
Australian citizens have started a petition to enshrine the use of cash into law.
I’m sure we should too.
Here’s a link from Chainsaw: https://thechainsaw.com/business/australian-cbdc-petition/
Right on. We should also Re-enshrine proper oversight and responsible use of it by the criminals otherwise known as politicians.
If that was a virtual digital fingerprint they wouldn’t care!