A note on pop culture

Eminem has released a new song Mosh. It turns out that this is a seemingly uncharacteristic call to arms from probably the most significant hip-hop artist in some time (at least on the commercial scene). This blatant anti-bush anthem is more than just “politics suck” as you’d expect, it is asking the hip-hop generation to vote, and vote against Bush no less. As they lyrics say:

No more blood for oil,
We’ve got our own battles to fight on our home soil,
No more psychological warfare
to trick us to thinking that we ain’t loyal
If we don’t serve our own country we’re patronising our heroes
Look in his eyes it’s all lies
The stars and stripes have been swiped, washed out in white
And replaced with his own face
Mosh now or die
if I could strike tonight you know why, cos I told you to fight

Alternet have written an article on it which is an interesting read for two reasons. Firstly they are dismissive of Eminem’s previous record. While I’m not exactly Eminem’s number one fan, I don’t even have an album of his, I am of the opinion that he has always been quite political – just not in the institutional sense that his latest number is. I actually think that large parts of his social commentary are quite remarkable with a brutal honesty that should be respected, even if it does leave you feeling a little uncomfortable from time to time.

Secondly, the article is interesting because of it point about the possibility of this song mobilising large masses of an electorally apathetic demographic. The article points to the fact that only one third of people aged 18 to 24 voted in the 2000 US election. Moreover his influence will be great in the significant swinging states of “middle-America”.

To me this simply reaffirms my long held belief that pop-culture is probably the single most effective and influential form of protest. Art reflects society and there’s nothing quite like some badass beats with some scathing rhymes to really get you pumped up – even enough to do something about it. I know my personal political awakening had a lot to do with bands like the Dead Kennedys and Rage Against the Machine. They made me angry and as Zack De La Rocha says “anger is a gift”.

My roots are in punk rock. Punk (or ‘real’ punk) was certainly always overtly political and I would argue that the essence of punk is today most alive in the better, and often more political, hip hop. This is because the the awareness of their own socio-economic status and the ability to articulate this position and its ramifications. Perhaps it is a class-consciousness that binds the two in my mind.

Moreover, one only needs to think back to the cultural revolutions of 1968 for yet another example of the importance of pop culture. If it wasn’t for Bob Dylan and the Beatles and so on and so forth then things like the women’s liberation movement, gay rights, civil rights and so on probably would never have got of the ground as they wouldn’t have had the climate or the reach to achieve this.

As an interesting aside, perhaps it was punk’s move back towards a class analysis and away from the identity politics that defined the 1968 cultural revolutions that meant that punk started off as such a rebellion against the ‘hippies’. If I recall correctly the original bass player from the Sex Pistols was kicked out of the band for admitting that he liked the Beatles. Considering the heavy involvement of African Americans in hip-hop it is hardly surprising that they tend towards a more class-based analysis.

Another article on this can be found here.

Reporters Without Borders (RFS) have today released a report on the levels of media freedom in 167 countries. Not surprisingly Australia ranked a mere 41st position with 8 “Scandinavian Liberal Paradises” all sharing equal first: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Slovakia and Switzerland. America ranked a reasonably respectable 22nd.

With these sorts of surveys one always tries to explain certain correlations and two key points stand out to me here. Firstly, the countries that share first position all have a strong welfare system, good education systems and very ‘liberal’ attitudes to a wide range of issues – particularly the Environment. Surely the two are related – a well informed population can see the connections and enjoy a long term view as opposed to the short term and uninformed opinions that seem to dominate politics in Australia. I don’t think this is a coincidence.

The second key point I can make of this survey is that America ranked considerably better than Australia. I’m not sure about the method of measurement used by RFS but having recently seen Outfoxed this could come as a surprise considering Mr Murdoch’s extremely partisan view that permeates his news outlets and the dominance of these outlets. However this Documentary also showed the other side of that coin – a side largely missing from the Australian picture. Throughout Outfoxed a wide range of activists were interviewed, all carefully analysing the Fox News Network, and providing intelligent and insightful criticisms. So despite this apparent lack of diversity there is a strong counter movement that is providing genuine resistance. This is missing in Australia and could go someway toward explaining this disparity.

Anti-Semitism and the Left

In The Age this morning Barry Cohen has argued that the Labor party has fallen victim to Anti-Semitism.

While I am in no position to comment as I am far from an ALP insider, I do have two problems with his argument. Firstly it would seem that in the view of Cohen pro-Palestine/anti-Israel equates to anti-Semitism. Secondly that the left is largely anti-Semitic and since September 11 the left has ignored any atrocity committed by Muslims.

Firstly, the left has a large contingent of Jewish members. Jews have a long history of beautiful left-wing struggle. In increasingly I am hearing guised retorts of “you’re a self hating Jew” as I feel this article has undertones of. This is sad. Yes, the people of Israel have a right to protect themselves – no one has ever said otherwise. However they don’t have the right to invade Palestinian territories. The atrocities committed by members of Hamas and other terrorist organisations needs to be denounced – but so does the state sanctioned terrorism of the Sharon government. In my opinion the most remarkable players in the Israel/Palestine struggle are the Refuseniks.

Secondly it is my belief that it is solely the left that has drawn attention to the atrocities committed by anyone – including Muslims. Certainly it was the left that started to make noise about Sudan. The UN had listed it as the world’s most significant humanitarian crisis for quite a while before it was picked up and from my point of view it was the left making all the noise.

There are also underlying issues of American imperialism throughout this debate. Certainly it is the only reason that Sharon is getting away with what he is getting away with (look at his wall as an example). Certainly it is only when it is in America’s best interest that there is humanitarian intervention.

These issues are extremely complex with so much to take in I believe it is truly impossible to comprehend the full picture. However by attacking progressive voices you silence the alternative views that need to be discussed and considered in order to devise peaceful solutions.

Rupert Murdoch and his press have a lot to answer for. The examples are endless and the documentary Outfoxed (which I am yet to see) I’ve no doubt will provide more ammunition still.

Whitlam was interviewed last night on SBS and says that Murdoch certainly played a roll in ensuring he was not re-elected in 1975 after the constitutional crisis. In addition he ensured that the Greens campaign was not nearly as successful as it could have been by running scare campaigns that were based on lies. Whitlam certainly had no doubts that Murdoch liked to think that he could decide elections in any country and his activities in the US, particularly with Fox news, would indicate that this was the case.

Of course his diatribes go far beyond electoral politics and one only needs to pick up the latest edition of the Herald-Sun or any of his other publications to find a highly biased fear campaign that leaves a significant mark on the Australian public.

Perhaps this campaign that was run by his paper against the Greens was put in place to ensure that they did not gain control of the Senate and by ensuring that the Coalition had a majority in the Senate he ensured that media ownership laws were changed – something the Greens would have stopped dead in its tracks – which is of course of huge benefit to one of the worlds biggest media owners.

Not only will Murdoch’s already particularly large hip pocket become larger still but democracy will suffer a possibly fatal blow as Murdoch owns more media still and therefore the diversity of opinion will decrease. This couple with what are certain to be further funding cuts to the ABC and SBS, further reducing the variety of opinion available to us means that the need to take matters into our own hands has never been greater.

As Jello Biafra’s catch cry goes: ‘Don’t hate the media, become the media!’

I am currently reading Paul McGeough’s Quarterly Essay: Mission Impossible: the Sheikhs, the US and the future of Iraq.

His argument goes that if you are to understand Iraq you need to understand the complex system of tribes that it consists of and the role that they play. Therefore it is impossible to impose a government on a country that is artificially divided and has been since the 1920s. Saddam knew this and actively manipulated the various tribal groups in order to maintain his power – in fact he was dependant on it.

McGeough and others argue that this area has a centuries long history of resistance to democracy. Certainly this is true if we conceive democracy the way the Americans do. However it strikes me that it is quite conceivable that Iraq has always been a highly and deeply democratic society. Through a high level of participation in the life of the community your interests would have been represented and you would have had access to as much as anyone else in your tribe did – everyone was looked after. Then you would have a Sheikh who you probably knew personally and could seek the council of when ever you needed it to represent the needs of you and your tribe on a bigger scale. This Sheikh would have had a high level of consultation with the community and acted in the best interests of his constituents.

This sounds a lot more democratic to me than a faulty electronic voting system that provides no paper record of the results, has had numerous malfunctions and whose owner is a member of the Republican Party and a large contributor to them.

The Internet

The Internet is something that excites me. Maybe not as much as it excites Tezza but quite a bit none the less. Its emancipating powers are enormous. It is uncensored and has lead to an exponential rise in mobilisation and resistance, not to mention the fact that it is a massive source of uncensored information. Entire research pieces can now be written using only the Internet and they are just a good as any paper based research (although this is certainly not the rule – yet).

However it has a dark underbelly where much resides. I like a lot of this stuff, I can find out about odd cults, find highly subversive disinformation and be entertained for hours and hoons doing stupid stuff on motorbikes. However the web gets much darker than this. Porn (some dark, others not), Snuff and as we have seen explode onto our news of late – Child Pornography.

With freedom comes responsibility. A complete absence of censorship is being exploited by some sickening people. There is no doubt that the medium of the Internet has facilitated a rise in the incidences of child pornography (I can even bring myself to call it “porn”). Now I support the mechanism that is in place which allows this to go on – the uncensored Internet. However I fear that Child Pornography could be the Terrorism that is an excuse to limit our freedoms. I would hate to see a system where the Internet becomes as regulated here as it is in say Singapore or China.

The research is still sketchy into both Child Pornography and the Internet. Child Pornography should be stamped out but not at the cost of our freedom. Don’t fool yourself about how heavily the Internet is already being surveyed.

Democracy

Haven’t said much about the election for about two days so I thought I’d post this quote taken from Crikey

Many social commentators point to five key factors required for a healthy democracy. We need a strong opposition, an independent and fearless media, an engaged public, a series of checks and balances on power, and an honest and accountable government. In this election we have gone backwards in all five categories, and a turn around is unlikely in the near future.

Just reading my weekly Workers Online newsletter – one I particularly enjoy as it sheds a unionist light on things that I had sometimes not considered. However I was a touch concerned about this week’s editorial from Peter Lewis who I generally find to be pretty spot on.

He blamed Labor’s election loss of the ALP failing to ‘own’ the economic reforms of the Hawke-Keating years and consequentially fall victim to Howard’s scare campaign on Labor’s economic management.

Amongst other things, Lewis makes the following claim:

And it went further; the union movement took the principled decision to back labour market deregulation – even though they knew it would make their own job tougher – because it recognised that an economy based on productivity could only benefit its members.

Admittedly I find this a little odd coming from a unionist.

My understanding is that The Accord was the greatest sellout by the union movement ever. That this was a real low point where economic rationalism finally broke the back of the union movement and started the internal problems with the ALP and their relationships to the unions that persist today and still play a large role in the ALP never really being able to take a stance on any given issue.

Of course there are those in the Union movement that supported the Accord and perhaps Lewis is one of those – this surprises me.

I have been accused in at least two different blogs of not taking the election very well. I wish to repudiate this. This post is not about the election – that’s just a lead in to my main point.

Of course I’m pissed, but aren’t you? Get angry people – we’re obviously not getting angry enough.

Things I’ve liked of late:

‘Unless you can compress your cynical ramblings into a T-Shirt slogan that I can sell to alienated teenagers, I don’t need to hear them.’ – Sam and Fuzzy

‘If you voted for Howard…
I will hunt you down…

and kill you

I don’t know where you live but I’m very good at research’ – random graffiti emailed to me.

The Philip Island MotoGP and the amazing duel that it entailed between two of the greatest Motorcyclists ever – Rossi and Gibernau. I feel sorry of Gibernau, it’s just really unlucky that his time coincided with Rossi’s time. I also wish to pay homage to the Aussie hoon – you guys provided more entertainment than the race itself.

I don’t like to whinge but FOR FUCKS SAKE. It would appear that the few small concessions that the ALP worked into the FTA will shortly be over turned.

So now the we have a dictatorship in this country American corporations will be able to evergreen. In other words create fake patents that to prevent generic medicines becoming available to Australians. Not only are these medicines important but your ability to access them should not be based on class which it is likely to become when this goes ahead.

In addition, if we take India and much of Africa and South America as a worse case scenario, it is conceivable that these corporations would patent living organisms and then charge farmers to use these. Our situation in Australia is much different to those over seas but who’s to say that it couldn’t happen? There have been several cases where farmers have been convinced by corporations that using their product (let’s say a particular strand of wheat that a Corporation has patented) and to do otherwise would render them “less competitive”. What can then happen is farmers are forced to purchase that grain every year as replanting a patented crop could be illegal. It isn’t the case yet but could well be and with corporations now being able to sue Australian governments it is only a matter of time before these well funded corporations establish a precedent.

The ramifications send ripples though the whole community. Farmers profitability is decreased and quickly become unaffordable leaving only big agribusiness to run our farms. This leads to the further erosion of Australia’s Rural communities and means that as efficiency and profitability are increased checks and quality decreases – in the USA this has lead to BSE (Mad Cows).

While I’m on the topic, the newly elected rodent government wants to reintroduce industrial relations bill to parliament for the umpteenth time. However after July 1 next year it will be passed by the senate thanks to the betrayal of the Australian people by the ALP and Democrats for directing their preferences to Family First rather than the Greens.

A key component of these reforms is to make businesses with 20 or less employees exempt from unfair dismissal laws. In other words if you work for a small business you can simply be sacked for no reason. In other words those in Small Business now have their job security based on the generosity of their employer. Doesn’t sound very “family” to me. I wonder how those Christian fuck jobs, Family First, will take to it.