Tuesday, February 12, 2008
It's Time We Changed the World
A couple of years ago I had the idea that the 1971 Ten Years After song "I'd Love to Change the World (But I Don't Know What To Do)" could be remade into an anthem "I'd Love to Change the World (And I Know Just What To Do)." The song plays at this link with a powerful video. All this time and I never did flesh out any actual lyrics.
A few weeks ago I mentioned the idea to Brett Kimberlin from Justice Through Music. Check out their remake of Neil Young's "Ohio," now "More Dead Cause of Ohio." Brett said he might work on some words for a remake of "I'd Love..." (no promise to keep the new subtitle) and that his band might try it in the studio in the near future. I have not yet heard the work but I understand there is something forthcoming.
At the same time I passed the idea to Brett, I also put it before Rady Ananda. She too has written new words for old songs, as displayed in this parody collection found in the GuvWurld News Archive. Rady took on the "I'd Love..." challenge and about two weeks ago at OpEdNews.com posted her new version titled "It's Time We Changed The World." It totally captures the spirit of what I had proposed. Her words appear in full at the bottom of this post.
Speaking of the GuvWurld News Archive, there were some intermittent outages on the site and in my e-mail service over the past two months. There was also no new content for several weeks. This was part of an unfortunate ordeal with web host iPowerWeb. Thumbs way down for their customer service. In the end, the site is back to its old self but with more disk space, meaning we can continue to add to the more than 5000 articles archived since April 2003. Thanks to Rady Ananda and Jane Allen for their contributions.
Some of the new additions are worth mentioning. Positive stories such as "Startup Says It Can Make Ethanol for 1 Dollar a Gallon, and Without Corn" are unfortunately outnumbered by darker economic news including "January's retail sales weakest in nearly four decades," "Layoffs coming, and in large numbers, survey finds," and "The First Bank Failure of 2008."
The real must-read of the bunch is The Progressive's March cover story, The FBI Deputizes Business, archived at GuvWurld here. AlterNet ran the story with a more shocking headline: "FBI Deputizes Private Contractors With Extraordinary Powers, Including 'Shoot to Kill'" The take-away from this is that the Manchurian Nation is operating more openly, confidently preparing for when, not if martial law is declared.
Last summer, in my Reflections on Independence, Volume 5, I wrote:What is the most insidious ramification of the military being intentionally stretched too thin? The military is unavailable to respond to an emergency at home. That is devastating in the context of a natural disaster. But what about when martial law comes? It won't be our official military that enforces this, it will be mercenaries. Halliburton and Blackwater will be the occupiers of America, overseeing a network of domestic concentration camps already built. Our military, sworn to protect and defend the Constitution, will not be here to do so. The media, of course, will portray a different reality that will instead reinforce the okayness of the concentration camps and validate the authority of the hired guns, all while our military overseas supposedly, paradoxically, fights for our freedom.
As The Progressive reveals, InfraGard is the latest brown-shirt outfit strong-arming America's descent into fascism. It is not as if we haven't been able to see this coming. In fact, in that same Reflections essay I linked to one of the unitary executive directives explaining the administration's plan for remaining in power. As I said at the time, I don't believe they will allow themselves to be held accountable, for the first time ever, should the political will ever materialize for impeachment. And with no basis for confidence in election results, it can be tough to be optimistic about getting rid of war criminals.
Yet community organizing efforts are undeniably showing encouraging signs, and I consider this the most universally basic response needed without regard to issue. Mostly I'm referring to the work with the Voter Confidence Committee on behalf of hand-counting paper ballots. Tomorrow night the Humboldt County Democratic Central Committee will be considering a resolution I wrote. It looks like Vets For Peace Chapter 56 will also consider this same resolution on March 6.
Inroads are also expanding with the Humboldt County League of Women Voters. Over the weekend I teased this quote: "I didn't think I'd get so much buy-in from the whole fucking group! I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time."
That was P-A Winter-Sun telling me how well received was a proposal I helped her prepare recommending the League "study the evidence of failures and vulnerabilities in vote counting equipment currently used in Humboldt County so the League can be better informed, better able to educate the community, and better equipped to establish a position on the best method for counting."
Apparently there was consensus around this. The next step was to be a board meeting, which I believe may have already occurred. From there the topic would return to the full group. I don't know the exact disposition of this now, but I am going to follow P-A's advice and join the League. In fact, I left a message yesterday...
As previously hinted, we are also still awaiting an announcement from the Redwood Chapter of the ACLU to formalize the group's very encouraging statement on election conditions.
So to me it seems there is far more community support, or at least interest, than ever before in the VCC efforts for hand-counting paper ballots. Click here for an .mp3 of an interview I did on KMUD on 1/29, only getting to add it to the archive in the past few days. This link (.mp3) is to my interview during hour two of this past Sunday's Vote Rescue Radio. I also spoke on the air with Mike Dronkers of KHUM last Monday, just prior to the Primary, but alas there is no archive for that.
I do still have some important observations to post from the election itself, but that will be another post in the next day or so. Meanwhile, it is indeed time we changed the world...http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5804
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It's Time We Changed the World
Parody of "I'd Love To Change the World" by Ten Years After
By Rady Ananda
1/26/08
Everywhere is fake elections
We should boycott, save the nation from tyranny
When Riggal counts the vote for us
Officials call it, oh should we trust their wizardry?
It's time we changed the world
and you know just what to do
Hand counts will tell the truth
Banks are stealing poor folk homes
Making billions while we all groan in misery
Grow your own food in community
with your neighbors so you can eat - on the cheap
It's time to divide the wealth
Spread it out equally
Fair shares for you and me
Y'know they want to microchip you
tag and clip you, like property.
They mean to own us and all the land.
Find the right place and take a stand.
It's time we changed the world
No one owns humanity
Give up their circuitry
Turn off your TV and settle in.
Read Naomi's "Shock Doctrine,"
History by Zinn and Nace's "Gangs"
will fill you in on their evil plan.
Come on, let's change the world
Cuz we know just what to do
Join ranks with all of you.
http://wedonotconsent.blogspot.com/2008/02/its-time-we-changed-world.html
Labels: ACLU, Brett Kimberlin, fascism, GuvWurld, hcpb, Humboldt Dems, I'd Love To Change The World, InfraGard, Jane Allen, KMUD, LWV, Rady Ananda, Reflections on Independence, VFP, Vote Rescue Radio
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