Medical Marijuana & Florida Politics

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Amendment 2, which legalized medical marijuana was approved by 71% of Florida voters on Election day 2016.  but it never had a chance of become reality. The Florida legislature had 60 days to pass this amendment in law, and willfully ran out the clock in defiance of the voters of Florida.

Before this amendment was publicly passed, Republican party machinery worked behind the scenes to make sure that widely-available legal marijuana never happened.  With backroom deals made to venture capital & hedge fund investors, Florida is being setup as the new model for legal marijuana under corporate control.  “Vertical integration” is the term that keeps being bandied about in the local media (and in Tallahassee, photo below), meaning monopoly control for a few hand-chosen cannabis distributors.

Background: In 2015-16, twenty-four nurseries applied for the five (5) to-be-available state licenses for medical marijuana, in a secretive process by a board appointed directly by Florida governor Rick Scott, with each coughing up a $60,000 non-refundable application fee.  Licenses were awarded to Costa Nursery farms of Miami, Knox Nursery of Winter Garden, Hackney Nursery Company of Tallahassee, Chestnut Tree Farm of Alachua and Alpha Foliage (Surterra Therapeutics) of Homestead.

Click on any of the five hyperlinked entities above, and you will notice that none of them grow marijuana!  For example Jake Bergman (photo above) is the CEO of Surterra Holdings, Inc. a cannabis-based therapeutics company, seeded by Wall Street hedge fund firm Vakyrie Capital. Surterra has a well-documented history of using pesticides (medically harmful), and their plants have been denied and returned by the State of California due to pest infestations. [1]  Alpha Foliage is simply a Florida-based shell company which gets Surterra their coveted license. Marijuana growth & production will be outsourced to behemoth cannabis cultivator MJardin.

What MJardin offers to the Florida growers is a turn-key cartel service to licensed Florida cannabis businesses. The five license holders merely partner with this Colorado company that steps in and puts the operation in place– for a healthy piece of the action.  Rick Scott (with Trump below) and the Florida legislature provide political protection to the five ‘growers,’ while MJardin monopolizes the Florida marijuana market. [2]

Florida legislators have engineered regulations that shut out small businesses, and prohibit personal home cultivation.  In states like Colorado and California, where the industry was developed before legalization, the medical market was initially served by thousands of small farms. This allowed patients access to a more genetic diversity and a much wider range of product offerings, which led to the discovery of the medical utility of CBD in the first place. When home cultivation is banned and genetic diversity is not allowed to flourish, the true medical potential of marijuana remains hidden in favor of cartel profiteering.

The legislative debate over medical marijuana is an instructive example of capitalist politics overriding democracy and the will of the electorate. The original Florida House of Representatives measure banned smoking, eating, and vaporizing; which meant that despite a constitutional amendment, Floridians would have been banned from actually ingesting marijuana!

After public pressure, the House backed off and authorized vaping and edibles, but still banned smoking & home cultivation. The Senate haggled on their end, and then came back with more edits… back & forth until time ran out.  All this murk makes it difficult for most people to understand who’s to blame, much less what actually happened?

After the annual legislative session closed, pro-pot advocates began turning on each other, in an attempt to shift blame & avoid the political fallout.  Orlando-based trial attorney John Morgan is the one who bankrolled Amendment 2.  Morgan is a longtime Democrat, with ambitions for governor in 2018. He also has a bit of a drinking problem as revealed by his past DUI record, and this idiotic tweet (since deleted) late Friday (May 5) evening:

The next morning Morgan stated in a interview, “Ben Pollara fucked the patients. The first thing I am going to do is make sure the people who helped me pass Amendment 2 know not to give Ben Pollara another red nickel,” Morgan said.

Ben Pollara (above, left) was the campaign chairman for Amendment 2, and the political brains for the entire operation. Pollara told Sunshine State News, “The cartel’s position was unlimited dispensaries for themselves and their investors. Their lobbying team was very successful at holding that position. They got what they wanted and the bill died. My instructions to my lobbying team today were to get a bill – any bill – passed.”

Amendment 2 now moves to the Florida Department of Health, to implement without direction of the Florida Legislature. It has until July to put rules into place. However, the department is under Gov. Rick Scott’s control. Scott is anti-marijuana, so expect no further progress, and this whole mess likely ends up in court.

The silliness of all this is the fact that Florida has been growing some of the finest kinds of marijuana for generations, and yet it can’t legalize it due to bureaucratic ignorance & corporate greed.  The reason being legal marijuana is a major threat to distilleries, breweries, tobacco, and big pharma.

Those are major industries with serious political clout, which stand to lose billions in revenue, perhaps even threatening their very existence. Marijuana is a weed, which means you can grow it anywhere. In many ways it is the most ‘socialized’ plant, ubiquitously used– recreationally and medically.  In many ways, the fight for legal marijuana is a necessary attack on the entire capitalist healthcare system which favors monopolization, and that is why it is hated & feared by so many bourgeois politicians.

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Thanks to Orlando Weekly for covering this issue intensely, as much was revealed in only their reporting.

See also: Medical & Recreational Marijuana

 

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Cheating in Sports

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ESPN/NASCAR 5-1-17: Joey Logano starts from the back and ends up front [1]

My posted comment: “I like Joey Logano, but I do have a question. What was the ‘unauthorized transmission adjustment’ that sent him to the back of the field to start? He went from last to race winner, so it definitely worked. Just seems unfair, at least until the fans know more.”
Like · Reply · May 1, 2017 11:21am

ESPN/NASCAR 5-4-17: Joey Logano’s win at Richmond won’t count toward playoffs [2]

NASCAR announces Logano’s car was ‘illegally modified’ and that his Richmond win is “encumbered,” meaning he doesn’t get the points or free pass in the Chase. Amazing that no one else in the media initially asked the question, huh?

Cheating is endemic and part of the fabric of NASCAR. Certain teams are allowed to cheat more, depending on their favor with Brian France. For the serious Chase competitors it’s about pushing this envelope, and keeping good political relations with Steve O’Donnell & France. Power owners like Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs & Rick Hendricks get decisive edges for their teams.

Some drivers are more strictly censured than others. There are some whose best interest is NOT to cheat. For instance, Danica Patrick never gets busted for illegal modifications, failing laser inspections, loose lug nuts, etc. It’s not in her interest to cheat, because of how she markets herself to her fanbase of women & kids– as beautiful & fair-minded. That’s how she attracts major sponsorship, and notice that Aspen Dental is now the “official dentist of NASCAR.”  [3]

She consistently runs ~25th, and can never win a race because she isn’t trying (cheating), but with Dale Jr. retiring, Danica will easily become their most valuable commodity. That is the paradox of NASCAR, and it’s the reason she’s so loved & hated [4].

The landscape of women’s tennis has undergone a seismic shift recently. Serena Williams announced her pregnancy (congratulations!), and very likely is leaving professional tennis as quietly as possible. I don’t see a comeback at her age, with all she’s already accomplished. Motherhood will likely motivate her more.

The other bombshell is Maria Sharapova returning, in top form it appears. She’s definitely among the early favorites at Roland Garros, with plenty of motivation & support. Her May 16th official announcement for the French Open is being promoted, so what does that tell you the decision to let her play will be?

Any Sharapova vs. the WTA scandal-mongering in the media is flak designed to distract people from the political & controversial nature of her suspension from the start. Player gossip covers these hidden interests. Maria Sharapova is double-edged, as the tour needs her star power, but she is personally disliked by most players. Rafa Nadal (below) welcomed Marin Cilic back by saying, “Only thing that I can say is I am happy to see Marin back on tour. He’s a good guy and a great player.”

But Nadal didn’t advocate for Sharapova’s return as a wild card under similar circumstances. Sober tennis fans see what’s important here. Cilic is accepted by the players, while Sharapova (an even greater player in the women’s game) is not, due to her unpopular status in the locker room.

Maria Sharapova has won the career grand slam and the French open– twice. Of course she deserves a wild card, and her current situation is why they have such a thing. This entire affair has been a political vendetta, with Sharapova’s Russian nationality being at the heart of it [5].

Serena & Venus Williams were/are allowed to compete with therapeutic-use exemptions (Serena TUE below) for schedule II narcotics & banned steroids, without even a hint of media scrutiny or sanction from the US-backed ITF or WADA. This hypocrisy is staggering, and the response from most of the players is disappointing in it’s selfishness.

Racialist (definition): 1) One who insists that all differences in society are based on race, instead of class. 2) A form a racism.

Genie Bouchard (above) also spoke against Sharapova even being allowed to return [6]. Bouchard’s current situation is beyond bizarre & messed-up, as she is suing the USTA, while her game has fallen apart [7].  Background: in October 2015, Genie Bouchard slipped in the locker room at he US Open In NY, when she couldn’t find a light switch after a late-evening match.  She claims a “serious head injury” with lingering concussion issues [8].

The USTA has destroyed evidence (locker room video) and is at least partially at fault; but this ultimately falls on Bouchard herself.  She would win more support from everyone by becoming an advocate for better locker room conditions for all the athletes.  When you speak selfishly about others, they won’t stand with you when you need them.

As we can see, there is much cheating going on everywhere in sports; men & women, white, black, and any other skin pigment.  It’s inherent ugliness is why it’s hidden, until someone eventually reveals it to the rest of us. It’s motive is to selfishly put oneself ahead of others. Cheating diminishes our souls because it values trophies over character, and that understanding is its best deterrent.

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What is meant by “fake economy?”

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Over seven billion humans currently live on this planet. Human civilization has mostly operated (for several hundred years) under an economic system called capitalism, which is predicated on individual profit & loss. By 2017, in order to maintain extreme levels of social inequality, illusions have had to be constructed & sustained. This is where our fake economy comes in.

Under feudalism (and before that, slavery in antiquity) illusions also had to be maintained, as all human societies have been ruled by class forces. The Romans gave their plebeian class “bread & circuses,” until they were overrun by barbaric hordes. Medieval royalty ruled their domain with their knighted class, and the mysticism of organized religion in the Catholic Church. The Crusades were about conquest & power, but peddled as a “Holy War” against Islam. We can therefore see that ‘fake news’ and manipulation of public opinion are not new phenomena. Only the tools & techniques change, as their purpose & interest always remain the same, which is to railroad public opinion towards war.

Fake jobs & industries under capitalism include: sales, business, investing, consulting, management & politics. Education is a crucial area for ideology, as corrupt ivory tower academia provide ‘proofs’ for every absurd irrationally of the profit system and all its malignancies.  It’s easier to manipulate fake people, as zombies don’t know how to think for themselves. Here in the United States, children are taught how to think & act at a very young age, with a consistent propaganda message. That message is to consume things that give instant pleasure. Sugar is the most addicting substance to man, and children are bombarded with targeted advertising in all media programming for unhealthy food from infancy onward.

Now people have fake bodies which aren’t healthy, so they need fake cures. “Selling sickness” is a nefarious industry secret in medicine, dentistry & pharmaceuticals. People are susceptible to this pressure because they have become so insecure about themselves. Any salesperson recognizing this can target weaknesses and close in. When a body is ugly with fat, one has a hard time socializing. One smells bad, so one needs more deodorant, and so on…

 

After a while, many obese people give up on themselves and don’t go out anymore. Luckily there is the Internet and social media, when one can project whatever one pleases. While the Internet & social media are real technology, there is a large element of distortion and inherent falseness in most social media posting over time. We tend to project what we want other people to see, and filter out the rest. It’s much harder to do that in real life, with real people.

The news on the Internet is virtually all fake, outside of the WSWS.org. Capitalism runs every publication, which employs Madison Avenue advertisers to tell everyday people what’s important. This includes the entertainment industry (music, film & TV), sports & fashion. All of these are fake economies, endlessly generating useless content 24/7 for mindless consumers who must be kept entertained in order to distract them from world-significant events happening all around them.

The lure of PED’s in athletics is a form of ‘fake health.’ It plays on competitors’ deepest doubts & insecurities, leading into a chemical morass. Eventually male users need Cialis to get an erection, which begs the question: if you’re so hard, why do you need help there? Steroid use makes no sense when thought out rationally, but our society has taught people to ignore consequences for perceived short-term gains. The problem is the gains aren’t real, and they are more than offset by the detrimental side effects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtkFSTjdI-8

The healthiest way to interact is to listen & learn from others, while being influential (in a positive way) where appropriate. Don’t go for popularity because:

1) It’s shallow and accomplishes nothing for anyone else
2) Everyone else is doing it, which means it’s old already

The only way humans can be truly happy is when they are allowed to express themselves freely, without repercussions & without hurting others. That is impossible under our current fake economy. We need to starting getting real with everything, in order to replace these illusions with something real, as nothing else works.

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Aluminum Aluminium 的中文翻譯| 英漢字典

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This is aluminum, a silvery-white, soft, nonmagnetic, ductile metal; remarkable for it’s low density and its ability to resist corrosion [1]. It is widely abundant in the Earth’s crust, but also hazardous in many ways. The most-noted hazard is its link to brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s.

Aluminum’s unmentioned hazard is rooted in capitalism, as China now manufactures most of this commodity, which is used in anything that has metal in it. This is because China does it cheaper than everyone else, super-exploiting their workers & destroying the environment in the process. This is “killing us,” so US national insecurity throws up trade barriers which precede war.

Our economy is GLOBAL and can no longer be ruled by competing nation states, as it inexorably leads to world war. That is the essential historical lesson of the 20th century, which must be learned & applied now– by the workers & youth of the world in revolutionary action!

 

 

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ADA News & Dentaltown

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This arrived in my PO Box. I’ve asked to be removed from their mailing list many times, but this is a big deal for the American Dental Association (ADA), so I get this issue:

Licensure exams are a huge source of corruption, graft & bureaucratic waste.  Every dentist has to submit to the unfair practices of each state or regional board, who define clinical competency on their own terms.  Basically many state licensure exams (Florida in particular) are a blatant pay-offs to the good ‘ol boy network & connected cronies.  Hence the ‘skeptics’ who are assured their graft is protected, as this be be a only be a suggested model (available by 2020) according to the ADA at the very end of the article:

One of the most powerful figures in dentistry is the Howard Farran, DDS (photo below, bottom middle). He is the creator of Dentaltown, which became THE social media forum for dental professionals, so no surprise that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is speaking at their annual ‘Townie’ meeting:

Many years ago I visited Dentaltown frequently, but never posted.  Handle: DocEric.  I was there to learn, and I learned a lot– on many, many facets of dentistry. That is the power of the Internet and content sharing.

Dentaltown’s archive is massive and pretty much complete, meaning that every issue that has ever come up in modern dentistry has probably been discussed there.  Farran’s specialty is business, but each clinical forum has expert moderators. It’s the best place for professionals to go for current, real-world answers to dental problems.

 

For the rest, this mp3 (above) should do.

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Proxy Perils

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These corporate clowns had no answers for angry shareholders concerning their bank’s financial malfeasance at their annual stockholder’s meeting today.

Wells Fargo Chairman Stephen Sanger (L) and CEO Tim Sloan (R) leave a meeting with reporters after the annual shareholder meeting in Jacksonville, Florida, U.S., April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Phelan Ebenhack [1]

Wells Fargo is being pressured by Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (ISS), a proxy advisory firm for short-selling hedge funds, which own shares of numerous companies. ISS advises shareholders and votes their shares (often unknowingly) in stockholder voting.

Proxy season is the period during which many companies hold their annual shareholder meetings. It usually occurs in April, as most companies end their fiscal years on Dec. 31 and hold their annual meetings the following spring. By ISS’s own estimate, its opinions affect the governance decisions of professional investors controlling $25 trillion in assets — half the value of the world’s common stock. [2]

I.S.S. is controlled by Gary Retelny, CEO (photo above). It was the first, and is now the largest firm to advise institutions on voting, offering ‘research’ for 35,000 companies in 15 countries; making recommendations on issues including mergers, poison pills, and the fitness of directors. It also collects and transmits corporate ballots. Around 75% of the votes it transmits require a signoff by the client, or are cast by specific instruction. About 25% are on a policy of implied consent, under which votes are cast according to I.S.S.’s annually updated guidelines.

Stock value is the only indicator that matters to financial capitalists such as these. Non-performers will have their directors targeted for removal by a proxy campaign from this powerful Black Hand [3].

At most S&P 500 companies, director support averages around 95% of votes cast, according to pay consulting firm Semler Brossy. Typically a recommendation from ISS that investors vote “against” a director will reduce support they receive by an average of 17 to 18 percentage points.  If 80% is considered the threshold for maintaining a corporate director position (and it is), then ISS’s influence is decisive in corporate governance.

This is the pressure on the markets, and it is bursting at the seams everywhere.  There is basically no long-term productivity left, as financial capital insists on short-term results every time.  It’s less than 100 days into the Trump administration, and it is clear that U.S. capitalism is now rudderless. Donald Trump is so unstable and such an unreliable leader, that it’s created a power vacuum in political economy & the military. After being shot down by stiff popular opposition, the preferred Trump administration option always becomes the ‘nuclear’ one.

A video shows the moment a MOAB, or “mother of all bombs”, struck the Achin district of the eastern province of Nangarhar, Afghanistan, bordering Pakistan.
DVIDS/Handout via Reuters TV

There are now a few hundred powerful individuals basically controlling the world economy. The deep state is a nexus of Wall Street power brokers, CIA/intelligence experts, Pentagon brass and political royalty. They are ideologically & ethically bankrupt, and do nothing but exist in isolation in order to further monetarily enrich themselves.  The first revolutionary task is to specifically identify these individuals, and understand the depth of their criminality.  Once that has been widely achieved, the intervention of the working masses into this mix will quickly sweep this elitist rubbish into the trash bin of political history.

 

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Celebrity: To Be or Not To Be

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Everyone wants to be famous, right? Then you are well-known and everyone listens to what you have to say, so you can make a difference! That’s what most people believe. Celebrity reality (an oxymoron) is much different.

People naively believe that if you work hard and are amazing at what you do, then you will (somehow?) become a celebrity. Wrong!  You become a ‘star’ when the ruling class selects you to be one of their representatives. That’s where the big money comes from to pay these superstar contracts. Celebrities are spokespersons for capitalism, whether they are movie stars, rock stars or famous athletes– they are all sponsored by finance capital. These are the circuses which decadent capitalists enjoy, but primarily serve as a distraction (fake economy) for the underprivileged working masses.

The deal you make when you become a celebrity is that you NEVER speak badly about the sponsors, ie. capitalism. Since they are paying for your enhanced status, they expect full cooperation across the board. This definitely reaches into celebrities’ private lives, as they are simply no longer allowed to mingle with non-celebrities, unless there is complete control of the setting. This celebrity insecurity is a lonely disease. That fact that nearly every Hollywood/celebrity marriage ends in divorce substantiates this thesis. This leads to the ever-constant celebrity fascination with sex, probably because they aren’t getting any, or if they are it is of poor quality.

The fact that the vicarious public knows every detail of these figures & figurines demonstrates that they are allowed no privacy themselves; as famous lives are endlessly analyzed, dissected and discussed everywhere in the corporate news & social media. Any slip of the tongue on a bad day can be ruin.  This is the tightrope the glamorous & famous must gracefully walk every day.  If that sounds like an impossible amount of work, that’s because it is. Eventually every celebrity is wrecked or quietly taken down, and this entire fake economy lurches forward with new ‘stars.’ The bankers & corporate heads that control everything remain the same, and stay hidden.

As a celebrity, what you get to say for yourself hardly matters. Big capital owns the important parts of your brain which determine ethics & character. The rest is basic functions, fluff & bragging backed by lots of money.  Working people aren’t stupid, they’re just overworked– so they are a little slower in seeing all this. Many have already ‘cut the cord’ and that trend will accelerate as working people can no longer afford these spectacles, which are increasingly being recognized as fake.

The cult of celebrity is a major hurdle for the working class to clear on its way to a successful socialist revolution. The role of modern finance capital in creating a privileged ‘buffer layer’ to insulate the ruling 1% from the working masses has been an effective innovation. This ~10%  buffer includes celebrities, who mesmerize many working people.

 

This is because workers are trained to believe their own lives don’t matter, because it’s only money & fame that count. This is not only wrong, it is exactly the opposite of the truth– a Big Lie technique. It is the workers who are real, as they are the ones who produce the material value for society. Celebrities are part of this vast fake economy which is crumbling all around us– daily. In spite of this reality, these charlatans must continue to dance to the music, no matter how banal & vapid it is.

It is correct to say that artists should be rewarded no more than any other worker, under socialism. Under capitalism things are unequal, and therefore artists hold the highest rank of importance in bourgeois society. Without Pablo Picasso, Orson Welles, Mile Davis, Stanley Kubrick, Andy Warhol, John Lennon, etc., there is no culture and no beacon for truth. True artists are of precious value, because they can be taken away in one act of violence by a ruling class that will stop at nothing to preserve its privilege and avoid being exposed.

Marxism uses the dialectical method to analyze society historically & materially. Dialectics means that everything is always moving & changing, so it is critical to understand the process in order to project the future. At one point most celebrities had noble aspirations. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is attributed with the proverb, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Even this noble saint had progressive thoughts, but when it lacks Marxist discipline & critical dialectical thinking, it inevitably becomes an idealist morass, which always funnels back to god & bourgeois capitalism in the dead-end form of the Democratic party in the US.

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My Musical Muse

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I read this interview with Thurston Moore recently on songwriting. If I had to list the ‘best’ rock-era songwriters, Moore would certainly be near the top. It’s always silly to compare when it comes to art, but it is also helpful to know who the best are. Those are the ones you learn from & imitate.

The best songwriters sing their songs and also play an instrument, and usually lead a band or at least a stable core group of musicians. They will find the perfect working partners in musical colleagues & in the production sphere. This requires being able to interact with others and control egos, including your own. That is difficult in an age when anyone with a hit, instantly gets blown up into a superstar by the industry/media hype machine.

For me, having a song title and finding a melody hook are my starting points. The title acts as a reminder of what you are writing about, so your verses can feed seamlessly into the chorus. The melody hook from both the verse & chorus generates a rhythm, from which lyrics flow. I write all my songs on paper, usually on the back of an envelope with a pen. My guitar is out, and used to re-implant the melody as needed. Try to get the lyrics roughed out as quickly as possible. When being creative, keep the ideas fresh & fast– don’t get bogged down in details. Polish those out later.

Experimenting with song structure is a great idea for expanding your repertoire. Many novice songwriters fall into the trap of making every song the same, as far as verse-chorus-(2x)-solo-verse-chorus framework. Try writing songs without choruses. Vary the length of your compositions to break free of boxy concepts. All guitar players & songwriters should (at least) experiment on bass.

The most radical (recent) departure from conventionality for me has been the use of a slide. As a groove player, I noticed my pinky was often doing nothing, so I decided to put it to use. This adds an element of attack that few other singer-songwriters have. My solo performance can swing & rip better than many full bands due to this innovation. This scares most colleagues, along with all club owners & industry types– so I’m blacklisted.

This leads to the point of paying the price to be who you are. Understand what it is, and deal with it. Don’t change who you are, to become ‘successful.’ That’s when you start sucking. This requires patience & endurance. If you are any good, people will start to recognize your talent, as long as you put in the work.

What is the work? It’s reading EVERYTHING and learning as much as you can. The more you know and the more worldly conscious you are, the better your songs will be. You need to get out into the real world, and experience it with real people, in real relationships. This allows you to absorb all perspectives, and please note this includes nature itself. Someone needs to speak for all the animals being devastated, etc…

The more you immerse yourself in reality, the more relatable your songs become. Music fans want to hear music that speaks to them. If all you can write/sing about are your tormented love affairs & sexual conquests, then most of us aren’t going to be interested. It’s selfish and we’ve heard it over & over, endlessly already.

Find some other aspects of your life that listeners can also connect with, and go with it the next time your creative urge strikes. Once again, you need this for versatility, otherwise you’re a one-trick pony. We already have too many of those hacks hosting open mic nights with their tip jars empty. Every one of their ‘originals’ sounds the same, and their performances only generate pity applause. It’s sad & painful to experience. Don’t be like that.

Another creative area is covers. When performing songs from other artists, pick those you are most-influenced by, and learn (what you consider to be) their best songs. Too many avoid the best, because their songs are too difficult to perform well. Yeah– that’s the point in separating the talent from the wannabe’s!

I believe in many ways this is how you discover your songwriting muse. Apply this attitude to covers, and what you’ll notice is that each artist has a distinct style of composition & delivery. Some of your favorites will be naturally easier to play than others, and this becomes a key discovery. It tells you who your deepest influences will be, as you discover yourself in musicianship. For me it became Graham Parker in songwriting & vocal delivery, and Kurt Cobain in guitar style. My friend and working partner TomP, definitively convinced me that my preferred production style is Sonic Youth.

You only learn this through focus & dedication. I do believe there is an element of prodigy too, but with that said this ability is inside all of us. Music is primal. Music is much more basic & essential than film or any other art form. The heartbeat is our most basic rhythm, and it has been mimicked in music since man’s earliest existence. Finding your music muse is the natural expression of our humanity’s desire to creatively express itself.  Find it and set it free.

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Playing the Trump Card

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Fake News has now become a buzzword. It comes from the common understanding among literate people that all the news we see, read & hear are lies made to serve nefarious interests. The corporations that control these outlets benefit from these lies, so it’s perfectly reasonable to presume that all this is propaganda. It fits the facts as all evidence confirms this thesis.

The news has always been fake. Capitalism does have its well-thought-out niches, and propaganda is most definitely one of them. The reason that corporate news is broadly recognized & despised is the level of irrationality it has now reached. There is very-little-to-nothing that is useful to consumers, as far as reporting facts go. As for editorial commentary, it’s gutter grade journalism across the board.

This means working people now turn off & tune out corporate. This is done in all sorts of ways. Many have dumped cable/satellite TV (cord cutters), and moved to ‘alternative’ news & information sources on the Internet. Many also rely on social media, as a vehicle to discuss issues in dedicated forums and share through Facebook. Facebook is undoubtedly the social media king, as most major sports, entertainment & political news forums connect with it, so ideas can be shared quickly. They also can be censored, by the controlling interest. Mark Zuckerberg is the owner of this all-powerful medium, even though it is really (photo below) Shawn Fanning’s Napster peer-to-peer idea revised.

Quick history lesson: Shawn Fanning was a college drop out who had a genius idea to revolutionize the world through free music sharing back when the Internet was new to most of us. It quickly went viral, and then came under attack from the record industry (RIAA). Corporate music recruited shills (in the form of Metallica [below] & Dr. Dre), to turn public opinion against Napster, despite their willingness to work with artists on a model that would pay them.

The reasons were: 1) it never is about paying the artists, it’s about the record companies getting their money; and they were getting shut out & overrun so they tied everything up in court and now we have iTunes & Pandora– which suck compared to Napster; and 2) Ivy leaguers are supposed to own all-powerful social media platforms, not working class prodigies.

After Napster was killed in court, Fanning’s partner Shawn Parker (with Fanning above) eventually found Mark Zuckerberg (below) and together they created Facebook, which has many of the same original ideas in site construction & content sharing. That’s how a genius gets cut out, diminishing human society.

Getting back to fake news, anyone can see how social media can be a platform for sharing content (revolutionary), while also being a major player in the fake news onslaught (reactionary). This is done through its manipulation of trending on a macro scale, but can also be individualized with precise targeting for anyone. Reach can be cut, by simply not posting it to other feeds– even when requested. Also fake stats on visitors, activity, likes, comments & censoring messages are common tactics. There are definite class forces behind this.

All this leads to Donald Trump, who has now earned the title “Commander-in Chief,” and the media praise he so desperately covets. As discussed earlier, Trump is more of a celebrity than a politician, so playing to his vanity is always the correct move in manipulating him. It is clear that Sean Spicer is his mouthpiece, and he plays the crucial role of Joseph Goebbels as propaganda minister.

Just as in Nazi Germany in the 1930’s, both Trump & Spicer are allowed to say the foulest, most ignorant words imaginable and the media barely blinks an eye, and never demands serious explanation or accountability. With the entire mass media we have thorough corruption, combined with a severe case of the Emperor’s New Clothes.

The fact that nuclear war is being contemplated behind closed doors, with no discussion in the media [!] is the height of ridiculousness. The fact that Donald Trump can say whatever he wants to whomever, and it doesn’t mean a thing, is a serious problem. Yet the media reassures us that everything will be fine, as warships move in on their next attack target.

There are now several flashpoints (Syria, North Korea, Ukraine…) that could set off a shooting war with a major nuclear power. This ends in mutually assured destruction (MAD). Any time this Black Hand (deep state) needs aggression, they can now play the Trump card. This is no longer doom & gloom prophecy, this is materialist analysis of our historical situation. Human society must find & rally around its best elements to avoid a cruel & horrible end.

This is only possible though a socialist transformation of society, into one that eliminates privileged classes & social inequality. It is precisely these class forces that are driving a desperate deep state apparatus. The qualitative change in media propaganda is a measure of their crisis, and also an indication of their ruthlessness and lack of regard for any consequences.

Humans beings are smarter than Donald Trump, and must recognize en masse that he and his fascist cohorts, (along with the deep-state military-intelligence-Wall Street apparatus that is pulling every string), needs to be removed from power. This will only happen through mass action from a united international working class, armed with Marxism & the dialectical method.

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Reuters Reversed

Posted on by

Key:
US & Syria are role-reversed
Russia = second-largest nuclear power
China = third-largest nuclear arsenal and second-largest economy

 

Reuters: U.S. fires missiles at Assad airbase; Russia denounces ‘aggression’
Fri Apr 7, 2017 | 9:09am EDT
By Steve Holland, Andrew Osborn and Tom Perry | PALM BEACH, Fla./MOSCOW/BEIRUT  [1]

Syria fired cruise missiles on Friday at an American airbase from which President Bashar al-Assad said a deadly chemical weapons attack had been launched, the first direct Syrian assault on the US government in six years of war. In the biggest foreign policy decision of his presidency so far, Assad directly targeted the US military for its alleged role in a poison gas attack that killed at least 70 people. The second-largest nuclear power called the Syrian strikes an illegal aggression.

Back to reality for one sentence: This catapults Damascus (the oldest city in human civilization) into deeper alliance with the second-largest-nuclear-power in the world, which has already military advisers on the ground, aiding its fight against CIA-led covert operations mixed with radical Islam.

“Weeks of previous attempts at changing Trump’s behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically,” Assad said as he announced the attack from his resort home, where he was meeting the president of the third-largest nuclear arsenal and second largest economy. “Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack,” Assad said of Tuesday’s chemical weapons strike, which his countries blame on Trump’s forces. “No child of God should ever suffer such horror.”

Syrian officials said that the strike was a “one-off” intended to deter future chemical weapons attacks, and not part of a wider expansion of Syria’s role in the US war. But the swift action is likely to be interpreted as a signal to the second-largest nuclear power, as well as all others where Assad has faced foreign policy tests in his presidency, that he is willing to use force. “This clearly indicates the president is willing to take decisive action when called for,” Syria’s Secretary of State told reporters. “I would not in any way attempt to extrapolate that to a change in our policy or our posture relative to our military activities in America today. There has been no change in that status.” Even without any promise of more Syrian action, the strikes could embolden Trump’s enemies, after months when Syrian deep state officials appeared to grow increasingly resigned to him staying in power.

The US government has denied that US forces were behind the gas attack, but Syria has dismissed their explanation that chemicals leaked from a [covert-ops/al-Nusra Front] weapons depot after an air strike. The US army said the Syrian attack killed six people at its air base near the city. It called the strike “blatant aggression” and said it made Syria a “partner” of “terrorist groups” including Islamic State. Springfield governor told media the death toll was seven. American television later said nine civilians were killed in towns near the base. There was no independent confirmation of civilian casualties.

The second-largest nuclear power suspended communication with Syrian forces designed to stop planes colliding over the US, one of the few direct forms of cooperation since the two rivals began flying combat missions in the same air space for the first time since the Cold War.

A frigate from the second-largest nuclear power carrying cruise missiles sailed through the Florida Keys into the Gulf of Mexico, a sign of their military presence in the area although there was no indication it was directly in response to Syrian action. Syria’s allies backed the decision to launch the strikes, with several countries describing it as a proportionate response to Trump’s suspected use of poison gas.  Several countries said they were notified in advance, but none had been asked to take part.

https://youtu.be/oKtJjPypT7I

Global stocks off lows, oil rallies after U.S. missile strike on Syria
Fri Apr 7, 2017 | 8:37am EDT
By Vikram Subhedar | LONDON [2]

Oil prices held near one-month highs on Friday after Syria attacked a US air base but stocks and the Syrian pound recovered early falls when an official played down the risks of an escalation. The Syrian pound recouped all of its losses against a basket of major currencies and was last trading little changed. Major stock index futures were flat.

Syria fired dozens of cruise missiles at a US air base from which it said a chemical weapons attack was launched this week, an escalation of the Syrian military role in America that swiftly drew sharp criticism from the second-largest nuclear power. A Syrian defense official told Al Jezeera the missile strike was a “one-off”, helping to calm market nerves.

“The Syrian missile strike on a US air base overnight caused a knee-jerk shift into safe havens, although the impact was moderate as it is being interpreted as a one-off proportionate response,” said Ian Williams, a financial strategist in Damascus. Oil prices hovered near one-month highs though prices pared some gains as there seemed no immediate threat to supplies. Brent crude futures which surged more than 2 percent after the Syrian attack, were last up 1.5 percent at $55.72 a barrel. The strength in crude oil lifted shares on major oil and gas producers in Syria, all up about 0.5 percent.

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