Monday, April 20, 2015
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Michael: Man in the Mirror
I'm Gonna Make A Change,
For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .
As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)
I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not
Alone?
A Widow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
(Washed-Out Dream)
They Follow The Pattern Of
The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place
To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With
Me
(Starting With Me!)
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Ooh!)
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His
Ways
(Change His Ways-Ooh!)
And No Message Could've
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .)
Change!
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror,
(Man In The Mirror-Oh
Yeah!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make The Change)
(You Gotta Get It Right, While
You Got The Time)
('Cause When You Close Your
Heart)
You Can't Close Your . . .Your
Mind!
(Then You Close Your . . .
Mind!)
That Man, That Man, That
Man, That Man
With That Man In The Mirror
(Man In The Mirror, Oh Yeah!)
That Man, That Man, That Man
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
You Know . . .That Man
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Oh Yeah!)
Gonna Feel Real Good Now!
Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!
Yeah Yeah!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Ooooh . . .)
Oh No, No No . . .
I'm Gonna Make A Change
It's Gonna Feel Real Good!
Come On!
(Change . . .)
Just Lift Yourself
You Know
You've Got To Stop It.
Yourself!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
I've Got To Make That Change,
Today!
Hoo!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Got To
You Got To Not Let Yourself . . .
Brother . . .
Hoo!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
You Know-I've Got To Get
That Man, That Man . . .
(Man In The Mirror)
You've Got To
You've Got To Move! Come
On! Come On!
You Got To . . .
Stand Up! Stand Up!
Stand Up!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Stand Up And Lift
Yourself, Now!
(Man In The Mirror)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Aaow!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Gonna Make That Change . . .
Come On!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know . . .
(Change . . .)
Make That Change.
For Once In My Life
It's Gonna Feel Real Good,
Gonna Make A Difference
Gonna Make It Right . . .
As I, Turn Up The Collar On My
Favourite Winter Coat
This Wind Is Blowin' My Mind
I See The Kids In The Street,
With Not Enough To Eat
Who Am I, To Be Blind?
Pretending Not To See
Their Needs
A Summer's Disregard,
A Broken Bottle Top
And A One Man's Soul
They Follow Each Other On
The Wind Ya' Know
'Cause They Got Nowhere
To Go
That's Why I Want You To
Know
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change)
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah)
I've Been A Victim Of A Selfish
Kind Of Love
It's Time That I Realize
That There Are Some With No
Home, Not A Nickel To Loan
Could It Be Really Me,
Pretending That They're Not
Alone?
A Widow Deeply Scarred,
Somebody's Broken Heart
And A Washed-Out Dream
(Washed-Out Dream)
They Follow The Pattern Of
The Wind, Ya' See
Cause They Got No Place
To Be
That's Why I'm Starting With
Me
(Starting With Me!)
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Ooh!)
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
(Ooh!)
I'm Asking Him To Change His
Ways
(Change His Ways-Ooh!)
And No Message Could've
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make That . . .)
Change!
I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror,
(Man In The Mirror-Oh
Yeah!)
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make The Change)
(You Gotta Get It Right, While
You Got The Time)
('Cause When You Close Your
Heart)
You Can't Close Your . . .Your
Mind!
(Then You Close Your . . .
Mind!)
That Man, That Man, That
Man, That Man
With That Man In The Mirror
(Man In The Mirror, Oh Yeah!)
That Man, That Man, That Man
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
(Better Change!)
You Know . . .That Man
No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
(If You Wanna Make The
World A Better Place)
Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change
(Take A Look At Yourself And
Then Make A Change)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Oh Yeah!)
Gonna Feel Real Good Now!
Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!
Yeah Yeah!
Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na,
Na Nah
(Ooooh . . .)
Oh No, No No . . .
I'm Gonna Make A Change
It's Gonna Feel Real Good!
Come On!
(Change . . .)
Just Lift Yourself
You Know
You've Got To Stop It.
Yourself!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
I've Got To Make That Change,
Today!
Hoo!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Got To
You Got To Not Let Yourself . . .
Brother . . .
Hoo!
(Yeah!-Make That Change!)
You Know-I've Got To Get
That Man, That Man . . .
(Man In The Mirror)
You've Got To
You've Got To Move! Come
On! Come On!
You Got To . . .
Stand Up! Stand Up!
Stand Up!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Stand Up And Lift
Yourself, Now!
(Man In The Mirror)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!
Aaow!
(Yeah-Make That Change)
Gonna Make That Change . . .
Come On!
(Man In The Mirror)
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know It!
You Know . . .
(Change . . .)
Make That Change.
Michael: Earth Song
What about sunrise
What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain...
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, this weeping shore?
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
What have we’ve done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son...
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, this weeping shore?
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don't know where we are
Although I know we've drifted far
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Hey, what about yesterday
(What about us)
What about the seas
(What about us)
The heavens are falling down
(What about us)
I can't even breathe
(What about us)
What about apathy
(What about us)
I need you
(What about us)
What about nature's worth
(ooo, ooo)
It's our planet's womb
(What about us)
What about animals
(What about it)
Turned kingdoms to dust
(What about us)
What about elephants
(What about us)
Have we lost their trust
(What about us)
What about crying whales
(What about us)
Ravaging the seas
(What about us)
What about forest trails
(ooo, ooo)
Burnt despite our pleas
(What about us)
What about the holy land
(What about it)
Torn apart by creed
(What about us)
What about the common man
(What about us)
Can't we set him free
(What about us)
What about children dying
(What about us)
Can't you hear them cry
(What about us)
Where did we go wrong
(ooo, ooo)
Someone tell me why
(What about us)
What about baby boy
(What about it)
What about the days
(What about us)
What about all their joy
(What about us)
What about the man
(What about us)
What about the crying man
(What about us)
What about Abraham
(What about us)
What about death again
(ooo, ooo)
Do we give a damn
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
What about rain
What about all the things
That you said we were to gain...
What about killing fields
Is there a time
What about all the things
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the blood we've shed before
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, this weeping shore?
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
What have we’ve done to the world
Look what we've done
What about all the peace
That you pledge your only son...
What about flowering fields
Is there a time
What about all the dreams
That you said was yours and mine...
Did you ever stop to notice
All the children dead from war
Did you ever stop to notice
This crying Earth, this weeping shore?
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
I used to dream
I used to glance beyond the stars
Now I don't know where we are
Although I know we've drifted far
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Hey, what about yesterday
(What about us)
What about the seas
(What about us)
The heavens are falling down
(What about us)
I can't even breathe
(What about us)
What about apathy
(What about us)
I need you
(What about us)
What about nature's worth
(ooo, ooo)
It's our planet's womb
(What about us)
What about animals
(What about it)
Turned kingdoms to dust
(What about us)
What about elephants
(What about us)
Have we lost their trust
(What about us)
What about crying whales
(What about us)
Ravaging the seas
(What about us)
What about forest trails
(ooo, ooo)
Burnt despite our pleas
(What about us)
What about the holy land
(What about it)
Torn apart by creed
(What about us)
What about the common man
(What about us)
Can't we set him free
(What about us)
What about children dying
(What about us)
Can't you hear them cry
(What about us)
Where did we go wrong
(ooo, ooo)
Someone tell me why
(What about us)
What about baby boy
(What about it)
What about the days
(What about us)
What about all their joy
(What about us)
What about the man
(What about us)
What about the crying man
(What about us)
What about Abraham
(What about us)
What about death again
(ooo, ooo)
Do we give a damn
Aaaaaaaaah Oooooooooh
Michael: Heal The World
little girl talking
(I think about the generations
and they say they want to make it
a better place for our children and our children's children
so that they they they know it's a better world for them
and I think they can make it a better place)
There's A Place In
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow
There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
If You Want To Know Why
There's A Love That
Cannot Lie
Love Is Strong
It Only Cares For
Joyful Giving
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss
We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And
Start Living
Then It Feels That Always
Love's Enough For
Us Growing
So Make A Better World
Make A Better World...
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Dream We Were
Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We
Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep
Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow
We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All
My Brothers
Create A World With
No Fear
Together We'll Cry
Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn
Their Swords
Into Plowshares
We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
(I think about the generations
and they say they want to make it
a better place for our children and our children's children
so that they they they know it's a better world for them
and I think they can make it a better place)
There's A Place In
Your Heart
And I Know That It Is Love
And This Place Could
Be Much
Brighter Than Tomorrow
And If You Really Try
You'll Find There's No Need
To Cry
In This Place You'll Feel
There's No Hurt Or Sorrow
There Are Ways
To Get There
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
Make A Better Place
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
If You Want To Know Why
There's A Love That
Cannot Lie
Love Is Strong
It Only Cares For
Joyful Giving
If We Try
We Shall See
In This Bliss
We Cannot Feel
Fear Or Dread
We Stop Existing And
Start Living
Then It Feels That Always
Love's Enough For
Us Growing
So Make A Better World
Make A Better World...
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Dream We Were
Conceived In
Will Reveal A Joyful Face
And The World We
Once Believed In
Will Shine Again In Grace
Then Why Do We Keep
Strangling Life
Wound This Earth
Crucify Its Soul
Though It's Plain To See
This World Is Heavenly
Be God's Glow
We Could Fly So High
Let Our Spirits Never Die
In My Heart
I Feel You Are All
My Brothers
Create A World With
No Fear
Together We'll Cry
Happy Tears
See The Nations Turn
Their Swords
Into Plowshares
We Could Really Get There
If You Cared Enough
For The Living
Make A Little Space
To Make A Better Place...
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
Heal The World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
You And For Me
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
Make A Better Place
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
You And For Me
heal the world we live in
You And For Me
save it for our children
Armstrong: What a wonderful World
I see trees of green,
red roses too.
I see them bloom,
for me and you.
And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue,
And clouds of white.
The bright blessed day,
The dark sacred night.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
The colors of the rainbow,
So pretty in the sky.
Are also on the faces,
Of people going by,
I see friends shaking hands.
Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying,
"I love you".
I hear babies cry,
I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more,
Than I'll ever know.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
Yes, I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
Oh yeah.
red roses too.
I see them bloom,
for me and you.
And I think to myself,
what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue,
And clouds of white.
The bright blessed day,
The dark sacred night.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
The colors of the rainbow,
So pretty in the sky.
Are also on the faces,
Of people going by,
I see friends shaking hands.
Saying, "How do you do?"
They're really saying,
"I love you".
I hear babies cry,
I watch them grow,
They'll learn much more,
Than I'll ever know.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
Yes, I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.
Oh yeah.
Lennon: Imagine
Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
Friday, April 3, 2015
Assange: Still Enjoy Crushing Bastards
Julian Assange: 'I still enjoy crushing bastards'
... Whenever he appears in public, people often notice his pale skin, and the long beard that diminishes his young computer geek look, but few grasp the strong determination of this man, who replied in 2010, to the German weekly “Spiegel” when asked why he had not chosen to use his computer skills to make money and pursue a more comfortable path rather than invest his talent in a risky endeavour like WikiLeaks: « I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards». Five years after "Collateral Murder", “l'Espresso” asked Julian Assange if he has changed his mind.
WikiLeaks has exposed the most powerful entity in the world: the US military-industrial complex and that complex has spent the last five years striking back with a neverending investigation against you and your staff. What do we know for certain about this US investigation?
«This year the US Department of Justice and the court system have said publicly that the investigation continues. We also obtained warrants from Google about our journalists and Google has said that they are still under gag order for many more, there are other companies that are similarly gagged. This year the offenses that the Department of Justice is attempting to apply were also revealed and they are: espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, the violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is computer hacking or illegal transformation of data, theft of government data and general conspiracy. That's where we are formally. This is absurd. It is outrageous. This investigation is believed to be the largest ever investigation into a publisher, the US government in its own internal communications referred to it as “a whole of government investigation”, and Australian diplomats communicating to the Australian government what the US had told them in Washington DC said that the investigation was of “unprecedented scale and nature”».
What is striking is the stark difference between the cases of WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and the case of general David Petraeus, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, who passed top secret information to his mistress. You, Manning and Snowden are confined, in prison, in exile, respectively, for publishing secret information in collaboration with worldwide media, whereas general Petraeus is free as the air: no serious consequences for him...
«There is not any pretense anymore that there is equality before the law. Dianne Feinstein, the head of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, continuously says that I should be prosecuted for espionage, and pushes strongly for that, however she also says that general Petraeus and his family has suffered enough because he lost his job. This is a significant double standard. It demonstrates their lack of accountability. It is part of the calculation of having power to project power, and one of the ways to project power is to show that you are unaccountable: we are untouchable, so don't try to touch us. That is one of the reasons why they have aggressively gone after WikiLeaks, Snowden and Manning, because we hit them pretty hard and that makes them look very weak».
WikiLeaks experienced also a devastating extrajudicial banking blockade. The blockade and the neverending investigation are two of the methods used by the Western world to deal with organisations threatening the interests of the powerful. In Western democracies, journalists and activists are rarely killed: they are rather marginalised or silenced through legal and economic pressure. This is very bad, but quoting Chelsea Manning, “it is better than disappearing in the middle of the night”, as it happens in many regimes. Isn't it?
«I used to say that the way things work in the West now is journalists are not taken from their homes in the middle of the night, but rather homes are taken from journalists in the middle of the day, by making sure that they are fired by their employer or that they are litigated. In the United States and in the West broadly, there are many ways to shut up journalists that do not involve killing them, many ways to dilute, not necessarily censor, but to dilute out of existence, the impact of their publication. The matrix of relationships in which powerful organisations and people are embedded such is that it is quite hard to disturb those relationships through publishing».
In a famous interview you declared that at the beginning, when you established WikiLeaks, you thought that your biggest role would be in China and in some former Soviet states and in North Africa. Why aren't people in China, Russia and North Africa leaking to WikiLeaks?
«I knew that our most difficult conflict would be with the United States, from the very beginning. I knew that because the United States' military sector alone is about 50 percent of the entire world's [military sector], it is the most technically advanced, so it makes most secrets, and it also has an ideological incoherency presenting itself as believing in certain values, but then acting against those values, which produces internal dissidents, like Manning and Snowden. Now, we have done important work on China, Africa, and many countries, but ultimately we are, unfortunately, limited by resources. In order to properly engage with a culture you need a significant staff that speaks the language of that culture, and you need to be involved in the national debate of that culture. You need to be perceived as a player. We occasionally do manage to inject our resources into a country: an interesting example is East Timor, where we revealed a number of assassination plots and corruption deals and we became to be perceived as players in East Timor. But to be continuously perceived as a player in big cultures like China or Russia, you need significant investments in the languages of those countries».
Would you publish Russian and Chinese secrets with the same fearless determination?
«Yes. We have published serious documents about China in Chinese language. That was quite important material, politically effective in preventing a state-mandated censorship backdoor which was going to be included in every computer issued in China».
In the last two weeks there has been an important development about the Swedish case against you: the Swedish prosecutor finally accepted to question you in this Embassy as you always requested. If the Swedish case collapses, are you confident that you can leave the Embassy and go to Ecuador to enjoy asylum?
«Unfortunately the asylum in this embassy has never been about the “preliminary investigation” in Sweden, it is in relation to the United States case, and Scotland Yard has publicly stated that they would arrest me regardless».
Why?
«Well, it is a bit unclear. They also refused to confirm or deny whether the US has already submitted a secret extradition request, which is suspicious».
So basically it is not clear that if the Swedish case collapses you can leave this Embassy at all...
«It is clear it won't make any difference, except a political difference, but the political difference is quite important. To anyone who has looked at the details, the Swedish preliminary investigation is a judicial scandal: it has been used to divert attention from the case that started first and has most serious implications: the US espionage case».
You described your life inside this embassy as living inside a space station. What is your typical day? Provided that there is a typical day in the life of Julian Assange...
«I hope not to have a typical day. Like all people who are in a form of detention, monotony is the enemy, and sensory deprivation is a serious problem. Fortunately we are going on with publication and running a combative mutinational investigative publisher. I am able to live, at least intellectually, not only inside these walls, but in several different countries at once».
What did you miss most living inside four walls?
«People want me to say that I missed all sorts of things, but I am just going to say that I miss my family and otherwise I did not miss anything else, because the demands of dealing with our struggles requires intense focus, so it is hard to think about my own difficulties. That is a good thing».
You always refused to talk about your children and family for security reasons. Did they ever ask you to reconsider your work?
«Yes. But they accepted it. They do not have a choice, actually [he smiles with a self-irony attitude]. It has been very hard on some people who are close to me, including my children: they didn't fully agree to live in such a life. On the other hand, situations like these are part of who I am, I think I am doing things that my children will ultimately be proud of and can learn from in a healthy way».
di Stefania Maurizi
... Whenever he appears in public, people often notice his pale skin, and the long beard that diminishes his young computer geek look, but few grasp the strong determination of this man, who replied in 2010, to the German weekly “Spiegel” when asked why he had not chosen to use his computer skills to make money and pursue a more comfortable path rather than invest his talent in a risky endeavour like WikiLeaks: « I enjoy helping people who are vulnerable. And I enjoy crushing bastards». Five years after "Collateral Murder", “l'Espresso” asked Julian Assange if he has changed his mind.
WikiLeaks has exposed the most powerful entity in the world: the US military-industrial complex and that complex has spent the last five years striking back with a neverending investigation against you and your staff. What do we know for certain about this US investigation?
«This year the US Department of Justice and the court system have said publicly that the investigation continues. We also obtained warrants from Google about our journalists and Google has said that they are still under gag order for many more, there are other companies that are similarly gagged. This year the offenses that the Department of Justice is attempting to apply were also revealed and they are: espionage, conspiracy to commit espionage, the violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which is computer hacking or illegal transformation of data, theft of government data and general conspiracy. That's where we are formally. This is absurd. It is outrageous. This investigation is believed to be the largest ever investigation into a publisher, the US government in its own internal communications referred to it as “a whole of government investigation”, and Australian diplomats communicating to the Australian government what the US had told them in Washington DC said that the investigation was of “unprecedented scale and nature”».
What is striking is the stark difference between the cases of WikiLeaks, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and the case of general David Petraeus, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, who passed top secret information to his mistress. You, Manning and Snowden are confined, in prison, in exile, respectively, for publishing secret information in collaboration with worldwide media, whereas general Petraeus is free as the air: no serious consequences for him...
«There is not any pretense anymore that there is equality before the law. Dianne Feinstein, the head of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, continuously says that I should be prosecuted for espionage, and pushes strongly for that, however she also says that general Petraeus and his family has suffered enough because he lost his job. This is a significant double standard. It demonstrates their lack of accountability. It is part of the calculation of having power to project power, and one of the ways to project power is to show that you are unaccountable: we are untouchable, so don't try to touch us. That is one of the reasons why they have aggressively gone after WikiLeaks, Snowden and Manning, because we hit them pretty hard and that makes them look very weak».
WikiLeaks experienced also a devastating extrajudicial banking blockade. The blockade and the neverending investigation are two of the methods used by the Western world to deal with organisations threatening the interests of the powerful. In Western democracies, journalists and activists are rarely killed: they are rather marginalised or silenced through legal and economic pressure. This is very bad, but quoting Chelsea Manning, “it is better than disappearing in the middle of the night”, as it happens in many regimes. Isn't it?
«I used to say that the way things work in the West now is journalists are not taken from their homes in the middle of the night, but rather homes are taken from journalists in the middle of the day, by making sure that they are fired by their employer or that they are litigated. In the United States and in the West broadly, there are many ways to shut up journalists that do not involve killing them, many ways to dilute, not necessarily censor, but to dilute out of existence, the impact of their publication. The matrix of relationships in which powerful organisations and people are embedded such is that it is quite hard to disturb those relationships through publishing».
In a famous interview you declared that at the beginning, when you established WikiLeaks, you thought that your biggest role would be in China and in some former Soviet states and in North Africa. Why aren't people in China, Russia and North Africa leaking to WikiLeaks?
«I knew that our most difficult conflict would be with the United States, from the very beginning. I knew that because the United States' military sector alone is about 50 percent of the entire world's [military sector], it is the most technically advanced, so it makes most secrets, and it also has an ideological incoherency presenting itself as believing in certain values, but then acting against those values, which produces internal dissidents, like Manning and Snowden. Now, we have done important work on China, Africa, and many countries, but ultimately we are, unfortunately, limited by resources. In order to properly engage with a culture you need a significant staff that speaks the language of that culture, and you need to be involved in the national debate of that culture. You need to be perceived as a player. We occasionally do manage to inject our resources into a country: an interesting example is East Timor, where we revealed a number of assassination plots and corruption deals and we became to be perceived as players in East Timor. But to be continuously perceived as a player in big cultures like China or Russia, you need significant investments in the languages of those countries».
Would you publish Russian and Chinese secrets with the same fearless determination?
«Yes. We have published serious documents about China in Chinese language. That was quite important material, politically effective in preventing a state-mandated censorship backdoor which was going to be included in every computer issued in China».
In the last two weeks there has been an important development about the Swedish case against you: the Swedish prosecutor finally accepted to question you in this Embassy as you always requested. If the Swedish case collapses, are you confident that you can leave the Embassy and go to Ecuador to enjoy asylum?
«Unfortunately the asylum in this embassy has never been about the “preliminary investigation” in Sweden, it is in relation to the United States case, and Scotland Yard has publicly stated that they would arrest me regardless».
Why?
«Well, it is a bit unclear. They also refused to confirm or deny whether the US has already submitted a secret extradition request, which is suspicious».
So basically it is not clear that if the Swedish case collapses you can leave this Embassy at all...
«It is clear it won't make any difference, except a political difference, but the political difference is quite important. To anyone who has looked at the details, the Swedish preliminary investigation is a judicial scandal: it has been used to divert attention from the case that started first and has most serious implications: the US espionage case».
You described your life inside this embassy as living inside a space station. What is your typical day? Provided that there is a typical day in the life of Julian Assange...
«I hope not to have a typical day. Like all people who are in a form of detention, monotony is the enemy, and sensory deprivation is a serious problem. Fortunately we are going on with publication and running a combative mutinational investigative publisher. I am able to live, at least intellectually, not only inside these walls, but in several different countries at once».
What did you miss most living inside four walls?
«People want me to say that I missed all sorts of things, but I am just going to say that I miss my family and otherwise I did not miss anything else, because the demands of dealing with our struggles requires intense focus, so it is hard to think about my own difficulties. That is a good thing».
You always refused to talk about your children and family for security reasons. Did they ever ask you to reconsider your work?
«Yes. But they accepted it. They do not have a choice, actually [he smiles with a self-irony attitude]. It has been very hard on some people who are close to me, including my children: they didn't fully agree to live in such a life. On the other hand, situations like these are part of who I am, I think I am doing things that my children will ultimately be proud of and can learn from in a healthy way».
Original Source: Here. | ws
Chomsky: On Institutional Stupidity
Articles
Noam Chomsky on Institutional Stupidity
In January Noam Chomsky received the Philosophy Now Award for fighting stupidity.
Rick Lewis’s Introduction:
Welcome to the 4th Philosophy Now Award for Contributions in the Fight Against Stupidity. I’m delighted to say that we’re giving this year’s award to Professor Noam Chomsky.
Stupidity comes in many forms. Generally it is easier to spot when other people are being stupid and harder to notice when we ourselves are being stupid, in the sense of relying on unexamined assumptions, entrenched mental habits or poor reasoning. Yet we’re all guilty of these sometimes. Trying not to fool ourselves in these ways is central to philosophy.
So how can Chomsky help us with this? One of the world’s best-known intellectuals, he first gained fame for his work as a linguist, and in particular for his theory that we have an in-born or ‘innate’ grammar that underlies all of the world’s natural languages. He has gone on to do important original work on many other topics, including machine translation, logic, philosophy, and the nature of the media. A tireless social commentator, he also does a great deal of highly controversial political activism.
We want to give the Against Stupidity Award to Noam Chomsky not for his activism, for Philosophy Now does not take positions on political issues, nor for his fascinating early work on innate grammar, but mainly for his work on the structure of the media, and for his continual incitement to independent critical thinking. In their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and his co-author Edward S. Herman examined various institutional biases that affect the media worldwide. Chomsky followed this up with related work such as his 1991 book Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda.
Immanuel Kant said our experiences depend not only on the nature of the external world but also on our perceptual apparatus and our mental categories. There is the phenomenal world, the world as we experience it, and there is the noumenal world, the external world as it actually is, which we can never fully know.
Chomsky’s project is in some ways reminiscent of Kant’s. It examines how we gain knowledge of the social and political worlds. The world is very big, so you can’t be an eyewitness to most of what goes on in it and instead have to find out about it through intermediaries, in digested form. It’s because they are intermediaries that we call them the media. But in reporting the news they first have to decide what is newsworthy, and how to report it. In authoritarian countries this process is subject to censorship that is often obvious and sometimes brutal. Chomsky argues that news reporting is shaped by powerful interests in capitalist democracies too, though in ways that are far less apparent. In Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky and Herman argue that the selection and presentation of news in the West is subject to five ‘filters’. The first is ownership (the giant conglomerates that now own much of the world’s media have wide commercial interests and tend to discourage reporting that will undermine those interests). Secondly, they rely on selling advertising, and will tend to exclude reporting which conflicts with the ‘buying mood’. Thirdly, given finite editorial resources they all rely on news stories from outside organisations including the press departments of government and commercial bodies, and are often unwilling to alienate those sources. Fourthly they are constrained by the desire to avoid ‘flak’, in other words hostile reactions to news stories. Fifthly, they operate under ideological constraints – in the past, anti-communism, and now the war against terror. Chomsky and Herman also present statistical analysis of the reporting of different kinds of stories, to test the validity of their model. If we take the news we read at face value without considering the forces that shape it, we may be fooling ourselves. If we understand those mechanisms, then we can also take them into account and maybe gain a clearer understanding of the world itself.
Chomsky as a social critic constantly questions public policy and the presentation of the news. He asks hard questions and even when you disagree with him, forces you to justify your thinking about society and values. For these reasons he is a very worthy winner of this year’s award.
Noam Chomsky’s Response:
Naturally I am very pleased to be granted this honour, and to be able to accept this award also in the name of my colleague Edward Herman, the co-author of Manufacturing Consent, who himself has done a great deal of outstanding work on this crucial topic. Of course, we’re not the first people to have addressed it.
Predictably, one of the earlier ones was George Orwell. He’s written a not very well known essay that is the introduction of his famous book Animal Farm. It’s not known because it wasn’t published – it was found decades later in his unpublished papers, but it is now available. In this essay he points out that Animal Farm is obviously a satire on the totalitarian enemy; but he urges people in free England to not feel too self-righteous about that, because as he puts it, in England, unpopular ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. He goes on to give examples of what he means, and only a few sentences of explanation, but I think they’re to the point.
One reason, he says, is that the press is owned by wealthy men who have every interest in not having certain ideas expressed. His second is a interesting point, that we didn’t go into but should have: a good education. If you go to the best schools you have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things it just wouldn’t do to say. That, Orwell claims, is a powerful hook that goes well beyond the influence of the media.
Stupidity comes in many forms. I’d like to say a few words on one particular form that I think may be the most troubling of all. We might call it ‘institutional stupidity’. It’s a kind of stupidity that’s entirely rational within the framework within which it operates: but the framework itself ranges from grotesque to virtual insanity.
Instead of trying to explain it, it may be more helpful to mention a couple of examples to illustrate what I mean. Thirty years ago, in the early eighties – the early Reagan years – I wrote an article called ‘The Rationality of Collective Suicide’. It was concerned with nuclear strategy, and was about how perfectly intelligent people were designing a course of collective suicide in ways that were reasonable within their framework of geostrategic analysis.
I did not know at the time quite how bad the situation was. We have learnt a lot since. For instance, a recent issue of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists presents a study of false alarms from the automatic detection systems the US and others use to detect incoming missile attacks and other threats that could be perceived as nuclear attack. The study ran from 1977 to 1983, and it estimates that during this period there were a minimum of about 50 such false alarms, and a maximum of about 255. These were alarms aborted by human intervention, preventing disaster by a matter of a few minutes.
It’s plausible to assume that nothing substantial has changed since then. But it actually gets much worse – which I also did not understand at the time of writing the book.
In 1983, at about the time I was writing it, there was a major war scare. This was in part due to what George Kennan, the eminent diplomat, at the time called “the unfailing characteristics of the march towards war – that, and nothing else.” It was initiated by programs the Reagan administration undertook as soon as Reagan came into office. They were interested in probing Russian defences, so they simulated air and naval attacks on Russia.
This was a time of great tension. US Pershing missiles had been installed in Western Europe, with a flight time of about five to ten minutes to Moscow. Reagan also announced his ‘Star Wars’ program, understood by strategists on both sides to be a first strike weapon. In 1983, Operation Able Archer included a practice that “took Nato forces through a full-scale simulated release of nuclear weapons.” The KGB, we have learnt from recent archival material, concluded that armed American forces had been placed on alert, and might even have begun the countdown to war.
The world has not quite reached the edge of the nuclear abyss; but during 1983, it had, without realizing it, come frighteningly close – certainly closer than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The Russian leadership believed that the US was preparing a first strike, and might well have launched a preemptive strike. I am actually quoting from a recent US high-level intelligence analysis, which concludes that the war scare was for real. The analysis points out that in the background was the Russians’ enduring memory of Operation Barbarossa, the German code-name for Hitler’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union, which was the worst military disaster in Russian history, and came very close to destroying the country. The US analysis says that was exactly what the Russians were comparing the situation to.
That’s bad enough, but it gets still worse. About a year ago we learned that right in the midst of these world-threatening developments, Russia’s early-warning system – similar to the West’s, but much more inefficient – detected an incoming missile strike from the US and sent off the highest-level alert. The protocol for the Soviet military was to retaliate with a nuclear strike. But the order has to pass through a human being. The duty officer, a man named Stanislav Petrov, decided to disobey orders and not to report the warning to his superiors. He received an official reprimand. But thanks to his dereliction of duty, we’re now alive to talk about it.
We know of a huge number of false alarms on the US side. The Soviet systems were far worse. Now nuclear systems are being modernised.
The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have a famous Doomsday Clock, and they recently advanced it two minutes. They explain that the clock “ticks now at three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty, ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilisation.”
Individually, these international leaders are certainly not stupid. However, in their institutional capacity their stupidity is lethal in its implications. Looking over the record since the first – and so far only – atomic attack, it’s a miracle that we’ve escaped.
Nuclear destruction is one of the two major threats to survival, and a very real one. The second, of course, is environmental catastrophe.
There’s a well-known professional services group at PricewaterhouseCoopers who have just released their annual study of the priorities of CEOs. At the top of the list is over-regulation. The report says that climate change did not make it into the top nineteen. Again, the CEOs are doubtless not stupid individuals. Presumably they run their businesses intelligently. But the institutional stupidity is colossal, literally life-threatening for the species.
Individual stupidity can be remedied, but institutional stupidity is much more resistant to change. At this stage of human society, it truly endangers our survival. That’s why I think institutional stupidity should be a prime concern.
Thank you.
Questions From The Audience:
How could we overcome media propaganda and improve the media? Through education?
This is an old debate. In the US it has been debated for over a century within the framework of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which bars government action from preventing publication. Notice that it doesn’t protect freedom of speech, nor block punishment for speech.
There weren’t really many cases dealing with the First Amendment up until the Twentieth Century. The American press were very free previously, and there were a wide variety of all kinds of media: journals, magazines, pamphlets. The Founding Fathers believed in the freedom of information, and there were many efforts to stimulate the widest possible range of independent media. Freedom of speech, however, was not strongly protected.
Decisions on free speech began to be made around the First World War, but not by the courts. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the US established a high level of protection of freedom of speech. Meanwhile in the interwar period there was extensive discussion within the framework of what has been called ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ freedom, after Isaiah Berlin, of what the First Amendment implies about freedom of expression and of the press. There was a view sometimes called ‘corporate libertarianism’, which held that the First Amendment should concern negative freedom: that is the government can’t interfere with the right of media owners to do what they want. The other view was social democratic, and came out of the New Deal after the Depression and the early post-WWII period. That view held that there should also be positive freedom: in other words, that people should have the right to information as the basis for a democratic society. That battle was waged in the 1940s, and corporate libertarianism won. The US is unusual in this respect. There’s nothing like the BBC in the US. Most countries have some kind of national media which are as free as the society is. The US whacks that to the margins. The media were basically handed over to private power to exercise their capacities as they choose. That’s an interpretation of freedom of expression in terms of negative freedom: the state can’t intervene to affect what the private owners decide to do. There are a few restrictions, but not much. The consequences are pretty much a control of ideas as Orwell describes, and Edward Herman and I discuss this in great detail.
How do you overcome it? One way is education; but another way is by returning to the concept of positive freedom, which means recognising that in a democratic society we put a high value on the right of citizens to have access to a wide range of opinions and beliefs. That would, in the US, mean going back to what was in effect the earliest conception of the founders of the Republic, that there should be, not so much government regulation of what is said, but rather government support for a wide variety of opinions, news-gathering and interpretation – which can be stimulated in many ways.
Government means public: in a democratic society, government ought not to be some Leviathan making decisions. There are major grassroots projects that are trying to develop a more democratic media. This is a big battle because of the enormous power of the concentrated capital that of course tries to impede this in every possible way. But it’s a battle that has been going on for a long time, and there are fundamental issues at stake, including the issues of negative and positive freedoms.
Do you have any thoughts about the impact of search algorithms and search bubbles on the individual’s attempts to find information in their attempts to subvert Big Media?
Like all of you, I use search engines all the time. For people who are sufficiently privileged, the internet is very useful; but it’s usefulness is roughly to the extent that you do have privilege. ‘Privileged’ here means education, resources, a background ability to know what to look for.
It’s like a library. Suppose you decide ‘I want to be a biologist’, and so you join the Harvard Biology Library. Everything is in there, so in principle you can become a biologist; but of course it’s useless if you don’t know what to look for, and don’t know how to interpret what you see, and so on. It’s the same with the internet. There’s a huge amount of material out there – some valuable and some not – but it takes understanding, interpretation and background even to know what to look for. That’s quite apart from the fact that the Google system, for instance, is not a neutral system. It reflects advertiser interests in determining what’s prominent and what isn’t, and you have to know how to work your way through this maze. So it’s back to education and organisation enabling you to proceed.
I should stress that as an individual, you’re pretty limited in what you can come to understand, what ideas you can develop, how to think, even. So if you’re isolated, that highly restricts your ability to have and evaluate ideas, either in becoming a creative scientist or a functioning citizen. That’s one reason why the labor movement has always been at the forefront against information suppression, with workers education programs, for example, which were once extremely influential in both the UK and the US. The decline of what sociologists call ‘secondary associations’, where people come together to search and inquire, is one of the processes of atomisation which lead to people being isolated and facing this mass of information alone. So, the net’s a valuable tool, but as with all tools, you have to be in a position to be able to use it, and that’s not so simple. It requires significant social development.
How might it be possible to make institutions less stupid?
Well, it depends on what the institution is. I mentioned two: one is the government in control of a nuclear capacity; the other is the private sector, which is pretty much controlled through rather narrow concentrations of capital. They require different approaches. With regard to the government situation, this requires developing a functioning democratic society, in which an informed citizenry would play a central role in determining policy. The public is not in favour of facing death and destruction from nuclear weapons, and in this case we know in principle how to eliminate the threat. If the public were involved in developing security policy, I think this institutional stupidity could be overcome.
There’s a thesis in international relations theory that the prime concern of states is security. But that leaves open the question: Security for whom? If you look closely, it turns out it’s not security of the population, it’s security for privileged sectors within the society – the sectors who hold state power. There’s overwhelming evidence for this, which unfortunately I don’t have time to review. So one thing to do is to come to an understanding of whose security the state is in fact protecting: it’s not your security. It can be tackled by building a functioning democratic society.
On the issue of the concentration of private power, there’s also basically a problem of democratisation. A corporation is a tyranny. It’s the purest example of a tyranny you can imagine: power resides at the top, orders are sent down stage by stage, and at the very bottom, you have the option of purchasing what it produces. The population, the so-called stakeholders in the community, have almost no role in deciding what this entity does. And these entities have been granted extraordinary powers and rights, way beyond those of the individual. But none of it is graven in stone. None of it lies in economic theory. This situation is the result of, basically, class struggle, carried out by highly class-conscious business classes over a long period, which have now established their effective domination over society in various forms. But it doesn’t have to exist, it can change. Again, that’s a matter of democratising the institutions of social, political, and economic life. Easy to say, hard to do, but I think essential.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
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