White Collar Crime to Open Up for Japanese Punk Legends Ultra Bidé

Come out to the Cake Shop, on Ludlow Street and Stanton, LES, NYC, this Saturday night, 10/26/13, 8 PM, to be sonically annihilated by the interstellar noise of Alternative Tentacles' Ultra-Bidé and the liberating art punk of White Collar Crime. Also playing is Paint Fumes, fuzzed out indie punk from the Carolinas.

White Collar Crime is the brainchild of Sander Hicks, the social activist who started indie publishing company Soft Skull Press, and the radical coffee shop Vox Pop. Hicks sings about the NYC police state, the 9/11 cover-up and his addiction to love, backed up by the tight organ-bass-drums trio of Dale, Jon and Nick. The songs are full of raw emotion and sharp lyrics. White Collar Crime's live performances are filled with intense energy. Brandon Stousey (now with Pitchfork) in year 2000 said, "My friend turned to me and said, 'this is the best band ever.' My neck was shivering and I was ready to storm the White House. "

Dale W. Miller of White Collar Crime says, "I went to check out Ultra Bidé at The Saint in Asbury Park and the energy they created was like nothing I have heard before. They are right up there with my favorite Japanese noise bands, Melt-Banana, Ruins and Boredoms. They go beyond. They will not let you down. The sound they create with just two basses, vocals & drums is full and powerful. They hit the stage hard and quick, like any punk band should, leaving you wanting more. I know this Saturday they will not disappoint."

Ultra Bide record for Alternative Tentacles Records, a label founded by Dead Kennedys front man Jello Biafra. Jello met White Collar Crime's Sander Hicks in 2004, outside Sotheby's auction house, where the two were protesting the auctioning off of Johnny Cash's memorabilia during the RNC convention. Audio of this imprompty interview here:  http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2004/09/44065.html

Paint Fumes are a full on overdriven fuzzed out punk band form Charlotte, North Carolina. Their stimulating sound reminds one of Thee Oh Sees or Ty Segall.  The Trio consist of two guitarists and a drummer yet their sound is huge. CD out on Slovenly Records.

For More Info: Contact Skyler, indie rocker moonlighting as publicist   

561 674 7453 skylerisgnar@aim.com.
Links to Music on Web: Ultra Bidé , http://www.ultrabide.net
White Collar Crime, http://sanderhicks.com/wcc.html
Sander Hicks new songs  http://sanderhicks.bandcamp.com

Mainstream Journalist Hersh Censored on Bin Laden Murder Questions

Mainstream Journalist Hersh Censored on Bin Laden Murder Questions Dr. Kevin Barrett Press TV October 20, 2013 Several leading American mainstream journalists say that the US government is lying about 9/11 and the so-called war on terror. Unfortunately, media owners and editors won’t let them report their findings. Recently, Seymour Hersh, America’s top mainstream investigative reporter, broke the news that the US government’s claim to have killed Osama Bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 is “a big lie. There is not one word of truth in it.” Hersh went on to harshly criticize his long-time employer, the New York Times, and other big media outlets: “We lie about everything, lying has become the staple.” He said all big US media outlets should be shut down for lying to the American people. Other mainstream journalists agree that the US government’s story of Osama Bin Laden and 9/11 is a big lie. Sherwood Ross, an award-winning journalist who has worked for the City News Bureau of Chicago, the Chicago Daily News, and for Reuters and other wire services, told me in a recent radio interview: “It’s very doubtful that Muslims were behind 9/11. Think about this for one minute: That President Bush’s family had done business with the family of the man who allegedly made the terrorist attack, Osama Bin Laden. The Bin Laden family was actually on the board of Bush’s oil company. How is it possible that of all the billions of families in the world, the one family that makes the attack on America has done business with the President of America. That sounds more like a favor than anything else. I don’t think 9/11 was an Arab conspiracy or a Muslim conspiracy. I think it’s an American conspiracy to overthrow the government of the United States and install what is becoming a police state, and also to advance the imperial ambitions of the United States, to swindle the Middle East out of their energy resources.” Ross explained that American journalists are no longer free to expose even the most outrageous official falsehoods and fabrications: “You don’t see any serious questioning by the mainstream media. I thought one of the tip-offs that it was a put-up job was when a cameraman from a little weekly in Pennsylvania went to the site where this airliner had supposedly crashed (on 9/11). And he said, ‘I didn’t see any airliner. I saw a hole in the ground. I didn’t see any bodies. I didn’t see any luggage.’ All right, maybe that guy just made this up. But I don’t think so. I think he was just doing his job. And then at the Pentagon, you had the claim that airliner hit it. But again, there was no wreckage. Reporters who worked in the Press Room at the Pentagon went out there on the lawn, and they couldn’t see any airliner. So, over and over again, you have manufactured lies that the press largely is not reporting.” I asked Ross whether he is allowed to express such views in his articles for the Miami Herald, the Chicago Daily News, or the wire services. He answered: “Absolutely not. When I used to write for Reuters, covering workplace issues, for ten years, my columns were picked up from the New York Times to the L.A. Times. But if you write about ‘why did 7 World Trade Center collapse when it wasn’t hit by an airplane,’ nobody will pick it up. So, now my columns are used on the Internet by bloggers, and they’re used by Middle East wire services. I get phone calls from Press TV, and you can read my interviews there. But you won’t see me quoted by the Associated Press.” Another leading American journalist, Paul Craig Roberts, has also been banned from US mainstream media for telling the truth about 9/11. Dr. Roberts served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, won the French Legion of Honor and other awards for his contributions to economics, and has been a regular columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and other mainstream publications. But since he spoke out about the controlled demolitions of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers on 9/11, Paul Craig Roberts has been put on the mainstream media’s no-publish list. In a recent interview on my radio show, Dr. Roberts explained why the US mainstream media, as Seymour Hersh said, lies about everything: “One of the worst things that ever happened (to America) was when President Clinton allowed five companies to concentrate the American media. That destroyed its independence. And ever since Clinton permitted that, which was totally against all American tradition, and totally against the antitrust law … but in the United States, as we’ve seen, law doesn’t mean anything anymore. The minute these five conglomerates concentrated the media, the independence of the media disappeared. It’s no longer run by journalists, it’s run by corporate advertising executives. The value of these media conglomerates resides in their federal broadcast licenses. And so they can’t dare offend the government. Their licenses may not get renewed, and the entire multi-billion-dollar value of the companies would disappear. So, the so-called mainstream media is no longer the media. It doesn’t tell you anything. It’s a propaganda ministry – the Ministry of Propaganda. Gerald Celente calls them ‘presstitutes.’” Rather than writing for the mainstream media, Paul Craig Roberts is now exposing the fake killing of Osama Bin Laden and deconstructing the 9/11 false-flag operation for an independent outlet called the Institute for Political Economy. In a recent article published on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Dr. Roberts wrote: “The neoconservatives who advocate America’s hegemony over the world called for ‘a new Pearl Harbor’ that would allow them to launch wars of conquest … No evidence exists that supports the government’s 9/11 story … On this 12th anniversary of a false-flag event, it is unnecessary for me to report the voluminous evidence that conclusively proves that the official story is a lie. You can read it for yourself. It is available online. You can read what the architects and engineers (for 9/11 truth) have to say. You can read the scientists’ reports. You can hear from the first responders who were in the WTC towers. You can read the pilots who say that the maneuvers associated with the airliner that allegedly hit the Pentagon are beyond their skills and most certainly were not performed by inexperienced pilots. You can read David Griffin’s many books. You can watch the film produced by Richard Gage and Architects & Engineers for 9/11 truth. You can read the 9/11 Toronto Report, International Hearings on 9/11.” But don’t bother reading the mainstream media. As Seymour Hersh, Sherwood Ross, Paul Craig Roberts, and a rapidly growing number of ordinary Americans realize, the mainstream media’s motto is now: “We lie about everything. Lying has become the staple.” The government’s not demanding an investigation into an event that is the greatest embarrassment to a “superpower” in world history is a complete give-away that 9/11 was a false-flag event."

Upcoming Events for the 2 Year Anniversary of Occupy

I am inspired by this email from OWS - and am reposting it here on my blog. I am inspired by the recent film on Occupy that I posted about earlier. I am just generally inspired today, loving life, had a great workout, can't wait for the show tonight.....

Featured S17 Actions

Celebrate S17 with the People’s Puppets

Join the People’s Puppets for a morning bell procession around Wall Street!

Starting at 8am we will have a song teach-in for anyone that would like to participate in our musical, color-filled visual procession. This includes bringing to life the Declaration of the Occupation of NYC flowchart, which you can help build in our studio this Thursday, September 12th from 7:30 - and again on Monday the 16th.

Tax Wall Street, Pass the Robin Hood Tax

Join Occupy and allies for an action in support of the Robin Hood Tax, a transactional tax that will bill Wall Street for what they owe the American public, at 5 pm at the UN.

The Robin Hood Tax is a financial transaction tax that takes .05% of all financial transactions and puts that money towards essential social services like health care, student debt, global health, AIDS prevention and more

The action is assembling at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at the United Nations as the UN General Assembly Opens to protest the global connections to local austerity, before marching to JP Morgan Chase and various other poignant locations to demand that Wall Street pay back the money they stole from us.

Fight for Money Out of Politics at commission on political corruption

Occupiers and community groups are heading to Pace University at 6pm to speak out against the influence of Wall Street cash on our democracy.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption has begun its statewide sweep of campaign finance abuses, with the the first hearing fortuitously being held on September 17 in the financial district.

The decision makers will be right there, and you will be heard. Join us.

Occupy these S17 actions and events

Friday, September 15th:

Join Ballet at the Barricades at the Wall Street Bull for a free ballet class at 5 pm. Raise awareness for the upcoming S17 events and get some exercise. No experience necessary, either in ballet or rabble-rousing.

Participate in a walking tour and cartography party, starting from Bowling Green Park at 4 pm, that honors your own memories of the Occupy movement. Take time to remember your own experiences, hear those of others, and plan for the future.

Tuesday, September 17th:

On the morning of S17, the OWS Alternative Banking working group is releasing a new book entitled Occupy Finance.

The OWS Labor Outreach working group is also holding a solidarity action in Support of Fast Food Workers.

Then there is a protest of the Trans Pacific Pipeline, as well as a TPP Puppet Theater Spectacle. Want to help? Check out the performer call at OccupyWallSt.org.

You can further join the People's exchange, and keep tabs on on-going plans for action, a citywide assembly, and a people's assembly to end the day.

For more on S17

Go to http://s17ows.org/ to learn about ongoing plans.

Find additional S17 actions and information at InterOccupy, NYCGA.net, OccuEvolve, and on the OWS S17 2013 Facebook event page.

Occupy in the News

99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film was released this week, screening in LA and NYC until tomorrow. This documentary, made up of footage from amateur and professional cameras, is said to capture the spirit of that moment in 2011.

Fast Company took lessons from the extreme collaboration inherent to how the 107 filmmakers were able to put this together. The New York Times further depicted how “Such pluralism is a metaphor for its subject, as the variety of physical perspectives lends a vivid you-are-there aspect to this record of the Zuccotti Park protest in New York in 2011.”

“The film is not unlike Occupy itself--fascinating, intensely photogenic, frenzied and occasionally maddening”, remarked the The Daily Beast.  

Occupy Network team member Kristian Nammack reviews it by reporting that: “It is an amazing document, especially for those of us who were not in The Park. Lots of familiar faces, and it really ties back well to the original OWS focus on the personal and social destruction inherent in gross income inequality.”

Lastly: “Almost two years to the day that the Occupy Wall Street movement started, a report confirms that the rich are getting even richer.”

Indeed, the top one percent took record 19.3% of US income last year - the LARGEST share of pre-tax income since 1927. We clearly have much more work to do.

Movie Review: 99% Occupy Wall Street

My life feels just a bit brighter and richer because I went in and saw this new film, "99% Occupy Wall Street." It's a colorful, well-made, moving piece of documentary film-making. It's not perfect, but it manages to help make sense of the importance and the persistent promise of Occupy.

The film does a good job of telling and building the story: Occupy's birth at Zucoti Park, thanks to Adbusters and Anonymous, its rapid spread planet wide thanks to the masses, and the ratcheting up of a brutal, insensitive police response thanks to the system. Meanwhile, the crimes of Wall Street go unprosecuted. The junk mortgages, the scams, the yawning class divide. The corporate media don't quite get any of the story.

"99%" delivers compelling doses of good information using social critic expert like Matt Taibi and Naomi Wolfe. Juxtaposed of course with real life stories of a struggling African-american mother getting foreclosed in North Minneapolis, the evolution of NY Occupy activist Hero Vincent, and plenty of up-close and personal footage of mass arrests. Did you know that the Week 2 mass arrest of over 740 people corralled into Brooklyn Bridge was one of the biggest mass arrests in history? That's a good sign. We need more good signs.

One interesting thing to note is the film was billed to have been made "collaboratively" among "100 different film-makers" but that process is never explained. At the end, we learn there were four main directors. I think that that's OK, personally. But how was this film new? Part of the packaging of the film was that it was a new mode of collaborative creation.

And because of that, I was a little worried.  I wasn't sure how the film could cover the polyphonous sprawling critique of society and capitalism that Occupy sought to articulate, without leaders, programs, or doctrine. Like Occupy, the film tends to present the problems of class inequality, economic imbalance as a problem that naturally leans toward its own resolution: we need some sort of major deep economic reform, and no one is quite sure how.

No one, that is, except Naomi Wolf. Author of The End of America, The Beauty Myth, etc. she comes off as a dissenter among dissenters. She breaks with the anarchistic flat-hierarchy philosophy of the "general assembly" and the "leaderless/leaderful" model. She claims that all effective social movements had hierarchies, and that a consensus-based, flat-hierarchy model is a recipe for dissolution. She isn't challenged by any other voices on this point in the film, so it seems that the film-makers are backing her view. Perhaps this is a kind of favor to the movement: doing a kind of autopsy on why Occupy rose quickly, but fell or faded. I mean, hell, I should stop saying "this thing outside myself Occupy" the way I think it, and make it personal. I was there right after the Brooklyn Bridge mass arrests, my friend Yana was arrested there among the historic 742. Occupy was a magical feeling of family. I felt a little bit of it tonight in the movie theatre, sitting down and sharing some of my vegan pizza with the strangers who were sitting next to me. Because they cared about Occupy too, we were automatically family. I don't know why it all went away. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it's still in our hearts, and will come back out, in a better, more fluid, more focussed way. It's OK to reflect on what we did wrong, and what went very right. It's OK to want to get better. This film fired me up to look back on the last two years, and then look forward to the next forty.

Trailer and info here.

Film Review by Sander Hicks.
Come see Sander sing with working-class heroes White Collar Crime, this Thursday, 9/12, at Pyramid Club. NYC. With Nomadic Collective and Kaleidoscope Community Yoga. Info.

No War: Syria Next?

Dave from Sacramento Peace Action put together a great series of links on what is really going on as the US War Beast eyes Syria.....

Re: SYRIA UPDATE - Truth Priority Informative Links 8-31-13 David Kimball <truth.priority@gmail.com> 5:34 PM (3 hours ago) to bcc: me SYRIA UPDATE - Truth Priority Informative Links  Compiled by David R. Kimball         August 31, 2013 Obama to Seek Congressional Approval for Syria Strike (Video) by Ben Geman 8-31-13 http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/319787-obama-to-make-rose-garden-statement-on-syria Obama’s Syria Attack: The Health of the Military Industrial Complex, by Kurt Nimmo 8-31-13 http://www.infowars.com/obamas-syria-attack-the-health-of-the-military-industrial-complex/  U.S. Neocon Hawks Take Flight Over Syria, by Jim Lobe 8-31-13 http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/08/u-s-neocon-hawks-take-flight-over-syria/ PNAC members all too similar to the 66 “experts” pressuring Obama into Syria, posted by James 8-30-13 http://12160.info/group/impending-attack-on-syria/forum/topics/2649739:Topic:1302216  America Totally Discredited by Paul Craig Roberts 8-30-13 http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/08/30/america-totally-discredited-paul-craig-roberts/ Brzezinski: ‘Global Political Awakening Making Syrian War Difficult, by Mikael Thalen 8-29-13 http://www.storyleak.com/brzezinski-global-political-awakening-making-syrian-war-difficult/ Fuhrer Obama to Attack Syria Without Asking Congress, posted by TheAlexJonesChannel 8-28-13 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJQowcWToDM  44:57 Russia Defends Syria With Vigor, by Alexander Warkentin 8-28-13 http://www.dw.de/russia-defends-syria-with-vigor/a-17051638 Pretext to Wage War on Syria: Another False Flag Operation, History Repeating Itself, by Global Research News 8-28-13 http://www.globalresearch.ca/pretext-to-wage-war-on-syria-another-false-flag-operation-history-repeating-itself/5347176  The Drums of War are Beating: Killing Civilians to Protect Civilians in Syria, by Marjorie Cohn and Jeanne Mirer 8-28-13 http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-drums-of-war-are-beating-killing-civilians-to-protect-civilians-in-syria/5347187 In Rush to Strike Syria, U.S Tried to Derail UN Probe, by Gareth Porter 8-27-13 http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/08/in-rush-to-strike-syria-u-s-tried-to-derail-u-n-probe/ “Brzezinski denounces what appears to be imminent military action against Syria” Brzezinski: Syria Strategy is a ‘Well-kept Secret’ 8-26-13 http://www.dw.de/brzezinski-syria-strategy-is-a-well-kept-secret/a-17045802 Tarpley on Brzezinski: http://archive.org/details/BarackObamaAndZbigniewBrzezhinski-ObamasRealMotives Syria: Another Western War Crime in the Making, by Paul Craig Roberts 8-26-13 http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/08/26/syria-another-western-war-crime-in-the-making-paul-craig-roberts/   Terrorism with a “Human Face”: The History of America’s Death Squads Death Squads in Iraq and Syria.  The Historical Roots of US-NATO’s Covert War on Syria, by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky 8-26-13 http://www.globalresearch.ca/terrorism-with-a-human-face-the-history-of-americas-death-squads/5317564  US Military Intervention on Syria Can Lead to WWIII: Analyst, posted by Kevin Barrett 8-25-13 http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/08/25/hagel-syria/  UN Human Rights Report on Syria: Camoflage of US-NATO Sponsored Massacres, by Stephen Lendman 1-2-13 http://www.globalresearch.ca/un-human-rights-report-on-syria-camouflage-of-us-nato-sponsored-massacres/5317624

Come See Sander Hicks Debate Todd Seavey Over BITCOIN!

Tomorrow, I have been invited to a public debate on the question of Bitcoin, the digital currency. Will it survive? Just what is it? And why does it matter.

This is something I got passionate about this Summer, after attending a whole conference on the topic in Silicon Valley, California. I wrote a long article on the revolutionary characters, ex-pat currency crusaders, and libertarian heroes who were there. I will share some sneak peeks from that article below. (Look for it to be published soon in the upcoming issue of Bitcoin Magazine. How delightful!)

Here's the event info from Todd Seavey, who is producing the debate:

      

The Dionysium presents a debate next week, Mon., August 12th (8pm) on 

"Bitcoin: Can It Endure as a Currency?" 

featuring:  

YES: leftist activist, author, and entrepreneur Sander Hicks 

NO: libertarian writer, editor, and sometime debate-moderator Todd Seavey

with loads of audience Q&A -- and by all means spread the word to those, y'know, money-type people. 

 

Our new moderator is the witty and charming Pamela Stubbart, a "liberal-tarian" entrepreneur and free thinker. 

It's all Mon., August 12th (8pm), at the Muchmore's performance space/bar in Williamsburg, ground floor of 2 Havemeyer St. (corner of N. 9th St.), just three blocks east of the easily-reached first L stop into Brooklyn, Bedford Ave.

----

Here's a bit of a preview of the kind of nice things I might say about Bitcoin, from my article recently accepted by Bitcoin Magazine.

Bitcoin is a liquid currency and an investment vehicle.  It’s an open-source, peer-to-peer, encrypted currency. Bitcoin, or “BTC” doesn’t have any corporate entity behind it. Its price floats on the free market. People use $16 billion a year of Bitcoin right now. It’s a quick and cheap way to move money. Bitinstant fees start at 3.99%, while Western Union can cost between 7% and 22%, depending on the country of origin. (A study from the World Bank reports unsurprising high profit margins of the money moving business.)

This past May, venture capitalist Fred Wilson and others invested a record $5 million in CoinBase, a major Bitcoin service. Bitcoin, Wilson said, follows the same pattern that has made other forms of social web technology triumphant.

But Bitcoin is more than a great investment. To its diehard fans, it’s a banner under which unites a broad swath of dissent: progressives to libertarians, anarchists to goldbugs, Occupiers and anti-Federal Reserve activists and truthers. It has the potential to attract anyone who uses money.

According to an early Bitcoin investor, who is now independently wealthy, “Bitcoin will be the liberator for the world’s poor giving them access to the global marketplace on a scale never seen before. If bitcoin can give market access to that many people the entire planet will experience an upswing comparable to the industrial revolution, only stronger.”

When blogging software company Wordpress recently decided to accept Bitcoin, it was out of a love for freedom of expression. MasterCard and Visa don’t work in “underdeveloped” countries. But Bitcoin works everywhere. “We don’t think an individual blogger from Haiti, Ethiopia, or Kenya should have diminished access to the blogosphere because of payment issues they can’t control,” said Wordpress folk, “Our goal is to enable people, not block them.”

So, why then, does Bitcoin get such harsh resistance from mainstream economists like Paul Krugman? And why all the cynical swipes from the Washington Post? Why was the top exchange, Mt. Gox, raided by Homeland Security, early in May 2013?

Who stands to gain, and who stands to lose, at this new disruptive currency rises in stature?

BE THERE!