Democracy for New Mexico

Are You Watching Live 8?

Live 8 goes on all day in 13 cities around the globe. You can watch or listen on VH1, MTV, XM Satellite Radio and AOL. Even if you're not a member of AOL, you can watch feeds from London, Paris, Rome, Toronto, Philadelphia and Berlin, as well as a global feed that travels between concerts.

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So far I've seen segments with Annie Lennox, Black Eyed Peas, Bryan Adams and an excellent Afro-Caribbean band called Doba Coracol, fronted by two drumming women. The AOL feeds are great if you have a fast connection. Unfortunately I missed the London opening with Sir Paul McCartney and U2, as well as Sir Elton John, Cold Play and REM, but I understand AOL will have videos of many performances up later. Right now I'm hearing some Italian guy in the old Circus Maximus in Roma playing a mean acoustic blues guitar and singing blues in Italian. This is the aspect of globalism I love.

Lots of photos.

Bruce Cockburn, as always, is kick ass in Toronto, including this old gem. Things haven't changed much:

by Bruce Cockburn, written Nov. 1985

Padded with power here they come
international loan sharks backed by the guns
of market hungry military profiteers
whose word is a swamp and whose brow is smeared
with the blood of the poor

Who rob life of its quality
who render rage a necessity
by turning countries into labour camps
modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom

Sinister cynical instrument
who makes the gun into a sacrament --
the only response to the deification
of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'
idolatry of ideology

North south east west
kill the best and buy the rest
it's just spend a buck to make a buck
you don't really give a flying fuck
about the people in misery

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

See the paid-off local bottom feeders
passing themselves off as leaders
kiss the ladies shake hands with the fellows
open for business like a cheap bordello

And they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy
and they call it democracy

See the loaded eyes of the children too
trying to make the best of it the way kids do
one day you're going to rise from your habitual feast
to find yourself staring down the throat of the beast
they call the revolution

IMF dirty MF
takes away everything it can get
always making certain that there's one thing left
keep them on the hook with insupportable debt

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"Music makes the people come together, yeah."

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"Don't drink the water -- there's blood in the water."

Get Off Your High Horse

Quote of the week, courtesy MyDD, from a letter to the editor of The Courier News (Elgin, IL), regarding the appearance of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the Senate Armed Services Committee:

At one point, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said he couldn't take it any more. He said Americans have a right to know what's happening in Iraq because they're paying for the war with the lives of their young men and women and billions of tax dollars.

Looking at Rumsfeld, Byrd accused him of sneering. "I don't mean to be discourteous, but I've heard enough of your smart answers. Get off your high horse when you come up here. I have to run for re-election and you don't. We represent the American people and they are asking questions. They haven't been told the truth. The administration says we're unpatriotic if we ask questions, but that's our job." ...