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posted by
davidt
on Tuesday September 21 2010, @12:00PM
Kewpie sends the link (via Morrissey reddit), originally posted by Walter Ego in the forums (original post):
A clarion call for the movement - SocialistWorker.org Excerpt: MORRISSEY HAS also had a relationship with LMHR in the past. Back in 2008, he gave several thousand pounds to the group to help out with one of your carnivals. With his recent comments, though--calling the Chinese a "subspecies"--do you think there will be any kind of relationship in the future? NO, I think it's gone now... ...I don't believe it's a mistake. I think it's conscious, and I think he's gone too far. In our organization, some of the bands have already met and talked about it, and we don't want to be associated with him. We feel it's not helpful to anybody. Of course, he could come out and make a clear denunciation, saying he didn't say it--he hasn't done that so far. And he hasn't contacted us to say he wants to distance himself from his statements. I think really he has to grow up at minimum.
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Martin Smith (Love Music, Hate Racism) on Morrissey 'subspecies' comment
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list of bands, please (Score:0)
what a bunch of (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't usually defend Morrissey on here, but he just said waht most of feel, when it comes to animal cruelty. The Chinese have an appalling human and animal rights recdord, and until they improve their habits, then they are behaving like a sub-species, just like our friends who force halal butchery on our society in the name of tolerance and multi-cultural acceptance. It needs to stop!
I say vive la Morrissey on this one, and LMHR can fuck off and find a new hobby horse to moan about. How about starting up a society called, 'Love Music Hate Cruelty'.
From the article: (Score:0)
"I would have been more suspicious, but before that, he was starting to hang around LMHR concerts. He came to one of our very first gigs with the Libertines. He was there, he signed T-shirts, and he really wanted to support us. He was already beginning to hang around with anti-racist bands, and we thought, "Come on, let's give the man a chance." He sponsored the carnival, gave us $44,000, and he also wanted us to put stalls up at his gigs to make a strong anti-racist statement. We thought that was worth doing."
this is so silly, it made me laugh (Score:0)
you tried and you failed, again.
Don't know what to say about LMHR... (Score:1, Interesting)
"I think really he has to grow up at minimum. " (Score:0)
Skew Whiff (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead LMHR grab onto a word, wrongly quoted by themselves, and wring a completely disproportionate interpretation of it. Sadly, media nestlings will follow this hook, line and sinker, being guided away from considering the point being made and its context.
That's just the way it goes.
(User #12673 Info)
Who care's what other little bands think of Moz (Score:0)
Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:1, Flamebait)
Guess what? The only person who could possibly answer those questions is Morrissey. And guess what? He is refusing to do so. What are our options? We can either ignore what he said altogether (since there is no way of telling exactly what he said, given that the words that he so carelessly throws around fail to convey only one thought) or we can condemn him for allowing some people to interpret his message as racist. Either option is available to us. I hate to say this, but I'm starting to think that Morrissey's cognitive growth was suppressed sometime around 1987. It's like he simply doesn't understand how language functions. It's as though he believes that yelling "Fire" in a movie theater is permissible if one does it to describe an explosion depicted on the screen. He feels no compunction to explain himself because he thinks that the words that come out of his mouth are self-interpreting (i.e. unambiguous and clear). Either he's not a racist, but he's too stupid to realize that he talks and acts like a racist (my vote), or he is one, and he's smart enough to veil it in linguistic ambiguities. Either option ain't very charming.
(User #23697 Info)
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:3, Insightful)
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:3, Interesting)
I would like to know who can you say is being adversely affected by his words in this instance, when everyone knows that his main point was to castigate practitioners of extreme animal cruelty.
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:2, Interesting)
(User #16308 Info)
Parent
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:2, Interesting)
You have provided nil proof that his words did harm in this instance. Granted, sometimes when people are pulled up on a habit, their pride is pricked. Shame can be appropriate sometimes. A paraphrase of the controversial observation would be: "After seeing the documentary on animal brutality in China, I find it difficult to imagine that the perpetrators of such heinous acts could be fully human."
He's not a racist; he's a harmonist.
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:2, Interesting)
Can we try to employ non-violent language and not 'accuse' eachother of this and that? The editorial board of the NME admitted on TV a few years ago that they pursued a vendetta to frame Morrissey in the '90s. Tom Jonze moved from the NME and is music editor of the Guardian, the paper that printed this interview. So there are grounds for a little suspicion.
You say Morrissey is using racism; you have your mind made up. In a Q & A session on www.true-to-you.net in Dec 2005, he said, "I would go to wherever there seemed to be interest - except China, which is too barbaric. In China, as we all now know, cats and dogs are skinned alive for the fur industry. Come, come, nuclear bomb." He mentioned this elsewhere before too.
He boycotted Canada for seal-hunting, and chided Spain for bull-fighting etc etc. It is nothing to do with the intrinsic make-up of the races, and all to do with treatment of animals. He made a clear unambiguous statement on the same site condemning racism two years later - http://true-to-you.net/morrissey_news_071203_02 [true-to-you.net] . All the writers involved in printing the current story know this.
Since we're splitting hairs, suppose he'd put a question mark after the reflection, "You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies?" Since they're taking him literally, despite his easily-decipherable meaning, according to the subject of his sentence he personally never said that he thinks or feels that the Chinese are anything at all!
Some people have intimated that this word 'subspecies' was used by fascists. Much of what people say is unreliable. I don't know. Is there a list of banned words somewhere that should never be mentioned in any circumstance, the articulation of which is like wearing a Star of David in 1942 Berlin? There is something potentially poetic and harmonic in sounding a word of slippery biological associations in the same breath as unspeakable brutality against fellow creatures is being outed. Sometimes we humans are not such a kind species as we could be.
I also wondered if LMHR have an official public mandate to monitor discourse and call the impure to account in this heavy-handed way, giving themselves lattitude to rake up mistakes, mis-quote offenders and flay them alive, metaphorically speaking?
There may be parallels between this over-kill and the pressure put on Americans for evidence of patriotism, a report on which finishes with the insight that,
"Focusing not on those who fail to fly the flag, but on those who support institutionalized discrimination, torture, and other policies that are, arguably, rather inconsistent with what America “aims to be.” Of course, she wouldn’t get to promote stale old stereotypes about unpatriotic liberals if she took that approach." - http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007050006 [mediamatters.org]
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Re:Ambiguity-cum-stupidity (Score:2, Informative)
I wasn't being contrary. You did call Morrissey racist a few times, and now claim that he's made racially insensitive comments apart from animal rights issues.
Lots of people enjoy being amateur psychologists these days, walking around with the blind spot flapping in the wind. You'd like to take the unruly boy in hand, right?!
If words have social histories, they also have personal and situational histories. Unless malice aforethought is evident, the benefit of the doubt is a fairer response than charges of guilt before considering innocence. For some people words have futures too, and are more important to attack than deeds.
Everybody's different. Morrissey's a lyricist, an artist.
Writer Yann Martel says, "The imagination has always played a role in how we understand the past. It is one of the ways that we survive in the river of Time, and no event should ever be denied the lifebuoy of art. Therefore, with the intent not of replacing the historical approach but of complementing it, I suggest that we make the gate of... allegory a little wider, a little higher, so that artists might freely bring in their wares of metaphors and symbols." http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article7132158.ece [timesonline.co.uk]
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Re:For Real!?! (Score:2, Informative)
My pet theory (in other words, not to be taken too seriously) is that the die-hard sycophants are trying to retain a personal picture of Morrissey that doesn't quite square with the man he has actually become. Morrissey, for most of us, played a central role in structuring who we became as adults. From our aesthetic standards, to our intellectual pursuits, to our emotional characters, Morrissey touched them all. Now, however, it is becoming increasingly obvious that the ideal Morrissey of our youth is no longer: He's wrinkly. He's fat. The quiff is sagging. The teeth are going. His lyrics lack the emotional depth and nuance of the golden years. The unsavory details of his financial life (the Smiths trial, the endless reissues) have cast a shadow on his artistic integrity.
The recognition that one's own identity is indebted to something that has become so ugly is unbearable for some, and so they turn violently against his critics in order to preserve the pristine image that we all love. (They are waging an existential war for their very souls!
(User #23697 Info)
Parent
Crashing bores! (Score:0)
it's quite amusing
as always with this site agree to disagree
moz probbably won't loose too much sleep over it
and neither will associates of LMHR
lets draw the line there please
I think he's gone too far ??? (Score:1, Insightful)
NO mention of this at the Olympics 2 yrs ago
(User #13161 Info)
Blown out of all proportion (Score:0)
it is possible (Score:1)
(User #16308 Info)
For anyone who has never SEEN this (Score:1, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riYrQj9zEZs&feature=player_embedded#!
As someone said above, it's the posturing "Rik" of "The Young Ones" or "Student Grant". Very sad to see that puerile posturing in a middle-aged man's body though LOL
Meh (Score:0)
Blah blah blah (Score:2, Informative)
Come on now, Martin. Be honest. You're not Mother Teresa...
(User #827 Info)
okay then (Score:0)
it's really anything the media can get their hands on lately
SocialistWorker.org ? (Score:0)
LMHR is just mad... (Score:0)
Martin Smith (Score:0)
you think Moz will denounce???? (Score:1, Funny)
'subspecies' (Score:0)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6A07iTfaGnY [youtube.com]
Sub-Specious (Score:2, Insightful)
The main principles from which the forum agreed to set out in their explorations were as follows:
"Freedom of expression and freedom from racism and racial discrimination
are not conflicting, but complementary rights. We should keep in mind that
human rights are interdependent and interconnected. This means that (i)
there can be no such thing as two conflicting human rights and that (ii)
human rights need to be interpreted in light of each other.
• Because there is no conflict, but interdependence, it is not just a question
of protecting one right (freedom from racism and racial discrimination)
while respecting the other (freedom of expression); it is also a question of
protecting one right through the other. One way of doing this is by ensuring
a balanced application of the provisions against incitement to racial hatred.
In spite of perceptions to the contrary, these provisions are still today
predominantly applied against minority groups, not majority.
• Problems in striking the balance between the two rights that have been
experienced in Europe recently do not come only from difficulties that are
inherent to these rights. They come from external circumstances, too.
These are essentially the climate of anxiety and fear created by the
modalities of the global fight against terrorism and, as a result of this, the
erosion in government and public support to human rights generally.
• In such a context, it is all the more important that good journalism be
supported. However, the trend in Europe today is in the opposite direction.
There needs to be much more support given to media initiatives geared
towards ethical journalism. A media that is ethical in general terms is also
capable of using the necessary responsibility in exercising freedom of
expression." - http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/activities/22-freedom_of_expression_seminar_2006/NSBR2006_proceedings_en.pdf [coe.int] .
Simon Armitage spoke on BBC 4 radio yesterday and referred to Morrissey as 'a remarkable creature'. I hardly think Morrissey is so petty as to take his one-time wannabe fan to task for implying that his interviewee is some sort of subspecies.
And who is he that he thinks he can get away with normalising the idea of women of a named country being at the beck and call of celebrities to pleasure their every peccadillo?
"Rock'n'roll riders are famously lavish or idiosyncratic, but I am in the company of a man who is famously abstemious. So where there might have been gallons of Jack Daniel's and chopped pharmaceuticals offered on the bare breasts of Filipino slave girls, it comes down to a straight choice between hand-stitched tea bags and several cans of Fanta orange, Morrissey's fizzy drink of choice."
This is worse because it's gratuitous, surely? It's a comment that in its narrative quite happily lives with the abuse of poor females from particular parts of the world, whereas at least Morrissey's tinkering with fuses, words louder than bombs, for the purpose of positive change for all of life .
(User #12673 Info)
Re:Sub-Specious (Score:2, Insightful)
If you do accept that the journalists and media may be prepared to pounce blood-thirstily on a chance to smoke Morrissey out of his unassailable town/world, I don't understand where you're coming from. It's excellent to combat racism, but anaemically defensive and dangerous to banish any references to race or nationality which are not strictly Pollyannishly upbeat.
(User #12673 Info)
Parent
Animals (Score:1, Interesting)
Unbelievable (Score:0)
Great Leap Forward and Great Chinese Famine
In January 1958, Mao Zedong launched the second Five-Year Plan known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. Some private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.
Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labor to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961 (Spence, 553).
In an effort to win favor with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in the largest famine in human history. This famine was a direct cause of the death of some 30 millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962 and about the same number of births were lost or postponed.[45] Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival, died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).
I wonder just wonder if an apparent disregard for the fluffy animals stems from this relatively recent chinese history?
What about REAL racism? (Score:0)
LMHR please reply.
Yaaawwn. (Score:0)
LMHR Distancing From Morrissey (Score:0)
Follow the money or lack thereof (Score:0)
Like he's not made numerous "politically incorrect" statements before; that's who he is.
The simple fact is if Morrissey was foolish enough to call up Mr. Smith here and offer his organization another, say, 10-20,000 pounds, good ol' Martin would turn around, drop his trousers and say "stick it in", all's forgiven.
Really if all those no name, no talent other bands he "consulted" with pooled all their earnings together they might be able to donate 10% of what Morrissey did the last go around.
Come on (Score:0)
Carnivore hypocrisy (Score:0)
Love Morrissey Hate Criticism (Score:0)
Suck it up your man has flaws.
Prawn cracker anyone.................?
To compare Morrissey's comment (Score:0)
"One can't help but feel that Indians are still living in the dark ages."
Or how about the Pakistani cricket teams alleged cheating/ spot-fixing. Of which I feel quite aggrieved having spent money on a Test Match Imagine if an English person had come out with this:
"One can't help but feel that Pakistanis are cheats."
So stop defending Morrissey's comments. He was out of order Even if he was beng clever by saying "sub-species." Yeh right.
subspecies? (Score:1)
He has confidants of all colors. Just another 3rd world regime that must learn to be kind. "charming if you like" Next region; the repressed MEN of the middle east. So repressed with no outcome or future. Lost cause for our short life. That is an evil land. China is now a super power of goods. Maybe the second girl will be allowed to live. Be direct, I am.
(User #19083 Info)
God... (Score:0)
Why can't they all be skinned and turned inside out or whatever...
well (Score:1)
(User #22602 Info)
What exactly does LMHR do? (Score:0)
Re:I don't blame them (Score:0)
Parent