Morning Comrades!
I’m fresh out of my may day outings at the time of writing this, so bear with me if things get a little muddied, it’s been a day. I am going to be sharing a little story that happened here in Hamburg today that, whilst being incredibly specific to this town it illustrates the level of conflict we, the people, are currently at with, with our rulers. In addition there was a little blimp on my news radar from the US that I wanted to share with as I think it fell under the radar that illustrates a similar point.
In terms of housekeeping I am bringing back the hot shots, partially, to this platform as well as our telegram channel as IG continues to prove impossible to use. I won’t bother with details but currently I am reaching less than 1% on that channel so I am going to give that a rest.
Let’s kick this off with a new playlist, Black Lodges Weekly Jams 138 is another 3hr selection of tunes that caught my attention last week without any other “curation” - it’s just good tunes to carry you through your week. For all the new readers on here, that’s all it is, hit shuffle and cruise through your week with some quality jams. I try to keep the metal out of these but other that, all genre’s of music are fair game. This week is a little heavy on hip hop, unusual as that is with a strong selection of deep cuts from post-punk, psych, blues and wavey as fuck soundscapes.
Masks Off, Masks On
May Day, Hamburg, 2022 - Obviously, at the time of writing the protests and marches are ongoing and I wanted to share a little local insanity with you. On a state level, with Hamburg being one of the 16 states in this federal republic, we had mask mandates for pretty much everything up until April 30th - which, when the first pandemic may day rolled around in 2020 caused an unsuspecting stir. Up until Covid hit, masking, as in masking your face so that anonymity is guaranteed during any protests was illegal in Germany, questionable as that is, but that’s that. Obviously once Covid hit, large gatherings of people were prohibited so there were no official protests on May Day here - obviously, there were but since they were “illegal” the police had even less qualms using their draconian methods of force and detention to deter people to gather - but come this May Day, the state senate here decided to drop the mask mandate on April 30th. A coincidence, I am sure, but on the same day issued a statement saying that anyone partaking on any May Day protest with a FFP2 mask or otherwise would be guilty of braking the no-mask laws during protests…
When “legality” is nothing but a tool to protect and serve those that make the rules, what are we talking about here? Doesn’t this already fall under the definition of total abuse of power - especially in this case, when Covid is far from over, numbers are insanely high and masks offer a pretty solid defense against an airborne virus? Excuse the cynicism but for fucks sake, when do we realize that every action by our governments at this point is only there to target the masses and protect the select few rich? There was no scientific reason for dropping the mask mandate at that date, on the contrary, the science and scientist are losing their collective minds, once again due to this political decision - but hey, I guess the dates were just coincidence. We, the people work and pay taxes to these people and in return we expect more than coercion and in this case more than purposely, on international workers’ day of all days, forcing us to either stay home in health solidarity or adhere to their insane politics. As much as this is obviously very specific to my situation here, it illustrates just another “masks off” moment in a long line of said moments that, if anything, once this pandemic had started, shows who the people we pay, serve. It certainly isn’t us and what point do we consider our governments at war with its own populace that is only kept in check by force, aka, the police and their courts? At what point is their wanton corruption to singularly serve “business interests”, that at the very best of times are still destroying this planet, is direct opposition to the needs and wants of those people, aka us, that pay them?
Welcome To The Ministry Of Truth
In the US’ time honoured tradition of adding more bullshit to their alphabet soup of spy and war agencies, a new one popped up on my radar that quite frankly made me question my own reading abilities for a hot minute, but of course, when War is Peace, all Orwellian references obviously are bound to become reality sooner or later. As Caitlin Johnstone put it:
“The Department of Homeland Security has secretly set up a "Disinformation Governance Board", only informing the public about its plans for the institution after it had already been established.
The disinformation board, which critics have understandably been calling a "Ministry of Truth", purportedly exists to fight disinformation coming out of Russia as well as misleading messages about the US-Mexico border. We may be certain that the emphasis in the board's establishment has been on the Russia angle, however.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, in her patented "You're such a crazy idiot for questioning me about the White House" manner, dismissed alarmed questions about what specific functions this strange new DHS entity was going to be performing and what its authority will look like.
It is not like the CIA / NSA etc haven’t been ohard at work for the past 70 years when it comes to narrative control around the West but creating an official board that does just that, and that is exactly its job is just getting a little too crazy even for this fan of the X-Files. It’s one thing to suspect your government to do the above, but to know and effectively have no voice on the matter is an entire different set of truths all together. I am sure, that, at some point the initial idea to have an official, public, system to counter false information seemed like a good idea but, even if we were to solely judge our own governments history in regards to “truths”, we all should be screaming like werewolves on a full moon, baying for blood. Essentially, in a post-factual world in which all media has sold out to the highest bidder, it was just a question of time for this to happen, but I, for one, feel incredibly “worried” with the US government, again, solely based on their track record, in charge of the narrative control. Again, asking the same question as above: As much as this is obviously very specific to a situation in the U.S., it illustrates just another “masks off” moment in a long line of said moments that, if anything, once this pandemic had started, shows who the people we pay, serve.
Here is a selection of hot shots from the past days for your infotainment, rabbit holes, sharing and so on. I’ll post what I can here and the full set will go out via our telegram channel. Thanks for your time and attention, I’ll be back on Wednesday. Until then, I remain yours, without compromise,
V.