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joeonmusic · 8 months

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New EP 'Resist' from The Missed Trees out on Thursday

My alt-folk duo released our debut EP back in April to some great feedback, as you can see in this blog post I wrote back then. At the time, I said we were deciding whether to release an EP of songs we had been playing for a while called Solitude, or to go for a more political EP - well as you can see we've gone the later.

Earlier this year, I was incensed by the rhetoric of the government, as they were trying to whip up anger about vulnerable people arriving on our shores in the most desperate way to deflect from their failings. They made it a specific pledge to stop small boats and spent a lot of time and effort dehumanising victims of global issues, like the climate crisis, war and poverty, which have been largely caused by countries like ours. At the same time, these privileged, wealthy politicians, who are so detached from the everyday life of normal people, were making it impossible for anyone to arrive here legally to claim asylum, thereby forcing more people onto small boats and into the hands of criminals.

The song I wrote is not really an angry-sounding protest song. I went for a more subtle approach with a very melodic classic-sounding English pop/folk song, but with some biting lyrics. For example, the second verse goes:

"We are told there's not enough to go round/ We must close the borders while children are drowned/ But bad guys come in private jets not little boats"

I take the lead vocal on this with Louisa playing fiddle during the verses and then joining me to sing harmonies in the chorus, which goes:

"The wealth won't trickle down, oh no/ It's offshore anyway/ Look good by setting up a charity/ It's good for their ego, but why not just pay taxes?"

I love Louisa's fiddle solo in this song, where she double tracked it to play a harmony with herself. I think it sounds great, although we won't be able to replicate it live unless we clone Louisa.

The second song on the EP is called Guilty Bystanders and is based on a story about the black British activist Olive Morris. I read about a short film that was made about her and it immediately sparked my interest, so I read up a bit more about her and wrote the song very quickly.

Olive was in a record shop one day when she saw a man being pulled out of his car by the police, who thought it must be stolen. He was a Nigerian diplomat and, because the racist offiers didn't believe a black man could possibly drive this car, he was being brutally mistreated. Olive stepped in to try to stop this, but was beaten and arrested herself. The horrendous incident made Olive even more determined to fight injustice and she became a prominent activist in Brixton up until her tragically early death from cancer.

In the song, I contrast Olive's bravery and determination to stand up to protect someone else's rights with the crowd of bystanders, who were happy just to watch and let it all happen. As the final lines say: "We need to be more like Olive Morris when they're trampling on our rights"

See the trailer for the film here:

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The third song is called Bunker. It's a song about Vladimir Putin inspired by a Russian friend who told me his nickname was "бункерный дедь" which translates as Bunker Grandpa. Far from being seen as the macho alpha male that he always used to try to appear as, he's now seen as a sad old man cowering in his bunker getting more paranoid and scared of everyone as his health deteriorates.

I felt this was a better way of standing up to him than just talking about the massive corruption he's overseen and benefitted from, or talking about his horrendous human rights record. He doesn't care about truth and will use an army of bots to fight back and make people doubt such things are true. However, like all dictators with fragile egos he hates being mocked, so I hope you enjoy listening to a song half in Russian and half in English. It's my little attempt to show solidarity with the Ukranian people and also the Russians who hate what he's done to their country.

You can pre-save the EP here.

We're playing a gig to launch the EP this Thursday 28th September at one of my favourite venues, Kitchen Garden Cafe, so if you're in Birmingham, please get a ticket and come and see us.

#singer songwriter #alt folk #songwriting #Olive Morris #blm #black lives matter #refugees welcome #small boats #tory corruption #vladimir putin #ukraine #russia #stop putin #fuck putin #Youtube

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drakewalkerfantasy · 2 years

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SHARE PLEASE!!!

Look how the threat looks like in the eyes of Putin.

He is a weak and pathetic creature cowering in his underground bunker.

#no to war #slava ukraini #shame to putin

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captainbarbacle · 2 years

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To Putin:

Go fuck yourself and stop making innocent people fight your wars. The Ukraine did nothing. If you wanna fight them so badly then you go out there instead of killing civilians. 🇺🇦

Side note:

I say that instead of wars, government officials just fistfight whoever they wanna go to war with. Broadcast it. If Russia wants to invade, Putin should be leading them instead of cowering in his bunker.

#ukraine #news #russian invasion #fuck putin #putin news #help the ukraine #this war shit is ridiculous.

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corvid-420 · 7 years

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listen, americans, i get that y’all’s emotions are all ramped up to 11 right now bc the bourgeois dictatorship needs you cowering and all

but the Chechnyan concentration camp thing keeps getting turned into a “concentration camps in Russia” which is... kind of disingenuous and blatantly a state-sponsored push to whip up the dumbest and most insipid of liberals - the kind who yawp, “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING!!!”.

Disclaimer for these dumb libs and the imperial left No. 1 : NO YOU FUCKING DUMBASSES THAT DOESN’T MEAN THAT RUSSIA ISN’T A REACTIONARY STATE, AND IT DEFINITELY DOESN’T SAY ALL GLORY TO PUTIN, UNITED RUSSIA AND THE CHECHEN REPUBLIC.

It’s hard to believe, but it is possible to entertain two thoughts at once, and you can’t honestly call yourself a thinking being if you can’t entertain contradictory thoughts simultaneously. Best of all, you don’t even have to try that hard here, watch:

Kind of odd that we’re seeing a media frenzy over “human rights violations” in a separatist region that the US has been trying to break off of Russia throughout the Pax Americana and has paid Top Dollar for analysis to get its diplomats to accomplish this while at the same time not getting dragged into open war.

The leaked cable tacitly acknowledges this possibility, saying:

We and the Europeans need to put our proposals of assistance to the North Caucasus in a different context: one that recognizes the role of religion in North Caucasus cultures, but also emphasizes our interest in and support for the non-religious aspects of North Caucasus society, including civil society. This last will need exceptional delicacy, as the Russians and the local authorities are convinced that the U.S. uses civil society to foment "color revolutions" and anti-Russian regimes. There is a danger that our civil society partners could become what Churchill called "the inopportune missionary" who, despite impeccable intentions, sets back the larger effort.

By civil society partners they mean their future compradores, the national bourgeoisie scattered throughout the Empire that governs on behalf of the satrap’s court in Washington. By “setting back the larger effort,” they mean in part the Russo-Georgian War in 2008, when Saakashvili in Georgia got a little too hot for his own good and played chicken thinking the US would intervene on his behalf to suppress separatist movements in Georgia hoping to rejoin Russia (SECOND DISCLAIMER FOR DUMB LIBS AND IMPERIAL LEFTISTS: This doesn’t mean that the separatists couldn’t have themselves been cultivated by the Russians in the same way Americans brush off evidence that they cultivate separatists and rebels anywhere they smell blood, from ISIS to al-Qaeda; this doesn’t mean glory to Putin etc., but it can seem that way when the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie drills you with, “either you’re with America or against America”).

Also odd that when talking about Chechnya (or really any region anywhere that gives off even a whiff of separatist ambitions that provide America an opportunity for “access to new markets and development”) Americans have NEVER talked about it as being part of Russia until now, since their ultimate goal is to break it off, turn it into a new satrapy, and put a few military bases there to keep encircling Russia, China and Iran (remember, America is the one going for global domination - the rest of the world is simply reacting to you/us). In pursuit of these goals, references to Chechnya have always been as a separatist region, and this is the first time in my life that i’ve seen Americans respect the boundaries of the Russian state by referring to Chechnya as part of Russia, as part of Putin’s orbit when even the fucking state department has admitted that Russia is incapable of effecting Kremlin policies in its own borders without desperate displays of force!

[Putin] still needs to keep forces in the region as a constant reminder to Kadyrov not to backtrack on his professed loyalty to the Kremlin. Ideally, that force would be small but capable of intervening effectively in Chechen internal affairs. That is unrealistic at present. The current forces, reportedly over 25,000, are bunkered and corrupt. When they venture on patrol they are routinely attacked. One attempt to redress this is to position Russian forces close but "over the horizon" in Dagestan, where a major military base is under construction at Botlikh. However, that may only add to the instability of Dagestan. A Duma Deputy from the region told us that locals are vehemently opposed to the new military base, despite the economic opportunities it represents, on grounds that the soldiers will "corrupt the morals of their children."

This could be said of American troops in Korea, in Philippines, in Iraq, in Germany, in Colombia, in Afghanistan... but notice the big difference here: Russia has to use force to keep centuries old’ territories from falling to the American empire (Georgia was going to be in NATO until that little disaster), which unlike Russia, is still building new military bases on every single continent, including the largest and most expensive embassy in history in Baghdad. It would be like Russia setting up a puppet regime in separatist Arizona: outlandish since only one of these powers has the ability and desire for global domination).

I’m going to start demanding money for each of these - too bad there isn’t a state to collect for me the unnecessary labor i have to perform in doing these disclaimers because y’all are fucking stupid, y’all belong in a countryside farm so we don’t have to coddle you dipshits, anyway... DISCLAIMER FOR DUMB LIBS/IMPERIAL LEFTISTS NO. 3:

This doesn’t mean that Russia is a righteous liberatory force for good and a paragon of virtue - you’re mistaking your position for ours. Americans tend to project like that, even among the left. Leftists in the American press have referred to Washington D.C. as “an American Pyongyang” when the opposite is true: Pyongyang, with its ideological monuments, deeply militant character, and founding father worship, is really a Korean Washington D.C., the result of being born out of a bloody war waged by a nuclear-armed, globe terrorizing empire. Likewise, American reactionaries of all political stripes - from upper class Republicans in Arlington to Berkeley Democrats - will do what reactionaries do best: impose their limited imaginations onto your positions.

Americans, acting out of emotional and moral reflexes rather than out of genuine concern for the world they terrorize for their particular brand of universal values, will impose those limited values onto leftists: ‘As i support my country’s strike against [list of epithets: genocidal, totalitarian, authoritarian, anti-christian, hates freedoms, etc.] purely for moral performance, and since i’m acting out of universal values l believe to be universal because my values are universal, there is no other way you can argue against imperialism except through the same empty moralism. Ergo, you need to understand war more, you lack the nuance for a complex issue, etc.; and since you’re with us or against us, any opposition must of course be support for the Other, and must also mirror my own empty moral platitudes, since there can’t be any other values but mine.’

All I'm saying is, the undeserved self-righteousness of Americans is literally destroying the planet and all its current inhabitants, but keep falling for homonationalist “civilize the savages” tropes

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tomorrowusa · 9 months

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Thursday was Independence Day in Ukraine. On 24 August 1991 Ukraine wisely severed its ties with the decaying Soviet Union.

This year the day was marked by Ukraine's first amphibious raid on occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian forces marked the country’s independence day with a naval raid into occupied Crimea, and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised Ukrainians for the defiance and courage that has won them global support in the fight with Russia. The national holiday celebrates Ukraine’s independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991, but this year it also marks 18 months since Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion plunged the country into a war for survival.

Yes, it's exactly 18 months since Putin's unprovoked and illegal invasion began. The three-day "special operation" has now gone on for 1.5 years.

Ukrainian troops landed on the western tip of Crimea, near the village of Olenivka, in the early hours of Thursday, defence intelligence said in a statement. They fought Russian troops and raised a Ukrainian flag, before all returned safely home. It was the first time Ukrainian forces are known to have landed in Crimea since Putin ordered his forces over the border last year. They had to evade Russian defences on a long journey across the Black Sea, and then escape again after a skirmish.

Crimea was occupied (illegally, of course) by Russia in 2014.

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With a counteroffensive against Russian troops occupying southern and eastern Ukraine only creeping forward, Kyiv appears to be looking for other ways to put pressure on Putin and his military. This week drones destroyed a supersonic bomber jet at an airbase deep inside Russia and twice stopped flights in and out of Moscow, though Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for these operations. A Russian helicopter also recently landed in Ukraine, after the pilot was lured to defect.

Here's President Zelenskyy's Independence Day address. He delivered it outside in Kyiv. That's in contrast to Putin who spends most of his time cowering in one of his luxury bunkers.

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EDIT: Here's the location of the amphibious raid. This was not just a jaunt across a creek.

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