2008

"Alles Unerträgliche ist im Kopf, weil der Kopf nicht in der Gegenwart verweilt, sondern die Mauern hochklettert, Erkundigungen einzieht und mit unerträglichen Nachrichten zurückkommt, die man dann irgendwie glaubt."

"Dass es perverserweise oft mehr Spaß macht, etwas zu wollen, als es zu haben."

"The story of neoliberalism is quite familiar to the millions across the USA whose lives have been ravaged by the "financial crisis of 2007-2008," which led to countless families losing their life savings, homes, and businesses. Commercial media attempted to neutralize the nastiness of neoliberal policies that led directly to this unseemly situation by calling the global emergency "a financial crisis" or "economic downturn," as if these events were unfolding as part of a historical movement or a cyclical part of economic laws. Yet, it was clear that the situation was a direct and logical outcome of the corporate wilding of America, where years of neoliberal policies have resulted in the greatest wealth gap to date in this country. The resulting scenario is violence - but not necessarily the type of violence that media outlets portray. I am not talking about muggings, robberies, or even shootings. I am pointing to a much deeper and sinister type of violence: the type of violence that can be prevented easily, such as the violence of forcing people, especially children, to go perpetually hungry in a society of great abundance; the violence of having people unprotected from the harsh elements when millions of homes are vacant across the country; and the violence of paying people such low wages that they are unable to secure basic human needs such as clean water, healthy food, dental and medical care, a decent home, affordable transportation, and quality education."

"We cannot go on living like this. The little crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before, we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come. And yet we seem unable to conceive of alternatives. This too is something new. Until quite recently, public life in liberal societies was conducted in the shadow of a debate between defenders of ‘capitalism’ and its critics: usually identified with one or another form of ‘socialism’. By the 1970s this debate had lost much of its meaning for both sides; all the same, the ‘Left-Right’ distinction served a useful purpose. It provided a peg on which to hang critical commentary about contemporary affairs. On the Left, Marxism was attractive to generations of young people if only because it offered a way to take one’s distance from the status quo. Much the same was true of classical conservatism: a well-grounded distaste for over-hasty change gave a home to those reluctant to abandon long-established routines. Today, neither Left nor Right can find their footing."

"We must remember that the greatest price of this conflict is not paid by us. It is paid by the Israeli girl in Sderot who closes her eyes in fear that a rocker will take her life in the night. It is paid by he Palestinian boy in Gaza who has no clean water and no country to call his own. These are God's children. And after all of the politics and all of the posturing, this is about the right of every human being to live with dignity and security. This is a lesson embedded in the three great faiths that call one small slice of Earth the Holy Land."

"My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszów. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. Madam Deputy Speaker, my grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among Gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians. The implication is that Jewish lives are precious, but the lives of Palestinians do not count. On Sky News a few days ago, the spokeswoman for the Israeli Army Major Livovich was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, eight hundred Palestinians. The total is now a thousand. She replied instantly, "Five hundred of them were militants." That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw Ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."

"This was women’s work around the house, but I didn’t like it, so I came out when I was 13"

"The fact that I sing about love doesn’t have anything to do with my emotional life. I think I didn’t have a husband because in Cape Verde, when you have a husband, you have a child, two children, three children. Then sometimes if the man wants, he just leaves you and you have to have another man to help you, because you cannot raise those children alone. It’s hard to live like that"

"That doesn’t happen to everybody, but it’s common in Cape Verde. That’s why in Cape Verde, women are always fighting for themselves and for their children"

"Women in Cape Verde are very strong, and we have a fighting spirit."

"I’m just a simple person. I’m not hard to understand."

"I was born in a poor country. I was poor, but I lived all my life with what I had. I didn’t spend more than I had. Cape Verde is not the only place where there are poor people"

"Now I work, and I see the results of my work, so I have some money,” she says. “But I’m still the same person that I was before. I still have the same simple life. I still have the same friends"

"Life in the islands is not easy, because there are very few resources, and you could say that my life and life in the islands are related"

"I started singing in the neighborhood where I lived, just with my friends... It was just to amuse ourselves"

"In Cape Verde ... I used to sing for tourists and for the ships when they would come there"

"There was no real progress,” she acknowledged in Pulse!. “I wasn’t making any money out of it, so I just stopped"

"Because I couldn’t find anyone to help me out in Cape Verde, I had to start recording in France in 1988"

"They’re going to feel my message through my presence and my music"

"I wasn’t astonished by Europe and I was never that impressed by the speed and grandeur of modern America"

"I only regret my success has taken so long to achieve"

"Evora, Cesaria 1941,updated May 21 2018,https://www.encyclopedia.com/"

"As legendary bands in the scene continued to mature musically and grow away from the genres that they became known for, newly established musicians were creating blends that sparked new categories for scene music. In 2008, Fall Out Boy released their last album before their hiatus, and I Set My Friends On Fire popularized crunkcore. It was a landmark year in alternative music, as scene music expanded beyond its foundation of pop punk, punk, emo and hardcore. By 2008, electronic elements seeped into the scene, and party anthems became essential in nearly every album. At this particular time, fans steered toward bands who featured screamo vocals, any genre with the suffix -core and themes of moving forward toward a future beyond the emotional torment of emo music. These scene albums from 2008 created an all-new meaning to both the genre and community."