It's Wednesday, and as usual I scout around various issues that I have been thinking…
Travelling all day today …
I am in transit for most of today on my way back from London to Sydney after a week of presentations, meetings and discussions. A lot has been achieved I think in the last week as Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) networks expand and more activists get involved. I had a particularly interesting session yesterday in London ‘training’ MMT activists in strategies, building tools for discussion, and discussing framing and language ideas. There will be footage of that session available in due course. For now the video of my presentation in Glasgow last Thursday evening and some great Count Ossie. My blog will resume normal transmission sometime on Wednesday.
For the next 24 hours or so, comments that require moderation my be held in the queue as I will have limited capacity to consider them. So patience is required.
Video of my presentation in Glasgow, Thursday, May 9, 2019
Here is the full video of my presentation last week in Glasgow.
That should keep you busy while I am high in the sky!
And then this is what I am listening to while I fly home
This classic track – Run One Mile – is on the 1975 album Tales Of Mozambique – from the band Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, one of my favourite bands.
Count Ossie was a Jamaican hand drummer (played the Akete) and bandleader. He died on October 18, 1976 at the age of 50 (car accident).
He was a leading musician in the Wareika Hill area to the east of Kingston, Jamaica and set up a Rastafarian community there. In the early 1960s he recorded a lot with trombonists Rico Rodriguez and Don Drummond. Some of his best material came from those collaborations.
In the late 1960s he formed the band The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari, which continued on after his death.
This album featured Count Ossie’s drum team (an array of nyahbinghi drummers) and the band Cedric Brooks’ Mystics (which brought the bass and brass section and soloists). Cedric Brooks is a Jamaican saxophonist who crossed over from bebop jazz to reggae and helped the fusion.
He was a studio player at Coxsone Dodd’s Studio One in Kingston and he was also on the most famous Count Ossie album – Grounation.
If you get a chance to listen to the whole album – Tales Of Mozambique – your time will be well spent. Sometimes it becomes free form jazz with complex African drum patterns – similar to the Art Ensemble Chicago albums.
Beat music for the beat generation.
Almost impossible to remain seated while listening to it. But I have to keep my seat belt on!
Great to see you and Warren and Martin at the Bimingham event which was well attended.
Overall political scene in UK looks terrible but will have to work its inexorable way out of it.
Great music-thanks. Good observation about the similarity of the sound world with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, especially the bass sound! Such a great message of creative freedom with socially purposive values. I saw the Art Ensemble in Croydon when a student in London, Famoudou Don Moye was a great presence with the massed percussion-but by then we were in the grip of neo-liberalism.
Great to meet you Bill and thanks for making the trip to Scotland – you missed our summer by a week 😉
I just read Gulliver’s travels chapter 4 on Balnibarbi.
Oddly but accurately describes neoliberalism and economics!
Your presentation in glasgow was a lot livelier than edinburgh, understandably.
The mise en scene/overture concerning wool is a great opener in my opinion.
Thanks again for coming all this way.
Thanks for the video Bill. Very interesting to hear you apply MMT principles to the real-world situation of Scotland contemplating independence.
I can only imagine your frustration with IMF and other mainstream economics “professionals.” Nevertheless I recommend you rely on wit, logic and ridicule to attack. Avoid blatant insults. I found them jarring in this video, and don’t think they’ll advance the cause.