The Loan Sharks
Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Mad Teddy
The Loan Sharks
Copyright © 2000, 2001 by Mad Teddy
Sometime in the early 1990's (mid-to-late '92, as I recall), the developed
world started to go through an upheaval. The word we were hearing everywhere
was "downsize". People were being thrown out of work left, right and centre
in the name of "efficiency", "productivity" and "profitability".
Shortly before, US President George Bush (senior) had announced that the end
of communism meant that we could have a
new world order.
The phrase "economic rationalism" was increasingly being heard; buzz-words
like those above were, apparently, going to be some of its hallmarks. (I
couldn't then, and still can't, see anything "rational" about throwing
thousands of people out of work and onto the scrap-heap - on any
pretext, economic or otherwise.)
UPDATE, 8th July, 2006
In memory of Vic Longbon (1945-2006)
I contacted Vic Longbon by phone several months ago to request permission to
include "The Cosmic Conspiracy"'s front cover artwork in my website. Having
successfully launched this website three days ago, I decided to contact Mr.
Longbon again to inform him of the fact and invite him to have a look at it.
I was saddened to find that he had passed away on 25th April. (Click
here
to read more.)
I never actually met him; I only ever spoke to him on the phone that one
time, when I found him to be a friendly and helpful person.
Mr. Longbon was a keen and respected aeromodeller. He was a member, and at
one time the secretary, of the West Australian Jet Model Society. Click
here
to see the Society's tribute to him. I'd like to take this opportunity to
add my own expression of sympathy to his family and friends.
To cut a long story very short, a growing public awareness began to grow of
something called "globalization". It was going to be good for everybody, of
course. The world was becoming a "level playing field".
Oh, really? Not, apparently, if you lived in a developing country, and
perhaps worked a small plot of land with maybe one cow and a small vegie
garden. Tough luck - you didn't stand a chance, mate.
No: you needed to be a player in the economic world order. The global
stock market was where it was at; you needed to be in it to win it. Sell
your cow and buy some shares - you could make a killing! (If you didn't
starve first...)
We'd had the "greed is good" decade of the 1980's (which has since blown out
to a quarter of a century). Anybody could own anything; everything was up
for grabs, and the highest bidder always won, of course. Stiff cheddar for
the rest of us...
Now, even publicly-owned services could be sold off. In the new "reality",
multinational corporations - collectively recognized as one of the modern
world's greatest evils by much of the generation with which I grew up -
could do pretty much exactly as they liked, with little or no restriction.
All in the interests of "competition" and "prosperity", of course, with the
hapless consumer claimed to be the big winner - the biggest confidence trick
of our times.
It bacame clear that outfits like the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization and the International Monetary Fund were in this up to their
armpits. People began to wake up. I was as surprised as anyone else when the
Seattle incident occurred on November 30th, 1999. Finally, "people power"
might have a chance to put a stop to this madness.
This event, and the movement which sprang from it, became known in some
quarters as the S11 movement (for September 11th, 2000 - the date when a
similar event took place in Melbourne, and was met by the government of the
day with violence in the form of
police brutality,
meted out by "cops in caps"; there were some
very nasty injuries).
My own thoughts crystallized around that time, and resulted in the song
which is the main subject of this page.
Of course, a lot's happened since then. What a coincidence - on September
11th, 2001, an ugly incident in New York gave the world a new symbol, 9/11 -
and S11 disappeared off the radar overnight. How convenient...
What better way to take people's minds off left-wing rubbish like a movement
against the injustice of economic globalization than to have a
nice little war,
based on lies and fuelled by public somnolence?
I'm Australian by naturalization, British by birth. It gives me no joy to
acknowledge the fact that the governments of both countries with which I am
associated are involved in these illegal and immoral outrages up to the
hilt.
Anyway, to my song "The Loan Sharks". I believe it's still relevant -
perhaps even more so. What follows - with very small modifications - is the
essential content of a web-page I made up some years ago in the hope that
some day I'd be able to get it on the internet. Whatever works, basically -
to get people thinking.
Before proceeding to the links for the music and lyrics of
I maintain copyright over the music and the lyrics.
I allow anybody to perform the song in public,
subject to the following conditions:
Also, if anyone wishes to perform it in public, the lyrics are not
to be altered in any way - including additions, deletions, or any
other modification. Similarly, I should like any performer to make
every effort to adhere as closely as possible to the musical style
of my original, subject to reasonable artistic interpretation.
VERY IMPORTANT
In addition, note that I absolutely forbid use of this song in any
connection with violent activity, whether by protesters themselves,
or in association with any attempt to incite violence in other people.
VIOLENCE IS RIGHT OUT!
The song expresses anger, certainly.
BUT!
There is a huge difference between creative anger and mindless violence.
Being angry and using one's creative energy to try to change things is
positive and commendable. Losing one's temper and lashing out is not only
negative and ultimately damaging to any worthwhile cause, it is also just
plain dumb
.
>>>
*
DON'T DO IT
*
<<<
Subject to those conditions, the song may be used freely.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DISTRIBUTION
Please tell like-minded people about
"The Loan Sharks"
, and invite them to visit this site and download the song files for
themselves.
If you have your own home page, feel free to put up a page with links to the
music and lyrics of the song - either on your own system or as a link to
this page. If you record yourself singing the song, by all means include a
link to your own version; however, please include a link to this article in
your page BEFORE any such links. (Better still, include this entire page in
your own website, just as you see it here, along with a link to my
home-page.) Make sure access on your page to any such link is free.
If you can get your performance of the song played on a media outlet (e.g. a
radio or TV program), fine - go ahead, provided neither you nor the media
outlet profits financially by doing so, and that the bans on incitement to
violence are observed (see above).
In the early 1980's, I'd read about the coming "new world order" in a
strange book called
"The Cosmic Conspiracy"
by Stan Deyo (first published in
1978, by West Australian Texas Trading). Deyo didn't get everything right:
he predicted (or, at least, gave every appearance of predicting) the
second coming of Christ in the 1980's (OOPS); but now it looked as if he may
have been right in this other matter. I pinned my (teddy bear) ears back and
waited to see what would happen next.
Thanks to artist Vic Longbon for permission to include this scan of the
book's front cover. (You can click on it to see a bigger version.)
the song
"The Loan Sharks"
,
please read very carefully
Nobody is to profit financially from this song by any means,
including performance, distribution, promotion, or in any other way.
If you are a professional musician, and you'd like to perform it as
part of a concert, that's fine - but please acknowledge the source
of the song, and give your audience the
URL
of this website.
Also, if you do record yourself performing
"The Loan Sharks"
,
using either the music provided or your own playing (or a combination of
both), you are welcome to distribute the result on tape, CD, or any other
audio medium, provided you do not profit financially by doing so. Feel free
to give the song out; I will allow you to make a small charge just to cover
the cost of the medium (perhaps a dollar or two), but
THAT IS ALL.
Fair enough?