"Chain Lightening" by Steely Dan off "Katy Lied" featuring Wilhelm Reich's "The Mass Psychology of Fascism" in poster form as preformed by The extraordinary New York Surveillance Camera Players a combination theater and protest performance group that performs to the surveillance cameras. Photos of include Stalin*, Nixon, Bush and Clintons.
According to a group member, a liberal estimate of the number of surveillance cameras in operation in Manhattan is now more than 10,000. This pales in comparison to London, the city with the highest concentration of surveillance cameras, where it is estimated there are 10,000 cameras in operation in London's financial district alone.
The location of surveillance cameras is noticeably peculiar considering their perceived purpose of crime prevention. Cameras are installed in predominantly rich zones of the city and markedly not in zones where there is high crime (the predominantly poorer zones). Cameras are also installed predominantly in crowded thoroughfares rather than in back alleys. Cameras are frequently installed within private property (though technically legal) but are obviously directed at monitoring public space.
Quotes:
*Josef Stalin, once said, "If I could control the medium of the American motion picture, I would need nothing else to convert the entire world to communism."
Further Reading:
Most people know that jazz and swing were immediately banned upon Hitler's ascension to power in 1933. Swing represented the decadent society of America, while jazz threatened the racial purity of the Aryan race. A deep-rooted anti-Semitism underlay these attitudes: Swing was one component of modernism (``the refuse of a rotting society''); and jazz was being used by the Jews to corrupt the Aryan race through ``musical race defilement.'' Music at the home front had to conform to the traditionalist tastes of Hitler and the Nazi elite, but when it came to propaganda aimed at foreign countries, swing and jazz seemed the perfect bait. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels was always sensitive to the enormous influence of the radio, which he viewed as second only to the press as the ``most effective weapon in our struggle for existence.''
- Krikus review of "Hitler's Airwaves: The Inside Story of Nazi Radio Broadcasting and Propaganda Swing" by Horst J. P. Bergmeier (Author), Rainer E. Lotz (Author)
Lyrics:
CHAIN LIGHTNING
Some turnout, a hundred grand
Get with it we'll shake his hand
Don't bother to understand
Don't question the little man
Be part of the brotherhood
Yes it's chain lightning
It feels so good
Hush brother, we cross the square
Act natural like you don't care
Turn slowly and comb your hair
Don't trouble the midnight air
We're standing just where he stood
It was chain lightning
It feels so good
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