The Mother, the Roots, and thoughs on Amalgamation

Tension between the UCPD and Berkeley's tree sitters and supporters has come to desperate measures. Many trees have been cut down and only a few remain. Yesterday afternoon, my housemates and I came to Berkeley to support the tree sitters who have lived up in those redwoods close to two years. We performed a ritual traditional Mexica dance to honor our Mother Earth, Berkeley trees, tree sitters, and all the supporters who have succeeded on creating a conscious mentality and remind us that trees represent more, life, and why they should not be cut down on the brute. Trees, in the Native American culture, are wiser than us humanity since they have been around much longer and have a direct connection to the earth. They posses wisdom.

Therefore, we continue to see the same armed forces which much more limits our rights and freedom to express and to amalgamate. We continue to see coercion and force applied when society does not carry that manipulative forceful linear pattern to segregate from that 'unwanted' and build to narrow the hierarchy of power, wealth, and prestige. Militarization on the border, unwanted immigrants...humanity, militarization on the Berkeley trees, unwanted trees...Mother Earth. When the people begin to conscientisize and activate outside the hegemonic system, an alternative solution is created which allows us, everyone and everything, to understand things, possibly the struggle for power or our the fruits of trees. Dancing, drumming, and rattling...all symbols of the earth's creation...music and dance in resistance and unification of the earth. Kamisaraki (good morning in Quechua).

What is at question

So what is conscientization through music? Conscientization of what? What kind of music? Music has suggested and provoked many ideas, alternatives, and actions in the past; depending from region and genre. Instances such as, Chile's la nueva cancion and demonstrations, counter-narratives of Midwest folk and west/east coast hip-hop, outspoken defying and raging England's punk bands, provocative mind liberalizing free spirited psychedelic music, and borderland corrido folklore, which all tell us untold stories and different perspectives of underrepresented situations and populations, amongst other enumerable examples.

Music and its lyrical content has provided a once previously unheard voice, or even a neglected one, since most contemporarilly notable the last half century. What is vital to my thought process is that all these genres, artists, and songs, which have conscientisized 'something' in various visible or subconscious ways, have defied sociopolitical establishments of the power bloc's culturally 'acceptable.' They are the songs that have shook up political order. Its censorship is the proof that intents us listeners to keep away from this: The unknown, the marginalized, the unwanted, the vulnerable, the classless, the subaltern population...

Proposing a possible start for blogging about music

The next step it is. So I finally decided to start a blog, labor day: the day "off" for the "working citizen," the end of the summer, 2008. "Summer's almost gone, where will we be" (The Doors), 40 years ago since "the summer of love," well at least for the one recognized since the hippies' countercultural movements.

And where are we at now? Culturally speaking, the nostalgia, the chilanga banda, El Tri, speaks about, has yet returned again. In love with being in love, liberation, free speech and countercultural ideologies of 'lets get naked an love your neighbor.' Sociopolitically wise, to fight Lenin's ideological State Apparatuses, Marx's oppressing capitalistic bourgeoisie, and Gramsci's elites' control on cultural hegemony. And now, the national turning point that the current most influential nation has been waiting for, and the rest of the world, the 2008 elections.

Anyhow, after refining my love of music and its sociopolitical importance, I do realize I want to keep exploring its influential power, and maybe its censorship, as Attali's "Noise" briefly pointed out, "A facet of social life for which the rules are breaking down (sexuality, the family, politics) - it is censored, people refuse to draw conclusions from it." During the next followning blog posts, I will begin exploring what I have critically thought of, and see where this will eventually lead me to. Of coarse, this will all deal with music, and think of "breaking the rules in public spaces" in some way or another.