Listen to the Dissonant Sounds of Revolt
Denied the light
Searching For Savior
Caged Screams Their Fright
Searching For Savior
Perilous Suffering
Searching for Savior
Denied the Light
Searching for Savior-Taken from the song “Crave” off the latest Bitter Lake release, “DOS”
For those from Honduras, it’s an over 2,500 mile journey to salvation. A journey many make on foot fleeing increasing poverty, and unspeakable violence. Displaced in their own homeland, mainly from US neoliberal policies. Starting as far back as the late 1800’s the US has had an economic interest in Central American countries like Honduras. By the early 1900’s US private business interests controlled over 1 million acres of Honduras’ most fertile soil for banana farming. The poor of Honduras, who lived off that soil, had no access to it. By the 1920’s US business interests controlled most of the banking and even mining interests in Honduras. Fast forward to the 80’s. The Regan era marked a decade of deregulation, U.S. backed military leadership, and the crumbling of any form of a social safety net. After Regan destabilized the global coffee trade, a large swath of the population was left financially devastated.
These decades of U.S. involvement in Honduras set the stage for Honduran emigration to the United States, which began to markedly increase in the 1990s.
In the post-Reagan era, Honduras remained a country scarred by a heavy-handed military, significant human rights abuses and pervasive poverty. Still, liberalizing tendencies of successive governments and grassroots pressure provided openings for democratic forces.
-Taken from the article “How US Policy in Honduras Set the Stage of today’s Migration”
After a US sponsored coup of President Manuel Zelaya in 2009, everything really started to go down hill for Honduras.
The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression, the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras’ police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence, Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.
Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department’s response to the violence and military and police impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In “Hard Choices,” Clinton describes her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.
“Hard Choices: Hillary Clinton Admits Role in Honduras Coup Aftermath” by Mark Weisbrot
Through harsh, crippling economic policies, the elections of violent puppet governments, the war on drugs; the United States government has played a very pivotal role in the mass migration we see from Central Americans, and we have to look at this issue contextually. Not in a vacuum. As pundits on Corporate media continually speak of “Invaders”, and people committing “illegal acts” by crossing US boarders, we ignore the biggest question. That question is WHY? Why would one risk the safety of not only himself or herself, but the wellbeing of their children as well? What horrors are they running from? What has our capitalistic greed done to our neighbors in Central America?
Houston congressmen Al Green had this say about the 7 year old Indigenous Guatemalan girl that recently died in U.S. Boarder Patrol custody,
“This is a humanitarian crisis that is being treated as a law enforcement circumstance…”
Yes, a HUMANITARIAN crisis, NOT an invasion. Refugees. NOT invaders.
I’m looking for truth
I’m looking to not be lonely
I’m looking for truth
The machine tells me that I’m lovely
-Taken from the song “Happiness Machines” from latest Bitter Lake EP “DOS’
The second song on the EP is called “Happiness Machines”. The way we view our devices, our phones, are they the holders of our happiness? Are we blinded by the electronic hallucinations of the constant glare at our digital handheld screens? Has social media become the purveyor of social acceptance?
We are constantly plugged into an echo chamber of our own voices. Our own wants. An event hasn’t happened unless we post it and it’s confirmed by innocuous “likes”. Likes equal social approval. Can this virtual compliance replace human interaction? Is this perpetual connectivity causing us to be further from one another? Growing more and more out of touch with our humanity, I have to wonder if technology, coupled with the selfish nature of neoliberalism is a factor of an erosion in society?
Sadly, technology has been largely ineffective in meeting the needs of those feeling lonely. In fact, it may be adding to the problem.
When we feel lonely, we desire connection. Yet our need for a more connected society seems to be colliding head on with a neoliberal ideology in which there is an increasing drive for efficiency and profit maximisation in both the private and public sector.
While we desire human contact, digital alternatives are often cheaper than everyday acquaintances. This has resulted in more and more aspects of our lives becoming digital by default, which has subsequently reduced our opportunities for everyday social contact.
This is nothing new, but it has accelerated. It started with banks replacing tellers with ATMs. Now, most supermarkets have self-scan checkouts, and we’re probably heading towards entirely automated supermarkets — Amazon is leading the way with its no-checkout supermarket. We buy digital train tickets that are checked by machines, and we use digital catalogues to find library books, often without having to set foot in a library (which is just as well, since many have closed). We have become a click-and-collect society.
There you go, that’s what inspired the music. You can hear “Crave” now. Get the EP here.
Thank you.
