may 2018 – goodnews editorial

„The amount of disinformation is equal or superior to the amount of information.“
This eminent piece of wisdom was coined by me. It is the first reason why I am not impressed by the huge collection of data the powers that be gather on us. Sure, if they focus on me, for whatever reason, all of my life will be illuminated but this is hardly new. During the Sixties and Seventies, the Swiss secret service kept elaborate tabs on „The Movement“. You were nobody if you didn’t have such a tab and, fortunately, they also spied on me. We all had the opportunity to view our folders in the Nineties. You wouldn’t believe the nonsense the deep state claimed to know about me. First of all, I didn’t live near Basel but in Canada at the time. They also labelled me and a friend „the theoreticians of the movement“ – we translated song texts by Patti Smith, The Doors, Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones to German. A lawyer I didn’t know called me up one evening to ask me if his name figured in my tab too? And so on. Yes, I know, it is more about consumer preferences and credit ratings nowadays. So what? My second reason not to worry: computers search for buzzwords but in the final analysis the evaluation has to be done by people. Will half the population soon evaluate the other? Who then is to evaluate the evaluators? And who is left? Think about it!
Unfazed yours,

Susanne G. Seiler


Believe Believe

Believe in this. Young apple seeds,
In blue skies, radiating young breast,
Not in blue-suited insects,
Infesting society’s garments.

Believe in the swinging sounds of jazz,
Tearing the night into intricate shreds,
Putting it back together again,
In cool logical patterns,
Not in the sick controllers,
Who created only the Bomb.

Let the voices of dead poets
Ring louder in your ears
Than the screechings mouthed
In mildewed editorials.
Listen to the music of centuries,
Rising above the mushroom time.

Bob Kaufman

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