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Fierce Anti Bank Music Video by Animal Kingdom (NSFW)

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Lambert, your humble blogger, and readers old enough to remember the 1960s, when protest ballads of various sorts were an important part of both the civil rights movement and the opposition to the war in Vietnam, have wondered at the absence of anti-bank, anti-autocratic songs.

Below is one with a suitably pointed video taking aim squarely at predatory financiers. The members of the band, Animal Kingdom, hail from London but they follow many US left-leaning blogs. I got access to this video privately about a month ago, and I have to confess to being taken enough with it to have watched it several times. I anticipate many of you will like it as well.

Please check out the website of Justice Banking, the “official” sponsor of Animal Kingdom: http://justicebanking.com/

And circulate the link to the video!

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45 comments

      1. AbyNormal

        can’t put my finger on why it makes me think of Lambert…but it does (hope he laffs cause i still am)

  3. craazyman

    Yves they should have put you in as an S&M queen cracking a horsewhip hard on some borrower’s neck.

    Are we sure this won’t just glamorize the aura of being a bankster?

    You get to go wild with costumes and lap dancers and kick some sorry ass with a gun in your hand. For some folks that’s romantic. It’s getting like that out there, more and more.

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      I’m not sure your thesis re S&M being less appealing is accurate. And you have managed to remind me that I am in the wrong line of work.

      One techie buddy of mine ran an ISP for a while (this in the mid 1990s). ISPs are a really low margin business, so he had web design services too. One of their clients was a Miss Kitty, who was a domme. She managed to get one of the designers under her sway and got way more in the way of services than she should have.

      Anyway, my buddy learned via Miss Kitty of a domme with a Wall Street clientele. She’d get paid $500 an hour and would spank them and make them clean her apartment. I’m sure she had the cleanest toilet in the 5 boroughs.

        1. 873450

          At the crack of dawn one morning I watched a hysterical video shoot depicting a barely leather clad vixen cracking a whip chasing a crawling suit down the street at Wall and Broad. This was long before the intersection transformed into a 24-hour armed camp.

  6. Paul Tioxon

    The word is out, Thievery Corporation, thieves, liars one and all. They’ve wrecked the world and all its economies, have been since I was young and single.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO4PdDIJo_s

    DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN
    BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FROM “WRECKING BALL”

    Jack of All Trades is now the multi-tasking independent contractor, some things never change. Read from the review in Dissent Magazine:

    “The strongest section of Wrecking Ball begins with the fourth track, “Jack of All Trades,” a ballad of precarity in which our hero puts faith in his own versatility as a worker to keep his “darling” safe even as the uncertainty of a new world looms. Springsteen sings, “The banker man grows fat, the working man grows thin.” Though it may literally be the reverse these days, with fancy gym memberships and diets for the elite and fatty processed foods offering working families the most calories for their buck, the point—the unjust gap between the haves and the have-nots—still applies. Clichés take on a renewed life when they come from Springsteen’s mouth. This is the source of much of Wrecking Ball’s power: the old values of freedom, justice, and cooperation are worth restating, and with gusto, because history is cyclical: “It’s all happened before, and it’ll happen again.” Though wrecking balls have changed design over the years, watching one knock multistoried buildings to the ground is as terrifyingly impressive a sight as ever.”

    You don’t see album reviews much in Dissent, because most music is apolitical, too personal or for kiddies. Except for Bruce, whose songs are all the stories not set in suburban marble countered kitchens, but in the rooms where women are beaten by loser husbands, small towns are torn apart by racial tension, and the young lose youth, faith and a reason to live. His songs are too political to be just party music and not fevered enough to make us storm much of anything. But, it is the lives of so many Americans so carefully portrayed, that they can not be quieted in the face of the class war that is, has been, a structural feature of our nation. Jobs exported instead of manufactured goods, replaced by debt creation, piled high like inventory in a warehouse. And the warehouse, waiting for its useful lifecycle to be over and taken by a wrecking ball.

    1. Valissa

      Nice… my observation is that Bruce appeals most to the very people whom the left elite have LEFT behind, and the type of people many of today’s so-called lefties make fun of and/or put down. The left elite would probably more prefer this not-so-fierce anti bank music video.

      Now, about Thievery Corporation… here’s one that while it doesn’t rise to the status of anthem, it is making a statement.

      The Richest Man In Babylon by Thievery Corporation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmWGaKgXnHM

      1. Yonatan

        Todays ‘lefties’ are righties – haven’t you worked that out yet? Obama is to the right of Bush. Both faces of the Ruling Party exploit ordinary people’s belief that names like Democrat and Republican imply differences. Any slight differences are superficial and allow for endless ‘debate’ whilst the intended action goes ahead anyway.

        1. Valissa

          “haven’t you worked that out yet” you must be new here or you’d know better than to say that. It’s a concept that is commonly understood at this blog.

  7. Valissa

    Very well done video! Things is…it’s artsy and cerebral, and metrosexual gangsterish, which is great in it’s way (so appealing to very well educated types), but I don’t see it having any mass appeal as an anti-banker anthem. It’s not in-your-face enough or funny enough to grab a lot of attention.

  8. Dan Kervick

    Very good. But it’s not just gangster banksters. The bankers are like the privateers of the past. They loot on behalf of others, and with the support and backing of others. Who do the bankers work for? Who owns everything in this world? Who collects the final rent after the cuts have been taken?

    There is of system of hierarchy, control and subordination. Many more corporations are involved, outside the the financial corporations. And at the top are people whose role is simply to own.

    1. F. Beard

      Many more corporations are involved, Dan Kervick

      But government-backed banks are evil in principle while corporations in principle are merely a means for many small capital owners to consolidate their capital for economies of scale. And corporations are democratic, at least per share.

      But since corporations tend to be very “creditworthy”, it is no wonder that they are able to bypass “sharing” power and wealth with their workers by borrowing the workers’ stolen purchasing power from the counterfeiting cartel, the banks.

    1. Valissa

      After listening to all the great songs posted so far, I think this is the best folk anthem on the money theme that falls in the classic singer/writer tradition.

  14. nobody

    “…left-leaning blogs…”

    Perhaps it would be worth repeating what Valissa and MyLessThanPrimeBeef said earlier today:

    “I keep hoping someday the Left-Right paradigm will meet [its] much needed death. I do not understand why people continue to proudly identify with such simplistic and ever more meaningless sides… In a Non-Euclidean political world…the two sides are the center (the 0.01%) and the periphery (the 99.99%); it’s a 0.01%-centric world. They make sure you revolve around them. It’s unfortunate people are still stuck the with the flat-earth political world view.”

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/links-42213.html#comment-1217263

  16. Skeptic

    The proof of MSM/Entertainment control by the Elite is in the fact that there have been no major movies or songs devoted to the Criminal Banksters/Wall Street/US Government Regulatory Agencies. With millions of victims of these Gangsters, you would think there might be a movie or two or song or so for such a massive audience.

    As far as protest, there has been an Irish Protest Songwriting Contest running for a few weeks now at:

    http://unitedireland.tripod.com/protest_songwriting_contest.html
    Nine wonderful songs already. Ireland has been brutalized by the Banksters.

    It would be nice if NC would put up a separate item on that site in the LINKS one day.

    We victims need our own Language, Media, Entertainment, Culture.

    1. rob

      there has been; “Inside job”,which was a “big” movie.
      then , on the “little” side, there has been:

      “who stole the american dream”
      “the corporation”
      “the take”
      “zeitgeist” and “zeitgeist;addendum”
      these are all really good movies.
      on the less serious side,”the other guys”,with will farrel, and mark wahlberg; touched on the topic of the wall st fraud, with a good rundown in the closing credits, of the gross inequities of today.

      1. nonclassical

        “Margin Call”: Impeccably acted, Margin Call has the power of a play. Actors enter and exit. They face one another and themselves. They maneuver. They lie. Trapped in a glass tower, each holds self-preservation dear. Frank DeMarco’s cinematography is by turns stark and shadowy.

        Concerned but not caring, the bankers learn about the impending crash from junior analyst Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a former M.I.T. rocket scientist. Laid off risk analyst Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) alerted Peter before he left.

        Peter is horrified to discover that the firm is fatally over-committed to risky loans. It has 24 hours to exploit this knowledge – or lose trillions. The tale is loosely based on the now-defunct Lehman Brothers.

        Owners arrive by helicopter in the night. Each minute is precious. Decisions must be made. Jeremy Irons plays ruthless CEO John Tuld. “Be first. Be smarter. Or cheat,” is his motto. Tuld orders the sell-off.

        Self-interest has many faces. They’re providing for their families. They’re living the American dream. They’re hooked on big thrills and bigger risk. Nathan Larson’s score deepens dread.

  17. OMF

    This is not NSFW. It’s actually almost tasteful in its transmission of the underlying message.

  19. redleg

    Friends of mine are working on a record that has songs about economics and corruption. They are called Demolition Means Progress but I don’t think their songs are released yet.

  20. Joel3000

    Billy Bragg ‘s always on point. Here’s one of his classics, which he updates from time to time. It’s called “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4b7cbI_MVI

    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards 2011 Version

    It may have been Camelot for Clegg and Cameron
    But on Coalition Cul-de-Sac there’s not much business going on
    Youth unemployment’s rising and factories are failing,
    Public servants marching, Europeans need help bailing
    Things have not been this bad since the days of Margaret Thatcher
    So keep calm and carry on watching X Factor

    In the former Soviet Union the citizens demand
    To know why they’re still the target of Strategic Air Command
    And they shake their fist in anger and respectfully suggest
    We take the money from Trident and spend it on the NHS

    High up in the Stock Exchange they’re knocking back the champers
    While Boris Johnson Boulevard has been colonized by campers
    Who want to ask some questions about the way that we do business
    In the twilight of the capitalist system

    The world wide web is wonderful if you’ve got something to sell
    But opinions often summon up a focus group from Hell
    Best not to be distracted, stay focused on your goals
    And take my advice – don’t feed the trolls

    Jumble sales are organized and charity shops open
    The Tories keep on telling us that it’s Britain that is broken
    Time to get active with the activists so switch off World of Warcraft
    And start working for the Great Leap Forwards

    One leap forwards, two leaps back
    Chuck out Berlusconi and put in a technocrat
    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    Here comes the future and you can’t run back from it
    If you’ve got a smartphone, I’ve got an app for it
    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    In a perfect world we’d all sing in tune
    But this is reality so switch off the auto-tune
    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    It’s a mighty long way down rock’n’roll
    From Top of the Pops to Strictly Come Pole Dancing
    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    If no-one out there understands,
    Start your own Occupation and cut out the middleman
    Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards

    So join the struggle while you may
    The revolution is just a tea towel away…

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