A-T-6 004 Information Society Running
Information Society are a synth-pop group originating from Minneapolis. Their single "Running" was reissued in 1986
Originally released on Minneapolis label Twin/Tone in 1985 "Running" had become an underground hit in New York's latin clubs. The group was picked up by Tom Silverman, the group sign to Tommy Boy and relocate to New York. For the Tommy Boy release they got young "Little Louie" Vega to remix it with Joey Gardner (is it Louie Vega's first credit?), edits are made by the Latin Rascals. Imo the record shines best when it's being mixed with other tracks. In the UK we know "Running" from it's inclusion on the compilation Street Sounds Hip Hop Electro 13
Information Society - Running (Instrumental) in all it's kraftwerky glory. 4m48-> is the jam
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On Wednesday 7th January Renée Nicole Good was shot and killed by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The 37-year-old was sitting behind the wheel of their car when the ICE officer ended her life. This is the 9th time an ICE agent has shot someone stilling in a car in Minneapolis since September
Minneapolis city leaders have said Renée Good had been a legal observer of ICE activities. The Christian mother of three was with their wife Becca on the day they were killed. In a statement shared with Minnesota Public Radio News Becca said "we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They [ICE] had guns." The shooters bodycam footage shows Renée as relaxed and peaceful behind the wheel of their car, to their killer they say their final words "That's fine, dude, I'm not mad at you." As the ICE agent circles the vehicle and others approach it Renée and Becca get startled and Renée is shot dead. The shooter can be heard calling the victim a "fucking bitch" after killing them The Trump administration spared no time trying to get ahead of the story and the story became two stories. The first is about ICE killing someone in cold blood, the danger ICE pose to US citizens, the fear ICE's presence creates in communities, the antagonism intensified by undisciplined federal agents acting with impunity - people have the right to be angry when they see injustice
The way the Trump administration responded in the press is another story
Here's my take
As Christian nationalists the Trump administration are obsessed with identity politics. Despite being a white Christian American woman the Trump administration are claiming the death of Renée Good was deserved. What was their crime? Renée Good was against America, they hadn't wanted to make it great again
There was no time wasted waiting for facts about the shooting to come out. The Trump administration were prepared and they got in quick with their case for why Renée Good's death should not be mourned. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem soon appeared at a press conference to condemn the victim as a "domestic terrorist." The audacity of this allegation is extraordinary
Renée Good is shot by an ICE agent while she is attempting to drive away from danger. The vehicle they are in doesn't stop moving the moment they are shot. It looks to me like Renée Good's dead body has slumped forward putting weight on the gas pedal. The vehicle accelerates until it hits a parked car and telephone pole. The shooter Jonathan Ross is clipped while the car is moving
This has been turn on its head by the Trump administration as "Renée Good was using her car a weapon to kill ICE agents." If you're dead where is the intent, are they claiming the ghost of Renée Good is the domestic terrorist?
As a spectacle the jumble of words the Trump administration are performing to vilify Renée Good really is something to be witnesses - and fact checked.
Tell your truth/lie
Are Trump, Noem, and now Vance's trying coerce the American public into distrusting it's own eyes? The only reason I can think of why Noem has brazenly delivered one barefaced lie after another at press conferences is to create doubt - throw as much misinformation out there and see what sticks. Like the lie about ICE agents being trapped, the video footage of the incident clearly shows ICE agents walking about freely. Why lie? It'd be hard to convince a child that moving about unrestrained and being physically trapped are not opposites - I suppose Trump's true believers see what ever they are told too. Renée Good didn't and that makes her guilty
Renée Good was immediately transformed into a political "nightmare" by the Trump administration. There was no hesitation made getting to press to stress the threat posed by leftists like Renée Good. The spin was so quick and hyperbolic it was shocking. I doubt they paused to check Renée Good's actual political leanings or anything else about her - as we've become accustomed to. To them what Renée Good thought is less important than getting out their hallucination of what they say Renée Good thought
I've not read Judith Butler's book Who's Afraid of Gender? but I'm interested in their use of "phantasm," a concept borrowed from Jean Laplanche's psychoanalysis. It's my understanding that in the book Butler analyses power structures by way of gender - book title kinda gives it away
I believe Renée Good's death is being used by the Trump administration to invoke their "leftist phantasm" - but having not read the book I can't say how closely this follows Butler's "gender phantasm" - surprisingly I've not seen any comment mentioning Renée Good's gender - I've not gone looking for it. The leftist domestic terrorist "phantasm" that Renée Good is being used to embody (literally as a ghost) has been summoned to instil irrational fear and anxieties towards anyone who opposes the Trump administration, while reifying the power structure that ICE represent the violent arm of
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Information Society was still calling themselves Insoc when they originally released "Running" in 1985
The name Insoc took inspiration from Ingsoc, which in George Orwell's novel 1984 is a Newspeak contraction of English Socialism, the official political ideology of "The Party" - it's similar to Nazi and Soviet contractions in the 20th century. Ingsoc became Insoc (sometimes styled as InSoc), which also nods at corporate and political contractions fashionable in the US
As a theoretical concept the information society predates George Orwell's novel 1984 by a decade. The Minneapolis group Information Society met at college in 1982. The industrial economy of the US had been in decline since 1979 and people are noticing a shift in the job market from industry and factory work to service jobs. The US had been transitioning towards a knowledge based economy for decades - an economy which isn't centred around making material things - using concepts popularised in the mid-twentieth century by Fritz Machlup the transition is hailed the Information Age. 'According to James Messenger's theory from 1982, the Information Age will create user dependence through increased convenience and user-friendliness of information.' - the information society
Information Society was a prescient choice of name, pointing not only to the computer-dominated future that modern pop culture was evolving into but western society as a whole. We live in the Information Age (Digital Age) and the majority of the largest companies by revenue in the US are knowledge based. The internet has made access to information instant and accessible for everyone, but confidence in the quality of information we receive is suspicious. Historically reliable sources like state institutions the BBC - or in the case of Renée Good the president of the US, its vice-president, and US Secretary of Homeland Security - is dubious. Slop generated by so-called artificial intelligence (arguments over the name have been going on for decades) is seen as even more deceitful. I wouldn't put it past the Trump administration if they ask ChatGPT to generate their press statements. ChatGPT how do we make Renée Good out to be the villain?
