Fortress Of Freedom Board

[Maurice Ali]

Another CD on sale (in 2021):

[Maurice Ali]

We are finally finished with physical media!



The last CD was Speechless by Corey Johnson but I only like to release one artist a day so today it’s Twenty6Hundred:

[Maurice Ali]

Another day - another CD release!

[Maurice Ali]

Today, (and we had to decide between two artists which one went up today) We officially release two new singles from the psychedelic reggae band Lucifari:

[Maurice Ali]

I’m taking Good Friday off!




Amazon kept accepting new titles for most of the day past the deadline and - poof - the new title button disappeared. For all those purists who derided Amazon Media on Demand for years - well- you got your wish and they are gone! Gone to is future media production of CDs for the most part except for large acts that still make this viable. Now CDs become collector items and the price starts going up…..



But our record label keeps going and fully active even though everyone else is out of business. I’ll be arrogant here and state that we are still alive because I ran FOF as a business and not as a vanity. I’m still alive and kicking while almost everyone else has a tombstone with their name in it. Here is Hydra Head’s Facebook page:







While I will grudgingly accept the title of “musician” it only apples in the most amateurish way as a performer. I would rather be looked at as an innovator in music trends and genres and hopefully give the music industry a business plan that can make small indie labels viable again. Musicians need others for inspiration and support. They need a home base with people who believe in them. This is what we lost with the death of the indie label. Let’s see if I can help bring it back from the dead!



It’s the pandemic and another lock down - for - the third wave, so I hustled my ass to Canada Computers to get me a disc writer for my newest computer as it only had a reader unit. Sign of the times they only had internal bluray writer units and only two left at 120 bucks each! I had no choice but to enthusiastically say “I’ll buy it” and make out of that place like I was the luckiest man on earth. I’m soaking in the tub right now but I slapped it in before and when I dry off I’ll check it out. Hopefully it also comes with bluray movie software so I can watch my bluray movies on it - but we shall see.



I also bought a movie for 25 bucks which for me is unheard of but it’s indie and the premise is interesting and the director/writer has audio commentary which I love. I’ll watch that after I finish the audio commentary on the movie “Oblivion” with Tom Cruise doing the audio which is actually tolerable now that he has some years on him and a resume in production.



I might take the family out for a drive and wash my Mustang which now leaks no fluid as usual. The family rides in a Buick Enclave as I’m not even sure if my dad can get into the Mustang anymore.


I will also take a look at the Global Social Contract dissertation and get back into it now that I have the time again. Maybe finalize the advocacy for the World Bank in the fall. And that is if they allow us to travel in the fall. Yes, he’s a music guy who makes speeches at the UN and is trying to change the world in a big way - and - actually has a chance. Who wrote this script? Oh yes, this is real life. Be honest, who else do you know that has a chance? Life really is stranger than fiction…..



Monday I contact all artists about their last CDs and get to work finishing that up.



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/Q77gbjfsVO8

[Maurice Ali]

Friday I did very little…..


Slept a lot and went out with the family. But I have to get back into it all again.




General Assembly Speech!


https://youtu.be/T4Xf2Efb6_w



The citizen journalist stuff reached its goals in general assembly at the UN in July 2 (2015). This was clearly an early goal and happened in a big way as General Assembly “is” talking to member nations as I mentioned in my interview on our first TV show and blurted out my impossible goal of a speech on the floor of the General Assembly later in a scrum. That got checked off - no “if” “ands” or “buts”! The positive mandate got disseminated as a formal statement and side event at the 57th Session of the commission for Social Development in 2019. The global vote was a three stage affair with the side event happening in 2017, an attempted statement in 2020 and a written statement in 2021.


I basically did all that I originally set out to do - and more. However, with the ease which I achieved the “impossible” goal, I started reaching beyond those and carrying on. So now we are working on the Global Social Contract.



Sure we have the worldwide vote out there - but apart from some utility in establishing policy by a global popular vote at the UN, or a popular vote against war at the UN, the worldwide vote is a bit of an answer to a problem that does not exist yet. But that’s a cleaver choice of words as “yet” does not mean we should not plan for it - it is coming…..




Positive Mandate Speech!


http://iaij.com/Maurice_ALi_UN_Speech_Feb_19_2019.mov



We would have the Global Social Contract with its philosophy based around the positive mandate and new form of governance through the worldwide vote. People already have an international identity but it is very rudimentary and without a central idea or ideology to bring it together as a reason for communion and development. I have the plan and I have a vision….







Positive Mandate side event!


http://webtv.un.org/search/a-positive-major-mandate-for-humanity-at-the-united-nations-csocd57-side-event/6004608574001/?term=&lan=english&page=5



It’s all about crowd control and a global crowd is the trickiest yet. You have to believe in yourself and you go it alone at the start. That is why I keep pumping myself up in this blog. It would be so easy to just leave it all and live just for yourself. But I have seen the lack of visionaries and ideas in the international community, and so I have to press on.




Worldwide Vote side event!


http://webtv.un.org/watch/international-association-of-independent-journalists-55th-session-of-the-commission-for-social-development-1-10-february-2017/5314479253001



Remember I told you about me in elementary school in a race on the tar mac and slowing down to let the white kids win - well - that can’t happen now! What if I just kept going on the tar mac? I would end up at the finish line alone looking back at that crowd still huffing and puffing away. In university it was a mental game and frankly I scored there in a big way - alone and ostracized to boot-in the end! Since my early forties when I started Fortress it has been my speed, full speed ahead and now I’m alone again - but it can’t be any other way it seems. I have ideas that are pragmatic and can work. That makes me a very dangerous person in the big machine, but my moral compass is a moral imperative and I meant this to be rolled out at the UN gradually so I’m as friendly as the current geopolitical assembly will ever get. They know the future has to embrace change and frankly I’m the most palatable means to continuing human growth and development.


May as well be me and my ideas…..




General Assembly vote on the floor of the General Assembly Hall!


http://fortressoffreedom.com/WSIS+10_GAH_Finish.mp4



So we are getting back into this this weekend. And I haven’t forgotten about the Tim Cook letter…..



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/wUgkGUP4o9g



https://www.amazon.ca/Positive-Mandate-Humanity-Mr-Maurice/dp/1988407028


https://www.amazon.ca/Positive-Mandate-Humanity-Maurice-Ali-ebook/dp/B082Y8G6GS

[Maurice Ali]

Easter Sunday so a short but important one.



About two hours after I posted yesterday’s update I got some unexpected good news about our advocacy. Nothing definitive now as I have to got through protocol and all that. So early Monday morning you will find out!




Sam as a 15 year old emo girl!



The only thing to decide was who makes the announcement. Usually it’s Tyrone who also subs for me for speeches if something happens to me - but for this one about the future - I’m giving it to Sam. Samantha is the only staff at IAIJ who is a mother with a really young kid. In fact little Kobe just made his first “number 2” on the potty yesterday which is big news over here worthy of an announcement at IAIJ. I’ve known Sam since she joined up at 15 years of age as an emo girl going along with Shane to check out his CD at Sam The Record Man. Then she joined IAIJ as a “junior journalist” in her own words. Then as an advertising executive with More Vision and hip-hop promoter with FOF RECORDS. Now she is technically on maternity leave but still buzzes around the place.




Sam as an advertising executive with More Vision!


So she will do it with a small quote from el President-a and CEO - I’ll break out the “CEO” for this one. Anyway, somebody in the foreign service at the United Nations was asleep at the wheel for this one - but I’ll take it anyway I can!


Ok, forgot about the daily update: Updated the company computers (towers). I put the new bluray writer in the editor and played merry-go-round with the other writers. Then I updated the office computer and called it a day.



Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/UioCvLN-370

[Maurice Ali]

As many if you guessed - it’s about the worldwide vote at the United Nations!




I was here all day long - no go in 2020, and that was the speech
later to be a statement in 2021!



Yes, even though I was stymied at the 58th Session of the Commission for Social Development to give an oral statement, I waited the year and sent a written statement. This was accepted, but from the year before I knew nothing was certain until the Commission actually convened and finished and prepared the final documents. The session was in February but it always takes a while to get the documents finalized and when I checked a couple of days ago I was “floored” to see that our statement had survived intact and secure and now on the record at the United Nations!


This idea of letting the general public vote through smart phones as a popular vote at the United Nations would be the first time ordinary individuals would ever have a chance of any participation at global issues of interest to all - even though they are the ultimate stakeholders! So to have such a radical idea go in the records at the UN is bigger stuff than you may think - in fact this type of idea may be the first time this has happened at the United Nations!



For the person doing this it is risky. You will be ostracized, become a pariah. Not that people don’t appreciate what you are doing, but that their advocacy or consultancy is at risk by you opening things up. There is a certain immanence, a certain exclusivity to being at the United Nations right now. Your idea to turn it into a “town hall” will not be popular. This could only be done by someone who is not a natural part of that culture. I’m not even part of academic culture, so the establishment’s usual ability to influence me simply is not there. I am my own man…..



Even this business of a journalist association NGO making in-depth reports and advocating it at the UN is rather novel. I am working their system to the benefit of all and wrapping myself and our organization in the UN constitution for protection. They thought simply acknowledging citizen journalists as legitimate media workers was a big move in 2015 - now look what happened…..







Anyway here is a link to the statement (and I suppose I could just link it directly - but it’s so cool to see all the official translations available - though for me it’s only English):



https://undocs.org/Home/Mobile?FinalSymbol=E%2FCN.5%2F2021%2FNGO%2F27&Language=E&DeviceType=Mobile



As you see the statement - not necessarily the contents - was accepted by the Secretary General. This is the big deal for me! Now if I go to a special agency of the United Nations like The World Bank / IMF - I can point to this statement showing that the idea has made it to the UN and that I’m not some “barking mad” individual just trying to put forth an idea. It is easier for The World Bank to now include me as a panelist, side event, or speaker as they take on less risk with the link to the UN having accepted that statement already. This is just so much good news for me…..







The only question now is how to present it at IAIJ. I could just say thanks and leave it at that. But to go this far with such a radical idea and with huge stakes involved - I may as well own it! My idea, my will to bring it to the UN, my pragmatic methodology to enable the participation. It is all on me, so I may as well own it and and make that clear. That openness may make the social contract paper hard to disseminate but the positive mandate, the worldwide vote, and citizen journalism were the big ones and we can “roll the dice” on the Global Social Contract.


Ok, there is much to do and I have to get to it.




Later…..




https://youtu.be/JPOSGVUYgVQ

[Maurice Ali]

So the notifications are done:

[Maurice Ali]

Things are getting back to normal…..



Tuesday was a family vaccination day again and Wednesday is the beginning of a “stay at home” order for about a month so I will stock up on provisions just in case. A month in on AstraZeneca and no issues. They now claim a link to blood clots in the brain and the only thing I found interesting was an unsubstantiated quip that it could be connected to women using the “pill”. Interesting as blood clots are a possible side effect of the pill - I just found that connection more plausible given the facts so far…..



I’m back into the music and should finish the first presentable rough versions of the last three CDs. Then I contact the artists and take it from there.




Then there is DMX who is on life support and may be brain dead. They will conduct tests but I will leave it to the scandal rags as to what happened to put him in that state. But the music continues even if music production is now done remotely - how time changes…..



Yes, Shane did records some vocals at Metalworks!




https://youtu.be/esbQBnvsF0M

[Maurice Ali]

Thursday I upload the latest version of the remaining CD files and contact the artists. I will probably do a quick review of the finished products and start ordering them. A month and a half and we will be out of physical media. I’m also starting to catch up on more minor things I put off recently. A lockdown makes that easier!




Twenty6Hundred's CD Electric For All on sale at Amazon!


Note that I’ve redacted a long discussion on the pharmaceutical industry and advertising. You will have to use your imagination. But I will provide an uplifting link for those who need a “pick-me-up”. It was a good read - too good…..


Goodnight…..





https://youtu.be/i-SO8JcsvWU

[Maurice Ali]

Well, well, well - I’m actually starting to get jazzed up about the Global Social Contract. The thing that makes it popular is that everyone - “and I repeat everyone” gains from the positive mandate and thus by simple extension this strong personal self-endorsement must extend to others via empathy and now that we have a global identity it extends to all of humanity!




Global Social Contract.


That the same principles of the positive Mandate that make our life happier should be available to all as the well being or happiness of others we know makes us happy. In years past the lack of today’s technology made this connection, and thus empathy very hard - but that barrier does not exist today - therefore we need a Global Social Contract with the central tenet being making everyone’s life a happier experience.






Happiness as in the fullest expression of ourselves mentally and physically. Being able to fully express yourself in all aspects of life works! Date and marry whoever you to want. Go as far in education or career as your ability takes you. Pursue all self- actualization endeavours to your limit. All these are freedom of expression like freedom of expression in social terms, educational and work place aspects of free expression. It is not only arts and creativity. Ultimately, it is self-determination for one’s self and for humanity as a whole. How do we determine the future direction of humanity? Is it by a global vote, or who has the most money, the most armies or the most bombs. There is something in the positive mandate for everyone and to have it just for yourself and deny it to others becomes simply wrong! Test it - if you know you have this and others don’t then you know it’s wrong, even if you figure a way to live with that - but in a scale of billions of people judging individually as a global vote - the votes will go the empathic way as those natures in individuals are in the majority.


So we have the unifying concept for people to rally around in the social contract. With that comes the philosophy behind the positive mandate for humanity and governance and decision making via the worldwide vote through smart phones.




The Fates!



So we have a full code for living here, or a new code for exercising our global identity to an emerging new form of human governance at the global level. Man, this is so cool for a former philosophy major - but I’m running out of time. One look at the early advocates for gay marriage in their walkers and wheelchairs was a sight that sobers up every advocate. Things take time and sometimes it takes so long you aren’t around for the victory. I saw this in real time - real life. I knew this guy who had some strong beliefs and took those beliefs to Parliament Hill in Ottawa (Canada), and there he was at the front of that crowd chanting their slogans and keeping them fired up. When they got to the hill they were met with snipers on the roof tops of the parliament buildings (no I’m not making that up) and that always stuck with me. Later I lobbied the Senate for that cause and in time we rolled things back to before those first rallies had started. We won - but the guy at the forefront of it all had died earlier of old age.


Nobody said life was fair and that the instigators deserve to see the fruits of their efforts. The Fates sure do seem to be setting things up for a showdown during my lifetime it would seem. I’m healthy and able and with the resources to see this through. An adventure with the highest stakes possible.






I’m right and I know I’m right. Only right is right! This is what people want (as shown in The Fortress Experiment) - no perversion of that ideal….. The trouble happens when your wishes are sent to one or a few individuals by proxy, and the frailties of human flesh take over and corruption is the result. But there was nothing better before the present day technological revolution - now we can turn idealism into reality. The worldwide vote is true freedom, and the mass wishes are the result. This will result in empathy for all and a happy outcome.



Hubba, hubba, hubba…..



Pursuit of happiness - Nothing to see here…..




Goodnight…..






https://youtu.be/r2kEj9zXzBA

[Maurice Ali]

Too many things going on but currently I have new website issues (the social contract stuff) I’m dealing with.



Full disclosure later…..




Later…..

[Maurice Ali]

Ok, so we now have a website for the Global Social Contract and it is here:


https://aglobalsocialcontract.org



For now the site is just a rehash of the positive mandate sites but we will get to it.



Saturday was very busy. I got a lot done and took the family to a park. This park was getting crowded, not as crowded as downtown but enough to make you nervous so I kept as far away from groups and when we were on paths things thinned out nicely. Outside few were wearing masks, and you start to make the calculations about getting your family out into the public for their own psychological benefit now that’s we have past one year. It’s strange to see you and everyone around you conditioned to isolation. It’s a legitimate risk/benefit analysis, but life can’t totally revolve around one virus. Sooner or later we will have to reintegrate into society - and I’m interested to see how that will go…..




This photo was a mistake but this is what I look like today!



With regard to the music, all artists have been notified of the CD issue. If interested we will work with them to make the CDs as they like, and if not, we will just purchase some for the office and let it all die out on June 4. This will end all physical media production at FOF, I guess it’s my age as I seem to be the only one in a funk about this.



For Sunday it’s groceries and going through all the mail. I have to give the house a “once over” as it’s getting warm again. The Mustang has stopped leaking rad fluid for days now, so let’s see how long that lasts.



And that’s about it for now…..




Goodnight…..

[Maurice Ali]

The new website announcement: