The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is the organisation that represents the interests of the recording industry worldwide. It is a not-for-profit members' organisation registered in Switzerland. It operates a Secretariat based in London, with regional offices in Brussels, Hong Kong and Miami.

Function[link]

Its stated mission is to promote the value of recorded music, safeguard the rights of record producers and expand the commercial uses of recorded music.^[1] Its services to members include legal policy advice (lobbying), anti-piracy enforcement, litigation and regulatory affairs, market research and communications support.^[2]

Structure[link]

Frances Moore was appointed the chief executive of IFPI with a term effective from 1 July 2010.^[3] She replaced John Kennedy OBE, who had headed the organisation since 2005 and was also one of the co-producers of Live Aid and Live8.^[4]

The IFPI is currently based in Piccadilly in the City of Westminster in London, England.

Scope of influence[link]

IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide with some 1,400 members in 66 countries and affiliated industry associations in 45 countries.^[1] According to the IFPI, "any company, firm or person producing sound recordings or music videos which are made available to the public in reasonable quantities is eligible for membership of IFPI",^[1] though the company does not specify what "reasonable quantities" actually means.

National groups and affiliate bodies include SNEP in France, Bundesverband Musikindustrie in Germany, RIAJ in Japan, BPI in the UK and RIAA in the US. Although recognised as an "affiliated group", the RIAA on its own website specifically notes that IFPI administers programs "for a number of countries, excluding the United States".^[5] Record labels can be members of both their local industry body and IFPI.

History[link]

This section requires expansion.

Was founded in 1933 in fasistic Mussolini Italy.^[6]

Phonogram performance rights[link]

The IFPI was formed as the phonographic industry held its first international congress in Rome, 10–14 November 1933^[7] and registered its head office in Zurich, Switzerland.^[8] Its mission was to represent "the interests of the recording industry worldwide in all fora"^[9] by promoting legislation and copyrights^[10] and "to protect the largely British-based recording industry" by promoting a global performance right in gramophone sound recordings.^[11]

Phonogram copyrights[link]

The IFPI heavily lobbied at the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations of 1961, which established an international standard for the protection of sound recordings, live performances & broadcasts. This Convention was opposed by trade groups representing authors and composers, who were concerned that establishing such "neighbouring rights" would undermine their own control over how their works were used and would result in prohibitively expensive licensing.^[12] Pressure from broadcasters who didn't want to license the records they broadcast, among other factors, kept the U.S. from signing the Convention; the U.S. did not recognise a separate sound recording copyright until 1971.^[13]

Phonogram anti-piracy[link]

The IFPI then began a campaign against piracy. In 1971 it succeeded in advocating and obtaining the Convention for the Protection of Producers of Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their Phonograms (the Geneva Phonograms Convention), which 72 countries signed.^[14]

In 1986, the ISO established the International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) standard, ISO 3901. In 1989, the IFPI was designated the registration authority for ISRC codes. ISRC codes "enable the use of copyright protected recordings and works to be controlled; facilitate the distribution and collection of royalties (performances, private copying); and assist in the fight against piracy."^[15]

In 1994, in an effort to combat piracy, the IFPI and the compact disc manufacturing industry introduced Source Identification (SID) codes, which are markings on CD parts that identify the manufacturers, equipment, and master discs that were used to create each disc.

SID codes are formatted as the letters "IFPI" followed by 4 or 5 hexadecimal digits. A SID-marked disc typically bears at least two codes, each imprinted on different physical components. A number prefaced with "L" is a "mastering code," a serial number taken from a pool assigned by Philips to the manufacturer. It identifies the Laser Beam Recorder (LBR) signal processor or mold that produced a particular stamper or a glass master disc from which molds are produced. Non-"L" numbers are "mold codes", the first 2 or 3 digits of which are assigned by Philips to the operator of the manufacturing or mastering plant, which might not be the same plant that manufactured the stamper or glass master; and the remaining digits are a serial number assigned by that plant to its molds.^[16]

The Pirate Bay incidents[link]

Wikinews has related news: Pirate Bay case: Internet group attacks websites in "Operation Baylout"

In mid-October 2007, after the IFPI let the ifpi.com domain registration lapse, ownership of the ifpi.com domain was transferred to The Pirate Bay, a group which claimed it received the domain from an anonymous donor.^[17] The group set up a Website under the domain titled "International Federation of Pirates Interests", a replacement backronym for IFPI. Ownership of the domain was returned to the IFPI in late November, when a WIPO arbitration panel concluded that "the Disputed Domain Name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark in which the [IFPI] has rights" and that the Pirate Bay's representative "registered and [was] using the Disputed Domain Name in bad faith" and failed to adequately rebut the IFPI's contention that he "has no rights or a legitimate interest in the Disputed Domain Name."^[18] The organisation's website www.ifpi.org was unaffected during the dispute.

In a separate incident, on the 18th February 2009, the Swedish ifpi.se domain was hacked by The Pirate Bay sympathiser(s). This occurred on the third day of the trial of the Pirate Bay founders in Sweden. The site was replaced with a short message directed at the Prosecutor Håkan Roswall and plaintiffs ("Warner Brothers etc"). It was signed "The New Generation".^[19] Peter Sunde of Pirate Bay made an appeal on Twitter requesting that the hackers stop this defacement.^[20]

On 19 April 2009, after the announcement of an unfavorable Swedish court decision against The Pirate Bay, the ifpi.org and ifpi.se domains were reportedly subjected to a DDoS attack. The newspaper The Register and the BitTorrent community site TorrentFreak speculated that the attacks were perpetrated by Pirate Bay supporters.^{[21][22][citation needed]}

Record sales certification[link]

The IFPI awards two album sales certifications, the IFPI Platinum Europe Awards and the IFPI Middle East Awards.

The IFPI Platinum Europe Awards were founded in 1996.^[23] They are awarded for actual retail sales (as opposed to shipments) of one million albums, in one of the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and United Kingdom.^[24] An archive of past winners is available online.^[23]

The IFPI Middle East Awards were established in October 2009.^[23] They are awarded for sales in either the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, or in Lebanon. in the GCC, Gold award is awarded for sales of 3,000 units and Platinum for sales of 6,000 units. In Lebanon, Gold award is awarded for sales of 1,000 units and Platinum for sales of 2,000 units.^[25] An archive of past winners is also available online.^[23]

See also[link]

• Music industry
• Record label
• Related rights
• Peer-to-peer file sharing
• List of music recording certifications

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

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David Icke
Icke in 2008
Born	David Vaughan Icke (1952-04-29) 29 April 1952 (age 60) Leicester, England
Residence	Ryde, Isle of Wight
Occupation	Writer and speaker
Years active	Since 1990
Known for	Football, television sports, books on global politics
Political party	Formerly the Green Party
Website
www.davidicke.com Icke's YouTube channel.

David Vaughan Icke (pronounced /aɪk/, or IKE, born 29 April 1952) is an English writer and public speaker, best known for his views on what he calls "who and what is really controlling the world." Describing himself as the most controversial speaker in the world, he is the author of 19 books and has attracted a global following that cuts across the political spectrum. His 533-page The Biggest Secret (1999) has been called "the Rosetta Stone for conspiracy junkies."^[1]

Icke was a well-known BBC television sports presenter and spokesman for the Green Party, when in 1990 a psychic told him he was a healer who had been placed on Earth for a purpose, and that the spirit world was going to pass messages to him so he could educate others. In March 1991 he held a press conference to announce that he was a "Son of the Godhead" – a phrase he said later the media had misunderstood – and the following month told the BBC's Terry Wogan show that the world would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes. He said the show changed his life, turning him from a respected household name into someone who was laughed at whenever he appeared in public.^[2]

He continued nevertheless to develop his ideas, and in four books published over seven years—The Robots' Rebellion (1994), And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995), The Biggest Secret (1999), and Children of the Matrix (2001)—set out a moral and political worldview that combined New-Age spiritualism with a passionate denunciation of totalitarian trends in the modern world. At the heart of his theories lies the idea that a secret group of reptilian humanoids called the Babylonian Brotherhood controls humanity, and that many prominent figures are reptilian, including George W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, Kris Kristofferson, and Boxcar Willie.^[3]

Michael Barkun has described Icke's position as "New Age conspiracism," writing that he is the most fluent of the conspiracist genre. Richard Kahn and Tyson Lewis argue that the reptilian hypothesis may simply be Swiftian satire, a way of giving ordinary people a narrative with which to question what they see around them.^[4]

Personal life and career[link]

Early life and education[link]

Icke was born in Leicester General Hospital to Beric Vaughan Icke and Barbara J. Icke, née Cooke, who were married in Leicester in 1951. Icke was the middle child; there was a brother seven years older, and another seven years younger. Beric had wanted to be a doctor, but his family had no money, so he joined the Royal Air Force instead. He was awarded a British Empire Medal for gallantry in May 1943 after helping to save the crew of an aircraft that had crashed into the Chipping Warden air base in Oxfordshire. Along with a Squadron Leader, he ran into the burning aircraft, without protective clothing, and saved the life of a crew member who was trapped inside.^[5]

After the war, Beric got a job in the Gents clock factory, and the family lived in a slum terraced house on Lead Street, near Wharf Street in the centre of Leicester. When Icke was three, they moved to a housing estate known as the Goodwood, one of the 1950s council estates the post-war Labour government built. "To say we were skint," he wrote in 1993, "is like saying it is a little chilly at the North Pole." He remembers having to hide under a window or chair when the council man came to collect the rent—after knocking, the rent man would walk round the house peering through the windows to see whether anyone was at home. His mother never explained that it was about the rent; she just told him to hide, and Icke writes that he still gets a fright whenever he hears a knock on the door.^[6]

He was always a loner, spending hours playing with toy steam trains, and preferring to cross the street rather than speak to anyone. He attended Whitehall Infant School, then Whitehall Junior School, where he spent most of his time feeling nervous and shy, often to the point of almost fainting during the morning assembly and having to leave before he passed out. The family doctor suggested a referral to a child psychologist, but his father put his foot down.^[7]

Football and first marriage[link]

He made no effort at school and failed at practically everything, but when he was nine, he was chosen for the junior school's football team. It was the first time he had succeeded at anything, and he came to see football as his way out of poverty. He played in goal, which he writes suited the loner in him and gave him a sense of living on the edge between hero and villain.^[7]

After failing his 11-plus exam in 1963, he was sent to the city's Crown Hills Secondary Modern, rather than the local grammar school, where he was given a trial for the Leicester Boys Under-Fourteen team. He decided to leave school at 15 after being talent-spotted by Coventry City, who signed him up in 1967 as their youth team's goalkeeper. He also played for Oxford United's reserve team and Northampton Town, on loan from Coventry. Rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which later spread to the right knee, ankles, elbows, wrists, and hands, stopped him from making a career out of football. Despite often being in agony during training, he managed to play part-time for Hereford United – including in the first team when they were in the Fourth Division of the English Football League, and when they were promoted to Division Three – before the pain in his joints forced him to retire in 1973 at the age of 21.^[9]

He met his first wife, Linda Atherton, in May 1971 at a dance at the Chesford Grange Hotel near Leamington Spa; she was working as a van driver for a garage in Leamington. Shortly after they met, Icke had another one of the huge rows he had started having with his father—always a domineering man, his father was upset that Icke's arthritis was interfering with his football career—so he packed his bags and left home. He moved into a tiny bedsit and worked in a local travel agency during the day, travelling to Hereford twice a week in the evenings to play football. He and Linda were married on September 30 that year, four months after they'd met. A daughter was born in March 1975, followed by a son in December 1981, and another son in November 1992. Though the couple divorced in 2001, they remain good friends; she runs his publishing arm, David Icke Books, as well as producing some of his DVDs.^[10]

Sports presenter[link]

The loss of his position with Hereford meant that he and his wife had to sell their home, and for several weeks they lived apart, each moving in with their parents, but he found a job in 1973 as a reporter with the weekly Leicester Advertiser, through a contact who was a sports editor at the Daily Mail. He moved on to the Leicester News Agency, and through them did some programmes for BBC Radio Leicester, then worked his way up through the Loughborough Monitor, the Leicester Mercury, and BRMB Radio in Birmingham.^[11]

He worked for two months in Saudi Arabia in 1975, helping them run their national football team; it was intended to be a longer-term position, but he missed his wife and new daughter so much that he decided not to return after his first holiday back to the UK. He got his job back at BRMB, then applied successfully to work for Midlands Today at the BBC's Pebble Mill studios in Birmingham, and in 1981 moved on to become a sports presenter for the BBC's national programme, Newsnight. The following year he achieved his ambition when offered a job co-hosting Grandstand, at the time the BBC's flagship national sports programme.^[12]

He moved in 1982 to Ryde on the Isle of Wight, somewhere he had always wanted to live. He appeared on the first edition of British television's first national breakfast show, the BBC's Breakfast Time, on 17 January 1983, presenting the sports news for them until 1985. He also published his first book that year, It's a tough game, son!, about how to break into football.^[13]

He continued to work for BBC Sport until 1990, often on Grandstand and snooker programmes, and also at the 1988 Summer Olympics, but despite his professional success – he was by then a household name – a career in television began to lose its appeal for him. He wrote in Tales from the Time Loop (2003) that he was beginning to find television workers insincere, shallow, and vicious, with rare exceptions.^[14] His contract with the BBC was terminated in August 1990 thanks to a political row, when he refused to pay his Community Charge, a controversial local tax introduced that year in England by Margaret Thatcher. He did end up paying it, but his announcement that he was willing to go to jail rather than pay prompted the BBC, by charter an impartial public-service broadcaster, to distance itself from him.^[15]

Green Party, meeting with psychic healer[link]

Icke had begun to flirt with fringe medicine and New Age philosophies during the 1980s, in an effort to find relief from his arthritis, and this encouraged his interest in Green politics.^[16] He wrote his second book in 1989, It Doesn't Have To Be Like This, an outline of his views on the environment, and became involved with the Green Party from 1988 to 1991, rising to become one of their four Principal Speakers, a position the party had created in lieu of a leader. The Observer called him "the Greens' Tony Blair."^[17] He was regularly seen at high-profile events. He was invited in 1989 to debate animal rights during a televised debate at the Royal Institute of Great Britain, alongside Tom Regan, Mary Warnock, and Germaine Greer, and in September 1990 his name appeared on advertisements for a children's charity along with Audrey Hepburn, Woody Allen, and other celebrities.^[18]

He wrote that 1989 was a time of considerable personal despair for him, and it was during this period that he began to feel a presence around him.^[19] In March 1990 he had a sudden feeling while standing in newsagent's that a magnetic force was pulling his feet to the ground, and said he heard a voice tell him to look at a particular section of books. One of the books there was by Betty Shine, a psychic healer in Brighton. He decided to visit her to ask for help with his arthritis.^[20]

Icke said he had a mystical experience near this pre-Inca burial site in Peru.

Shine told him during their third meeting that she had a message for him from Wang Yee Lee, a being who she said looked like a Chinese mandarin and had Socrates standing next to him.^[21] The message was that Icke had been sent to heal the Earth. He would become famous, but would face opposition. The spirit world was going to pass ideas to him, which he would speak about to others, sometimes not understanding the words himself. She said he would write five books in three years; that in 20 years there would be a different kind of flying machine, where we could go wherever we wanted and time would have no meaning; and there would be earthquakes in unusual places, because the inner earth was being destabilized by having oil taken from the seabed.^[22]

As part of the process of making sense of this, he decided in February 1991 to visit the pre-Inca Sillustani burial ground near Puno, Peru, and while there felt drawn to a large mound of earth, at the top of which lay a circle of waist-high stones. As he stood in the circle, he again felt his feet pulled to the earth as if by a magnet, and an urge to outstretch his arms. His feet started vibrating, and his head felt as though a drill was passing through it. Two thoughts entered his mind: that people will be talking about this in 100 years, and then, "it will be over when you feel the rain." He said his body started shaking as though plugged into an electrical socket and new ideas began to pour into him. Then it started raining, and the experience ended as suddenly as it had begun. He described it later as the "kundalini"—a term from Indian yoga describing a libidinal force that lies coiled at the base of the spine—exploding up through his spine, activating his brain and his chakras, or energy centres, triggering a higher level of consciousness.^[23]

He returned to England and began to write a book about the experience, Truth Vibrations, which was published in May that year. At a Green Party conference in Wolverhampton on 20 March 1991, before the book appeared, he resigned from the party, telling them he was about to be at the centre of "tremendous and increasing controversy," and winning a standing ovation from them after the announcement.^[24]

Turquoise period[link]

What followed was what Icke calls his "turquoise period." He writes that he had been channelling for some time, and had received a message through automatic writing that he was a "Son of the Godhead," interpreting "Godhead" as the "Infinite Mind."^[25] He now began to wear only turquoise, which he saw as a conduit for positive energy. He had met Deborah Shaw, an English psychic living in Calgary, Alberta, in August 1990, and after he returned from Peru, they began a relationship, which led to the birth of a daughter in December 1991. At one point, Shaw moved in with him and his wife. Shaw changed her name to Mari Shawsun, while Icke's wife became known as Michaela, which she said was an aspect of the Archangel Michael. They became known in the press as the "turquoise triangle."^[17]

In March 1991, a week after he resigned from the Green Party – and shortly after his father died – the three of them held a press conference to announce that Icke was a son of the Godhead. He said the world would end in 1997, preceded by a number of disasters, including a severe hurricane around the Gulf of Mexico and New Orleans, eruptions in Cuba, disruption in China, a hurricane in Derry, and an earthquake on the Isle of Arran. Los Angeles would become an island, New Zealand would disappear, and the cliffs of Kent would be under water by Christmas. He told reporters the information was being given to them by voices and automatic writing.^[26]

He wrote in 1993 that he had felt out of control during the press conference. He heard his voice predict the end of the world, and was appalled. "I was speaking the words, but all the time I could hear the voice of the brakes in the background saying, 'David, what the hell are you saying?'" His predictions were splashed all over the next day's front pages, to his great dismay.^[27]

Terry Wogan interview[link]

The headlines attracted an invitation to appear on the BBC's prime-time Terry Wogan show, Wogan, on 29 April 1991. When asked if he was claiming to be the son of God, he did not disagree, and amid laughter from the studio audience, he repeated that Britain would soon be devastated by tidal waves and earthquakes.^[28] He also talked about politics and the environment:

When you survey the world today ... when a child dies in this world of preventable disease every two seconds, when the economic system of this world must destroy the Earth simply for that system to survive; when you see all the wars, and when you see all the pain, and when you see all the suffering, is it a force of love and wisdom and tolerance that is in control of this planet?^[30]

The interview proved devastating for him. The BBC was criticized for allowing it to go ahead, Des Christy in The Guardian calling it a "media crucifixion."^[31] Wogan interviewed Icke again in 2006, acknowledging that his comments during the first interview had been "a bit sharp."^[28] Icke disappeared from public life for a time, unable to walk down the street without people mocking him. His children were followed to school by journalists and ridiculed by schoolmates, and his wife would open the back door to get the washing in only to find a camera crew filming her.^[32] He told Jon Ronson in 2001:

One of my very greatest fears as a child was being ridiculed in public. And there it was coming true. As a television presenter, I'd been respected. People come up to you in the street and shake your hand and talk to you in a respectful way. And suddenly, overnight, this was transformed into "Icke's a nutter." I couldn't walk down any street in Britain without being laughed at. It was a nightmare. My children were devastated because their dad was a figure of ridicule.^[29]

Writing and lecturing[link]

Icke said the interview had been the making of him in the end, that the laughter had set him free. He wrote that every bridge back to his past was ablaze, giving him the courage to develop his ideas without caring what anyone thought of him.^[33] He continued to write, turning himself into a prolific and popular author and speaker, and in 1995 set up his own publisher, Bridge of Love Publications, later called David Icke Books.^[34] He met his second wife, Pamela Leigh Richards, in Jamaica in 1997. He and Linda divorced in 2001, though they remain the best of friends, and she is involved in the management of his publishing business. He and Pamela married in 2001 and separated in 2008.^[35]

Icke addressed the Oxford Union in 2008.

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has produced a consolidation of all conspiracy theories into one project with unlimited explanatory power, his work cutting across class lines and political divisions.^[36] By 2006 he had lectured in 25 countries, his lectures were attracting audiences of several thousand, his books had been translated into eight languages, and his website was getting 600,000 hits a week. The Biggest Secret went through six reprintings between 1999 and 2006, and Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster (2002) became a top-five seller in South Africa.^[34]

He has become known in particular for his lengthy lectures, sometimes speaking for up to eight hours, then selling DVDs of the talks produced by his ex-wife, Linda Atherton. In February 2008 he was invited to address the Oxford Union, the University of Oxford's debating society. His book tour for Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010) encompassed lectures in Australia, Croatia, the Netherlands, and the United States, and ends in October 2012 with a talk at London's Wembley Arena, tickets ranging from ₤35 to ₤55. During the tour, he received a standing ovation in November 2011 in New York after an eight-hour lecture to a 2,000-strong crowd at the Nokia Theater in Times Square.^[37]

He stood for parliament in the UK in July 2008 as "Big Brother—The Big Picture" in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election, coming 12th with 110 votes and losing his deposit. He explained that he stood because, "if we don't face this now we are going to have some serious explaining to do when we are asked by our children and grandchildren what we were doing when the global fascist state was installed. 'I was watching EastEnders, dear' will not be good enough."^[38]

Key ideas[link]

Icke combines metaphysical discussion about the nature of the universe and consciousness with conspiracy theories about public figures being satanic paedophiles, and how apparently random events are attempts to control humanity. He argued in The Biggest Secret that human beings originated in a breeding program run by a race of reptilians called Anunnaki from the Draco constellation, and that what we call reality is just a holographic experience; the only reality is the realm of the Absolute. He believes in a collective consciousness that has intentionality; in reincarnation; in other possible worlds that exist alongside ours on other frequencies; and in acquired characteristics, arguing that our experiences change our DNA by downloading new information and overwriting the software. We are also able to attract experiences to ourselves by means of good and bad thoughts.^[39]

Global Elite[link]

Icke argues that humanity was created by a network of secret societies run by an ancient race of interbreeding bloodlines from the Middle and Near East, originally extraterrestrial. Icke calls them the "Babylonian Brotherhood." The Brotherhood is mostly male. Their children are raised from an early age to understand the mission; those who fail to understand it are pushed aside. The spread of the reptilian bloodline encompasses what Norman Simms calls the odd and ill-matched, extending to 43 American presidents, three British and two Canadian prime ministers, various Sumerian kings and Egyptian pharaohs, and a smattering of celebrities such as Bob Hope. Key Brotherhood bloodlines are the Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, various European royal and aristocratic families, the establishment families of the Eastern United States, and the British House of Windsor—Icke identified the Queen Mother in 2001 as "seriously reptilian."^[40]

The Illuminati, Round Table, Council on Foreign Relations, Chatham House, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations, are all Brotherhood created and controlled, as are the media, military, CIA, Mossad, science, religion, and the Internet, with witting or unwitting support from the London School of Economics.^[41] At the apex of the Brotherhood stands the "Global Elite," identified throughout history as the Illuminati, and at the top of the Global Elite stand the "Prison Wardens." The goal of the Brotherhood—their "Great Work of Ages"—is world domination and a micro-chipped population.^[40]

Reptoid hypothesis[link]

Icke introduced the reptoid hypothesis in The Biggest Secret (1999), which identified the Brotherhood as descendents of reptilians from the constellation Draco, who walk on two legs and appear human, and who live in tunnels and caverns inside the earth. He argues that the reptilians are the race of gods known as the Anunnaki in the Babylonian creation myth, Enûma Eliš.^[42] According to Barkun, Icke's idea of "inner-earth reptilians" is not new, though he has done more than most to expand it.^[43]

The Draco constellation from Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, 1690. Icke's "reptoid hypothesis" posits that humanity is ruled by descendents of reptilians from Draco.^[44]

Lewis and Kahn write that Icke has taken his "ancient astronaut" narrative from the Israeli-American writer, Zecharia Sitchin, who argued—for example in Divine Encounters (1995)—that the Anunnaki had come to Earth for its precious metals. Icke argues that they came specifically for "monoatomic gold," a mineral he says can increase the carrying capacity of the nervous system ten thousandfold. After ingesting it, the reptilians can process vast amounts of information, speed up trans-dimensional travel, and shapeshift from reptilian to human form.^[45] They use human fear, guilt, and aggression as energy. "Thus we have the encouragement of wars," he wrote in 1999, "human genocide, the mass slaughter of animals, sexual perversions which create highly charged negative energy, and black magic ritual and sacrifice which takes place on a scale that will stagger those who have not studied the subject."^[46] Lewis and Kahn argue that Icke is using allegory to depict the alien, and alienating, nature of global capitalism.^[47]

Icke writes that the Anunnaki have crossbred with human beings, the breeding lines chosen for political reasons, arguing that they are the Watchers, the fallen angels, or "Grigori," who mated with human women in the Biblical apocrypha. Their first reptilian-human hybrid, possibly Adam, was created 200,000–300,000 years ago. There was a second breeding program 30,000 years ago, and a third 7,000 years ago. It is the half-bloods of the third breeding program who today control the world, more Anunnaki than human, he writes. They have a powerful, hypnotic stare, the origin of the phrase to "give someone the evil eye," and their hybrid DNA allows them to shapeshift when they consume human blood.^[48]

In Children of the Matrix (2001), he added that the Anunnaki bred with another extraterrestrial race called the "Nordics," who had blond hair and blue eyes, to produce a race of human slave masters, the Aryans. The Aryans retain many reptilian traits, including cold-blooded attitudes, a desire for top-down control, and an obsession with ritual, lending them a tendency toward fascism, rationalism, and racism. Lewis and Kahn write that, with the Nordic hypothesis, Icke is mirroring standard claims by the far right that the Aryan bloodline has ruled the Earth throughout history.^[49]

Dimensions[link]

The reptilians not only come from another planet, but are also from another dimension, the lower level of the fourth dimension, the one nearest the physical world. Icke writes that the universe consists of an infinite number of frequencies or dimensions that share the same space, just like television and radio frequencies. Some people can tune their consciousness to other wavelengths, which is what psychic power consists of, and it is from one of these other dimensions that the Anunnaki are controlling this world—though just as fourth-dimensional reptilians control us, they are controlled, in turn, by a fifth dimension. The lower level of the fourth dimension is what others call the "lower astral dimension." Icke argued that it is where demons live, the entities Satanists summon during their rituals. They are, in fact, summoning the reptilians.^[50] Barkun argues that the introduction of different dimensions allows Icke to skip awkward questions about which part of the universe the reptilians come from, and how they got here.^[51]

Problem-reaction-solution[link]

In Tales From The Time Loop (2003), Icke argues that most organized religions, especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam, are Illuminati creations designed to divide and conquer the human race through endless conflicts, as are racial, ethnic, and sexual divisions. He cites the Oklahoma City bombing and 9/11 as examples of events organized by the Global Elite.^[52] The incidents allow the Elite to respond in whatever way they intended to act in the first place, a concept Icke calls "order out of chaos," or "problem-reaction-solution". He writes that there are few, if any, public events that are not engineered, or at least used, by the Brotherhood:^[17]

Image by Neil Hague from Icke's Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), showing the Brotherhood, or "Red Dresses." This image depicts George W. Bush, Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II as members of the Brotherhood.

You want to introduce something you know the people won't like. ... So you first create a PROBLEM, a rising crime rate, more violence, a terrorist bomb ... You make sure someone else is blamed for this problem ... So you create a "patsy," as they call them in America, a Timothy McVeigh or a Lee Harvey Oswald. ... This brings us to stage two, the REACTION from the people—"This can't go on; what are THEY going to do about it?" ... This allows THEM to then openly offer the SOLUTION to the problems they have created ..."^[53]

Red Dresses[link]

In Infinite Love is the Only Truth (2005), Icke introduces the idea of "reptilian software." He says that there are three kinds of people. The highest level of the Brotherhood are the "Red Dresses." These are "software people," elsewhere called "reptilian software," or "constructs of mind." They lack consciousness and free will, and their human bodies are holographic veils.^[54]

A second group, the so-called "sheeple"—the vast majority of humanity—have what Icke calls "back seat consciousness." They are conscious, but they do whatever they are told and are the main source of energy for the Brotherhood. They include the "repeaters," the people in positions of influence who simply repeat what other people have told them. Doctors repeat what they are told in medical school and by drug companies, teachers repeat what they learned at teacher training college, and journalists are the greatest repeaters of all. The third group, by far the smallest, are those who see through the illusion; they are people like Neo from the film, The Matrix. They are usually dubbed dangerous or mad. The "Red Dress" genetic lines keep obsessively interbreeding to make sure their bloodlines are not weakened by the second or third levels of consciousness, because consciousness can rewrite the software.^[54]

Moon Matrix[link]

The Moon Matrix is introduced in Human Race Get Off Your Knees: The Lion Sleeps No More (2010), in which he writes that the Earth and the collective human mind are manipulated from the Moon, a spacecraft and inter-dimensional, inter-density portal controlled by the reptilians. The Moon Matrix is a broadcast from that spacecraft to the "human body-computer," specifically to the left hemisphere of the brain, which gives us our sense of reality. He writes: "We are living in a dreamworld within a dreamworld—a Matrix within the virtual-reality universe—and it is being broadcast from the Moon." Unless people force themselves to become fully conscious, their minds are the Moon's mind, an idea further explored in his Remember Who You Are: Remember 'Where' You Are and Where You 'Come' From (2012).^[55]

Reception[link]

Protests[link]

In The Robots' Rebellion (1994), Icke introduced the idea that the Global Elite's plan for world domination was laid out in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a hoax published in Russia in 1903, which supposedly presented a plan by the Jewish people to take over the world.^[56] According to Mark Honigsbaum, Icke refers to it 25 times in the Robot's Rebellion, calling it the "Illuminati protocols."^[57]

In his 2001 documentary about Icke, Jon Ronson cited this cartoon, "Rothschild" (1898), by Charles Léandre, arguing that Jews have long been depicted as lizard-like creatures out to control the world.^[58]

The Protocols portrays the Jewish people as "cackling villains from a Saturday matinee," as Jon Ronson put it in his documentary about Icke, David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews (2001).^[56] It was published in English in 1920 by The Dearborn Independent, Henry Ford's newspaper, becoming mixed up with conspiracy theories about anti-Christian Illuminati, international financiers, and the Rothschilds, a Jewish banking dynasty. After it was exposed that year as a hoax by The Times of London, Michael Barkun writes that it disappeared from mainstream discourse until interest in it was renewed by the American far right in the 1950s.^[56] Barkun argues that Icke's reference to it is the first of a number of instances of him moving dangerously close to antisemitism.^[59]

Icke's use of the Protocols was greeted with dismay by the Green Party's executive. They had allowed him to address the party's annual conference in 1992, despite the controversy over his Wogan interview, but in September 1994 decided to deny him a platform.^[60] Icke wrote to The Guardian protesting against the decision, denying that The Robots' Rebellion was antisemitic, and rejecting racism, sexism and prejudice of any kind, but in the same letter insisted that whoever wrote the Protocols "knew the game plan" for the 20th century.^[61] Barkun argues that Icke was trying to have it both ways, offended by the allegation of antisemitism while "hinting at the dark activities of Jewish elites."^[62]

Alick Bartholomew of Gateway, Icke's former publisher, said that an early draft of And the Truth Shall Set You Free (1995) contained material questioning the Holocaust, and that Icke was dropped because of it.^[57] Sam Taylor wrote in The Observer in 1997 that, having read the material, he did not believe it was antisemitic, but argued that Icke was "tapping into a seriously paranoid, aggressive strain in U.S. society."^[63] Louis Theroux cautioned in 2001 that it might not only be unfair to Icke to allege that he is associating Jews with the Global Elite, but it also lends a seriousness to ideas that would otherwise not deserve it.^[64] Icke said it was "friggin' nonsense" that his reptiles represented Jews. "There is a tribe of people interbreeding," he told Jon Ronson in 2001, "which do not, do not, relate to any Earth race ... This is not a Jewish plot. This is not a plot on the world by Jewish people".^[65]

Icke was briefly detained by immigration officials when he entered Canada in 2000, after his name was added to a watch list because of complaints from the Canadian Jewish Congress.^[66] His books were removed from Indigo Books, a Canadian chain, and several stops on his speaking tour were cancelled, as was a lecture in October 2000 at Blackheath Concert Halls in London, for the same reason.^[67] Human rights lawyer Richard Warman, working at the time for the Canadian Green Party, took credit for much of this in Jon Ronson's documentary about Icke, which catalogued some of the cancelled appearances.^[68]

Academic views[link]

Michael Barkun of Syracuse University writes that Icke is the most fluent of the conspiracy writers.^[69]

Michael Barkun sees Icke as a professional conspiracy theorist of the Alex Jones variety, and the most fluent of the genre.^[69] He calls Icke's work "improvisational millennialism," with an end-of-history scenario involving a final battle between good and evil. Because everything is connected in the conspiracist world view, Barkun writes, every source can be mined for links. The greater the stigma attached to an idea, the more attractive it becomes, and the vehemence with which the mainstream rejects an idea is almost a measure of its validity. For Icke, the widespread ridiculing of the lizard theory is a guarantee that there's something to it, Barkun argues.^[51]

According to Barkun, Icke has actively tried to cultivate the far right. In 1996, he spoke to a conference in Reno, Nevada, alongside opponents of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act—which mandates background checks on people who buy guns in the United States—including Kirk Lyons, a white nationalist lawyer who has represented the Ku Klux Klan.^[51]

Barkun argues that the relationship between Icke, the militias, and the Christian Patriots is complex because of the New Age baggage Icke brings with him, and he stresses that Icke is not actually a member of any of these groups, but he has nevertheless absorbed the world view of the radical right virtually intact. "There is no fuller explication of its beliefs about ruling elites than Icke's," he writes. Icke regards Christian patriots as the only Americans who understand the truth about the New World Order, but he also told a Christian patriot group: "I don't know which I dislike more, the world controlled by the Brotherhood, or the one you want to replace it with."^[51]

Tyson Lewis and Richard Kahn see Icke differently, more as a spiritual philosopher, arguing that it's not clear he believes in the reptilians himself. They write that there is an almost obsessive-compulsive element to his writing, which includes anything he can find to support a narrative that connects ancient Sumer to modern America, in a way that "defies the laws of academic gravity," and which they say offers unlimited explanatory power. They argue that the lizards may be allegorical, a Swiftian satire intended to alert people to the emergence of a global fascist state. In Children of the Matrix, Icke writes that, if the reptilians did not exist, we would have to invent them. "In fact," he says, "we probably have. They are other levels of ourselves putting ourselves in our face."^[70]

Lewis and Kahn make use of Douglas Kellner's distinction in Media Spectacle (1995) between a reactionary clinical paranoia—a mindset dissociated from reality—and a progressive, critical paranoia that confronts power. They argue that Icke displays elements of both, writing that what they call his "postmodern metanarrative" may be a way of giving ordinary people a narrative structure within which to question what they see around them.^[71]

Works[link]

Books

Video

See also[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: David Icke

• Erich von Däniken
• Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa
• Zecharia Sitchin

Notes[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• DavidIcke.com.
• Banyan, Will. "The Big Picture" A review of Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster (pdf), Paranoia Magazine, October 2003.
• Kay, Jonathan. "When paranoia goes intergalactic", The National Post, 12 May 2011.
• Shermer, Michael. "Illuminati, The New World Order & Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists (PCTs)", The Skeptic's Dictionary, 2006.
• Shermer, Michael. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time. Mjf Books, 1997.

Audio/video

• Britton, Fern. Interview with David Icke, 1/3, 2/3, 3/3, BBC's Coast to Coast People, 1991.
• Icke, David. Presenting snooker, BBC, 1980s.
• Icke, David. "Does the Animal Kingdom need a Bill of Rights?", Royal Institute of Great Britain, Arena, BBC 2, 1989.
• Icke, David. "Live at the Oxford Union", February 2008.
• Icke, David. "Still crazy after all these years", from The Lion Sleeps No More DVD, 2010.
• Kent, Arthur. "Secret Societies", interview with David Icke, History Channel, 2001.
• Maher, Bill. Interview with David Icke, Religulous, 2008.

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2010)

Alec Su
Alec Su at the New York Chinese Film Festival, September 19, 2010.
Chinese name	蘇有朋 (Traditional)
Chinese name	苏有朋 (Simplified)
Pinyin	Sū Yǒupéng (Mandarin)
Born	(1973-09-11) September 11, 1973 (age 38) Taipei, Republic of China (Taiwan)
Other name(s)	Su You Peng, Tommy Su
Occupation	Actor, singer
Instrument(s)	Keyboards, Guitar
Years active	1988-present
Associated acts	Little Tigers Team
Awards Hundred Flowers Awards Best Supporting Actor 2010 The Message

Alec Su (born on September 11, 1973 in Taipei, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese pop star and versatile actor in films and television dramas. He became famous as a member of the Taiwanese Idol Band The Little Tigers, formed in 1988, and later for his first Chinese TV series Princess Returning Pearl (series 1 and 2).

Little Tigers[link]

Alec Su's career started in 1988, at the age of 15, when he joined the Little Tigers trio. The band was the first idol singing group that debuted in the Taiwanese music industry and Alec was labelled as the "obedient tiger." The group's popularity was unprecedented; the Little Tigers attracted fans from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore, and amongst Chinese communities around the world. The success of the band began the new generation of Taiwanese pop culture in the early 1990s. In 2010, the Little Tigers were invited to participate in the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, in which they sang a medley of three of their biggest hits and won accolades as the "favorite singing group"^[1] for the event.

Apart from being a popular singer, during this period Su was epitomized by the general public as a superior student. He attended Taiwan's number one high school, Taipei Municipal Jian Zhong High School and was accepted into the prestigious National Taiwan University, where he majored in Mechanical Engineering . Su's experiences describing his high school years, preparing for the Taiwan university entrance examinations while trying to also juggle his performing schedule as a member of a wildly popular singing group, are recorded in his 1995 book entitled My Days at Jian Zhong / Youth Never Die.^[2]

However, as Su became so well known at such a young age, he felt that he had lost his freedom as a result of being in the limelight. At the age of 21, a year before his university graduation in Taiwan, Su decided to leave school and study abroad in England.

Television[link]

In 1995, after the breakup of Little Tigers, Su embarked on an acting career. His role as the fifth prince in the Chinese TV series blockbuster Princess Returning Pearl I and II won him fame as a television actor in 1997. He continued in 2000 with another hit TV series Romance in the Rain. His later TV series include Heavenly Sword and Dragon Sabre (2002), Magic Touch of Fate (2004, costarring Taiwanese actress Ruby Lin and Korean singer Kang Ta), and Mischievous Princess (2005). He collaborated with Korean actress Chae Rim in two 2003 productions, Love of the Aegean Sea and Warriors of the Yang Clan.

In 2006, Su appeared in the 1930s drama Jiang Ji Jiu Ji co-starring with Li Qian, Cecilia Ye Tong, and Paul Chun, and which aired in Spring 2007. In 2008 he acted in the TV drama Re Ai, which aired in the spring of 2009.

Movies and music[link]

Alec Su performing in the Fantasy Stars Chinese New Year Concert at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, January 28, 2012.

In recent years, Su has been concentrating on his film career. Since the second half of 2008 he has participated in more than a half-dozen film projects. Su also appears in the ensemble piece, Fit Lover, which had a November 2008 release, as well as guest starring in a short Taiwan film, L-O-V-E. The high-profile 1940s-period espionage drama, The Message, had a wide release in Asia in autumn 2009, has been included in several international film festivals, and received several nominations (and one win, for Li Bing Bing as "Best Actress") for the 2009 Golden Horse awards. A Singing Fairy, shot in Guangxi Province, and a biography of Macau composer Xian Xinghai, titled The Star and the Sea, both opened in limited release in December 2009. The Four Cupids, a romantic comedy, premiered in April 2010. Film projects for 2010 included The Love Song of Kangding (romantic drama filmed in Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture) and Lost in Panic Room, a "locked room" detective thriller. Both premiered in the fall of 2010. A sequel to the detective film, titled Lost in Panic Cruise, was released for Halloween 2011. Su continues his film career with several completed movies scheduled for release in 2012, and another currently in production.

In October 2010, Alec won the Hundred Flowers Award for "Best Supporting Actor" for his role in The Message. In December 2010, he won the "Best Actor" award at the 2nd Macau International Movie Festival, for his performance in The Love Song of Kangding

Along with his TV and film success, Su has released thirty top-selling albums, starting as a member of The Little Tigers group. As a solo artist he has released 14 albums, beginning in 1992 with I Only Want You to Love Me to his 2004 release Before and After. In January 2012 Su performed, along with singers Daniel Chan, Aska Yang, and Wilber Pan, in the 2012 Fantasy Stars Chinese New Year Concert, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas.

Filmography[link]

TV series[link]

Films[link]

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Soundtracks[link]

• 2004: Love Of The Aegean Sea Original Soundtrack

Books[link]

• 1995 (revised 2003): 青春的場所 (My Days at Jian Zhong / Youth Never Die)

External links[link]

• SuYouPeng.com - Official Website - inactive: currently undergoing reconstruction
• Blog - Alec's Sina blog
• Da Bu Liao Blog - Blog started in 2007 for upcoming album
• Microblog weibo - Alec's Sina Microblog weibo 新浪微博

References[link]

1. ^ (Chinese)央视春晚调查结果出炉：小虎队最受欢迎. 2010年02月26日 星岛环球网
2. ^ Su, Alec (2003) [1995] (in Chinese). 青春的場所 Qing Chun De Chang Suo / My Days at Jian Zhong / Youth Never Die. Unitas Publishing Co., Ltd., Taiwan. ISBN 957-522-417-5 (2003). 

Coordinates: 22°16′42″N 114°09′32″E / 22.27833°N 114.15889°E / 22.27833; 114.15889

Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China[note 1] 中華人民共和國香港特別行政區
Flag Emblem
Anthem: March of the Volunteers 《義勇軍進行曲》
View at night from Victoria Peak
Official language(s)		Chinese, English[note 2]
Spoken languages		Cantonese, English
Writing systems		Traditional Chinese, English alphabet
Demonym		Hong Konger
Government		Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China
-	Chief Executive	Donald Tsang
-	Chief Executive-elect	CY Leung
-	Chief Justice	Geoffrey Ma
-	President of the Legislative Council	Jasper Tsang
Legislature		Legislative Council
Establishment
-	Treaty of Nanking	29 August 1842
-	Japanese occupation	25 December 1941 – 15 August 1945
-	Conveyance from British sovereignty to Chinese sovereignty	1 July 1997
Area
-	Total	1,104 km2 (179th) 426 sq mi
-	Water (%)	4.58 (50 km²; 19 mi²)[3]
Population
-	2010 census	7,061,200[4]
-	Density	6,480[5]/km2 (4th) 16,576/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$351.119 billion[6]
-	Per capita	$49,137[6]
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$243.302 billion[6]
-	Per capita	$34,049[6]
Gini (2007)		43.4[7]
HDI (2011)		0.898[8] (very high) (13th)
Currency		Hong Kong dollar (HKD)
Time zone		HKT (UTC+8)
Date formats		yyyy年m月d日 (Chinese) dd-mm-yyyy (English)
Drives on the		left
ISO 3166 code		HK
Internet TLD		.hk and .香港
Calling code		+852

Hong Kong
Chinese	香港
Cantonese Jyutping	Hoeng1gong2
Cantonese Yale	Hēunggóng
Hanyu Pinyin	Xiānggǎng
Literal meaning	Fragrant harbour
Transcriptions Hakka - Romanization Hiông-kóng Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Xiānggǎng - Wade–Giles Hsiang1-kang3 - IPA [ɕjáŋkàŋ] Min - Hokkien POJ Hiong-kang Wu - Romanization shian平kaon上 Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping Hoeng1gong2 - IPA [hœ̂ːŋkɔ̌ːŋ] - Yale Romanization Hēunggóng
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Traditional Chinese	香港特別行政區 (or 香港特區)
Simplified Chinese	香港特别行政区 (or 香港特区)
Transcriptions Hakka - Romanization Hiông-kóng Thi̍t-phe̍t Hàng-tsṳn-khî Mandarin - Hanyu Pinyin Xiānggǎng Tèbié Xíngzhèngqū Min - Hokkien POJ Hiong-kang Te̍k-pia̍t Hêng-chèng-khu Wu - Romanization shian平kaon上 deh入bih入 ghan平tsen去chiu平 Cantonese (Yue) - Jyutping Hoeng1gong2 Dak6bit6 Hang4zing3 Keoi1