it seems that the patton oswalt site has been updated:
And now that this website’s been re-designed, you can bet your bleeding ballsack (or woman-part!) that I’ll be bullshitting like one of those low-flying, village-strafing bullshit attack helicopters, if they existed!
it’s a good thing to deliver such an amazing, pretty definitive mp3 collection of the various emo tributaries… for that, i became a daily reader of canyouseethesunset.
it’s another good thing entirely to churn out a rave for 77 year-old kenny wheeler’s new album… fan-damn-tastic.
it’s like this… i have arrived upon an odd plateau where it all of a sudden seems practical to have comfortable shoes (see the earlier post about watches – what gives?)*. i am thrilled, i tell you, about the PG-rated fizz and dance at this week’s consecutive rapture and !!! shows.
“god,” i almost mutter aloud. “i’m glad i have comfortable shoes for these shows.”
i want to impress my date with my dancing, you see, and i don’t know if i have retained my one, dependable mod/disco finger-strut move. vained and vain, i hope i can get to that ‘crap my neck hurts from headbanging’ place.
*(‘course, most people probably didn’t need late-twenties rigors and a ‘real job’ to see the value of comfortable shoes. i chalk it up to an odd combo of the monastery years and punk rock.)
This just in…Squids will open for the original Bad Brains lineup, 5/25 in Portland. Holy cripes.
“Quit Trying to Make the Democrats Something They’ll Never Be”
In an article widely circulated on the internet, U.S. journalist Larry Everest, co-author of a book on Bush and Cheney, exposes the double-speak of the Democratic Party leaders, particularly in relation to Iraq. Below are some excerpts from this article, dated March 28, 2007.
On Friday, March 23, the Democrats in the House of Representatives pushed through the “U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Health, and Iraq Accountability Act” by a vote of 218-212. The bill gives the Bush administration some $100 billion to continue the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, while calling for U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq by September 1, 2008.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi hailed this as a vote “to bring an end to the war in Iraq.” But it is no such thing. This bill (and a similar Democratic Party bill under consideration in the Senate) is not a step towards ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq or the larger “war on terror” it is part of. This bill doesn’t represent a condemnation of-or accountability for-the U.S.’s unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq. Rather the bill’s stated goal is to “help fight the war on terror.” And the bill certainly doesn’t call for U.S. forces to leave the Middle East/Central Asian region. …
The Democrats are not demanding that U.S. forces immediately leave Iraq-the only just solution-or that they ever leave Iraq. Both Bush and the Democrats envision that thousands of U.S. troops will be in Iraq for years to come-just not on the frontlines of combat in the same way or in the same numbers. … These open-ended commitments, and the Democrats’ refusal to renounce permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, mean that thousands of American troops could be stationed in Iraq for decades to come. …
California Democrat Lynn Woolsey said on Democracy Now! (March 22), “There are virtually no enforcement measures in this legislation that will make the President do anything that we’re telling him to do when we get to the end of August 2008 and the war is still going on.”
All these steps flow from the Democrat Party’s agreement with the Bush regime’s basic goal of maintaining and strengthening U.S. imperialist global dominance-even as they have deep disagreements over how to realize it. …
In November, millions voted for the Democrats to protest Bush and the war, and in hopes they would end it. Today, many-including people who worked energetically to elect Democrats and who’ve been lobbying them to cut off war funding-feel bitter, betrayed, and outraged.
They should be outraged.
The lesson is not that the Democrats “sold out” or are “spineless.” The lesson is that the Democrats are a ruling class party (and this is deeply institutionalized, regardless of the desires or intentions of its supporters or even some elected Democrats), acting to advance the interests of a capitalist-imperialist system they’re part of and represent. These interests are directly antagonistic to the interests and sentiments of billions of people globally and the vast majority in the U.S. …
What is needed to end the war is a massive upheaval from below. But such an outpouring cannot and will not happen as long as millions are putting their hopes in the Democrats-either passively by waiting for 2008, or even actively, by focusing their energy, efforts, hopes, and yes money into pressuring the Democrats to “do the right thing” instead of putting them where they can really count for something: into mobilizing the one force that can stop the war and drive out the Bush regime- the millions, from all walks of life, who oppose them.
Inspiring and organizing these millions to take independent mass political action based on the just demands of ending the war and turning back all the outrages of the Bush regime from torture to spying to theocracy, is the only realistic option and the only way these crimes will be stopped. It will never happen by hoping the Democrats become something they’re not, and never have been.
once-prodigal, now repentant “labor guy” ted k. named in the gen-x quotidien.
if you’ve never listened to seven second delay before, no reason not to start with the most recent broadcast, an unprecedented reprise of a great premise. people on the road get themselves behind 19-wheelers, relay their ‘how’s my driving?’ 1-800-numbers, and ken and andy subsequently make the calls. happy friday to me!
Romney/Thompson ‘08….
Q. What do you make of all the attention being given to Fred Thompson?
A. “It’s welcome. ‘Come on in, the water’s fine,’ as they say. This is a large field. We have terrific candidates that are here. I wish we had more diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity. But we are where we are in that regard. He’s a terrific guy. Senator Thompson is a person with a great reputation who’s known across the country. He’s a prosecutor, for heck’s sake. [As District Attorney Arthur Branch on NBC’s “Law & Order”] He puts bad people in jail every week. And so of course people are going to warm to his brand of leadership.”
Could we be so lucky? Romney-Thompson vs. Obama-Edwards? It’d make great tv, if you were me.
harriet the spy deserve mention alongside a buncha other early 90s emo/hardcore greats like unwound, angel hair, etc. ‘cept they had that “dead seriously funny” thing we could associate w/ beefheart, etc.
they went on to form the “new” terrror class, whose sole cd sits way up with the mightiest of mighties.
anyway, the amazing used bin forever is hosting one of harriet the spy’s astonishing ten-inchers…avail yourselves, then buy unfuckwithable from troubleman, where you can also check some harriet and terror class mp3s.
so some may remember a thread last week in which i invited you all to join in on a debate over the tactical/moral worthiness of corporate/comprehensive campaigns in the labor movement…well the upshot to all this is pretty fucked. cheek’s self-critical survey of our common political battle royal ended up getting appropriated by the enemy of all enemies, unionfacts, who describe him as an “ardently pro-labor blogger,” and quote him in a “see! even this labor activist thinks corporate campaigns are evil” way.
my point is not to call out uncle here: truth is, he took one for the whole team. the rest of us, too, have been pretty loose-lipped about the blemishes to be found in our workplaces. my question is, what’s the right way to handle this? i’m as fearful of “airing the family laundry” as the next guy, but i don’t want to be tight-lipped to the point of quelling debate. all of a sudden the oft-evoked ‘politics of representation’ actually seeem political!!!
more context. uncle didn’t make any points from his corner of the blog-realm that hallowed leftie publications don’t advance all of the time. an institution among the non-trot labor left, labor notes has been known to make the same objections to the salaries of union officials that the unionfacts rightists love. is a certain statement ‘progressive’ when unionists make it, but ‘propagandistic’ when bosses do? is this just a re-run of questions of who has the right to say ‘nigger’ and who doesn’t?
okay, i’ll buy that. i definitely believe that statements’ meanings derive largely from the context in which they’re spoken. but even if we accept the idea that it’s the speaker, not the speech..where has this gotten us? where is it safe/productive for the left versions of self-criticism to be voiced? for example, an acquaintance (who thinks i’m an asshole, btw) has made quite a splash writing about the adverse conditions in which young labor organizers are recruited, and the excruciating work environment in which they’re ‘baptized’ – should this literally “go without saying,” anywhere but in private spaces? will that change the situation? of course not. that said, i’ve become incredibly skeptical about my own interest to observe a labor union in my dissertation research…why shine a light on the insides of a grass roots organization when i could be shining one on capitalists somewhere, i ask? i certainly wouldn’t be trying to negatively portray a labor union, mind you… but even by focusing on the virtues of labor, don’t i end up producing information that could be skewed and reproduced for the ‘wrong’ interests?
which brings us to another question, one that we’ve taken on in the context of art: at what point does the author cede ‘responsibility’ for the life of the text s/he’s produced? would uncle be responsible for the death of corporate campaigns if unionfacts grafted his critique onto a union-busting campaign? would my acquaintance be responsible for a decrease in organizer recruitment? again, moral psychology obscures more than it illuminates… the issue is not one of intentions, but one of outcomes. uncle would regret a blow against the labor movement whether or not he deserved recriminations for this blow. but then we’re back to the sad fact that, yes, some of us would like to make significant changes within our political movement. and how can we do that if we’re terrified by how unintended consequences?
please discuss.
