Friday, December 31, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

For the baby 2011... Show Me by The Pretenders

Show me the meaning of the word
Show me the meaning of the word
'Cause I've heard so much about it
They say, "Hey, you can't live without it"

Welcome to the human race
With its wars, disease and brutality
You with your innocence and grace
Restore some pride and dignity
To a world in decline

Welcome to a special place
In a heart of stone that's cold and gray
You with your angel face
Keep the despair at bay
Send it away, and

Show me the meaning of the word
Show me the meaning of the word
'Cause I've heard so much about it
I don't want to live without it
I don't want to live without it
Oh, I want love
I want love
I want love

Welcome here from outer space
The Milky Way is still in your eyes
You found yourself a hopeless case
One that's seeking perfection on earth
That's some kind of rebirth, so

Show me the meaning of the word
Show me the meaning of the word
'Cause I've heard so much about it
Don't make me live without it
Oh, love
I want love
I want
Love
I want love

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

I'm still here, and the atrocities continue to mount. I'm full of thoughts, I simply haven't time to collate them into coherent posts. But the holidays near their end. In the mean time, and in honor of the coming 'austerity' measures aimed at making us all even poorer, "A Town Called Malice" by The Jam.

Struggle after struggle, year after year/
The atmosphere's a fine blend of ice /
I'm almost stone cold dead in a town called malice

Saturday, December 25, 2010

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

Frank Zappa would have been 70 years old today - hard to believe. Happy Zappadan.
More Trouble Every Day - Frank Zappa



Two items for your consideration...

Item number one: Unions warn of massive wave of strikes .  British unions to work with student movement to fight austerity measures. Now, that's how it's done, yanks. Wake the fuck up. 


Item Number two: 60 minutes spews right wing propaganda.  NJ Gov. blames budget woes on unions: 60 minutes nods sagely, refuses to challenge. In reality, budget woes caused by Republican stock market ponzi scheme.

The two items are intertwined.

Monday, December 20, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

The angry music hour is happy - happy at the possibility of creating media for the people, and happy that contributor Burn Baby Burn has joined the fold.
And now, Capital Radio by the Clash


How can we make this happen?

We, i.e. people on the left, need to create media. The reason we are where we are is because corporate media has created a very narrow paradigm for political discussion. We can do this. If we don't all those licenses will go to fascist right wing fundamentalist churches, which will accelerate our national descent into hell. I'm in for a couple of hundred dollars. Who else will step up and create media for the people?

Sunday, December 19, 2010

In The Spirit of Cooperation...

President Obama says the tax deal shows the parties can cooperate

Or as my buddy Rawb put it, "You super greedy rich people tanked the world so we'll let you keep more of your money!"

Would someone PLEASE explain the word cooperation to Obama again! Thanks!

Sunday Morning Music Trivia

Original Buzzcocks singer, Howard Devoto, Formed the band Magazine in Manchester in early 1977. There first album, Real Life, is considered one of the most influential albums of all time, and was a seminal influence for many bands. The line up changed many times with band members leaving to join, Ultravox, Siouxie and the Banshees, Visage, The Birthday Party and The Mekons. Magazine disbanded before the release of their third album, "Magic, Murder and the Weather", in 1981. Here they perform "Give Me Everything" on the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978



Saturday, December 18, 2010

The Angry Music Hour Presents...

Young Americans - David Bowie





Do You remember your President Nixon? He seems like a fresh breath of sanity compared to today's fascists.....

Too busy

It is the busiest time of year for me, so I haven't had time to post as much. In the meantime, think about the fact that we live in a nation where the minority rules, as long as that minority is right wing. Two years of an alleged "liberal" majority in the House and the Senate produced exactly what it would have if we had just let little George stay on. The wealthy are wealthier and President Punk Ass Bitch even managed to move closer to the fascist wet dream of shutting down Social Security. Hooray for liberalism. On the local level, down in Olympia it now takes 66% to raise revenue and only 33% to destroy every worthwhile program in the state. How 'bout an initiative to make it necessary to have a 2/3 majority to cut spending? Your average liberal would find that too... antagonistic,  I'm sure. But then, your average liberal doesn't seem to mind too much being tied to the rack and anally raped by Torquemada, as long they can all act civil towards each other between sessions.
Sigh.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Fite Dem Back


Things that make you go AAAAAAUUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHH

Via Mock, Paper, Scissors:


If we’re going to strengthen our economy and grow jobs, this type of outreach – and cooperation between the administration, Congress, and the private sector – are critical.
–Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co
Dimon’s compensation over the last three years has averaged $21,991,394 a year. President Carebear and the Republicans will give Dimon and extra $1,179,000 next year.

The angry music hour presents...

And each time I feel like this inside/
just makes me wanna cry/
what's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding?

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Chris Hedges via Common Dreams

No act of rebellion is wasted.

On why art and artists are important:

 The long, long road of sacrifice, tears and suffering that led to the collapse of these regimes stretched back decades. Those who made change possible were those who had discarded all notions of the practical. They did not try to reform the Communist Party. They did not attempt to work within the system. They did not even know what, if anything, their protests would accomplish. But through it all they held fast to moral imperatives. They did so because these values were right and just. They expected no reward for their virtue; indeed they got none. They were marginalized and persecuted. And yet these poets, playwrights, actors, singers and writers finally triumphed over state and military power. They drew the good to the good. They triumphed because, however cowed and broken the masses around them appeared, their message of defiance did not go unheard. It did not go unseen. The steady drumbeat of rebellion constantly exposed the dead hand of authority and the rot and corruption of the state.

On the similarities between then and now, between there and here:

We, like those who opposed the long night of communism, no longer have any mechanisms within the formal structures of power that will protect or advance our rights. We too have undergone a coup d’état carried out not by the stone-faced leaders of a monolithic Communist Party but by the corporate state. We too have our designated pariahs, whether Ralph Nader or Noam Chomksy, and huge black holes of state-sponsored historical amnesia to make us ignore the militant movements, rebels and radical ideas that advanced our democracy...

 We may feel, in the face of the ruthless corporate destruction of our nation, our culture, and our ecosystem, powerless and weak. But we are not. We have a power that terrifies the corporate state. Any act of rebellion, no matter how few people show up or how heavily it is censored by a media that caters to the needs and profits of corporations, chips away at corporate power. Any act of rebellion keeps alive the embers for larger movements that follow us. It passes on another narrative. It will, as the rot of the state consumes itself, attract wider and wider numbers. Perhaps this will not happen in our lifetimes. But if we persist we will keep this possibility alive. If we do not, it will die...
All energy directed toward reforming political and state structures is useless. All efforts to push through a “progressive” agenda within the corridors of power are naive. Trust in the reformation of our corporate state reflects a failure to recognize that those who govern, including Barack Obama, are as deaf to public demands and suffering as those in the old Communist regimes. We cannot rely on any systems of power, including the pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, liberal religious institutions, universities, labor, culture and the Democratic Party. They have been weakened to the point of anemia or work directly for the corporations that dominate our existence. We can rely now on only ourselves, on each other. 
Do something, anything. It is vital, important and useful.
Sincerely,
The Match

Cast adrift on the Censorship

I am occasionally accused of hyperbole. Shocking, I know. However, consider these three items individually and in their greater context. I would maintain that these are part of an escalating trend toward fascism. Those who accuse me of occasional hyperbole would deny a connection between those events, or downplay them and accuse me of being conspiratorial.  Those people would be wrong in their analysis. I could sit here all day cutting and pasting URLs till that third sentence read "these thirty items" or "these three hundred items". So to those who would accuse me of hyperbole in this instance I can only say, "was eine gute kleine deutsche du bist!"
Look it up.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sunday Morning Music Trivia

The Last Poets arose from the civil rights and black nationalist struggles of the late '60's. Taking their name from a poem by the South African revolutionary poet Keorapetse Kgositsile, who believed he was in the last era of poetry before guns would take over, The Last Poets are generally considered the progenitors of Hip Hop. Formed on Malcolm X's birthday in Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem in 1968, Their self titled first album went top ten and their second album, "This is Madness" earned them a spot on Nixon's COINTELPRO list. Surviving members have recently collaborated with Common and Kanye West. Here is an updated version of the song "This is Madness" Enjoy.


Saturday, December 11, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

Tu t'laisses aller - Charles Aznavour

Maybe it's the rain, but I'm feeling melancholy tonight. The title translates as "You've let yourself go".


Plus ca change...

Secessionists plan great big hoedown to celebrate "The Good Old Days" . Personally, I hope they go all the way. I, for one, would welcome a second secession. The problem with America is The South, and the sooner we get rid of them, the better. As long as they take Ohio with them.

Welcome "Flamed"

bottle, fuel, rag will now be twice the blog it pretends to be - My good friend, "Flamed", has signed on to participate in this little project. She is brash, opinionated and totally awesome. Look for her writing soon.

The angry music hour presents...

Why'd Ya Do What Ya Did? - Marianne Faithfull




Oh, big grey mother, I love you forever
With your barbed wire pussy and your good and bad weather.
Why'd ya do it, she said, why'd you do what you did ...

Ah, I feel better now.

Friday, December 10, 2010

A Clockwork Presidency

Watching today's 'filibuster' by Senator Sanders, I was struck by how similar Obama's treatment of the left is to the discipline the character Little Alex metes out to his wayward droogies in  Anthony Burgesses'  A Clockwork Orange. After all, when has the right ever had to do any real work (like being forced to speak fro 8.5 hours)? They talk, Obama walks. But the left? he won't even negotiate with them.
Obama is little Alex personified.

A song for Bernie

Now's the time for you to show yo' ass
They ain't handin out no mo' cash
Mommas imitate my logo fast
Daddies take the safety off and blast

Sanders / Franken '12

Bernie explains the cynical attempt by President Punk Ass Bitch to defund and destroy Social Security. Required viewing.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

Uncle Sam Goddamn
Brother Ali


Oh, Snap!

MUTINY!!
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon said: "They said take it or leave it. We left it."

The Daily Assange

Both Governments and corporations (if there is a difference anymore) have gone apoplectic in their desire to destroy wikileaks and assassinate Julian Assange. The orchestrated attacks against Assange include but are not limited to:
* Shutting down Wikileaks servers, starting with the Amazon server
* Stopping domain name server propagation
* Paypal refusing to send payments
* VISA and Mastercard refusing to process payments
* The Swiss Bank PostFinance shutting down Assange's account
* Senator Lieberman pressuring firms over Wikileaks
* The odd behavior of prosecutors in the Assange rape accusations/case
Because wikileaks has proven some uncomfortable truths: that the UK fixed their inquiry into the war, that the US forced Spain to stop investigated war criminals from the Bush administration, and many other things. We have only seen the tip of the spear in Julian's hands.
Bank executives can defraud the entire world and go unpunished. War criminals walk amongst us daily with out fear of reprisal. But let one man speak truth to power, and his life is in danger, his bank accounts frozen, and yet no law has been broken: no charges filed.
Yes, Pogo, we have met the enemy. His name is NOT Julian Assange.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Angry Music Hour

Atmosphere - Guarantees

The Real Face of Hope and Change

Right now, the best chance for actual change rests on the shoulders of this heroic figure. Julian Assange is arguably the most important person on the planet at this moment. In his hands rests information that could quite possibly spawn a tsunami of systemic change. If he goes down, he will take the the system with him, and for that I applaud him.
Too bad he can't be POTUS -  he seems to have the negotiation thing down pat.

CYBERWAR

Awesome. I hope they crush the whole damn network.
Meanwhile, irony is NOT dead.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

How Obama Killed Social Security

While you were sleeping...
Here's the short version:

Reduce payroll contributions for two years
Two years set to expire in an election year
Expiration becomes a "tax hike"

Sound familiar?

Monday, December 6, 2010

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...

"Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the Hit Parade. Guys like us, we had it made. Those were the days!
Didn't need no welfare state. Everybody pulled his weight. Gee, our old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days!
And you knew where you were then! Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again.
People seemed to be content. Fifty dollars paid the rent. Freaks were in a circus tent. Those were the days!
Take a little Sunday spin, go to watch the Dodgers win. Have yourself a dandy day that cost you under a fin. Hair was short and skirts were long. Kate Smith really sold a song. I don't know just what went wrong! Those Were the Days!"

The angry music hour presents...

Leonard Cohen - The Future

The Dems Aren't Weak: They're Not Dems

"The Dems are spineless" is a common refrain from today's American left. The question, "Why can't they stand up for what they believe in?" is routinely asked. It never seems to occur to those asking the question that the answer may be that perhaps they are.
A year after I was born, LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act, turned to an aide and said, "We have lost the South for a generation." He was being optimistic. After all, Southerners had, up to that point, stuck with the Democratic party for no other reason then that the winner in the War Against Northern Aggression was a Republican - and they weren't going to forgive that, even if 100 years had passed.
Back then, being a Republican meant something quite apart from what it means today: your average Republican was generally a reasonable person, economically conservative but socially liberal, well educated and very intellectual. They represented the ruling class, but compared to today's nut jobs they did it relatively well, and at least begrudgingly accepted that social spending was necessary to keep the system from collapsing into class resentment and rebellion.
Nixon seized on the rift created by LBJ with his Southern Strategy, bringing a more reactionary element to the Republican tent. This Southern element began pushing the GOP further to the right. The Birchers and the fundamentalists gained ascendancy. As this shift progressed, the intellectual old guard began to look for a way out. They switched parties. They, in turn, pushed the Democratic party rightward. Thirty years of feedback loop later we have, in effect, an extremist, fascist party, the GOP, and a right wing party that would make your average Republican from 1964 blush - The Democratic party. And the leader of that party, Barack Obama, is to the right of Richard Milhous Nixon on every issue you can name. The Left has no voice at all in the party machinery.
Which is where all the confusion lies. When our current President doesn't stand up for the middle class or when he fails to fit the mold of a "democrat' it is because he isn't one in the sense most people mean when they say "democrat". His spine has nothing to do with it. He is a Republican, or more precisely, if this were 1964, he would be a Republican, and a very conservative one at that.
LBJ once said, "No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn." Change the decade and apply it to our current President - he simply isn't worth a damn.

Update: A slightly different take from Mock, Paper, Scissors

Sunday, December 5, 2010

And Xtians Wonder Why We Make fun of Them...

The Rapture Index  is dangerously high. Really. This is serious stuff, guys! Stop mocking!
Oh, you are so not getting raptured with that attitude, missy.
You are probably one of THEM. 
Or one of THEM.
You people make Baby Jesus cry.
How do you sleep at night?

Sunday Morning Music Trivia

From the album "Jazz From Hell", G-Spot Tornado was originally composed and performed on a Synclavier, and Frank Zappa felt it could not be performed by humans. It was eventually performed live by Ensemble Modern. "Jazz From Hell" is the only instrumental album in history to be labeled with the Parental Advisory sticker, most likely in retaliation for Zappa's congressional testimony against the RIAA.

Saturday, December 4, 2010

The angry music hour presents...

Dead Prez - Walk Like a Warrior

Meet the new "Welfare Queens"

With the invention of Ronnie Raygun's mythical "welfare queen", the modern right began to turn the tide of the class war in their favor. Part racist dog whistle, (look up Nixon's "Southern Strategy") and part gender resentment, the myth of the welfare queen played on the fears of white blue collar workers who were beginning to feel the foundations of their insular world crumble in a stagnant economy.
The zombie soldiers of Raygun's legacy continue to beat this dead horse to frightening effect, now threatening to reduce or eliminate Social Security, and demanding other austerity measures to reign in the deficit. Fed on a steady diet of Very Serious People telling them from every TV and radio that taxes "kill" jobs and that their taxes are wasted by a spendthrift Government hellbent on "wealth re-distribution", Ronnie's Zombie Minions have gutted national , state and local coffers, leading to a feedback loop of ineffective government followed by cries of "Government is ineffective!", followed by more anti-tax bullshit ad nauseum. Which brings us to Today's Welfare Queens. First, here is what they look like:




God fearing Real Amurcans in the red states receive more funding from the Federal Government than they contribute, and their anti tax life style is subsidized by the Amurca hating closet Muslims in the blue states. This article from Slate lays out the numbers:

The 28 states where George W. Bush won more than 50 percent of the vote in 2004 received an average of $1.32 for every dollar contributed. The 19 states where Bush received less than 50 percent of the vote collected 93 cents on the dollar.
Makes you wonder what the fuck they are complaining about, doesn't it? But more importantly, it points up the rank hypocrisy of the modern conservative movement. After all, if their feudal  trickle down economic mumbo jumbo had any real world validity, then those numbers would be reversed - red states would have thriving, growing economies with large tax bases, and people would be relocating from San Francisco and New York to Birmingham and Tulsa to find work. Wall Street would move to Tupelo. Can anyone tell us why that isn't happening?

Just don't call it "fascism".

That would make President Constitutional Law cry.
Honestly, this country can no longer be considered a "democracy".

Trumka's perpetual motion economy

If you pay people more, they buy more stuff.
Who'd a thunk it. It makes sense, so it must make poor PPAB's brain itchy.

The Rude Pundit

The Rude Pundit gets it right.
But let us not neglect that the backdrop for the pay freeze is deciding whether or not federal tax cuts should expire on income over $250,000 (or $1,000,000) a year. Essentially what Obama is saying is that a shit mopper at the Capitol ought to make less money so that the Koch brothers can afford to make more ads about what a socialist fucker Barack Obama is.

Friday, December 3, 2010

They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table figuring out how badly they're getting fucked...

My Airing of Grievances, part one:

December 23rd is not yet upon us, but the Airing of Grievances can not wait. We shall begin with an unreported and little known fact about Barack Obama, here after referred to as President Punk Ass Bitch, or PPAB for short.
Every one knows (or ought to know) that Presidents have the power to issue pardons. Few among us think much about it, but it can be an important tool for writing past wrongs and correcting injustices. Of course, it can also be used to cover for cronies and sycophants. Either way, until recently, it was common for the President to issue dozens, sometimes hundreds, of pardons per year. In fact, the American Constitution Society, a conservative legal think tank, notes that:
Until 1980, each president granted well over a hundred post-sentence pardons and sentence commutations almost every year, without fanfare or scandal. Grants were issued almost every month for much of this period, evidence that pardoning was considered part of the ordinary housekeeping work of the Presidency, not something reserved for holidays or departure from office. The percentage of clemency petitions acted on favorably remained high, approaching or exceeding 30% in every administration until President Jimmy Carter’s. While it would be naive to suggest that special pleading outside of regular channels never entered into a decision to pardon or commute a sentence, irregular grants rarely gave rise to controversy as long as ordinary people were perceived to have access to the president’s mercy.

Well, PPAB just issued his first pardons, after 700 days in office. Nine of them. What nine injustices roused the great twelve dimensional chess player from his lawyerly slumber? What errors and excesses of our hallowed judicial system prompted him to raise his pen? From Pardon Power Blog:

682 days into his presidency, Barack Obama, the slowest Democratic president in history to exercise the pardon power, has finally discovered the dark corners of Article II of the Constitution by granting 9 pardons. Why, even William Henry Harrison, who only served 32 days before dying, found a way to grant 3 pardons!
The retributive justice hawks in the Department of Justice must be mighty proud of Nixonian law-and-order smack down that has kept this AARP-like group at bay for decades. Poor 73-year old Russel Dixon ... his liquor law violation was more than 50 years ago (that is to say, before Obama was even born)! James Banks, now 66-years-old, was 27 when he got caught stealing plywood and nails from a construction site. Yes, you read that right! The horror! Ronald Foster, now 65-years old, committed his crime when he was an 18-year-old Marine serving in Vietnam. But Foster clearly had no business being eager for mercy, given the utterly shocking, heinous nature of his crime (whittling the edges of coins so as to trick vending machines). Thus, his application, filed in 2008, still required 32 months to process.

Six of these nine pardons never even did time for their minor offenses.  So we have yet another window into the right-leaning ivory tower that PPAB inhabits. President Obama is well on his way to rivaling George W. Bush as one of the least merciful presidents of all time. Of course, he has made his intentions perfectly clear since day one - he believes in Imperial Presidency, as much or more than Nixon or Bush I and Bush II. There is no justice in him. Meet the new boss...