Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The angry music hour presents...

Apparently, "map of Tasmania' is Australian slang for pubic hair. Now that you know that, this song will make sense.
Amanda Palmer - Map Of Tasmania

I'm sure this is all quite unrelated...

In Tennessee: 
The material calls for lawmakers to amend state laws governing school curriculums, and for textbook selection criteria to say that “No portrayal of minority experience in the history which actually occurred shall obscure the experience or contributions of the Founding Fathers, or the majority of citizens, including those who reached positions of leadership.” (May I point out that the plural of 'curriculum' is 'curricula', you fucking stupid teabaggers.)
In Washington:
A backpack bomb with the potential of killing or injuring dozens of people was found Monday along the route of a Martin Luther King Day “unity march” in downtown Spokane, Wash., authorities said today.
“It was a device that clearly was intended to harm or kill people,’’said Frank Harrill, a senior FBI agent and spokesman for the bureau’s Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force.
In The Confederacy: 
Every year, the doors of the state Capitol bear notices that offices will be closed the third Monday of January to honor Dr. King and Gen. Lee. Arkansas is one of three states to commemorate both men with a state holiday. The others are Alabama and Mississippi.
In Alabama:
''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters," he (Governor Bentley) said. "So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister." 
(This teabagging sack of shit had the nerve to deliver this repulsive missive from Martin Luther King's pulpit )

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Monday, January 10, 2011

Yes, Virginia, rhetoric leads to violence

The punditocracy is all a flutter, trying to assure anyone who will listen that Saturday's massacre in Tuscon is the act of a lone lunatic, and is certainly not in the least bit connected to the rise of right wing hate radio and the mainstreaming of paranoid conspiracy theories, militarism, birtherism and end-of-America-sharia-law-is-imminent poppycock that is the staple of Faux News.
Please.
We all witnessed with our own eyes the insane spectacle of spittle flecked middle aged white folks screaming that health care was a socialist plot to kill Granny. We all witnessed them bring guns to campaign rallies to intimidate anyone to the left of Atilla the Hun. We all witnessed with our own eyes their violent actions at town hall meetings, we watched them stomp heads in Kentucky... David Neiwert puts together a long list of recent right wing violence here.
Here in Washington State the owner of Ruby Ridge Dairy, Dick Bengen, is so lost in the violent rhetoric of the right that instead of dealing honestly with the employees he has abused and cheated for years, he chooses instead to threaten them with a rifle for daring to assert their human right to organize a union.
None of this is particularly new. The right has always responded violently towards the prospect of progress.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

We're all Rwandans now?

Compare and contrast American media today with this paragraph about media propaganda in Rwanda leading up to the genocide in 1994:

...the news media played a crucial role in the genocide; local print and radio media fueled the killings while the international media either ignored or seriously misconstrued events on the ground. The print media in Rwanda is believed to have started hate speech against Tutsis, which was later continued by radio stations. According to commentators, anti-Tutsi hate speech "...became so systemic as to seem the norm." The state-owned newspaper Kangura had a central role, starting an anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF campaign in October 1990. In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the individuals behind Kangura have been accused of producing leaflets in 1992 picturing a machete and asking "What shall we do to complete the social revolution of 1959?" – a reference to the Hutu revolt that overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and the subsequent politically orchestrated communal violence that resulted in thousands of mostly Tutsi casualties and forced roughly 300,000 Tutsis to flee to neighboring Burundi and Uganda.

The parallels are, of course, obvious, and no, there is no equivalency, and any attempt to draw false equivalencies between left and right in this matter is intellectually dishonest at best. The 24/7 drumbeat of lies, distortions and hateful and eliminationist rhetoric that pours forth daily from Faux News has no equivalent outside Rwanda and Nazi Germany. And yesterday Roger Ailes reaped his reward - five dead, including a nine year old girl.  Of course, attempts will be made to place the shooter on the left end of the spectrum, but again those attempts reek of intellectual dishonesty. The blame for this lays squarely with the American right - nowhere else.

Sunday Morning Music Trivia

Cockney Rebel was formed in London in 1972. Almost from the beginning the bands lead singer, Steve Harley, alienated the press and his fellow band mates with his relentless self-aggrandizement. In 1974 they did their one and only UK tour, after which the tensions in the band tore it apart. Re-emerging as "Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel", Steve Harley achieved his greatest success with this surprisingly bitter send off to his former band mates. Here he performs "Come Up And See Me" with studio musicians on TOTP in 1975. Enjoy.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

The angry music hour presents...

K'naan - Kick Push
The world is singing in a new voice - America does not understand. Pity.


Thursday, January 6, 2011

Lessons from Europe

In Europe, Austerity measures have been met, righteously, by large protests and direct resistance under this simple banner:  "We Won't Pay For Your Crisis" . Why can't the American left come up with simple, to the point messaging like that? It really isn't rocket science.
God, I wish I lived there instead of here in the belly of the dying beast.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

There is nothing wrong with Social Security - nothing.

The attacks on Social Security are premised on three massive lies.
1) Baby boomers will bankrupt the system:
Bullshit. Reforms undertaken during the Reagan Administration solved this potential problem. Here are the numbers to prove it. Yes, there will be a problem several decades down the road if some reforms are not taken again. What is being discussed now is not reform, but the destruction of the most successful program in the history of the nation to further enrich the wealthiest people on the planet. DON'T FALL FOR IT.
2) There is no Social Security Trust Fund:
Bullshit. From the SSA.gov FAQ:
Far from being "worthless IOUs," the investments held by the trust funds are backed by the full faith and credit of the U. S. Government. The government has always repaid Social Security, with interest. The special-issue securities are, therefore, just as safe as U.S. Savings Bonds or other financial instruments of the Federal government.

Remember back when people used to buy savings bands for their kids? Same thing. Social Security surpluses are safe, as in safely out of the hands of the investor class who desperately wants to get their criminal hands on OUR money. DON'T FALL FOR IT.

3) Means-testing benefits does no harm to Social Security:
Bullshit. Social Security is an insurance program. We all pay into it, and we all get to draw from it when we are old, or disabled, or orphaned, etc. IT IS NOT A WELFARE PROGRAM.  Everyone is entitled to draw from it. Means testing removes this objective standard and replaces it with a subjective one. DON'T FALL FOR IT.
And if anyone repeats any of these lies to your face, PUNCH THEM. No seriously. Anyone who repeats any of this unmitigated, fascist bullshit to your face is no different then a thief in your home. Second amendment and all that. 
The Match 

Where to begin...

It's a new year. Over my short break the outrages piled up so high I simply don't know where to start. It is obvious that the main theme for the media this year will be the coming austerity. Working people need to suck it up and pay for the crimes of the oligarchy by giving up unions, benefits, living wages, unemployment insurance, social security... ugly shit is in the works. I'll do my best to keep up with it. In the mean time, T-Rex, Children of the Revolution: