Playlist for Graham II, or more of The Mad Indie Media Liberation Front

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This is the age of patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here.
--James Joyce, Ulysses

Got a lot of thoughts in my head about authoritarianism, monstrosity, cognitive dissonance, and all the other necessary prerequisites for participation in partisan politics.

But it doesn't look like they're going to come out today. Except through music.

Last week, I shared the "good" side of my Playlist for Graham with y'all; the part that's about alternative space: alternative social space, alternative conversational space, alternative headspace...all of which are necessary to medic one's spirit and keep going in a situation increasingly monstrous:

"(he taps his brow) But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king."
--James Joyce, Ulysses

This week, I'm sharing the first section of the "bad" side of the Playlist; the description of the injury, rather than the temporary autonomous zones which have become increasingly necessary for health and sanity. This section has gotten much longer and more complicated over the last week; I think it's because I've been following the ongoing Jimmy Dore vs the Democratic Establishment and Friends controversy. Apparently, I can't yet bear to make my contribution to the fray; the analysis is stuck like a loogie in my throat. Instead, it's all going into the playlist.

I'm a little angry...

It seems not everybody in this discussion is acting in good faith.


You wanna take away my energy

With all your jive talkin'...

Some people are particularly good at acting in bad faith.

It probably would be simpler for me if I had a religious framework within which to account for this perfidy. This gentleman didn't have much trouble keeping his mind clear...

It might be as well for everybody to keep in mind what they're actually arguing about: life and death, or, more accurately, survival vs murder. Is murder what the powerful are doing right now, or could it still be classified as voluntary manslaughter? I guess it depends on which killing I'm talking about. There are so many different killings currently being arranged by the elites, and the killings are not interchangeable, though they are all part of one ugly, toxic thing.

Sometimes it can't be classified as anything but murder...

h/t to Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello and the rest for picking up on the neo-Nazi infiltration of the police a long time before most other (white) people were talking about it. Hell, it's still, somehow, not commonly known. How can every major media outlet be promoting "Black Lives Matter" without even touching on this issue? Apparently the only thing to fear about neo-Nazis in this country is that they might elect a Trump.

Michael Jackson talked about remarkably radical stuff and got away with it because his genre (pop) and his image (sometimes childlike, sometimes feminized) made the powerful think he was of no account except as a way to put more money in *their* accounts. It gets real around 5:11, when suddenly a pop video voices the anguish of a community. Note the silhouettes around the windows at around 8:40.

Annie, are you OK?

Here's a man who, unlike Jackson, eschewed subtlety and simply said, straight out, what was happening to him and his people. (I'm not judging either Jackson's or KRS' methods; far as I'm concerned both are my brothers, if they'd have me).

"Your laws are minimal, cause you won't even think about looking at the real criminal."

Those who watch closely will notice "Tank Man," the unnamed Tiananmen Square protester who stood, unarmed, in front of a tank, among the images in KRS' video. This man does not limit his thinking to one place, one time, or one people.

Neither did this man. Somehow his words just keep getting more and more pertinent:

And I was dreamin', in my sleep
Saw through you all,
And I was dreamin', still on my feet
Saw through you all,
And I saw what you could be
And you just don't feel free
And I saw what you could be
But you just won't be real to me.

So let's blame this excess
On an American dream
So let's blame the success
Of an American dream

That's kind of the question, then, isn't it?

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Comments

some thoughts are best expressed in song

change is going to come

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@QMS

Sometimes I think about Pete Seeger up against HUAC....

Mr. TAVENNER: Did you sing this song, to which we have referred, “Now Is the Time,” at Wingdale Lodge on the weekend of July Fourth?

Mr. SEEGER: I don’t know any song by that name, and I know a song with a similar name. It is called “Wasn’t That a Time.” Is that the song?

Chairman WALTER: Did you sing that song?

Mr. SEEGER: I can sing it. I don’t know how well I can do it without my banjo.

Smile

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

magiamma's picture

@QMS
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ofGDxV3Aa4]

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@lotlizard

Always good to "see" you. Voting retail, heh. More like buying from a travelling snake-oil salesman.

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6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

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6 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lotlizard's picture

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8 users have voted.

And I agree that what’s going on in the left media/“important voices” or whatever you’d call them is very revealing. At the risk of sounding like a Jimmy Dore fanboy, it really seems like too much of the pushback is centered on Dore, that #forcethevote originated with Dore, that Dore didn’t go follow the proper procedure for such things (whatever that is), etc. While I have no misbelief that M4A would pass even now, the debate has perhaps done even more by itself. Cynical as I am, I’ve been surprised to see how petty, small minded, egotistical and incrementalist many so called progressives are when a real movement starts rolling.

#forcethevote isn’t perfect. I doubt a perfect plan exists. But it is a PLAN! It’s not strategizing divorced from action. It’s not empty pontificating in the lefty media. It’s not waiting for the right time or hoping that other Dems will see the light. But since the whole talk about a movement started with Bernie’s first run, the closest thing I’ve heard to a plan has been:
1. Elect “more and better” Dems
2. ???
3. Profit!
and frankly, that isn’t accomplishing anything.

For all the hand wringing about circular firing squads or pie fights (heh) or “leave AOC alooooooone!” this is the discussion the left needs to be having. This is what should have been happening all along. It should be embarrassing to the “stars” of this movement that a self-professed pot head, jag off comedian broadcasting out of his garage got the first real sings of movement going. I hope this serves as a boot to the butt not just for elected officials but some other so called leaders as well.

(EDIT: I wanted to add one thought that inspired this rant (it's been brewing a while.) I happened to be casually watching Jimmy Dore's livestream the night he and David Sirota really got into it early in the #forcethevote timeline. If you didn't see it, Sirota came on and seemed to be saying he was against holding votes for Pelosi because this could lead to a Republican speaker. Or at least Jimmy interperted it that way and he did his usual Jimmy Dore over the top thing. He and Sirota exchanged some words via Twitter before he came back on the stream, obviously pissed off by the exchange.

Now, I know Sirota was heated. If he was being misrepresented, and I'm still not sure he was, I can understand that. And I understand that people get angry and words can get garbled. But his second appearance on Dore's stream was really what started this rant.

Sirota seemed most upset that his progressive bonafides were being questioned by a relative newcomer. He kept talking about having been fighting for (that term, ugh) M4A for 25 years and all the things he's done, etc. etc.

Yes, Sirota has done a lot. Far more than I ever will, I'm sure. He's someone who is an important voice and someone who I respect. What I don't respect is the idea that this puts him, or anyone, above criticism or being taken to task or that if an idea didn't originate from someone who has put in the time or whatever, that it's invalid. His arguments just seemed so meritocratic that it really gave me pause. It really got me wondering how much of the progressive left (or whatever you want to call it) has calcified into the same merotocracy as the Democrats, just with better politics. I don't have an answer, but I'm finiding the debate around #forcethevote to be illuminating.)

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

lotlizard's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter  
Harvey Milk when he first approached them about running for office as a Dem. If I remember correctly, something like, “You know, Harvey, we’re like the Catholic church. We take converts, but we don’t make them pope the same day.”

In other words, get in line, pay your dues, earn your “credentials,” wait your turn. Who does that Jimmy-come-lately Dore person think he is?

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8 users have voted.
Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

It just makes me more convinced that the American political establishment is basically a Joe McCarthy redux.

At the risk of sounding like a Jimmy Dore fanboy, it really seems like too much of the pushback is centered on Dore, that #forcethevote originated with Dore, that Dore didn’t go follow the proper procedure for such things (whatever that is), etc.

I'm reminded of the 2005 movie Good Night and Good Luck
, in which Murrow's team of journalists say to him, "What on earth is McCarthy going to do, deny his own words?" and Murrow says to them, "C'mon, you know what he's going to do. He's going to come after me. What else can he do?"

When what you're doing is indefensible, all you can do is try and destroy the other guy's character.

They haven't got a fucking leg to stand on, and they know it.

This may--probably won't, but may--finally destroy this misbegotten, woebegotten zombie version of identity politics. They're essentially saying they're going to let masses of people die because their donors want them to, and they're trying to justify that, or at least obscure the shame of it, by saying that Jimmy Dore and those who side with him are racist. Including Briahna Gray.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

often has the effect of "outing the ringers."

Cynical as I am, I’ve been surprised to see how petty, small minded, egotistical and incrementalist many so called progressives are when a real movement starts rolling.

Here's how it worked nine years ago:

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter

by asking those questions.

I, too, liked David Sirota very much once upon a time, and I'm just as unhappy as anybody else at having to consider him an opponent rather than an ally. But anybody who could enter a conversation about healthcare policy in the middle of a pandemic with a few hundred thousand people dead, a new surge of cases and deaths, a new mutation or three, an economy on the verge of collapse and a society in which medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy--and make it about their personal credentials or about the effect #forcethevote will have on their personal career trajectory is doing something monstrous.

That's why I can't talk, or write, about this very much. The fundamental nature of this "debate" *is* monstrous. It's monstrous, under these circumstances, to care about whether or not AOC's upward climb through the party ranks is hampered by #ForcetheVote. It's monstrous, under these circumstances, to care about whether someone sufficiently respects your movement cred. 341,000 deaths from COVID-19. That we know about. Three hundred and forty-one thousand. An upcoming wave of evictions in the heart of winter. And David Sirota is worried about whether or not Jimmy Dore is giving his time in the healthcare rights movement sufficient respect. He's upset because his credentials are being called into question. And AOC's supporters are upset because she may not get a committee seat now, and it may take her longer to rise to the level of getting a cabinet post or a place on a presidential ticket.

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2 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

and argue, discussion is getting close to impossible these days. Music does help.

Thanks for your OT, and music.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@randtntx

I appreciate everybody here for putting up with me when I'm at a loss for words.

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7 users have voted.

"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

the playlist.

I notice that you just had to stick Mario in there even though not music. The crux of his exhortation has been stuck in my head since '64, but it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker and is hence not acceptable to today's society who simply don't have the attention span for that many words, it seems. Hence we need to simplify and summarize it. The IWW tried really hard, but sometime in the fifties their one-word action slogan got confused with bowling, so I suggest that we steal from team Chavez-Huerta and simply plaster the nations surfaces and airwaves with HUELGA!. After all, what else works? Surely not electoral politics or trying to shame politicians and other kleptocrats. HUELGA!. Short, simple, and some/many will have to look it up or ask, and that might make it stick this time around. HEULGA!

Thanks tons for these interludes. We really don't need the actual news. We all know the news, and today's news is just yesterday's news, because, socio-politically, "it's always the same fuckin' day, man".

The "current events" hue of the day painted over the eternal ongoing news is but the details - Major Headline here => Breaking: this specific asshole committed this specific assholery at this specific hour and minute in this specific location! Got that? Allrighty, then, hey, look, Breaking: This specific ...

Yeah, who really needs that shit. It did happen here, it's still happening here, and it will continue happening here unless something real happens. HUELGA!

so, on with the music.

be well and have a good one

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5 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

that some of our artists and musicians might help present the issues.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQd8TkTE4w]

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yi3tLwigo0]

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@randtntx

it takes a comedian to start a dialogue
for push-back against the crooked
legislators for a path to M4A

too easy to get swallowed up in despair
musicians and trapeze artists have a better grip
on our current condition than these clowns in
DC

mercy

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magiamma's picture

@randtntx
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wsRe454u8s]

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WTF, over.
Been paying my credit card bills in full, on time, for ever.
Mailed the check to cap.one as usual.
Took 2 weeks to get there.
Late fee and interest charged.
Mail is slow as molasses in January.
Pleaded my case with said company.
They suggested I give them my bank account access.
F*ck that. Started looking at the postmark dates on the x-mas
cards that arrived a week late. Mailed 2-3 weeks ago. Thanks Trump.
So it is a win-win for govt. to slash service and the card companies
get a windfall in late fees. We just have to pay for this orgy.

Mercy, mercy me.

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9 users have voted.
magiamma's picture

Thanks for the playlists.

Interesting article...
Anthropocene: human-made materials now weigh as much as all living biomass, say scientists

Now a new study in Nature by a team of scientists from the Weizmann Institute in Israel upends that perspective. Our constructions have now – indeed, spookily, just this year – attained the same mass as that of all living organisms on Earth. The human enterprise is growing fast, too, while nature keeps shrinking. The science-fiction scenario of an engineered planet is already here.
...
Now, the team has delved into the statistics of industrial production and mass flows of all kinds, and reconstructed the growth, from the beginning of the 20th century, of what they call “anthropogenic mass”. This is all the things we build – houses, cars, roads, aeroplanes and myriad other things. The pattern they found was strikingly different. The stuff we build totted up to something like 35 billion tonnes in the year 1900, rising to be roughly double that by the middle of the 20th century. Then, that burst of prosperity after the second world war, termed the Great Acceleration, and our stuff increased several-fold to a little over half a trillion tonnes by the end of the century. In the past 20 years it has doubled again, to be equivalent to, this year, the mass of all living things. In coming years, the living world will be far outweighed – threefold by 2040, they say, if current trends hold.

Turning, turning, turning. Take good care, everyone.

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