Sunday, December 31, 2006
The Last Day of the Year, and I Read the First Post of the Year That Made Me Cry (maybe because it's not about people...)
I was very moved by a post written over at A Few Words Before We Go, a blog by a socialist, EJH (I believe the full name is Ed Justin Horton), who's also a team member of Lenin's Tomb. I think it was so moving for me because it wasn't about a person, it was about a cat, whose life is in peril right now. EJH says some very touching things in particular, but I won't quote them here; you have to read the whole story to really appreciate this. However, I will quote the final paragraph, because I feel Exactly the same way:
I love cats, and I have realised, as time passes, how much I identify with them, with their distrust of people, with their need to be alone. That is why I look, and why I need to look, into their eyes, to tell them I am with them, to tell them that they are a part of me and I a part of them. That some of what they feel is what I feel. I did not know, before, what I know about Ichy now, but now I do, and I am closer than before. I share, I feel what she feels. And sharing feelings is another term for love.
And, I think this is worth repeating - this is EXACTLY how I feel.
Maybe sometime after the revolution, when people are socialized differently and life is very different, I'll feel differently about people. But right now, I'll probably be less likely to relate to you, identify with you, and love you if you don't have four legs and a set of whiskers and you don't instinctively purr and meow.
And that might be my closing thought for 2006. Though maybe not... I might write another blog post or two if I don't get called in for work tonight, because I don't know of any New Years plans so far, and it's likely I'll just be sitting here in the house while all the people are away... Just me and the cats.
I love cats, and I have realised, as time passes, how much I identify with them, with their distrust of people, with their need to be alone. That is why I look, and why I need to look, into their eyes, to tell them I am with them, to tell them that they are a part of me and I a part of them. That some of what they feel is what I feel. I did not know, before, what I know about Ichy now, but now I do, and I am closer than before. I share, I feel what she feels. And sharing feelings is another term for love.
And, I think this is worth repeating - this is EXACTLY how I feel.
Maybe sometime after the revolution, when people are socialized differently and life is very different, I'll feel differently about people. But right now, I'll probably be less likely to relate to you, identify with you, and love you if you don't have four legs and a set of whiskers and you don't instinctively purr and meow.
And that might be my closing thought for 2006. Though maybe not... I might write another blog post or two if I don't get called in for work tonight, because I don't know of any New Years plans so far, and it's likely I'll just be sitting here in the house while all the people are away... Just me and the cats.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Rethinking My Obituary of James Brown (and related thoughts about "black capitalism")
On December 25, while most people in the U.S. were busy observing a quasi-religious holiday (giving each other presents bought in celebration of a major religion known as Consumer Capitalism), I happened to be sitting by myself at a computer without any human distractions, only the company of a quiet and mellow cat. So it was a perfect time for me to do some blogging, and I thought I’d take the opportunity to blog about the death of the “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown. I thought it was a nice opportunity because people who were actually obligated to celebrate Christmas would not have the chance to post about James Brown in such a timely way. But ultimately, I scrapped that post (within a day) because it wasn’t very good. For one thing, I myself needed a little more refreshing and reminding about the details of Brown’s life story. And another reason why I wasn’t too satisfied with what I’d written is that I had made only one objection to making a sort of hero out of James Brown, and after I wrote this, I began to realize and remember a few other objections that I had.
As I wrote in my prior post, there is no disputing, at least as far as I’m concerned, that James Brown made some great music, that he especially did incredible things with beats and rhythms, and that he had a great voice and was a tremendous performer. There’s also no disputing that he extensively influenced much of the music that's been made since the 1960s and especially since the '70s, most especially music originating from the African American communities, but also going beyond that. He most obviously influenced funk music, which people say he “invented.” I would be reluctant to use the word “invent,” but I believe he was the man who gave this form of music its popular name and his performances and recordings overshadowed every other influence for a long time. He also was an obvious influence on hip-hop – extremely obvious, considering that there are probably hundreds of recorded hip-hop songs out there that actually sample him. And he made a big contribution, at least culturally, to the development of black power in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, most obviously with his slogan, “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!”
But on the down side… As I mentioned in version number one of this obit, James Brown’s ultimate idea of black power turned out to be “black capitalism,” which also, somewhat perversely, eventually made him sort of a hero for some conservatives and Republicans. Unlike most Republicans or conservatives, he actually did want to destroy racism and he supported helping the poor through food stamps and other publicly funded means. But, more like many an annoying liberal, he believed that the main problem to overcome in the present economic system was the fact that, because of racism and other forms of prejudice, not everyone was given an equal opportunity to succeed. And this is a common idea that I find to be very flawed in at least a couple of big ways.
One is that even if, hypothetically, all identity-based biases such as racism could be knocked down, there would still be extreme inequality under capitalism, because a system inherently based on exploitation and competition (not to mention alienation and all those other wonderful things) will always result in the success of the few at the expense of the many, and most of the few who do succeed do so because of advantages connected directly to specific, elite kinds of knowledge and/or already existing wealth. Thus, identity-based biases and bigotry based on things like race or ethnicity do not by any means comprise all of the barriers to most people's success.
Besides – getting to the second flaw here – capitalist relations will always also guarantee that some people will try to keep others down through bigotry based on identity groups. Racism, sexism and other identity-based prejudices and forms of social oppression function as major tools used by the ruling class to keep themselves in power and keep that power from being shared. Not only do these forms of bigotry directly help the ruling class to keep certain groups down socially and economically; they also help to divide the working class, keeping the focus on antagonisms between racial or ethnic identity groups, thus preventing unity based on economic/class interest. I think there is room for debate regarding how much racism - or sexism, for that matter - might exist, as we know this kind of oppression, separate from the existence of capitalism, but I don’t think anybody who thinks about it can argue that there has ever been evidence of capitalism surviving and developing without the support of racism, sexism, etc.
The ruling class will always know instinctively that they cannot depend simply on the mythical “invisible hand” of the marketplace to maintain the status quo – that is, maintain their own power and wealth. So, the kind of thing that James Brown sort of talked about when he talked about “black capitalism” and giving people an equal opportunity to pursue the American Dream is, as far as I can tell, impossible.
Thus, when some news bulletins reminded me that there was a strong element of the black power movement that became very critical of James Brown for being counterrevolutionary, I could only think how right all those black power people were - even if the “movement” really consisted of so many different ideologies, some of which I couldn’t possibly agree with either.
Subsequent to the first James Brown obit that I put up, in which I did voice the above objection (though somewhat less extensively), I also began to be reminded that James Brown was at many times kind of a violent bully - not only was there that notorious incident in which he threatened people with a gun when he thought they'd been using his bathroom (mentioned in the prior version/post); he also was an admitted wife beater and was known to be a tyrant toward other members of his band.
It was very impressive that James Brown ascended so far from being in such a low place economically and socially (he came from some very real poverty) to become so wealthy and famous and, most importantly, such a major influence on so much good stuff – that is, so much good music and good culture. As I said before, if anyone had a moral right to talk about how people could come up from nothing to achieve the “American Dream,” James Brown did, because he'd made that kind of progress himself, unlike so many politicians who might promote the same idea but who actually started with lots of wealth and privilege right from birth. But I can’t help wondering whether a big part of James Brown’s success was due to the pure aggression and the unstoppable egotism that also influenced some of his worst behaviors. Of course he worked very hard and he had a lot of this quality that we call “talent” (whether that sort of thing is inborn or whether it is more a product of social influences , etc.), and he was also very socially concerned in some ways and generous, but maybe he had to have a lot of negative crap in his personality too in order to succeed in capitalism the way that he did.
James Brown’s legacy, and my attempts to write about it, also made me think a little more about eulogies and obituaries in general and how these sorts of things should be written... I think that if we appreciate someone for a particular thing that he did, a contribution that he made, we should probably be very specific about praising him for that particular thing. Too often, we end up trying to praise some cultural icon as an all-around hero when the individual whom we’re discussing actually had an awful lot of flaws. It is certainly possible to have a lot of admiration for something that somebody did in his lifetime without necessarily thinking or pretending that he was great in all ways. And this is a far more honest way to remember someone, too.
As I wrote in my prior post, there is no disputing, at least as far as I’m concerned, that James Brown made some great music, that he especially did incredible things with beats and rhythms, and that he had a great voice and was a tremendous performer. There’s also no disputing that he extensively influenced much of the music that's been made since the 1960s and especially since the '70s, most especially music originating from the African American communities, but also going beyond that. He most obviously influenced funk music, which people say he “invented.” I would be reluctant to use the word “invent,” but I believe he was the man who gave this form of music its popular name and his performances and recordings overshadowed every other influence for a long time. He also was an obvious influence on hip-hop – extremely obvious, considering that there are probably hundreds of recorded hip-hop songs out there that actually sample him. And he made a big contribution, at least culturally, to the development of black power in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, most obviously with his slogan, “Say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud!”
But on the down side… As I mentioned in version number one of this obit, James Brown’s ultimate idea of black power turned out to be “black capitalism,” which also, somewhat perversely, eventually made him sort of a hero for some conservatives and Republicans. Unlike most Republicans or conservatives, he actually did want to destroy racism and he supported helping the poor through food stamps and other publicly funded means. But, more like many an annoying liberal, he believed that the main problem to overcome in the present economic system was the fact that, because of racism and other forms of prejudice, not everyone was given an equal opportunity to succeed. And this is a common idea that I find to be very flawed in at least a couple of big ways.
One is that even if, hypothetically, all identity-based biases such as racism could be knocked down, there would still be extreme inequality under capitalism, because a system inherently based on exploitation and competition (not to mention alienation and all those other wonderful things) will always result in the success of the few at the expense of the many, and most of the few who do succeed do so because of advantages connected directly to specific, elite kinds of knowledge and/or already existing wealth. Thus, identity-based biases and bigotry based on things like race or ethnicity do not by any means comprise all of the barriers to most people's success.
Besides – getting to the second flaw here – capitalist relations will always also guarantee that some people will try to keep others down through bigotry based on identity groups. Racism, sexism and other identity-based prejudices and forms of social oppression function as major tools used by the ruling class to keep themselves in power and keep that power from being shared. Not only do these forms of bigotry directly help the ruling class to keep certain groups down socially and economically; they also help to divide the working class, keeping the focus on antagonisms between racial or ethnic identity groups, thus preventing unity based on economic/class interest. I think there is room for debate regarding how much racism - or sexism, for that matter - might exist, as we know this kind of oppression, separate from the existence of capitalism, but I don’t think anybody who thinks about it can argue that there has ever been evidence of capitalism surviving and developing without the support of racism, sexism, etc.
The ruling class will always know instinctively that they cannot depend simply on the mythical “invisible hand” of the marketplace to maintain the status quo – that is, maintain their own power and wealth. So, the kind of thing that James Brown sort of talked about when he talked about “black capitalism” and giving people an equal opportunity to pursue the American Dream is, as far as I can tell, impossible.
Thus, when some news bulletins reminded me that there was a strong element of the black power movement that became very critical of James Brown for being counterrevolutionary, I could only think how right all those black power people were - even if the “movement” really consisted of so many different ideologies, some of which I couldn’t possibly agree with either.
Subsequent to the first James Brown obit that I put up, in which I did voice the above objection (though somewhat less extensively), I also began to be reminded that James Brown was at many times kind of a violent bully - not only was there that notorious incident in which he threatened people with a gun when he thought they'd been using his bathroom (mentioned in the prior version/post); he also was an admitted wife beater and was known to be a tyrant toward other members of his band.
It was very impressive that James Brown ascended so far from being in such a low place economically and socially (he came from some very real poverty) to become so wealthy and famous and, most importantly, such a major influence on so much good stuff – that is, so much good music and good culture. As I said before, if anyone had a moral right to talk about how people could come up from nothing to achieve the “American Dream,” James Brown did, because he'd made that kind of progress himself, unlike so many politicians who might promote the same idea but who actually started with lots of wealth and privilege right from birth. But I can’t help wondering whether a big part of James Brown’s success was due to the pure aggression and the unstoppable egotism that also influenced some of his worst behaviors. Of course he worked very hard and he had a lot of this quality that we call “talent” (whether that sort of thing is inborn or whether it is more a product of social influences , etc.), and he was also very socially concerned in some ways and generous, but maybe he had to have a lot of negative crap in his personality too in order to succeed in capitalism the way that he did.
James Brown’s legacy, and my attempts to write about it, also made me think a little more about eulogies and obituaries in general and how these sorts of things should be written... I think that if we appreciate someone for a particular thing that he did, a contribution that he made, we should probably be very specific about praising him for that particular thing. Too often, we end up trying to praise some cultural icon as an all-around hero when the individual whom we’re discussing actually had an awful lot of flaws. It is certainly possible to have a lot of admiration for something that somebody did in his lifetime without necessarily thinking or pretending that he was great in all ways. And this is a far more honest way to remember someone, too.
Friday, December 22, 2006
CDs Bought at the East Village Tower Records’ Next-to-Last-Day 90-Percent-Off Sale
Yeah, I was able to make one last stop at Tower Records, where they had all their CDs at 90 percent off…because Tower is going out of business tonight. Whooha! We’re supposed to shed tears about this? Tower Records, if you picked a corporate strategy that ultmately backfired, you have only yourselves to blame. But I’ve got to be grateful that I got a few decent CDs there at 10 percent the price (everything cost somewhere between $1.60 and $1.90). I had only half an hour to shop before going to work (yeah, I got a shift last night too – whooha, again!); if I had longer, I might have gotten more. This is what I got:
Heavenly Grooves – This is really nice stuff. Going back to 1996, described accurately on the inside cover as “A very special selection of female ethereal vocals in modern electronic music compiled by Oli Rosch of Hyperium Records.” Yes, it is heavenly; I would have been happy with this even if I’d paid full price for it.
Lycia – Compilation of Appearances Vol. 2 – I saw this group at the Projekt Records Goth festival at Irving Plaza in 1999 or so (a freebie that I got from being on an old CD reviewer’s list)… Next to Black Tape for a Blue Girl, they were probably the most interesting thing there. A few years ago, I was looking for them at full price. Right now, I’m not in the mood for this heavy, heavy darkwave/ethereal material, but sometime soon I will listen through the whole CD, and I’m glad I have it. And the picture on the CD cover is probably the best takeoff on Grant Wood’s American Gothic that I’ve ever seen (American Gothic, indeed!).
Distance to Goa 2 – Yep, psychedelic Goa trance, from 1995. Nothing spectacular here; I would have liked it more in 1995. But not bad for the background, and speedy enough. It kind of kept me awake during a proofreading job. Only complaint is that all the songs are too long. I guess people don’t notice when they’re on Ecstacy.
Dzihan & Kamien – Refreaked – Decent mixture of Latin beats and some Middle Eastern sounds, along the drum’n’bass continuum. It will take a few listens to decide if I love any of this. But so far, not bad.
-------------------
P.S. Nothing, of course, like getting music for free. Many thanks to Durruti at Love & Rage for sending me some very nice Brazilian electronic lounge music and drum’n’bass. Tomorrow or the next day, I’m off to asfo_del’s to sit for an old cat and maybe download some mp3s on the Living on Less computer. If I get a little more work in, maybe I’ll get a better computer and start doing this at home. (Though how long have I been saying that?) Then, if/when that happens, I might start a music blog too. A thought – that’s where I’m gong right now. (Of course, I will keep the commie blog going, but it might be nice to have something else out there.)
Heavenly Grooves – This is really nice stuff. Going back to 1996, described accurately on the inside cover as “A very special selection of female ethereal vocals in modern electronic music compiled by Oli Rosch of Hyperium Records.” Yes, it is heavenly; I would have been happy with this even if I’d paid full price for it.
Lycia – Compilation of Appearances Vol. 2 – I saw this group at the Projekt Records Goth festival at Irving Plaza in 1999 or so (a freebie that I got from being on an old CD reviewer’s list)… Next to Black Tape for a Blue Girl, they were probably the most interesting thing there. A few years ago, I was looking for them at full price. Right now, I’m not in the mood for this heavy, heavy darkwave/ethereal material, but sometime soon I will listen through the whole CD, and I’m glad I have it. And the picture on the CD cover is probably the best takeoff on Grant Wood’s American Gothic that I’ve ever seen (American Gothic, indeed!).
Distance to Goa 2 – Yep, psychedelic Goa trance, from 1995. Nothing spectacular here; I would have liked it more in 1995. But not bad for the background, and speedy enough. It kind of kept me awake during a proofreading job. Only complaint is that all the songs are too long. I guess people don’t notice when they’re on Ecstacy.
Dzihan & Kamien – Refreaked – Decent mixture of Latin beats and some Middle Eastern sounds, along the drum’n’bass continuum. It will take a few listens to decide if I love any of this. But so far, not bad.
-------------------
P.S. Nothing, of course, like getting music for free. Many thanks to Durruti at Love & Rage for sending me some very nice Brazilian electronic lounge music and drum’n’bass. Tomorrow or the next day, I’m off to asfo_del’s to sit for an old cat and maybe download some mp3s on the Living on Less computer. If I get a little more work in, maybe I’ll get a better computer and start doing this at home. (Though how long have I been saying that?) Then, if/when that happens, I might start a music blog too. A thought – that’s where I’m gong right now. (Of course, I will keep the commie blog going, but it might be nice to have something else out there.)
"Jingle Jangle with the Po"
It's not like me to post holiday/Christmas material, but the other day, I got to hear a great old song, "Santa's Rap" by the Treacherous Three, on the WFMU hip-hop show, and I had to get those lyrics. Now, this is my kind of Christmas song. Here are some excerpts, thanks to ElectroEmipire.com:
Kool Moe Dee:
Ho Ho Ho
Open up ya do
I'm Santa Claus and guess what y'all
I got something to show
I came to bring some Christmas Spirit
I got a big bag now guess what's in it
Something for the rich and something for the po
So Merry Christmas and ho ho ho
L.A. Sunshine:
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas my foot
I'ma tell you what Santa really put
Under my so-called tree but in reality
Looked like nothin but a decorated pole to me
Special K:
Man, you talk about a tree it makes me wonder
Cause I never had a tree to put anything under
If I ever did luck up and get a tree
There was never anything under it for me
Kool Moe Dee:
Man I don't know what y'all talking about
Cause when I come to your town I just get chased out
I thought you would be happy to see Santa Claus
But all y'all say is stick 'em up and give me yours
L.A. Sunshine:
You lucky all you did was get ripped off
The next time just keep your big fat ass up north
Because after my last few Christmas nights
If I see you around my neighborhood I'm shooting on sight
Special K:
And I ain't even got a chimney for you to come down
So ain't no need for you to be coming around
Cause the last so called Santa that came in with a sack
Wasn't giving out presents he was taking them back
Kool Moe Dee:
Man y'all should be glad that I didn't quit
Cause I'm getting too old for this Santa Claus shit
Y'all thinking I'm getting presents made for free
I gotta' pay them elves and ain't nobody paying me
L.A. Sunshine:
You big fat whale you might as well quit
Cause I can name a hundred presents that I didn't get
And if I did get a present it would be a hand-me-down
Yo I got this for Christmas now how that sound
Special K:
It sounds good to me cause I'm about to freeze
You wanna see something look at the bottom of these
Me and my brothers can't go out at the same time
Cause a coat that's theirs is a coat that's mine
...
L.A. Sunshine:
To top Christmas off I had no loving in a while
I love to have sex but I can't afford a child
My girl wants a baby but I had to chill
She said if you don't want a baby then you take the pill
Special K:
What is Christmas for? Huh
What is Christmas for?
L.A. Sunshine:
What is Christmas for?
L.A. Sunshine & Special K:
Yeah! What is Christmas for?
Kool Moe Dee:
Wind up toys that don't wind up
Talking dolls that don't shut up
This is the type of present that you buy when you're poor
So that's what you have to settle for
And it ain't no secret that everything's sunny
If you're living in Palm Springs with all that money
Americanomics works and I won't argue that is true
But if the economy is getting better, getting better for who?
Well if you ask me I'm doing much worse than before
With the welfare cuts I don't eat no more
So if I did wanna' go out I couldn't go no where
Cause I ate every last one of them reindeer
Rudolph first I went down the list
I got so hungry I just couldn't resist
I ate Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Dixon
Fried'em up and then started to mix'em
And before you knew it they were all gone
I wonder what y'all gonna do about my reindeer song
L.A. Sunshine & Special K:
We'll sing silent night and jingle bells
And all those christmas rhymes
Cause nobody gives a shit
About your reindeer and hard times
You just Jingle and Jangle and hang out with the po
and when you get your welfare check
You can rent them by the sto
...
Chorus:
Jingle, Jangle, Jingle for the po
Don't take us for granted cause you may never know
One day when you least expect it
We could even up the sco
So just jingle, jangle, jingle with the po
Sing!
Jingle, jangle, a jingle jangle with the po
Jingle, jangle, jingle with the po
--------------------
P.S. Looking at this a couple more times, I found a few missing words here and there that I filled in. I believe these were genuine mistakes, not just an effort to preserve the lingo. But many thanks to Electro Empire for having the words at all; they weren't that easy to find, not at least in such a complete version - as other people are finding out now, as evidenced by the hits I'm getting from searches for these lyrics.
Kool Moe Dee:
Ho Ho Ho
Open up ya do
I'm Santa Claus and guess what y'all
I got something to show
I came to bring some Christmas Spirit
I got a big bag now guess what's in it
Something for the rich and something for the po
So Merry Christmas and ho ho ho
L.A. Sunshine:
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas my foot
I'ma tell you what Santa really put
Under my so-called tree but in reality
Looked like nothin but a decorated pole to me
Special K:
Man, you talk about a tree it makes me wonder
Cause I never had a tree to put anything under
If I ever did luck up and get a tree
There was never anything under it for me
Kool Moe Dee:
Man I don't know what y'all talking about
Cause when I come to your town I just get chased out
I thought you would be happy to see Santa Claus
But all y'all say is stick 'em up and give me yours
L.A. Sunshine:
You lucky all you did was get ripped off
The next time just keep your big fat ass up north
Because after my last few Christmas nights
If I see you around my neighborhood I'm shooting on sight
Special K:
And I ain't even got a chimney for you to come down
So ain't no need for you to be coming around
Cause the last so called Santa that came in with a sack
Wasn't giving out presents he was taking them back
Kool Moe Dee:
Man y'all should be glad that I didn't quit
Cause I'm getting too old for this Santa Claus shit
Y'all thinking I'm getting presents made for free
I gotta' pay them elves and ain't nobody paying me
L.A. Sunshine:
You big fat whale you might as well quit
Cause I can name a hundred presents that I didn't get
And if I did get a present it would be a hand-me-down
Yo I got this for Christmas now how that sound
Special K:
It sounds good to me cause I'm about to freeze
You wanna see something look at the bottom of these
Me and my brothers can't go out at the same time
Cause a coat that's theirs is a coat that's mine
...
L.A. Sunshine:
To top Christmas off I had no loving in a while
I love to have sex but I can't afford a child
My girl wants a baby but I had to chill
She said if you don't want a baby then you take the pill
Special K:
What is Christmas for? Huh
What is Christmas for?
L.A. Sunshine:
What is Christmas for?
L.A. Sunshine & Special K:
Yeah! What is Christmas for?
Kool Moe Dee:
Wind up toys that don't wind up
Talking dolls that don't shut up
This is the type of present that you buy when you're poor
So that's what you have to settle for
And it ain't no secret that everything's sunny
If you're living in Palm Springs with all that money
Americanomics works and I won't argue that is true
But if the economy is getting better, getting better for who?
Well if you ask me I'm doing much worse than before
With the welfare cuts I don't eat no more
So if I did wanna' go out I couldn't go no where
Cause I ate every last one of them reindeer
Rudolph first I went down the list
I got so hungry I just couldn't resist
I ate Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Dixon
Fried'em up and then started to mix'em
And before you knew it they were all gone
I wonder what y'all gonna do about my reindeer song
L.A. Sunshine & Special K:
We'll sing silent night and jingle bells
And all those christmas rhymes
Cause nobody gives a shit
About your reindeer and hard times
You just Jingle and Jangle and hang out with the po
and when you get your welfare check
You can rent them by the sto
...
Chorus:
Jingle, Jangle, Jingle for the po
Don't take us for granted cause you may never know
One day when you least expect it
We could even up the sco
So just jingle, jangle, jingle with the po
Sing!
Jingle, jangle, a jingle jangle with the po
Jingle, jangle, jingle with the po
--------------------
P.S. Looking at this a couple more times, I found a few missing words here and there that I filled in. I believe these were genuine mistakes, not just an effort to preserve the lingo. But many thanks to Electro Empire for having the words at all; they weren't that easy to find, not at least in such a complete version - as other people are finding out now, as evidenced by the hits I'm getting from searches for these lyrics.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Solidarity to M.I.A. in Liberia
There’s some mean-spirited article at Pitchfork Media called M.I.A. Goes Crazy on MySpace, which disses M.I.A. for a few of the more rant-like things that she darted on her blog – like some comments about her ex-boyfriend (presumably Diplo?) that some people didn't like, and a few other words of hers. At the end of the article, the writer admits, "...we clipped some of the almost-not-quite-as crazy quotes (and possibly lyrics?), so be sure to check out both full blog posts on MIA’s Myspace.” Which I did...and by the way, let me provide a link, which Pitchfork didn’t bother doing...and also provide some quotes from one of those posts (which certainly doesn’t look crazy to me - though maybe I would have used more apostrophes and fewer exclamation points, but read it for the content):
IN LIBERIA I WAS INTRODUCED TO A YOUNG LEADER KIMMIE WEEKS, WHO WAS DOING A LOT TO HELP THE PEOPLE. WOMEN , CHILDREN , CHILD SOLDIERS ETC. I WAS FILMED AS PART OF A SHOW TO HUMBLE CELEBRITIES IN THE MAINSTREAM WHO SPEND ALL DAY SHAKING IT WITH PARIS HILTON AND SINGING ABOUT CLOUDS AND LIVING IT UP IN A GLASS HOUSE.
THE UN R THERE!!!! AND THE GOVERNMENT PEOPLE R
THERE, AND THEY HAVE ELECTED IN THE FIRST LADY LEADER EVER IN AFRICA, SHE HAD A HARD JOB JUST TO COVER THE BASICS!!!!!!!!
FOR THE U.S DAY TO DAY RUNNING OF IRAQ
IT COST APPROX 85 MILLION PER DAY.
5 OF THOSE DAYS CAN REBUILD BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LIBERIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4EVA
FOOD , WATER, ELECTRICITY R STILL MISSING BECAUSE EVERYTHING HAS BEEN LOOTED AND SOLD TO OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES, LIKE THE TRAIN TRACKS PAVEMENT THE CABLES FOR ELECTRICITY TO PASS THROUGH, EVERYTHING IS CLEANED OUT.
NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS!!!!!!!
PLEASE LOOK OVER THERE, THEY HAVE BLOCKED THE ROADS TO JAFFNA WHERE I COME FROM . 500, 000 PEOPLE ARE BEING STARVED SYSTEMATICALLY TO DEATH. NO FOOD ALLOWED IN, I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT WHY THATS HAPPENING, BUT MAYBE U CAN. IT MAKES ME FREEZE , IT TOO CLOSE TO HOME.
I LIKE LIBERIA BECAUSE IT LOOKS GOOD TOO!!! I FELT ITS MY PLACE TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
I DIDNT CRY WHEN I SAW STUFF. I WAS HAPPY. I SAW PEOPLE LIVING IN THE WORST CONDITIONS AND I WAS HAPPY BECAUSE PEOPLE STILL WANTED MUSIC, FILMS, DANCING, POP STARS. SO I PUT ON SOME LIP STICK AND TOLD THEM I LIKED THEIR HAIR. I DIDNT WANT TO TREAT THEM LIKE THEY ARE VICTIMS!!!!! AND FEEL SORRY FOR THEM….
I WANTED TO SAY
THIS ISNT A BLACK WHITE THING!
THIS ISNT AFRICA AGAINST THE WORLD THING
MAYBE NOT EVEN
RICH / POOR THING
WAR THING
ITS 1ST WORLD....MEDIA VS 3 WORLD MESSAGE THING.
"I NEED TOOLS
SHOW ME HOW TO USE TOOLS
ILL DO IT MY FUCKIN SELF AND SELL IT TO YOU!!"
-----------------
P.S. You'll also notice a more recent post about men in hip-hop making money off of women's booty, etc. - most of it sounds reasonable enough to me (and most of it is a pretty familiar complaint too), but the Pitchfork people seem to think that's all crazy too, from what I gather...
IN LIBERIA I WAS INTRODUCED TO A YOUNG LEADER KIMMIE WEEKS, WHO WAS DOING A LOT TO HELP THE PEOPLE. WOMEN , CHILDREN , CHILD SOLDIERS ETC. I WAS FILMED AS PART OF A SHOW TO HUMBLE CELEBRITIES IN THE MAINSTREAM WHO SPEND ALL DAY SHAKING IT WITH PARIS HILTON AND SINGING ABOUT CLOUDS AND LIVING IT UP IN A GLASS HOUSE.
THE UN R THERE!!!! AND THE GOVERNMENT PEOPLE R
THERE, AND THEY HAVE ELECTED IN THE FIRST LADY LEADER EVER IN AFRICA, SHE HAD A HARD JOB JUST TO COVER THE BASICS!!!!!!!!
FOR THE U.S DAY TO DAY RUNNING OF IRAQ
IT COST APPROX 85 MILLION PER DAY.
5 OF THOSE DAYS CAN REBUILD BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE FOR LIBERIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4EVA
FOOD , WATER, ELECTRICITY R STILL MISSING BECAUSE EVERYTHING HAS BEEN LOOTED AND SOLD TO OTHER AFRICAN COUNTRIES, LIKE THE TRAIN TRACKS PAVEMENT THE CABLES FOR ELECTRICITY TO PASS THROUGH, EVERYTHING IS CLEANED OUT.
NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS!!!!!!!
PLEASE LOOK OVER THERE, THEY HAVE BLOCKED THE ROADS TO JAFFNA WHERE I COME FROM . 500, 000 PEOPLE ARE BEING STARVED SYSTEMATICALLY TO DEATH. NO FOOD ALLOWED IN, I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO TALK ABOUT WHY THATS HAPPENING, BUT MAYBE U CAN. IT MAKES ME FREEZE , IT TOO CLOSE TO HOME.
I LIKE LIBERIA BECAUSE IT LOOKS GOOD TOO!!! I FELT ITS MY PLACE TO BE HAPPY ABOUT IT.
I DIDNT CRY WHEN I SAW STUFF. I WAS HAPPY. I SAW PEOPLE LIVING IN THE WORST CONDITIONS AND I WAS HAPPY BECAUSE PEOPLE STILL WANTED MUSIC, FILMS, DANCING, POP STARS. SO I PUT ON SOME LIP STICK AND TOLD THEM I LIKED THEIR HAIR. I DIDNT WANT TO TREAT THEM LIKE THEY ARE VICTIMS!!!!! AND FEEL SORRY FOR THEM….
I WANTED TO SAY
THIS ISNT A BLACK WHITE THING!
THIS ISNT AFRICA AGAINST THE WORLD THING
MAYBE NOT EVEN
RICH / POOR THING
WAR THING
ITS 1ST WORLD....MEDIA VS 3 WORLD MESSAGE THING.
"I NEED TOOLS
SHOW ME HOW TO USE TOOLS
ILL DO IT MY FUCKIN SELF AND SELL IT TO YOU!!"
-----------------
P.S. You'll also notice a more recent post about men in hip-hop making money off of women's booty, etc. - most of it sounds reasonable enough to me (and most of it is a pretty familiar complaint too), but the Pitchfork people seem to think that's all crazy too, from what I gather...
Solidarity and Support to The Coup
I meant to post this a few days ago, but I had a trackball failure. (Fortunately, it wasn’t the whole computer…yet. And a new trackball cost only $20.) Anyway, I learned from Our Man Flint that the "raptivist" group known as The Coup got into a bus crash and is presently looking for support from whoever can provide it. I’ve written before about the vocalist Boots Riley, who is a dedicated communist rapper. (Though, admittedly, he did at least once belong to a Maoist gorup that I could quibble with, but from what I've seen, that certainly hasn't hurt the good social-Marxist message in his rap...) And, though I haven’t heard as much of The Coup as I would like (why isn’t anybody playing them – not even that good rap show on WFMU?), my impression is that they are a very worthy hip-hop group too...
But it seems right now that these are going to be pretty hard times for The Coup. As Boots says over on their Myspace blog:
We lost everything in that crash and fire. We were packed to live and do shows on that bus for a month. Most of us had every stitch of clothing we owned on there. We lost clothes, computers, recording equipment, cameras, IDs, phones, keys to cars and homes. We lost cash.We lost all our damn instruments and equipment to perform with. We were and are happy to walk away with our lives. But now we're home. Most of the band touring with The Coup has kids, rent that won't quit, bills, and holiday expenses coming. We need money, because like I said the band doesn't have the tools that they make a living with. Not only did we lose cash and material things on the bus, but we also were depending on this tour for money to make it through. It may take a year for us to see any money from the insurance company.
I have set up a Paypal account so people can make donations for The Coup. The money will be split between Me (Boots Riley), Silk E, Q, Steve Wyreman (guitar), and Riccol. Mr. Lif is setting one up on his site and when I have that info, we'll let you know.
And look at the blog to see the rest of those directions, to anyone who actually has money to spare...though I guess that category wouldn't include most of the readers of this blog, or fans of The Coup (why would people with a lot of money want to be fans of The Coup?), but you never know...
---------
P.S. By the way, I don’t understand anything about MySpace and this "friends" business and what that means in terms of access. I’m assuming that any links I put up on this blog will work...and that it’s OK to put them up here...
But it seems right now that these are going to be pretty hard times for The Coup. As Boots says over on their Myspace blog:
We lost everything in that crash and fire. We were packed to live and do shows on that bus for a month. Most of us had every stitch of clothing we owned on there. We lost clothes, computers, recording equipment, cameras, IDs, phones, keys to cars and homes. We lost cash.We lost all our damn instruments and equipment to perform with. We were and are happy to walk away with our lives. But now we're home. Most of the band touring with The Coup has kids, rent that won't quit, bills, and holiday expenses coming. We need money, because like I said the band doesn't have the tools that they make a living with. Not only did we lose cash and material things on the bus, but we also were depending on this tour for money to make it through. It may take a year for us to see any money from the insurance company.
I have set up a Paypal account so people can make donations for The Coup. The money will be split between Me (Boots Riley), Silk E, Q, Steve Wyreman (guitar), and Riccol. Mr. Lif is setting one up on his site and when I have that info, we'll let you know.
And look at the blog to see the rest of those directions, to anyone who actually has money to spare...though I guess that category wouldn't include most of the readers of this blog, or fans of The Coup (why would people with a lot of money want to be fans of The Coup?), but you never know...
---------
P.S. By the way, I don’t understand anything about MySpace and this "friends" business and what that means in terms of access. I’m assuming that any links I put up on this blog will work...and that it’s OK to put them up here...
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
A Sharp Article on Creative (Anti-)Commons and the Fraud of Intellectual Property
Thanks to Recording Surface for referring us to a fascinating (and very true, IMO) article on Copyright, Copyleft and the Creative Anti-Commons. To repeat a good quote from Eric (quoting from the words of Anna Nimus – though maybe it would be appropriate to add here, not born ex nihilo in the mind of Anna Nimus, but resulting from many influences, some of which are named at the end of the article)...
In an uncanny repetition of the copyright struggles that first emerged during the period of Romanticism, the excesses of the capitalist form of intellectual property are opposed, but using its own language and presuppositions. Creative Commons preserves Romanticism's ideas of originality, creativity and property rights, and similarly considers "free culture" to be a separate sphere existing in splendid isolation from the world of material production. Ever since the 18th century, the ideas of "creativity" and "originality" have been inextricably linked to an anti-commons of knowledge. Creative Commons is no exception.
If this statement confuses anyone, it’s worth backtracking to the beginning:
The author has not always existed. The image of the author as a wellspring of originality, a genius guided by some secret compulsion to create works of art out of a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, is an 18th century invention. This image continues to influence how people speak about the "great artists" of history, and it also trickles down to the more modest claims of the intellectual property regime that authors have original ideas that express their unique personality, and therefore have a natural right to own their works - or to sell their rights, if they should choose. Although these ideas appear self-evident today, they were an anomaly during their own time.
And some excellent lines later on:
Intellectual property is a meaningless concept - ideas don't behave like land and cannot be possessed or alienated....
Artistic creation is not born ex nihilo from the brains of individuals as a private language; it has always been a social practice. Ideas are not original, they are built upon layers of knowledge accumulated throughout history. Out of these common layers, artists create works that have their unmistakable specificities and innovations. All creative works reassemble ideas, words and images from history and their contemporary context.
...Intellectual property is fraud - a legal privilege to falsely represent oneself as the sole "owner" of an idea, expression or technique and to charge a tax to all who want to perceive, express or apply this "property" in their own production. It is not plagiarism that dispossesses an "owner" of the use of an idea; it is intellectual property, backed by the invasive violence of the state, that dispossesses everyone else from using their common culture.
The article goes on later to the point referred to by Eric, that the new idea of "Creative Commons" does not go nearly far enough in the "revolt against intellectual property" in terms of taking us away from this whole "intellectual property" idea.
I strongly recommend reading the article to get a better idea about Creative Commons and its development from the "copyleft." But I'll stick to quoting from the more basic outline about the nature of intellectual property, because I think that this is the most important information discussed in the article, as well as being basic stuff that a lot of people don't know or haven't realized.
In an uncanny repetition of the copyright struggles that first emerged during the period of Romanticism, the excesses of the capitalist form of intellectual property are opposed, but using its own language and presuppositions. Creative Commons preserves Romanticism's ideas of originality, creativity and property rights, and similarly considers "free culture" to be a separate sphere existing in splendid isolation from the world of material production. Ever since the 18th century, the ideas of "creativity" and "originality" have been inextricably linked to an anti-commons of knowledge. Creative Commons is no exception.
If this statement confuses anyone, it’s worth backtracking to the beginning:
The author has not always existed. The image of the author as a wellspring of originality, a genius guided by some secret compulsion to create works of art out of a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings, is an 18th century invention. This image continues to influence how people speak about the "great artists" of history, and it also trickles down to the more modest claims of the intellectual property regime that authors have original ideas that express their unique personality, and therefore have a natural right to own their works - or to sell their rights, if they should choose. Although these ideas appear self-evident today, they were an anomaly during their own time.
And some excellent lines later on:
Intellectual property is a meaningless concept - ideas don't behave like land and cannot be possessed or alienated....
Artistic creation is not born ex nihilo from the brains of individuals as a private language; it has always been a social practice. Ideas are not original, they are built upon layers of knowledge accumulated throughout history. Out of these common layers, artists create works that have their unmistakable specificities and innovations. All creative works reassemble ideas, words and images from history and their contemporary context.
...Intellectual property is fraud - a legal privilege to falsely represent oneself as the sole "owner" of an idea, expression or technique and to charge a tax to all who want to perceive, express or apply this "property" in their own production. It is not plagiarism that dispossesses an "owner" of the use of an idea; it is intellectual property, backed by the invasive violence of the state, that dispossesses everyone else from using their common culture.
The article goes on later to the point referred to by Eric, that the new idea of "Creative Commons" does not go nearly far enough in the "revolt against intellectual property" in terms of taking us away from this whole "intellectual property" idea.
I strongly recommend reading the article to get a better idea about Creative Commons and its development from the "copyleft." But I'll stick to quoting from the more basic outline about the nature of intellectual property, because I think that this is the most important information discussed in the article, as well as being basic stuff that a lot of people don't know or haven't realized.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
And This Is What the Talk Really Was About
Now, what the talk last night at 16 Beaver Street really was about was the thoughts that my friend Eve brought up regarding the personal and political, the 1960s and the present day, focusing on her experiences with the New York Radical Women and her close affiliation with Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, as well as some things more recently… And it was a good talk. It was also nice to have the Motherfuckers’ founder Ben Morea there, contributing his own unique perspective.
Ben also was the one who launched us into the discussion on the Middle East (by saying that Hamas and/or Hezbollah were both “spiritual and revolutionary” – which statement I simply had to argue with), but I wasn’t even really aiming my criticisms in the last post at him, either (I think he was pretty precise and measured in his follow-up argument); rather there were other people who annoyed me more, who more closely inspired my rebuttal here. I was thinking most about certain young people in the group. The people running the space drifted a little into the area that I was talking about, but there was one young woman in particular whose comments rang all those familiar bells. And I don’t mind how she disagreed with me, nor do I have any ill feelings about it; it’s just that she gave me some arguments that I do find very frustrating these days.
But once again, the real center of the talk was those ideas about the personal and political and how these perspectives might be weighed, intermingled, etc.
Eve also talked about the general “project” of the ‘60s and the idea that it was never really “finished.” Ben discussed what he and his group did in the ‘60s in relation to the idea of addressing revolution not only as the political revolution that many people strived for but a complete social revolution from within the self.
Personally, I don’t have these connections to the 1960s and spent much of my life trying to get away from people who would talk too much about the ‘60s, because many such people were, for a long time, dismissive of people like myself who had come of age after the ‘60s and wanted to try to effect some social change. (General attitude: “Oh, too bad you were just a child back then, when people were really thinking that way - we’ve been there, done that, you were too young to be involved when these ideas were really important to people.” Unfortunately, the old friend whom I've referred to in this blog as “M” gave me a bit too much of that attitude back in the ‘80s.) But in more recent times, I’ve gotten to know more of those older people - such as the ones I've just mentioned - who were quite generous in their attitudes and their willingness to share with, and even learn from, people of newer generations. (Besides, in the past ten years or so, if I got any ageism from the revolutionary minded, it wasn’t from the older people of the ‘60s but from the younger people involved in the “anti-globalization” movement who saw me as being out of place for being far too old.)
Overall, this was a good event, and I am glad that I got out to it, annoying moments notwithstanding.
Ben also was the one who launched us into the discussion on the Middle East (by saying that Hamas and/or Hezbollah were both “spiritual and revolutionary” – which statement I simply had to argue with), but I wasn’t even really aiming my criticisms in the last post at him, either (I think he was pretty precise and measured in his follow-up argument); rather there were other people who annoyed me more, who more closely inspired my rebuttal here. I was thinking most about certain young people in the group. The people running the space drifted a little into the area that I was talking about, but there was one young woman in particular whose comments rang all those familiar bells. And I don’t mind how she disagreed with me, nor do I have any ill feelings about it; it’s just that she gave me some arguments that I do find very frustrating these days.
But once again, the real center of the talk was those ideas about the personal and political and how these perspectives might be weighed, intermingled, etc.
Eve also talked about the general “project” of the ‘60s and the idea that it was never really “finished.” Ben discussed what he and his group did in the ‘60s in relation to the idea of addressing revolution not only as the political revolution that many people strived for but a complete social revolution from within the self.
Personally, I don’t have these connections to the 1960s and spent much of my life trying to get away from people who would talk too much about the ‘60s, because many such people were, for a long time, dismissive of people like myself who had come of age after the ‘60s and wanted to try to effect some social change. (General attitude: “Oh, too bad you were just a child back then, when people were really thinking that way - we’ve been there, done that, you were too young to be involved when these ideas were really important to people.” Unfortunately, the old friend whom I've referred to in this blog as “M” gave me a bit too much of that attitude back in the ‘80s.) But in more recent times, I’ve gotten to know more of those older people - such as the ones I've just mentioned - who were quite generous in their attitudes and their willingness to share with, and even learn from, people of newer generations. (Besides, in the past ten years or so, if I got any ageism from the revolutionary minded, it wasn’t from the older people of the ‘60s but from the younger people involved in the “anti-globalization” movement who saw me as being out of place for being far too old.)
Overall, this was a good event, and I am glad that I got out to it, annoying moments notwithstanding.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Another Encounter with Left “Anti-Imperialism” and its Uncritical Champions of HezBollocks, Etc.
I guess that by sticking to the atmosphere of my blog and the good company of left communists/ultra-leftists and genuinely anti-nationalist anarchists, I’ve become insulated from all the bad leftism that is out there, especially “anti-imperialism.” The ironic thing is that here in my corner of the blogosphere, I might get criticized for showing too much sympathy for the attitude, at least, of some people who would advocate for the militancy of fundamentalists or show some sympathy for same. In the case of pop/rock/rap stars, I have had to point out sometimes that I was not really defending the fundamentalists or the suicide bombers, because I would grant some artistic license to someone like Fun-Da-Mental when they choose to dramatize the frustration and outrage of a suicide bomber by depicting such a character in character sometimes. I don’t think, as I’ve said before, that Fun-Da-Mental overtly advocated for these tactics; had I thought that, I would not have supported them.
And I’ve got my thing for M.I.A., whom some would accuse of advocating for the tactics of Sri Lankan suicide bombers. Though quite the contrary, I think M.I.A.’s main purpose in delving into that area is to show that the people whom the U.S. government and other western powers would collectively condemn as one big bunch of terrorists are very real human beings dealing with their own feelings of hopelessness and frustration. The only overt politics of M.I.A. that I’ve seen so far is advocating for empowerment of the poor (which I have realized is a serious aspect to her lyrics), opposition to western government control, censorship, and propaganda, and more general opposition to the idea of following leaders who happily send their followers out to be killed. (From the song actually called “M.I.A.”: “You can be a follower, but who’s your leader? Break that cycle or it will kill ya.”)
But, of course, you can oppose authoritarian tactics and still feel sympathy for the people who feel that they have no one left to stand up for them but an authoritarian group; you can be opposed to suicide bombings and other means through which regular working people and the poor are killed and still feel great sympathy for the group of ordinary people in whose name such terrorism is ostensibly being waged (you can even feel strong solidarity for them, while strongly opposing these tactics or the leaders who direct them). These, to me, are fairly obvious differences. They do not fit into a simplistic scenario, a picture that is simply black and white, but they are not difficult nuances to navigate, either...
Unless you’re on the “anti-imperialist” left. I don’t mean to disrespect people who would still be comrades in many cases, but I find myself getting terribly frustrated with a group of people who would praise groups like Hamas or, especially, Hezbollah (whom the Class War Federation once brilliantly dubbed “HezBollocks”) as great “revolutionary” groups when, in fact, these Middle Eastern groups are socially regressive as well as being inclined to resort to tactics that follow the exact same principles as those of the imperialists whom they oppose: the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants/civilians/poor and working people, in order to satisfy the agenda of powerful leaders wrapped up in their own self-aggrandizing rivalries. The leaders of most of these terrorist groups obviously have no concern for the fates of “ordinary” people when their own power and status are at stake. If they did, they would pursue tactics other than deliberately targeting civilians, especially those civilians who are least able to shelter or protect themselves.
But it seems to me that whenever I step out there, into the real world of leftist groups, I am bound to encounter people who actually want to praise the tactics of suicide bombers, who actually want to champion these regressive terrorist groups, and who won’t even recognize the nuances that I’ve described above. Last night, when I went to a radical/leftist presentation (more on that shortly), I encountered some people who didn’t seem to get what I was saying when I said that the terrorists who would kill civilians indiscriminately (or even target workers, laborers, poor people, etc., deliberately, which often happens) follow the same principles as the greater powers who bomb civilians with tanks and airplanes. Last night, during this discussion, someone gave me the same tired lines on how you can’t equate suicide bombers from Hamas with the Israeli government going in and attacking people with tanks, when I never even implied to begin with that these are equal forces or that the combatants in such a situation come from the same position. But I did say that they follow many of the same principles, and there are many people out there who can’t seem to make the distinction.
Someone also gave me the tired line that we should not be telling other people how to defend themselves, that we should not be imposing our values upon them and that sort of thing, that it is not our position to interfere with them in that way. The funny thing is, though, that the people most likely to give me that tired old speech are the same people who will obsess over the plight of some oppressed people in another land without being willing or able to focus adequately on the plight of people being crushed by the oppressive class war being waged right here at home. The logical question to ask such people is that, if we are not in a position to spend our time critiquing the struggles that are happening on the other side of the world, then why don’t we spend a little more of our time trying to do something about the struggles right here at home?
Personally, I am all for international solidarity, even though I think we need to focus more than we are doing right now on the struggles that we must face personally and the things that are happening closest to us, and even though I also think people will almost always become more personally committed when they are involved in a situation that they can see as directly affecting their own lives. However, I would never support the opinion that we have no right or place to hold the people of a foreign land to universal ideas about ethics, equality, democracy and freedom as we understand these principles. There are universal principles that everyone can follow if they want to live in a more free, equal and humane society, and these should be clear in any language.
If you want to disagree with me about these principles and how to pursue them, that’s one thing (for instance, maybe you don't want to be as Marxian or class-struggle-oriented as I am; I've had some very good debates with people on that front), but don’t tell me that I’m not qualified to discuss such principles when talking about a situation halfway around the world simply because I’m culturally or tribally different from the people involved in that other situation. If there’s ever going to be another, better world, then we’re going to have to do that internationally, which means pursuing the same things internationally (whether we’re thinking globally and acting locally or just acting globally or thinking and acting both), based on ideas that we can all understand.
For good articles on some of the things that I’ve talked about above (and, by the way, I have used some of these links before), see:
Class War Federation: HezBollocks and IsRabies
International Communist Current:
War in Lebanon and Iraq: There is an alternative to capitalist barbarism (Editorial)
ICC: Middle East: Against the slide into war, the international class struggle is the only answer
Turn the World Upside Down: What Would it Look Like if Hamas and Hezbollah Fought a Class War?
And I’ve got my thing for M.I.A., whom some would accuse of advocating for the tactics of Sri Lankan suicide bombers. Though quite the contrary, I think M.I.A.’s main purpose in delving into that area is to show that the people whom the U.S. government and other western powers would collectively condemn as one big bunch of terrorists are very real human beings dealing with their own feelings of hopelessness and frustration. The only overt politics of M.I.A. that I’ve seen so far is advocating for empowerment of the poor (which I have realized is a serious aspect to her lyrics), opposition to western government control, censorship, and propaganda, and more general opposition to the idea of following leaders who happily send their followers out to be killed. (From the song actually called “M.I.A.”: “You can be a follower, but who’s your leader? Break that cycle or it will kill ya.”)
But, of course, you can oppose authoritarian tactics and still feel sympathy for the people who feel that they have no one left to stand up for them but an authoritarian group; you can be opposed to suicide bombings and other means through which regular working people and the poor are killed and still feel great sympathy for the group of ordinary people in whose name such terrorism is ostensibly being waged (you can even feel strong solidarity for them, while strongly opposing these tactics or the leaders who direct them). These, to me, are fairly obvious differences. They do not fit into a simplistic scenario, a picture that is simply black and white, but they are not difficult nuances to navigate, either...
Unless you’re on the “anti-imperialist” left. I don’t mean to disrespect people who would still be comrades in many cases, but I find myself getting terribly frustrated with a group of people who would praise groups like Hamas or, especially, Hezbollah (whom the Class War Federation once brilliantly dubbed “HezBollocks”) as great “revolutionary” groups when, in fact, these Middle Eastern groups are socially regressive as well as being inclined to resort to tactics that follow the exact same principles as those of the imperialists whom they oppose: the indiscriminate killing of non-combatants/civilians/poor and working people, in order to satisfy the agenda of powerful leaders wrapped up in their own self-aggrandizing rivalries. The leaders of most of these terrorist groups obviously have no concern for the fates of “ordinary” people when their own power and status are at stake. If they did, they would pursue tactics other than deliberately targeting civilians, especially those civilians who are least able to shelter or protect themselves.
But it seems to me that whenever I step out there, into the real world of leftist groups, I am bound to encounter people who actually want to praise the tactics of suicide bombers, who actually want to champion these regressive terrorist groups, and who won’t even recognize the nuances that I’ve described above. Last night, when I went to a radical/leftist presentation (more on that shortly), I encountered some people who didn’t seem to get what I was saying when I said that the terrorists who would kill civilians indiscriminately (or even target workers, laborers, poor people, etc., deliberately, which often happens) follow the same principles as the greater powers who bomb civilians with tanks and airplanes. Last night, during this discussion, someone gave me the same tired lines on how you can’t equate suicide bombers from Hamas with the Israeli government going in and attacking people with tanks, when I never even implied to begin with that these are equal forces or that the combatants in such a situation come from the same position. But I did say that they follow many of the same principles, and there are many people out there who can’t seem to make the distinction.
Someone also gave me the tired line that we should not be telling other people how to defend themselves, that we should not be imposing our values upon them and that sort of thing, that it is not our position to interfere with them in that way. The funny thing is, though, that the people most likely to give me that tired old speech are the same people who will obsess over the plight of some oppressed people in another land without being willing or able to focus adequately on the plight of people being crushed by the oppressive class war being waged right here at home. The logical question to ask such people is that, if we are not in a position to spend our time critiquing the struggles that are happening on the other side of the world, then why don’t we spend a little more of our time trying to do something about the struggles right here at home?
Personally, I am all for international solidarity, even though I think we need to focus more than we are doing right now on the struggles that we must face personally and the things that are happening closest to us, and even though I also think people will almost always become more personally committed when they are involved in a situation that they can see as directly affecting their own lives. However, I would never support the opinion that we have no right or place to hold the people of a foreign land to universal ideas about ethics, equality, democracy and freedom as we understand these principles. There are universal principles that everyone can follow if they want to live in a more free, equal and humane society, and these should be clear in any language.
If you want to disagree with me about these principles and how to pursue them, that’s one thing (for instance, maybe you don't want to be as Marxian or class-struggle-oriented as I am; I've had some very good debates with people on that front), but don’t tell me that I’m not qualified to discuss such principles when talking about a situation halfway around the world simply because I’m culturally or tribally different from the people involved in that other situation. If there’s ever going to be another, better world, then we’re going to have to do that internationally, which means pursuing the same things internationally (whether we’re thinking globally and acting locally or just acting globally or thinking and acting both), based on ideas that we can all understand.
For good articles on some of the things that I’ve talked about above (and, by the way, I have used some of these links before), see:
Class War Federation: HezBollocks and IsRabies
International Communist Current:
War in Lebanon and Iraq: There is an alternative to capitalist barbarism (Editorial)
ICC: Middle East: Against the slide into war, the international class struggle is the only answer
Turn the World Upside Down: What Would it Look Like if Hamas and Hezbollah Fought a Class War?
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Thoughts About… Music Criticism, "Being" a WRITER, and Mary Gaitskill as the “Patron Saint of Proofreaders”
Tonight, I discovered from that excellent music blog Wayne&Wax that there is a Best Music Writing 2006 anthology that came out, edited by Mary Gaitskill and Daphne Carr. The anthology contains Wayne’s blog post (now a printed article) on reggaeton, We Use So Many Snares, as well it should. And I’m sure it contains some other excellent music writing that I should take a look at, especially since I seem to be reviving my old hobby of being some kind of music critic. But it puzzles me that the anthology would be edited by someone like Mary Gaitskill, whom I never connected with music criticism. Maybe I just don’t know anything about her ventures into that area... I did a Google search on Gaitskill and music and, pages and pages into the search, could find only one review listed, of the contemporary punk-ish band Garbage. Other than that, most of the references were to a novel of Mary’s, published in 2005, called Veronica, because of a line by the narrator of the novel (who is actually an aging fashion model) that in her teens, she had wanted to “live like music.”
I suppose that this “best music writing” anthology ended up with Gaitskill as an editor mainly because she is famous for her creative writing. And I suppose that’s appropriate, because pop/rock/rap/dance/etc. music criticism is often, more than anything else, an act of creative writing. Most people who write about music don't necessarily know more about it than other people (certainly, I don't think I ever did); if they happen to appeal to other people with their music writing, it's mainly because they know how to write about music in a way that's appealing. It would be nice if more people who really spend most of their time writing about music and/or who've spent years building their main writing reputations through writing about music got to edit this kind of anthology, but Mary Gaitskill is more famous at this point than most such people, so her being an editor of a book like this is probably very good for the publisher, who can use her name to make sales. But that's the nature of the game; it's no reason to begrudge Mary Gaitskill. (Besides, as I just discovered while writing this post, Daphne Carr really is a person whose main focus is writing about music, so good for her...)
Anyway, while doing that search, I also managed to do a little more reading about Veronica and noticed that, while it doesn't really contain all that much about music (as far as I could tell), it does say something about legal proofreading, since the two main characters meet while working as legal proofreaders... Which really is fitting for Mary Gaitskill, someone whom I met about 18 or 19 years ago at my first legal proofreading job...
In truth, I was only briefly introduced to her, when she was working as the temporary proofreading partner of one of my regular coworkers. (Yes, people actually did proofreading in pairs, two-person teams, those days.) And at the time that I met her, there was a big buzz going around the proofreading department that this might be one of her last times there, because she had just gotten some acclaim for a new book of short stories that she’d written, called Bad Behavior. This book, so the buzz went, was going to take off like a fucking rocket in the literary world, and Mary would take off with it, leaving her proofreading career in the dust, never to be looked back upon...or at least not for a while, obviously. And that’s exactly what happened.
Back in those days, my early proofreading days, I ended up working regularly with one woman, whom I’ve referred to once before in this blog, who had another name beginning with the letter “M.” And for personal reasons, I think I'll continue to refer to her simply as "M" here... M was nine years older than me, and even two years older than Mary, but I think it’s fair to say that I got a pretty big crush on her. (Actually, the word “but” isn’t appropriate in that sentence, because someone’s being a decade older than me was, during my late 20s and early 30s, a big contributor to the possibility of my becoming attracted to her. But never mind that stuff - I generally haven't talked about those things in this blog, and I have no intention of starting to.) Anyway, M was not terribly fond of Mary and she had some not-very-nice things to say about Mary, as well as offering some prurient gossip (which I’ll never repeat here – though I will say, it wasn’t nearly as prurient as most of the stuff that Mary offered herself in her big-profile interviews). And, being that I was so fond of M at the time (as well as being younger and a bit less skeptical of people in some small ways), I took much of what M said quite seriously. But now, I don’t really know... Could it be that M was being just a bit too catty? Could it be that M, who was an artist, was feeling a bit envious? That seemed to be a very common reaction to Mary’s success, at least among other proofreaders – envy, if not admiration, and probably a little of both. Because, the whole idea of success was so important to so many of these people, especially success in the arts, which was a big thing to so many proofreaders because so many proofreaders were aspiring artists.
I suppose I was a big aspiring artist of sorts too at the time. I, also, was writing a lot of stuff, and like almost any other aspiring artist, I used "my art" - this thing that I liked to do called writing - as a way to define myself. I really believed at the time that someone could form an identity around being a WRITER and that this really meant something in the scheme of things.
But even back in those days, I instinctively reacted against all these people who made a big thing about being an artist of one kind or another in order to convince people that the thing which they did for wages had nothing to do with who they “really” were. This tendency, as I’ve mentioned before, is really just an ugly way that people cope with both the division of labor and the division of classes while at the same time fully accepting these capitalist divisions, usually all the while pretending that their great artistic ambitions or vocations somehow make them less capitalist than other people. These kinds of people are just as eager for conventional success as any ordinary bourgeois capitalist, only they crave that success less for material reasons than for reasons of status and identity. “Making it” in “the arts” is a way to prove once and for all to yourself and to others that you're not just another ordinary worker.
To many of these legal proofreaders back in the late '80s, Mary Gaitskill, as the individual who happened to be making it in the biggest way (often by writing somewhat disturbing or S&M-tinged tales that involved people making it...or not...in another sense of the word), represented a path out of this dreary (new) working class into which they had fallen. Some looked up to Mary as someone who had “gotten out” the way lifers might consider someone who had gotten out of prison. Or, it might be more accurate to say that to quite a few of my coworkers, Mary’s success represented a route to salvation that would justify all their suffering – maybe that’s why there was quite a lot of amusing truth to M’s describing her as the “Patron Saint of Proofreaders.”
But, as I’ve said, I quickly developed a dislike of all these attitudes. In this atmosphere of frustrated artists doing dreary work, I ended up developing more respect for a few people who happened to comment at one point or another that they were just proofreaders because that’s what they needed to do for a living, and that they felt no need to claim to be anything else.
As for Mary Gaitskill, I didn’t think much one way or the other about her writing success. I did think, as I still do now, that it must be great being able to earn your living from writing, especially if you could just write what you feel like writing (which is not a luxury most professional writers can enjoy), and if you really don't have to do anything else. (I know that even Mary Gaitskil has been working as a teacher, though I don't know how much of that has been from choice and how much from necessity.) To me, that's the most appealing thing about that kind of success - being able to do with your time what you feel like doing. But these days especially, the way I feel about it, the other, much-coveted stuff that goes with it - like having prestige and being able to officially declare that you're a WRITER - seems completely beside the point.
---------------------
P.S. Oh, yeah, I guess I should mention some opinion about Mary Gaitskill’s writing(?)… Well, I haven’t read it in a long time, but as I recall, it was certainly technically good – good word choices, compelling sentence structure, vividly "drawn" images...but I didn’t care all that much about the characters or their stories... Which is a matter of personal taste, I suppose. I could try one of her novels again sometime in the future, but these days, I find it difficult to read any fiction. Maybe that’s because I spent too much time trying to be a fiction writer and I completely burned out on all of it. Or maybe it’s just because I ended up finding other kinds of writing and other pursuits to be more interesting – music criticism being one of those things that (still) are interesting to me, strangely enough.
I suppose that this “best music writing” anthology ended up with Gaitskill as an editor mainly because she is famous for her creative writing. And I suppose that’s appropriate, because pop/rock/rap/dance/etc. music criticism is often, more than anything else, an act of creative writing. Most people who write about music don't necessarily know more about it than other people (certainly, I don't think I ever did); if they happen to appeal to other people with their music writing, it's mainly because they know how to write about music in a way that's appealing. It would be nice if more people who really spend most of their time writing about music and/or who've spent years building their main writing reputations through writing about music got to edit this kind of anthology, but Mary Gaitskill is more famous at this point than most such people, so her being an editor of a book like this is probably very good for the publisher, who can use her name to make sales. But that's the nature of the game; it's no reason to begrudge Mary Gaitskill. (Besides, as I just discovered while writing this post, Daphne Carr really is a person whose main focus is writing about music, so good for her...)
Anyway, while doing that search, I also managed to do a little more reading about Veronica and noticed that, while it doesn't really contain all that much about music (as far as I could tell), it does say something about legal proofreading, since the two main characters meet while working as legal proofreaders... Which really is fitting for Mary Gaitskill, someone whom I met about 18 or 19 years ago at my first legal proofreading job...
In truth, I was only briefly introduced to her, when she was working as the temporary proofreading partner of one of my regular coworkers. (Yes, people actually did proofreading in pairs, two-person teams, those days.) And at the time that I met her, there was a big buzz going around the proofreading department that this might be one of her last times there, because she had just gotten some acclaim for a new book of short stories that she’d written, called Bad Behavior. This book, so the buzz went, was going to take off like a fucking rocket in the literary world, and Mary would take off with it, leaving her proofreading career in the dust, never to be looked back upon...or at least not for a while, obviously. And that’s exactly what happened.
Back in those days, my early proofreading days, I ended up working regularly with one woman, whom I’ve referred to once before in this blog, who had another name beginning with the letter “M.” And for personal reasons, I think I'll continue to refer to her simply as "M" here... M was nine years older than me, and even two years older than Mary, but I think it’s fair to say that I got a pretty big crush on her. (Actually, the word “but” isn’t appropriate in that sentence, because someone’s being a decade older than me was, during my late 20s and early 30s, a big contributor to the possibility of my becoming attracted to her. But never mind that stuff - I generally haven't talked about those things in this blog, and I have no intention of starting to.) Anyway, M was not terribly fond of Mary and she had some not-very-nice things to say about Mary, as well as offering some prurient gossip (which I’ll never repeat here – though I will say, it wasn’t nearly as prurient as most of the stuff that Mary offered herself in her big-profile interviews). And, being that I was so fond of M at the time (as well as being younger and a bit less skeptical of people in some small ways), I took much of what M said quite seriously. But now, I don’t really know... Could it be that M was being just a bit too catty? Could it be that M, who was an artist, was feeling a bit envious? That seemed to be a very common reaction to Mary’s success, at least among other proofreaders – envy, if not admiration, and probably a little of both. Because, the whole idea of success was so important to so many of these people, especially success in the arts, which was a big thing to so many proofreaders because so many proofreaders were aspiring artists.
I suppose I was a big aspiring artist of sorts too at the time. I, also, was writing a lot of stuff, and like almost any other aspiring artist, I used "my art" - this thing that I liked to do called writing - as a way to define myself. I really believed at the time that someone could form an identity around being a WRITER and that this really meant something in the scheme of things.
But even back in those days, I instinctively reacted against all these people who made a big thing about being an artist of one kind or another in order to convince people that the thing which they did for wages had nothing to do with who they “really” were. This tendency, as I’ve mentioned before, is really just an ugly way that people cope with both the division of labor and the division of classes while at the same time fully accepting these capitalist divisions, usually all the while pretending that their great artistic ambitions or vocations somehow make them less capitalist than other people. These kinds of people are just as eager for conventional success as any ordinary bourgeois capitalist, only they crave that success less for material reasons than for reasons of status and identity. “Making it” in “the arts” is a way to prove once and for all to yourself and to others that you're not just another ordinary worker.
To many of these legal proofreaders back in the late '80s, Mary Gaitskill, as the individual who happened to be making it in the biggest way (often by writing somewhat disturbing or S&M-tinged tales that involved people making it...or not...in another sense of the word), represented a path out of this dreary (new) working class into which they had fallen. Some looked up to Mary as someone who had “gotten out” the way lifers might consider someone who had gotten out of prison. Or, it might be more accurate to say that to quite a few of my coworkers, Mary’s success represented a route to salvation that would justify all their suffering – maybe that’s why there was quite a lot of amusing truth to M’s describing her as the “Patron Saint of Proofreaders.”
But, as I’ve said, I quickly developed a dislike of all these attitudes. In this atmosphere of frustrated artists doing dreary work, I ended up developing more respect for a few people who happened to comment at one point or another that they were just proofreaders because that’s what they needed to do for a living, and that they felt no need to claim to be anything else.
As for Mary Gaitskill, I didn’t think much one way or the other about her writing success. I did think, as I still do now, that it must be great being able to earn your living from writing, especially if you could just write what you feel like writing (which is not a luxury most professional writers can enjoy), and if you really don't have to do anything else. (I know that even Mary Gaitskil has been working as a teacher, though I don't know how much of that has been from choice and how much from necessity.) To me, that's the most appealing thing about that kind of success - being able to do with your time what you feel like doing. But these days especially, the way I feel about it, the other, much-coveted stuff that goes with it - like having prestige and being able to officially declare that you're a WRITER - seems completely beside the point.
---------------------
P.S. Oh, yeah, I guess I should mention some opinion about Mary Gaitskill’s writing(?)… Well, I haven’t read it in a long time, but as I recall, it was certainly technically good – good word choices, compelling sentence structure, vividly "drawn" images...but I didn’t care all that much about the characters or their stories... Which is a matter of personal taste, I suppose. I could try one of her novels again sometime in the future, but these days, I find it difficult to read any fiction. Maybe that’s because I spent too much time trying to be a fiction writer and I completely burned out on all of it. Or maybe it’s just because I ended up finding other kinds of writing and other pursuits to be more interesting – music criticism being one of those things that (still) are interesting to me, strangely enough.
