“This could be tragic or sad but that’s the way life is…” (-Tyla)
“Since 1970, the share of aggregate income going to the middle class has fallen from 62% to 42%. (Middle class defined as income from 2/3 to double the median). Meanwhile, high-income share has increased from 29% to 50%. No wonder so many supposedly middle-class families feel like they’re always on the brink. #Kennedy24” (-Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
“The problem with opposition to dissent-crushing measures is that it mostly only comes from those at whom such measures are directed. Mainstream journalists know they won’t be imprisoned like Assange, because they won’t do work like Assange did. Mainstream liberals know they won’t be censored online, so they’re happy to cheer for online censorship.
Measures designed to control the narrative and suppress dissent are directed at the fringes, not the mainstream, because that’s where dissent of real consequence always first emerges. It won’t be those with mainstream political leanings seeing their speech increasingly marginalized and hidden away by algorithms and AI, it will be those who oppose the political status quo. In the future it won’t be those with a mainstream worldview being oppressed by things like tech surveillance, police robots and CBDCs, it will be those well outside the Overton window of permissible debate. The average person will be unaffected by such measures, because in our current mind-controlled dystopia the average person is compliant and innocuous. This is why attempts to get a large movement of opposition to these totalitarian measures typically fail to gather significant public traction: because only people on the fringes have reason to fear them. By controlling the mainstream consensus, our rulers eliminate any meaningful opposition to their tyranny toward the real dissidents whose politics generally lie well outside that consensus. And since it’s only widespread mainstream opposition that would ever give them reason to fear public backlash, they can keep ratcheting up these dissent-crushing measures. I don’t really have any solution to this problem; I’ve been staring at it for years and don’t see any easy answers. I’m just putting it out there in the hive mind so that awareness of the problem can grow and we can start collectively looking for solutions.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“It’s nuts how people are forced into debt just to survive in America.
Our entire economy is basically a system of indentured servitude. It’s remarkable how many American liberals have the same snarky, snobbish air of condescension — like they are supremely more intelligent & learned — yet any basic questioning of their beliefs exposes how they have zero knowledge of history or even capability to reason logically. Democrats did not accept the outcome of the 2016 election. Dems worked with US intelligence to put out a conspiracy theory about “Russian collusion.”
Dems then interfered in the 2020 election, using intel agencies, media & tech companies to suppress the Hunter Biden story. They then branded any suspicion about the legitimacy of the 2020 election as insane and seditious — censoring nearly any hint of these claims from social media. How is that not overtly criminal behavior?
How is that not the behavior of insecure despots in a banana republic?” (-Primo Radical)
Democrats might as well allow a primary because their odds of beating Trump with Biden are slim. #CNNTownhall” (-Briharana Joy Gray)
TOPSHOT – A protester holding an umbrella attempts to kick back a fuming tear gas pellet during a demonstration in support to victims of police brutality, after events in Sainte-Soline and in pension protests, in Nantes, western France, on March 30, 2023. – French police have been strongly criticized by rights groups for heavy-handed reaction to anti-government protests over the past month. (Photo by Sebastien SALOM-GOMIS / AFP) (Photo by SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty Images)
DIVIDED SLAVES OF AMNESIA NEVER REMEMBER YESTERDAY
So there’s this local cowboy musician writer who is dying from stage 4 Cancer and he does not want to die and I feel for him. He lives on a real bohemian gypsy kinda ranch in a series of trailers and a cabin and I have to go check in on the property from time to time and it breaks my heart to see all his instruments with actual cobwebs on them and cd’s and screenplays and all his life’s work is just gonna get shitcanned cause he kinda wore out his sister during chemo and his employer and I wish I could go salvage the shit, but it’s just not my stuff to fuck with. God bless him-he had dreamt of going back to his place and having a big 12 step going away partay with all his NA friends, but it’s sadly just not going to happen. I’m missing all my kids-they are all far away doing their own shit but I miss ’em. “Time is precious I know” was a Culture Club lyric still tattooed to my old battered brain. I got all these songs I wanted you to hear, but one of my old guitarists is retired from health problems and the others just kinda joined hipster bands with money people and what can you do? I spent a lovely evening with some elderly folks at a convalescenet home this evening cause my old lady works for a resident there and am stunned by how some people are still fully cognitive at 93 while me, myself, I’m already sortof in decline. I disagree with that rich dude Tucker Carlson about shit tones of stuff but recgonize how he was shitcanned from Fox for telling the truth about how pig-pharma owns the media and politicians, that the propaganda about the Ukraine is mostly lies, and we keep finding out more stuff about how all these solemn toned authority figures have knowingly deceievd us about multiple subjects. I believe in free speech so I have an instinctive solidarity with Carlson, Taibbi, Kennedy, Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Naomi Wolf, Mark Crispin Miller, Dave Chappelle, Joe Rogan, Julian Assange-everybody who is being shutdown and silenced by the billionaire owned platforms and fake press. It’s a travesty that Macron has declared himself some kinda dictator over in France and whoever’s pulling the Biden admin’s strings is doing the same shit here-ignoring the will of the people to please some crazed despots at the top. Hoping to see a long absent family member this weekend but I worry about him traveling here at night cause it is so remote and hard to find. Always thinking about the same old broken record shit, putting the band back together, my old lady says I’m stuck in the eighties, stuck in the past and she might be right. When I think about rocknroll, I aint talkin’ bout the fucking Foo Fighters or Pink 182. I’m thinking ’bout Peter Wolf and the fabulous J. Geils Band. When we foolishly moved to Boston in the early nineties, we thought that’s where you went to make it big in show business-you know-the home of Aerosmith and Willie Loco, the Real Kids, and Neighborhoods and Lyres and two Saints and Unattached, but we could never keep a drummer or pay rent on a rehearsal space or finance recording ventures with our low wage record store and conveneince store and telemarketing careers, so we kept breaking up every band we ever begun and it remains an abiding source of frustration for this old rocker. I wanna go back to Bunratty’s, back to the Rat. I resented my job at Tower records where they let me drink on the clock all day and gab at length with people like Led Zeppelin, but now I miss all that shit. Even the loss prevention fellas from Cambrighe Tower-Sam, Tim, Big Mike, Dave Monty-I loved all those guys. Plus all my associates, like greenhaired punk Danielle who ran my reg shift so I could go flirt with argyle waitresses at Charlie’s Cheeseburger around the corner, Noah the Psychic TV goth from New Orleans, Michael Hood, Thom Jones, James, Barrie, Mark, and Dermot! Good times, baby, all the time. Girls, girls, girls, playing rocknroll all night, going to the dirty divebars. There mighta been some drinkin’…I wantted to be like Peter Wold ya know, the rapid fire radio patter, the white pimp threads, his whole way of dancin’…
It might surprise you that I like this band cause they are so middle of the road sonic wallpaper but I guess summa their hits were just a ubiquitous part of my bloody youth and I am a sentimental motherfucker, so i’m somehow comforted by ’em, somehow.
I’m still very new wave at heart. Might try to get some music project underway with people from afar. Berlin was another one of those bands that were just perpetually on the radio when we were growing up, I probably thought they were too mainstream as a teenager in all my low fi basement band drunknroll Deadboys glory whoring, but ended up liking all their shit, really.
“The Neocons used 9/11 to ram this bill through congress laying the groundwork for the emerging surveillance state. In a break with all precedent individual Congressmembers we’re not provided copies of the 350 page bill. Only one copy was available at the clerks office and the only member of Congress to actually read the bill was my now campaign manager Dennis Kucinich. Two US Senators, Patrick Leahy, and Tom Daschle, lead the crusade to block the bill. At the height of the debate, both of their offices received letters containing weaponized anthrax. The neocons falsely blamed the Anthrax attacks on Saddam Hussein and rushed the Patriot act to passage during the week that Congress was closed due to the anthrax attacks. After a two-year investigation, the FBI concluded that the highly sophisticated powder in those envelopes was weaponized Aimes Anthrax which could only have come from the joint, CIA/Pentagon Lab at Fort Detrick.” (-Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
“The writers guild is a useless cause. Supporting a strike by misfit creatives who push bourgious sensibilities, FBI propaganda and celebrity worship on the masses for a living will do nothing to defeat the Hollywood bosses. The only thing these writers produce is social control” (-Alex Rubenstein)
“As worthy as figures like Clinton & Obama are of contempt, unelected ideologues like Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, & Victoria Nuland are DC’s true power players. They are the neoliberal inheritors of a discredited & overtly belligerent neocon world view once associated w/ GOP. The same people currently rallying behind a bunch of English majors writing corporate TV spent years attacking truckers, teachers, and nurses as fascists for refusing to take an experimental Big Pharma injection that failed on every single one of its stated promises. In all sincerity, I do hope these writers get more money out of their corporate bosses so that they can get back to producing the cultural poison that keeps their corporate bosses in charge of our entire country. Media “folx” & Twitter intelligentsia feel kinship w TV writers bc they come from the same class & may even aspire to be a part of Hollywood or 30 Rock themselves. What we’re left w in a country that killed its manufacturing sector & left workers who produce tangible value behind. At least TV writers used to portray relatable working families. Today, they produce content glorifying the ruling political class & decadent lifestyles of the uberwealthy while promoting mainstream narratives on war & culture. Put your TV in the trash & get a real job. Hollywood writers are the “working class” that liberals get passionate about bc they need their nightly propaganda fix
And bc, unlike workers who actually produced things of value, they weren’t offshored via trade deals & still share the cultural sensibility of the elite. ” (-Anya Parampil)
“This opportunist is an example of the kind of liberal totalitarianism that is being normalized in U.S. society. There used to be a time when liberals championed the free exchange of ideas, even when those ideas were odious. No more. You toll the line or you end up like Assange.” (-Ajamau Baraka on Mehdi Hasan-who is basically like Karl Rove in shitlib clothing)
“Heartbreaking news. Of everyone who had a hand in the 2013 revelations of global mass surveillance, my dear friend David Miranda was perhaps the most righteous—and pure.
I will never forget that when the UK broke its own laws to detain David as a “terrorist” for daring to aid an act of journalism—and threatened to throw him in a dungeon for the rest of his life—he never faltered. Instead, he dared them to do it. It was that courage that set him free. That courage that moved the story forward. That will forever serve as the example of a man at his best. I will miss you, David. Stay free.” (-Edward Snowden)
When people tell me the WEF has no influence & it’s just a mad old man I laugh. Their influence is so great they’ve penetrated corporates, lobbyists, NGO’s & elites globally in the guise of ‘do goodery’ networking. When really it’s simply personal ambition for great wealth.” (-Bernie Spofforth)
WHILE THE TV WHORES OF CONTROLLED MEDIA WANT YOU TO ARGUE OBER CULTURE WAR BULLSHIT, REMEMBER FLINT & PALESTINE & KALAMAZOO! THEY ARE NO JOKE POISONING THE PEOPLE!
“Just as they did during the Iraq War, America’s jingoistic press outlets bear a major responsibility for this unnecessary war that has ravaged Ukraine and killed some 315,000 Ukrainians. Rather than seeking to contextualize events properly for their readers, the U.S. media systematically deceived Americans about the causes and course of the war while faithfully parroting the Neocon propaganda narrative. NATO conducted countless belligerent military exercises (around 40 per year) near Russia’s border, including live-fire rocket exercises simulating attacks on air-defense systems inside Russia. The Russian ambassador warned the United States government: “The situation is extremely dangerous.” Between 2014 and 2022, the U.S. armed (with $4 billion) and trained the Ukrainian military to achieve NATO “interoperability,” amidst a steady barrage of hostile actions toward Russia. In 2016, President Obama placed nuclear-capable antiballistic launch systems in newly joined NATO countries along Russia’s border. In 2017, President Donald J. Trump began selling lethal weapons to Ukraine. The U.S. supported (with $5 billion) public protests that culminated in the 2014 armed, far-right coup against Ukraine’s democratically elected pro-Russian government, replacing it with an unelected pro-Western government handpicked by Neocon leader Victoria Nuland, the United States Under Secretary of State. After Volodymyr Zelensky’s 2019 landslide victory on a peace platform, White House Neocons like Kurt Volker and Victoria Nuland tag-teamed with Ukrainian ultranationalists to pressure President Zelensky to adopt an uncompromising stance toward Russia and to rebuff Russia’s many attempts at peaceful settlement. Zelensky had campaigned for ratification of the Minsk Accords — a Russian-backed settlement that would have left Donbas as part of Ukraine, but with sufficient autonomy to protect the language, culture, and safety of its ethnic Russian population. In 2002, Bush White House Neocons unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia. In 2002, Bush White House Neocons unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty with Russia.” (-Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
“As usual, a “win” by Ukraine is left undefined, not only because retaking Crimea or regime change in Moscow are hallucinatory neocon fantasies, but because either would lead to catastrophic destabilization and possible nuclear war. Trump gave the right answer.” (-Max Blumenthal)
SHITLIB CROOKED DNC FRAUDS LIKE AOC WANT MORE WEAPONS, WARS, MILITARY FUNDING, KKKOPS & KKKOP CITY, KENNEDY WANTS THE TRUTH TO COME OUT ABOUT HOW MUCH WE’VE BEEN LIED TO BY THE GOVERNMENT/MEDIA STARTING WITH THE INTEL COUP OF ’63!
“As a Senator, Joe Biden voted for the Assassination Records Act of 1992, requiring that all documents related to the killing of JFK be released by 2017. But President Biden is still keeping thousands of pages heavily redacted, including 44 pages related to a shadowy CIA agent and a covert program that had contact with Lee Harvey Oswald just months before my uncle was killed.” (-Robert F. Kennedy Jr.)
“That’s the Democratic Party for you. Progressive in the streets, murderous imperialists in the sheets.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“What’s most sickening about Ana & Cenk’s mindless strawman smears is they completely erase suffering imposed on millions of ordinary Syrians by US-led dirty war & unilateral sanctions. An ancient, beautiful country was almost completely destroyed.” (-Anya Parampil)
“Biden is now the least popular president since polling began: 3 points lower than Trump was at this point, 7 points lower than Obama. Biden cannot run again. Democrats need a totally new plan.” (-Gravel Institute)
“BREAKING: This pro-worker, pro-choice, anti-war Senate candidate was just thrown off the ballot by Democrats – the party that refuses to fight for workers, choice & peace. After throwing Greens off the ballot in 2020 in TX, WI, PA, Dems are at it again. Tell them they’re not “for” voting rights if they’re kicking their opponents off the ballot. Send a message by supporting @MatthewPHoh – the latest target of Dems’ ballot suppression schemes.” (-Dr. Jill Stein)
“The NC State Board of Elections just voted 3-2 not to certify the Green Party ballot access petition. We needed 13,865 signatures, and the @NorthCarolinaGP submitted 15,953 verified signatures. We did everything required, and they just said no. Is this what democracy looks like?” (-Matthew Hoh For Senate)
“The reason the prison industrial complex gets uncritical support from the media, the politicians, and the ruling class is because they understand that the police serve their class interests. The ongoing police state crackdown is the result of the class war that have been waging intensely against the working class my entire life. The ruling class destroyed the quality of life for many Americans and around the world and things are not going to get better. There is a homelessness, climate, and food crisis coming. As the wealth gap continues to soar beyond comprehension the state will need a way to control the workers that they reduced to desperate wage slaves. The expansion of the police state is the response to their society breaking policies. This was always the end result of capitalism. ” (-Nick Cruse)
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” (- JFK)
The notion that @TheDemocrats aren’t fighters is a lie. Look how hard they fought against Bernie. Look how hard they fight to suppress third parties. Look how hard they fight to pass legislation that benefits their corporate donors. They do fight. They just don’t fight for you.” (-Ryan Knight)
“The United States has dropped more than 337,000 bombs and missiles on other countries over the past 20 years or 46 strikes per day. China has not bombed a single country over the same period. The U.S. calling China “imperialist” or “aggressive” is pure projection.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“After throwing Greens off the ballot in 2020 in TX, WI, PA, Dems are at it again. Tell them they’re not “for” voting rights if they’re kicking their opponents off the ballot. Send a message by supporting @MatthewPHoh – the latest target of Dems’ ballot suppression schemes.” (-Dr. Jill Stein)
“Green party candidate @MatthewPHoh got on the ballot in North Carolina and @TheDemocrats are waging a campaign to get him removed from the ballot and subvert democracy. It’s time for folks to wake up and understand that the Democrats are not on our side either & oppose democracy. People are homeless because of capitalism. People are dying from a lack of healthcare because of capitalism. People are overworked, underpaid & unhappy because of capitalism. Capitalism was not designed for the betterment of society. It was designed to enrich the ruling class.(-Ryan Knight)
“We have a word for the belief in the division between self and other: Fear. Capitalism is just encoded fear. It’s the fear we’ve agreed upon and thereby enforce upon everyone. Capitalism is rule by fear.” (-Patrick H on Twitter)
“Because Obama is trending, here’s an incomplete list of his stellar accomplishments: 1. Bailed out Wall Street 2. Destroyed Libya 3. Jailed whistleblowers, deported immigrants, and used drone strikes in record number 4. Expanded Bush’s wars from two to seven 5. Kill List” (-Danny Haiphong)
When I was a kid, I ranaway to Manhattan and met Stiv and Martha on Saint Mark’s Place. He was beyond kind and nice and so was Martha and they really went out of their way to be super groovy to me and I loved all his bands and modelled myself after him as a young gutter brat in many ways. Followed him around. I first got the Bebe Buell “Covers Girl” LP from a used record store in Ohio and used to spin it over the big P.A. system we had at the old farmhouse my band lived in back in the late eighties. It sounded so great. Then, I got her 45 on Ultra Under, my friend Ratboy played with her for a moment and man, her taste in music was just impeccable, which I suppose comes as no surprise, being as how she dated all my favorite singers: Stiv, Tyler, Jagger, Costello, Butler. JT from D2…As I got older I was writing for some national punk mags and a major entertainment weekly, so that gave me added access to summa the underground stars I loved who’d crossed over into Corporate Monopoly Fame in the mainstream world I spend my life avoiding, and I remember really loving chatting with Bebe Buell on the phone, she was so down to earth, funny, insightful, and easy to talk to, I’d end up revealing personal stuff to her, and all her wise voice of hard won experience advice, was always right on, even if I was not yet able to apply it effectively at the time, she planted some good seeds in my head. I really liked her. Smart, cool, funny, personable human being even when we disagreed about the official 9/11 narrative, or Tyler agreeing to participate in some NFL halftime shit with Britney Spears. I thought it was super sweet she still protected him. I STILL play her record, “RETROSEXUAL” quite a bit and think of her not so much in the FAME category, but in the cool underground, tiny cult band context, and she is fantastically entertaining and relatable and righteously real and very liakable in my book. You know that Power Station cover of “Bang A Gong” was originally supposed to be John Taylor producing Bebe? If you know me, you know my fave bands are pretty much the Lords, Duran, the Furs, Gen X, etc etc So yeah, I think Bebe is real cool. Somehow she did not get poisoned by the fanfare and centerfold stardom and celebrity status and paparazzi and access like most all of ’em. I think John Taylor is still really human, too, I saw him interviewing Billy Idol during the Covid clampdowns and talking about when him n Nick Rhodes went to see Generation X as kids and he loves Billy just like we do. I always regretted never getting to see Neurotic Outsiders. When me and my dead pal Bobby used to go see Duran, Taylor started remembering our faces and being real gracious cause we were not your typical Duran fans but obviously loved them and knew all the words. So yeah, anyways, I still love rocknroll. Especially the seventies and eighties stuff. My wild, wild youth! If I lived in the same city, I’d still go to the bar to see her live which is something I can rarely say about anybody nowadays. The thing about Bebe is, even if her kid was not a movie star and she had never dated all our favorite rockstars, she’s still somebody you would want to hang around with at the dingey old bad side of town hole in the wall divebar, and watch perform onstage. She’s got good taste, a rebel heart, personality, style, panache. I love all the old school, “let me entertain you” show people.
SMALLTOWN BULLSHIT
Man in the 80’s new wave era, unless you lived in I dunno San Fran, or West Hollywood, or the West Village, or vacationed on Fire Island, there was no influential LGBT advocacy organization on the ground-or “Pride Parades”, no 100 RuPaul spinoff tv shows, certainly not in the bigoted, uptight, conformist conservative fucking tank plant towns of the Midwest-nothing but flag-wavers and gung-ho G.I. Joes who could not wait to make their parents proud by killin’ brown folks in oil rich regions for freedom. Now they tell him they should kill brown folks in oil rich regions for pride and gender diversity and woke feminism. There was no safe space or acceptance, not even for Devo fans, okay? They wanted to KILL punk rockers. It was all Hut-Two, Hut-Two. There was no rainbow flag, I can tell you that. No big media campaigns or corporate juggernaut promoting gender crayola boxes. Just boxes. Tiny boxes. No space for anyone different, at all. Zero tolerance policy. They didn’t much like black people, either-almost once a year, the kkkops felt obliged to shoot a black guy in the back 100 times just as an example so nobody would feel tempted to get too uppity. All the old asshole white men just bitched and bitched that black teenagers wore baggy clothes and hoodies, wanted ’em to “learn a lesson” about conformity and keepin’ them pants buckled up, Urkel high for apple pie. Fuck that place was a hellhole. I got beat up ALL THE TIME and even the moms would make excuses for the bully abusers, like it was right and proper to beat the fuck out of somebody who refused to acknowledge your class superiority. Or properly show respect for your athletic achievements or many different colored golf shirts or shitty meant nothing fake band that she financed. Nothing changed, man, I just read how the kkkops filled a poor guy with lead back there…again. Just shot him in the back, said they “feared for their lives”, next, they will investigate themselves and find they did nothing wrong. White people will all insist he was asking for it, had a relative with an overdue library book or some shit. I used to wear makeup and it even enraged the old white haired women folks who ran the popular local hamburger joint. They would always call me ma’am and let it be known they disapproved of any deviation from the Richie Cunningham/Howdy Doodie/Arrow Straight Aryan All Amerikkkana. I remember how much we all loved that Lou Reed song from his tribute to Warhol: “there’s only one good thing about a smalltown, you hate it and you know you’ll have to leave.” Then, in the suckshit nineties, these super rich fatcat fascists like Guiliani, Chertoff, and Bloomberg remade all the former bohemian enclaves over in their fatcat fascist image, sent in shocktroop gestapo by the busload to kick out all the poor people. Many of us had to go back to the small-town, were confused and aghast that the rich people there had ALSO jacked all the rents up impossibly high. The very same vermin infested shitholes we dwelled in, and complained about in the eighties and early nineties, were now priced way outta reach, had rich folks living there. I started noting that almost every town we nomad migrants traveled to as carpetbagger minimum wage earners, they all started having some shit in common. Like lots of empty retail spaces being hoarded by boomer aged people waiting for corporate gentrification billionaires to pay ’em top dollar for their empty buildings. All those boomers waiting for their big bank cash money payday would rather have buildings sit empty than poor people living in them. Fake businesses-all those same bored folks whose kids and grandkids moved far away after college, they do have these two day a week fake businesses that can not possibly ever turn a profit. Like a tea room open two days a week, an antique shop only open on the weekends and only affordable to outta town tourists. A bar that wants $9, plus a sizable tip for one cup of beer. Where I am now, if there is a holiday, you know they take two MORE days off that week, ya feel me? Like today aint EVEN the Fourth of July, but every store in town except Wal-Mart on the edge of town and the $9 beer joint are closed. These old people just got the fake cupcake place, or fake flower shop, or overpriced boutique, or make believe art gallery as a social outlet, but they’re so fuckin’ lazy, they can’t bring themselves to be open more than fourteen to twenty hours a week, but still, they all complain about how hard they work, and that it’s the lazy poors who “don’t want to work” cause that $600 stimulus check from two years ago. There is a yard sale two streets over somebody went to all the trouble of setting up beneath their carport, I have a tiny resell business, so I always look for kooky, kitschy stuff at garage sales and flea markets, but dig this: I showed up at that yard sale at 9, 11, and 1, and they just put blue tarps over all their shit and decided, you know what, it’s too hot today, and besides, there’s a holiday two days from now, so even the yardsale boomers are not opening on a Saturday. Nothing is opened on Sundays or Mondays except the grocers. Most mom n pops were killed off during the Death Plague Clampdowns, so now there are all these storefronts that people pretend are “art galleries”, but they are never open, it’s just a tapestry in the window and some old shit in storage. Some of these gougers don’t really wanna sell their old shit or they’d price it to move. one old gouger wants $25 for three unplayable water damaged records he bought from a storage space auction. So many old gougers either just wanting to show off their old shit, have a store as an excuse to talk to traveling females, or just wanna gouge the tourists, if I see somebody who is rich sourcing the second hand store and pricing shit like E-bay, I never go back. Especially not if they brag. I’ll buy me a red leather vest somewhere else. Summa these old landlords are so lazy, they don’t even change the bedding at their bed and breakfast, they pay some poor slob minimum wage to do it, and still bitch. I don’t remember ever liking shit hoarders, especially not greedy motherfuckers who hoard houses, if you got multiple empty investment properties, and no one told you “you suck”, today, allow me. I got a sad e-mail today from a former peer who’d been chastised by a local big fish in a small pond inheritance-celebrity, who obnoxiously suggested he hang up his musical operations, in order to quote, “pass the torch”, to his cousin’s crummy, commercialized, formulaic, rich kid garage rock band, ya know, it just reminded me of how much I sincerely REVILE asskissing phonies who just suck up to dumb power, I hate these fat fucks. Maybe I’m the only one who herd how White Stripes directly ripped off Smashing Pumpkins, I guess. ‘Go back to your frathouse you, Ronald McDonald motherfucker. “BUT WE’VE DISCOVERED THE SONICS!!!!” Fuck off, get lost, you Republican motherfuckers. Being fat and blonde and rich don’t make you any kind of artistic genius.
“Today President @lopezobrador_ of Mexico called for dismantling and returning the Statue of Liberty to France if #Assange is not freed.” (-Stella Assange)
I feel salty everytime I walk past these fake boutique businesses that are only open two days a week, rich people keep ’em as hobbies and price everything for outta town tourists who somehow still got boomer money to throw away while traveling in their gas guzzling oversized vehicles. The worst part is how the old sons bitches just GLOAT about their shit. Ripoff is their middle name. All the super rich motherfuckers want you to believe that “inflation” is a result of some foreign boogeymen and not just the usual suspect greedheads gouging us again-if you blindly worship rich people, you might even believe their bullshit. Out here in Nowhere Land, the ancient population keeps dwindling cause no one wants to be in a dried up deadend, nothing to do ghost town. You walk past house after empty house, all filled with furniture that rich people just store their surplus shit in. Lotta the houses are only occupied two months a year by outta state land yacht RV owners. It’s fuckin’ nuts. I walked around today and passed some old Col. Sanders lookin’ geezer dressed up like Uncle Sam, riding a big tricycle, he probably thinks I look like a crazy cartoon character in my animal print, too. I learned to not wear makeup to the tractor supply place, or boomer bar, to not wear pink to the Moose Lodge. I don’t really go to those kinda places anyway and all the crazy meth cowboys and rich ranchers tend to leave me alone cause I can pass for a Good Ole Boy in the leather and cowboy hats. I’m glad to be removed from the backstab ratrace and the Big City stop n frisk bullshit, but even here at the end of the dirt road where nobody wants to be, where it’s over 100 degrees and there’s nothing to do, some boomer assholes have built 11 or 12 local bed and breakfasts with hot tubs that sit empty in the crazy heat while the landlord scum keep expecting to get rich overnight. Paint the steps purple, add Buddha statue. Years ago, those were affordable, one income, working class rental homes. Now they want a $150 a night to look at the black velvet painting. The new agey make a bucks are gross as fuck. I quit smokin’, have a lot more energy, but can admit the boredom starts to gnaw at me. Nothing here but death, birds, a smelly river, and more monotony. Hot wind. Dust and wildfire gets in your eyes. Loose pitbulls chase you down the streets, killed an old woman on a bicycle three or four years ago.
I’M TOO BROKE TO PAY BIG BUCKS BUT STILL MISS REAL ROCKNROLL RECORD STORES Hey, remember THESE GUYS? “Detroit, California”? Guitar maestro TONY FATE?!! I think he was also in The Sins, Bellrays, and Black Widows? One of El Lay’s GREAT underrated underground punknroll virtuosos. Ala Rich Coffee, Billy Burks and Jimmy James. I still got an old Bellrays flyer in my leaky water damaged garage.
You know I never imagined I’d see the day when all the record stores were dead. Even Tower, HMV, Amoeba. WTF? By the mid-90’s, they were all being ran by megalomaniac, capitalist dickheads, who only hired chicks to work under them. Pains me everytime I think about Freebeing, Trash & Vaudeville, Gem Spa, CBGB’s and Bleecker Bob’s all being driven outta business. I guess I miss being a record store guy, cause I’m still telling people about bands I believe in, all day most every day, even though, not that many people in my part of the world seem to care about rocknroll music. 100 people in this unaffordable big city, 100 people in that. I’ll probably keep ranting about freedom and OLD rocknroll and RIGHT-ON real people’s movements and resistance struggles, though platforms may change, heaven knows. I remember when they came out really liking ’em, I read about ’em first in FLIPSIDE and then, Tony F. sent me their little cassette for review in my fanzine and I really liked Manson Lee’s voice but was trying to get Tony Fate to join my band. That’s how we were back then. Now summa the kids I’d grown up with were into like, hardcore and ska, but those scenes in Murkkka were just about a lotta macho posturing, male bonding gym memberships, Owning Stuff-Vespas, imported boots, and at best, half hearted repetition of some wornout empty mantras. I liked the policy of keeping cover charge and record prices low, that those P.C. DC hardcore guys enforced, but me and my gang were far from straight edge, and it really did seem like so many of the hardcores were just preppie suburbanites at heart who did not want to be around uncouth street people or anarchic gutter drunks, they wanted to be hazed into richboy upper crust fraternities. With Vespas, imported boots. Even now, some of ’em are at the sports bar, trying to tell the fat old, Limbaugh lookalike country clubbers about Operation Ivy or some shit. I never got that. Who the fuck wants to hang around with golfers at the sports bar? To get validation from somebody’s seventy five year old mom or retired volleyball coach? So yeah, my idea of punk leaned heavily towards untamed, outsider, wolfman rocknroll. In the Detroit Rock City tradition. I hated the fuckin’ Offspring-what the fuck was that shit? Awful. I just never got into the Green Day bullshit at all, it just seemed like fully commodified goofball booger rock. When Lookout Records and all those Ramones and Clash derivative waves of bands were doing the whole dressup like the Ramones and Clash thing, I’d kinda let my defenses down for five minutes and somebody’s pushy mama had second hand nagged me into accepting an unpaid position at a richman’s record store, chasing a carrot that I could never catch due to my lack of even basic computer skills back then, I found myself laboring all day as an unpaid lowly coffee retrieving sidewalk snow shoveling under assistant, all whilst listening to all these wealthy, well to do, Harvard college kids, alternahunks, straightedgers, and big mouth collectors talkin’ ’bout SSD Control toughguy music, or more commonly, The Toasters and Selector and Bosstones all day and I never got along with Richie Riches. Or Beastie Boys wannabes. Don’t get me wrong, me n my first little new wave girlfriend loved early two tone and eighties ska bands and I kissed her while listening to the Beat and even General Public, we were new wave weirdos all the way in our early teens and me til this day, really, and I had always had black-white music subculture alliances of our own, just…the Boston rich people were so fuckin tedious, lame, and like I said, they just worshipped the Bosstones like gawds. I don’t waste no time in campus etiquette debate team arguing with partisan devotee college people, cause really, aside from rooting for their sports team heroines, or sheepdog heroes, they don’t even believe the shit they say they believe in-that’s self evident from the way they live their lives-the behavior they model, never thinking of anything but their own comfort, prestige, belonging, to the masters. Hoping to get patted on the head some more-fuckin apple polishers, script memorizers hoping for some extra credit from the man. For their fuckin bumper sticker. It might say, “Coexist” or “Save The Whales” or “Recycle” or “I only use dirty cloth bags cause I love sea turtles and spotted owls” or whatever, but they sure as fuck don’t want to have to see no poor people on their block, eating the “wrong” foods, using the “wrong” lingo, laughing at the “wrong” comedians, reading the “wrong” banned books. These are the Nimby Shitlibs fucked up on the Two Buck Chuck. “Trust The Rich”, “Protect Authority”, “Suckup To Power” they tell me, over and over. Makes me wanna blast some loud motherfuckin rocknroll motherfuckery.
When the people I’ve missed no longer exist, at least I can sometimes escape this fucked up, loveless, hateful, billionaire monopoly pig-media, hopelessly bamboozled cruel age, melt into the music and remember when we were young. Ever so grateful for the good ones that still remain, and the good ones on the other side and even summa the people who used to be something else. For a long time, I think I kinda saw myself as like a dude version of Patti Smith but I could not seem to keep a steady lineup of my band to save my life. Bands cost money and I had none, so everybody kept splitting to go fuck off with some lameass rich people, even if that meant totally compromising their own talents and playing nerdy, third time recycled, imitation songs novelty rock. It was sad and how can you tell ’em? You can’t. Even the one guy who was always real loyal to me, chaos follows wherever he goes, he has no money and is incapable of providing for his ownself let alone investing in special operations, and his life has been even more unstable and crazy than my own, and he has a bad habit of punching people. And crashing motorcycles and shit. Only guy I’ve ever known who threw a guitar outta window while trying to practice some kinda dramatic Steve Vai stage trick. Fuckin A. For years and years, I foolishly held forth that we would find a way to reunite and record, as the Blues Brothers would say, “PUT THE BAND BACK TOGETHER”. Now, the other guys are too rich to give a fuck about my proletarian revolution rock songs, while me and the excessively damaged bar brawler guitarist-we are too poor to pay for even basic shit like rent, recordings, mastering’s, ASCAP dues or rehearsal spaces, and I am too immersed in being responsible for a high needs kid with a disability and have no room at the inn to take care of any old carousers or artful dodgers. Sadly, everybody still remembers all the years and years when my cribs were open all night, extra futon in the basement crash pads, some errant hustler vagabonds I’d foolishly given my extra keys to, ruined that shit for everybody, years ago. Those days are over and we can no longer roll out the red carpet anymore, we got a kid with a disability and that ain’t the same thing as when six dudes and their girlfriends were all part time pizza shop employed and there was a surplus. Aint no free store/ beer garden/ all night booze party here. This aint no halfway house. Aint no bed and breakfast. Aint no soup kitchen here. We are closed for business.
TIN MACHINE
No idea why so many people slagged TIN MACHINE. I love them, great songs, great lyrics, innovative musicianship AND most importantly to people like me. It rocks like shit fuckin’ crazy-if you ask me, there’s not one duff track. I mean, maybe you could complain about their Wall Street “greed is good” pinstriped stockbroker threads? I brushed with Reeves frequently when he was in a little bitsy band in Boston called The Atom Said who might remind some people of The Bellrays, but anyways, I been on a Tin Machine jag here lately. There just aint enough good guitar players to go around these days. You all know and love the Sales Brothers.I just turned an artist friend onto “Lust For Life” last year, and he was playing it in his gallery last time I stopped by there and it still sounds vital 45 years later. Reeves joined The Cure. The Cure. How awesome is that. Top of the heap.
MELONCHOLY MORNING
I can’t even bring myself to taking the cat shit outside this morning cause I just ain’t got the stuff to humor my exasperating neighbor. Ain’t heard from an old homie in a coon’s age so I went trolling on the social media platforms and I see them busy doing George Jefferson Laundromat Mogul stuff. Moved on up and yada yada. It was a foolish mistake of mine to cling to the notion we were ever real friends. I was just deluded for so long. Really only saw dude maybe three times in the past thirty years. My bad. No wonder everybody wants to stay fucked up on the trendy, high priced bar concoctions, or legal white people reefer, or government pills, cause clarity is a motherfucker. It hurts. I can see clearly now that at least ten people who I loved really never actually loved me back, at all, at all. That’s a rough one to process. Reality ain’t consoling and reassuring, like vaguely uplifting politician speeches on late night tv, or big pharma happy pill commercials, or anything related to the Advertising World that always promises instant fulfillment, popularity, and luxuriant resort heaven. I go for walks in the burning hot sun when I get restless, but it’s like a perilous gauntlet now, between crazy, needy, attention starved neighbors, meth head drug goons, and madwoman and militia man weaponized pit bulls off the chains, everywhere you stroll. Loose dogs are all over town. I’m depressed, also got family members having mental health challenges. I find it hard to cope in this age. One eccentric local said he tries not to judge all the kooks in cults and safety in number cliques or people who flee lucid consciousness into some kind of chemical induced, semi blackedout state of numbness, cause it’s such a fuckedup time to be alive with all the social engineers manufacturing a totally false metaverse unreality all around us and so many former peers or relatives buying in. He’s probably right. I need to be more compassionate. I just can’t get involved with no more Me Show, parasitical, taker, crazies. everytime I get involved with them, I lose, it costs me.
Back from my first walk of the day, hair dripping, wet glasses, sweaty as fuck. The recent monsoons that repeatedly flooded my leaky old garage have brought back the unwelcome swarms of bugs by the riverside. I passed the ripoff tourist trap coffeeshop complainer who gouges the travelers but never stops moaning about how he does not like his job or make enough money. I passed the Viet Nam vet with his barely legal outdoor wet bar and extravagant vintage car collection. I passed the elderly pagan tarot card reader in the kilt sitting on his porch in the shade. The muscleman from the gym seems to have a new broad in his oversized jeep. I was thinking about some hometown old people who once told me there is “no such thing as a geographical cure” cause anywhere you go, there you are, but I believe they were only half right. Might be true that some of us stay fuckedup in the head about shit that happened to us, but first hand research in the field has taught me that until you remove yourself from abusers, you can not really even begin to heal, because they do not recognize boundaries. You have to go away from them, I stayed in bad places where I was unloved and unwelcome for years, trying to change the predator’s minds. Don’t waste your time. If there is any hope of changing a mind, it is only one’s own, and even that’s a real long shot. Back when we were amateur entertainers, we took some sense of self worth from the smiles, from the applause of punters, from establishing a connection and solidarity with a room full of strangers. Later on, I came to draw some kind of satisfaction from being a caregiver, from serving people who seemed to need my help. Now my kids are grown and flown, my grandmother’s gone, her house was my haven. None of my former bandmates get along, there is acrimony over clashing lifestyle choices and political beliefs and mercenary careerist moves. I find myself with alot of time to fill and little means to improve my art. Hence, the restlessness. On one hand, there is a loneliness that comes outta the silence of a graveyard silent, dead dull ghost town, on the other hand, one remembers the ridiculous price for getting involved with people in a capitalist greedhead dummy sports culture. These fat, horny overprivileged white devils only ever come to plunder. To rob our peace and kill the joy. They never learned how to give or share. It’s often said that the real definition of insanity is doing the same thing, expecting a different result. I don’t think people change, not really. ‘Ones I thought changed, looking back, they were always the way they are, takers, hoarders, hustlers, users, plagiarists and scam merchants only out for themselves. They pat ’emselves on the back and call it winning and achieving and being successful, they are proud ripoff artistes. Capitalists. I just aint got the energy for the heartbreaks no more. I got a song that sez “you can’t negotiate with plagiarists”.
“I know you tried and I tried, too/Sometimes all our dreams just don’t come true.” (-Chris Isaak)
“UK Home Secretary Priti Patel, who approved extraditing #Assange to the US on 17 June, brags about the Home Office today hosting Mike Pompeo, who tasked CIA assassination plans of Julian while he was Trump’s CIA Chief.” (-Stella Assange)
“Hello pre-crime, brought to you by the national security state, palantir and “academia” (-Whitney Webb, Unlimited Hangout)
VIVE LE ROCK!
Back when we were the new wave kids, this was one of my main inspirations, what I wanted my crew to do our own unique version of-problem with being in midwestern smalltown garage bands is, no one really has any recording apparatus, experience or expertise, and the older people with the access to equipment and shit all just wanna be get rich quick slick professionals, they all have these shortcut to fame, get rich schemes, either playing lousy covers at old man lodges. Or copying whatever the current trend is, or replacing the inflammatory original front man with some kinda copycat Ken Doll, they are bandwagon chasers, and by the time they catch up with the bandwagon, there is already a new trend in play, which is why I say you have to do your own unique version of what you like, you have to bring your own pain and joy, put your own flavor on it, your own ribbon, that’s what early hip-hop people mean when they said “fresh”, it’s gotta be fresh, or you waste people’s time cause they could just be going to an earlier source. Wannabe professionals mostly like to jump on the coat tails of some successful entity, by becoming a bigger groups’s opening band or becoming their copycat clones, or closet organizers or personal assistants or whatever. Their go-fers, pool boys, or selfie stick and rocks glass ice fetchers. Used to know this stunningly beautiful chick who had a whole entrouge of fake friend flatterers on call telling her how pretty she was all the time, they sat at her feet, but they just wanted her stuff. I was never that good at careerist strategies, I just like the being creative and designing and entertaining aspects and could not hire people to correctly record my work, so it’s all in an unfinished state and it’s torturous on somedays. Decades later, the UK magazine that took the name, became my fave rocknroll bible in the world, maybe even eclipsing “Creem” and “Flipside” as my all-time fave periodical. Me, I live Miles From Nowhere, now and they aint not no international news stands anywhere around here. Just cactuses and rocks and deer scat. Only things I miss about the Big City are Indian food and “Vive Le Rock”. I still love Adam and Marco. Marco played on Sinead’s early stuff. Still love Bow Wow Wow, as well. God Bless Matthew Ashman! (RIP)
“The moral rot of a society could not be clearer when you see a society that shuns the working class and the poor. Instead of investing in uplifting people out of poverty and improving the quality of life, the priority of capitalists is building a strong national security state. The capitalist class benefits from this in a few ways. Most importantly for them, it helps create an economic complex that is built upon maintaining their power and established social order.
Giant police and military budgets are justified because it creates jobs and carries entire industry, thus creating a funnel of corruption. For example, Raytheon donates a staggering amount of money to politicians and corporate media. In just the first three months of 2020 alone, Raytheon has donated $3.5 million to pro war politicians. Corporate media and politicians then push for war, enriching said industry. The industry then handsomely rewards them with career opportunities, donations, and more ads. This is known as the revolving door and it is through this mechanism that the prison and military industrial complex gains power
The infiltration of government by Betsy Devos and her family is a great example of this. Lloyd Austin, our current defense secretary came from the board of Raytheon. The prison and military industrial complexes dominate our society because of this revolving door of corruption. These complexes greatly serve the capitalist class, and not the workers, because it serves to maintain established social order. The police state is not designed to prevent crime, it’s to serve capital. Federal Courts ruled that the police do not have any legal duty to defend us.
You are not class conscious if you do not support ending the U.S. police state
Most of the time spent by the police is imposing regressive fines and fees towards the working class. The police also spend a large number of resources fighting the drug war which is massively unpopular. The unpopularity of the New Jim Crow, I would argue, gives our police and national security state the lack of authority and mandate over the people. We need to educate people during the road to abolition to think about the relationship between government power and the populace this way. We are not there yet, but we need to start making that argument. Now consider the police solves less than 2% of serious crimes then it’s clear they don’t serve the worker, but another established authority altogether which is capital.” (-Nick Cruse)
“When you realize the US only has one party, you cease seeing it as a good party protecting people from a bad party and start seeing one giant party threatening to take away people’s civil rights if they don’t obey and submit. You suddenly understand that saying one party is a “lesser evil” is like saying a boxer should want to get hit by his opponent’s left hand because his right cross hurts more. It’s two arms on the same boxer, and they’re both working together to knock you out.
A boxer doesn’t go into a match planning to get punched in the face by his opponent’s left hand while avoiding the right, he goes in planning to defeat his opponent. The opponent is the uniparty and the oligarchic empire which controls it.
It is true that each hand is used differently in boxing, with the lead used mostly for jabs and hooks and the rear hand mostly for crosses, but they’re both used together to set up a knockout blow. The fact that the parties are used differently doesn’t mean they’re not working together.
Most good boxers will tell you they’d rather fight someone with a solid cross than someone with a solid jab. Sure the jab does less damage at first, but it’s such an effective strike that it can nullify your entire offense and grind you down until you can’t continue. In exactly the same way, the Democratic Party is far more effective in shutting down revolutionary movements and stagnating progress than the Republicans, and, just like a jab-cross combination in boxing, is used to set up the Republicans to deliver the knockout blow.
What is the correct response to this? Is it to say “Hmm, I’d better let him punch me with his left hand, because if I don’t he’ll hit me with his right and it’ll hurt more”? Or is it to bite down on your mouthpiece and start throwing heavy leather until you knock his ass out?”
HERE IS THE DUDE OF DUDES! I mean I just love all this cat’s rocknroll so much. He writes all the songs I forgot to. He says it all. Love him! Look for all his stuff!
That’s the face of the Nice Guy Empire, also known as the rules-based international order, also known as the liberal world order, also known as the US-led world order. It presents the facade of humanitarianism and democratic ideals, but underneath the performance it’s just as savage and bloodthirsty as any other empire in history. (-Caitlin Johnstone)
HOLY SHITE! THE COFFEE MAKER IS NOT WORKING!
I wake up with the roosters so the faraway gas station ain’t open yet. Now I know it ain’t no tragedy, but not the way I like to start my day. Been getting everyday static and grief from my beloved belligerent bored teenager and man I am psychically and emotionally drained this morning, it’s been goin’ on for about a week as he fixates on fireworks but there is a burn ban due to wildfires. Now in my Joe Strummer book it talks about some foreign, exotic land where the morning breakfast shop serves whiskey in the coffee and you can drink and eat, write and talk, and linger freely all night and all day. Can you even imagine? It’s been 25 years since I been to an all night diner, last time was with a skinhead girl, a combat booted feminist, hardcore singer I worked at a pizza place with, she wanted my help forging an underground record label, but then, she got pregnant by the local pickup artist and he promptly dropped dead, so there went that idea. I liked that chick, remember her singing, “what did I ever see in you, what did I ever believe in you?” at a basement show of metal/punk crossover bands, her group was called something politically incorrect that fauxwokes would consider offensive in the techlord reboot era, she was a real life tank girl, and in the punk rock subculture we both inhabited back then, it was effective to be shocking and provocative and controversial. We did not tiptoe around middle class people sensibilities and genteel feelings bullshit. She said what she meant and said it boldly. There was, at least, I like to think, a good and righteous love and solidarity between us, we were brother and sister in a common struggle, we worked for these booj fauxwoke people though, who only gave raises and promotions based on shit like popularity and gender, so that did create some tension when a hardworking drummer friend of ours I nicknamed Angry was passed over time and time again, and I was told I’d be assistant managing in the owner’s absence while they were on their la-di-da jet-set European vacation but instead, last minute, they brought in these already affluent trendy hipsters from the gentrification popularity bar down the street with their skinny ties and third hand associations to semi (not really that) famous people; so all the rank n file pizzamakers, we were all pissed off and grumbling, and The Bosses offered zero explanation other than they were the Bosses-their house, their rules, then, they suddenly sold the joint for a shit ton of money and we all eventually got left out in the cold, went our separate ways. I learned you can’t get too involved with bourgeoise people because it always ends badly, with them callously exploiting and discarding you when they are through with their fad lads adventure. You ever hear that PULP song, “Common People”? Lived it, baby. That’s the short version. Anyways, I have noticed how effectively the rulers have tightened up society and severely limited our free access to public spaces where we havenots can meet up and make plans, collaborate and brainstorm, unionize, form bands, and offer one another empathy and mutual aid. In some towns, the parks are closed, the public restrooms are locked, they hassle anyone at the library who does not present as sufficiently compliant, and college educated middle class landlord-like. Only Bosses have rights in the New Emerging Surveillance Tech Tyrannical Disorder. All under cover of protecting the public health and the public good. Just one big bogus Pink N Greenwash, the old preppie handbook colors, where they never mention that it’s the private plane politicians, Big Corporations and NATO military doing all the damage to the environment. They shutdown all the little businesses during the Covid clampdowns and this week’s ruling class manufactured crisis is “Putin’s Price-Hike” or “The Q Shaman Insurrection! Insurrection! Insurrection!” I just notice they always got some emergency crisis headline that’s supposed to somehow legitimize them stealing more civil liberties from us little people. YTK or immigrant caravans, Bird Flu or Bin Ladin, The New Death Plague, or Latest Boogeyman. Mad Cow or Bird Flu, “China Virus” or “RUSSIAGATE!”, or another protest curfew, to protect the few-the swells in the tower. Remember what Obama let happen in Standing Rock and Flint or what he did to Libya or the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter coordinated crackdowns and surveillance of activists like Sandra Bland who was being followed and ended up dead in police custody? No? You just remember liking that Beyonce song? Being “classy”? “WAITRESS! MORE ICE!”
“I really think these people are psychotic. Blinken, you have no moral standing to discuss repression anywhere in the world. Do you not know that over 14 thousand people were arrested during the Floyd protests in 2020?” (-Ajamu Baraka)
“Don’t forget what almost $60 billion could have done for the struggling people of this country?” (-BLACK IN THE EMPIRE)
“Earlier this week, NYPD arrested Jazz Ajilo, a beloved subway musician. New Yorkers were outraged. In response, Mayor Adams said the subway is out of control and he was elected to fix it. It’s “not the place for disorder.” (-Leah Goodridge)
“The Democrats are not socialists at all. They are capitalists and imperialists to their core who have done nothing but sell out the planet while hiding behind a hollow brand of identity politics that hurts (not helps) the marginalized communities they claim to care about.” (-Ryan Knight)
“After 18 days of general strike, Indigenous movements in Ecuador forced the government to lower gas prices, limit fossil fuel projects, and protect nature. ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” (-Pawel Wargan)
“The US, currently militarily occupying 1/3 of Syria to steal the war-ravaged country’s oil and wheat, accuses the Syrian government of “disdain for international norms of behavior and hypocrisy regarding claims of sovereignty.” (-Aaron Mate)
It really is like the Matrix, motherfuckers on the haves side of town forever fight to protect the sick system, the corrupt status quo, the rigged sham. They got their stupid degree and own some property and Amazon boxes on the porch and now they don’t wanna know if the system is fucking over the people, or torturing, or spying, or propagandizing, or mass incarcerating people for victimless crimes, crushing unions, inflitating and disrupting activist groups, or even mass murdering. It’s all an empty charade-the feelgood slogans and virtue signals and fakeass tokenism and do nothing diversity squads and I Voted Today stickers and Ukraine Flags. Rich people having fun at our expense. I have no answers, don’t really understand anybody, other than in my life, everybody seems to follow the powers that locally prevail, whatever those powers represent or demand. The rich can do no wrong and the poor can never be right-they must be punished. I’m from like a Eugene Debs and Stokely Carmichael and Woody Guthrie and Fred Hampton tradition, a lifelong outsider, and I do not seek gold stars from the people on the hill, I just assume they hate me. They think I’m comin’ to take away their channel changer or pizza rolls or challenge their expertise gleaned from Bill Nye The Science Guy or whatever. They don’t wanna Catch The PovertyTM. Studiously avoiding guilt by association with my bad antisocial anarchist reputation. Anytime I ever asked somebody for you know, a small merit raise, or to let me use their recording studio, or work at their goth boutique, or kick down some of their infinite disposable funds for me to finish a recording with, in exchange for all my elbow grease labors, and caregiving and nurturing, vital contributions to their tiny empire brand building, that’s when they always cut ties with me and told their booji wives or personal assistants it was ’cause of my character defects, I have some flaw, or wild glint in the eye, they don’t like my face, or tone, or inebriated nights of loud singing thirty years ago, or some shit. So obviously, I left them with no choice but to abruptly abandon me, taking with them my more cherished belongings, and common associates, a whole suitcase fulla photos and threads, and a bunch of my song ideas and intellectual properties and copyright it under their name. ETC., ETC. They call that sticking with the winners, earning their success with their inlaw inheritance the hard way in the USA! USA! My Canadian rocker friend and I keep comparing notes about how ludicrous this whole pig-media manufactured unreality has become, just bullshit actors in front of blue screens saying friendly advertising slogans while letting the super rich steal the basic human rights and freedoms from the majority: brazenly right in front of people’s noses, but most of them are too preoccupied by their own piles of stuff, putting together their Ika furniture, pampered pets and celebrity privilege to even get some vague notion of what is really going on. Me and that guy both retreat back into the music and memories of the eighties, takes us to a sweeter time. Is it just me, or was everybody you know just a whole lot less evil, back then?
“Don’t you know it is wrong to cheat the tryin’ man?” (The CLASH)
“The War on #Russia — New York Times admits #CIA and US/EU “commandos” are and have been active in #Ukraine , while #NATO announces huge increase of troop deployment to Europe from 40K to 300K” (-Dan Kovalik)
“I’m starting to wonder whether the US Government’s ability to find ways to justify its posture of Endless War – and that’s what it is: endless – might have something to do with how a tiny slice of Americans (corporate and security state elites who wield huge power in DC) benefit?” (-Glenn Greenwald)
“Neoliberalism is blaming @SusanSarandon while Nancy Pelosi reads poetry.” (-Nina Turner)
“The left needs to focus its attack on the police state of the United States because it is one of this country’s largest hypocrisies that exposes the conservative and liberal class. The “fiscal conservative” claims they are for small government that does not tread on them. Meanwhile they support insane police budgets that do not justify themselves. More people are waking up to this fact after the Uvalde Police Force allowed a mass shooter to kill a bunch of innocent kids. Despite the obvious incompetence of the police, conservatives want to fund them more because they are 100% ok with living in a giant nanny state government because it gives them the illusion of security.
Meanwhile liberals pretend they are woke, oppose racial discrimination and white supremacy. Then they support funding the police more and expanding their powers despite the system of policing being built on white supremacy and maintaining social hierarchies. Liberals promote and pretend they understand Critical Race Theory but this is a giant part of CRT. The recognition that while individual racism is harmful, the most important form of racism to confront is institutional racism. Meanwhile, the Democrats not only helped built this caste system that we live in, they are doubling down on funding them more. By doing this, they misdirect the energy people have that wants to dismantle white supremacy into making it stronger. While this is going on, liberals preach about anti-racism and against white supremacy just to fight the culture war against the right.
The Police State Never Loses
The liberal response to cop violence and incompetence is to give them more money for training. Conservative big government bootlickers response is to “back the blue” in response to the “radical left” attacking the police. Both parties worship the police despite the fact that police allow kids to die in mass shootings, do nothing to prevent crime, and do nothing to make us feel safer. The Police fail the public over and over, but they constantly get more funding. When “crime” goes up, the police need more funding to stop the ongoing crime wave. When “crime” goes down they fund them more in order to keep the peace. It’s important to remember that police have PR departments and advisors. Whenever they need a budget increase, they claim crime is up when many of times that is simply not the case (overall crime has decreased for decades now). Or they simply just arrest more people and claim that crime is out of control, citing their own arrest statistics.
The media always play their role as loyal as one would expect from corporate state tv. Copaganda in corporate media is one of the cops most efficient weapons. Whenever they lobby for a budget increase, the media all across the political spectrum repeats uncritically the propaganda that comes from the police and prison industrial complex about the rise in crime and the need to add more police officers. The propaganda became even more absurd in the wake of the George Floyd protests and popularity of the Defund the Police Movement. The media would run cover for the incompetence of the police, by blaming “crime waves” on the Defund the Police movement despite the fact that the police was not reduced.” (-Nick Cruse)
“NATO and a War Foretold. NATO chief bragged that Western intelligence predicted the Ukraine war months before Russia invaded; but predictions-and warnings–go back 30 years. And went unheeded.” (-Medea Benjamin) Opinion | NATO and a War Foretold | Medea Benjamin (commondreams.org)
“As covered in the @nytimes, the US has now admitted to having CIA on the ground in Ukraine. Question: If you’re funding, arming, & advising a military and you have “boots on the ground,” at what point do you admit you’re involved in a proxy war??” (-Lee Camp)
“Joe Biden made sure Clarence Thomas got on Supreme Court & has been the enemy of poor people his entire career.” (-Jimmy Dore)
NO CAVALRY IS COMING AND I’VE GIVEN UP ON EVERYBODY. DIRECT ACTION. THAT’S ALL WE GOT.
These grossass fake leftist do nothing imperialist Dems are actually fundraising with their stupid Capital Hill Protest Fake Outrage, and abortion, like they are just helpless babies with no power, but they will never do anything to help you, only their Republikkkan donor class owners. Sometimes I’ll read about Ireland or Australia or France or Merry Olde and dream about taking a ship abroad, relocating somewhere more free where you don’t get hassled by the man for walking down the street or cancel culture ratpacked by the ever-obedient college navel gazers for being off script. I see these movies about punk rock and read the books and can hardly even imagine knowing five people who aint been completely rebooted by the false narratives of the corporate reset billionaires. I’d love to gather round the bonfire or belly back up to some bar and sing some songs and find some free minded people who aint just here to take orders and generate wealth for their evil so called superiors. You might recall that Jesus & Mary Chain song, “Man On The Moon”? That’s totally how I feel this morning, just disconnected all the way. Don’t wanna climb on the risky roof to try and repair holes, don’t wanna walk to the stinky river, don’t wanna fuck around typing shit on this stupid computer. Don’t wanna try to be understood. Certainly not accepted or forgiven. Just…bereft. I got a disabled kid who suffers from struggling to fit in with the general ed. neurotypicals cause his idea of being like them is by imitating their snarky, greedy, namebrand, violence and competition thing, and ya know, weirdly, that’s how most of society is really starting to look and operate at this point, hard to teach a kid not to impose their will with extortion tactics and bullying and lies and namecalling and shit when that is exactly how the political parties, kkkops, politicians, popular grownup scenesters and shysters and supposedly oh so upstanding and philanthropic rulers behave. Imposing their will with violence. Trained the neo feudal wishful thinking pinkhat gatekeepers to pay no mind to the men behind the curtain-here’s a pretty lady saying nice things in pleasing tones, or still tweeting about how bad Qshaman was. Get real. They’ve all forgotten how. Their Nike gentrification obedience overlords have that consumerist swoosh slogan “Just Do It”. Hell, I’d like to see ’em just even, “Do…SOMETHING”. Their only functions are repeating tv talk and ordering shit online.
I remember over twenty years ago, me and my old lady going to a library downtown in the tv shitfaced, flyover, middle managerial, plantation states to look for some real and authentic get shit done activists to work with at a midwestern FOOD NOT BOMBS, well it was a real disappointment cause as my partner said, that midwestern chapter it shoulda been called, FLIRTING NOT FOOD. If you want to see a real model of live action, bad ass, do it yourself for the people, seize the day right now ACTION, this is how it’s done. My heroes:
“After 18 days of general strike the people of Ecuador have forced the government to lower gas prices, limit oil exploration and mining, and protect parks and water sources. The government now has 90 days to deliver on the other demands of Indigenous groups, or they strike again.” (-Joshua Potash; READ WOBBLIES AND ZAPATISTAS)
“The only thing worse than the cultists of the Democratic party are the cultists who haven’t learned that the GOP is simply another flavor of warmongering Wall Street puppet oligarchy. They somehow believe that Israel/corporate puppets like Trump or DeSantis are the answer.” (-Garland Nixon)
“Imagine if every uninformed Democrat like Rosie (O’Donnell) decided to pressure the Democrats!!?!? Who are actually in power & have complete control of government, instead of being led around by their nose by propagandists from one of the corporate parties who uses abortion to fundraise.” (-Jimmy Dore)
GREG ALLEN’S FRINGE RELIGION
A rocknroller who jammed with Jerry Nolan and Two Saints and Daughters alumni. I used to see him at the RAT.
I KEEP TRYING TO TELL MOTHERFUCKERS THAT SHIT’S FUCKEDUP & SHIT…
So I been diggin’ this heavy metal writer from Metal Injection and Dangerous Minds by the name of Cherry Bomb. I figure my talented and perceptive colleague, DISCONTENTED Podcaster/singer-songwriter, researcher, John Dissed, will find this of special interest. Dangerous Minds always has some unexpected and entertaining writing about stuff I like. www.johndissed.com
“As covered in the @nytimes, the US has now admitted to having CIA on the ground in Ukraine. Question: If you’re funding, arming, & advising a military and you have “boots on the ground,” at what point do you admit you’re involved in a proxy war??” (-Lee Camp)
“Joe Biden made sure Clarence Thomas got on Supreme Court & has been the enemy of poor people his entire career.” (-Jimmy Dore)
“It’s past time that @POTU should pardon Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. If you agree, please retweet.” (-Matthew Hoh For Senate)
“It’s really not hard to explain. It’s very simple: Democrats have done nothing with their political power to help the people because the party is corrupt and serves Big Business and the ruling class. Democrats don’t even care if they lose because it will help their 3 main objectives: 1. Fundraising 2. Enriching their corporate donors 3. Keeping the people trapped in the duopoly If you think this party cares about democracy or human rights then you’re not paying attention. Democrats have done nothing for the past 50 years except capitulate to Republicans because they serve the same wealthy donors & the same decrepit capitalist system, yet liberals think the solution is to keep voting for them instead of fighting for something better. It’s insanity!”
(-Ryan Knight)
“You don’t have to engage with the liberals blaming Bernie, Susan Sarandon, Jill Stein, etc. for this. They got the political order they wanted and it still failed them, and the cognitive dissonance is breaking them. They will not be meaningful allies in the fights to come. Let them stew in their misplaced rage forever. But move on and focus on the fights that matter.” (-Craig Rangoon)
“Pompeo’s speech is one long rimjob for the military-industrial complex which indirectly employs him. He repeatedly sings the praises of the weapons that are being poured into Ukraine, two of them by name: the Patriot missile built by Raytheon and the Javelin missile built jointly by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, both of whom happen to be major funders of the Hudson Institute. He repeatedly decries the “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan,” and excoriates the Biden administration for failing to control the world’s fossil fuel resources aggressively enough in its efforts to “prostrate itself to radicals.”
Pompeo, easily ranked among the most fanatical imperialists on the entire planet, hilariously says that “China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a form of imperialism.” He decries a “genocide” in Xinjiang and repeatedly implies that China deliberately unleashed Covid-19 upon the world, calling it “the global pandemic induced by China.” He repeatedly claims that Vladimir Putin is trying to reconstitute the Soviet Union.
Along with praise for NATO and for the various anti-China alliances in the Indo-Pacific, Pompeo names “Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan” as “the three lighthouses for liberty” which those alliances must work to support militarily. You will notice that those three “lighthouses” just so happen to be the hottest points of geostrategic conflict with the top three opponents of the US empire: Russia, Iran, and China.
But there are a couple of things Pompeo says which have some real meat on them.
“By aiding Ukraine, we undermined the creation of a Russian-Chinese axis bent on exerting military and economic hegemony in Europe, in Asia and in the Middle East,” Pompeo says.
“We must prevent the formation of a Pan-Eurasian colossus incorporating Russia, but led by China,” he later adds. “To do that, we have to strengthen NATO, and we see that nothing hinders Finland and Sweden’s entry into that organization.”
That’s all the major international news stories of today are ultimately about, right there. Underlying all the smaller news stories about conflicts with nations like Russia, China and Iran, there’s one continuous story about the US power alliance trying to secure planetary domination by relentlessly working to subvert any nation which refuses to align with it, and about the nations who oppose that campaign working against it with steadily increasing intimacy.
This is all the Russia hysteria from 2016 onward has been about. This is all the phony, hypocritical hand-wringing about Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong have been about. This is all the staged histrionics about human rights in Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba have been about. It’s all been about manufacturing international consent for an increasingly dangerous campaign to secure unipolar global hegemony at any cost.
It’s worth calling this to mind, as NATO for the first time designates China a threat due to its alignment with Russia and as NATO’s secretary-general admits that NATO has been preparing for a conflict with Russia since 2014. It is worth calling to mind the fact that the US has had a policy in place since the fall of the Soviet Union to prevent the rise of any rival superpower to deny any serious challenge to its planetary domination. It is worth calling to mind that in 1997 the precursor to the US Space Force committed to working toward “full spectrum dominance,” meaning military control over land, sea, air, and space.
People like to talk about secret conspiracies by shadowy cabals to establish a one-world government, but what is by far the most tangible and imminent global domination agenda has been orchestrated right out in the open. The US government has long sought to unite the world under a single power structure, no matter how much violence and devastation it needs to inflict upon humanity and no matter how much world-threatening nuclear brinkmanship it needs to engage in to do so.
This is the US empire which corrupt psychopaths like Mike Pompeo support. A power structure which wages nonstop wars in order to keep the peace, which continually oppresses populations around the world in order to protect freedom, and which risks nuclear war with increasingly reckless aggression to in order save the world.(-Caitlin Johnstone)
“After throwing Greens off the ballot in 2020 in TX, WI, PA, Dems are at it again. Tell them they’re not “for” voting rights if they’re kicking their opponents off the ballot. Send a message by supporting @MatthewPHoh – the latest target of Dems’ ballot suppression schemes.” (-Dr. Jill Stein)
“Green party candidate @MatthewPHoh got on the ballot in North Carolina and @TheDemocrats are waging a campaign to get him removed from the ballot and subvert democracy. It’s time for folks to wake up and understand that the Democrats are not on our side either & oppose democracy. People are homeless because of capitalism. People are dying from a lack of healthcare because of capitalism. People are overworked, underpaid & unhappy because of capitalism. Capitalism was not designed for the betterment of society. It was designed to enrich the ruling class.(-Ryan Knight)
“We have a word for the belief in the division between self and other: Fear. Capitalism is just encoded fear. It’s the fear we’ve agreed upon and thereby enforce upon everyone. Capitalism is rule by fear.” (-Patrick H on Twitter)
“Because Obama is trending, here’s an incomplete list of his stellar accomplishments: 1. Bailed out Wall Street 2. Destroyed Libya 3. Jailed whistleblowers, deported immigrants, and used drone strikes in record number 4. Expanded Bush’s wars from two to seven 5. Kill List” (-Danny Haiphong)
“The CIA and special operations forces from Britain, France, and Canada are physically in Ukraine, helping direct the proxy war on Russia, overseeing weapons, training, and intelligence. Some Ukrainian forces even have US flag patches.” (-Benjamin Norton)
“The fact that is considered legal for a corporation to compile perfect records of your private life simply because you had to “click OK to continue” to make your phone work is a perfect expression of who holds the power in society and why they should be cast into the sea.” (-Edward Snowden)
“Love buys a six pack and gives in to the bums.” (-Joe Strummer)
Veglam 