WHAT IS MORE GROTESQUE THAN FORMER PEACENIK ROCK BANDS BEING TROTTED OUT BY THE WARPIGS TO HELP PROMOTE WW3?
“Democracy Now literally had MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan on to give a tongue bath to Joe Biden. So much for “alternative media.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Hassan Piker’s idea that whats needed to counter homelessness is more houses is the most bourgeois brainrot imagineable. Yeah, people really wind up on the street because they run out of house.” (-Revolutionary Defeatism)
Breaks my heart when my old lady is sick, she’s the best person I’ve ever known and it kills me when I can not comfort her or protect her. Up early with kid who is aiming Nerf guns at me and requiring my assistance making lists of future fireworks he hopes to buy from the big town. Can’t tell if it’s gonna rain or not, oftentimes the sky will turn dark gray but it’ll pass, we got more garden seeds in the mail but I’m waiting a bit to plant them. We need some potting soil, and really I need a wheel barrow at this point. Out here in the nowhere lands, I keep running into all these closet fucking racists, bootlick copsuckers, it’s a real drag, man. Everytime I fuck with people, I sorta regret it. I feel like I’m back in Kinticky, ya know what I mean? I got a song about it called “Southern Gentleman”. I got a lot of alone time nowadays which, ya know everybody needs some, I use it to write, but too many hours by yourself and you can start to wanna talk to somebody. I end up digging through my old storage containers looking for my former friend’s phone numbers, but mostly, they’re all dead, or too invested in tv, ratrace, holier than thou, got-mine, shitlib, pro war culture to wanna fraternize with outta style dirty poors. Made friends with the crows. Saw Sinead O’Connor in my dream. Almost noon, kid’s been up all night, still wide awake plotting excessive vacations.
Solid segment by @mehdirhasan on the absurdity of continuing unconditional military funding to an openly racist & violent Israeli government (citing @SenSanders to that end too). Truthfully, the point stood even before the fanaticism of this particular govpic.twitter.com/6CSz6VncCY
“Bernie Sanders said he supports NATO and Biden in Ukraine. Marianne Williamson said she opposed Biden getting out of Afghanistan because the US needs to *help women.* With “left” politicians like these, who needs the neocons?” (-Danny Haiphong) SHITLIBS THINK FREE SPEECH IS BAD CUZ LYN CHENEY SELF IDENTIFIES AS FEMALE & DISLIKES ORANGE MAN BAD & GENDER IS THEIR NU RELIGION
So my good friends know my first concert was Dr. Hook opening for Shaun Cassidy at the Rupp Arena in Lexington. Shaun was on a tv show called “The Hardy Boys” and I was really into his songs, “Hey Deanie” and “That’s Rocknroll”. I also liked Andy Gibb, Leif Garrett, Sha Na Na, the Grease soundtrack and everything Elvis related. My aunt’s stoner boyfriend Ben got me into the Pretenders.
My pot smoking 70’s feminist aunt gave me my first two or three records, ya know? Monkees, More of the Monkees and Lynyrd Skyyard (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd). I used to stare at those Skynyrd dudes on the cover of their first album and think to myself, “someday I’ll have a gang of wild hippie rebels”. Sadly, it never quite came true, most of my hombres were “just visiting” cultural tourists and people who only had hippie values once a year at the bourgeoise cos-play drug festival in the woods. They only loved me in their dirty barefoot, unshaven, slumming phase.
I was probably more into Skynyrd’s look then their actual music, though later in life, I came to love summa the bands they influenced from Tom Petty to Lone Justice to 38 Special to Junkyard, and one of my life’s best friends was a very, very, very charismatic bar brawlin’, pot smokin’, whiskey sippin’, hoarse/horse laughin’ big beautiful hillbilly bon vivant named Tap who used to be the main solderer at the stained glass studio I worked at in my late teens. He was like all the Dukes Of Hazzard and Merry Pranksters rolled into one, “YEEEEHAW!” There was never question of whether he was on the bus or off the bus, he came to party. He lived in a trailer with his girlfriend, Judy Jo, and they would have me over to booze it up at their trailer bar while we listened to corny, overplayed classic rock radio and I’d do mean spirited Rich Little impersonations of our employers and friend’s parents and they would laugh their asses off. The other think that was exceptionally cool about that dude who was always being dragged off in handcuffs for failure to pay chuld support or fighting at the bar again, is how in spite of his own very conventional mustache, parted in the middle hair, wife beater and blue jeans uniform, he never fucking batted at an eye no matter how many needless extra layers of costume jewelry and feathers and sequins and way too much clown makeup I wore to work back then, it did not phase him one bit. I think our gay yuppie bosses would be more inclined to voice objections to summa my over the top Pete Burns inspired costumes back then. He was a longtime big brother figure of mine and I’m sorry as hell he’s gone, so he’s who I am really mourning upon reading the Gary Rossington obits, cause Tap loved Lynyrd Skynyrd and outlaw country and “Let It Bleed” and Keith Richards “Main Offender” and really any music really that was about, “sorry, darlin’ but I gots to be movin’ on down the highway…” (RIP)
“To all the delusional USA bots out there, let me remind you (or inform you) that there is no reason to believe that any potentially viable candidates in the next election will govern in a democratic fashion–i.e., in a way that benefits the majority of the population.” (-Aaron Good)
“Bernie Sanders, promoting his book in the UK, is asked by the BBC about Ukraine policy: “It’s not an issue that I’ve been heavily involved in, but I support what the president is doing” A year in, still no significant thoughts on the issue, other than Support For The President.” (-Michael Tracey)
“The two key reasons we know Sirhan didn’t kill RFK:
1. No bullet from RFK could be matched to Sirhan’s gun. 2. Witnesses put Sirhan in front of RFK when he was shot from behind. Would have had a chest wound from the front if Sirhan had been firing bullets.” (-Lisa Pease)
The thing about to keep in mind about boomer nostalgia for the reporting of Sy Hersh and Woodward and Bernstein is that Watergate and its aftershocks were episodes in a US Establishment/deep state civil war whose outcome was the “Reagan Revolution”…With the Rummy/Cheney “Halloween Massacre” coup, Nelson Rockefeller was dropped from the 76 ticket and other more right-wing figures were appointed (e.g. Bush replacing Colby at DCI). The corporate liberal Rockefeller Republicans basically took over the Democrat Party. The next Dem president was Carter, handpicked by David Rockefeller and Zbig Brzezinski. Later, Rockefeller soured on Carter and helped with the October Surprise plot to sink his reelection. Reagan won the next presidential election–and basically every election thereafter.” (-Aaron Good)
My old pal Jim Rinn of I-94 Recordings fame sez everybody needs some Detroit in their rocknroll and I can’t say he’s wrong. I wish they all could be Motor City Motherfuckers.
Man, I’m gonna give you an example of how slow life is in my dead end desert ghost town. I wake up about five with all the wildlife outside, you hear the coyotes, roosters, birds and cows start carrying on about that time. By nine, it’s Sunday, and my family have a cold and they did not go to bed til late, so I knew I had about ten hours of free time, so I emailed an hombre, like, what’s sup? He gets back and says hey ya wanna hang out for awhile, I can spin by and pick you up. I’m amenable to that idea cause I don’t get a lotta freetime or adult talk these days and where I live is like two and a half miles from the nearest gas station or grocery store and no one will properly fence or leash their animals out here, so it’s dangerous, there’s always internet chat about loose dogs or dog bites elderly woman. So I prefer to not attempt the long trek into town on foot. Even with a trail stick, it’s perilous and even the dogs that are behind fences are always frying your nerves with their ferocious snarling, one poor animal is tied by a rope to a tree, no collar, just twine, people are rough on animals out here, mostly they are seen as food or weapons which is the opposite of Oregon where they are seen as like objects or fowrship, nearly deified. Okay so I go outside and wait for dude. Half hour rolls by, I try to call him, but the phone is dead, I go back inside to email him, but the electricity is out. In the Gates- Reset Post Covid Normal, whatever they call it, the electricity’s just out all the time, cause The Man just gets to fuckw ith you, charges whatever they want but when it ain’t on, fuck you. So I sit outside and read my “Addicted To Noise” book by Michael godberg, another forty minutes goes by and I start fucking around in the yard, getting my garden beds ready. I got about five rows of vegetables planted and seeds coming in the mail tomorrow, so ya know, I kinda just fuss over the seedlings now. By the third hour I figures dude’s just blown me off and that’s a drag cause I mighta made a different plan had he not offered to fetch me in his vehicle. So when the computer comes back on, he emails me back finally, saying his dog wanted to go on a walk, then he needed a nap, then he wanted to be petted, and now it was almost time for another dogwalk. So yeah that is the culture here. I’m three hours in with this guy and he’s petting his dog. That particular friend is in his thirties. Most of the population here seem to be in their seventies, so they tend to move much slower than my dude. My fam did not wake up until three so I just sat by myself all day and that’s alrite, I got a lot of birds that keep me company, but yeah tomorrow is another day where everything will be closed cause everything stays closed here on Sunday and Monday, family’s too sick for school, I won’t be planting anymore seeds cause the mail don’t come til four usually, I have been working on several batches on new lyrics, but my standards have changed, like why bother if it’s not excellent? Or at least, Inspired-Dumb? So now I’m sitting here typing, cat’s in the window, birds are still chirping, owls are hooting, wind chimes in the tree, all very nice but it is like time stands still, 5:35, been up for like 12 hours. Probably would have liked say a forty ounce had I known I was gonna be by myself all day. I like to drink a forty ounce, listen to old music. I only eat once a day, at six, so at least that is something reachable I can look forward to. Everybody that Goldberg writes about interests me. I particulatly like Ramblin Jack Elliot, who kinda reminds me of my dead train hopping anarchist street musician friend and former drinking buddy and wouldbe/part time bandmate, Mark B. Been exploring Ramblin’ Jack songs on the youtubes. Kinda miss record stores.
Woke up next day resumed typing at 3:34, had dreams about floods, headlines say Kentucky, the place of my birth, is without electricity, the people who control the grid don’t want us having generators, or effective for self sufficiencey, age old agriculture know how, or real seeds, cause they want to be able to control us all with a fear program and a flip of the switch. They really do seem like deranged sociopathic warpig movie villains. Their do nothing fraud squad tv puppets do not even stand up for Julian Assange and freedom of the press, all they have ever done is moan some more about Trump. Where would any rightwing superpac corporate owned shitlib celebrity be without Trump? Guys like Biden and Bloomberg are every bit as racist, sexist, gropey, and police state booyah as Trump, but pinkhat shitlibs shrug, cause they/them put a Big D behind their names. Think about it. Was hangin’ out with a local pal and was appalled when he started kinda tellin’ me how the answer to everything is Vote Republikkan and how George Soros funds Antifa and blah blah blah. I tried to explain to him that every people’s movement is infiltrated by Conitelpro forces and funneled back into the left versus right old paradigm, but he thinks we need more law and order and I just can’t vibe with him at this point. Law and order just means they don’t like poor people. They never talk about the real criminals who are fucking shit up-Bezos, Gates, Vanguard, Blackrock, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Bayer/Monsanto, Raytheon. I know they’ll probably just kille Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if he runs for president, but he is the only one who can tell the truth and still get on tv, sometimes. I miss Mike Gravel. And Glen Ford. God bless Daniel Ellsberg, Ralph Nader, and Dennis Kucinich…that pro war, fake new age chick can fuck right off.
JIMMY DORE TALKIN’ ‘BOUT LYIN’ ASS SHEEPDOGS, CULTISH PHARMA GRIFTERS, EMPTY SUIT WORD SAYERS, NU PELOSI EMPTY GESTURE JUSTICE TWEETERS & GUNG HO PRO WAR, MASS INCARCERATING FRAUD SQUAD FAKES FOOLIN’ YOU AGAIN
“As part of the project to expand NATO, and partly as revenge for the beginning of Russia’s Syria counter-McJihad operations, the US launched the Maidan coup. But Russia recognized what was afoot and arranged for the secession of Crimea from the Maidan junta regime. The US provoked Russia and made sure that Ukraine would not stop threatening Russia’s security red lines, ultimately provoking a limited Russian invasion that seems to have been designed more to bring Kiev to the negotiating table than to topple the puppet government. The US seemed surprised that Russia did not go all out like the US in the Iraq War. And they seem to have believed that the sanctions would harm Russia. But it seems the most damage has been inflicted on US allies and on the stability of the US imperial capitalist system.”(-Aaron Good)
SHITLIBS HATE FREESPEECH & WANT TO OUTLAW PROTEST FOR THEIR DAVOS BOSSES! THEY ALSO HATE THE WORKING CLASS FRONTLINE! LIKE THE CHENEYS, DESANTIS IS A TORTURER!
“Remember anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in the Iraq war? Dems supported her while it was convenient to oppose the war. Once it becme obvious that Dems only opposed *Bush*, not the war, Sheehan became inconvenient, and they dropped her like a hot rock.” (-Ladies Jacket Club)
“In a mind-blowingly hypocritical speech at the UN, Biden (a strong supporter of the Iraq War) declared: “If nations can pursue imperial ambitions without consequences, we put at risk everything this institution stands for” I fact-checked his absurd lies.” (-Ben Norton)
“Despite Russia’s clear RED lines, the West has been blaming Russia & painting Putin as the villain, saying his intervention was “unprovoked.” But recently NATO admitted that it DID have plans to expand along the eastern flank YEARS ago longer before 2022.” (-Fiorella Isabel)
“The puppet on the right shares my beliefs, the puppet on the left is more to my liking. Hey…there’s one guy holding up both!”
“This is where we are at right now, as a whole. No one is left out of the loop. We are experiencing a reality based on a thin veneer of lies and illusions. A world where greed is our God and wisdom is sin, where division is key and unity is fantasy, where the ego-driven cleverness of the mind is praised, rather than the intelligence of the heart.
If you want to understand a society, take a good look at the drugs it uses. And what can this tell you about American culture? Well, look at the drugs we use. Except for pharmaceutical poison, there are essentially only two drugs that Western civilization tolerates: Caffeine from Monday to Friday to energize you enough to make you a productive member of society, and alcohol from Friday to Monday to keep you too stupid to figure out the prison that you are living in.”
I’m getting ready to move, but it’s like hurry up and wait cause so much has to be done, boots on the ground wise and via other people before I can start packing up the truck, Beverly Hillbillies style, as is my custom, and lightin’ out for greener pastures. ‘Had a hard time sleeping last night, got too much to worry about between all the gouging by the corporations at the grocery store, a family member’s medical crisis, a sometime employer’s many health problem delays, always some kinda unexpected setbacks and bureaucracy red tape, malfunctioning appliances, renegotiated terms, all kindsa shit goin’ on, that makes it hard for an impatient, right now kinda action man like me who would much rather do it, than talk about it some more. You ever notice how the richer motherfuckers are, the more they like to philosophically weigh every option in the catalog, consult their horoscope, double check the weather, visit their massage therapist, and listen to themselves talk about every option on the menu, and when the food comes, they’re always mad they didn’t order what the table next to them are having, and usually end up somehow finding a way to blame the waitress to justify their callous mistreatment of workers and still ’em on the tip? Me and the wife have been working as light landscapers, ranch hands, assistants, gardeners, housecleaners and shit movers, for a couple of different AirBandB owners and other employers. Main thing all these different people have in common is they aint really interested in getting shit done, finding solutions, or paying the least money out to contractors and shit as they are in feeling like visionaries having important William Blake like visions about where to put their stuff. I have not been around rich people in about twenty years, I’ve been avoiding them on purpose because they all seem so flakey unreliable, delusional, narcissistic and entitled. I always get hurt or burned by them so I kinda believe it is better not to be very involved with very many of these crazy fucking people. One dude I made the mistake of interacting with promptly pivoted straight to how can he monetize my creative works and exploit my shit for money. That’s how these nutty capitalists think: how can they liquidate and commodify your existence for their own personal profit or vanity brands? I’ve never been good at taking shit and pretending it feels good, and that is the only actual relationship being offered by the wealthy ranchers in the big compounds overflowing with unused stuff and long neglected weeds and shit. Even when I was a small kid, accompanying my car dealer grandfather to the Country Club. on Thursday nights, I never liked the way middle class people talk down to The Help. Same thing at the smalltown morning donut shop where all the businessman gathered for coffee each day. I knew as a kid, my solidarity was with the waitresses and dishwashers and not the big wheel stuffed shirt showoffs stiffing them. I would not want to be rich at this point. I would like to see my kids more often and I’d like to make records with a band, but I do not want to become one of those assholes I see treating humans badly and waiting for other people to die, so they can sell their property and spend their money. That’s so gross to me. I do not worship rich people or mistake property for virtue. That’s the real standoff between me and society, me and any kinda participants in the pay to pay modern music scenes. I’d say the biggest difference between me and my ex friends is I don’t suck up to rich people. I don’t believe in it. Also won’t hang my head down low and grovel in shame for being poor. I love poor people-some of the best people I’ve ever known have been poor. Just because you inherit some shit from your criminal bloodsucking capitalist millionaire parents don’t make you smarter or cooler, or sexier or groovier, or morally superior to anyone else. People I used to be friends with lost the fuckin plot and sadly gave up the ghost and dedicated their lives to eatin’ shit for the privileges of sorority membership: so long as they could keep soft jobs and high five joiner privilege. I’m not like that, and never will be. I got an old song that goes, “I’ll never live like the other half”.
A close friend of mine similarly works for a rich lady who owns all kindsa shit she got from her excessively well to do parents-she might think she’s a lot more highbrow, scientific, harder working, more virtuous, arty, intellectual, or bitchen than we are, cause she has all that stuff, and is accustomed to controlling people with her parent’s moolah, and buying their silence in her luxurious egomaniacal orbit, a whole lot like a long gone ex girlfriend of mine, funny thing is, both she and I are bohemian eighth grade dropouts, who went gypsying around and living by our wits from a young age. Only difference is, I never had no fuckin’ credit card or safety net to dip into, when things went bad. Once or twice, in the Bowery and on the Sunset Strip, I asked a relative for emergency money, we’re talkin two hundred dollars, and they still seem to hold it against me, over thirty years later-like that once needing ground support at sixteen or twenty somehow narrowly, one dimensionally defines me as a flawed and insufficient person–people just aint that cool in this me, first , I Me Mine, ratrace culture. That ex girlfriend of mine I mentioned earlier who hoarded all her surplus wealth and $1000 a night salary, just never learned to share-not without some guaranteed quid pro quo bigass profit motive. It’s the same with soldout/got old musicians, they don’t wanna help make cool music or create lasting memories, so much as they wanna make money. It’s all about the filthy lucre, aint it? I think it was Gore Vidal who said that Murkkkans cared more about seeing other people lose than mere winning. I see how the winners can’t even taste the booze of victory-they are all insatiable hungry ghosts with piles and piles of objects but no real serenity or satisfaction.
So anyways, the rich old lady my friend used to care for’s in an old folks home with dementia and incontinence, and her other relatives want nothing to do with her trustee, since she showed her hand, only wanting control of the big shitpile of inheritance money, and now, her other former longtime cowboy handyman employee is dying of the Bad C, so yeah I guess me and her are sorta begrudgingly bartering some. I don’t mind pitching in and helping her, cause she is disabled, and can’t move or lift heavy shit but really, I just ain’t so good at role playing that flattering asskiss suckup script she’s accustomed to, from her blue collar helpers; so I dunno how it’s gonna go, from here. She never stops talking, interrupts all my responses, and it’s all a crazy narrative about how academic and wise and wonderful and enlightened she is, also how stupid and incompetent all her workers are and how hard it is to get good help these days, “nobody wants to work”, they all say, some shit they were programmed with on the tv-all these different bosses with the never ending yapping, holy shit, man, that’s just like my kid with the Autism. I’m already kinda bitchy about being talked down to, or insultingly micromanaged by someone who aint probably any smarter than I am, really. Remember when McDonna started speaking with the hoity toity fake British accent? Just like that. Money people are nuts. I get why they never like me for long. I did have a love for my ex girlfriend the heiress’s more genuine and vulnerable side, she was one of those people who were born with a perfect face, but by age fifty, the meanness is starting to show, she really only loved power and control, prestige and comfort and ultimately, money. Lately I’ve been laboring for one of those people who puts you in high risk situations like with poisonous spiders and shit that’s really too heavy for one person to move. The ownership society capitalist hierarchy people just suck so bad. “Stakeholders”, they call themselves. “Investors”. This one’s my favorite: “Job Creators”.
I’m up early, as is my habit in my old age, listening to the rooster crow, having some coffee, still missing cigarettes, thinking about how to retell old stories with new rhymes and melodies, wishing I had some alcohol, “some weird sin just to relax with”, convenience store does not even open for another half hour here. There’s always gonna be ten scheming, get rich quick business owners all covered with body tattoos, talking about how they’re gonna turn some sleepy, depressing, faded graveyard into NEON LIT HOLY SHIT HIPSTER CHIC BROOKLYN OVERNIGHT! Women here seem to belong to witchy UFO new age cults and predominantly live behind big silver fences with their hot tubs and packs of dogs, there aint that many of ’em. So whenever dudes are talkin’ to me, they’re lookin’ at my old lady-even the American Indian Movement dude I really, really liked. Men here, drive like fools, do not bathe or shave, or wash their clothes, except I guess, when they get in the stinky river for their own reasons. Some of ’em embrace the sleeps with the dogs life also, but I ended up next door to the guy who hates animals. Keeps stealing my cats. It still beats honky suburbia. Or three grand a month, douchey, hipster-hip big city rents.
A long time ago, I lived in the dreadful, loathsome, depressing Midwest where they manufacture the Ken & Barbies, it was some kinda hut-two flag waver cargo shorts hell. Like war, all the time. One of many ways they tortured us, was with bad music-even in the 80’s, with all that beautiful stuff to choose from, the concentration camp speakers crackled non stop with fucking Sussudio and Lionel Richie, Rick Astley and that overplayed Animotion song. They loved to take a song and play it to death like that fucking John Waite tune, “I Aint Missin You”. They played that motherfucker so many times, your mom knows about it. I liked his other song from back then, “Change”, ‘tried to get my black clad, hairsprayed, hate drunken, surly punk band to let me cover it, but they were all too macho I think, to really hear what the song was alla bout. Even now, still to this day. Sometimes, I think they missed the whole point of punk. They think it has something to do with joining ’em if you can’t beat ’em and hazings and initiations and diplomas and sports competition-tackling your opponent, following rules for pat on the hed good doggie treats, or doing stupid human tricks to compliantly please more popular people’s conservative sports moms by bragging about property, or talking about your collections of records and plastic bagged ancient magazines stuffed into multiple art book spare rooms that no one is allowed to touch. I talk to people in the desert nowadays and it’s always about their possessions, if they are male-the jeep, the ranch, the truck, the RV, the fucking cattle they inheried with their big belt buckles. Or their Double Stuffed, Special Secret Magic, intuitive, Reincarnated Cleopatra comin’ at ya, new age psychic ESP powers and hot springs astrology AirBand rental properties, if they are female. Or voting Democrat, cause she loves the Clintons, for feminism. I don’t fit in with ’em, I’m usually there just nodding along but in my head, I’m thinking about Assata Shakur and Fred Hampton and Leonard Peltier and John Trudell, or my dead friends, long lost former bandmates, legendary children, and Echo & The Bunnymen. Ya know?
WORLD AT A GLANCE
One supremely cool, heartfelt 80’s pop band who never got enough credit or airplay in my book was a band called World At A Glance I remember from seeing on MTV’s 120 Minutes Sunday Might Tv Show. I thought their song was sensational and they had a brilliant frontman named David Ilku, a real edgy guitarist named Michael Lawrence, on drums, Dougie Brown and on bass Thaddeus Castanis. They reminded me variously of the Front, the Furs, Duran, Lions & Ghosts, Japan, Simple Minds, U2, Inxs. Why aren’t there any good original bands like that anymore? I dunno, man, but this song “Burning Out”‘s still great in my book! Maybe it’s just cause that was my era, ya know the kinda music that was popularized when I was young and head over heels in love and hoping to become a cult band like the Cult, but I sincerely love everything about that band, WORLD AT A GLANCE. Slick production by Chris Lord-Alge gave it that collegerock/electropop feel like early Inxs records-the new wave ones, before they broke into Murkkka top forty with stadium funk and sappy ballads. I’ll probably look for a hard copy of their album or cassette online if I ever get some money. This is the kindof music I imagined my old bassplayer Bobby, the James Dean lookalike wouldbe major label rockstar frontman was making in Columbus with his bands, the Healers and Shine. I keep hoping someone will post his performances or demos to youtube, but almost nothing has surfaced since his death thusfar. I lost touch with the guy for twenty years-they said he had become a bartender at Andy’s Treehouse and then, worked at a factory and played golf and drank with 9-5 people from his old high school. Damn, this life really has become like a fast forwarded VHS video tape. In my mind I can see Me, Mitch and Bobby in my mom’s kitchen, wearing spiked bracelets and leather crosses, gang-singing “Nights Are So Long” like it was yesterday, or up in the corny preppie nightclub DJ booth, Bobby spinning MTV eighties college rock for the mainstream Barbies and baseball cap smalltown paying regulars. We had set out to create our own new wave and post punk together as youngsters. He went away to sing covers with a band called Who’s Drivin’, I stupidly moved to Boston and continued to write sorta catchy original gutter punk with my scroungy, empty pocketed hoodlum friends. I really miss this kindof pop music and will probably die trying to resume making my own versions of it. Hard to find suitable collaborators in the old age-nobody remembers the old new wave. I’m still koo koo for 39 Steps and the Bolshoi and Gene Loves Jezebel and Duran Duran-ya know what I mean? I saw a heavily tattooed, muscle car driving, Carnie Danzig lookalike in the checkout line wearing sunglasses at eight in the morning but he’s a Masonic capitalist gentrification land baron, so even if he can play guitar or knows about the Sex Pistols or whatever, we really aint got much in common. Kinda on opposite sides of the culture war. Met a real butch Sunday matinee moshpit dude from Jersey named Thomas who had Clash and Motorhead tattoos and an Agnostic Front t shirt but he does not play an instrument, we are both former punk band vocalists. God bless ‘im. It’s hard cause I got all this mowing and planting and moving and weeding to do, but in my heart of hearts, all I wanna do is sing for a trashy, in your face confrontational, full contact revolution-punk band and record more original songs from the heart. It shouldn’t be so hard, but all the surviving ex punks joined some fuckedup status quo wannabe popular belonger hierarchy.
39 STEPS
I LOVE this Canadian new wave band-they were kinda like Iggy Pop and the Cult! They had that Billy Duffy gothic psychedelic guitar sound! Chris Barry’s seventies kid punk band the 222’s opened for Teenage Head at max’s Kansas City and stuff like that. Reminded me of my outcast high school friends. I mean before I introduced them to my other friends and they became sports bar honcho, frat rock celebrities.
FLAMING LIPS VS CHAINSAW KITTENS
I liked the first couple of Flaming Lips records back when they were a scuzzy psychedelic Charlie Manson and Alice Cooper influenced, van travelling little band from Norman Oklahoma, I liked their lyrics, their acidhead image-later on in the 90210 era they got too Lollapalooza rich and overproduced mainstream joke band for me and I’m not into that dead dog Miley Cyrus shit at all, but when they were a little nowhere band, they did like dry ice and strobe lights and bad heavy metal covers to piss off the ROTC generic jock pseudo punks, I thought that was kool. I remember all the camo clad suburbans in the combat boots and flight jackets LEFT THE CLUB in protest of the Flaming Lips having long hair and being too earsplittingly loud rocknroll. My friends and I were also into sorta shakin’ up the status quo so we kinda enjoyed all their loud, noisy hellraising. We made friends with them that night and they invited us to open for ’em in their hometown. We never did do that-everybody in my group was really nailed down to their deadend dayjobs and high school shit back then, and about half the band were just really not ready to leave town. So I stayed there with ’em as long as I could, trying unsuccessfully to motivate them into moving to Hollywood or NYC to pursue music in a bigger way. I think only two of us regularly did acid back then.
Everybody knows I hated grunge. Just not my scene at all. Did not like the look, the nasally singing, the macho bluster and buzzkill bad vibes, the formulaic going through the motions of imitating bands like Happy Flowers, Killdozer and the Pixies who’d been around for years only impressing know nothing jocks who never heard any genuine punk rock with their so called “originality”. I was not into the hesher-metal Ethyl Merman Alice In Chains and Stone Temple Pilots corporate headbanger “Spooky Tarzan” posturing, Eddie Vedder’s wounded beagle voice, or any of the generic fratboy college cows who infiltrated the underground scene with their awful parents fucking money. One Norman Oklahoma band that arrived late in the fake-indie alternative era that was still almost begrudgingly semi weirdo new wave enough for me was the Chainsaw Kittens. They made some pretty decent records that were like, at least, making an effort to be entertaining, ala the Dandy Warhols, Smashing Pumpkins, Brainiac, any of the poppier Alt bands that weren’t just all shirtless Christ posing in workboots and suicide note smack lyrics and swampy gloom.
But really I’m not into any “Alternative”. I still like punk rock mostly.
and some sleazy glam:
SPORTS DESK
“When Mike Bloomberg sings your praises, there might be a problem with your brand of leftism” (-Whitney Webb)
“The mainstream media carefully never mentions the “shadow bank” that owns much of the world. It’s no coincidence that this asset management firm is one of the top stake holders in every large mainstream media corporation & every large social media platform.” (-Lee Camp)
“A Princeton study revealed the bottom 90% of earners in U.S.—which is the vast majority of the people—have zero impact on policy. Remember this when either ruling class party begs for your vote or money. Don’t give it to them. They don’t represent anyone except their rich donors.” (-Ryan Knight)
“I’d like to formally request that this month’s stipend for Ukraine goes to Puerto Rico and also to the American Houseless population.” (-Just Maureen)
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” (- Franklin D. Roosevelt)
“Someone tell Hillary Clinton that no matter how many photo ops she does with celebrities, she will always be hated for being a war criminal and known as the joke who lost to Donald Trump.” (Revolutionary Blackout Network)
“Russia’s mobilization is based on the fact that NATO has from the outset sought a permanent proxy war in Ukraine. Those who cheered for NATO belligerence will reap what they sow.” (-Danny Haiphong)
But if you’re a natural man You got to ball and have a good time
And that’s what I call chooglin’” (-Fogerty)
I’m retreating farther away from capitalists and the cut throats cause I just can’t stand their bullshit culture of backstabbing and mutiny and ratrace competition, fuck those people. Always stressful starting new jobs, moving to new locations, saying goodbye to devils you know. I have no illusions of being free-I am still stuck on the plantation workin’ for the boss every night and day. At least I have less pig-media programmed crazies to fuck with nowadays than I once did. I know some of the haves on the hill with the surplus property, the gallery, the airbandb, the wall sized blown up billboard photos of their own fat faces, the constant juggernaut of vanity merchandise, the fancy oversized touring vehicles, and they aint even happy. At all. Aint that a bitch? Fought their way into the tall tower only to find out, that owning the Most Stuff aint it. I remember when I was a kid, I mostly heard of Creedence Clearwater Revival, because they were selling their greatest hits album on the tv all the time. I was never into “Proud Mary”, but I do otherwise love me some old school Ike & Tina Turner. Anyways, it was the Hanoi Rocks cover of “Up Around The Bend” that really first ignited my interest in Fogerty’s songs, cause I vibed with the lyrics and thought they were at a Chuck Berry level of pure poetry. Next thing ya know, my favorite band, LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH did “Hey Tonight”. Cherry Bombz did “Traveling Band”. “Fortunate Son” was one of the great anti war protest songs-I’d gone to school with so many meathead dumbfuck rich kids and no matter what fuckedup shit they did, they were always falling up and being rewarded. Us poorer kids were all corralled into learning disability classrooms, or herded into military service, bootcamped and probationed for wearing leather jackets or having crazy haircuts, or wearing a bit of black eye smudge, so I really deeply resonated with that one! If the Grateful Dead or any hippie jamband rocked as hard as “Down On The Corner”, I mighta liked that shit, but other than Canned Heat, I was just never into much of the reeferhead jam bands. Cats like Chris Isaak only wish they wrote “Born On The Bayou”, or that just me? Then, I started seeing “Old Man Down The Road” on MTV and wow, I dug that whole thing, too. I guess somewhere, deep inside, I always kinda knew I was gonna probably end up a hermit in the woods, if my rocknroll dream did not come true, and the problem with the rocknroll dream, is it was reliant on so many different moving parts, and then, you add in the pay to play culture, rehearsal space rental costs, ridiculous recording studio costs, the media monopoly bullshit agenda, and the Antirock Conspiracy, and here we are.
Really enjoying that documentary about CCR. They were one of this country’s greatest bands, for sure. I’m pretty sure the Seattle band Green River took their name from the CCR song and certainly the fucking flannel shirts. I remember reading about how Fogerty would not play his own hits for years, because he felt so fucked over by his just out for themselves former bandmates, and some creepy hustler publisher who stole the monetized value of his songs. I got old and summa the same exact shit happened to me. Hard to do old songs, once other people kinda poison ’em, or cheapen ’em, or try to monetize ’em, or steal the copyrights. I get it. Hell, I’ll write better ones. It does take it outta ya though, when the people you thought were your friends were just hanging around waitin’ for a chance to steal your suitcase. Just so weird seein’ other people peddling the tunes you lived and wrote like they aint never even heard of you. Funny, ’cause when I google myself, to see if any video of my old bands has washed up on youtube or whatever, my name was appropriated, ALL MY OLD BANDS names have been copied by younger bands now, all of ’em. The tv show my friends and I did on cable access, somebody stole the name of that, on youtube too, AND like dozens of old tunes get performed by people who try to pass ’em off as their own, though it should be more than obvious that some rich gentrified yuppie deskjob dude did not write those songs about being heartbroken on the street or their friends all croaking from dope. I kind got this newish job as a part time ranch hand, ya know, whatever they need me to do, so I kinda just gotta wait around on call, and can’t get too involved with any of my own projects because I might have to work later today-usually moving stuff around really. Move this stack of wood from here to there, roll these heavy cement planters into the barn, move this fifties heavyass washing machine, weed whack that acre-paint this room–that kinda shit, but the money’s okay and I got a lot of expenses now, preparing to relocate. Gotta lotta packing done this morning, but you know how it is, the work is never ending. I always swing between dark depression and intense PTSD anxiety. One of my part time Bossladies called and said I gotta go tear down a bunch of rotten cardboard boxes covered with brown recluse and black widow spiders and remove some yard debris during my usual dinnertime. Me and the employer keep opposite hours but she gets to make the schedule. At least she’s into like, gardening, she’s gonna teach us how to grow our own food. We need to start gardening more caue the grocery is such a ripoff withh the post Covid Great Reset inflation bullshit. A ninety nine scent bottle of water is now a dollar seventy post plague and my idiot former peers just CHEER for more wra in the Ukraine, with China, with Iran, they are warpigs in pink wigs My kid’s going through a crazy med change and played hooky from his part time job, so he’s here talking non stop about karate, fireworks, ordering Chinese replicas of hype beast namebrand shoes. No mail came today, I’m crabby, wanna drink.
“Wondering how many funerals that I will attend of Black people close to me dying prematurely before so-called leftists in the U.S. will realize that racism is inseparable from the class struggle. I am on number five.” (-Danny Haiphong)
“Every election Democrats tell us “democracy and basic human rights are on the ballot”—but when they have power they don’t actually fight for democracy or human rights. They fight for Big Business, the ruling class, and the military industrial complex just like the Republicans do.” (-Ryan Knight)
“BREAKING: Mass media still totally silent two weeks after UN Secretary General says world’s biggest carbon emitters (like the US military, for example) must drastically cut emissions starting now in 2022 if global climate catastrophe is to be averted.” (-CGoustin)
“I find it kind of funny I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had.” (-Tears For Fears)
It’s with a bit of heavy heart that me and my peeps have realized it is time to mosey on down the road. Shady developers, psycho neighbors, city hall corruption, gentrifier delusions, all kinds of unwanted new traffic and a bridge being built on my deadend street against the wishes of every home owner on the block, are just some of the reasons we’ll be moving on, but this old trailer has been mostly good to us these past five years, other than one traumatizing incident involving a middle class predator we had the misfortune of interacting with. I just see lots of work ahead. I was listening to that sensational band, THE BOYS, this morning, and thinking about time and the aging process and the ongoing desire I have to put my tunes on tape. I did the roll call of former bandmates last week-you got the unemployable cat who relies on the kindness of strangers on permanent couch tour who I can not provide for with my dishwasher salary; the busy uptown millionaire with his personal assistants who aint really into music no more and has no time for me cause we aint into the same shit at all, he’s on his own solo trip now; about three guys who play in big fish in small pond local bands with well to do hipsters who bankroll all their shit who are already kinda spoken for; a lovable old writer who is a fine bassist but works for The Man; and a couple of hired gun salaried mercenary types who only showup for big money name bands. Couple other guys from Boston who used to play music with my group are just too rich to wanna rock with us antisocial glamarchist types, any longer-they might like the Pogues or Tom Waits, but they got yachts and recording studios and rolling plantations, so they don’t really get where we’re coming from no more, if they ever faintly did-they mostly seem to exclusively socialize with their wives and parents. Cloistered country club people-a shame they choose to no longer consort with the permanently exiled poor white trash likes of myself now they are past their college slumming phase, though, cause they could actually play their instruments very well and were very capable producer-arranger-collaborators, high harmony background singers, they gave my sleazy ghetto trash punk rock some Beach Boys appeal. WE used to have a lotta laughs til the wives made ’em get serious about you know-real estate. I’m probably gonna resort to buying some drums and a bass and getting busy doing it myself, in the new garage, Mary Chain style. Everybody gets in to music for different reasons, ya know? Some for the girls, some for the money, some to fit in with rich people in the expensive imported leather clothes at the fat actor bar, the pretentious assholes who collected more Johnny Thunders picture discs than thou, some for the wild expression of human emotion. I would be in that final category. I’m still trying to tell my side of the story before it’s too late, organize and archive the pictures we took on the trip for my absentee children and the generations to come. Sometimes, you mistakenly think people love you, if they model themselves after you, fraternize with all your former associates, cover your songs, befriend your exes on the False-Books, but they are just kinda using your shit to be seen on the scene, ya know? In this lifetime, not everybody that we loved will be capable of really loving us back, or giving a real sincere flying fuck about what happens to us. There are a lot of opportunistic, self important, narcissistic, one upping, fake motherfuckers out there in this bullshit society-they program ’em to be like that. Tiktok celebrities, brand building influencers, terminal wannabes and remorseless plagiarists. Ladder climbers. Backstabbing whores for fame. Snakes in the grass. Crazy new neighbor has the obligatory oversized growling dogs and the “Let’s Go Brandon” sign in his front yard, plays Kid Rock real loud. I dropped a postcard on an old hombre and former collaborator but he has become too garage band famous with his collegetown frat rock band to bother writing me back. I hate this capitalist ratrace popularity contest bullshit all the middle class people are so sucked into. It is exactly like middle school forever. They all just wanna sit at the table with the fat jocks and Republikkkan oafs. Bummer. It is what it is. Makes me wanna go ever deeper into desert obscurity. Disappear. It’s strange imagining all the people I used to know in their boxes staring at little boxes. Sitting alone sober in a room feels like a prison sometimes, ya know, but everytime I made the foolish mistake of calling someone from the old days, I’m always so disappointed by how brainwashed they are. They all seem like commercials. Advertising slogans. Obeyers obeying the evil empire. Not my thing, man. I’m still rocknroll. I’ll tell you what is hard for me-being sober, doing nothing, staring at a hypnoscreen, the passivity of it all. Feels like punishment. And people you love who just aint the same no more, who have been assimilated into the herd mentality. Look at me, look at my namebrand designer object. The popularity chasers. Lames. Meanwhile, all the cool people I admired and took so much consolation from continue dropping like flies. I still aint “over” the sad deaths of my record store guru, Dave A., or former bass player Bobby C., or songwriting mentor PK, or Prince or Bowie or Nick Marsh. I struggle to accept this whole death thing. Helpless Mystery.
Last conversation I remember having with Nick was about HATS. One time decades ago, I got a hold of Marsh online inquiring about Rocco Barker’s wheareabouts hoping to draft him into one of my own illfated new wave crash and burn short lived super groups, and Nick, ever the charmer said, “I’LL play!” He was up for it. “What do you need Rocco for, when ya got me?” Cheetah Chrome had once said the same thing to me when my old pal the World Famous Mister Ratboy replaced me with my dear friend, Chris Barry. True story! Of course, even if I lived in London or wherever, I could not imagine asking one of my alltime fave frontmen to play second fiddle to me, but he was like that, a team player, gabba gabba hey. He was just all about rocknroll and having a good laugh. Nick Marsh was the one who casually suggested my halfass basement glam gang open up for him and Gigantic but the lead guitar shredder in my band turned it down instinctively cause he felt he’d been somehow unfairly put out by a NY Doll he arranged some miniature tour on behalf of, that was one of the big cracks between me and that dude. Sabotaging that little band when so many people wanted to see it fly. I still live for Flesh For Lulu, ya know? One of my all time favorite bands. “Seven Hail Marys”, “Roman Candle”, “Decline & Fall”, “Time & Space”, “I May Have Said You’re Beautiful”, “Postcards From Paradise”. I still listen to them all the time. Always thought that was the perfect model for a band. Dirty goth-part pop, part new wave, cool threads and influenced by the Stooges, Damned, and Bauhaus. “..Subterraneans, Hey where’ya going now – underground – everything happens after dark..” I’ll never know why people would rather be in all those Gotham City karaoke night so-so mediocre coverbands. I just don’t get that shit at all. Long Live The New Flesh!
“I talk about narrative all the time partly because narrative control is the source and foundation of the power of the US-centralized empire. The ability to control the way people think, act and vote with mass-scale psychological manipulation allows our rulers to dominate us more pervasively than we could ever be dominated by brute totalitarian force, which is why so much energy goes into keeping the people from controlling their own narratives. That’s all the current mainstream panic about “disinformation” is, for example. If narrative control were fully decentralized, our rulers couldn’t rule.” (-Caitlin Johnstone)
“A liberal democracy, in the eyes of the West, is a country in the Global South that opens itself up to interventionism and allows its resources to be looted by Western monopolies and oligopolies whilst its citizens wallow in poverty. That’s no democracy at all.” (-Mukoma J Asani)
“The World Council of Churches passed a resolution calling for Cuba to be removed from the U.S. list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Biden should listen and do this NOW! #letCubalive” (-Medea Benajmin)
“Joe Biden has openly said that the goal of its proxy war in Ukraine is to destroy Russia. He has openly floated the possibility of war with China over Taiwan. There truly is not a war in existence that Biden and the Democrats oppose.” (-Danny Haiphong)
ONLY ONES
If you try to follow me home tonight You will find everything that you’ve heard is right You’ll never return to the home you knew Leave it all behind, it’s up to you
Only Ones were, in my estimation, one of the greatest bands of all time-as I type this, my teenage son is telling me the neighbor’s goat, Jay Jay is missing. Anyways, one time my children’s mother was dumping me and it was mostly due to ya know me not having lots of money and my band breaking up-I had gained weight staying home, not drinking, changing diapers ya know and it seemed less and less likely I was gonna make it big in show business with the sidemen ditching me to go play in glorified fucking richkid zipcode coverbands, so I was spiralling and my old pen pal Nina Antonia was empathizing, she wrote me some beautiful letters I kept pinned to my wall for the longest time: “the human heart can only take so many mauling’s”. She totally got me. I used to exchange a lotta info on social media with my songwriting idol Perrett. He was a goodfella. That band were like the fucking Pretenders-all virtuosos. If I ever do get to make music at this point, the recordings need to be at that level. I love them so much. Peter seemed to share my love and respect for the Cuban Revolution.
You find it tempting to give up the ghost You always sell to the one who bids the most You get paid for your loyalty Waiting for someone to come along and set you free Can’t you hear me?
I want to die in the same place I was born Miles from nowhere I used to reach for the stars but now I’ve reformed She’s out there somewhere If you ever start thinking what you’re doing to me Maybe you will set me free From this sorrow From this sorrow From this sorrow
All the defendants have been condemned When you were sentenced it covered all of them Give me justice you scream and scream I ain’t done nothing, it’s all a crazy dream Can’t you hear me?
I want to die in the same place I was born Miles from nowhere I used to reach for the stars but now I’ve reformed She’s out there somewhere If you ever start thinking what you’re doing to me Maybe you will set me free From this sorrow From this sorrow From this sorrow
THE PIGS OF WAR ACCUSE CUBA OF SPONSORING TERROR BUT NOT SAUDI ARABIA OR ISRAEL. THE EMPIRE ARE THE TERRORISTS.
I made friends with those garage guys at the food truck way back when I worked at Rounder/Ryko records with a buncha music people, Kudgel, Elevator Drops, Corazon Higgins who I loved from Sugarbitch, a famous kid with a goatee named King Velveeduh who made naughty underground comix. I saw the Cheater Slicks play to empty rooms. Always loved Dave’s artwork. Tom and I were close friends for years. Used to try to get ’em to be my Birthday Party, but we ended up drinking instead. I remember a couple hard partier dudes who always used to hang around their house drinking and smoking with us, Jerry Wick and Jack Taylor, are both dead now, and also their friend Alpo from the Real Kids who Tom once told me their song, “My Friends” was partly about, in addition to myself. (RIP) They’ve done some unbelievably good work over the years. We always had a good time together. Their new lp with Bill Gage will probably go down in history as another sonic landmark from their psycho garage. They even toured with Andre Williams and the Muffs, appeared on my tv show and had Pussy Galore’s Jon Spencer (“BLUES EXPLOSION!!”) produce one of their records. Both him and his guitarist Judah were really nice to me but the abrasive, Yoko Ono knowing drummer was a fratboy oaf who coulda been an Afghan Whig.
“When it comes to imperialism, Democrats and Republicans are indistinguishable bloodthirsty anti-communists and racists Nicaragua has some of the lowest migration levels in Central America Most migrants are from Honduras (after a US-backed far-right coup), El Salvador, Guatemala. DHS data on undocumented immigrants detained in 2020: 318,516 Mexicans 61,382 Guatemalans 51,011 Hondurans 23,051 Salvadorans 13,028 Ecuadorians 11,227 Cubans 7917 Brazilians 2739 Nicaraguans 2220 Dominicans 1639 Venezuelans Blaming “communism” is insane.” (-Ben Norton)
“You already know some devious shit about to go down when the likes of Pelosi suddenly show up at another country’s doorstep.” (-Richard Medhurst)
Nineteen members of the US House of Representatives have written a letter [PDF] to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cautioning that the partial cancellation of student debts can have the unintended consequence of reducing military recruitment in the United States.The letter reads as follows:Dear President Biden,We write to you to share our concerns about the unintended consequences of your decision to cancel up to $20,000 of student loan debt per borrower. We are particularly concerned about the negative impact this will surely have on our nation’s military and their ability to recruit and retain top talent.As you know, some of the most successful recruiting incentives for the military are the GI Bill and student loan forgiveness programs. The idea that the military will pay for schooling during or after completion of a service obligation is a driving factor in many individuals’ decision to join one of the services. A recent estimate showed that as many as 178,000 servicemembers were eligible for some type of forgiveness.By forgiving such a wide swath of loans for borrowers, you are removing any leverage the Department of Defense maintained as one of the fastest and easiest ways to pay for higher education. We recognize the loan forgiveness programs have issues of their own, but this remains a top recruiting incentive.Currently, a mere 23 percent of the population is eligible to serve in the military. Even fewer of those have a propensity to serve. At the end of last month, the Army had only reached 66 percent of its recruiting goal for the year. The Navy, only 89 percent. It is no secret that each of the services continues to battle hardships in recruiting and now these problems will be exacerbated by removing the uniqueness of this benefit.As the services try to adopt unique approaches to tackle their recruiting challenges, including historic bonuses, it feels like their legs are being cut out from underneath them. With this in mind, we ask for you to provide us answers to the following questions:1. Was the effect on military service considered in the development of the recent student loan forgiveness decision?2. What is the administration’s plan to develop incentives to augment the loss of those who might join the military to help pay off student loans?3. What improvements are being made to ensure timely payments to those currently enrolled in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs for both active duty and reserve components?Thank you for your attention to this matter.My House colleagues and I are very concerned that the deeply flawed and unfair policy of blanket student loan forgiveness will also weaken our most powerful recruiting tool at the precise moment we are experiencing a crisis in military recruiting. https://t.co/vGEfKq0PRC— Rep. Don Bacon (@RepDonBacon) September 19, 2022So they’re just coming right out and admitting it. One of the reasons the US government doesn’t offer the same kinds of social support systems that people have in all other wealthy nations is because otherwise there’d be no economic pressure on young Americans to sign up for service in the US war machine.This is no secret, but it’s generally considered taboo for government officials to actually say so. People have been talking about the poverty draft for many years — about the established fact that a majority of US military recruits come from neighborhoods with below median income levels and that those neighborhoods are targeted for recruitment because impoverished communities often see military service as their only chance at upward mobility.But the term “poverty draft” can create a bit of confusion, because when most Americans hear “poverty” they think homeless people and those who can barely afford to eat or keep a roof over their heads. In reality the US is a nation where a majority of the population would be unable to pay for a $1,000 emergency expense from their savings, and the level at which economic pressure is felt to join the military is much higher than the very poorest of the poor.Those economic pressures are why US Army officials have explicitly said that the student loan crisis is to thank for their success in meeting recruitment goals.How did the Army exceed its recruiting goals this year? It was the student loan crisis, not the wars, service leaders say. https://t.co/cGquM88Lhipic.twitter.com/eDx73KCetz— Military Times (@MilitaryTimes) September 17, 2019So the US empire has a huge incentive to maintain a very large population of Americans who are economically uncomfortable, and this plays a significant role in the domestic policymaking decisions of that nation’s government. The US empire is held together by constant violence and the threat thereof, and its ability to apply that violence would be crippled without a steady supply of warm teenage bodies to feed into its war machine. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that the US empire would collapse without the economic pressures which coerce teens to sign up to kill and be killed over things like oil reserves and Raytheon profit margins.It’s one of those things that looks more ghoulish the more you think about it. In the wealthiest nation in the world, economic justice is actively suppressed in part to ensure that young Americans will feel financially squeezed into killing foreigners who are far more impoverished than they are. They are keeping people poor so that they will commit mass murder. It’s actually hard to think of anything more depraved than that.But such is the nature of the capitalist empire. You’re either a useful gear-turner of the machine or you are liquidated and turned into fuel for its engine. If you’re not a successful capitalist you can be used to defend the empire with pricey weaponry. If you’re not helping the empire you can be used to drive up profits for the military-industrial complex as a target for war machinery whose costly munitions will need to be replaced. If you’re not a good gear-turner you can be sent to become a prison slave or incarcerated in a private for-profit prison. There’s a use for everyone in the empire.The globe-spanning power structure that is centralized around the United States is the most evil, soulless and destructive force on this planet. The young people who are duped, manipulated and financially coerced into joining its war machine come back horrifically traumatized by the experiences they have in the situations they are placed in. Something better is needed. This cannot continue.______________(cAITLIN jOHNSTONE) Michael Parenti: How To Think About Class – Dandelion Salad (wordpress.com)
Veglam 