the defeatists!

murder now the path called "must we"

Oh Capn, My Capn

American Power is not a mythical tale.  it's not a story.  it's not a transformational capability or capacity. it's not freedom.  it's not a beacon of hope in this world.  it is fucking ordnance.  

how many multiples of 10 is Obama worse than WBush?  I'd like to know.  WBush wore the cloak of Myth that is American Power like a ten dollar suit; it did not fit him and he just looked bad in it.  yes this is to accept that such a thing does fit a human being, but no this does not justify it.  Obama is the full silk Italian suit, and he's pissed if it doesn't look good on him.  people complained that WBush was a crony, that he was somehow a false leader, because he was just working for his pals at Halliburton and Enron, his daddy, the Saudis, etc. et al. ad. inf.  look at the language that was put forth: WBush abused, misused and made a mockery of the power bestowed upon him.  he wasn't cut for the throne, he was a hack, a C student at best who was a failed businessman that rode his family's coattails wherever they would take him.  WBush was callous,  a former drunk.  he was a rank amateur dressed up in big people garb playing a big person part.  well what's worse, that, or someone that fully believes in the rightness and necessity of American Power?  someone that rightly fills the part?  WBush used the power for his own devices, his own wars, his own debauchery, for his own constituency and his own people.

CHANGE.  

Obama uses American Power because it is American Power.  he doesn't need a reason, an excuse, because there is no justification for it, and that's all a Dear Leader needs to know.  he's the worst - and by that I mean the biggest - purveyor of the falsehood that is American Power.  I'll take the former WBush over the L-D Obama any day.  when you embarrassed WBush, he looked a fool.  when you took a peek under the cloak, he'd hide and grin sheepishly, covering his nuts with his scrawny, chicken-shit hands.  Obama on the other hand gets pissed off and comes back at you for revealing his naked self.  Obama is a worse purveyor of the mythology and singular teleology that is American Power and Primacy in this world, because he's a wholesale believer in it, and because he was popularly elected by a bunch of folks that want to believe in it, and that do believe in it.  he's no skeptic of American Power.  neither are his supporters.  neither was WBush.  but Obama is a worse leader because he wholeheartedly believes his own bullshit.  WBush just thought it was a joke, like everything else: it was just a job, the best job he could get given his background, connections, and talents.

it's like your view of belief, Capn: 

'Belief is, at its core, an emotional commitment to some claim or view.'

we have all this ordnance, now we must rationalize its very existence. we must now create the arguments for its existence, and its continued existence.  hence the President and his Speechifying.  

but it's just ordnance.    

America may have saved those poor fucks (flaps arms) in that Libyan town that day, but honestly, America has only deflected the violence into other forms, and in other directions.  people that want to kill each other want to kill each other.    

what America is doing in that region in the first place, is all you need to know about American Intention.      

 

 

Stars knocked out of alignment...

This is par for the course in the creative industries: the two best places for young people on the make in Hollywood to meet the players are bars and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.But celebrity can be an even more powerful drug than cocaine. It encourages people to push the limits: the more scandalous they are the more they attract the attention of the paparazzi. Mr Galliano produced ever more outrageous fashions as his fame grew. In 2000 he dressed his models like tramps—le look clochard—with newsprint dresses and dangling pots and pans. He probably counted the fact that protesters surrounded Dior’s offices as a publicity triumph. Celebrity also makes people think they are fireproof: their fans love them come what may. Mr Sheen seems to have revelled in his bad-boy image. But there is clearly a line that you cross at your peril: insulting your boss in Mr Sheen’s case or endorsing the Holocaust in Mr Galliano’s.      --Schumpeter, The Economist, March 3 2011

I was reading through one of Harry Turteldove's alternate history volumes last night, and there was an extended piece on how well things would have gone had the media been as omnipresent in 1941 as it is today. Well, the answer is not well...little things like announcing Doolittle's raid and the location of ships headed for Midway resulted in defeats leading up to Roosevelt's impeachment. Point taken -- in an era where everything can be known to everybody at everytime and anything can be said and gain some credence, Churchill's idea of the Bodyguard of Lies for truth becomes more important and less achievable.

The Schumpeter column from The Economist is focused on the creative industries, especially film and fashion. However, it's a cautionary tale for anyone who achieves stardom. Athletes face it, but people in business, industry, the military and government need to pay attention. Hubris, the overwhelming pride that the Greeks used to set up heroes for failure -- and possibly redemption -- is the real issue. When you start to think you're irreplaceable , you're one screwup away from the door.

There's a great line from the first season of Justified, when Raylin says to his ex-wife that "I never thought I was an angry man," and she responds, "You don't show it, but I've never met an angrier individual." It seemed perfectly reasonable to Raylin Givens to give a thug in Miami 24 hours to get out of town, and then to get into a gunfight. So, he finds himself back in Harlan. Hilarity ensues, and the show is supreb and captures that Scots-Irish flavor of the Mountains. And, the anger...

The difference between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton was miniscule, except that Burr was fairly open in his scandals, and Hamilton was discreet. In a time when honor was critical, piercing the veil of hypocrisy could be fatal. As attorneys -- and by all accounts, very good ones -- both Hamilton and Burr knew that truth was the absolute defense. Had Hamilton admitted that he had said somethings about Burr that were uncalled for even though true, and apologized publicly, he could have avoided the duel. Unfortunately, that was impossible.

Personally, I have on more than one occasion decided that I needed to stand on my hindlegs and sound off. While not convinced that I was irreplaceable, I was pretty much convinced that I was right and that right was an absolute defense. Things normally worked out fine, but at some point the bosses felt compelled to do something else. I could have been right, and might even have been civilized and restrained in my approach on this occasion, but they'd been backed into a corner by my previous behavior. In most cases, we parted friends, but we parted.

Have I changed? I'd like to think so, and that I am more careful about picking my fights. However, as I look around, I see a world where lots of people are not careful. I have opinions, and I express them. Since I no longer drink, I suspect that more of them are rational than there were 20 some years ago. I hope I am more articulate and reasoned in my approach...

But, one thing to remember is that everybody get's tired of people who are always right. Sometimes teh wisest thing to do is shut up early and help pick up the pieces.

Then, there are people like Charlie Sheen and others who just can't shut up. In his case, the constant media and self-aggrandizement and just plain craziness far exceed what one might expect a boss to tolerate. Unfortunately for Charlie, so long as his lifestyle seemed in line with his character on Two and a Half Men, he could act out as much as he wanted to. However, rich drunks and crackheads tend to become mean drunks and crackheads, and then violent drunks and crackheads. If you lead your life in a transparent bubble, and make a point of shooting off flares to attract attention, you're going to bump into an unpleasant reality, from which recovery is difficult.

If you must be outside the normally acceptable range of deviance, I recommend that you do everything you can to make your deviance be simple and not let it extend to all aspects of your work. Barney Frank is an openly gay man; however, he does everything he can to keep his personal life a fact, but stand in the public as an expert on government and the economy. But, some people can't avoid crowing -- Newt Gingrich is so far removed in character from the moral paragon he purports to be...and yet, he feels comfortable crowing about morality. He's intelligent and a deep-thinker on some levels; but, he's neither as bright, charismatic or intelligent as he thinks.

In a similar way, Sarah Palin draws fire from the moderate right through hard left for what many commentators see as a "snowbilly" white-trash existence. There is probably some justification to that view, but in a way she's a more modest Alaskan version of Daisy Duke. I suppose Todd could get his snow machine to jump a ditch or two...Palin became a star nationwide for no discernible reason, and her ability to stay on script and mouth cliche's has kept her in conscious for a while. But, she's one bit of craziness from becoming a denizen of infomercials, and that's probably where she'd be most comfortable. Bristol and Levi and the rest are really the Kato Kaelins of that experience. Again, so long as she stays on message and doesn't really say anything, she'll be fine.

The thing about being a Rock Star is that unless you actually are a Rock and Roll person you really shouldn't aspire to lead your life that way. Chris Hillman tells a story about trying to find Graham Parsons back in the Byrds days for a gig that he was probably going to be late for, and found him hanging out in a recording studio with the Stones. When he refused to leave, Jagger got very angry and basically threw him out of the studio, telling him that "Whatever else, you do the gig." When you start missing the gigs, you tend to go away. Somewhere, Brian Jones is nodding to that, and for a change not because he's high...

 

Official Defeatist Stuff and People and Things...

After accepting Tiffany as the official Defeatist Goddess, and Cthulhu as our offical Defeatis presidential/gubantatorial/senatorial/school board nominee, we began to fill out our pantheon. Crispin Sartwell, Hipster and Amish Farmer wannabe is the official prophet...

There was Cairo the Offical Defeatist Wonder Dog.

Then there was Fleshy, the Offical Defeatist Cat.

Pearls Before Swine, the Official Defeatist comic strip.

Julia, the official Defeatist Baby...

And now, Bob the Squirrel, the official Defeatist Squirrel.

Of course, Melissa remains the offical Defeatist Troll...

Semi-psychodelic psychotic reaction! Or something...

So after a nice dinner, we get home where I've recorded both Countdown and Rachel Maddow and the Onion News and Portlandia. We play through Countdown, and then Obermann makes his big announcement. And, I'm trying to decide how to react...whimsically seems the best choice.

Like it or not, the left can really get self-absorbed and pompous. Countdown got that way over the years -- Keith raised tough questions and demanded tough answers. However, he spent too much time on silly crap and on pursuing idiots like Beck and O'Reilly and Rupert Murdoch. There is a history between O'Reilly and Murdoch and Obermann and Ingram and we all kind of got into the latest phase of that. Everything that Obermann said about the Foxites is true -- but, Rupert got a piece of truth when he said, "Keith is crazy."

So, I look forward to his next incarnation. Maybe he'll write; maybe he'll run for office; maybe, probably, he'll land another TV show. It will be good, fun, cutting edge, exciting ---and then it will drift off into the sort of self-centered bedtime story that Countdown was on the verge of becoming. I personally thought that reading a story from Thurber once was sort of touching; every Friday? I'm not that fond of Thurber, but he could have been reading the collected lyrics of Bob Dylan or The Girl Hunters by Mickey Spillane...and, it would not have mattered. It was stupid. Fridays might have been slow newsdays once, but no more.

I had been finding some aspects of the new Lawrence O'Donnell show kind of bothersome but I can see a lot of merit to it. Rachel Maddow brings a level of seriousness along with self-depreciating humour and a willingness to talk to people she doesn't agree with. Chris Matthews is a fellow Holy Cross alumni, and if they'd spike his coffee with a couple of valium just before each show, he'd be great. Ed Schultz is a nutcase. So, I guess I'll have some choices about what I want to watch besides NCIS reruns...

If you've read my stuff over the years, you know that I think the strip Monty is a pretty good allegory for everything. Keith Obermann does better channelling Fleshy the Cat or Moondog; unfortunately, he has a tendency to lapse into Master Sedgwick.

I'll miss Countdown, but as the poet sings, "I know your leaving's too long overdue/for far too long I've had nothing new to show to you..." Fair winds, following seas and a reasonably quick landfall. And, Keith, the Mariners are still trying to find a broadcasting lineup!

If you've read my stuff over the years, you know that I think the strip Monty is a pretty good allegory for everything. Keith Obermann does better channelling Fleshy the Cat or Moondog; unfortunately, he has a tendency to lapse into Master Sedgwick.

 

 

Why didn't they do more of this?

There were a lot of "Supergroups" that just exploded in the late 60s and early 70s. Blind Faith comes to mind; Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in its various permutations. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Manassas. Well, one name flows through all of these, and it's Steve Stills. One place that unites him to Butterfield is the Al Kooper-Mike Bloomfield- Stephen Stills Supersession Album. As Graham Nash has said about Stills, "In the 60s, he played with everybody.EVERYBODY!" Mike Bloomfield was an amazing guitarist but did the white-guy-blues-heroin thing too well, and died young. Too young. Before his death, he was as erratic as Graham Parsons on a coke and itching powder binge, and the original plan was Kopper and Bloomfield. Well, Bloomfield took off after recording about half the album; Kooper called Stills, and the rest was history. This cut of Season of the Witch is amazing because of the interface between Kooper and Stills, but really because of Stills'incredible guitar work.

Just so we're clear, Matt Taibbi is becoming essential reading and Bernie Sanders the essential man

Sanders blew all of that off and just looked at the deal’s moral implications. Which are these: this tax deal, frankly and unequivocally, is the result of a relatively small group of already-filthy rich people successfully lobbying an even smaller group of morally spineless politicians to shift an ever-bigger share of society’s burdens to the lower and (what’s left of the) middle classes.

The Bernie Sanders revival show and one-man moral crusade last week was incredible. The guy made his point, made it well, and I do not understand why more people don't pay attention...except, of course, for our national ADD affliction. I realized it this morning when I made coffee and initially forgot to add water...somethings just don't work despite the best intentions and the best ingredients. Because you forget the fucking water because you stop paying attention.

Matt Taibbi is an interesting journalist; I suspect he doesn't often forget the water. He went to Russia and played professional basketball in Mongolia or some goddamn place like that after college. He wrote for The Exile, the ex-pat paper of record in Moscow, and then came home. He writes his own books, writes free-lance for various magazines covering things like sports and politics. He writes for Rolling Stone; and, he has made it crystal clear that it is possible for the average educated American to get their arms around the goddamned insanity that is contemporary finance and business. He's figured out that money, not morals drives things in government. And, he had this to say about Bernie Sanders...

Not long ago I was sitting at home writing something for publication – I won’t say what, except that iwas full of nasty and personal language, and I was about to press on to the next part of the piece when suddenly I hit a mental speed bump. A voice in my head whispered – this really happened – it was a passage about a certain politician on the Hill. Out of habit I launched into a description that “If you write that shit and Bernie Sanders sees it, he’s going to be disappointed in you.” So I went back and removed the gratuitous body blows from the article...This idea that you can’t be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don’t stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It’s possible to do this job with honor and dignity. It’s just that most of our politicians – our president included, apparently – would rather not bother.

Now, the Defeatists is kind of a defeated mess these days. Captain Capitulation is involved with blackmarketing computer chips to Bangladesh; Holier than Mao is involved in navel gazing; Commandante is composing duets with his daughter for guitar and hurdy-gerdy; El Serracho is keeping the sites up someplace for some reason; Brother Mr. Fun is stuck in snow and getting scarey tatoos so that his upcoming children can really be scared. AXE, well, I keep writing in this thing and ready comments from what appear to me to be metrosexual robots telling me about my spiritual well-being and stuff that really is none of their concern, while telling me how inspirational. Of course, the comments at the other site I write for are largely about how the Jewish Nazis are taking over the world, which is somewhat more troubling than commentators who take their name from outlet sites.

However, we've always endorsed candidates. On one occasion, at an actual convention gone terribly wrong, we threw Agi over a bridge while nominating Captain Capitulation for President, and AGI who surprised us by being able to swim for VP...did you know that tatoos add bouyancy? Who promptly decided to start ignoring us completely. On another occasion, we fired Captain Capitulation and nominated Cthulhu for President, although I think we kept the good Captain on for Vice President. The Guys at Area 51 chose to nominate Gus Hall last time, in the belief that a dead communist was preferable to John McCain and Barrack Obama. The Defeatists went along because Mike Gravel dropped out, and in the context of coming back to life after eight years of Bush-Cheney, a dead Communist made sense. And, of course, there was the inevitable confusion between Dead Communists, Dead Kennedys, and the Grateful Dead. Figured we might somehow get over the top with a Gus Hall/Monsieur IOZ ticket, figuring a dead Red and a Gay Blogger from Pittsburg would do the trick. These were all disasters...

Now, Bernie Sanders is an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats; he's an avowed Socialist; he's from Vermont; he wears regimental striped ties with full windsor knots; and, he obviously believes in fighting the good fight and doing what's right even though he's pretty damn sure he's not going to win. In other words, he's an old version of the Defeatists. And, I suspect that if somehow he won, he'd have to be dragged into the Oval Office and chained to his desk. So, although it's early, it's all already to late: Crusader AXE is nominating Bernie Sanders for the coveted Defeatist Nomination for President in 2012.

Oh, and John Boehner is obviously too emotionally disturbed to be Speaker of the House. So, given the Republican Majority, we endorse Michelle "Brainfart Batshit" Bachmann for Speaker; and, John McCain for Ambassador to Mongolia. He can play power forward...

 

Thanks for comming out, ehh?

First there was this--

Then there was this --

But this is, without a doubt, the greatest motivational speech of all time.

Get too close I'll be gone like a cooooooooool breeze

Crosby, Still & Nash - Southern Cross

HK | Myspace Video

For some reason, I'm thinking of Steven Stills. At one time, people talked about Stills in the same breath as Clapton, Bloomfield and Hendrix. His demons kept him from really slamming the American consciousness the way he could have. Still, (No pun intended) For What It's Worth and Suite: Judy Blue Eyes are incredible. Graham Nash is supposedly working on Stills tape library -- Nash has been associated with him for over 40 years, but was stunned when he started the project. "In the 60s and the 70s, he recorded with everybody." Stills used to wander around with a guitar and Jimi Hendrix in New York and London, just walking into clubs and asking if they could sit in. Now, that's what the blues and rock and roll are supposed to be about. Sitting in, and playing to stay alive. Steve Stills could probably be the poster boy for the Defeatists. Talented beyond belief, but stymied by...rainbows? Fate? Alcohol? Love? He's a cancer survivor now, and the new re-united Buffalo Springfield project should be interesting. He and Neil Young feed off each other, and I'd be interested to see how Jimmy Messina and Richie Furay (whom I dislike and who foisted that pimple POCO on the world of rock and roll) fill it out.

Anyway, some things from Stills. At the time of Southern Cross, Crosby was so out of it they'd turn off his guitar. I referred to them as the Genius, the Braindead and the Twit...I really find Nash's Guitar god posing annoyingly amusing or amusingly annoying. Four chords, and you'd think he was Rory Gallagher...
Where Stills generally seems like a Bluesplayer -- I wonder if he ever sat in with John Lee Hooker?

And now, for something, completely different...

They walk, they talk, they crawl on their bellies like a reptile...You make bad choices, Floyd.

Beck Bitchslapped by a Brit--err, British American

I've been reading Christopher Hitchens more often of late, making the time because I accept that he may not be around much longer, and is still saying things worth saying. I just finished his discussion of Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man and am about to begin his book on Jefferson. In some ways, Hitchens is a spiritual descendent of Paine, Burke and the other 18th century pamphlet writers. His books are generally short, and really pretty topical. Yet, like Paine and Burke, I suspect his stuff will be read for some time to come.

This week, in Slate, Hitchens decides to take the Tea Party apart. He sees it as a racial and religious thing -- as the nation becomes even more diverse, and as the WHITE MAJORITY is faced with demographic demise, they become worried about things that aren't there, missing the things that are.

In a rather curious and confused way, some white people are starting almost to think like a minority, even like a persecuted one. What does it take to believe that Christianity is an endangered religion in America or that the name of Jesus is insufficiently spoken or appreciated? Who wakes up believing that there is no appreciation for our veterans and our armed forces and that without a noisy speech from Sarah Palin, their sacrifice would be scorned? It's not unfair to say that such grievances are purely and simply imaginary, which in turn leads one to ask what the real ones can be.

What indeed? It's 160 years since the Know Nothings burned a Ursuline Convent and Orphanage in Boston out of ignorance and fear of the 1840s Muslims, the Irish Catholics. They had rallies and speeches and things too -- so, I suspect in 100 years people will trace the lineage of the Tea Party to the Know Nothings, the Klan, the America-Firsters, the Birch Society, the YAF and so on and so on. My neice's and nephew's grandchildren, Kwame and Shoiboan Cowmeadow will look back and wonder what all the fuss was about. And, go off to the neighborhood YMCA/Mosque/CYO to play basketball. And, hopefully, to read some Hitchens at some point in their education.