http://en.ria.ru/world/20140227/187950307/Ukraines-New-Language-Bill-Will-Be-Balanced--Acting-Leader.html
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Simferopol-international-airport-staff-deny-reports-about-its-capture-0600/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Gunmen-take-over-airport-in-Crimea-capital-Simferopol-6442/
http://rt.com/news/crimea-airport-terminal-capture-095/
http://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/david-marples/ukraine-view-from-west
Friday, February 28, 2014
"The history of the new Russian state shows that the new Russian lead has no desire to re-establish the Soviet Union or invade other countries. What they want is normal busines with the EU and the US, making Russia a part of the western world. Territorial expansion is certainly not on their list of priorities."
this is correct, but it comes with a caveat - once the breaking point is reached, there's not much chance of closing the box. but, you have to understand that the pnac is pushing this. they want russia to react with force, so they can piss away the wealth they're building up. it's a part of the destabilization process.
http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_02_28/Ukraine-Territorial-expansion-is-not-on-Russias-list-of-priorities-8804/
this is correct, but it comes with a caveat - once the breaking point is reached, there's not much chance of closing the box. but, you have to understand that the pnac is pushing this. they want russia to react with force, so they can piss away the wealth they're building up. it's a part of the destabilization process.
http://voiceofrussia.com/uk/news/2014_02_28/Ukraine-Territorial-expansion-is-not-on-Russias-list-of-priorities-8804/
this is interesting.
again: you have to understand that the dynamics of the world in 2014 are not what they were in 1952. the russians are obsessed with international agreements and the rule of law. nato operates on a master morality that has no interest in the concept of law at all. so, the russians need referendums and parliamentary resolutions, whereas nato is ok with launching revolutions by pitchfork.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140228/187971656/Russia-Lawmakers-Push-to-Simplify-Annexing-New-Territories.html
"a just russia", fwiw, is the third party in russia - behind putin's centrist liberal-conservative coalition and the communist party, which is still the official opposition. it's a social democratic party, roughly similar to something like canada's ndp.
again: you have to understand that the dynamics of the world in 2014 are not what they were in 1952. the russians are obsessed with international agreements and the rule of law. nato operates on a master morality that has no interest in the concept of law at all. so, the russians need referendums and parliamentary resolutions, whereas nato is ok with launching revolutions by pitchfork.
http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140228/187971656/Russia-Lawmakers-Push-to-Simplify-Annexing-New-Territories.html
"a just russia", fwiw, is the third party in russia - behind putin's centrist liberal-conservative coalition and the communist party, which is still the official opposition. it's a social democratic party, roughly similar to something like canada's ndp.
the last rap news (22) was especially awesome
the copernicus section is something else.
second heliocentric revolution, indeed.
too many fools, though.
second heliocentric revolution, indeed.
too many fools, though.
the same thing they did to ghadaffi...
...and what sovereignty do they claim over the finances of a citizen of a foreign country? the idea is entirely outlandish.
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Switzerland-Lichtenstein-Austria-lead-moves-to-block-Ukrainian-politicians-assets-0753/
...and what sovereignty do they claim over the finances of a citizen of a foreign country? the idea is entirely outlandish.
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Switzerland-Lichtenstein-Austria-lead-moves-to-block-Ukrainian-politicians-assets-0753/
regards of the geopolitics, and my preference for russia as a lesser evil than america, i find it hard to deny the idea of local self-governance.
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Crimea-cannot-be-denied-right-to-hold-self-determination-referendum-Pushkov-9214/
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_02_28/Crimea-cannot-be-denied-right-to-hold-self-determination-referendum-Pushkov-9214/
"All of the social research indicates that folks that come from stable families tend to do better in terms of their economic prospects," Kenney said.
technically, that could very well be true. the causality is likely a bit more complex than implied. i'm more concerned about the logic, here. in kenney's style of social darwinist thinking, that means they should be rewarded through various policy initiatives, like targeted tax breaks.
further, the data that indicates that people from other types of families are less economically prosperous means they should be punished by less preferential tax breaks.
if i was a free market economist, i'd say something about picking winners and losers. i'm not. i'm more concerned about the fascism inherent within it. it's a style of thinking that openly favours creating greater disadvantages and systemic inequality, based on a cut throat and entirely wrong concept of natural selection.
they seem to openly view government as a tool to stamp out the weak. but, i don't think most of their supporters would adhere to that kind of thinking.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/jason-kenney-says-income-splitting-is-for-stable-family-units
one of the core ideals of "liberal democracy" is that those who are struggling ought to have some resources reallocated to them to give them better opportunities, not that those that have greater opportunities ought to be rewarded for taking advantage of them.
there's a long history of evangelical, right-wing and pseudo-fascist eugenics movements in the western provinces, going back through social credit and united farmers. this has it's own history in the western united states.
technically, that could very well be true. the causality is likely a bit more complex than implied. i'm more concerned about the logic, here. in kenney's style of social darwinist thinking, that means they should be rewarded through various policy initiatives, like targeted tax breaks.
further, the data that indicates that people from other types of families are less economically prosperous means they should be punished by less preferential tax breaks.
if i was a free market economist, i'd say something about picking winners and losers. i'm not. i'm more concerned about the fascism inherent within it. it's a style of thinking that openly favours creating greater disadvantages and systemic inequality, based on a cut throat and entirely wrong concept of natural selection.
they seem to openly view government as a tool to stamp out the weak. but, i don't think most of their supporters would adhere to that kind of thinking.
http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/jason-kenney-says-income-splitting-is-for-stable-family-units
one of the core ideals of "liberal democracy" is that those who are struggling ought to have some resources reallocated to them to give them better opportunities, not that those that have greater opportunities ought to be rewarded for taking advantage of them.
there's a long history of evangelical, right-wing and pseudo-fascist eugenics movements in the western provinces, going back through social credit and united farmers. this has it's own history in the western united states.
i was thinking to myself it would be great to build a ten thousand foot high wall across the northwest territories to dampen the air moving south.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/professor-wants-1000-ft-tornado-wall-built-in--us-midwest/22335/
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/professor-wants-1000-ft-tornado-wall-built-in--us-midwest/22335/
yanukovuch' press conference.
the russians are claiming they're not behind the crimean parliament and aren't going to interfere with internal ukrainian events. well, the americans say that, too. but it largely rules out open manipulation.
and i should add that putin has no history of this kind of thing.
the russians are claiming they're not behind the crimean parliament and aren't going to interfere with internal ukrainian events. well, the americans say that, too. but it largely rules out open manipulation.
and i should add that putin has no history of this kind of thing.
yuck.
they're intercepting sex cam images for image recognition.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/28/peeping_webcam_with_nsa_help_british
they're intercepting sex cam images for image recognition.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/28/peeping_webcam_with_nsa_help_british
Thursday, February 27, 2014
let's all remind ourselves that democracy and ochlocracy are two different things.
ochlocawhatchamawho?
this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
actually, that article is horrible.
even by wiki standards.
don't read that. let me find something better....
it's important. what we're seeing across the world is this idea that if people just go sit in a square or a park then that's enough to affect serious change.
tommy d.
I don't think we have the technology to make this kind of thing practical, or universally beneficial.
jessica amber murray
i'm not sure what you mean, exactly. i'm going to finish my thought first, though.
of course, that's preposterous. the ideal is supposed to be people getting together and creating parallel systems. instead, people are getting frustrated that the sit-ins aren't getting the government to sort of just "get it" and are reacting in violence and anger instead. it's a dangerous spiral.
there was a narrative that began a few years ago that seemed promising, but it's quickly proven itself hopeless. we've learned that social media is just an elaborate spying tool, and that movement after movement is unable to provide anything other than masses of people that expect that merely showing up is enough to fix problems.
there needs to be a really conscious shift in focus away from demonstrations with this idea that the state will fix it if we yell loud enough and towards the idea that we need to find ways to fix it ourselves.
i'm not going to post another article, but that's democracy v ochlocracy.
now, thomas, i think you're talking about the problems of large populations with direct democracy? i could see how you thought that's where i was going, but i think it's clear now that it wasn't where i was going.
that being said, i do agree it's difficult to have a large direct voting democracy (although i do think the technology is better now than it's ever been) but i don't really think it's necessary that everybody decide on everything. i think what's more important is that people are able to decide on things that affect them. that doesn't actually require a parliament. it just comes out of living. it would be really impossible to avoid in just about any other system than the one we have, where we ship food around all over the globe.
i mean, what we've got to show over the last few years is a handful of military coups, the return of fascism, broken promises and shattered and co-opted movements.
we're not doing this right.
tommy d.
Personally, I think people should focus less on the shortcomings of movements like Occupy because the demographics involved there were hardly universal. While a wide variety of people and ideas participated, I found it was generally more "sheltered" types.
jessica amber murray
well, what i think the world is coming to grips with is the reality that the new right's vision is not sustainable. it's convenient to call young people "sheltered" for rejecting the world that their parents created for them, but at some point it's going to have to click that that vision isn't working. unfortunately, what's becoming clear is that the failure of these movements is a part of the failure of neo-liberalism. that is to say that the system has created a generation of young people that have been educated so badly that they're incapable of building an alternate vision. i think connecting that together is important: the system is failing, and we're not able to come up with anything other than a list of hollow complaints, because the system failed to turn us into anything worthwhile, which is the reason it's failing.
that's absolute brokenness.
i'm going to otherwise avoid the discussion of critical race theory. it's another symptom of a generation that lacks critical thinking skills because it wasn't taught to them. i don't see it as a cause.
ochlocawhatchamawho?
this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochlocracy
actually, that article is horrible.
even by wiki standards.
don't read that. let me find something better....
it's important. what we're seeing across the world is this idea that if people just go sit in a square or a park then that's enough to affect serious change.
tommy d.
I don't think we have the technology to make this kind of thing practical, or universally beneficial.
jessica amber murray
i'm not sure what you mean, exactly. i'm going to finish my thought first, though.
of course, that's preposterous. the ideal is supposed to be people getting together and creating parallel systems. instead, people are getting frustrated that the sit-ins aren't getting the government to sort of just "get it" and are reacting in violence and anger instead. it's a dangerous spiral.
there was a narrative that began a few years ago that seemed promising, but it's quickly proven itself hopeless. we've learned that social media is just an elaborate spying tool, and that movement after movement is unable to provide anything other than masses of people that expect that merely showing up is enough to fix problems.
there needs to be a really conscious shift in focus away from demonstrations with this idea that the state will fix it if we yell loud enough and towards the idea that we need to find ways to fix it ourselves.
i'm not going to post another article, but that's democracy v ochlocracy.
now, thomas, i think you're talking about the problems of large populations with direct democracy? i could see how you thought that's where i was going, but i think it's clear now that it wasn't where i was going.
that being said, i do agree it's difficult to have a large direct voting democracy (although i do think the technology is better now than it's ever been) but i don't really think it's necessary that everybody decide on everything. i think what's more important is that people are able to decide on things that affect them. that doesn't actually require a parliament. it just comes out of living. it would be really impossible to avoid in just about any other system than the one we have, where we ship food around all over the globe.
i mean, what we've got to show over the last few years is a handful of military coups, the return of fascism, broken promises and shattered and co-opted movements.
we're not doing this right.
tommy d.
Personally, I think people should focus less on the shortcomings of movements like Occupy because the demographics involved there were hardly universal. While a wide variety of people and ideas participated, I found it was generally more "sheltered" types.
jessica amber murray
well, what i think the world is coming to grips with is the reality that the new right's vision is not sustainable. it's convenient to call young people "sheltered" for rejecting the world that their parents created for them, but at some point it's going to have to click that that vision isn't working. unfortunately, what's becoming clear is that the failure of these movements is a part of the failure of neo-liberalism. that is to say that the system has created a generation of young people that have been educated so badly that they're incapable of building an alternate vision. i think connecting that together is important: the system is failing, and we're not able to come up with anything other than a list of hollow complaints, because the system failed to turn us into anything worthwhile, which is the reason it's failing.
that's absolute brokenness.
i'm going to otherwise avoid the discussion of critical race theory. it's another symptom of a generation that lacks critical thinking skills because it wasn't taught to them. i don't see it as a cause.
i'm not suggesting that giraffes would be smart enough to do this, if they had the physical ability to. i think this would be very hard for a giraffe to do, with the funky neck and awkward legs and stuff. maybe not - just a guess.
but it got me thinking about it.
i mean, if a few okapi-like giraffe ancestors could figure something like that out then it may have been intelligence that would have been selected for rather than something physical.
it just goes back to the idea that there's so much randomness inherent in evolution that very specific tests are required to figure out what's actually being selected for.
elephants are fucking brilliant by the way, if you don't know that.
but it got me thinking about it.
i mean, if a few okapi-like giraffe ancestors could figure something like that out then it may have been intelligence that would have been selected for rather than something physical.
it just goes back to the idea that there's so much randomness inherent in evolution that very specific tests are required to figure out what's actually being selected for.
elephants are fucking brilliant by the way, if you don't know that.
well, i found a reasonable workaround.
$1/month.
$0.01/minute.
free voicemail-to-text.
no expiry.
almost free.
but now i have to wait ten or fifteen days for paypal to fail to convince me to give them a credit card number. sometimes it feels like the whole world failed economics 101. incentives? what is it, 1853?
in the long run, i'll hook a broken laptop into a router, install the scary software there and find some kind of budget ip phone on kijiji to hook up to it. for now, i'm happy with the email option.
...and i'm still thinking that i should be able to rout that to an android phone if i ever get one, too. that might make more sense than the broken laptop thing.
$1/month.
$0.01/minute.
free voicemail-to-text.
no expiry.
almost free.
but now i have to wait ten or fifteen days for paypal to fail to convince me to give them a credit card number. sometimes it feels like the whole world failed economics 101. incentives? what is it, 1853?
in the long run, i'll hook a broken laptop into a router, install the scary software there and find some kind of budget ip phone on kijiji to hook up to it. for now, i'm happy with the email option.
...and i'm still thinking that i should be able to rout that to an android phone if i ever get one, too. that might make more sense than the broken laptop thing.
you know, all i really want is a local phone number (it has to be local because the primary reason i need the phone in the first place is for the border fascists....this is apparently an impossible process without a phone number....) that routs to a voice mail box and routs those messages to email. that way, i could walk down to a pay phone and call somebody back, if necessary. or respond via email. that's what i always did in the past; somebody would leave me a message, and i'd send them an email.
the system could be fully automated. there's no real justification to pay for it.
google voice can do that, but not in canada. which sort of makes me want to launch a string of terrorist attacks against the communications oligopoly. i know that won't solve anything. but, fuck them. there's ways around it, but not with a local area code. i can't give the border fascists a wyoming area number, they'll think i'm running coke back and forth. so i'm stuck with the whole voip rigmarole, which i'm dreading going through with.
in the end, i'll probably just buy the voip mailbox and never actually go through the process of getting an ip phone or installing the software. then i'll forget to buy minutes and lose my number...
how does it make sense to ask for verification by phone when somebody is signing up for a phone number?
ugh.
the system could be fully automated. there's no real justification to pay for it.
google voice can do that, but not in canada. which sort of makes me want to launch a string of terrorist attacks against the communications oligopoly. i know that won't solve anything. but, fuck them. there's ways around it, but not with a local area code. i can't give the border fascists a wyoming area number, they'll think i'm running coke back and forth. so i'm stuck with the whole voip rigmarole, which i'm dreading going through with.
in the end, i'll probably just buy the voip mailbox and never actually go through the process of getting an ip phone or installing the software. then i'll forget to buy minutes and lose my number...
how does it make sense to ask for verification by phone when somebody is signing up for a phone number?
ugh.
AAAAAGHGHGAAGGHGHAGHHG.
ok. this is the last time i'll do this. it's not technically wrong, it's just fucking skewed for political purposes. this is all it says for roughly four thousand years of vaguely understood history:
" In its early history, it was colonized and occupied repeatedly - by the Greeks, Romans, Huns, the Byzantine Empire, among others."
early? greeks? that's not early.
the thracian and iranian occupations are early. scythians. sarmatians. cimmerians.
now, when we speaking of colonization and occupation that implicitly suggests that there is an indigenous group being colonized and occupied. and would you like to guess who that group was?
the iranian influence was slowly pushed out over thousands of years. the article skipped the goths, who were extremely important in the destruction horizon on two levels - both the one they created and the one that set off their own migration. probably cause they thought of eye makeup.
herodotus is explicit - there were the "royal scythians" and sarmatians who commanded the armies and were of iranian backgrounds, and then there were the "agricultural scythians" who farmed the land and were their slaves.
now, on the one hand it's easy to connect these agricultural scythians to the broad slavic speaking areas through archaeological continuity. on other other hand, it's easy to point out that all other possible contenders were both living far away at the time and not at all agricultural. so, the agricultural scythians are quite obviously slavic groups, extending over a wide area.
throughout all of these invasions, the slavs remained tied to the land.
so, yeah, there's been various turkic groups in the area for the last several centuries. but they kind of just showed up, and were merely at the end of a long process of colonizing and occupying an area that is indigenously slavic.
i don't want to come off as the supremacists i'm criticizing, so this discussion is now officially dropped.
http://www.voanews.com/content/the-history-of-crimea---in-brief-/1860431.html
ok. this is the last time i'll do this. it's not technically wrong, it's just fucking skewed for political purposes. this is all it says for roughly four thousand years of vaguely understood history:
" In its early history, it was colonized and occupied repeatedly - by the Greeks, Romans, Huns, the Byzantine Empire, among others."
early? greeks? that's not early.
the thracian and iranian occupations are early. scythians. sarmatians. cimmerians.
now, when we speaking of colonization and occupation that implicitly suggests that there is an indigenous group being colonized and occupied. and would you like to guess who that group was?
the iranian influence was slowly pushed out over thousands of years. the article skipped the goths, who were extremely important in the destruction horizon on two levels - both the one they created and the one that set off their own migration. probably cause they thought of eye makeup.
herodotus is explicit - there were the "royal scythians" and sarmatians who commanded the armies and were of iranian backgrounds, and then there were the "agricultural scythians" who farmed the land and were their slaves.
now, on the one hand it's easy to connect these agricultural scythians to the broad slavic speaking areas through archaeological continuity. on other other hand, it's easy to point out that all other possible contenders were both living far away at the time and not at all agricultural. so, the agricultural scythians are quite obviously slavic groups, extending over a wide area.
throughout all of these invasions, the slavs remained tied to the land.
so, yeah, there's been various turkic groups in the area for the last several centuries. but they kind of just showed up, and were merely at the end of a long process of colonizing and occupying an area that is indigenously slavic.
i don't want to come off as the supremacists i'm criticizing, so this discussion is now officially dropped.
http://www.voanews.com/content/the-history-of-crimea---in-brief-/1860431.html
ok, miguel, but you sound like an establishment politician attacking free trade protesters. even so, i think everybody sees a certain amount of reason in presenting something coherent.
i'm still not convinced that the opposition controls the protesters. there's basically no example anywhere in history in the world where the marching masses are represented by parliament. even gandhi spent half his time arguing against the people he was trying to emancipate. i'm not exaggerating: zero examples.
as mentioned before, i'm also aware of a substantial amount of anti-government opposition on the left, which isn't being discussed by anybody at all.
so, forget about the opposition's demands, i don't care. what are the crowd's demands?
well, if they're like most crowds with a broadly anarchist bent, they'll tell you that that's not the way democracy works. people standing in a square yelling isn't democracy. it's ochlocracy. it leads to meaningless shifts in power and state repression. see egypt, ukraine. democracy is people getting together and discussing things through an assembly process. it's consequently not up to the crowds to make demands, but only up to them to incite a process of self-determination. if you want to be semantic, that means that the demand reduces to a desire for more local governance. what that means is a shift in power from representative bodies to more direct, organic ones. it's not a demand that the state do stuff, but that the state dissolve to allow the protesters the freedom to decide what stuff they want to do.
involving yourself in grassroots democracy movements will make that clear. it's commonly understood. but it's totally taboo to discuss it any kind of media at all. focusing on demands implicitly denies the possibility of any kind of actual revolution (a shift in power is not a revolution!), so that's all the media ever does. it's also exactly why you won't get an answer - to provide demands would be to reject the revolution in favour of reform.
again: i'm sure there's some nasty, reactionary forces. street protest attracts these assholes. predictably. but i really wish i could just go down and talk to some of the people on the street myself. i suspect the media spin is largely inaccurate.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11528
i'm still not convinced that the opposition controls the protesters. there's basically no example anywhere in history in the world where the marching masses are represented by parliament. even gandhi spent half his time arguing against the people he was trying to emancipate. i'm not exaggerating: zero examples.
as mentioned before, i'm also aware of a substantial amount of anti-government opposition on the left, which isn't being discussed by anybody at all.
so, forget about the opposition's demands, i don't care. what are the crowd's demands?
well, if they're like most crowds with a broadly anarchist bent, they'll tell you that that's not the way democracy works. people standing in a square yelling isn't democracy. it's ochlocracy. it leads to meaningless shifts in power and state repression. see egypt, ukraine. democracy is people getting together and discussing things through an assembly process. it's consequently not up to the crowds to make demands, but only up to them to incite a process of self-determination. if you want to be semantic, that means that the demand reduces to a desire for more local governance. what that means is a shift in power from representative bodies to more direct, organic ones. it's not a demand that the state do stuff, but that the state dissolve to allow the protesters the freedom to decide what stuff they want to do.
involving yourself in grassroots democracy movements will make that clear. it's commonly understood. but it's totally taboo to discuss it any kind of media at all. focusing on demands implicitly denies the possibility of any kind of actual revolution (a shift in power is not a revolution!), so that's all the media ever does. it's also exactly why you won't get an answer - to provide demands would be to reject the revolution in favour of reform.
again: i'm sure there's some nasty, reactionary forces. street protest attracts these assholes. predictably. but i really wish i could just go down and talk to some of the people on the street myself. i suspect the media spin is largely inaccurate.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11528
again, his history only goes back 250 years (and is consequently basically useless in explaining the ethnic divisions), but he's at least confused by this.
of course, there's a big russian naval base there. forget about the cold war, this is a discussion of the factors underlying the crimean war.
i'll come back to this in a few hours. it looks like it has to develop properly.
http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-crimea-west-policy-942/
of course, there's a big russian naval base there. forget about the cold war, this is a discussion of the factors underlying the crimean war.
i'll come back to this in a few hours. it looks like it has to develop properly.
http://rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-crimea-west-policy-942/
THIS PRESS RELEASE MAKES SENSE.
well, sort of. i mean, they're there now. there's no justice in shipping them back to asia. i guess it's more of a peeve. most random people don't have my grasp of history. in a way, 1945 is sort of a global year zero, too.
anyways, to have this turkish/muslim group stand up and be like "hey, we're worried about rising nationalism in the region" - that makes sense. it still doesn't really explain what happened, though....
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/crimean-tatars-wellbeing-rests-upon-neighborly-relations-with-russians-ukrainians-337741.html
well, sort of. i mean, they're there now. there's no justice in shipping them back to asia. i guess it's more of a peeve. most random people don't have my grasp of history. in a way, 1945 is sort of a global year zero, too.
anyways, to have this turkish/muslim group stand up and be like "hey, we're worried about rising nationalism in the region" - that makes sense. it still doesn't really explain what happened, though....
http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/crimean-tatars-wellbeing-rests-upon-neighborly-relations-with-russians-ukrainians-337741.html
something is fishy about this.
http://zik.ua/en/news/2014/02/27/column_of_apcs_moving_to_simferopol_stops_then_backtracks_465403
http://zik.ua/en/news/2014/02/27/column_of_apcs_moving_to_simferopol_stops_then_backtracks_465403
the short version is that, regardless of what the people on the street actually want (which is not this), there are now officially fascists in the ukrainian cabinet and they're not likely to be easy to get rid of.
i'm thinking in my head that the mainstream conservative party is going to collapse as a result of it's support for the far right. that's often the case, just about everywhere except israel.
but it depends on the assumption that svoboda is just going to sit around and play by the rules, rather than get aggressive about the opportunity the mess provided for them.
ukraine needs to send the right message in may, if it still can.
that might even be the setup, actually. split that german pawn boxer guy off, then bury the fascists by aligning them with the status quo. that gives the eu stooge a clear path as the only party that can be voted for. see how they do this? but it might just split the right and end up with yanukovich' party winning.
i have to say that would be hilarious.
http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/katya-gorchinskaya-the-not-so-revolutionary-new-ukraine-government-337768.html
i'm thinking in my head that the mainstream conservative party is going to collapse as a result of it's support for the far right. that's often the case, just about everywhere except israel.
but it depends on the assumption that svoboda is just going to sit around and play by the rules, rather than get aggressive about the opportunity the mess provided for them.
ukraine needs to send the right message in may, if it still can.
that might even be the setup, actually. split that german pawn boxer guy off, then bury the fascists by aligning them with the status quo. that gives the eu stooge a clear path as the only party that can be voted for. see how they do this? but it might just split the right and end up with yanukovich' party winning.
i have to say that would be hilarious.
http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/op-ed/katya-gorchinskaya-the-not-so-revolutionary-new-ukraine-government-337768.html
this is official, now, and it's bad news - it means electing these guys is going to putting fascists in cabinet. that's not been the case up to now.
the flip side is it could very well make them unelectable. how many fatherland supporters want to vote for a coalition that will put fascists in power? and the....now opposition...will campaign on that.
oops?
http://un.ua/eng/article/494863.html
the flip side is it could very well make them unelectable. how many fatherland supporters want to vote for a coalition that will put fascists in power? and the....now opposition...will campaign on that.
oops?
http://un.ua/eng/article/494863.html
"Protest leaders said Wednesday that they would propose Arseniy Yatsenyuk as the country's new prime minister."
translated: western backed parliamentary forces that falsely claim to represent the protestors have put forward an old, corrupt bureaucrat to establish a quasi puppet state.
what's going to be interesting is to see whether:
1) the right coalition can even win the upcoming election
2) if it's fair to begin with
3) if they do win and it's fair if it sets off a counter-protest
4) what kind of influence the smaller fascist parties play in the larger coalition.
'cause, if i was a crimean tatar, it would be the fourth of these things i'd be concerned about - and really the only reason i could see going out to protest, as an ethnic group.
whatever the oil princess' faults were, she was generally considered a kleptocratic neocon on the soft right. this new coalition is a different animal and produces some legitimate cause for concern.
do i think the western media would go that far? yes. i also think it could be that badly misinformed, by pure accident.
again: intuition, let's see what reports come in.
clearest precedent: georgian invasion. i think the western media still thinks the russians launched an attack, rather than responded to a provocation.
which of course is why the russian military is prowling. i think it's very unlikely they'd strike first. i think it's certain they'd take advantage of a provocation.
translated: western backed parliamentary forces that falsely claim to represent the protestors have put forward an old, corrupt bureaucrat to establish a quasi puppet state.
what's going to be interesting is to see whether:
1) the right coalition can even win the upcoming election
2) if it's fair to begin with
3) if they do win and it's fair if it sets off a counter-protest
4) what kind of influence the smaller fascist parties play in the larger coalition.
'cause, if i was a crimean tatar, it would be the fourth of these things i'd be concerned about - and really the only reason i could see going out to protest, as an ethnic group.
whatever the oil princess' faults were, she was generally considered a kleptocratic neocon on the soft right. this new coalition is a different animal and produces some legitimate cause for concern.
do i think the western media would go that far? yes. i also think it could be that badly misinformed, by pure accident.
again: intuition, let's see what reports come in.
clearest precedent: georgian invasion. i think the western media still thinks the russians launched an attack, rather than responded to a provocation.
which of course is why the russian military is prowling. i think it's very unlikely they'd strike first. i think it's certain they'd take advantage of a provocation.
well,
i should take a step back. the nationalist groups are not currently in
power. an "elected parliament" is, of which the nationalist groups
represent a fringe element - both in terms of the people on the ground
and the sitting mps. it might be repeated american policy to fund the
most extreme factions, but they use it as a means to an end. if they can
skip that and just go with the oil princess, they will.
further, it *does* make sense to think that *if* tatar groups support the central government (and the entire idea that "tatars support x" as though it's a genetic implication is pretty hollow to me) then it *could* produce a racist reaction from a fringe of white supremacist russians that share the same kind of white nationalism as the fringe ukrainian extremists. further, putin has a history of pragmatically folding to extremism, as well.
but to suggest that there's been a "tatar uprising" against a "russian-speaking" seizure of parliament isn't getting through my bullshit detectors, even if it's being reported by both sides; one may have something to gain by repeating the other's propaganda.
i don't want to further speculate, let's see what news comes in.
further, it *does* make sense to think that *if* tatar groups support the central government (and the entire idea that "tatars support x" as though it's a genetic implication is pretty hollow to me) then it *could* produce a racist reaction from a fringe of white supremacist russians that share the same kind of white nationalism as the fringe ukrainian extremists. further, putin has a history of pragmatically folding to extremism, as well.
but to suggest that there's been a "tatar uprising" against a "russian-speaking" seizure of parliament isn't getting through my bullshit detectors, even if it's being reported by both sides; one may have something to gain by repeating the other's propaganda.
i don't want to further speculate, let's see what news comes in.
historically, this is waaaaaay more accurate
than the guardian and cbc reports i just read, although it glosses over
the slavic pre-history of the region.
the slavs have been living in the region for millenia, but (until the middle ages) lived in decentralized farming communities rather than organized states. they often paid tribute to invaders, be they scythians or goths or huns or turks. they were also often either enslaved as soldiers or used as mercenaries, which brought them deep into eastern europe with the raids of other groups like alans, huns, goths and sarmatians. for all the talk of gothic raids at the fall of the empire, it was slavic speaking people that inherited central and south-eastern europe. macedonian, for example, is a slavic language - but it's a recent invader to the region, brought south mostly by bulgarians.
suggesting that the region is historically and ethnically tatar or turk or mongolian and that the russians were invaders is entirely equivalent to suggesting that the native americans are not real americans. these eastern groups set up brutal, colonial states based on the economic foundation of land expropriation and white slavery. it's not to justify the stalinist reaction, but it's to put it into it's proper historical context. if the descendants of the sioux one day rise to slaughter the descendants of the colonists, it would be hard to be particularly moralizing about it.
http://rt.com/news/crimea-facts-protests-politics-945/
so, when you see these white nationalist groups in the ukraine - and in russia as well - you have to understand it in that context of the centuries of slavery that the indigenous slavic speaking peoples endured at the hands of the colonial turkic speaking peoples, how it completely destroyed their national identity and how their existing identity is constructed in large part as a reaction to their emancipatory struggle. it's a huge, huge thing (culturally) in the entire region. the crimean tatars are the precise targets of these groups, both in the ukraine and in russia.
to be a slav means to fight against the turkish oppressor, who gave them the name of "slave" to begin with.
so, this makes precisely no sense, except in terms of western propaganda designed to make it seem as though ukraine is united in opposition to russia.
"in soviet russia, white people oppressed".
not quite soviet russia. but the russia and ukraine of the middle ages, yes.
the slavs have been living in the region for millenia, but (until the middle ages) lived in decentralized farming communities rather than organized states. they often paid tribute to invaders, be they scythians or goths or huns or turks. they were also often either enslaved as soldiers or used as mercenaries, which brought them deep into eastern europe with the raids of other groups like alans, huns, goths and sarmatians. for all the talk of gothic raids at the fall of the empire, it was slavic speaking people that inherited central and south-eastern europe. macedonian, for example, is a slavic language - but it's a recent invader to the region, brought south mostly by bulgarians.
suggesting that the region is historically and ethnically tatar or turk or mongolian and that the russians were invaders is entirely equivalent to suggesting that the native americans are not real americans. these eastern groups set up brutal, colonial states based on the economic foundation of land expropriation and white slavery. it's not to justify the stalinist reaction, but it's to put it into it's proper historical context. if the descendants of the sioux one day rise to slaughter the descendants of the colonists, it would be hard to be particularly moralizing about it.
http://rt.com/news/crimea-facts-protests-politics-945/
so, when you see these white nationalist groups in the ukraine - and in russia as well - you have to understand it in that context of the centuries of slavery that the indigenous slavic speaking peoples endured at the hands of the colonial turkic speaking peoples, how it completely destroyed their national identity and how their existing identity is constructed in large part as a reaction to their emancipatory struggle. it's a huge, huge thing (culturally) in the entire region. the crimean tatars are the precise targets of these groups, both in the ukraine and in russia.
to be a slav means to fight against the turkish oppressor, who gave them the name of "slave" to begin with.
so, this makes precisely no sense, except in terms of western propaganda designed to make it seem as though ukraine is united in opposition to russia.
"in soviet russia, white people oppressed".
not quite soviet russia. but the russia and ukraine of the middle ages, yes.
lol. there's been some kind of a seizure in the crimea. i'm not sure what's going on yet.
the western media is sadly trying to suggest that:
1) it's ethnic violence between russians and "tatars". probably not true.
2) the tatars are indigenous to the crimean area. absolutely false. in fact, russians are indigenous to the area. waves of mongols and turks invaded the region in the middle ages causing all kinds of carnage. that itself was a repeat of the hunnish invasions that destroyed the goth regions.
3) that the tatar groups would somehow prefer the white nationalist government in the ukraine, who would like to send them back to kazakhstan (where they came from).
these things are all obvious lies. i'll have to see how the story unfolds.
more likely to me seems to be that there's probably been some ethnic demonstrations against the racist government that was just installed. how that relates to the seizure, i can't say. how that relates to russia, i can't say.
but of course the fear is that something big is developing.
the western media is sadly trying to suggest that:
1) it's ethnic violence between russians and "tatars". probably not true.
2) the tatars are indigenous to the crimean area. absolutely false. in fact, russians are indigenous to the area. waves of mongols and turks invaded the region in the middle ages causing all kinds of carnage. that itself was a repeat of the hunnish invasions that destroyed the goth regions.
3) that the tatar groups would somehow prefer the white nationalist government in the ukraine, who would like to send them back to kazakhstan (where they came from).
these things are all obvious lies. i'll have to see how the story unfolds.
more likely to me seems to be that there's probably been some ethnic demonstrations against the racist government that was just installed. how that relates to the seizure, i can't say. how that relates to russia, i can't say.
but of course the fear is that something big is developing.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
richard price - observations on the nature of civil liberty, the principles of government, and the justice and policy of the war with america
"overall? this is a short text, but it took me a long time to get through it because i found it very difficult to put it into context. i suspect that that difficulty placing it into context may be why it's not often cited today. whatever it's value as a liberalizing document in it's own time, it reads off today as a manifesto of the type of social conservatism that is often found on the religious right. yet, price was a major opponent of no less a conservative icon than edmund burke himself. when the lines are this blurry, it's no wonder that he's been left unclaimed in the second half of the twentieth century. however, that doesn't negate the text's historical value. it may not have a direct successor today, but it may perhaps be traced forwards in time as an influential text on the socially conservative aspect of the progressive movement of the late nineteenth century."
that was also painful. i had this idea i could do fifty pages of reading in the morning and record all night, but i found myself getting through a few paragraphs of this thing per day. i have to admit i was hugely distracted by youtube, as you may have noticed.
i'm not giving up on the idea yet, but i'm thinking song/book alternation may be a better idea.
derp
i was tangentially blown off course to this text when attempting to get in between the ideological debate carried out by burke and paine over the revolution in france. i seem to have gotten some wires crossed (i'm going to guess it was complications from a google search) in thinking that the editor of my copy of burke's reflections on the revolution in france claimed that his text was in response to this one. rather, the claim was that burke was replying to a sermon given by rev./dr. price in 1789. this text is claimed by some, however, to have had a strong influence on certain american revolutionaries, so i've decided to give it a read through for historical purposes.
price splits his text into two sections. the first states a few assumptions about liberty and is likewise split into three sections: liberty in general, civil liberties as they relate to government and what could vaguely be called sovereignty in the context of empire. price cites locke in his preface and, without having read much locke directly, i'm willing to take him at face value in his claim that he's merely stating lockean principles. the second section discusses the possibility of a war with the american colonies and is really the crux of the text. as the first section is merely a statement of principles, deconstructing it in too much detail is to largely miss the point of his argument about the possible upcoming war against the colonies. however, there are a few curiosities that are worth pointing out to more broadly understand what 'liberty' meant, as a concept, amongst liberals (including proto-anarchists and proto-socialists) of the time period.
price specifies four different types of liberty: physical, religious, civil and moral. the first three are intuitive; the last references the liberty to not be controlled by 'contrary principles'. today, most people would acknowledge that intellectual liberty (the liberty to define our own principles) is a key type of liberty and contrast it directly against this idea of 'moral liberty' that price is asserting. i think it's worthwhile to try and understand this a little bit better in case i see it jump up elsewhere.
would it not be easy to derive the idea of defining our own principles from not being controlled by those of others? sure, and this is the intuitive connection between moral and intellectual liberty. however, price is being far too specific to allow that derivation. to price, "contrary principles" means "principles contrary to christian principles". specifically, he claims that those who are "controlled by passions" have lost their moral liberty and those without moral liberty are "wicked and detestable". again, it's easy to claim this can be converted into modern language by talking about various types of sexual oppression, but he speaks not of this but of "licentiousness", which no doubt referred to any kind of sexuality that was not properly puritan. he takes it a step further than this in comparing licentiousness to a type of despotism. while he's not explicit, it's clear that he means to state that the despot is satan. his concept of moral freedom is consequently one of freedom from enslavement to satanic principles and, while this is maybe an easily understood relic of classical thinking, it is not at all consistent with intellectual liberty. rather, it reduces the parliament to a rubber stamp for the church and threatens to oppress all those who do not conform to the doctrine dictated by the church-state; "moral freedom" is the so-called "freedom" to not be exposed to ideas that differ from the state's (and church's) official pronunciations. this is 1776, not 1984.
it's not entirely clear how far price would enforce his right to "moral freedom" in an attempt to suppress "intellectual freedom" and emancipate those whom he considers to be enslaved to their corrupt desires. he does suggest that licentiousness should be restricted by laws, but he's also careful to point out that despotism is the greater threat than licentiousness. on the other hand, he makes it clear that he believes that people have the "right" to "protect" themselves from influences that may lead them away from the church. he also seems to reject the idea of a written constitution - specifically because it may restrict government in punishing "licentiousness". i'm really not able to develop a cogent thought from that seemingly contradictory mess of ideas, other than to derive the somewhat outlandish view that price believed that restricting "licentiousness" was a valid act of communitarian democracy, in the sense that it protects the majority from harm (as he sees it). that is, he seems to be arguing in favour of the tyranny of the majority and specifically when it comes to sexuality. such thinking seems better suited to the spanish inquisition than to british liberalism, and yet here it is in an important revolutionary document. i cannot make further sense of it, other than to applaud jefferson's insistence on the lockean notion of separating church and state in an environment where not doing so could have been truly catastrophic.
i also want to take note of how haphazardly price glosses over the problems of corruption that are endemic in government. it does not seem as though price is interested in the kinds of objections that an ancient philosopher like socrates may have provided against democracy. nor does he provide arguments for his claims, but this is to be forgiven due to the nature of the first section as a statement of principles rather than an exposition of them. it is somewhat annoying, though, that, even while arguing against authority, he asserts his arguments in the form of sometimes inane assertions. it may indeed be obvious that pure democracy becomes less and less reasonable as population size increases, but it in no way follows that "a free government may be established in the largest state" by setting up a decentralized representative democracy. while price correctly points out that money is a possible corrupting influence in representative democracies, centralized or not, he does not present any kind of argument as to why his proposals will not lead to that kind of corruption or why "in these circumstances," of decentralized representative democracy, "each separate state would be secure against the interference of sovereign power in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess liberty". could the corrupting forces not merely simultaneously co-opt several states? i'm not saying they must or can't, i'm just pointing out that there's no argument at all and that reduces price to some kind of cheap mystical guru, pumping out oracular nonsense that seems almost precious in hindsight.
he closes the first section by arguing (i use that word lightly) that empires are impossible to maintain and always eventually result in dissolution. the empire must demand certain things of it's client states, which it's client states will see as rightfully theirs, leading to a conflict developing between positions of imperial authority (which are illegitimate) and expressions of popular rule. the imperial state will need to assert itself by force, which will produce a violent reaction. this is a much easier set of statements to take at face value, although it's perhaps no longer reasonable in our world to think a popular movement can offer any kind of violent resistance to a centralized state. of course, he's setting himself up for a discussion of the situation in america, which he turns to in his second section.
while price provides moral and constitutional arguments, and these form an important part of his perspective, what he's really suggesting is that it is not in britain's self-interest to try and suppress the colonies by force. price is by no means a revolutionary himself. rather, his main concern is the strength of the empire and how to maintain america within it in a way that both grants the colonists a higher level of autonomy and maintains the cohesion of a greater, trans-oceanic british civilization. the real core of his opposition to military action consequently reduces to his perception that such a conflict is unwinnable, from the british perspective; that is to say that the crux of his essay is to suggest that the crown ought to have been using more enlightened tactics than they were using in order to maintain the empire.
was the probability of success really so remote? well, it depended entirely on how many people could be convinced to fight, and price realized that. his calculation assumed that the british empire could not gather any recruits from russia, india or canada (a clear underestimation) and also assumed that every single colonist would fight against the empire (a clear exaggeration that, as a canadian, is especially absurd to me). he consequently derives a force of 40,000 imperial british soldiers vs. 500,000 american colonists. in reality, the loyalists in america actually outnumbered the revolutionaries; the empire had a large numerical advantage in the war. price continues by suggesting that blockading the colonies could not truly harm them because they were entirely self-sufficient. he once again becomes incoherent here, in suggesting that the blockade he opposes would be an act of providence to deliver the colonists from the temptation of foreign luxuries.
throughout his arguments, price persistently returns to this romanticized conception of the american colonists as a pious, pure entity that understands and practices an undiluted, true kind of liberty and continually contrasts them against his perception of the british as corrupted by earthly desires. it's maybe easy to forget at this point that the puritan founding myth was as much of a british invention as an american one and that the historical roots of it carried on in britain for at least as long as it did in america. that is to say that price was producing british stereotypes of america while speaking to a british audience. ulterior motives that price may have had aside, one gets the impression that the british would have generally taken this entirely outlandish, romanticized idealization at face value. the following passage illustrates this:
In this hour of tremendous danger it would become us to turn our thoughts to Heaven. This is what our brethren in the Colonies are doing. From one end of North-America to the other they are fasting and praying. But what are we doing? We are ridiculing them as fanatics, and scoffing at religion, We are running wild after pleasure and forgetting every thing serious and decent at masquerades. We are trafficking for boroughs, perjuring ourselves at elections, and selling ourselves for places. Which side then is Providence likely to favour?
price even ends the text (somewhat hilariously) by comparing america to jesus: he asks the colonists to forgive the empire for it's oppression, as it knows not what it is doing.
on the brighter side of things, it should be noted that price had a fairly refreshing view of indigenous concerns, relative to the period. while he ultimately puts the question aside, seemingly due to the perception that it is an argument he can't win, his articulation both of british massacres in india and of native american sovereignty demonstrate that these were not unknown moral concerns at the time:
If sailing along a coast can give a right to a country, then might the people of Japan become, as soon as they please, the proprietors of Britain. Nothing can be more chimerical than property founded on such a reason. If the land on which the colonies first settled had any proprietors, they were the natives.
indeed, they were.
another thing that price seems abstractly (if not explicitly) aware of is the revolution as a process of recentering the empire in washington, rather than one of an independent entity breaking off and starting a new nation. while he upholds the constitutional principle of "no taxation without representation", he also makes it clear that he doesn't really see the colonists as representing a new national identity that in any way transcends their inherent britishness. he demonstrates this by projecting a possible future where the hanoverian kings (or some other aristocratic family of continental despots) have reduced britain to an authoritarian monarchy, consequently creating a situation where the colonists are the remaining descendants of traditional concepts of british liberty. such a future is one where the colonies would be drastically more populous, have a much larger economy, be more intellectually advanced and command a much stronger military. out of this, price is able to project a fantasy where america is both morally and realistically superior to britain. he dares not suggest that britain would be forced into submission, but the implication is between the lines. he then uses this projection to argue for reconciliation with the colonists out of british self-interest.
overall? this is a short text, but it took me a long time to get through it because i found it very difficult to put it into context. i suspect that that difficulty placing it into context may be why it's not often cited today. whatever it's value as a liberalizing document in it's own time, it reads off today as a manifesto of the type of social conservatism that is often found on the religious right. yet, price was a major opponent of no less a conservative icon than edmund burke himself. when the lines are this blurry, it's no wonder that he's been left unclaimed in the second half of the twentieth century. however, that doesn't negate the text's historical value. it may not have a direct successor today, but it may perhaps be traced forwards in time as an influential text on the socially conservative aspect of the progressive movement of the late nineteenth century.
full text:
http://www.constitution.org/price/price_3.htm
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/E/211.P930.1776b/index.html
that was also painful. i had this idea i could do fifty pages of reading in the morning and record all night, but i found myself getting through a few paragraphs of this thing per day. i have to admit i was hugely distracted by youtube, as you may have noticed.
i'm not giving up on the idea yet, but i'm thinking song/book alternation may be a better idea.
derp
i was tangentially blown off course to this text when attempting to get in between the ideological debate carried out by burke and paine over the revolution in france. i seem to have gotten some wires crossed (i'm going to guess it was complications from a google search) in thinking that the editor of my copy of burke's reflections on the revolution in france claimed that his text was in response to this one. rather, the claim was that burke was replying to a sermon given by rev./dr. price in 1789. this text is claimed by some, however, to have had a strong influence on certain american revolutionaries, so i've decided to give it a read through for historical purposes.
price splits his text into two sections. the first states a few assumptions about liberty and is likewise split into three sections: liberty in general, civil liberties as they relate to government and what could vaguely be called sovereignty in the context of empire. price cites locke in his preface and, without having read much locke directly, i'm willing to take him at face value in his claim that he's merely stating lockean principles. the second section discusses the possibility of a war with the american colonies and is really the crux of the text. as the first section is merely a statement of principles, deconstructing it in too much detail is to largely miss the point of his argument about the possible upcoming war against the colonies. however, there are a few curiosities that are worth pointing out to more broadly understand what 'liberty' meant, as a concept, amongst liberals (including proto-anarchists and proto-socialists) of the time period.
price specifies four different types of liberty: physical, religious, civil and moral. the first three are intuitive; the last references the liberty to not be controlled by 'contrary principles'. today, most people would acknowledge that intellectual liberty (the liberty to define our own principles) is a key type of liberty and contrast it directly against this idea of 'moral liberty' that price is asserting. i think it's worthwhile to try and understand this a little bit better in case i see it jump up elsewhere.
would it not be easy to derive the idea of defining our own principles from not being controlled by those of others? sure, and this is the intuitive connection between moral and intellectual liberty. however, price is being far too specific to allow that derivation. to price, "contrary principles" means "principles contrary to christian principles". specifically, he claims that those who are "controlled by passions" have lost their moral liberty and those without moral liberty are "wicked and detestable". again, it's easy to claim this can be converted into modern language by talking about various types of sexual oppression, but he speaks not of this but of "licentiousness", which no doubt referred to any kind of sexuality that was not properly puritan. he takes it a step further than this in comparing licentiousness to a type of despotism. while he's not explicit, it's clear that he means to state that the despot is satan. his concept of moral freedom is consequently one of freedom from enslavement to satanic principles and, while this is maybe an easily understood relic of classical thinking, it is not at all consistent with intellectual liberty. rather, it reduces the parliament to a rubber stamp for the church and threatens to oppress all those who do not conform to the doctrine dictated by the church-state; "moral freedom" is the so-called "freedom" to not be exposed to ideas that differ from the state's (and church's) official pronunciations. this is 1776, not 1984.
it's not entirely clear how far price would enforce his right to "moral freedom" in an attempt to suppress "intellectual freedom" and emancipate those whom he considers to be enslaved to their corrupt desires. he does suggest that licentiousness should be restricted by laws, but he's also careful to point out that despotism is the greater threat than licentiousness. on the other hand, he makes it clear that he believes that people have the "right" to "protect" themselves from influences that may lead them away from the church. he also seems to reject the idea of a written constitution - specifically because it may restrict government in punishing "licentiousness". i'm really not able to develop a cogent thought from that seemingly contradictory mess of ideas, other than to derive the somewhat outlandish view that price believed that restricting "licentiousness" was a valid act of communitarian democracy, in the sense that it protects the majority from harm (as he sees it). that is, he seems to be arguing in favour of the tyranny of the majority and specifically when it comes to sexuality. such thinking seems better suited to the spanish inquisition than to british liberalism, and yet here it is in an important revolutionary document. i cannot make further sense of it, other than to applaud jefferson's insistence on the lockean notion of separating church and state in an environment where not doing so could have been truly catastrophic.
i also want to take note of how haphazardly price glosses over the problems of corruption that are endemic in government. it does not seem as though price is interested in the kinds of objections that an ancient philosopher like socrates may have provided against democracy. nor does he provide arguments for his claims, but this is to be forgiven due to the nature of the first section as a statement of principles rather than an exposition of them. it is somewhat annoying, though, that, even while arguing against authority, he asserts his arguments in the form of sometimes inane assertions. it may indeed be obvious that pure democracy becomes less and less reasonable as population size increases, but it in no way follows that "a free government may be established in the largest state" by setting up a decentralized representative democracy. while price correctly points out that money is a possible corrupting influence in representative democracies, centralized or not, he does not present any kind of argument as to why his proposals will not lead to that kind of corruption or why "in these circumstances," of decentralized representative democracy, "each separate state would be secure against the interference of sovereign power in its private concerns, and, therefore, would possess liberty". could the corrupting forces not merely simultaneously co-opt several states? i'm not saying they must or can't, i'm just pointing out that there's no argument at all and that reduces price to some kind of cheap mystical guru, pumping out oracular nonsense that seems almost precious in hindsight.
he closes the first section by arguing (i use that word lightly) that empires are impossible to maintain and always eventually result in dissolution. the empire must demand certain things of it's client states, which it's client states will see as rightfully theirs, leading to a conflict developing between positions of imperial authority (which are illegitimate) and expressions of popular rule. the imperial state will need to assert itself by force, which will produce a violent reaction. this is a much easier set of statements to take at face value, although it's perhaps no longer reasonable in our world to think a popular movement can offer any kind of violent resistance to a centralized state. of course, he's setting himself up for a discussion of the situation in america, which he turns to in his second section.
while price provides moral and constitutional arguments, and these form an important part of his perspective, what he's really suggesting is that it is not in britain's self-interest to try and suppress the colonies by force. price is by no means a revolutionary himself. rather, his main concern is the strength of the empire and how to maintain america within it in a way that both grants the colonists a higher level of autonomy and maintains the cohesion of a greater, trans-oceanic british civilization. the real core of his opposition to military action consequently reduces to his perception that such a conflict is unwinnable, from the british perspective; that is to say that the crux of his essay is to suggest that the crown ought to have been using more enlightened tactics than they were using in order to maintain the empire.
was the probability of success really so remote? well, it depended entirely on how many people could be convinced to fight, and price realized that. his calculation assumed that the british empire could not gather any recruits from russia, india or canada (a clear underestimation) and also assumed that every single colonist would fight against the empire (a clear exaggeration that, as a canadian, is especially absurd to me). he consequently derives a force of 40,000 imperial british soldiers vs. 500,000 american colonists. in reality, the loyalists in america actually outnumbered the revolutionaries; the empire had a large numerical advantage in the war. price continues by suggesting that blockading the colonies could not truly harm them because they were entirely self-sufficient. he once again becomes incoherent here, in suggesting that the blockade he opposes would be an act of providence to deliver the colonists from the temptation of foreign luxuries.
throughout his arguments, price persistently returns to this romanticized conception of the american colonists as a pious, pure entity that understands and practices an undiluted, true kind of liberty and continually contrasts them against his perception of the british as corrupted by earthly desires. it's maybe easy to forget at this point that the puritan founding myth was as much of a british invention as an american one and that the historical roots of it carried on in britain for at least as long as it did in america. that is to say that price was producing british stereotypes of america while speaking to a british audience. ulterior motives that price may have had aside, one gets the impression that the british would have generally taken this entirely outlandish, romanticized idealization at face value. the following passage illustrates this:
In this hour of tremendous danger it would become us to turn our thoughts to Heaven. This is what our brethren in the Colonies are doing. From one end of North-America to the other they are fasting and praying. But what are we doing? We are ridiculing them as fanatics, and scoffing at religion, We are running wild after pleasure and forgetting every thing serious and decent at masquerades. We are trafficking for boroughs, perjuring ourselves at elections, and selling ourselves for places. Which side then is Providence likely to favour?
price even ends the text (somewhat hilariously) by comparing america to jesus: he asks the colonists to forgive the empire for it's oppression, as it knows not what it is doing.
on the brighter side of things, it should be noted that price had a fairly refreshing view of indigenous concerns, relative to the period. while he ultimately puts the question aside, seemingly due to the perception that it is an argument he can't win, his articulation both of british massacres in india and of native american sovereignty demonstrate that these were not unknown moral concerns at the time:
If sailing along a coast can give a right to a country, then might the people of Japan become, as soon as they please, the proprietors of Britain. Nothing can be more chimerical than property founded on such a reason. If the land on which the colonies first settled had any proprietors, they were the natives.
indeed, they were.
another thing that price seems abstractly (if not explicitly) aware of is the revolution as a process of recentering the empire in washington, rather than one of an independent entity breaking off and starting a new nation. while he upholds the constitutional principle of "no taxation without representation", he also makes it clear that he doesn't really see the colonists as representing a new national identity that in any way transcends their inherent britishness. he demonstrates this by projecting a possible future where the hanoverian kings (or some other aristocratic family of continental despots) have reduced britain to an authoritarian monarchy, consequently creating a situation where the colonists are the remaining descendants of traditional concepts of british liberty. such a future is one where the colonies would be drastically more populous, have a much larger economy, be more intellectually advanced and command a much stronger military. out of this, price is able to project a fantasy where america is both morally and realistically superior to britain. he dares not suggest that britain would be forced into submission, but the implication is between the lines. he then uses this projection to argue for reconciliation with the colonists out of british self-interest.
overall? this is a short text, but it took me a long time to get through it because i found it very difficult to put it into context. i suspect that that difficulty placing it into context may be why it's not often cited today. whatever it's value as a liberalizing document in it's own time, it reads off today as a manifesto of the type of social conservatism that is often found on the religious right. yet, price was a major opponent of no less a conservative icon than edmund burke himself. when the lines are this blurry, it's no wonder that he's been left unclaimed in the second half of the twentieth century. however, that doesn't negate the text's historical value. it may not have a direct successor today, but it may perhaps be traced forwards in time as an influential text on the socially conservative aspect of the progressive movement of the late nineteenth century.
full text:
http://www.constitution.org/price/price_3.htm
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/books/congress/E/211.P930.1776b/index.html
immediate reaction to the new st vincent record
deathtokoalas
i'm not really willing to point any fingers at david byrne. my perception of what was going on there was that byrne essentially hired her to write songs for him. she seemed to be the dominant artist in the arrangement. by far. it's sort of annoying that byrne's inflated sense of importance got a refill from this.
rather, it seems like she's been listening to a lot of tuneyards and is trying to integrate more of an idm/electronic sound into her style. it's a good idea on paper. certainly, radiohead could have delved a lot deeper into the warp records catalog than they actually did. but what i'm getting on the first few listens is that it's come with a trade-off in a lesser amount of attention paid to the arrangements. well, sometimes we just want to clear our heads.
there's some goodness, no doubt. but it sounds like a transition album to me.
Anon Woll
Except she has said before it was a 50/50 process when it came to the songwriting. He came up with the big band idea and they went from there.
deathtokoalas
well, conceptually, maybe, but i think that's being extremely generous insofar as the idea of songwriting is concerned. i really don't think that david byrne has the slightest idea how to write those kinds of horn parts. insofar as what she's saying is true, that sounds like byrne vaguely describing an idea and annie actually writing it out - which is a process that used to be called "commissioning a composer".
something else that crossed my mind repeatedly was "wow. annie clark is really a big upgrade over adrian belew.". and i'm actually a substantial belew fan.
the point is simply that this "hanging around with david byrne too much" stuff is really backwards. and maybe even a little sexist.
Anon Woll
I think that you got my words twisted. He proposed the idea of making the record with a horn section and touring with it and she went "that sounds fun, let's do it", then they both composed and wrote lyrics on the album, like a near 50/50 split.
I am not totally defending David Byrne or anything or gonna be part of the "WOW pffft look what she picked up from him" crowd because this actually reminded me a bit of "Marrow" more than a "Love This Giant" song, with that kind of constant staccato and almost march-y kind of feel in all of the non-chorus parts. I just am saying he deserves slightly more credit than "dude who hired St. Vincent to write songs for him". She is her own artist and has been developing her stage and studio craft for years and years now. And yeah, it is backwards and most likely sexist. Sucks but whatever. Looks like she may be the most successful with this record so haters can eat it.
BubbaZen10
I think David could handle those horn parts. And while i'm actually impressed with her playing, putting her on a par with Adrian Belew? REALLY? Maybe i haven't seen enough of her playing, but that sure seems like a stretch. I really am liking it a lot though. Been a while since some new(er) music grabbed my attention like this.
And btw, wtf did koalas ever do to you??!! ;)
William Sanders
I'm mostly sure that talk of a Byrne influence stems from her change in appearance, an added vibe of eccentricity that includes her use of choreographed dancing/movements during her live show. Byrne implemented the dancing on the Love This Giant tour and she liked the added dynamic, so she's doing it on her own now. That seems like influence to me.
As for the notion of sexism, you're forgetting the stark contrast in legendary status between the two songwriter/performers. Byrne has been a legend longer than Annie has been playing guitar. You can "think" whatever you'd like about who came up with what arrangements, or you can "think" Byrne's not capable of creating those kinds of horn parts, but since you don't actually know any of this, you come off as less than intelligent.
deathtokoalas
her appearance hasn't changed at all, and you're not doing a very good job at comprehending what i wrote. the obvious truth is that david byrne is not a musician in any sense, let alone the kind of trained musician that clearly wrote those parts. he blatantly has absolutely no idea whatsoever how to sing in key, let alone how to write those kinds of horn parts. in a situation where you have a very capable and educated person on one side and what is basically a lucky opportunistic hack on the other it's not difficult to figure who is doing all of the actual labour.
again, if you'd try a little harder to understand the dynamics involved, you'd realize that byrne has no claim to "legendary status" at all. what he's done throughout his career is piggy back on other people's ideas. the idea that there's some kind of hierarchical difference is precisely the sexist bullshit that i'm calling out: she's a musician and he isn't. you're only claiming otherwise due to a perceived gender misbalance. so, it would do you some good to try and understand the situation properly in terms of balances of power and media interpretation before you start accusing other people of deficits of intelligence.
the foolish thing to think in this situation is that byrne was anything other than the lucky recipient of an eccentric woman fawning over somebody she had a crush on in her teenage years. so, i'll state it in easier to understand terms for you: the idea that byrne is a legend and st. vincent is not is precisely the sexist bullshit that needs to be called out. rather, annie clark is one of the most talented and interesting musicians of our era, and david byrne is a has been that was never more than an overrated hack that took credit for other people's ideas when he was something to begin with.
is that easier for you to understand?
BubbaZen10
Longer than she's been playing guitar?? Hell man, how old is that gal? Try longer than she's been alive! ;)
The "people turn your tv on and throw it out the window" part definitely reminds me a bit of "Burnin' Down the House." (that descending part is similar) She's working with the guy, and is probably a fan of his music, so i'm sure there's an influence there, but i definitely hear a lot of other influences coming from her that maybe people don't pick up on. I really see and hear some Cabaret Voltaire in both the video and some of the sounds.
deathtokoalas
yeah.
i think annie's a huge nin fan, personally.
to put it another way, if we were talking about an eno/byrne collaboration, or a byrne/belew collaboration, it would be all about how byrne was hanging out while they did all the work. but when it's a young, attractive woman? it's his superior legendary essence that's managed to rub off a little on the lucky gal.
and that's bullshit.
William Sanders
I stopped reading after "her appearance hasn't changed at all".
I did catch a little of your ramble not far from where I type. Annie Clark will be a legend, she's as talented or more so than Byrne, but she's still young and working towards it. There's a difference, unlike yourself I'm not hellbent on making this an issue of sexism. I won't be supplying the false sense of vindication for you today. Take care.
deathtokoalas
too many words for you, william? not used to reading that much at the same time?
there's no need to get your boxers all unironed about it, either. it's just the way the world works.
BubbaZen10
Man, let me make this clear; i can see a few influences from Byrne's old days, but since i just recently got into this gal and this band, i have looked at other videos on here, and i personally think that, musically, Annie wipes the floor with David Byrne. This is one talented person. (but David IS a better musician than you are giving him credit for here, most certainly)
For real man, NIN definitely in there! I hear a lot of different things coming from her. She's sharp, and has obviously absorbed a lot, like a good musician would. I get how some fans on here are baggin' on this song, and i get why. It's never fun when a band you love goes a little pop or mainsteam to attract new people (like me) but this is just a good damn song, period.
Now, about her being better than Adrian Belew? BULLSHIT!! I saw him with King Crimson in the 80's. She's good. VERY good. She is not at that level yet! ;)
Btw, The Cabs are who Trent ripped off!!!!!! ;)
I think you'll appreciate this song. Look up Sensoria by Cabaret Voltaire. You'll hear it a little i think. She does a backing vocal line that reminds me of that song.
That is the REAL shit man. Where a lot that you probably like came from. Music-wise, and video-wise. That video was in the MomA. Groundbreaking stuff.
deathtokoalas
trent took a bit from cabaret voltaire in his earliest incarnation, as well as a lot from ministry, bits from coil and foetus and neubauten and a substantial amount from bowie - and he's trying to look like ogre from skinny puppy. i had my industrial phase in the mid to late 90s. and you can hear a bit of that in her sequencing.
but the bit that reznor added himself was this sort of quirkiness. well, it was expanded on in some of the remixes as well. i can really hear that in her writing at points, especially her guitar playing, and it's very much his idiosyncrasy. i guess there's a continuity there in belew.
i mean, we all have influences. i don't deny that byrne probably was one on annie. she's definitely electro-pop in the broad sense that runs from lundgren through to bowie, byrne, anderson, reznor and beyond. it's just the way the argument is being thrown out that is difficult to stomach.
rather, i hope byrne is able to take something away from his time working with annie.
BubbaZen10
Oh, i have no doubt she has reinvigorated him!
The fact you knew who the Cabs were gets you many internet points!
William Sanders
You're too emotionally biased in your assessments, that's why you say so many absurd things. I have no time for that.
BubbaZen10
Absurd things said are like, MY FAVORITE THINGS!!
I have no time for the too serious shit myself.
I have time koala killer, or whatever the fuck your name is, but make it quick, i have an appointment at 3. TICK TOCK!
deathtokoalas
that was the perfectly sexist remark, william. i'm sort of proud of you, actually.
William Sanders
Of course it was, everything is to you.
BubbaZen10
Ok, how much more will you put into this? How far will you push a feminist?
She's made valid points. Anyone who says this chick is riding on Byrne's coattails needs to look into her more. This is one very talented person, and Koalahater might be right that it's actually HIM riding HER coattails at this point.
deathtokoalas
i missed a couple of posts.
i actually think her playing is really underrated. i don't want to do this "on par with" thing. i'm going to state though that i'm an abstract guitarist myself (i have some stuff up on my page if you'd like to click through), and it's a big part of my interest in st. vincent's work. she has progressive streaks, but she's more in a post-punk tradition, and that generally means toning done the excesses. but she did go to berkeley, and her instrument was guitar, and it does come out fairly clearly. she runs off her riffs in a kind of effortless, not flashy way, though - which is definitely not "belewish". she's kind of more of a blues/metal guitarist by instinct. i know that sounds bizarre initially, but if you deconstruct it carefully it comes out pretty clearly. that's more in the sabbath or maiden side of things.
in a broad sense, though, her effects heavy approach has it's origins in the belew and fripp school of guitar. it sounds to me like it's been through a few steps on the way there. there's one specific thing she does often that is very belew and it's this kind of glissando trick through heavy distortion. it's leaning towards the kind of effects belew is known for. and, it comes out in a stylistic sense as well: belew was the guitarist on a lot of the music that preceded this and sounds similar to it: bowie, talking heads, laurie anderson, nine inch nails. and, yeah, a bit of crimson, too. when we're talking about byrne specifically? it's a comparison that's hard to ignore, given how much belew added to byrne's work.
it does sort of intersect with the sexism, though. it's still a little unsettling to see an attractive woman play like annie does. as much as i might like carrie brownstein, and as many heads as pj harvey may have turned, that level of playing wasn't really there. in the end, i think normalizing female shredding is something that's going to be a part of her legacy. there's a clip from a few years ago where she runs off the riffs to surgeon that's worth watching and demonstrates what i'm getting at. as much as it's distracting from the music, and as much as she's clearly trying to avoid that, i'm not aware of any kind of precedent.
i lost my own train of thought, though. by "upgrade", i meant in terms of general musicality and depth of musical knowledge. there's no use in comparing them directly and ranking one higher than the other. there's a similarity in the way they approach the instrument, but they're pretty different in terms of writing.
part of me does kind of want to hear her do a really flashy guitar record, though.
William Sanders
I thought I was done, people keep bringing me back in. Saying Clark is riding Byrne's coattails is absurd, just as saying Byrne basically hired Clark as the songwriter for their collaboration is absurd, or insinuating that Byrne can't create melodies with horns based on nothing more than a gut-induced hunch is absurd. We can celebrate both artists without shitting on one of them, koalas should give it a try.
deathtokoalas
byrne was involved with some interesting records in the 80s, but he doesn't deserve a lot of credit for them - as bowie doesn't deserve much credit for the second half of low (he wasn't even in the recording studio when it was created) and neither mccartney nor lennon can really honestly take credit for george martin's work. it would be time consuming to develop this argument here, but people that are familiar with the other works of eno, belew, harrison and weymouth can hear where the genius really originated
augusts1
You should brush up on Byrne's discography. He composed the score for Twyla Tharp's ballet 'The Catherine Wheel' in '81 & a classical instrumental album called 'The Forest' in '91(both of which I own). He also collaborated w/Ryuichi Sakamoto for the amazing soundtrack to Bertolucci's The Last Emperor in '87. And those 3 are just the tip of the iceberg for his creations apart from his regular albums. He's done plenty of other film work too.
So your assertion that Byrne is a hack & using Clark for his own sexist gain since he has no talent of his own holds no water. at. all. Btw, check his Wiki page to find more of his work referenced there. And I'm a recent convert to Clark mainly because of her involvement w/Byrne.
deathtokoalas
again, if you look at the credits on those records, and you listen to the other work by the artists that did most of the work, it's easy to hear that byrne was not responsible for very much of the interesting components. guitar, vocals & the odd simplistic fill on another instrument. the rest of it is handled by the production teams, which (like bowie) he had a bit of an ear for.
well, and the gigolo dancing. byrne is EXCELLENT at gigolo dancing...
LicoriceLain
Or maybe they simply have very similar musical sensibilities...
grubbymanz
idk i think she is really influenced by byrne and could not say who really arranged what. if you listen to an album like feelings like maybe wicked little doll, and some of the other more synth funky things there is nothing on their collab album that couldn't have been on that album, before she was even putting out music. Also her neurotic pop thing, i bet she was really influenced by byrne and t heads and would not be so quick to consider arrangements on their joint album to be hers based on her recent output,when her style is informed so much by the person she was collaborating with.
i'm not really willing to point any fingers at david byrne. my perception of what was going on there was that byrne essentially hired her to write songs for him. she seemed to be the dominant artist in the arrangement. by far. it's sort of annoying that byrne's inflated sense of importance got a refill from this.
rather, it seems like she's been listening to a lot of tuneyards and is trying to integrate more of an idm/electronic sound into her style. it's a good idea on paper. certainly, radiohead could have delved a lot deeper into the warp records catalog than they actually did. but what i'm getting on the first few listens is that it's come with a trade-off in a lesser amount of attention paid to the arrangements. well, sometimes we just want to clear our heads.
there's some goodness, no doubt. but it sounds like a transition album to me.
Anon Woll
Except she has said before it was a 50/50 process when it came to the songwriting. He came up with the big band idea and they went from there.
deathtokoalas
well, conceptually, maybe, but i think that's being extremely generous insofar as the idea of songwriting is concerned. i really don't think that david byrne has the slightest idea how to write those kinds of horn parts. insofar as what she's saying is true, that sounds like byrne vaguely describing an idea and annie actually writing it out - which is a process that used to be called "commissioning a composer".
something else that crossed my mind repeatedly was "wow. annie clark is really a big upgrade over adrian belew.". and i'm actually a substantial belew fan.
the point is simply that this "hanging around with david byrne too much" stuff is really backwards. and maybe even a little sexist.
Anon Woll
I think that you got my words twisted. He proposed the idea of making the record with a horn section and touring with it and she went "that sounds fun, let's do it", then they both composed and wrote lyrics on the album, like a near 50/50 split.
I am not totally defending David Byrne or anything or gonna be part of the "WOW pffft look what she picked up from him" crowd because this actually reminded me a bit of "Marrow" more than a "Love This Giant" song, with that kind of constant staccato and almost march-y kind of feel in all of the non-chorus parts. I just am saying he deserves slightly more credit than "dude who hired St. Vincent to write songs for him". She is her own artist and has been developing her stage and studio craft for years and years now. And yeah, it is backwards and most likely sexist. Sucks but whatever. Looks like she may be the most successful with this record so haters can eat it.
BubbaZen10
I think David could handle those horn parts. And while i'm actually impressed with her playing, putting her on a par with Adrian Belew? REALLY? Maybe i haven't seen enough of her playing, but that sure seems like a stretch. I really am liking it a lot though. Been a while since some new(er) music grabbed my attention like this.
And btw, wtf did koalas ever do to you??!! ;)
William Sanders
I'm mostly sure that talk of a Byrne influence stems from her change in appearance, an added vibe of eccentricity that includes her use of choreographed dancing/movements during her live show. Byrne implemented the dancing on the Love This Giant tour and she liked the added dynamic, so she's doing it on her own now. That seems like influence to me.
As for the notion of sexism, you're forgetting the stark contrast in legendary status between the two songwriter/performers. Byrne has been a legend longer than Annie has been playing guitar. You can "think" whatever you'd like about who came up with what arrangements, or you can "think" Byrne's not capable of creating those kinds of horn parts, but since you don't actually know any of this, you come off as less than intelligent.
deathtokoalas
her appearance hasn't changed at all, and you're not doing a very good job at comprehending what i wrote. the obvious truth is that david byrne is not a musician in any sense, let alone the kind of trained musician that clearly wrote those parts. he blatantly has absolutely no idea whatsoever how to sing in key, let alone how to write those kinds of horn parts. in a situation where you have a very capable and educated person on one side and what is basically a lucky opportunistic hack on the other it's not difficult to figure who is doing all of the actual labour.
again, if you'd try a little harder to understand the dynamics involved, you'd realize that byrne has no claim to "legendary status" at all. what he's done throughout his career is piggy back on other people's ideas. the idea that there's some kind of hierarchical difference is precisely the sexist bullshit that i'm calling out: she's a musician and he isn't. you're only claiming otherwise due to a perceived gender misbalance. so, it would do you some good to try and understand the situation properly in terms of balances of power and media interpretation before you start accusing other people of deficits of intelligence.
the foolish thing to think in this situation is that byrne was anything other than the lucky recipient of an eccentric woman fawning over somebody she had a crush on in her teenage years. so, i'll state it in easier to understand terms for you: the idea that byrne is a legend and st. vincent is not is precisely the sexist bullshit that needs to be called out. rather, annie clark is one of the most talented and interesting musicians of our era, and david byrne is a has been that was never more than an overrated hack that took credit for other people's ideas when he was something to begin with.
is that easier for you to understand?
BubbaZen10
Longer than she's been playing guitar?? Hell man, how old is that gal? Try longer than she's been alive! ;)
The "people turn your tv on and throw it out the window" part definitely reminds me a bit of "Burnin' Down the House." (that descending part is similar) She's working with the guy, and is probably a fan of his music, so i'm sure there's an influence there, but i definitely hear a lot of other influences coming from her that maybe people don't pick up on. I really see and hear some Cabaret Voltaire in both the video and some of the sounds.
yeah.
i think annie's a huge nin fan, personally.
to put it another way, if we were talking about an eno/byrne collaboration, or a byrne/belew collaboration, it would be all about how byrne was hanging out while they did all the work. but when it's a young, attractive woman? it's his superior legendary essence that's managed to rub off a little on the lucky gal.
and that's bullshit.
William Sanders
I stopped reading after "her appearance hasn't changed at all".
I did catch a little of your ramble not far from where I type. Annie Clark will be a legend, she's as talented or more so than Byrne, but she's still young and working towards it. There's a difference, unlike yourself I'm not hellbent on making this an issue of sexism. I won't be supplying the false sense of vindication for you today. Take care.
deathtokoalas
too many words for you, william? not used to reading that much at the same time?
there's no need to get your boxers all unironed about it, either. it's just the way the world works.
BubbaZen10
Man, let me make this clear; i can see a few influences from Byrne's old days, but since i just recently got into this gal and this band, i have looked at other videos on here, and i personally think that, musically, Annie wipes the floor with David Byrne. This is one talented person. (but David IS a better musician than you are giving him credit for here, most certainly)
For real man, NIN definitely in there! I hear a lot of different things coming from her. She's sharp, and has obviously absorbed a lot, like a good musician would. I get how some fans on here are baggin' on this song, and i get why. It's never fun when a band you love goes a little pop or mainsteam to attract new people (like me) but this is just a good damn song, period.
Now, about her being better than Adrian Belew? BULLSHIT!! I saw him with King Crimson in the 80's. She's good. VERY good. She is not at that level yet! ;)
Btw, The Cabs are who Trent ripped off!!!!!! ;)
I think you'll appreciate this song. Look up Sensoria by Cabaret Voltaire. You'll hear it a little i think. She does a backing vocal line that reminds me of that song.
That is the REAL shit man. Where a lot that you probably like came from. Music-wise, and video-wise. That video was in the MomA. Groundbreaking stuff.
deathtokoalas
trent took a bit from cabaret voltaire in his earliest incarnation, as well as a lot from ministry, bits from coil and foetus and neubauten and a substantial amount from bowie - and he's trying to look like ogre from skinny puppy. i had my industrial phase in the mid to late 90s. and you can hear a bit of that in her sequencing.
but the bit that reznor added himself was this sort of quirkiness. well, it was expanded on in some of the remixes as well. i can really hear that in her writing at points, especially her guitar playing, and it's very much his idiosyncrasy. i guess there's a continuity there in belew.
i mean, we all have influences. i don't deny that byrne probably was one on annie. she's definitely electro-pop in the broad sense that runs from lundgren through to bowie, byrne, anderson, reznor and beyond. it's just the way the argument is being thrown out that is difficult to stomach.
rather, i hope byrne is able to take something away from his time working with annie.
BubbaZen10
Oh, i have no doubt she has reinvigorated him!
The fact you knew who the Cabs were gets you many internet points!
William Sanders
You're too emotionally biased in your assessments, that's why you say so many absurd things. I have no time for that.
BubbaZen10
Absurd things said are like, MY FAVORITE THINGS!!
I have no time for the too serious shit myself.
I have time koala killer, or whatever the fuck your name is, but make it quick, i have an appointment at 3. TICK TOCK!
deathtokoalas
that was the perfectly sexist remark, william. i'm sort of proud of you, actually.
William Sanders
Of course it was, everything is to you.
BubbaZen10
Ok, how much more will you put into this? How far will you push a feminist?
She's made valid points. Anyone who says this chick is riding on Byrne's coattails needs to look into her more. This is one very talented person, and Koalahater might be right that it's actually HIM riding HER coattails at this point.
deathtokoalas
i missed a couple of posts.
i actually think her playing is really underrated. i don't want to do this "on par with" thing. i'm going to state though that i'm an abstract guitarist myself (i have some stuff up on my page if you'd like to click through), and it's a big part of my interest in st. vincent's work. she has progressive streaks, but she's more in a post-punk tradition, and that generally means toning done the excesses. but she did go to berkeley, and her instrument was guitar, and it does come out fairly clearly. she runs off her riffs in a kind of effortless, not flashy way, though - which is definitely not "belewish". she's kind of more of a blues/metal guitarist by instinct. i know that sounds bizarre initially, but if you deconstruct it carefully it comes out pretty clearly. that's more in the sabbath or maiden side of things.
in a broad sense, though, her effects heavy approach has it's origins in the belew and fripp school of guitar. it sounds to me like it's been through a few steps on the way there. there's one specific thing she does often that is very belew and it's this kind of glissando trick through heavy distortion. it's leaning towards the kind of effects belew is known for. and, it comes out in a stylistic sense as well: belew was the guitarist on a lot of the music that preceded this and sounds similar to it: bowie, talking heads, laurie anderson, nine inch nails. and, yeah, a bit of crimson, too. when we're talking about byrne specifically? it's a comparison that's hard to ignore, given how much belew added to byrne's work.
it does sort of intersect with the sexism, though. it's still a little unsettling to see an attractive woman play like annie does. as much as i might like carrie brownstein, and as many heads as pj harvey may have turned, that level of playing wasn't really there. in the end, i think normalizing female shredding is something that's going to be a part of her legacy. there's a clip from a few years ago where she runs off the riffs to surgeon that's worth watching and demonstrates what i'm getting at. as much as it's distracting from the music, and as much as she's clearly trying to avoid that, i'm not aware of any kind of precedent.
i lost my own train of thought, though. by "upgrade", i meant in terms of general musicality and depth of musical knowledge. there's no use in comparing them directly and ranking one higher than the other. there's a similarity in the way they approach the instrument, but they're pretty different in terms of writing.
part of me does kind of want to hear her do a really flashy guitar record, though.
William Sanders
I thought I was done, people keep bringing me back in. Saying Clark is riding Byrne's coattails is absurd, just as saying Byrne basically hired Clark as the songwriter for their collaboration is absurd, or insinuating that Byrne can't create melodies with horns based on nothing more than a gut-induced hunch is absurd. We can celebrate both artists without shitting on one of them, koalas should give it a try.
deathtokoalas
byrne was involved with some interesting records in the 80s, but he doesn't deserve a lot of credit for them - as bowie doesn't deserve much credit for the second half of low (he wasn't even in the recording studio when it was created) and neither mccartney nor lennon can really honestly take credit for george martin's work. it would be time consuming to develop this argument here, but people that are familiar with the other works of eno, belew, harrison and weymouth can hear where the genius really originated
augusts1
You should brush up on Byrne's discography. He composed the score for Twyla Tharp's ballet 'The Catherine Wheel' in '81 & a classical instrumental album called 'The Forest' in '91(both of which I own). He also collaborated w/Ryuichi Sakamoto for the amazing soundtrack to Bertolucci's The Last Emperor in '87. And those 3 are just the tip of the iceberg for his creations apart from his regular albums. He's done plenty of other film work too.
So your assertion that Byrne is a hack & using Clark for his own sexist gain since he has no talent of his own holds no water. at. all. Btw, check his Wiki page to find more of his work referenced there. And I'm a recent convert to Clark mainly because of her involvement w/Byrne.
deathtokoalas
again, if you look at the credits on those records, and you listen to the other work by the artists that did most of the work, it's easy to hear that byrne was not responsible for very much of the interesting components. guitar, vocals & the odd simplistic fill on another instrument. the rest of it is handled by the production teams, which (like bowie) he had a bit of an ear for.
well, and the gigolo dancing. byrne is EXCELLENT at gigolo dancing...
LicoriceLain
Or maybe they simply have very similar musical sensibilities...
grubbymanz
idk i think she is really influenced by byrne and could not say who really arranged what. if you listen to an album like feelings like maybe wicked little doll, and some of the other more synth funky things there is nothing on their collab album that couldn't have been on that album, before she was even putting out music. Also her neurotic pop thing, i bet she was really influenced by byrne and t heads and would not be so quick to consider arrangements on their joint album to be hers based on her recent output,when her style is informed so much by the person she was collaborating with.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
deathtokoalas
kramer = nato.
newman = putin.
ukrainian = protesters.
in the end, kramer and newman will make a deal to trick the big oaf into servitude. but, for right now, this is a perfect analogy to explain what's happening in the region.
Tonite
silly witch... Everyone knows that Russia could walk over Ukraine in 24h. if they really wanted to.
deathtokoalas
ukraine by itself, sure. it's not that easy, though. you'll note that ukraine is really just watching the game, as it's being played by external forces.
Kuripo Hirusama
you = the chick from the Shining.
deathtokoalas
you know, i'm not entirely sure what that means.
Rottooth
I think he's saying you look like Shelley Duvall, who starred in the movie, The Shining.
deathtokoalas
i could see it a tad in the shot (which was picked for obvious effect), but overall, not really. i'm an unusually mixed up mutt, so i look startlingly different depending on things like hair colour. i can look very norse with blond hair, very italian with a tan or very finnish if you get my eyes right. on an average day, it's probably closer to kristen stewart. she's actually sort of androgynous looking...
i'm suspecting it has something to do with the shower scene, though, and still not quite sure i get the crux of it.
Kuripo Hirusama
Was she related to Robert Duvall?
El Perro Loco
Brillant take on this man.
Robert Freid (ComradeDimitri101)
Everyone should read this article then-heh:
http://godfatherpolitics.com/14764/putin-get-idea-invade-ukraine-seinfeld-episode/
kramer = nato.
newman = putin.
ukrainian = protesters.
in the end, kramer and newman will make a deal to trick the big oaf into servitude. but, for right now, this is a perfect analogy to explain what's happening in the region.
Tonite
silly witch... Everyone knows that Russia could walk over Ukraine in 24h. if they really wanted to.
deathtokoalas
ukraine by itself, sure. it's not that easy, though. you'll note that ukraine is really just watching the game, as it's being played by external forces.
Kuripo Hirusama
you = the chick from the Shining.
deathtokoalas
you know, i'm not entirely sure what that means.
Rottooth
I think he's saying you look like Shelley Duvall, who starred in the movie, The Shining.
deathtokoalas
i could see it a tad in the shot (which was picked for obvious effect), but overall, not really. i'm an unusually mixed up mutt, so i look startlingly different depending on things like hair colour. i can look very norse with blond hair, very italian with a tan or very finnish if you get my eyes right. on an average day, it's probably closer to kristen stewart. she's actually sort of androgynous looking...
i'm suspecting it has something to do with the shower scene, though, and still not quite sure i get the crux of it.
Kuripo Hirusama
Was she related to Robert Duvall?
El Perro Loco
Brillant take on this man.
Robert Freid (ComradeDimitri101)
Everyone should read this article then-heh:
http://godfatherpolitics.com/14764/putin-get-idea-invade-ukraine-seinfeld-episode/
continuing the discussion with sennheiser
jessica
hi.
sorry to bring up a ghost thread, but i'm a little concerned about the cord that got here. it arrived when it did back in december, and i've been ecstatic about it since. but i've been noticing for the last several weeks that the left side of the cord again comes in and out.
i've swapped the inputs on the phones a few times and am convinced it's the cord, rather than the phones. the red/right in is flawless regardless of which phone it's plugged into, but the black/left one slowly fades over long periods regardless of which phone it's plugged into. often, merely touching it is enough to reset it.
i ultimately think it's a contact issue. that is to say that i think that the metal on the cord is sort of falling out. maybe it's a hundredth of a mm smaller in diameter. and i'd actually be willing to believe it's a production thing if you told me that. it's very obvious that there's not a short in the cord. but it's also obvious that if i keep messing with it one will develop.
i'm just wondering if you have any information that might be of interest. would you be able to verify that there is a small difference in the size of the metal plug going into the phones, over all these decades? is it possible i got a mild defect that's a tad small?
phones:
sennheiser 440-II (ireland)
cord:
069427
Cable steel 3m jack3.5/jack6.3
sennheiser
Hi Jessica,
No problems, please don't apologise!
I am rather surprised that a cable so new could be defective, but it's not unheard of. That's why you've got a 3 month warranty. Before we get into the whole rigomorol surrounding replacement, I'm bound to ask if the cable polarity has always been respected, you'll notice one pin is fatter than the other. If the cable has been forced in backwards, then the problem may not actually be the cable!
Just asking!
Please let me know about that, and we'll proceed from there!
Cheers,
jessica
i've definitely been careful about polarity - letters always on the outside. i'm certain it's not that. and, as mentioned, it does it with both phones on the black side, and only on the black side.
the entire idea of a warranty completely slipped my mind. it's getting to the end of the three months. so, how does that process work?
(pause)
i'm just a little concerned because you were always previously quick to apply.
i have to say that i don't want to send this cord back. it seems like there's something wrong, but it's a minor adjustment and i know now i can replace the cord when i need to.
but if it is under warranty, i kind of feel entitled to it.
again: if i have to send it back, then forget it. it's not worth the trouble.
also, do you have any information about possible manufacturing mismatches?
sennheiser
Hi Jessica,
My apologies for the delay in response! I was out on holidays.
If you'd be so kind, please provide your address (to save time trying to find it in the computer...) and parts will send you out a new one. No need to return the other, just toss it.
hi.
sorry to bring up a ghost thread, but i'm a little concerned about the cord that got here. it arrived when it did back in december, and i've been ecstatic about it since. but i've been noticing for the last several weeks that the left side of the cord again comes in and out.
i've swapped the inputs on the phones a few times and am convinced it's the cord, rather than the phones. the red/right in is flawless regardless of which phone it's plugged into, but the black/left one slowly fades over long periods regardless of which phone it's plugged into. often, merely touching it is enough to reset it.
i ultimately think it's a contact issue. that is to say that i think that the metal on the cord is sort of falling out. maybe it's a hundredth of a mm smaller in diameter. and i'd actually be willing to believe it's a production thing if you told me that. it's very obvious that there's not a short in the cord. but it's also obvious that if i keep messing with it one will develop.
i'm just wondering if you have any information that might be of interest. would you be able to verify that there is a small difference in the size of the metal plug going into the phones, over all these decades? is it possible i got a mild defect that's a tad small?
phones:
sennheiser 440-II (ireland)
cord:
069427
Cable steel 3m jack3.5/jack6.3
sennheiser
Hi Jessica,
No problems, please don't apologise!
I am rather surprised that a cable so new could be defective, but it's not unheard of. That's why you've got a 3 month warranty. Before we get into the whole rigomorol surrounding replacement, I'm bound to ask if the cable polarity has always been respected, you'll notice one pin is fatter than the other. If the cable has been forced in backwards, then the problem may not actually be the cable!
Just asking!
Please let me know about that, and we'll proceed from there!
Cheers,
jessica
i've definitely been careful about polarity - letters always on the outside. i'm certain it's not that. and, as mentioned, it does it with both phones on the black side, and only on the black side.
the entire idea of a warranty completely slipped my mind. it's getting to the end of the three months. so, how does that process work?
(pause)
i'm just a little concerned because you were always previously quick to apply.
i have to say that i don't want to send this cord back. it seems like there's something wrong, but it's a minor adjustment and i know now i can replace the cord when i need to.
but if it is under warranty, i kind of feel entitled to it.
again: if i have to send it back, then forget it. it's not worth the trouble.
also, do you have any information about possible manufacturing mismatches?
sennheiser
Hi Jessica,
My apologies for the delay in response! I was out on holidays.
If you'd be so kind, please provide your address (to save time trying to find it in the computer...) and parts will send you out a new one. No need to return the other, just toss it.
i am so remarkably bad with my hands. it makes me laugh to think i wanted to be a brain surgeon when i was a kid, although to be fair to myself what i *meant* was a mad scientist that hooks up brains to computers rather than somebody that goes in and physically carves up the mind.
there's currently crazy glue *everywhere*.
and i feel kinda funny. aha. ahahaha. ahahahahahahahahah...\
there's currently crazy glue *everywhere*.
and i feel kinda funny. aha. ahahaha. ahahahahahahahahah...\
i've been suspicious of this for years, ever since i read a report about how the chinese government pays psychological experts to hang out in forums and use jedi mind tricks to brow beat dissenters back into orthodoxy. what i thought was "well, our government is probably doing it, too, then".
they said i was crazy to believe that...we don't live in china. we live in a free country! we have democracy.
*snicker*
they said i was crazy to believe that...we don't live in china. we live in a free country! we have democracy.
*snicker*
the only thing i've ever been involved with is occupy, and it was actually pretty obvious who the cops were. they didn't hang around at the edges. they tried to take active leadership roles, which is a tip-off in a theoretically non-hierarchical group. but what i found was that most of the activists only rejected hierarchy up to a point and allowed for these positions of quasi-authority. that put me in a position where i was arguing with cops.
you don't throw accusations around. you might be wrong, and then that's a problem. rather, you operate with the assumption that your comrades are cops until you can prove otherwise without a doubt. in most cases, that never really happens.
for me, one of the things that meant was ensuring that the right information got into their notes. i've had a file for a long time. it's an expansion of my large high school file. i'm fully cognizant of that. it's purely a question of what i want the file to say, which is "highly eccentric" and "not a violent threat", rather than "thinks she's che guevara".
there were actually times when i spun it around a little: i went out of my way to mine information about people i'm sure were cops. that meant getting a little closer. one on ones.
i'm legitimately not fearful because i know that i'd have to be completely set up and i know i don't necessitate the motive. they tried a few times, though.
here's an example: i pretended to talk an obvious cop out of smashing up a bar by suggesting she smash up the owner's car instead, fully aware that no cop would ever actually do that. she claimed she had an issue with the bar owner. it was heresay; i never looked into it. logically, smashing up the car would be better if the problem is personally with the owner, right? but, the cop couldn't go with that. smashing a window is a minor annoyance. smashing a car is serious property damage. but, more to the point, i was careful to make the precise argument that the cops would go after the business-smashing anarchist for ideological reasons, but wouldn't have time to prosecute the petty crime. so, the smart thing for anarchists to do would be to carry out petty crimes targeted at particular assholes - not political action with a public message. i watched something click in her brain that night: she knew i was right, and she realized the injustice and absurdity of it. no cars were smashed, but the topic did drop, and the focus shifted to trying to alienate me.
at this point, i feel confident that i could peg a cop pretty easily. i think that's a useful skill.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/25/exclusive_inside_the_army_spy_ring
you don't throw accusations around. you might be wrong, and then that's a problem. rather, you operate with the assumption that your comrades are cops until you can prove otherwise without a doubt. in most cases, that never really happens.
for me, one of the things that meant was ensuring that the right information got into their notes. i've had a file for a long time. it's an expansion of my large high school file. i'm fully cognizant of that. it's purely a question of what i want the file to say, which is "highly eccentric" and "not a violent threat", rather than "thinks she's che guevara".
there were actually times when i spun it around a little: i went out of my way to mine information about people i'm sure were cops. that meant getting a little closer. one on ones.
i'm legitimately not fearful because i know that i'd have to be completely set up and i know i don't necessitate the motive. they tried a few times, though.
here's an example: i pretended to talk an obvious cop out of smashing up a bar by suggesting she smash up the owner's car instead, fully aware that no cop would ever actually do that. she claimed she had an issue with the bar owner. it was heresay; i never looked into it. logically, smashing up the car would be better if the problem is personally with the owner, right? but, the cop couldn't go with that. smashing a window is a minor annoyance. smashing a car is serious property damage. but, more to the point, i was careful to make the precise argument that the cops would go after the business-smashing anarchist for ideological reasons, but wouldn't have time to prosecute the petty crime. so, the smart thing for anarchists to do would be to carry out petty crimes targeted at particular assholes - not political action with a public message. i watched something click in her brain that night: she knew i was right, and she realized the injustice and absurdity of it. no cars were smashed, but the topic did drop, and the focus shifted to trying to alienate me.
at this point, i feel confident that i could peg a cop pretty easily. i think that's a useful skill.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/25/exclusive_inside_the_army_spy_ring
adrian belew - twang bar king
should have been an ep
this is the first in a string of pop-oriented belew discs that contain some hidden gems but are largely full of filler and watered down bowie and talking heads tunes. throughout this phase in his career, belew demonstrates that he has something unique to add to the genre but doesn't do so nearly often enough to fill up an entire record.
stringing all the hidden gems together creates something pretty solid, though, so that suggests that a compilation of the best tracks would be worthwhile. when island took his first three records out of print, they actually did create a compilation out of them. the compilation is called desire of the rhino king, which is a combination of titles from those discs. frustratingly, the disc throws away some of the best material and keeps some of the worst. rather than solve the problem, it compounds it. what that means is that there's no way to get the best stuff on this record except to download it.
there's a certain bipolar nature to this that falls flat on it's face. belew seems to want to do raw rock and roll, progressive jazz and dramatic pop all on the same record but never all at the same time. the result is that few of the ideas are fully explored. it comes off sounding overly generic and entirely half-assed.
regarding the raw rock tracks, the introductory beatles cover is as bad as the title track. taking it a step further, fish head sounds like bowie fronting the pixies at their most generic. while that may sound sort of visionary considering the date this was released (1983), the track is actually pretty boring - as one really ought to expect from the description of bowie fronting the pixies at their most generic. the ideal woman features spoken word samples and drum loops in that peculiarly byrne-eno way. this in itself would be much less of an error if the topic wasn't so trivial. paint the road is a simplistic horn jam that shouldn't even have been considered as filler. it sounds like a sound check, really. the rail song is a horrific trivialization of heroes, which was no doubt already approaching the status of a classic at the time. we can ride the trains for just one day? singing f#-a# forever, maybe?
see, it's the unrealized potential that's as annoying as anything else about it. the remaining tracks literally sound like king crimson outtakes, but they comprise the best part of the disc - ironically. the second and third tracks sound like they're good enough to be crimson to me, but i have to suspect that they were pieces that fripp couldn't quite work with. perhaps he didn't like the lyrical subject matter of them. the twelfth is all frippertronics. it's not the most developed example of the technique, but it functions as a realization of it's description. the ninth has more of a george harrison vibe. it really excels in it's layered vocal melodies, which seem to strongly foreshadow bjork.
what the record really needed was just a bit more love. it's easy to speculate that belew had his hands full, but the natural question is "why bother?". why not put it aside and wait until there's enough time to work on it? we think of runaway egos as the scourge of young men, but the truth is that they often follow those young men well into middle age. i can imagine a slightly bruised adrian taking his rejected songs and going home with them. which is fine, a couple of them are actually really good, but he really ought to have polished them up rather than releasing them in a near demo state out of pure spite at his master. that extra care would have probably reintroduced the playful, zappaesque aesthetic that the first disc showcases and this one sorely lacks.
so, the assessment of this is that the completed tracks (2,3,9,12) comprise what could have been a very good ep, or the core of a very strong record. however, it's just hopelessly bogged down with painfully bad, unoriginal and half-assed filler. it's years out of print anyways.
stream:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0D_kZ-o484Pbjt81N5OVRZgPqu0v-kaa
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/artists/AdrianBelew/1983-TwangBarKing/index.html
so, he's suggesting the "liberal success story" - redistributive processes create a middle class, which pushes for further reforms. interesting that the activist sounds like the upper class liberal, and the profs sound like the working class marxists. maybe those class associations are more real than may be immediately obvious.
i'll admit that the narrative works well as a synthesis of the competing media stories, but that doesn't suddenly make hegelianism scientific. and i've never really been one to actually buy that liberal narrative.
it's interesting to hear a different perspective, though. all these perspectives have aspcts of truth. but i'm not quite convinced by this one.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11500
the "liberal success story" is today most often trotted out to provide projections for future chinese revolts.
i'll admit that the narrative works well as a synthesis of the competing media stories, but that doesn't suddenly make hegelianism scientific. and i've never really been one to actually buy that liberal narrative.
it's interesting to hear a different perspective, though. all these perspectives have aspcts of truth. but i'm not quite convinced by this one.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11500
the "liberal success story" is today most often trotted out to provide projections for future chinese revolts.
the chinese government pioneered this. imported tactics.
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipulation/
Monday, February 24, 2014
adrian belew - lone rhino
strong effort
the thing i always notice about adrian belew's first record is that i always walk away from it weirded out if i listen to it once, but if it ends up on rotation then it makes more and more sense on each listen. that makes it not just a grower but a record that you need to let grow on you every time you put it on. i think that's less of a commentary on the record's abstraction and more a reflection of it's stylistic explorations, which have a certain affinity with gen y indie rock but are, overall, going to be largely alien to just about anybody that didn't live through the late 70s. at points, the record sounds very dated; ironically, though, it's the song structures that sound dated, rather than the technology, which has largely aged quite well. so, the record packs this sort of initial "disco cringe" that weakens on successive listens, when the songs become more and more familiar. in the end, the disc flows well as a cohesive whole.
my connection to the progressive rock of the 1970s and 1980s is largely through sorting through my father's cd collection, and it's a happy coincidence that he happened to have an interest in guitar players, but this isn't a record that was ever in his collection. rather, it's something i've only ever interacted with through mp3. this is true of all of the early belew material, up to the guitar as orchestra. i recall some offhand remarks that his solo work was largely forgettable, which acted as a strong disincentive for further exploration until as late a date as the mid 00s and only after connecting fairly strongly with sides one and two. rather, he had a cd called "sleepless: the concise king crimson" that acted as my early teenage introduction to both belew and robert fripp. unfortunately, my father was one of the people that made the error (and the economics of the situation were no doubt relevant) of selling his sizable record collection at the dawn of the cd era. it's something he slowly rebuilt, but he deeply regretted that decision for the rest of his life. it seemed to have large consequences on his general interest in music, as limited funds that would have previously been dedicated to buying new music became dedicated to replacing old music. the result was that he basically skipped the 90s, only catching up by sorting through my cd collection. i have to wonder how widespread this phenomenon was. anyways, that means that the greatest hits disc was related to the slow, expensive and time consuming task of replacing lost vinyl. 70s and 80s crimson discs came in periodically (and i think he prioritized them because he noticed that i was reacting particularly well to them), but there was never a solo belew disc amongst them.
i think my dad's analysis of belew's solo work was generally correct, but this first disc very much stands out relative to the other pop discs. at the time, belew was coming fresh out of working with five of the most important musicians of the twentieth century: frank zappa, david bowie, brian eno, robert fripp and david byrne. they all show their influence on the record in different ways. see, this is the record's tragic flaw, though: it pulls ideas from a lot of different places into a highly competent combination but it doesn't really present any ideas of it's own. belew would continue this general formula for many years, with varying results but generally not with as much of an attempt to form a synthesis and certainly not as much of an influence from zappa. it's that latter aspect that both makes the disc more interesting than his other solo material (which largely exists as an anachronistic bridge between bowie's berlin period and the talking heads) and essential in the context of belew's substantial body of work.
if i'm suggesting a record from 1982 as essential then, surely, it must be a classic? as noted, the record has a really dated sound and is more of an interesting collection of existing ideas than any kind of statement of it's own. beyond that, there is a juvenile sense of humour on display that just comes off today as totally lame. if there's a debate around whether zappa was an asshole or a comedian, there's little debate over whether he was offensive; belew is carrying on similar themes, but seems generally interested in humour rather than offense and consequently waters his misogyny down to a sort of clownishness that couldn't legitimately offend much of anybody. the record also contains lengthy tributes to the cat and the rhinoceros, which is just not the topical content of classic records. sorry.
despite it's substantial flaws, it is a well produced and interestingly written record from start to finish that happens to wear it's influences on it's sleeves but still stands up as better than average and is fully worth exploring - especially if you're a fan of more than one of the five aforementioned artists.
stream:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqotFbF6sEE
http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/categories/music/artists/AdrianBelew/1982-LoneRhino/index.html
independent cd stores. i love what they do for the community, but sometimes i wonder.
i went in to get the new mt. zion disc. i haven't been buying a lot of cds lately, but i try and keep up with those guys. and i've been "saving" a lot of money from not smoking, so i've actually put aside a small amount for a monthly budget. i used to collect those little round discs before real life came around and started demanding i start paying into it. it gave me great enjoyment, so i'd like to get back to doing it. i'm going to be kind of working around my reviews to fill in holes in the collection.
so i thought i'd check to see if there's any belew. they had some of the ones i have and a bunch of the ones i don't really want, as well as one that i have a sort of high-end bootleg of. it was a gift from a friend of my father. my uncle used to do the same thing. so, i have a stack of this stuff - mostly prog-related. i've never really considered them as 'part of the collection'. rather, i've always thought of them more as try-before-you-buy type things, but i'm treating them as though they are for the review site. in actuality, a lot of them are out of print, so those boots are the closest i'm ever going to get. that's the case for this one.
so: $10 for an out of print disc i don't have - collectors jump on that shit. bring it up to the cash...
"geez, this is an old disc."
"yeah."
"i'll mark it down to $6."
"swell."
it's $184, new, on amazon. and i'd be surprised if the disc i got was ever actually played. the insert doesn't look like it's been unraveled before. crisp.
now, that says more about amazon taking advantage of dwindling supply than anything else. it's kind of an asshole price. but, still.
if you collect cds, you have stories like this - and you're glad the indie stores don't do these sorts of rigorous checks. there's not much chance somebody's going to walk into a cd store in windsor and hand over $200 for a decades old out of print adrian belew cd. sure. but, it could conceivably be auctioned for more than $6.
so, i'm happy about this, but i have to wonder....
i went in to get the new mt. zion disc. i haven't been buying a lot of cds lately, but i try and keep up with those guys. and i've been "saving" a lot of money from not smoking, so i've actually put aside a small amount for a monthly budget. i used to collect those little round discs before real life came around and started demanding i start paying into it. it gave me great enjoyment, so i'd like to get back to doing it. i'm going to be kind of working around my reviews to fill in holes in the collection.
so i thought i'd check to see if there's any belew. they had some of the ones i have and a bunch of the ones i don't really want, as well as one that i have a sort of high-end bootleg of. it was a gift from a friend of my father. my uncle used to do the same thing. so, i have a stack of this stuff - mostly prog-related. i've never really considered them as 'part of the collection'. rather, i've always thought of them more as try-before-you-buy type things, but i'm treating them as though they are for the review site. in actuality, a lot of them are out of print, so those boots are the closest i'm ever going to get. that's the case for this one.
so: $10 for an out of print disc i don't have - collectors jump on that shit. bring it up to the cash...
"geez, this is an old disc."
"yeah."
"i'll mark it down to $6."
"swell."
it's $184, new, on amazon. and i'd be surprised if the disc i got was ever actually played. the insert doesn't look like it's been unraveled before. crisp.
now, that says more about amazon taking advantage of dwindling supply than anything else. it's kind of an asshole price. but, still.
if you collect cds, you have stories like this - and you're glad the indie stores don't do these sorts of rigorous checks. there's not much chance somebody's going to walk into a cd store in windsor and hand over $200 for a decades old out of print adrian belew cd. sure. but, it could conceivably be auctioned for more than $6.
so, i'm happy about this, but i have to wonder....
well, it's a silly question.
it's interesting to see them go back to the oil princess, though. that screams american interference looking for a "moderate" figurehead. i wouldn't expect the protestors to buy that. she's as much of a target of corruption as the president. the trial was politically motivated, but she's also notoriously corrupt. don't let them force you to choose either/or. it's all of the above.
so, the fundamental situation has not changed. there's still a corrupt government in power. i wouldn't expect the situation on the ground to change much.
of course, media will initially attempt to suggest otherwise.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/24/a_coup_or_a_revolution_ukraine
the unfortunate truth is that the only way they're going to put this genie back in the bottle, russian pawn or western pawn, is through the use of force. expect that.
see egypt.
it's interesting to see them go back to the oil princess, though. that screams american interference looking for a "moderate" figurehead. i wouldn't expect the protestors to buy that. she's as much of a target of corruption as the president. the trial was politically motivated, but she's also notoriously corrupt. don't let them force you to choose either/or. it's all of the above.
so, the fundamental situation has not changed. there's still a corrupt government in power. i wouldn't expect the situation on the ground to change much.
of course, media will initially attempt to suggest otherwise.
http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/24/a_coup_or_a_revolution_ukraine
the unfortunate truth is that the only way they're going to put this genie back in the bottle, russian pawn or western pawn, is through the use of force. expect that.
see egypt.
i'm pretty much convinced at this point that the reason obama claimed iraq was "stupid" was that he didn't understand the larger strategy. that is to say that he thought it was about "containing terrorism" rather than containing russia. now that he understands the strategy, he seems to actually want to escalate it.
ok, about robots.
sure. two things.
first, this idea that robots should be smart isn't going to get us anywhere. there's no value in building highly intelligent androids. where robots have a function is simply that they are more productive than us. the focus ought to be on building physical ones, not intellectual ones.
second, our understanding of genetics is leaps and bounds ahead of what it was in asimov's time. a lot of the things he was thinking about applying to robots are better applied to genetic engineering, and we may actually see some of these things happen sooner. from a resource perspective, genetic engineering is more sustainable. but genetically engineering superhuman strength is obviously more perilous than hardcoding it into otherwise dumb as shit robotic systems.
i want robots, and i want mutant creatures, but i don't want androids or cyborgs. the former will make our lives easier. the latter will simply give us a set of ethical questions that will no doubt end in emancipation followed by social problems. android welfare. let's just not bother. let's keep robots stupid...
to be entirely clear - let's leave robots for production, and focus on genetic engineering and computer-human brain interfacing to move the species forwards.
sure. two things.
first, this idea that robots should be smart isn't going to get us anywhere. there's no value in building highly intelligent androids. where robots have a function is simply that they are more productive than us. the focus ought to be on building physical ones, not intellectual ones.
second, our understanding of genetics is leaps and bounds ahead of what it was in asimov's time. a lot of the things he was thinking about applying to robots are better applied to genetic engineering, and we may actually see some of these things happen sooner. from a resource perspective, genetic engineering is more sustainable. but genetically engineering superhuman strength is obviously more perilous than hardcoding it into otherwise dumb as shit robotic systems.
i want robots, and i want mutant creatures, but i don't want androids or cyborgs. the former will make our lives easier. the latter will simply give us a set of ethical questions that will no doubt end in emancipation followed by social problems. android welfare. let's just not bother. let's keep robots stupid...
to be entirely clear - let's leave robots for production, and focus on genetic engineering and computer-human brain interfacing to move the species forwards.
so, it seems to be a currency crisis in venezuela that's being spurred on by an undiversified economy. and the protestors in the street seem to not have any particular ideological persuasion.
if there's something to this, it reduces to the idea that venezuela is basically a mercantilist and colonial import/export economy, rather than a socialist state. in other words, what this says is that while the "bolivarian revolution" may have dramatically reduced inequality it has completely failed in producing a self-sustainable socialist economy. they import everything. that's the opposite of socialism...
all the signs are that venezuela is in for a rough ride. this was obvious to me after reading maduro's first public remarks. let's remember that, moving forward.
http://libcom.org/news/express-summary-venezuela%E2%80%99s-situation-curious-people-andor-poorly-informed-22022014
if there's something to this, it reduces to the idea that venezuela is basically a mercantilist and colonial import/export economy, rather than a socialist state. in other words, what this says is that while the "bolivarian revolution" may have dramatically reduced inequality it has completely failed in producing a self-sustainable socialist economy. they import everything. that's the opposite of socialism...
all the signs are that venezuela is in for a rough ride. this was obvious to me after reading maduro's first public remarks. let's remember that, moving forward.
http://libcom.org/news/express-summary-venezuela%E2%80%99s-situation-curious-people-andor-poorly-informed-22022014
it's not really that we've dropped the connection between wages and productivity. it's more as though the new right economic paradigm argues that the market will determine how productivity should be awarded on it's own and that attempts to modify the way the market distributes wealth using government are actually interfering with the way that things "ought" to be awarded "naturally". it's really the second part of the thing that doesn't wash with me, not the first. it's true that if you don't have rules that protect the weak from the strong then the strong will enslave the weak. i'm not sure how "natural" that is (market economies are no less planned, and are no less human constructions, it's just planned by and for an elite rather than the masses), nor am i one to fall into the naturalistic fallacy in the first place.
but it's not a rejection of the connection. it's this idea that markets determine value for work more fairly than government can, and that setting up those laws is giving workers more than they deserve for the contribution they make.
i want everybody to be able to make truly free economic decisions. however, for the exact issue of fast food workers, precisely? regarding the question as to how productive fast food workers actually are in a social sense? well...
....maybe what we need is a new economic paradigm that considers not just the amount of labour performed but also it's worth in a social sense. i know the guy was sort of dancing around that point, but he wasn't as extreme about it as i would be.
i'd actually rather see mcdonalds in bankruptcy and it's workforce on welfare.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11510
but it's not a rejection of the connection. it's this idea that markets determine value for work more fairly than government can, and that setting up those laws is giving workers more than they deserve for the contribution they make.
i want everybody to be able to make truly free economic decisions. however, for the exact issue of fast food workers, precisely? regarding the question as to how productive fast food workers actually are in a social sense? well...
....maybe what we need is a new economic paradigm that considers not just the amount of labour performed but also it's worth in a social sense. i know the guy was sort of dancing around that point, but he wasn't as extreme about it as i would be.
i'd actually rather see mcdonalds in bankruptcy and it's workforce on welfare.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=11510
well, i went to check it out and it hasn't changed yet. i wasn't sure what i'd pick, i just wanted to see the option. i'm not sure if it's a slow roll out or because i live in canada. i can't promise i'll remember to go back and check again later...
i'll be cynical. it's about advertising. i'm not buying tampons any time soon. and i use adblock anyways.
but i do agree that there's a certain normalization attached to this that is overwhelmingly positive. i don't really care about what the gender designation is on facebook, but it would be useful to have more fluid options on a border crossing card or a health card.
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/2/19/cece_mcdonald_laverne_cox_on_facebooks
i'll be cynical. it's about advertising. i'm not buying tampons any time soon. and i use adblock anyways.
but i do agree that there's a certain normalization attached to this that is overwhelmingly positive. i don't really care about what the gender designation is on facebook, but it would be useful to have more fluid options on a border crossing card or a health card.
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2014/2/19/cece_mcdonald_laverne_cox_on_facebooks
well, if you listen to snowden, he doesn't sound like somebody i have a high level of agreement on things with.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/pers-f15.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/pers-f15.html
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/19/you_cant_always_get_what_you_want_iran_nuclear_negotiations
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/19/wiki-f19.html
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/5952/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/18/head_in_the_sand_venezuela_economic_policies
http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/17/in_tunisia_its_shoot_first_ask_questions_later
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/18/a_comprehensive_strategy_against_terrorism
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/bang-f15.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/indi-f15.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/19/wiki-f19.html
http://canadiandimension.com/articles/5952/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/18/head_in_the_sand_venezuela_economic_policies
http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/02/17/in_tunisia_its_shoot_first_ask_questions_later
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/02/18/a_comprehensive_strategy_against_terrorism
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/bang-f15.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/02/15/indi-f15.html
she wants to go after middle class 905 voters. rip ndp. now, it's important that reformists get the memo, disassociate and reconstruct.
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/02/20/ndps_andrea_horwath_on_track_to_derail_transit_cohn.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2014/02/20/ndps_andrea_horwath_on_track_to_derail_transit_cohn.html
remember that this is the big keystone; the little one is already pumping.
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/19/nebraska_judge_strikes_down_law_that_let_keystone_pipeline_through_state.html
https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/19/nebraska_judge_strikes_down_law_that_let_keystone_pipeline_through_state.html
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/21984-william-rivers-pitt-not-the-onion
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/20/obama-pushes-for-regime-change-in-venezuela/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/20/masking-tragedy-in-ukraine/
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-sociable-humanoid-robots-advance-human-robot.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-drugs-may-transform-downs-syndrome/?MT.wc=SA_MindFacebook
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/20/obama-pushes-for-regime-change-in-venezuela/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/20/masking-tragedy-in-ukraine/
http://phys.org/news/2014-02-sociable-humanoid-robots-advance-human-robot.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-drugs-may-transform-downs-syndrome/?MT.wc=SA_MindFacebook
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