The new video for Miley Cyrus’s “Liberty Walk” single goes out in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement with clips of protests from all over the world. A caption at the beginning reads “This is dedicated to the thousands of people who are standing up for what they believe in…”
Predictably there have been hilarious comments left all over the Internet, both pro and con. Me, I’m all for a pop video that introduces 11-year-old girls to the evils of capitalism and the concept of mass civil disobedience. In fact, I think it’s fucking great!
If Fox News isn’t already feigning outrage about this video, surely they will be soon!
In Growing Up In America, Morley Markson revisits his 1969 documentary on counter culture icons, Breathing Together:Revolution Of The Electric Family, with the original subjects of the film to get the perspective of age and hindsight.
Reflecting the past through the present, forming a kind of Möbius strip of history, we watch as they watch: Jerry Rubin’s transformation from firebrand radical to Capitalist cliche, the evolution and assassination of Fred Hampton (through the eyes of his mother) and the unwavering integrity and self-realization of Abbie Hoffman, William Kunstler, Timothy Leary, former Black Panther Field Marshall/expatriate Don Cox, Allen Ginsberg, and MC5 manager and White Panther founder John Sinclair. This is a fascinating glimpse at lives that mattered and still do.
It’s hard to believe that with the exception of John Sinclair and director Markson all of these men are dead. Are these the last of a dying breed?
While Growing Up In America is a vital and significant document, its failure to include some women in the mix is a glaring oversight. Bernardine Dohrn, Angela Davis, Shulamith Firestone and Diane di Prima are just a few of the women who were actively involved with cultural and political upheaval of the Sixties and any one of them would have provided a much needed woman’s point of view to the film. Once again, we’re confronted with the notion that the Sixties counter-culture was a boy’s club.
This fine documentary is out-of-print on video and has yet to be released on DVD.
Happy Thanksgiving, American readers and, um, happy uh, regular Thursday to the rest of you.
Thanksgiving is, of course, for all of you foreign heathens, the day Americans are supposed to be thankful for being American and for the lucky accident of being born in this great country of ours.
We celebrate this, primarily in three ways: eating gluttonously; falling asleep afterwards watching football; and then engaging in an annoying, soul-crushing, stressful day of “Black Friday” shopping, beginning bright and early the following morning.
I shouldn’t say “we” because some of us (hand raised) avoid this ritual like the plague (Unlike my lovely wife who was obligated to ditch her taxi and walk nearly a mile to LAX because traffic was backed up so badly at 9pm Sunday night, I also don’t travel on holidays).
I don’t mind the eating part. The consumer shit and the travel I can definitely miss, but the main reason I like to avoid the whole Thanksgiving thing is to sidestep having to face some of my reactionary, ignorant, Fox News watching relatives (Should you be one of my reactionary, ignorant, Fox News watching relatives reading this wondering “Hey, is he referring to me?” Yes, I am referring to you.). Having to listen to Tea party stuff last year was the final straw. No way would I venture into another round of that with what’s going on this year.
HOWEVER, if you, dear reader, can’t wriggle out of your obligations as easily as I could, why not have a little fun at the expense of your blowhard uncle who listens to Rush Limbaugh every day, by ditto’ing some sense into his head?
There’s a useful guide to “talking turkey” from the Working America website. I’m reposting it here, nearly in full because a) I agree with what’s written here and b) I don’t think they’ll mind at all…
FACTS ABOUT THE 99 PERCENT AND THEIR HAPPIER COUNTERPARTS, THE 1 PERCENT
The average wealth of the 1% is 225 times bigger (PDF) than the wealth of the typical household - perhaps the highest it’s ever been. In just the last generation, the richest 1% almost quadrupled their incomes.
Three decades ago, CEOs made about 40 times as much as an average worker - now CEOs make almost 200 times as much as regular employees.
(Sources: Wall Street Journal, Media Matters, Economic Policy Institute, National Employment Law Project)
COMMONLY TROTTED OUT FALSEHOODS/MYTHS/SPIN AND YOUR FACT-BASED ANSWERS
“We have serious economic problems, and that means everybody has to tighten their belts.”
Laying off nurses, teachers and firefighters doesn’t make our communities stronger - it just puts more Americans out of work and puts our safety at risk.
It is economic suicide to lay off state workers and undermine the services we rely on just to fund huge tax cuts for the wealthy.
Instead of taking away the rights of hardworking Americans to negotiate their pay and benefits - which does nothing to address deficits or create jobs - let’s start with getting rid of tax breaks to millionaires and corporations that send our jobs overseas.
Corporate profits are at an all-time high, but corporations are paying lower taxes than ever - and some aren’t paying any at all. Politicians who refuse to ask them to pay their fair share just don’t get it.
“The Occupiers are all elite anarchist vegan violent hippie communist jobless tattooed America-hating thugs.”
Um, no.
The Occupiers are part of the 99 percent, and come from all walks of life. They are teachers, nurses, jobless workers, working moms, disenfranchised people, young people, older people, working professionals, activists. They are construction workers, firefighters, artists, business owners.
They have a very clear message and that is that for too long, the 1 percent has had continual, astronomical earnings and benefits while the 99 percent suffer or are turned on one another.
This kind of public protest is part of a proud American tradition, one that is protected by the Constitution.
“Corporations should not be taxed because they create jobs.”
Tax giveaways for the rich don’t get the economy moving or create jobs because millionaires and billionaires don’t need or spend the money - they just hand it over to their hedge fund managers, send jobs overseas and continue to enjoy overseas tax shelters and other corporate loopholes.
Working people like you and me spend that money to pay bills, buy milk and bread, and see The Muppet Movie at the multiplex. Are you saying you oppose the Muppets?
CEOs are currently making an average of more than 200 times as much as the average worker. And yet they do not create jobs here at home because they are consistently rewarded for it with?more tax breaks.
“Too much government is the problem.”
Wall Street control of government is the problem. When there’s a revolving door between lobbyists on K Street and Capitol Hill, and corporate elites determine political and legislative goals, then you have total corporate control of government.
Lack of government regulations has led to unfettered Wall Street greed that continues to this day - look at Enron, the Wall Street Meltdown and the Gulf Oil spill. Nobody can say with a straight face that we need less oversight and less accountability.
Here’s a video of Jack Abramoff, a famous former lobbyist convicted of illegal activity, explaining how the revolving door of lobbyists and Capitol Hill works on 60 Minutes. Watch it with your family! (Before or after The Muppet Movie.)
“We need to balance our budget first. We need to fix the deficit before we can invest in jobs.”
Major economists agree that the WORST way to handle the deficit is to put more Americans OUT of work. We need to stop tax giveaways for millionaires who don’t create jobs and corporations that send our jobs overseas and use the money to put Americans back on the job.
“We need a free market. Government regulations destroy jobs.”
Do you want someone to make sure your food and water are safe to eat and drink? An unregulated free market creates a system that is rigged against the 99 percent. It is what paved the way for predatory, unregulated lenders and bankers to hijack our economy, and its influence is what led to the appalling bank bailouts given to the “too big to fail” 1 percent, leaving the 99 percent out in the cold - literally.
Again: an unregulated free market, crony capitalism and unfettered Wall Street greed is what caused the financial crisis.
“The reason people are struggling is their own fault. I could find a job if I wanted to right now.”
Right now there are five jobless people for every one job opening. Millions have been laid off through no fault of their own. Unable to pay for basic things like groceries, rent and bills, people are now being punished for being jobless by employers who discriminate against them and rhetoric that blames them for an economy wrecked by Wall Street greed.
“Unemployment insurance keeps people unemployed and causes unemployment to increase.”
Unemployment insurance is one of the most effective ways to help get our economy going again - economists estimate that for every dollar spent on unemployment insurance, the economy grows by one and half times as much.
People who are out of work cut back on spending - meaning less money flowing into our economy. Unemployment benefits mean people who are out of work are putting money back into the economy.
“Tax cuts increase revenue.”
That…doesn’t even make sense.
Tax breaks mean less revenue, not more, and they don’t create jobs or grow the economy - the Bush tax cuts led to record budget deficits that we’re still dealing with.
Let’s put money into the hands of the real job creators in this country - working- and middle-class Americans - and stop giving special tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires who don’t need it and don’t spend it.
“The United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world.”
The United States has the second-lowest corporate tax rate in the developed world, and many of America’s largest corporations don’t pay any taxes at all.
The middle class has sacrificed enough. It’s time for big corporations to start paying their fair share.
“This is class warfare.”
I think it is safe to say that it wasn’t our teachers, firefighters and nurses that tanked the economy; it wasn’t the middle class or working class who gambled away people’s life savings.
No middle-class family should have to pay higher taxes than any millionaire.
America was founded as a country where we reward hard work more than how much money anyone’s family has. But right now, a paycheck earned from working in a job is taxed higher than the money that millionaires and billionaires make off money they already have.
As Warren Buffett tells it, the only “class warfare” in America is being waged by his class - and they’re winning.
“We don’t need tax increases to get our fiscal house in order.”
Experts, including conservative economists, agree that spending cuts alone are not enough. We need serious solutions, not irresponsible tax pledges.
They tried tax handouts to the richest few that never trickle down, and they tried giant tax breaks for big corporations that lay off Americans and ship our jobs overseas. We’ve all had enough of their schemes that don’t work.
We can’t afford millionaire tax giveaways when jobs are what we need.
Plus, we’re not talking about raising YOUR taxes. Unless you’re a multimillionaire, in which case, these mashed potatoes should be way better.
When Presidents Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton told millionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share, it was followed by millions of new jobs and strong economic growth.
“Out-of-control entitlement spending is responsible for the deficit.”
You’re going to say that with grandma sitting right there?
They’d rather gut Social Security and Medicare than make millionaires and big corporations pay a few more cents on the dollar in taxes.
Social Security doesn’t add a penny to the deficit, and Medicare is the most cost-effective way for our seniors to get health care. But Republican politicians never liked Social Security or Medicare and still want to take them away.
When Republican politicians take away the benefits our seniors have earned, they take money out of the pockets of middle-class Americans. That takes away customers from our businesses - and that means less hiring and fewer jobs.
If they were serious about deficits, they wouldn’t have fought so hard for the Bush tax cuts and two unfunded wars that led to the record deficits we’re dealing with today.
“Unions are bad for business or only care about their members.”
Today, unions across the country are on the frontlines advocating for basic workplace reforms such as increasing the minimum wage and pushing lawmakers to require paid sick leave. For all workers.
It’s easy to forget that we have unions to thank for a lot of things we take for granted today in today’s workplaces: the minimum wage, the eight-hour work day, child labor laws, health and safety standards, and even the weekend.
Studies show that a large union presence in an industry or a region raises wages even for nonunion workers. That means more consumer spending and a stronger economy for us all.
A recent Harvard University study revealed that the rising income inequality of the last three decades directly correlates to the decline in union membership.
*****
Here are some ‘turkey talk’ bonuses for you:
Fox News successfully creates climate confusion, but only among conservatives (Ars Technica)
We’ve entered the hall of mirrors at the sideshow.
Of the “Hitler reacts” videos, this is particularly stellar in its self-referential brilliance. 300 views on Youtube. Let’s see how fast this goes viral.
“It’s pathetic, being a meme used to mean something.”
Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll found that some news sources actually make us less likely to have a full picture of the world we live in. Did I write some? I meant Fox News. Yep, according to the poll (which was conducted entirely in New Jersey, and so to my mind could skew the IQ results a tad higher than the overall US) Fox News viewers are more ignorant of current and international events than people who pay no attention to the news!
If Fox News was an evil Russian conspiracy to consciously try to dumb down the conservative population of the US, then they’ve done a job that the fictional SMERSH would envy! Facts? Who needs facts when there are smelly Marxists who need to get a job, Ground Zero mosques that need to be protested, whatever word salad Sarah Palin feels like puking up via satellite that day and you know, shit like that?
Intelligence is so overrated! Look at Sean Hannity. Guy’s making millions and he’s only got half a brain! See what hard work aggressively inflicting ignorance on senior citizens and thick people can get you in this country, dirty hippies? Get with the Ronald Reagan free market, Occupy weirdos! And get off my lawn!
Among other topics, New Jerseyans were asked about the outcome of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East this past year. While 53% of New Jerseyans know that Egyptians were successful in overthrowing the government of Hosni Mubarak, 21% say that the uprisings were unsuccessful, and 26% admit they don’t know. Also, 48% know that the Syrian uprising has thus far been unsuccessful, while 36% say they don’t know, and 16% say the Syrians have already toppled their government.
But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.
I’ll repeat that: People who get their news “by osmosis,” walking past a newsstand, or via “the drum” know more about what’s going on in the world around them than people who watch Fox fucking News!
“Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News,” said Dan Cassino, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind Poll. “Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at
all.”
Of course this is one study Fox New viewers will never, ever hear about…
Waddling like a cocksure duck, Lieutenant John Pike pepper-sprays a group of peaceful protesters. Your tax dollars at work.
Earlier tonight approximately 1000 Occupy Davis student protesters gathered outside the office of the school’s Chancellor Linda Katehi in a peaceful demonstration condemning the violent actions taken by police, which included the use of pepper spray, against the students on Friday, November 18. The police were acting under orders from the Chancellor.
Students and faculty members are calling for Katehi’s resignation.
During tonight’s sit-in, the Chancellor remained inside the school seemingly afraid to confront the students though she was in no way imperiled.
Katehi refused to leave the building, attempting to give the media the impression that the students were somehow holding her hostage.
A group of highly organized students formed a large gap for the chancellor to leave. They chanted “we are peaceful” and “just walk home,” but nothing changed for several hours. Eventually student representatives convinced the chancellor to leave after telling their fellow students to sit down and lock arms.
As Katehi left the building, the students, led by one of the victims of Friday’s police violence, sat in silent protest as Katehi took her “walk of shame.”
This video captures a moment that shows to the world how effective and powerful peaceful dissent can be. Right on Occupy Davis! There will be a rally at UC Davis this coming Monday at noon.
Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films was on MSNBC’s The Ed Show last night to discuss the completely idiotic way Fox has bashed Occupy Wall Street. (My former company released several of his documentaries on DVD including OutFoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, a project I was proud to have put some money behind).
Watch the opening montage: How could anyone save for a totally uninformed pisshead take Fox News and what these people have to say seriously? It’s simply dishonest reporting yet the Geritol set and thick people all over the country take this shite as the gospel truth. Who benefits from keeping the common man ignorant and infuriated? (The 1%?)
It’s just bizarre to watch this, having visited Zuccotti Park several times personally. What they describe bears little to no resemblance to what I saw with my own two eyes on several occasions. They are flat out liars and fabricators.
Why NOT occupy Fox News? It would give them something legitimate to complain about and man, would that be a whole lot of fun.
By now you’ve probably heard that the efforts to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker got off to a rousing start with just under 10% of the 540,000 signatures needed to force the recall election collected in the just first two days (no thanks to losers like this).
Walker, who can raise unlimited funds to fight the recall, released his first TV commercial recently touting some rather dubious “successes” of his short time in office. The Democrats and the unions in Wisconsin answered the ad with the punch to the throat you can watch below.
It’s about TIME that progressives realized that they are going to have to play HARD—not “dirty” like the WI GOP and the Koch Bros have, but HARD so their punches land and HURT—and I, for one, loved seeing this commercial. I thought it kicked ass. Scott Walker’s ass.
Read this: Retired Pastor Opens Mind, Front Yard to Walker Recall Movement (Wauwatosa Patch)
Sabotage? Caledonia Man Claims He, and Others, Plan to Shred Signed Walker Recall Petitions (Wauwatosa Patch)
Donate to the efforts to pink-slip Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans at ActBlue.
Jeff Salen of Tuff Darts and Talking Heads’ David Byrne at CBGB, 1976. Photo: Robert Spencer.
It has been said that when a city is in decline the arts flourish. I don’t know who said it or when it was said or if anyone actually said it at all. It’s one of those things that sounds true and feels true and when I say it people tend to agree, whether it’s true or not. It certainly seemed true when I arrived with my band in New York City in 1977 to play a Monday night gig at CBGB.
Crawling out of an Econoline van into the humidly dense New York night and having a fistful of Bowery cesspool stench sucker punch me was like being greeted by a Welcome Wagon full of decaying dog dicks. I liked it. I took in a lungful of the jaundiced air and knew immediately that my Muse was there somewhere…stuck like a moth in the viscous Manhattan murk.
The asshole smell of downtown NYC was exactly the kind of reality check I needed after spending six years languishing at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado. I had arrived in 1970s Manhattan ready to have my world dismembered like a frog in anatomy class. I offered my neck to the city’s rusty scalpel with only a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a bindle of blow to deaden the pain. 25 years later, I came out of surgery a changed man. And I have the scars to prove it. Lovely scars that you can count to determine my age.
In the first few years of living in NYC, I spent most my nights hanging at Max’s, CBGB, Danceteria, The Peppermint Lounge, The Mudd Club, Hurrah’s and countless other clubs soaking in the glorious sounds of local bands like The Patti Smith Group, The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Suicide, Tuff Darts, Mink DeVille, The Contortions, Steel Tips, The Dictators, The Mumps… many of whom were gaining international reputations for rescuing rock and roll from the corporate death grip of a dying music industry and from its own artistic stagnation. This was not a commercial strategy, it was something closer to a collective religious epiphany. Poets, painters and philosophers were adding guitars and amplifiers to their arsenals of typewriters, journals and canvas to further expand their medium of self-expression and resurrect a pop culture that had shot its wad at the tail end of the Sixties.
While my main interest was with what was happening in the punk clubs, there were major musical tremors snaking throughout Manhattan,The Bronx and Spanish Harlem. Jazz, rap, disco and Latin music were all drawing from some deep well of inspiration in a city that, on the surface, seemed to be collapsing in on itself. The economy, infrastructure and racial division were crushing Gotham like Godzilla-sized pigeons with restless leg syndrome.
Darkness breeds light and pockets of artists, of every color and cultural background, were conjuring all kinds of magic. And the magic was converging and intermingling in a melting pot, a Hessian crucible, in which alchemical beats, rhythms and song were being transmuted into healing vibrations balancing Gotham’s gloomy Kali Yuga yang into Shakti-powered yin transforming the tortured cries of the city into ecstatic utterance you could dance to, fuck to and get high to. Music was the wave that kept the city from tanking. As the garbage piled up on the streets and triumphant rats were raising flags on mounds of rotting debris like rodent versions of the Marines ascending Iwo Jima, glittering disco balls gaily revolved like tin foil prayer wheels in Studio 54 and downtown The Ramones were generating more energy on the Bowery than Con Edison and the psychotic barker from the Crazy Eddie commercials combined. Music provided the make-up, the blush and mascara that gave New York City the appearance of still being alive.
Will Hermes’ exhilarating new book Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever captures the energy and excitement of New York’s music scene from 1973 to 1978 in all its multitudinous forms. It is richly detailed, never dull, and exhaustively researched. I came to the book knowing most of what there is to know about Manhattan’s punk scene and as someone who was there at the time was pleased to see that Hermes (who was also there) manages to make it all come alive again. This is not a dull slog through familiar turf. Herme’s prose pulses with a rock and roll heart. He loves what he’s writing about. And he’s writing about much more than just what falls within my frame of reference. He sees and connects dots between various scenes creating a kind of musical mandala. From the lofts of downtown avant-garde jazz composers like Philip Glass to the South Bronx and the roots of rap with Kool Herc to disco’s inception spun off the turntables of Nicky Siano to The Fania All-Stars’ explosive sets at the Cheetah Club, Hermes is like a human Google map, giving us the God’s eye view and zooming in right down to the graffiti in the bathroom.
Today, things seems as bleak as they did in New York City during the 1970s. There’s a sense of hopelessness, a sense that things are getting out of control. But underneath the despair there is a subway-like rumbling, a rhythm, a beat, a sensation that something is moving and about to surface and it could be a train entering the station or it could be something like music, something pulling us all together in a movement that thrusts forward into the future and will not be denied. I’ve seen what the power of music can do. I saw it in the Sixties and I saw it again in the Seventies. And right now my eyes are wide open and ready to see it again.
Love Goes To Buildings On Fire is that fine kind of book that takes you backwards and forward at the same time. Will Hermes reminds us that music matters and every revolution, every movement, every cultural and political upheaval, creates its own soundtrack. What will ours be this time around?
Here’s a video mix inspired by Will’s book which includes some seminal songs that came out of New York City in the 1970s.
1. “Jet Boy” - The New York Dolls 2. “Piss Factory” - Patti Smith 3. “X-Offender” Blondie 4. “Born To Lose” - The Heartbreakers 5. “SuperRappin’” - Grandmaster Flash 6. “Darrio” - Kid Creole 7. “The Mexican” - Babe Ruth 8. “Pop Your Funk” - Arthur Russell
