Good morning and a very Happy Easter to all of you. I think it's time to take a break, spend some time with family, eat some ham and look for some eggs, and perhaps reflect on our behavior here on the blogs that we might resurrect some long-lost happy feelings.
To illustrate this, complete with a reference to the Easter Bunny, please prepare your ears to be tormented with swear words in this clip from Kevin Smith's 1997 masterpiece Chasing Amy:
So, kiddies, if you'll excuse the language and the revelation that there really is no Easter Bunny, in this week's edition of Soundpolitc Sundays, we'll talk a little about the subliminal lessons we bloggers can take away from this "askew" piece of cinema...
We have learned during the course of the "War on Terror", that uneducated, under-employed, racist, disaffected men are the prime societal demographic who become terrorists.
That is why it was disturbing to read this on CNN.com today:
...a recent post on a blog encouraged people to throw bricks at local Democratic offices nationwide.
The Alabama-based blog, called "Sipsey Street Irregulars" http://sipseystreetirregulars.... a "window war" against Democrats and has kept a tally of the recent incidents of damage...
Blogger Michael B. Vanderboegh of Pinson, Alabama, told CNN Monday that in a Friday blog...he called for people to break windows at Democratic headquarters at the city and county level.
"My answer is violence, by getting their attention...if we can get across to the other side, that they are within inches of provoking a civil war in this country, then that's a good thing."
Now, I don't know the background of these so-called "3 Percenters", but my guess is they are not holding advanced degrees or celebrating America's diversity.
After surfing their Web site, I learned that they hate "Arabs" and "liberals", and blame everything wrong in their lives on everybody but themselves, tus justifying their extreme actions.
What do you get when you substitute in "Americans" and "Christians" in the above sentence? Why you get a terrorist - and that is what these groups are willing to be.
At every accomplishment of the current administration, at every improvement enacted by Congress, I still hold out hope that people will begin to realize the benefits of progressive governance, and the logic of equal social and economic opportunities for all.
The Republican party has to be reminded they share in the responsibility of governing this nation. Unfortunately, they continue, time and again to shirk that responsibility. The rhetoric used by the Republican party and their allied "tea partiers" have energized most, if not all, domestic anti-government groups (ie, domestic terrorists).
I just heard this outrageous and disturbing piece on the morning news. The Buffalo News has the story violence in the lead-up to this weekends Health Care vote:
Brick thrown through window in Slaughter's Falls office
NIAGARA FALLS - The "Slaughter Solution" on health care isn't the only thing that has come under attack in U.S. Rep. Louise M. Slaughter's world this week. Sometime early this morning, someone threw a brick through the front window of her Pine Avenue office.
::
The brick put a hole in the outer-most window at the office at 1910 Pine Ave., but did not damage a second interior window, police reported. A piece of broken brick believed to have caused the damage was found at the scene.
It was right-wing talk radio hosts who distorted her role by framing reconciliation as the "Slaugher Solution" as the vote approached. The same hosts who many Tea Partiers cite as the inspiration for their movement. It was a Tea Party listener, I guarantee who did this.
I fear this is only the beginning. Vandalism is violence...I expect this will get worse.
After blogging for the past two weeks' editions about the Tea Party and the Coffee Party, I decided the other day that I really needed to take a break from politics. It was time to stop talking at the TV, making phone calls, and speaking at political organizations, and use my vocals chords for personal healing.
They say laughter is the best medicine. But I still yearned for some political stimulation. So I popped into the videocassette player my favorite silly film, which also happens to be one of the best political satires that still has relevance today.
An obvious clip:
So in this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays, I'm inspired to examine some less-obvious clips from this masterpiece of cinema as they relate to our current political situation. There's something completely different below the fold...
Blogger Colin Abele, aka Soundpolitic organizer of the Albany County Coffee Party is interviewed on the highest-rated morning radio show in the Capital Region
This morning, I appeared on the Don Weeks Show on News Talk Radio 810 WGY to talk a little bit about the Coffee Party. The movement has grown from a small Facebook comment to nearly 120,000 members as of tonight.
Tomorrow, the movement will have it's National Coffee House Day as the nationwide kick-off to reboot our democracy through citizen initiated civil discourse, with the mission of getting our democracy out of gridlock and back on track to express the collective will of the people.
But enough extra typing. You can listen to the interview right here in streaming MP3. Or, you can click below the fold to read the transcript.
Today, I had a Letter to the Editor appear in my local newspaper, the Altamont Enterprise regarding my organization of the Albany County Coffee Party as part of the National Coffee Party Kickoff to take place this Saturday, March 13.
I feel compelled to re-post the the letter in its entirety here for two reasons. First, because the Enterprise never puts its Letters to the Editor on it's website.
Second, because the final few paragraphs of my 1,776 word letter were cut off, along with any byline to attribute the letter to me. You can discern it was written by me in a small story deeper in the paper. I don't hold it against them; the Enterprise is a top-notch, independently owned local paper that gives a huge forum to letter writers every week, so a mistake here and there is forgivable.
Without further adieu, here's what I wrote, along with the headline:
It seems like everywhere you look these days, someone's trying to spread...The Fear.
All around us...in every town...on every corner...a massive Army Of Fear is standing by, according to the Messengers, ready at a moment's notice to obey the dictates of some unappointed Czar or another.
Just ask Glenn Beck: concentration camps for the white people, jackbooted stormtroopers ready to snatch the guns from your cold dead fingers...Socialist Government-Controlled Healthcare That Threatens Your Not Socialist Medicare...it's all coming, my friends-and unless we organize, as a community, to return to the values of the Founding Fathers, The Government, meaning that awful Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and George Soros and all the other Evil Community Organizers, will win.
There's no government, we're told, like no government.
You know who would find all of this fear of self-government just entirely bizarre?
The Founding Fathers.
In today's conversation we'll consider the fundamentals of American patriotism, we'll ask one of those Founding Fathers how he saw the role of Government-and we'll toss in a few words from Abraham Lincoln, just for good measure.
LANGUAGE WARNING: Today's story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama's White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against "blue dog" Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we're not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we're finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone's mind for the past year or so.
Winter has struck again in Upstate New York. If the roads themselves don't do the trick, then just digging will make you feel like you've just stepped off a rollercoaster. It's dizzying, this much snow! The storm just sat there all week, swirling above Manhattan and spinning the weather around and around. One second the snow was going left, then it was going right...
Wait. This isn't a rollercoaster. It's the Tea Cups! How fitting...since this edition of Soundpolitic Sundays sees the author taking a wild ride at a local Tea Party meeting. I attended the get-together on Saturday of last weekend.
My excuses for not getting this up earlier is twofold. First, there's a lot of back-story to what's going to be said here that I used last week's edition to take care of. Not a very good excuse, but check it out if you missed it.
My second excuse? It's the best and most obvious one: it took a week for my head to stop spinning.
Teabaggers love Glenn Beck in general, because he organized their 9/12 March on Washington that attracted uncounted millions, and because he's willing to diss Obama and the Democrats even more than Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.
But in particular, the locals love Roney, who emceed two of their events last year and took a lot of their calls promoting events and hating on Obama and the Democrats.
There is a word out there that I can use to unequivocally and quite comfortably describe myself. It stems from my longtime hobbies: Ever since I was a little bitty baby boy I always had my nose in a book or my fingers tapping at a typewriter or clutching playing cards.
Well, not since I was a baby boy. I'm no whiz-kid, especially not at age twenty-six. But I'll confess that I have no problem describing myself as completely, utterly, and happily...uncool.
I mean, who does stuff like this? Who at my age - or at any age - wakes up early on Sunday mornings to write politically-charged and Zen-infused rants on something that sounds so dweeby as a "blog?" This is totally uncool.
For that matter, who the hell else my age wakes up early on a Saturday morning as a progressive Democrat to hang onto every word of...the local Tea Party? And then, instead of going home to write about it immediately (and there will be lots to write about in the coming days) decides it's time to fiddle around with some of those nerdy playing cards?
No more games, folks. Soundpolitic Sundays continues below the fold...
And a very Happy Valentine 's Day to all you lovers out there. That's lovers of things like music and politics and words and such. See, I tend to feel like Good Ol' Charlie Brown these past few Valentine's Days. I've been too focused on things like writing and thinking and looking for work to actually work up the courage to ask for a date...not that I could pay the tab, anyway!
Then again, whose fault is it for me not "having" a Valentine? It's all me, of course! I'm the one walking about labeling or not labeling other people with the same title we'd give a piece of mail. So I realized earlier this week that I certainly did have a Valentine and, better yet, I'd been getting ephemera from her every week for the past two years!
This is just a fancy way of saying I have a subscription to Newsweek as gifted to me by my dear old Grandmother.
Pitiful, right? I don't think so. I do love that magazine. Every week, I take a break from the job hunting and freelancing to enjoy that what I might be purchasing for myself: the best political commentary, interviews, and journalism on shiny paper with a dab of humor and art criticism. If I had the time, I'd praise or rebut everything in it.
Which brings me to the current February 15, 2010 issue. Set aside the fact that the issue is dated one whole day in the future (I never quite understood this trick) but within the magazine's pages were a couple of conflicting articles that could really do for a kiss-and-make-up this Valentine's Day. So below the fold, we'll try to get that done for them, considering they have less than 24 hours to come to terms with yourselves.
Welcome to the return of Soundpolitic. I began blogging here nearly two years ago to the day to cover Democratic politics in NY-21 and SD-46. Back then, I would pompously opine most of the time, and other times engage in what I egotistically called "citizen-advocacy journalism."
Nowadays, after a years' worth of depression "due to" unemployment in my chosen field of paralegal studies and growing and frustration for lack of professionalism in indie rock, I've got the writing bug again. Out of respect for all living beings, I refuse to swat it. I've been feeding it like a fiend.
I had big plans for my return. Summarizing the Talking Heads shows, going topical again, ect., ect., ect....but this proved to nothing more than some intangible idea to make a move back to wind-baggery. It wasn't real.
What follows below the fold certainly is: I just starting writing an e-mail to a very dear friend of my father while he generously offered use of his computer to compose a freelance piece on traditional-string-based contemporary rock. The two of us had gone to dinner last night and spoke a bit about the Big Game coming up today. Naturally, we talked more about commercials than about football.
I decided to shoot her a quick e-mail link to the famous Apple 1984 commercial on YouTube. Then I added a couple of blurbs from the web to give more information. Then I kept writing and, voila! I was blogging again, just for the love of putting words together. I blind-copied it to a bunch of friends, but then decided if I left it at that, I'd have left all of you guys out. So no fair...read on for the first installment of Soundpolitic Sundays.
When the teabaggers claimed that there was two million or more at their rally and then told the audience at the event that ABC News was reporting between one and 1.5 million, they were obviously lying. They exaggerated the totals to a major news outlet and that outlet, rightfully so, not only called them out on it, but delivered the correct information to the public.
It was actually "tens of thousands." One number I heard was 75,000. ABC News said between 60,000 and 70,000. So instead of having a "million teabagger march", they had a football stadium full of teabaggers protesting in our nation's capital, labeling anyone who is in disagreement with them a Nazi and passing around signs that read "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy."
There is something about activism, class and decency that should go hand-in-hand.
While listening to the claims of how many people attended the event, Glenn Beck and other right-wing mouthpieces have said there were millions in attendance. Conservative estimate according to Beck? 500,000.
For some comparison, here is what 1.8 million looked like earlier this year at some event involving the same guy that the teabaggers are calling a Nazi.
For an even better shot of the inauguration, check this out.
The 1.8 million figure was an official estimate from D.C. officials. Such an event had D.C. officials preparing. It was a record crowd. Meaning that if any event rivaled it, it would mean a serious strain on D.C.
But that's not what happened.
This gives you some idea of what the tea party protest looked like on Saturday:
I just got back from D.C. a couple of weeks ago. I walked from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. I then continued along the National Mall and ended up at the Capitol. That's a long walk. On Inauguration Day, there were people from the Capitol to the Washington Monument. On Saturday, they had a fraction of the people who were there on Inauguration Day.
I don't know why you would want to exaggerate a figure and say that "millions" were there. A number like 75,000 isn't bad. But when you have a problem with the truth, "millions" sounds better.
This first shot features Congressman Murphy on the far left, with a good chunk of the crowd in the foreground. According to my source, he got a good number of people in the shot, but there were many others who weren't in the picture. That's how well attended this event was.
Health care wasn't just being opposed at this meeting. Supporters from Planned Parenthood and other groups were on hand to show their support for health care reform.
But like the health care meetings we have been hearing about, the opponents of change were in attendance. One photo calls for "NOBama Care" while another makes a reference to Soylent Green, a 1973 science fiction movie "depicting a future in which overpopulation leads to depleted resources, which in turn leads to widespread unemployment and poverty. Real fruit, vegetables and meat are rare, expensive commodities, and much of the population survives on processed food rations, including "soylent green" wafers."
But this picture is really the highlight from the anti-change movement.
If you aren't interested in reading for yourself, here are the sayings on this guy's poster:
- So... Hows That Whole "Hopey-Changey" ThinkG (spelling his, not mine) Working Out For Ya?
- On a bumper sticker with the Obama for America logo crossed out, it reads: No Thanks. I already have a Messiah.
- Somewhere In Kenya A Village Has Lost Its Idiot.
- You Think Health Care is expensive now? Just Wait Til Its Free!
- Socialists: Spreading the Wealth Since 1917
- My AARP Card Stands For: Armed And Really Pissed.
- Fly Navy
- Don't Tread On Me
- There is one more saying on the upper right hand corner that I can't make out, plus another small sticker in the middle that says "Silent No More."
That sign alone sums up this anti-change movement pretty well. The AARP sayings and the anti-Obama sentiment make good talking points, but lack substance. Most of Americans agree that health care reform is needed, but the teabaggers don't want that to happen. Why? Because they are being funded by the same groups who don't want change to come to America. They try to tout themselves as believers in the Constitution, but really have no solutions to present. All they want is attention to promote a hateful and anti-everything agenda. They have no solutions. Just problems.
