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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Planetary_Eulogy
Published Letters: 101 Editor's Choice: 2
It is probably a mistake to use loaded terms from our own political discourse to describe the inner workings of Japanese politics. Words like 'consensus' lose the meanings we attach to them when applied to a Japanese context. When Westerners speak of 'consensus' we're speaking of the outer convergence of inner belief. When the Japanese speak of 'consensus,' they do not mean shared belief, but the OUTER APPEARANCE of shared belief. In the US and other Western nations, our belief in the significance and vitality of the individual human being demands a 'consensus' politics of genuine consensus (see: Immigration, Comprehensive Reform). Japanese culture, which does NOT value the individual to the same degree, favors a 'consensus' politics which puts a premium on the appearance of uniformity. 'Consensus' in this context means simply the lack of public debate, not the presence of broad agreement. The LDP's success has always been built upon this ability to marshal the formal aesthetics of consensus (often, as in this case, through blatantly coercive means), rather than on an ability (meaningless in a Japanese context) to build real agreement.
If you have a job, your desire to take care of your household responsibilities on the clock does not outweigh my right to expect that you will not be wasting MY time and MY money as a business owner on activities that don't relate to the position for which you were hired.
1. A whole lot of musical genres have been moving away from the confines of 'black music' (or, what white liberals like to think of as 'black music' - most of it is, at its root, Anglo-Celtic folk music as interpreted by poor people, black and white, in the American South) since the early 1970s. You can decry it as subtle racism if you want, or you can see it for what it is, an attempt to liberate music from a limited and limiting sonic and conceptual palette (I IV V progressions through the pentatonic scale, verse-chorus structures, syncopation in four, the emphasis on rhythmic impact over melodic expansiveness, and a relentless focus on the pursuits of hedonism). Bands didn't turn away from 'black' musical styles out of racism, they turned away because what could be done in those styles has already been done: hip hop was the last frontier, as 'black' music had nowhere to go but to become pure rhythm music, not very satisfying in the end. Not surprisingly, the visionary musicians saw where all this was going, and instead took a radically different turn.
2. World music is mind-blowingly bland garbage basically dreamed up to sell shitty compilations to the kind of morons who think buying loose tea is sophisticated.
3. As great as Bad Brains were, they were hardly the 'template' for hardcore. Minor Threat, The Exploited, Crass, Discharge, The Misfits, and, yes, Black Flag were all much more important in development of the genre. Bad Brains' biggest impact was moving hardcore toward what it has become today: sawed off metal riffs in punk rock structures.
Absolut Carnage, I think we're operating under very different conceptions of 'world music.' I'm talking about the genre of music that coheres around programming like NPR's World Cafe and all the Putamayo comps, not just any music made outside of England and America. This is what most people are thinking of when they use the term 'world music,' and it is almost uniformly garbage.
It seems to me that there are two possible scenarios at work here, both terrifying, so why are we talking in terms of meaningless crap like which Presidential candidate scored the best soundbites?
This is one of the most worrying moments since the 'War on Terror' begun. The Bhutto assassination, which apparently involved a sniper attack as well as a suicide bombing, is part of a worrying string of increasingly professional 'hits' that have been placed on leading democratic figures in Pakistan. This professionalism is fairly worrying, because it indicates that the Musharraf government is actually behind the attacks on key opposition parties and leaders. Some of the methods used in recent attacks - snipers and multi-prong, coordinated attacks with built-in redundancy - are much more reminiscent of the work of professional special ops or intelligence operatives than the sort of haphazard plans more typical of the al Qaeda types. If this is the work of the government, it would only confirm what many of us already suspect: Pervez Musharraf is a violent, pragmatic autocrat, interested only in maintaining his own position of power (in other words, precisely the sort of man who will sell out his 'allies' in the 'War on Terror' the second it is in his own personal interest to do so).
But there's a second possibility that I find even more frightening. In this scenario, Musharraf is innocent of any complicity in the attacks, and the increasing professionalism of the jihadists' tactics is instead the result of defections to militants by members (or former members) of the Pakistani military or intelligence services. Now that is a real nightmare, because it would indicate that Musharraf is losing control of Pakistan's security apparatus. I can't think of anything more terrifying right now than a rogue military with jihadist ties in a nuclear armed state. Congratulations Dubs, while you were concentrating on Iran's non-existent nuclear program and breaking the US military on the rock of Iraqi resistance (instead of, you know, hunting down and destroying bin Laden and the Taliban holdouts, many of whom are unquestionably providing key leadership support to Pakistani militants), a country that already has nukes is slowly (or is that rapidly?) slipping into the hands of al-Qaeda. Great job, Brownie!
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
