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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Arvin Hill
Published Letters: 85 Editor's Choice: 2
Rock as a cultural force is dead. There are plenty of bands out there living it and making great music.
Little Steven's point about it being hard to find is dead on. It has to be sought out, which means going to that club near the college or forcing yourself to the loathesome Bohemian Disneyland part of town where trendy restaurants and unaffordable furniture stores rule the day and faux dangerous nightclubs rule the night. It means taking a chance on a band or performer you've never heard of - and may never hear of again. Somemtimes, it's a drag. And sometimes, after getting blown away by a performance, it fills the spirit with joy.
No matter how much it changed over the years (and looking at my old LPs in the closet, I'm glad it did - and does), rock's insignificance as a cultural force mirrors the times. Rock tends to be at its best as a subversive element, whether it's Chuck Berry undermining the sexual strictures of the day, trying to get laid or Suicidal Tendencies pounding out You Can't Bring Me Down. Or Mars Volta on Henry Rollins' IFC show a few weeks ago, which totally blew me away.
Rock & roll is Defiance - and mass culture has no interest in Defiance or anything which challenges the status quo. If it did, you can be sure we would have an anti-war movement instead of a 24/7/365 preoccupation with where a socialite spends the night or what an actress puts up her nose.
Which brings me to the subject header. Van Zandt is the guy who pitched another Sirius channel, Outlaw Country, which is a fine, fine place to get a taste of many excellent singer-songwriters & assorted renegades of today - along with the legendary C&W artists of yesterday that are totally excluded from the monolithic corporate country stations. Taken together, Sirius Outlaw Country stands as a mighty FUCK YOU to everything Nashville represents. No small thing for the leftnecks among us.
... of those who profit the most by it.
And why wouldn't it be? As the Democratic Congress has amply demonstrated, there will be no sanctions against those who propagate lie after lie in the rabid pursuit of war. The war-loving politicians in this country are free to violate any law, any treaty and any moral code because no one - including the American people - will stop them.
But, as any number of the usual circle jerks who habitually use Salon's letters as their own discussion forum can attest - as has Joan Walsh - Bush's war will not wind down while he remains in office. So, the only thing left for Democrats to do is perform the usual moral theatrics to the applause of the Democratic rank & file until one of them "wins" the next presidential race. Brava!
Congress has demonstrated time and time again that its function is to serve as ticket-taker and blustery rubberstamp for every whim and fancy concocted by whoever fills their coffers with the most cash.
America's tolerance of the two-party stranglehold on our national character, identity and collective psyche is the real crime here, and it is exactly why Nancy Pelosi - in spite of the naked criminality of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney on full public display DAILY - can get away announcing "Impeachment is off the table." A bigger greenlight for criminal activity could not exist.
Both houses of Congress, and both sides of the aisle, are nothing more than elaborate stage props used to provide an illusion of democracy. That such open, systematic disregard for The Constitution and the public good is accepted as just politics by a majority of Americans - led by the clubby careerists comprising the Royal Punditry - is all the proof anyone needs to understand what the term "post-Constitutionalism" really means.
Get used to it. Our broken nation's Party Apparatchiks have other things to think about - like, who gets to be the next Unitary Executive.
Don't impeach.
Don't prosecute flagrant criminality.
Don't demand Democrats represent the will of the people.
And don't fucking bitch when the gears of this exact same criminal machine are grinding up another generation while your irrepairably broken political system fails America and the world once again.
After all, you have the audacity of hope on your side.
Why would The Pentagon acquiesce to any legal authority when the penalty for not doing so is...
n o n e x i s t e n t
Congress cut its own throat years ago by accepting The Bush Administration's unaccountability and outright lawlessness as standard operating procedure. But because it was Hillary! being dissed, this incident is somehow worthy of indignation?
Give me a fucking break.
Considering her shameful role in supporting the Iraq Atrocity - and the doublespeak, obfuscation, and total avoidance of accountability since taking a joyride on the Bush Bandwagon - the humiliation Hillary Clinton deserves shouldn't be coming from The Pentagon, but from Democratic voters - whose pathetic obedience to every official abuse of power since 2000 has revealed them to be every bit as feckless, unprincipled and opportunistic as the robots they reward with public office.
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
