politics – Page 7 – Les said, the better II

April 4th 2003

We were supossed to leave for Portland this morning, but I needed to see the tax guy, since we’re returning on the 15th. the earliest I could get was today at 9:00 AM. So I stayed up last night late making Mitch’s singing quieter on the Aelita soundtrack. He sang La Internationale into my voice mail a few days ago. I got a recording of it (and Xena scratching like crazy) by holding a microphone up to the phone. Anyway, I fixed that, then went to bed late. Then got up to drive to Los Gatod by 9:00 AM. I thought it would take at least 1.5 hours, but it only took one. New freeways in the last ten years.
We went over to my dad’s house to burn a DVD of Aelita. He had no blank media so we went to Elite Computers to buy some blanks. Christi saw a DVD burner there and was surprised by the lowness of the price and bought it. But no software. So we went back to my dad’s house and used his software + burner. iDVD is cool. My dad and I got into a disagreement about the government. I said it was being run by defense contractors. He said it was being run by the media. Later, Christi pointed out that the defense contractors own the media. She said, “It’s rediculous to argue about whether the oil companies or the media or arms dealers are running things. They’re all the same people.”
My dad repeated his oft-stated theory that the US hasn’t won a war since WWII (because 5 years later the places are always worse off than we arrived as far as our interests go) and hasn’t had a government since the 60’s. Presumably, he means since Kennedy was shot. When I was a youngun’, I had no idea what he was talking about. We have a court system, elections, etc. Now I think he means than an elite oligarchy is running the show for it’s own, immediate interests instead of longer range national interests. He says that Rome didn’t have a government either for a while, until Ceaser crossed the Rubicon. Conservatives alwatys like to compare the US to Rome right before Ceaser or the Weimar Republic, that is Germany right before Hitler. During the Clinton years, Rush Limbaugh was always talking about how Clinton was like the last president of the Weimar Republic. Great. So what does that make Bush?
The NRA always fights gun control measures by pointing out that Hitler confiscated handguns. They say that they should be able to all have handguns without any sort of tracking or registration in case a future Hitler comes to power, they would all be armed. But the NRA would have supported Hitler. . ..
After burning a DVD, which is inexplicably titled “South Pacific,” we went home and packed and got the rest of the music together. I needed to put My Mom on an ADAT tape. I’d never used the optical output of my DIGI001 before. All of the final edits and dumps to take took a couple of horus at least. Then, we decided that we needed to get gas. Rather than look up the address of the Richmond Biodiesel station (which Christi insists will only sell biodiesel to boats) or put petroleum in the car, we drove to the 3rd street station in the City at 3:00 in the afternoon. By the time we got back across the Bay Bridge, it was 4:00. We got to Portland at 2:00 AM.

April 5th 2003

I got email from Wesleyan asking if I was going to go to school there. I wrote back and said that I anted to visit first and that I could come anytime after April 15th. Then I looked at my calendar and saw that I had to reply in writing with “yes” or “no” by April 15th. I wrote back explaining that I wouldn’t be home until the 15th and asking what to do. I’m worried that I will be precieved as flaky, but I am flaky, so I guess they would figure it out anyway.
Christi’s mom is sick. I called up my favorite Protland Digital Audio store (no sales tax) and asked about a pro-level minidisc recorder. They told me that they don’t have any with digital outs. I surfed around for a while. The cheapest pro-level sony has digital outs. I called back and asked if they hads them, they said no but the would order it. I’m not sure if they are actually planning on ordering one. Whatever. Minidiscs are cool. They don’t sound quite as good as DATs but are a whole lto cheaper and more robust and portable. My collection of recording gear continues to slowly grow. Yesterday, Elana, our 11 year old neighbor came over and was wandering around while we packed. She said we had too much cool stuff and had spoiled ourselves. prolly.

don’t quit your day job

Indeed. It doesn’t matter if you’re so cool that somebody in holland wants to do a festival of your stuff (which is happening for Ellen Fullman. she’s in Europe right now talking about it.), you can’t quit your day job. So I’ve spent some time thinking of how to fix this problem. after all, an internationally recognized composer/performer should be past the career point where she has to make sacrifices for art. Those sacrfices should be paying off by now.

there is not enough money allocated for New Music in the USA.

Why not? Modern art museums are popular and enjoy civic support. But comparable music centers, like the opera, while they also get community support, don’t tend to perform new works very often. There are no civic music organizations that exist to showcase 20th and 21st century music. what organizations do exist, like Other Minds aren’t an institutional part of the region and rely very largely on private donations (although they do get NEA grants). Since they’re not “faith-based,” nor an offical piece of San Francisco or the region, this is unlikely to change. therefore, capitalism is to blame.
When the proletariat rise up, then artists will be able to persue their art. a person will be a stone mason in the morning, a poet in the afternoon, a composer in the evening and a garmet worker the next day! but in the mean time…
the Other Minds festival is really cool. (christi will be arranging one of the pieces in the festival! Really! It’s so cool!) But the Other Minds festival is expensive. so is the opera, which does get a chunk of public money. Classical music is therefore an elitist, burgeouis fetish!
Nope. Operas lose money. Every opera always loses money. When Phillip Glass did einstein on the Beach, he sold out every performance, got rave reviews, and tried t keep ticket prices affordable. IIRC, he ended up being over $100K in debt. Other Minds also loses money. They bleed red ink every year. Ticket sales and public moneys don’t come close to matching production costs. Which leads one to wonder why Metalica and The Three Tenors can fill up stadiums and be profitable. Firstly, there are a lot fewer people needed to make The Three Tenors happen than it takes to put ona whole opera. Less costume design. Less stage design. Also, they do it in a stadium, which has very poor acoustical properties (sounds terrible), but holds a whole lot of people who pay $25 and up to get in. Those ticket prices aren’t affordable either. Maybe The Three Tenors are a burgeouis fetish! (I think I will refer to them as such from this moment forward). Also, they are not only willing to compromise their art by playing in a stadium, they actually have the draw to fill it up. Metalica is in basically the same situation. Meanwhile, Other Minds won’t be able to completely fill the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre every night that they’re there. Also, because it’s only a single event, rather than a touring group, the travel costs are higher on a per-show sort of basis. One of the guys is coming from Down Under. If he were playing ten shows in an Other Minds tour, his travel expenses could be possibly recouped as the Other Minds tour bus crossed the West coast. But instead, one conert is suppossed to pay for everything.
So why do the Three Tenors and Metalica fill stadiums? why is their audience so much larger? It’s name recognition and especially radio play. Metallica gets played on the radio because listeners know their music, like it, want to hear more of it, and will listen to an ad for soda pop while waiting for the songs to come on. new Music doesn’t get radio play. Because listeners don’t know it. Because it doesn’t get radio play.

Catch-22?

It may be more complicated than that. In the Bay Area, some college music stations play Noise and some “high art” New Music. Also, until ten or fifteen years ago, KPFA played quite a bit of New Music. so in some radio markets, listeners can and do listen to noise and New Music. Two of the best stations for this, KALX (UC Berkeley) and KFJC (Foothill Community College) often win awards for being the most popular eclectic stations in the area. Since they often give Noise prominent time slots, it seems likely that playing it contributes to their popularity. So if it’s popular, it follows that people would be willing to listen to soda pop ads in between songs, which means it would be commercially viable for profit-driven stations to play it. but they don’t. why not?

Homogeny is not a term for “lesbian,” but homogyny would be.

there are no commercial, eclectic stations in the Bay Area. This is one of the top ten radio markets in the USA. Very few stations are locally owned, if any are. they are owned by Disney, Clear Channel, etc. Gigantic corporations own our airwaves. There used to be rules about how many stations in a market could be owned by one company. Clinton got rid of those. As stations like Live-105 got purchased by corporate giants, their local programming decreased and their coverage of smaller acts also decreased. Now, their playlist is set by folks who may not live here and is the same playlist used by many other stations across the country. the DJs may not live here. things are centralized. The radio stations are paid thousands of dollars by record companies when they pick up a Major-label song and start playing it (this commission is funnelled through folks called “indies” so as to skirt payola laws. But clear channel owns the indies now too, so they get to keep all the money, sicne the indies used to keep half the cash. anyway, it’s payola and if it’s legal, it’s on the barest of technicalities.). It’s cheaper to do things centrally and you get to pocket all of that major label money. this creates obstacles for Noise Mucisians and folks into New Music. Very few New Music composers are out on major labels. Also, while noise plays well out in the Bay Area, it might not play so well in other parts of the country and it might not be able to sustain an audience if it plays on a station all day, every day. an eclectic format weakens brand identity. A rock station is a rock station is a rock station. Consistency of product means no surprises for consumers and it’s easier for corps to advertise.
there are “high art” classical stations, but they don’t play new music either. they play nothing newer than the Romanic period. the local classical station, KDFC (rumored to be Mormon-owned) advertises that it’s relaxing. then they play ads for Lexus. They’re better than many classical stations in the country, because they play minor-key movements. Many classical stations play only happy, major key movements, so you never hear more than one movement of a work when you listen. Christian groups call this “light classical” and highly endorse it as free from the influence of Satan.

Pablum for the Masses

Almost every commercial station plays music that’s soothing or relaxing. Ok, maybe Metallica isn’t exactly soothing, but it’s certainly not challenging. And KDFC practically brags that their music could put you to sleep! Why is commercial music auditory soma? There’s two possible answers that I can think of.

Work Ethic

Americans work more house than anyother country on Earth. We’ve outpaced the stereo-typically work-a-holic Japanese. (I like the term “work-a-holic.” It’s rediculous. Like people acually want to work insanely long hours or two jobs and it’s not just so they can get by. hahahaha! It’s by choise! right! anyway). People work super-long hours, possibly two jobs and they have to commute to these jobs. sice public transit system might inhibit the sales of SUVs, the few areas that have decent public transit often underfund it, so most folks have to commute by car. The news they listen to while they spend maybe two hours a day coming and going from their ten to twelve hours of employment (possibly with unpaid overtime, for “exempt” non-union workers), tells them that terrorists are going to blow up the bridge they’re on (while stuck in traffic) and the traffic reports suggest that maybe they should have just stayed at work an extra couple of hours rather than go out in this mess. Injury accidents have killed 15 workers and, well, you get the point. then they need to find food, try to spend time with their families, do chores, clean the house, run errands, etc. At the end of a day like that, do you want to listen to new and challenging music? Or the three tenors?

the Children are our Future

Teenagers still have some free time, though. I keep reading that they have more homework than ever and more scheduled events than ever before, but I’d like to hold out some hope that they still have time to listen to music. MTV still exists, so they must. Also, it seems to me that a lot of folks form musical tastes that will last a lifetime when they’re young. If you like the Beattles when you’re 15, chances seem to be that you’ll like them for the rest of your life. so all we have to do is get teenagers listening to Noise, New Music and Contemporary Classical.
It’s a curious thing, though. When I was young and impressionable, advertisements used to tell me that Classical Music was totally uncool. Unhip. I always thought this was an aside as advertisers vainly tried to figure out how to appeal to us young-uns. And this is probably true to a certain extent. If millions of teenagers decided they loved Micheal Nyman and Phillip Glass, the corporate media would bend over backwards to give it to them. The composers would be approached to hawk tennis-shoes and soda pop. and if they were too principled to do it, some now-quite-as-edgy ripoff band would be happy to do it.
Most music is put together by record executives. once in a while, something new emerges from College radio, like Nirvana did, but I think most songs are from established acts. and may of these acts were assembled b industry insiders who know what’s popular and how to put together a sure-thing. So as soon as something new comes out, folks are copying it. and those folks sound a bit more mainstream and formulaic. And eventually a formula is developed and a producer can quickly put togther an album by following the formula. this isn’t challenging, but it’s a garunteed way to make a buck.

More sinister plans?

It’s possible that the giant corporations that control the media don’t want kids to think challenging thoughts. I mean, our crazy work schedules and lame corporate art doesn’t prevent people from going to Modern Art Museums. The MOMAs are popular. People clearly have an interest in seeing new things. If they want to see new things, it’s entirely possible that they want to hear new things too. Classical music, even classical music that’s 300 years old is complicated. Old music is still challenging if you’ve never been exposed to it before. Advertisers, in their quest to sell breakfast cerial, tell kids to stay away from challenging music. It’s possible that they don’t want kids to expect music to be challenging. Maybe kids that were used to inspired performances of complicated music would lose their patience from corporate schlock-rock and preformulated pop songs. Maybe they would expect more from music. Maybe their tastes would change even more unpredictably. Maybe they would start thinking more about media.
you can argue that it’s elitist to say that classical music requires more thinking than other forms. So substitute new jazz for new classical. It’s still more thought-provoking than Britney Spears and more visceral and more inspired (when performed well). In any case, classical and new jazz are more complicated than pop tunes. Just like chess is more complicated than connect-4. And chess builds brain-power and critical thinking, and you don’t see advertisements for chess sets either. Also, coincidentally, they’s not enough money for schools or school art programs and corporations aren’t exactly upset about that. but they seem to have definite opinions about whther blowing up Iraq is a good idea.

Critical thinking might make you think critically and critical thinkers aren’t as good at being canon fodder

Cutting money from education is an investment in the future. the future of prisons. Seriously, folks in college classes study about social planning and they learn that when you cut money from education, you know that you will have to spend more money on prisons later on. Look at California. the modern prison-boom started 20 years after Regan. and prisons are profitable. You get money for construction. You can get cheap prison labor. The prisoners are captive audince, so you can charge them more than $3/minute to use pay phones (which phone companies do in California prisons). There’s corporate profits all the way around!
Would chess and new Music keep kids from eventually going to jail? Um. I have no idea. but you wouldn’t want to establish a pattern would you.

We must overthrow the capitalist system!

In the ols days, the government paid for tthe arts. In these old days, the government were feudal lords. the patronage system finaced the composition of New Music. Sicne the patrons were the government, this was a government function. when Alan Smith proposed switchng to a capitalist syetm to do everything, he specifically said that the arts should be exempted from this change because the arts were valuable and might not survive if viewed as just another commodity. This bit of advice apparently didn’t make it into the USA edition of The Wealth of Nations or we chose to ignore it. either way, governments are suppossed to support art and ours isn’t.
In the thirties, we had the WPA and tons of art was created. Those days are gone. the NEA gets smaller every year because conservatives hate art. Why? Maybe because art isn’t conservative by nature. Laura bush cancelled her little poetry thing becuase she suddenly discovered that most good poets are pacafists. (Does being good at persuits like poetry, art and music make you more likely to be leftist? it seems to. why?) Art is challenging! art asks questions! Art makes people think. Conservatives, or rather, reactionaries, don’t appeal to people’s higher natures. they appeal to gut emotions and unthinking, simplistic responces to complex problems. Well, this is true of all politicians. So we can see where our arts funding went. (Remember too, that corporations, including those that own radio stations and record companies have a tendency towards conservativism.)

Private Patronage

Ever since somebody decided that taxes were a tool of Satan and could only be levied to pay for bombs, private charities ahev assumed responcibility for many public works. Before you know it, your city will be hosting a telethon to pave the roads. In the mean time, we rely on private donors to aid those in pverty and to fund the arts. both of these things are the responcibility of the government by rights. but our government has switched over to supporting corporations only. and corporations are basically feudal and anti-democratic. therefore, the haeds of corporations are functioning as our feudal government. you can see this is true by looking at the white house right now. Anyway, it means those guys should be acting personally as patrons and keeping artists and composers in their employ. And really, since we’ve decided to run our government through private donations, the middle class should be giving money to arts foundations. and they are, but it’s not enough. Too much money is being diverted to build bombs.

Low budjet Patronage

Want to comission me to write a song for you? I’ll work for pretty cheap. You’re only turnging 50 once, so why not celbrate witha song written especially for the occasion? Your marraige is the begining of a new life for you. It deserves a new song to accompany it. Comissioning music can be surprisingly affordable. come to our website and you can browse through composers in a variety of price ranges and styles. then, we’ll help you find performers in your area. What better way to show off your equisite taste than by commissioning a piece of new music.
This is one solution. the down side is that we wouldn’t be lapdogs to the rich, we would be lapdogs to the upper-middle class. It seems worse somehow, but maybe that’s classism on my part.
I don’t have a better solution aside from socialist revolution. some smart arts advocacy group is putting up billboards that say “Art” Ask for More” and “Art: Are you getting your fair share?” This seems like a good idea, but I don’t know how it can compete with the likes of Clear Channel. And since the billboards are often owned by Clear Channel, well, it’s putting money in the enemy’s pocket.

Three Paths to Art

In the end, I was only able to figure out three methods for musicians to be able to quit their day jobs.

Inherit Money It worked for Thomas Buckner and me! Maybe it can work for you!
Leave the country Most first-world countries have money for art. Maybe you can get some.

I forgot number three! ack. I should have made notes before wiriting this!
This is not as important as poverty or agressive, imperialist warfare, but it’s still important. and these issues may be linked. something must be done about this.

Ways for Oregon to Raise Money

Bake Sale
Mentally Ill kissing booth
Toll on Californians
Prison labor
Parent’s U-teach Skool Daze!
Eldery Person Dunk Tank: Three chances to sink grandma for a dollar!
Two attendants must now pump your gas for you (rasining income tax revenues)
Spotted Owl Cook Off
Add another couple of stories to Powells, make money off of sales tax … oops, nevermind
Skip seismic retrofits
Max Riders must now drive the trolley themselves

Semantic Question

Is it immoral, unethical or both to napalm children in Cambodia?
It distresses me that some politicians equate morality with accepting Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior, even as they prepare to bomb the heck out of Iraq, a war that will kill 500,00 children or more (brining the child death toll by US action in Iraq up over 1 million). Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/01/27/international0803EST0510.DTL
Perhaps morality should have something to do with right action? Chomsky calls himself a moralist. Maybe he could be persuaded to run on the Green Party ticket next time. Chomsky/Zinn in 2004!

Political Past

If I were an ex-libretarian, I don’t think I’d admit it on the first date. Maybe the third or the fourth.
“Do you want to go steady with me?”
“Yes, but there’s something you should know. I used to be a . . . libretarian!”
Yikes! But I’m a socialist now, you explain. No longer beleive in letting sick people die or putting old folks out on the street or leaving kids uneducated. By the way, did you see the news today? Oregon Libretarians are pleased as punch that a new tax raise has been defeated, so kids will now have the shortest school year in the nation. It’s the Mississippi of the northwest! (and how many Oregonian kids will soon be able to spell the name of that notorious spelling-bee question state?)
Well, ok, Libretarians claim there’s money out there to pay for these programs. The state just needs to cut other things. No word on what these things would be. Maybe Oregon has a gigantic prison system like California and could parole people occasionally and save millions. I can’t find the article from this morning’s newspaper on the website, but here’s a releated article: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/01/29/state1728EST7087.DTL

Coffee House pseudo-intellectual

Somebody recently called me a “coffee house pseudo-intellectual.” Hrm, that makes me thirsty. Maybe I should go get a decaf soy latte. It’s like coffee-flavored protein.
anyway, apparently my offense was citing FAIR and Noam Chomsky. So if you unquestioningly repeat the lies of the administration “iraq kicked out weapons inspectors in 1998,” you can be a real coffee house intellectual, but if you cite a source which quotes the Washington Post or the New York Times or the actual words of former leader-types, why, then you’re a faker. Intellectual, clearly then, equals liar. Or at least one who does no fact checking or research.
I could dilligently check all facts myself by looking through newspapers from 1998, but I’m lazy. somebody has already done this for me. Too bad fact checking groups are tainted.
We will never have truth in this country when those who tell the truth are so perfectly denigrated. It’s like there’s an official list of dilligent researchers to ignore. I mean, it’s one thing to drag the name of Rush Limbaugh through the mud, but he gets all of his information from the backs of cerial boxes and the klan website. People who do real research must suck unless they spout the biased company line of whoever is currently elected.
In short, I’d rather be a “coffee house pesudo-intellectual” (mmmm… soy latte) than an outright idiot.

Celeste Hutchins
Music Application
Writing Sample 1 of 2

Political Tract

It is entirely clear that in our current system, few people other than artists enjoy their jobs so much that they would keep doing them if they didn�t have to. It is also clear that our current system is entirely unsustainable. Our primary goal in our current system is economic growth. This means we must keep making more things every year than we did the year before, over and above any population growth. And such is our system that if we fail to grow in a year, we are in a recession and many people end up out of work. Popularly, this is not seen as a shortcoming of the system, but rather as a moral failing of the individuals affected. Furthermore, the system requires the middle class to consume more and more every year. There is only so much stuff that people want to have, however, so that it is necessary to make things disposable. The only way to keep the middle classes consuming more and more is to make them throw away what they already have. This ever-rising so-called “standard of living” does not grow higher when people must work at jobs that they do not like so they can buy things to throw them away. Meanwhile, the environmental and human costs of raw materials continue to mount. For a few to live like disposable aristocracy, others must live in poverty and environmental damage and wasting of resources must mount higher and higher.

Because this kind of capitalist excess is socially and environmentally unstable and unsustainable, it will fall. The only question is how. We can sit and wait until the ocean levels rise, disastrous uncharacteristic weather patterns pummel us, and asymmetric warfare rains down upon us from all sides, or we can act now and avert carnage, extinctions and continuing genocide.

Aside from these points, the primary weakness of our system is over and under centralization. Some systems are over centralized. Other systems have no central planning whatsoever. All of these systems are setup as inefficiently as possible so that elite individuals can profit off the inefficiency and pocket the difference between dollars spent and value received.

We can build a better system. We can break away from the old one.

I foresee great changes. Americans will say no more to a system where civil rights have been whittled down to the right to chose what color car to buy. We will say no more to enslaving the third world for private profit. We will say no more to people being poisoned by pesticides, condemned to poverty and stuck toiling away our lives in stupid jobs that offer us no freedom or leisure time.

We will couple automation with sustainable development. Nobody�s time will be more valuable than anyone else�s. Production will be to fit human needs rather than capitalistic growth. Things are valuable only in so much as the benefit human lives. We will cease production of pointlessly disposable items. Durable goods will actually be durable, re-usable and recyclable. Buildings will not be knocked over for no reason. Instead of principles of capital and ownership, we will have principles of use and collectivization. People will form voluntary associations locally to meet local needs. Every home will be a squat. The residents will have the means to maintain their homes and their collective living arrangements.

Corporations will cease, with all factory production automated and run by the government. Less will be made, because less will be needed. As much as possible, items produced locally will be consumed locally.

People will brew their own beer, and their own biodiesel, and generate their own power with the solar arrays on their roofs. Yet many tools will be owned in common. Few people actually need their own vacuum cleaner. Almost no one who has one uses it everyday. Because of growth, inefficiency and systems of ownership, people currently must buy all the tools they might ever need. However, alternatives exist even now. In Berkeley, there is a tool library that residents with a library card may check out tools from. I foresee a future where many tools are owned in common by neighborhoods, blocks, buildings or associations. The interconnectedness and interdependence of all people will be clear. No one�s time will be worth more or less than anyone else�s. The currency will be measured in hours.

People will still work as teachers, as nurses, as firefighters as repair people, but fewer hours will be required. These people will have time to peruse art, sports, music, crafts, and passion. No one will be made to live in poverty for the benefit of anyone else.

This can and will come about. There is no reason to continue our unequal, disposable and militaristic social systems. Too often we resemble what is worst about human nature. There is no reason not to resemble the best. The technology we require is present. All we need is the will to make our vision happen.

in the original version, foresaw the western states suceeding. this is better writing than my tuba paper, so i’m going to use it. and the notes towards a comic opera. my music counts more than my writing. i don’t have examples of academic writing, but they’re not necessary, and anyway between this, the tawdry fiction and my statement of purpose, at least i’ll come across as somewhat literate.

Well, it’s a new year and Oakland’s homicide rate reset to zero at midnight and is probably at least below five right now, definietly in the single digits. A news article yesturday said there were 113 homicides last year, so it’s probably right around there. I imagine if a nunch of people got killed on New Years Eve, it would have been in the paper this morning.
Anyway, I have a solution for this. This isn’t one of those “after the revolution” sort of solutions either. I mean, it’s very easy for liberals to say that people kill each other because they’re stressed and then point at the usual suspects for causing stress. Unemployment, ecenomic stress, lack of health care, etc. Yeah, I could tell you that it’s stressful being fearful that you’ll lose all your savings and end up being homeless if you get sick, because of lost wages and hospitals bills. And then I could tell you that we really need socialized medicine, so folks wouldn’t have to be so worried and so they would have less stress, and if they did get super stressed anyway, they could go to talk to a shrink about it and maybe figure things out and not kill somebody. Yeah, I could sip my latte as a very pious liberal and tell you that. But let’s take a hard-nosed, conservative look at things. Paying for everyone to have decent healthcare is expensive. Funerals are expensive too, but a hundred or so a year is a lot cheaper than insuring all of Oakland. Plus, where’s the profit motive? Nobody gets rich off of resource equality. Only inequality creates unequal wealth and thus richness. This sort of expensive, liberal, non-punative approach is simply not feasable under our current system. Only after the revolution can we . . .
But I promised a solution that would work now and not be dependant on the armed struggle of the proletariat and I have it. Bring in Jessica Fletcher. Her little town of Cabbot Cove had a tremendous muder rate. More than one a week and a population much smaller than Oakland. It’s true that catching those responcible didn’t seem to diminish the murder rate in Cabbot Cove, but police in Oakland beleive that some of the same people might be responsible for several homicides, so in Oakland, it might make a difference. At the very least, it would get the murders off the street once they comitted a crime, which is better than nothing. Only a Hollywood solution can solve complex social problems while maintinging the stus quo, spending no money and being entertaining all at the same time. So a Hollywood situation is obviously what we need.

It is entirely clear that in our current system, few people other than artists enjoy their jobs so much that they would keep doing them if they didn�t have to. It is also clear that our current system is entirely unsustainable. Our primary goal in our current system is economic growth. This means we must keep making more things every year than we did the year before, over and above any population growth. And such is our system that if we fail to grow in a year, we are in a recession and many people end up out of work. Popularly, this is not seen as a shortcoming of the system, but rather as a moral failing of the individuals affected. Furthermore, the system requires the middle class to consume more and more every year. There is only so much stuff that people want to have, however, so that it is necessary to make things disposable. The only way to keep the middle classes consuming more and more is to make them throw away what they already have. This ever-rising so-called �standard of living� does not grow higher when people must work at jobs that they do not like so they can buy things to throw them away. Meanwhile, the environmental and human costs of raw materials continue to mount. For a few to live like disposable aristocracy, others must live in poverty and environmental damage and wasting of resources must mount higher and higher.

We can build a better system. We can break away from the old one.

I foresee the western parts of the United States breaking away from the Union. People in Northern California, Oregon and Washington will say no more to a system where civil rights have been whittled down to the right to chose what color car to buy. We will say no more to enslaving the third world for private profit. We will say no more to people being poisoned by pesticides, condemned to poverty and stuck toiling away our lives in stupid jobs that offer us no freedom or leisure time.

A while back, I emailed Senator Dianne Feinstein to ask her to vote against the war resoltuion that Bush was asking for. She voted for it and it passed. So perhaps soon, a bunch of young folks, perhaps some friends of mine, will march off to kill and get killed so that the stockholders of chevron can make an extra fifty cents a share. Biodiesel is the future, people. Carpool and ride busses or people will die horrible deaths to feed the plutocratic industrialist criminal swine!
I seem to be off on a tangent, like one might find at Pancakes for Pinkos. But my coming point is important and I don’t want to trvialize it, so listen up:
Today, I received email back from Feinstein telling me that she had to disagree with me. At the bottom was the statement she made on the senate floor. Part of it is very intestesting. She says, “I serve as the Senior Senator from California, representing 35
million people. That is a formidable task. People have weighed in
by the tens of thousands. If I were just to cast a representative vote
based on those who have voiced their opinions with my office and
with no other factors I would have to vote against this resolution.” Then she goes on to explain that she voted in favor of war anyway, despite the wishes of her constituents. So, in effect, our congress people are knowling going against the will of the people. Our “elected” representatives hide behind “secret data” and “intelligence reports” which are invariably revelaed to be either utterly lacking or a pack of lies. The truth of the matter is that we’ve launched the cruelest embargo in history against iraq with sanctions that cause thousands of people to die and Bush Sr, Clinton and Bush Jr shuold be tried as war criminals for their rolse in it. No wonder we’re opposed to the world court tribunal in The Hauge.
Feinstein is a tool of corporate criminals and war profiteers. I use the word “elected” in quotes, because most peope realize that a vote for either major party is futile and stay home. When the people try to weigh in directly on issues of dire importance, they are ignored. The only hope for change is direct action. Howard Zinn notes in A People’s History of the United States that every political movement that as sought to create change through the ballot box has fizzled out, while direct action in the frm of wildcat strikes and civil disobediance has been tremendously successful. We need to be out in the street. Write the letters to the “representatives,” but back it up with action. The mass protest is mightier than the pen.