A Little Rational Thinking

...goes a long way.  From Rolling Stone:

After months of escalating protests and grassroots organizing in response to the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, police reformers have issued many demands. The moderates in this debate typically qualify their rhetoric with "We all know we need police, but..." It's a familiar refrain to those of us who've spent years in the streets and the barrios organizing around police violence, only to be confronted by officers who snarl, "But who'll help you if you get robbed?" We can put a man on the moon, but we're still lacking creativity down here on Earth.

But police are not a permanent fixture in society. While law enforcers have existed in one form or another for centuries, the modern police have their roots in the relatively recent rise of modern property relations 200 years ago, and the "disorderly conduct" of the urban poor. Like every structure we've known all our lives, it seems that the policing paradigm is inescapable and everlasting, and the only thing keeping us from the precipice of a dystopic Wild West scenario. It's not.

I have no plans to stop bitching about things - when I think something's wrong, I'm gonna bitch about it.  But while it's really lotsa fun to unleash a good cathartic-feeling tirade, eventually, there's no point in it if all I ever do is bitch about it.  So here's the thing: we've gotta come up with alternatives.

We have a problem with violence.  Recognize and deal effectively with that problem, and we're a big step closer to being able to solve some of the other problems that grow out of our problem with violence.

Right now, we look a lot like the townsfolk in the old westerns who hire a gunslinger to deal with (insert local bad guy here), but then realize they've only substituted one bully for another.

Violence in service of politics is at the heart of what we're supposed to be the exception to.

Let's try something else.

Like It's Christmas

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town --Ramsey Lewis Trio





Please Come Home For Christmas --Charles Brown





Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis --Tom Waits




The Christmas Song --Siatigas





Christmas In The Room --Sufjan Stevens





All I Want For Christmas Is You --Mariah Carey and Jimmy Fallon et al





O Holy Night --Dublin Gospel Choir





Christmas Tears (cover) --Eric Clapton





Someday At Christmas --Jack Johnson

Deadly Rhetoric

Via Mock Paper Scissors:

(tengrain asks for citations to back up the claims of "propaganda", but of course, "conservatives" just get really upset when you press for things like evidence, so yeah - good luck widdat)

“We’ve had four months of propaganda starting with the president that everybody should hate the police. The protests are being embraced, the protests are being encouraged. The protests, even the ones that don’t lead to violence, a lot of them lead to violence, all of them lead to a conclusion: The police are bad, the police are racist. That is completely wrong.” --Mr 9/11, Rudy Giuliani

But even if I grant the assertion of "4 months of propaganda", how could that come anywhere close to the years of toxic anti-government slagging coming from the Radical Right?

"Government's not the solution, government's the problem."

"...drown it in a bathtub."

and on

and on

and on

And that's nuthin' compared with the deafening silence coming from the Ammosexuals at the moment.

Wanna talk about all those cuts in funding for Mental Health now?

Then this from TMZ:

I'm getting one of my lousy feelings that the Press Poodles will spend most of their time and energy spinning this into another episode of "Both Sides".  They'll report the controversy as if all things are equal, and we'll end up staying paralyzed in the middle.

Big fuckin' problems.  But the really big one boils down to this:  We can't go on being further and further isolated from our government when we were set up to be self-governing.  It astounds me to think of how much we bitch about "nobody taking responsibility for anything" when we sit on our thumbs and do nothing but bitch about how shitty everything is.

The Trouble With Bryan

Bryan Fischer (affectionately dubbed Reverend Fishsticks at Mock Paper Scissors), has decided that the homosexual agenda represents the greatest single threat to religious liberty we have ever seen in the history of our existence as a nation."

As usual, the "conservative" has shown some true colors here.  It's not a conservative value to deny people their rights.  Which should make it really clear that Bryan Fisher is as radical as they come.

Forget the usual bullshit about stirring up fear of the big bad homos - that shit does keep working surprisingly well on an awful lotta rubes, but by now shouldn't it be about as frightening as the Haunted House that the PTA puts on at the local middle school that's the same fucking thing every fucking year?

It's a pretty simple premise - the best way for me to ensure my own right's is by ensuring everybody else's rights.  

As we progress a little further towards Equal Rights, the only thing Bryan Fisher "loses" is what he believes (in his carbon-black little heart) to be his birthright as a white middle-class Christian American; his anointment by the almighty to have dominion over everything; to dictate to us what his imaginary friend tells him we must do to please him.  I can't think of anything more arrogantly and quaintly out-of-step with everything we've learned about self government over the last 2 1/2 centuries.

Entitlement much, muthuhfuckuh?

Stop This Shit Right Now

Two cops are dead because we don't do the Rational Thinking thing much any more.

And this doesn't help:

“Unfortunately, I don’t believe anyone connected to law enforcement is surprised this happened,” said Gary McLhinney, a former Baltimore police union president and former chief of the Maryland Transportation Authority police, who is now a labor negotiator for police unions. “Political rhetoric and lies have consequences. When our leaders make statements that encourage lawlessness and demean an entire profession, this is the result.”

First, I have to indulge myself with a tiny bit of Media Criticism - what “Political rhetoric and lies..." are we referring to here, Gary?  Wingnut Media have tried hard to paint Obama and Holder as "anti-cop" because they've been critical of the way some departments have seen fit to fund themselves by operating a shakedown racket primarily aimed at "the black community", but there's nothing in the WaPo story to indicate where that bit came from.  So it falls outa this guy's yap and just sits there - no challenge; no followup; no context.  Nuthin'.

Anyway, let the record show that "The Legion of Race Baiters" have all, or pretty much all, stepped up and condemned the cop killer in no uncertain terms. 

(source = Politico)

Obama: “I unconditionally condemn today’s murder of two police officers in New York City,” the president said in a statement released just after midnight on Sunday morning. “Two brave men won’t be going home to their loved ones tonight, and for that, there is no justification.  The officers who serve and protect our communities risk their own safety for ours every single day — and they deserve our respect and gratitude every single day. I ask people to reject violence and words that harm, and turn to words that heal — prayer, patient dialogue, and sympathy for the friends and family of the fallen.”

Holder: (labeled the killings an) “assassination” and “an unspeakable act of barbarism.”

He said the attack underscores the dangers police officers face each day in their jobs and that “we must not forget this as we discuss the events of the recent past.”

Holder called for communities and their police departments to forge closer bonds, “so that public safety is not a cause that is served by a courageous few, but a promise that’s fulfilled by police officials and citizens working side by side.”

Al Sharpton: “Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases,” the statement said. “We have stressed at every rally and march that anyone engaged in any violence is an enemy to the pursuit of justice for Eric Garner and Michael Brown… The Garner family and I have always stressed that we do not believe that all police are bad, in fact we have stressed that most police are not bad.”

But none of that matters anymore.  The Authoritarians have a coupla more very timely and  convenient martyrs now.  We've already begun seeing what looks like a push on social media to turn every cop into a saintly figure with the purest of intentions faced with the lawless brutality of the unwashed hordes of the ghetto blah blah über alles blah.

The use of violence by an authoritarian government is intended to elicit a violent response from the governed in order for the government to gain sufficient rationale to use violence against the governed.  

And round and round we go.  Thanks for playing.

We're supposed to have set ourselves up to be the exception, because we were supposed to have recognized that we deserve better than to be perpetually stuck in the kind of cycle of violence that had been going on for a thousand centuries before us.

Maybe we figure it out and maybe we don't, but if history is any guide at all, we know we'll prob'ly be dealing with some even heavier shit before we get to the good stuff.

Here's to hopin' on the shortest darkest day of the year.

Solstice Tunes

An oldie - can't believe I have this (an original) on vinyl.

December --George Winston

Happy Solstice

Saturday Groove (fixed)

Many The Miles --Sara Bareilles

oops - try it now



Come On Home --Joan Armatrading





I Don't Miss You At All --Nora Jones





I'd Rather Be Happy Than Right --Michael Franks





For You And I --10cc





Over The Rainbow --Melody Gardot

Yeah, OK - But Is It Art?

Grover Washington

I dunno why, but I have a weird link between Grover and Christmas.  So here's a little light seasonal funk to lift that (hopefully) light seasonal funk on a random Friday in December.

Winelight --Grover Washington