The pro-Zionist mantra indeed continues unabated. Only today I stumbled on a YouTube “discussion” labelled “What Sam Harris Realized About Palestinians That NO ONE Else Did”. I already knew about Harris’s total prostration before the Israel lobby and I knew I should have resisted ... but I surrendered just to see what Harris’s “revelation” was – and it turns out that what he “realised that NO One Else Did!” was pure Zionist boilerplate about how the Palestinians had a “culture of death” compared to Israel’s “culture of life” etc. And (take a deep breath!) if only these Hamas monsters “could have seen the beautiful souls they were destroying” on Oct 7 etc.
So thinking that this excrement might be “excused” by coming from a year ago, I find that this was posted on Nov 12 i.e. only two weeks ago!
Here we have a “disconnect” between these “fabulous media creatures” and the world around them that hasn’t been so glaring since those “roaring twenties” and that “gilded cage”.
Dennis’s implication that there is some kind of “Mafia” type organisation at work here (e.g. that it might be Bibi’s turn to be “retired”) occurred to me from the start. As you (John) suggested, Russell Brand’s new Hallelujah tambourine mode may well be a “survival mechanism” for him – and an opportunity to “tune out” (with possibly some “interesting” photos of him currently residing with Mossad?)
It’s a pity I couldn’t join the debate because I really wanted to congratulate Dennis on that marvellous essay on “soft power”. The “legendary” David Bowie concert which “brought down the wall” (?!) happened in 1987. Back at that point I lived on my own for the first time ever and found myself watching less and less TV. I felt as if I was coming out of a lifelong hypnosis. And although the Berlin Wall didn’t come down for another two years, the meme was “in the wind”. And I recall this utterly phony and desperate euphoria at the time. Communism had “been conquered” and was now “consigned to the dustbin” etc.
I interpreted all this, even then, as being like the “rising stage” in a bipolar disorder. It was bound to crash as realisation that the disappearance of the Soviets would not lead to paradise after all. (A Van Morrison line comes to mind: “You got everything in the world you ever wanted/And right about now your face should wear a smile”)
There is a sad tale to relate here which may be relevant. There was a music critic by the name of Ian MacDonald, probably most famous for writing “Revolution in the Head” which was a book about the Beatles. But MacDonald also had a fixation on the Russian composer Shostakovich and had a monomaniacal angle through which he interpreted every Shostakovich piece as a coded attack on the Soviet system. Presumably MacDonald was one who felt ecstatic when the wall fell. In any case, he committed suicide in 2003 and although it would be impossible to assess the reasons for this I can’t help wondering if the political situation had a part to play i.e. that there may have been a suspicion developing in MacDonald’s mind that the Soviets were, after all, not the real problem.
Talk about how all those “rebel stars” turned into reactionary dupes is one of my favourite rants. The “Neil Young Wanker List” is vast. Of course, there are The Eagles and the whole of that “West Coast” scene. Joni Mitchell could be excruciating too. I note that Mr Dylan was always canny enough to be non-committal for most of the time (though check out the lyrics to his Zionist masturbation anthem “Neighbourhood Bully”!) The aforementioned Van was one of the few that totally rejected the vaccine push and it was interesting to see how the media furiously smeared him for it.
Always loved Van... and his music. I was a great fan of Joni's couple of albums. But she and her canyon pals all turned out to be wankers. Have you read the book Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon? I always felt McGowan took the book too far into speculation, but will probably read it after I finish Chaos. I have no idea how to have a conversation with people anymore. Their beliefs about Russia are cemented, even those who support Palestine. The anti-communist rhetoric has been extremely successful.
The anti-Russian meme is one of the most depressingly stupid along with the apparently successful attempt to turn Jeremy Corbyn into Hitler. At least with the cold war there was some ideological cover with that anti-communist patter. Now there's nothing other than, "Well they're just bastards!"
But overall, this has the same despairing tone as the push for vaccination and net zero. You just know that all these propaganda memes are hamster wheels that will go round forever.
Someone on the podcast nailed it when they said that the actual current political figure who can be compared to Hitler is Netanyahu. But I agree that the propaganda memes will continue to circulate round and round as they are meant to and even evolve with a life of their own.
Here is a link to the panel discussion I mentioned: ABC News, November 20, 1983. Compared with anything you would see today on a major network, it was a fairly sophisticated discussion of the prospects for nuclear disarmament. https://vimeo.com/1034054172
What a cringe moment, Blinken playing Muddy Waters.
This podcast is full of brilliant analysis and history.
I was living on the West Coast when punk became popular and my younger sister got into it. All her friends were trying to play instruments in their parent's garages. I couldn’t believe how horrible it sounded.
Middle- and working-class (mostly latchkey kids) apolitical high-schoolers who just wanted to be cool and “in a band,” whose only message was fuck everything and being as nasty as they could. I remember when they were trick or treating as the band KISS just a few years earlier.
Those who still get together and play have nothing of import to say. And when they do say anything, as John pointed out, they are completely reactionary. All of them during COVID required fans to be vaccinated to gain entry to their shows, at least until it became politically “safe” not to.
BAR’s relevance died with Glen Ford. So glad you brought him up. Here is the piece he wrote about the election of Obama and an interview he did discussing the piece.
“Murdering history” is the right term for Tarantino’s revisionist garbage, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I suppose was meant to be a “feel-good, what-if” rewrite of the Manson murders that freaked out anyone in L.A.’s in-crowd during the 60s and 70s so much so that they wanted to divorce themselves from ever having met up with Manson, who I think many thought was edgy and groovy. I am reading Tom O’Neill’s book right now about the Manson killings. The information overlaps with much earlier written books in my library like Storming Heaven and Acid Dreams. I am not ready to talk about it until I finish.
The bottom line is most people do not know history and there are very few places online or in actual in-person discussions teaching and discussing it today.
I love PKD’s Man in the High Castle. One could make the case that the Nazi’s did win WWII, even without anamnesis.
A final thought on what was discussed, while the USA has outspent on its wars at the expense of American working-class lives, which have fallen further into debt and despair, and allowed the country’s infrastructure to become big potholes and crumbling bridges, Russia and China have invested in technology and making their citizens’ lives better (at least from what I have been able to learn about life in those countries, aside from the propaganda).
Here is the Quincy Jones article about the Beatles that Lex brought up.
Greil Marcus wrote an interesting piece on punk rock in which he noted the big difference between the two “quintessential” UK punk bands, The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Both presented themselves as “protest” groups but The Clash were protesting against the way things were and thus implying that you could make things better. But the Pistols were protesting against “life itself”, the point being that even if you changed everything, it would still be shit anyway – obviously a very conservative position.
Though I don’t recall The Clash making much difference anyway – perhaps such an idea is impossible in what Adorno referred to as The Culture Industry. A lot of Clash songs were about imperialist machinations e.g. “Washington Bullets” which was from their most overtly political album “Sandinista” named after the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Christian socialist political party in Nicaragua. And to my eternal shame I must admit I didn’t even know that until exactly two seconds ago when I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Which may underline my point. Bourgeois middle class kids in the West “get off” on the radical sounding rhetoric of those glamorous rockers but it’s all hugely superficial. (And though I never saw myself as middle class, I reckon that on a global scale I, along with the vast majority of those who live in the West, am indeed middle class.)
But then Joe Strummer – the lead singer of The Clash – is now “conveniently” dead. I don’t mean to imply some kind of suspicious Mafia move there (though I see that “he died from a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect” (Wiki) – so who knows?) But by “conveniently” I just mean that he didn’t live long enough to “sell out”. John Lydon (formerly “Johnny Rotten”) of the Sex Pistols went on to make margarine commercials and turned up on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here”. The “wonder” of him is that he still postures as if he’s “really out there”! (He also once said, “Socialism is a very bad thing!” Yeah, right on, Johnny!)
So now we have Nick fucking Cave cheering on Israel – when he isn’t lining up for his next vaccine.
Then we have Mark E Smith of the Fall who is also “conveniently dead” – in his case just before covid. I can’t imagine him falling for that crap. He had a very George Carlin-ish attitude. But his most vocal fan, the “alternative comic” Stewart Lee, turned out to be the single most craven establishment whore, hob-knobbing with Andrew Neil on the late news shows and grovelling in the Guardian. Also maintaining a shrewd silence on the trans issue whilst Graham Linehan had his life ruined for the very same. Speaking of which,
shd did have an amusing anecdote about diana and charles, on a private jet with kennedy. The upshot was diana was shallow and fun and charles was an absolute turd.
she had just broke up with Kennedy when i met her. Her real name is like laura schneiderman or something. From the San Fernando valley as I recall. Brixie was a sweetie , all things considered.
You’ve given me a vague urge to check out Brixie's autobio (which I think is called “After The Fall” – didn’t see that one coming!) With the gift of hindsight, I see myself as a product of Western affluence in that I am hooked on snotty brats like M E Smith and Bob Dylan blowing raspberries. Well it passes the time! It would be interesting to get a female perspective on all this.
The Clash at least had some understanding of history. The Sex Pistols were just awful and, maybe, that's what they were famous for - being awful. Strummer's death was indeed odd, he did not do hard drugs, was a runner and a vegetarian, supposedly. Plus he just sat down and died on his couch.
It is interesting that some of the musicians who are anti Zionist support Ukraine. and are anti Russia. That shows how little too many people understand or care to learn history.
Incidentally, I mention Mark E Smith of The Fall elsewhere on this thread and he had a very poor opinion of Elvis Costello. "Boring music, boring man" was his succinct summation.
Of course neither Lex nor Quincy mentioned the worst thing about the Beatles - that Adorno wrote their lyrics thus undermining America's essential goodness.
(Kidding - just in case you think I've gone all CJ Hopkins!)
The pro-Zionist mantra indeed continues unabated. Only today I stumbled on a YouTube “discussion” labelled “What Sam Harris Realized About Palestinians That NO ONE Else Did”. I already knew about Harris’s total prostration before the Israel lobby and I knew I should have resisted ... but I surrendered just to see what Harris’s “revelation” was – and it turns out that what he “realised that NO One Else Did!” was pure Zionist boilerplate about how the Palestinians had a “culture of death” compared to Israel’s “culture of life” etc. And (take a deep breath!) if only these Hamas monsters “could have seen the beautiful souls they were destroying” on Oct 7 etc.
So thinking that this excrement might be “excused” by coming from a year ago, I find that this was posted on Nov 12 i.e. only two weeks ago!
And, speaking of “beautiful souls”,:
https://x.com/FFS_WhatNow/status/1861439624851107873
Here we have a “disconnect” between these “fabulous media creatures” and the world around them that hasn’t been so glaring since those “roaring twenties” and that “gilded cage”.
Dennis’s implication that there is some kind of “Mafia” type organisation at work here (e.g. that it might be Bibi’s turn to be “retired”) occurred to me from the start. As you (John) suggested, Russell Brand’s new Hallelujah tambourine mode may well be a “survival mechanism” for him – and an opportunity to “tune out” (with possibly some “interesting” photos of him currently residing with Mossad?)
It’s a pity I couldn’t join the debate because I really wanted to congratulate Dennis on that marvellous essay on “soft power”. The “legendary” David Bowie concert which “brought down the wall” (?!) happened in 1987. Back at that point I lived on my own for the first time ever and found myself watching less and less TV. I felt as if I was coming out of a lifelong hypnosis. And although the Berlin Wall didn’t come down for another two years, the meme was “in the wind”. And I recall this utterly phony and desperate euphoria at the time. Communism had “been conquered” and was now “consigned to the dustbin” etc.
I interpreted all this, even then, as being like the “rising stage” in a bipolar disorder. It was bound to crash as realisation that the disappearance of the Soviets would not lead to paradise after all. (A Van Morrison line comes to mind: “You got everything in the world you ever wanted/And right about now your face should wear a smile”)
There is a sad tale to relate here which may be relevant. There was a music critic by the name of Ian MacDonald, probably most famous for writing “Revolution in the Head” which was a book about the Beatles. But MacDonald also had a fixation on the Russian composer Shostakovich and had a monomaniacal angle through which he interpreted every Shostakovich piece as a coded attack on the Soviet system. Presumably MacDonald was one who felt ecstatic when the wall fell. In any case, he committed suicide in 2003 and although it would be impossible to assess the reasons for this I can’t help wondering if the political situation had a part to play i.e. that there may have been a suspicion developing in MacDonald’s mind that the Soviets were, after all, not the real problem.
Talk about how all those “rebel stars” turned into reactionary dupes is one of my favourite rants. The “Neil Young Wanker List” is vast. Of course, there are The Eagles and the whole of that “West Coast” scene. Joni Mitchell could be excruciating too. I note that Mr Dylan was always canny enough to be non-committal for most of the time (though check out the lyrics to his Zionist masturbation anthem “Neighbourhood Bully”!) The aforementioned Van was one of the few that totally rejected the vaccine push and it was interesting to see how the media furiously smeared him for it.
Always loved Van... and his music. I was a great fan of Joni's couple of albums. But she and her canyon pals all turned out to be wankers. Have you read the book Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon? I always felt McGowan took the book too far into speculation, but will probably read it after I finish Chaos. I have no idea how to have a conversation with people anymore. Their beliefs about Russia are cemented, even those who support Palestine. The anti-communist rhetoric has been extremely successful.
The anti-Russian meme is one of the most depressingly stupid along with the apparently successful attempt to turn Jeremy Corbyn into Hitler. At least with the cold war there was some ideological cover with that anti-communist patter. Now there's nothing other than, "Well they're just bastards!"
But overall, this has the same despairing tone as the push for vaccination and net zero. You just know that all these propaganda memes are hamster wheels that will go round forever.
Someone on the podcast nailed it when they said that the actual current political figure who can be compared to Hitler is Netanyahu. But I agree that the propaganda memes will continue to circulate round and round as they are meant to and even evolve with a life of their own.
Here is a link to the panel discussion I mentioned: ABC News, November 20, 1983. Compared with anything you would see today on a major network, it was a fairly sophisticated discussion of the prospects for nuclear disarmament. https://vimeo.com/1034054172
What a cringe moment, Blinken playing Muddy Waters.
This podcast is full of brilliant analysis and history.
I was living on the West Coast when punk became popular and my younger sister got into it. All her friends were trying to play instruments in their parent's garages. I couldn’t believe how horrible it sounded.
Middle- and working-class (mostly latchkey kids) apolitical high-schoolers who just wanted to be cool and “in a band,” whose only message was fuck everything and being as nasty as they could. I remember when they were trick or treating as the band KISS just a few years earlier.
Those who still get together and play have nothing of import to say. And when they do say anything, as John pointed out, they are completely reactionary. All of them during COVID required fans to be vaccinated to gain entry to their shows, at least until it became politically “safe” not to.
BAR’s relevance died with Glen Ford. So glad you brought him up. Here is the piece he wrote about the election of Obama and an interview he did discussing the piece.
https://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el7YVZXnwdk
As for Obama’s first term, I voted for him. That was the first and last time I voted for a duopoly party candidate.
Hiroyuki bringing up how the two wings of the neoliberal uniparty switch sides reminds me of a piece Johan wrote recently, Good cop, Bad cop.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151350780
“Murdering history” is the right term for Tarantino’s revisionist garbage, most recently Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which I suppose was meant to be a “feel-good, what-if” rewrite of the Manson murders that freaked out anyone in L.A.’s in-crowd during the 60s and 70s so much so that they wanted to divorce themselves from ever having met up with Manson, who I think many thought was edgy and groovy. I am reading Tom O’Neill’s book right now about the Manson killings. The information overlaps with much earlier written books in my library like Storming Heaven and Acid Dreams. I am not ready to talk about it until I finish.
The bottom line is most people do not know history and there are very few places online or in actual in-person discussions teaching and discussing it today.
I love PKD’s Man in the High Castle. One could make the case that the Nazi’s did win WWII, even without anamnesis.
A final thought on what was discussed, while the USA has outspent on its wars at the expense of American working-class lives, which have fallen further into debt and despair, and allowed the country’s infrastructure to become big potholes and crumbling bridges, Russia and China have invested in technology and making their citizens’ lives better (at least from what I have been able to learn about life in those countries, aside from the propaganda).
Here is the Quincy Jones article about the Beatles that Lex brought up.
https://w.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/07/quincy-jones-the-beatles-were-the-worst-musicians-in-the-world
Til next week, Happy Thanksgrieving
Thanks for posting the Ford
Greil Marcus wrote an interesting piece on punk rock in which he noted the big difference between the two “quintessential” UK punk bands, The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Both presented themselves as “protest” groups but The Clash were protesting against the way things were and thus implying that you could make things better. But the Pistols were protesting against “life itself”, the point being that even if you changed everything, it would still be shit anyway – obviously a very conservative position.
Though I don’t recall The Clash making much difference anyway – perhaps such an idea is impossible in what Adorno referred to as The Culture Industry. A lot of Clash songs were about imperialist machinations e.g. “Washington Bullets” which was from their most overtly political album “Sandinista” named after the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a Christian socialist political party in Nicaragua. And to my eternal shame I must admit I didn’t even know that until exactly two seconds ago when I looked it up on Wikipedia.
Which may underline my point. Bourgeois middle class kids in the West “get off” on the radical sounding rhetoric of those glamorous rockers but it’s all hugely superficial. (And though I never saw myself as middle class, I reckon that on a global scale I, along with the vast majority of those who live in the West, am indeed middle class.)
But then Joe Strummer – the lead singer of The Clash – is now “conveniently” dead. I don’t mean to imply some kind of suspicious Mafia move there (though I see that “he died from a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect” (Wiki) – so who knows?) But by “conveniently” I just mean that he didn’t live long enough to “sell out”. John Lydon (formerly “Johnny Rotten”) of the Sex Pistols went on to make margarine commercials and turned up on “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here”. The “wonder” of him is that he still postures as if he’s “really out there”! (He also once said, “Socialism is a very bad thing!” Yeah, right on, Johnny!)
So now we have Nick fucking Cave cheering on Israel – when he isn’t lining up for his next vaccine.
Then we have Mark E Smith of the Fall who is also “conveniently dead” – in his case just before covid. I can’t imagine him falling for that crap. He had a very George Carlin-ish attitude. But his most vocal fan, the “alternative comic” Stewart Lee, turned out to be the single most craven establishment whore, hob-knobbing with Andrew Neil on the late news shows and grovelling in the Guardian. Also maintaining a shrewd silence on the trans issue whilst Graham Linehan had his life ruined for the very same. Speaking of which,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GQaIiwmXSA
I dated mark e Smith's ex ..full disclosure... lol
Brix? Seriously? She also dated that Nigel Kennedy. For the record, I DIDN'T date her!
I'm under the impression she was one of those West Coast self-obsessed types.
shd did have an amusing anecdote about diana and charles, on a private jet with kennedy. The upshot was diana was shallow and fun and charles was an absolute turd.
she had just broke up with Kennedy when i met her. Her real name is like laura schneiderman or something. From the San Fernando valley as I recall. Brixie was a sweetie , all things considered.
You’ve given me a vague urge to check out Brixie's autobio (which I think is called “After The Fall” – didn’t see that one coming!) With the gift of hindsight, I see myself as a product of Western affluence in that I am hooked on snotty brats like M E Smith and Bob Dylan blowing raspberries. Well it passes the time! It would be interesting to get a female perspective on all this.
Just checked. Her autobio is called "The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise". That's much better!
The Clash at least had some understanding of history. The Sex Pistols were just awful and, maybe, that's what they were famous for - being awful. Strummer's death was indeed odd, he did not do hard drugs, was a runner and a vegetarian, supposedly. Plus he just sat down and died on his couch.
It is interesting that some of the musicians who are anti Zionist support Ukraine. and are anti Russia. That shows how little too many people understand or care to learn history.
Incidentally, I mention Mark E Smith of The Fall elsewhere on this thread and he had a very poor opinion of Elvis Costello. "Boring music, boring man" was his succinct summation.
Of course neither Lex nor Quincy mentioned the worst thing about the Beatles - that Adorno wrote their lyrics thus undermining America's essential goodness.
(Kidding - just in case you think I've gone all CJ Hopkins!)