I know I’m a latecomer to this party, but it bears repeating. Nugent is quoted in a recent New Yorker article as proclaiming:

To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead…I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want ‘em dead. Get a gun, and when they attack you shoot ‘em.

at the 2005 NRA convention in Houston while he hosted the seminar ‘God, Guns and Rock ‘n’ Roll.’

I know he purposefully baits sensitve egalitarians such as myself with these inciting ejaculations that spew from his squirrel cheeks while he’s not performing hits from his 1984 album Penetrator (“Thunder Thighs” is my favorite). When hungrily eyeing the governorship of Michigan like the small, meaty animals that populate his extravegant compound, he had this to say about the current governor, Jennifer Granholm: “[She] is not doing an ugly job, but as the perfect woman, she is scrotumless.”

The first time I saw a live Nuge — that is to say, not on an album cover, which themselves are difficult to describe as ‘not live’ — was when he was on MTV cribs. He seemed like a nice enough guy — he was endlessly entertaining, and I’d probably get a kick out of drinking cream fizzes (he’s straight edge) with him and having him (almost?) kill me while showing me how to shoot a bow. And I’m sure he makes people really excited and stuff when they blast his music out of their trucks or see him at a show.

(more…)

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I’d like to address what I feel is a complete lack of perspective by the Democratic party, of respect for the bible belt by the media, and of what we call cajones south of the fiercely guarded border, by any charismatic leader smart enough to read the paper every day.

Specifically, the information documented in this (I hate to cite the rag but nothing means anything anymore so whatever, right?) Rolling Stone article and a recent analysis of Democratic strategy by the New Yorker.

People can get lost in the details. People can also completely ignore the details and still make the right decision. Most of us have been burned by the former and the people who rely on the latter enough to make any sort of decision feel like your in the rat maze of some 13 year old with a cattle prod. That’s why we have leaders who have a knack for finding a path through all the hmming and hahing.

The Democratic party doesn’t need to find the right concoction of issues to cater to a middle majority that they treat as some Damien child that can make or break their campaign on a whim. It’s a pandering without any real respect for the people whose votes you want so desperately. Anyone who’s tried to court a member of the opposite sex who knows she’s attractive can tell you how appetizing desparation smells.

The DNC is paying a third-party company a bunch of money to tell them how to speak to this foreign and flighty demographic, handing out pamphlets that sound like instructions written for robots on how to care for animals. The impression this gives is that the DNC views the middle as an alien other with incredible power, which right now is true. Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi are making murderous and embarrassing invectives against enemies of the U.S. in an effort to change the perception of Dems as soft on national security. As the New Yorker article observes, if you have to say you’re tough, you’re not.

Not only is this all very bile boiling, it’s just poor strategy. Everyone can see the insincerity, the calculations, it’s just that the loyal left – like me – agree with the ends and so continue to cross their fingers and hope for the best. I’m betting the amount of money being poured into think tanks and strategists for both parties would solve many poor countries’ infrastructure problems.

So what to do? At this point it’s difficult for the DNC to come off as having some core ideals that they didn’t just cobble together from polls. They need to pick a single voice, no matter how imperfect because they’re all imperfect, go after the incredible amounts of corruption (of which I suspect we’ve barely scratched the surface), and stop the media speculation about what the strategy will be for fall. We’re going to win, next question. Even the New Yorker is ashamed of the bickering messages being bandied about.

And most importantly, despite the media veil that says otherwise, keep in mind that Kerry didn’t really fuck up. Whether or not you think that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is full of shit, I think it’s important to note that if the same discrepancy between exit polls and actual numbers happened in a third world country, everyone would’ve called BS. Part of it is the comfort I feel in thinking that the country that I live in wouldn’t have elected an obvious liar (no matter what his politics) but I think the biggest fumbling of the trump card the Dems have been handed by way of lies and corruption would be to cater to voters who don’t want to be catered to, they want to be lead.

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After three days of dedicated television viewing, speaking in tongues and consuming enough pie and coffee to send half of the continent into convulsions we had grasped in the dark for some way to continue the experience… Something akin, I suppose, to post-ejaculate depression which may or may not be a cointed psuedo-scientific term but there is a band called PED after it… Twin Peaks was finished and now it was back to the real world, back to our lives, back to the day to day or in one person’s case– off to New York for fun and excitement…

 The only near-plausible concept for another event which could corrale the four of us onto the couch with plates of food and senseless 4am conversations about plot deviations and how much James sucks was to attempt to construct a chain of movies which could flow together thematically, like a successful mix-tape… What exactly this could mean or how it would be arranged is beyond me but the idea of watching all three “Back to the Future” movies was beaten down with clubs and left to bleed it out behind a McDonald’s dumpster…

Didn’t think about it at the time but I had already wrapped some sandwiches in a handkerchief and slung a stick over my back… Adrzej Wajda‘s war trilogy seemed to touch off a reborn fascination with similar political dramas that have slowly been amassed and run through the DVD player… Roberto Rosselini’s first film, “Open City” and its neo-realist approach had been a pretty obvious influence on Wajda’s first two films and carried a different perspective on the same theme– an occupied people’s struggles… So I’d conveniently blocked out the melodramatic scenes from my memory but even the laughable hysterics and touching pride can’t mar a historical triumph…

Last night I skipped over “Falcon and the Snowman” and sat down with a pot of popcorn to watch Costa-Gavras’ “Z“, a very modern film based on the assassination and attempted cover-up of the Greek leftist member of parliment Grigoris Lambrakis, which I’d seen once before and was infuriated during the entire viewing… The disbelief and anger was a little abated the second time around, tho because I’ve grown more jades or bitter or because I knew what to expect I couldn’t say…

Some of the more powerful scenes are Gavras’s use of location shots, directing throngs of people, squadrons of police and capturing the complete chaos of mob violence and street fighting… Watching a staunch pacifist take a rock to the head and still refuse to allow his associates to lash back in defence hits your gut the same as watching reactionary thugs taunt the bleeding hippies sprawling out on the ground refusing to fight back, the same as the line of police refusing to intervene… All of this over an anti-nuclear rally and the anti-communist sentiments of rabid nationalists…

Earlier in the day I became aware of the fact that I’d totally blanked on election day… Not only was this the first time since turning 18 that I’d skipped the vote but it was also the first time I can remember not knowing anything about what the issues were supposed to be about… The right to vote has always been a pretty hot topic when growing up, my father probably ready and willing to physically drag me to the polls had I refused to go on my own… I grew up watching the news and reading the paper, bitching about the state of things and caring just enough to think everything was stupid… Not much has changed, of course, except that I’m most often watching Deutsch-Welle instead of local news and I can’t even look at the Chronicle anymore without wanting to laugh and cry… The fucking fact that I didn’t even know it was election day until someone leaving work mentioned it made me feel like I may as well have been shooting black in the south and setting freedom rider busses on fire…

Of course I’m not a democrat so the primary was the least of my concerns (tho I would have voted for Barbara Becnel, as embarassing as that may be) but watching “Z” after watching “Open City” after watching “A Generation”, “Kanal” and “Ashes and Diamonds” really reaffirms just how much easier it’s gotten for people who believe in “what’s right” to express their opinions and try to make a difference somehow… The totaltarian regimes are not photographing you, there are no long black cars down the block following you and when you walk across the street to give a little pep talk about how nice flowers are you’re probably not going to be brained in full view of a police cordon…

 Yeah, whatever, it’s just guilt and I would have felt just as guilty (if not more) voting on isses I’d not even bothered to investigate… Every year I skip a lot of shit on the ballot I don’t understand because I don’t think it’s very responsible to vote on shit you know nothing about… Now I’m just totally irresponsible instead of partially…

And I’ve been wanting to watch “Battle of Algiers” again for a really long time…

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