Crass Recuperation

Once a song is recorded and published, it belongs to the public right?

As most people know, politicians like to have some popular song playing in the background as they approach the podium for a speech. For much the same reason that professional wrestlers have an identifying song blasting from the venue's PA system when they enter the arena and head to the ring, politicians need to build excitement for the canned stump speech they deliver to throngs of supporters. But what happens when the song used is utterly antithetical to the politician co-opting it?

The dumb-ass governor of Wisconsin recently found out. It seems he's been lately wading into battle, with unions and working people of course, to the sounds of Dropkick Murphys' I'm Shipping Up To Boston. Even while AWOL from the actual job and office he is supposed to be occupying he uses the song to convince the big money boys and fascist rubes he is fit to be president in Iowa and California. This college dropout likes to tout his being "unintimidated" but what do you call his strategy of warming up to a band that his supporters were protesting just a few short years ago?

I was able to find a post by the renegade union SEIU reporting the song DKM released in support of the teachers and other civilized Wisconsinites protesting walker's scheme to wreck public education and destroy unions. But it seems most of the backlash by republican cretins calling for a ban or boycott of those union-loving lads from Boston seems to have disappeared down the memory hole. I suppose they needed to alter the past in order to use I'm Shipping Up To Boston as scott walker's fight song. Or is he really so dumb that he just thought this was a cool song from a gangster movie (The Departed) and did not realize this band is one of the most pro-union, pro-working class forces in America?



I mean they put out a tweet explicitly stating "stop using our music in any way...we literally hate you !!! Love, Dropkick Murphys" because, yes Scott Walker deserves hatred for all the hardship he has caused to so many Wisconsinites. But as you can see from the tweeting trolls, blind loyalty to a sycophantic ideologue is a default for angry morons. Right wing authoritarian followers are easy to wind up and vicious when pointed at their out-groups. What exactly do these mouth-breathing supporters of Scotty find appealing in him? I would find it very satisfying if the tweeters who are adamant in telling DKM how much they suck and how they need to keep their politics to themselves and should be "tolerant" showed up at one of their shows and tell DKM fans how they feel.

It is a special kind of arrogance to recuperate one of the few symbols of resistance to free market fundamentalism and use it as a theme song. So no, once a piece of music is recorded and becomes a freely existing packet of 1s and 0s, it is not public property. Hat's off to DKM. Hopefully I will have time in the future to write about how much the Murphys have meant to me since I was introduced to them in 1998, long before the full-court press against unions in Wisconsin kicked off. But I will leave you with my favorite DKM song. I hope my sharing it is in keeping with the spirit it was recorded in. For these are dark days indeed.

y

In Defense of Civilian Life

Even in our current state of, what passes for, de-militarization in the aftermath of the Iraq war and the winding down of the American occupation of Afghanistan, there is a certain segment of the population that maintains dangerously militarist ideas. These individuals have a prominent perch at fox news and other right wing outlets and the backing thereof. The recent release and box office success of American Sniper is a symptom of the larger effort to turn the United States into a perpetual war machine. This film will overpower the objective narrative of real history of the events and participants in war, as good propaganda is supposed to do.


What rebuilding the history of our invasion and occupation of Iraq will do is place doubt in the minds of those of us who lived through it, rationalize the events and motivations for those who fought in it and supported the war policies of GWB, and influence the next generation of American boys when the time comes for another war. Re-envisioning what the United States did in Iraq as a "good war" of noble American warriors fighting evil Muslims will be essential if the militarists ever want to pull off another adventure in the Middle East. Suckering young men into joining the military through lies about the nobility of our cause will be much easier after seeing American Sniper, where every boy can see himself a hero through the lens of Chris Kyle. Or at least the fictionalized version of him. The film will stand alone, no other research can be expected of the young. Especially anything as difficult as reading a blog post.


It is for this reason that my colleague penned this short statement in defense of living a peaceful and productive life away from the military. Enormous effort is made by the militarists to shame anyone who does not chose to enlist. This is wrong, even though the vast majority of Americans never serve in uniform, the guilt persists for many. As though life loses meaning in a purely civilian existence and that those who did wear the uniform and survive combat gain enlightenment and superiority over those who did not. Dr. Miller felt the time was right to push back against this narrative:

I would like to thank the brave men and women who have chosen to live their lives as peaceful and productive civilian citizens of the United States. You keep the economy going, you live out the notion of freedom, you provide culture and art, you raise families; you show love to others, you strive to be better people and to make things better for others. Some of you work tirelessly to make sure that our institutions live up to our ideals of justice. Some of you have come from other countries trying to carve out a better life for yourselves and your children. Some of you chose to serve as teachers and social workers. Some of you fix cars or build houses. All of you participate in the maintenance of our republic by paying taxes. I am proud of you, and I thank you for the immense benefits I receive for being part of you. You show me what it means to be a free citizen.

Your choice to not be in the military does not make you less of an American. It does not suggest a moral failing or cowardice. It does not mean your value to others and to your country is inferior. It does not mean your civil rights are invalid, undeserved, or contingent. It does not make suspect your political opinions, nor force deference on your part to those who have chosen a military career. It does not mean you cannot criticize the military or one of its members if he or she has chosen to participate in public discourse. It does not mean that you are missing something or lack wisdom and strength.

~R. Miller

Sniping Michael Moore

The latest, though probably not by the time this post is published, clash between the "Left" and the patriotically correct culture warriors has involved filmmaker Michael Moore basically standing alone against former military snipers and the entire right wing media attack machine. This particular skirmish, as all of them do, has the poor, put-upon "Real Americans" (TM) against the vicious anti-American Left. Let's get one thing straight before plowing ahead, Michael Moore could say it is a nice day outside and trigger this kind of hatred and attacks on his patriotism from the holier than thou crowd of authoritarians in this country, so the substance of his tweet that caused the uproar is almost immaterial. And by now it should be clear that any criticism or even benign remark about the military from a liberal will be met with the harshest condemnation and character attacks from these same culture warriors and their enablers in the media. So what does all the vitriol say about the state of our nation?

The tweet that kicked things off went as follows: "My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.” Moore later noted, correctly but immaterially, that he does not mention Chris Kyle or the film American Sniper in the tweet. But in the court of public opinion, especially when viewed by the patriotically correct culture warrior, the implication is clear, Moore was bashing our service members and most likely crapping in your cornflakes while kicking your dog. A always includes B, soldiers defend our freedoms so how dare you use your freedom to say something we disagree with. The torturers at Abu Ghraib were defending our freedom, the drone that bombed the wedding party in Afghanistan was defending our freedom, even I defended our freedom.

Yes, I am a veteran too. And when people I meet learn this and inevitably spout the obligatory "thank you for your service" I am sure they have internalized this meaningless phrase that soldiers defend our freedom. It is knee-jerk to say thank you to a veteran, no matter what he or she did. I signed up to be a tanker, or 19K Armor Crewman as my MOS stated, but all I got to do was the exhausting and thankless task of maintaining M1A1 Abrams tanks for other people to use. Then "support" these students by having to sit at the range or maneuver area babysitting them while they wrecked our tanks. How exactly did I "defend our freedom?" I did not do any defending, it is a meaningless phrase. The more remote you are from the military and its culture the more you fail to understand this. The civilians around my post "got it", they never thanked us, they only wanted to separate us from our money. The point is just that I have some perspective on this debate, however small.

A big problem in the debate is that Americans are so polarized and divided that any clique claiming that "all" or "everyone" feels a certain way is disingenuous at best, conniving an agenda at worst. Because American culture has no permanent foundations beyond something amorphous like "liberty" or "freedom" the manipulation of public opinion is big business. We do not have a King or Queen that can speak to our tradition and keep public opinion and policy rooted in some semblance of reality. Moore was wrong to argue that "most Americans believe..." because we simply don't. I expect this kind of derp from Sarah Palin, whose word salad on the subject you can look up for yourself, when she blurts on Facebook that: “Hollywood leftists: while caressing shiny plastic trophies you exchange among one another while spitting on the graves of freedom fighters who allow you to do what you do, just realize the rest of America knows you’re not fit to shine Chris Kyle’s combat boots...”

But that is Sarah Palin. What about criticism from an actual service member? A couple of them appeared on that fount of high intellectualism Fox and Friends to discuss what Michael Moore's words meant to them.

"The fact that he [Moore] would say something about America's military, snipers in particular, goes to show his abundant lack of intellectual capability that harnesses any value," retired U.S. Marine Corporal Jacob Schick, who appears in the "American Sniper" film, said during a visit to "Fox and Friends." 

Former Army Ranger and sniper Nick Irving also weighed in during an appearance on "Fox and Friends," saying, "I don't think [Moore] deserves the breath that I'm about to give, but I'll just say Michael Moore wasn't there in Afghanistan and the last time I checked, he's never shot anybody with a scoped rifle."

I do not know exactly why shooting someone with a scoped rifle in Afghanistan is a necessary prerequisite for commenting on American foreign policy and military tactics. Nor do I have a clue what in the world Schick meant. He sounds like someone trying to impress a graduate student with big words. At least these two veterans were trying. Then you have a former drug dealer who goes by the name Kid Rock posting on his website "(Expletive) Michael Moore, you’re a piece of (expletive) and your uncle would be ashamed of you. Seth Rogen, your uncle probably molested you. I hope both of you catch a fist to the face soon."

The culture war is alive and well.

Fighting With Words

"Dishes it out but cannot take it. Too sensitive. Glass jaw. Takes themselves too seriously." These are all expressions that often apply to the schoolyard bully. You know the one, they like to invent provocations from the other, weaker, children in order to rationalize violence against them. The juvenile bully has an incredibly fragile ego and any slight, however small, prompts them to retaliate violently and out of proportion. Why? Because the intention is not to seek justice, or even vengeance, but to intimidate and dominate everyone around them. This is true whether on the playground, in cyberspace, or in the "grownup" world where we are supposed to behave better.

Wednesday's attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris were carried out by bullies somewhat more complex than the schoolyard variety, but the motivation was fundamentally the same. The terrorists who killed ten journalists and two police officers in France were allegedly Islamic fundamentalists. They decided that Charlie Hebdo's cartoons, which sometimes depict Mohammed in less than flattering terms, should be violently and publicly attacked for this slight. The attack has been denounced almost universally because civilization has also decided that you do not answer the pen with the sword. Bullies who disagree with this idea come in every shape, color, and texture but do not constitute the entirety of any group. After all, if three Muslims picked AK-47s to avenge the honor of their beliefs, over a billion others did not.

Modern France and the United States are nations born out of the Enlightenment. They share many values such as individual freedom, freedom of inquiry, freedom of expression, and the freedom of each citizen to pursue happiness and improvement in nearly any way they see fit. Not everyone in those societies shares these values and a minority is often motivated to censor and stifle these freedoms. Liberal societies such as France must embrace tolerance and pluralism if everyone's freedom is to be guaranteed. Freedom comes with responsibility and individuals who succumb to the bully characteristics from the opening of this post must be shunned by society, their ideas left invalidated. But why is freedom of expression and of the press important in the first place? For most of human history the powerful have suppressed the common people, that is well known.

The answer is simple, since the Enlightenment and it's rejection of "might makes right" societies that embrace freedom have experienced an exponential increase in progress. Happiness, knowledge, art, and fulfillment all come from the freedom to pursue truth and your passions. The sum total of human knowledge and achievement since the Enlightenment has been incredible. This would not have been possible under the bullies' regime of fear and intimidation. The freedom of Charlie Hebdo or the Onion on this side of the Atlantic must be defended because they are a bulwark against the return of intimidation. Satire has a humbling effect on people who take themselves too seriously or cannot tolerate differences between people.