Let’s Highjack The GOP

The United States has a two-party system. The two current parties are well-entrenched with massive networks of donors, bureaucrats, and workers. They are two of the largest and most established non-governmental organizations, if you will, in the world.

Absent actual reforms, the Unites States political system will continue to be run by two parties. Those two parties don’t have to continue to be the same nor do they have to look the same, however. Over the history of United States politics, there have been a large number of political parties. Some have become entrenched as one of the two major parties (most notably, the Democratic Party which, arguably, has been around since the beginning of the two-party system circa 1796) while others have languished in obscurity. Interestingly, the two parties in power have been replaced over time (again, with the possible exception of the Democratic Party); the Federalists replaced by the Whigs and the Whigs replaced by Republicans (and that’s it, those four parties are the basic players in USAmerican political history, no President has really come from any other party).

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Music for the Revolution

TV On The Radio put out a new album called “Dear Science,”. I like it. My favorite song is “Family Tree”:

TV On The Radio – Family Tree

I have also been obsessing over The Dodos for months. I have played the lead track “Walking” over sixty times according to Last.fm:

The Dodos – Walking

David Byrne and Brian Eno have also released a new album together, their last being “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” from 1981. It is called “Everything That Happens Will Happen Today” and it is an interesting enough album. I like the song “Life Is Long”:

David Byrne and Brian Eno – Life Is Long

Filed under: Uncategorized , Music

The State Of The System

Global recession. Global depression?

I think that some basic context is very useful for our current situation. Today, the stock market (DJIA) dropped to 7997 points, the first time it has gone below 8000 in five years. In the 1929 stock market crash associated with the Great Depression, the stock market dropped around 48% from its highest by the time it hit its first bottom. For comparison, the stock market has dropped around 44% from its highest in 2007. Obviously it is very difficult to directly compare any two moments in history. However, as information to consider: after hitting the initial bottom and undergoing what is called a dead cat bounce (rebounding before crashing again), the stock market plunged in 1930 until it hit the final bottom in 1933 which saw an 89% loss.

The Great Depression is a hotly debated topic (what an insightful observation…). It is agreed by many “experts” that a large part of the cause was a massive banking crisis, not dissimilar to the current financial crisis. Furthermore, widespread deflation was a hallmark of the Depression. This is very simplistic, but as events have unfolded we have seen more and more similarities between what is happening today and what happened in 1929. Time will tell, especially the next year, as to how severe this is going to get.

It is from this starting point, a global economic recession of unknown proportions, which I begin this blog.

Filed under: Uncategorized , deflation, economy, Great Depression, stock market

The Revoluton Will Be News Blogged

I have a tendency to rant to my friends about the news and all that goes along with that. In order to relieve those closest to me and to record my thoughts, I have started this new blog. I see it as less personal and more formal in its subject matter and tone than other blogs that I have.

I use the term “news” very generally. At the moment, I envision writing on areas such as: the problems with and any updates to (basically writing about the “News” of) the state of the system I/we live in (late-capitalist, “representative democracy” in short); the utopian visions of the future within this system from liberal, socialist, and/or other viewpoints; strategies and tactics and thoughts on “revolution” (which I would define as social change toward a less-oppressive system); and visions of the post-”revolutionary” future (with the caveat that the “revolution” never ends; we must always be struggling to break down oppression).

I will include a sidebar with links from my del.icio.us account as a kind of newsfeed. I try to link to every interesting article I read (keep in mind that I read a lot of headlines and news briefs which I do not link to and which provide me with the bulk of my general sense of the news; the articles provide me with my in-depth understanding of what is going on in the world and will hopefully be useful to any readers I might ever have). In addition to the news feed, I will try to include links in my posts, but that can get arduous and time-consuming when I sometimes just want to spit out posts.

Finally, I might do short music posts possibly. I’m not sure how that would fit into the general theme of this blog. Since it is a way of sharing music for free, though, I kind of feel that it is with the ideology on those terms. Plus, we fucking need music and art and happiness for any revolution.

One last note, I tend to use quotes and parentheses (especially (double (and even triple)) parentheses) a lot.

Filed under: Abolish Categories, Uncategorized