Why Accountants are Dull and Guitarists are Glamorous – The End of Intellectual Property

by Adrian Bowyer

Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you the keys to their car, and you will receive an abrupt and unhelpful reply. Go up to a stranger in the street and ask them to give you their most interesting idea, and fifteen minutes later you will be glancing at your watch and inventing fictitious dentist’s appointments.

This prompts a profound biological question: if information is such valuable property, what is the Darwinian selective advantage in the ubiquitous impulse to give it away?

The answer was worked out a few years ago by the evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller. He realised that the human mind did not just evolve as a problem-solving device, it also evolved by sexual selection – like the peacock’s tail – to waste resources in a way that cannot be faked. Peahens admire peacocks with fancy tails, because those peacocks are strong enough to waste the resources needed to grow the tail and to drag it about. That peacock has good genes for strength, growth, and endurance, and so is worth mating with.

Parts of the human mind are for wasting glucose in a way that cannot be faked. Your brain dumps about 20% of your body’s energy budget out of your head every second of your life. You cannot pretend to paint a picture well, or pretend to write a quatrain of iambic pentameters well – you cannot pretend to be witty. You need to waste real glucose to do those things, all of which have no utilitarian value.

“But hang on,” you say. “If that were so, then you would expect only men to be talented, because sexual selection works through the power of female choice selecting the best males. But everyone except the most unreconstructed chauvinist can see that women are as clever as men.”

True, normally: it is the peacocks that have to drag around the tail and the stags that have to hold the antlers aloft. But, to choose between them, peahens and hinds just need good eyesight, whereas the only way for a woman to judge if a man is clever is for her to be equally clever herself – the transmitting device and the receiving device are the same: their minds. That is why the most important four letters in lonely-hearts columns are GSOH, why musicians, painters, authors, and actors (who all do nothing actually useful, and so who waste great mental energy) are so attractive to the opposite sex, why bank managers, engineers and computer programmers (who don’t waste their intellect, but use it for gainful things) are considered geeky and unattractive, and why we all want to tell people any inspired idea as soon as it comes into our head. Showing off cleverness by frittering it away is one of the main things our brains are for.

Read the full article at http://reprap.org/bin/view/Main/EndOfIntellectualProperty?skin=print.pattern

Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press Writer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090520/ap_on_re_eu/eu_ireland_catholic_abuse

DUBLIN – A fiercely debated, long-delayed investigation into Ireland’s Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Nine years in the making, Wednesday’s 2,600-page report sides almost completely with the horrific reports of abuse from former students sent to more than 250 church-run, mostly residential institutions.

It concluded that church officials always shielded their orders’ pedophiles from arrest to protect their own reputations and, according to documents uncovered in the Vatican, knew that many pedophiles were serial attackers.

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential.

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” the final report of Ireland’s Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse concluded.

More than 30,000 children deemed to be petty thieves, truants or from dysfunctional families — a category that often included unmarried mothers — were sent to Ireland’s austere network of industrial schools, reformatories, orphanages and hostels from the 1930s until the last church-run facilities shut in the 1990s.

The report, unveiled by High Court Justice Sean Ryan, found that molestation and rape were “endemic” in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

“In some schools a high level of ritualized beating was routine. … Girls were struck with implements designed to maximize pain and were struck on all parts of the body,” the report said. “Personal and family denigration was widespread.”

Victims of the system have long demanded that the truth of their experiences be documented and made public, so that children in Ireland never endure such suffering again.

But most leaders of religious orders have rejected the allegations as exaggerations and lies, and testified to the commission that any abuses were the responsibility of often long-dead individuals.

The report proposed 21 ways the government could recognize past wrongs, including building a permanent memorial, providing counseling and education to victims and improving Ireland’s current child protection services.

But its findings will not be used for criminal prosecutions — in part because the Christian Brothers successfully sued the commission in 2004 to keep the identities of all of its members, dead or alive, unnamed in the report. No real names, whether of victims or perpetrators, appear in the final document.

Irish church leaders and religious orders all declined to comment Wednesday, citing the need to read the massive document first. The Vatican also declined to comment.

The Irish government already has funded a parallel compensation system that has paid 12,000 abuse victims an average of euro65,000 ($90,000). About 2,000 claims remain outstanding.

Victims receive the payouts only if they waive their rights to sue the state and the church. Hundreds have rejected that condition and taken their abusers and those church employers to court.

Wednesday’s report said children had no safe way to tell authorities about the assaults they were suffering, particularly the sexual aggression from church officials and older inmates in boys’ institutions.

“The management did not listen to or believe children when they complained of the activities of some of the men who had responsibility for their care,” the commission found. “At best, the abusers were moved, but nothing was done about the harm done to the child. At worst, the child was blamed and seen as corrupted by the sexual activity, and was punished severely.”

The commission dismissed as implausible a central defense of the religious orders — that, in bygone days, people did not recognize the sexual abuse of a child as a criminal offense, but rather as a sin that required repentance.

In their testimony, religious orders typically cited this as the principal reason why sex-predator priests and brothers were sheltered within the system and moved to new posts where they could still maintain daily contact with children.

But the commission said its fact-finding — which included unearthing decades-old church files, chiefly stored in the Vatican, on scores of unreported abuse cases from Ireland’s industrial schools — demonstrated that officials understood exactly what was at stake: their own reputations.

It cited numerous examples where school managers told police about child abusers who were not church officials — but never did when one of their own had committed the crime.

“Contrary to the congregations’ claims that the recidivist nature of sexual offending was not understood, it is clear from the documented cases that they were aware of the propensity for abusers to re-abuse,” it said.

Religious orders were chiefly concerned about preventing scandal, not the danger to children, it said.

The commission also condemned Ireland’s Education Department for aiding the abusive culture through infrequent, toothless inspections that deferred to church authority.

Inspectors were supposed to restrict the use of corporal punishment and make sure the children were adequately fed, clothed and educated — but the report called those inspections “fundamentally flawed.”

It said a lone inspector was responsible for monitoring more than 50 industrial schools, schools were told about the visits in advance and inspectors rarely talked to the children.

Wednesday’s report also highlighted the rarity of human kindness in the institutions.

“A word of consideration or encouragement, or an act of sympathy or understanding, had a profound effect. Adults in their 60s and 70s recalled seemingly insignificant events that had remained with them all their lives,” the report said.

“Often the act of kindness, recalled in such a positive light, arose from the simple fact that the staff member had not given a beating when one was expected.”

FBI infiltrated Iowa anti-war group before GOP convention

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090517/NEWS/905170341

By WILLIAM PETROSKI
© 2009, Des Moines Register and Tribune Company
May 17, 2009

An FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff’s deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Confidential FBI documents obtained by The Des Moines Register show an FBI informant was planted among a group described as an “anarchist collective” that met regularly last year in Iowa City. One of the group’s goals was to organize street blockades to disrupt the Republican convention, held Sept. 1-4, 2008, where U.S. Sen. John McCain was nominated for president.

The undercover Minnesota deputy who traveled to Iowa City was from the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Department, which infiltrated a group known as the “RNC Welcoming Committee” that was coordinating convention protest activities in St. Paul.

The undercover officer accompanied two activists from the Twin Cities who attended the University of Iowa in April 2008 for a Midwest campus anti-war conference.

The Iowa City Police Department was not aware that an FBI informant was monitoring local anti-war activists last year, Police Chief Samuel Hargadine said. But he confirmed to the Register that he was notified by Ramsey County authorities last year that they were sending an undercover officer to Iowa City.

Authorities said about 800 convention protesters were arrested last September in St. Paul, although most charges have since been dismissed.

About 3,700 police officers — many in riot gear and some on horses — used tear gas, pepper spray and other methods to control protesters and quell disturbances. Demonstrators shattered glass windows at retail stores, and some threw feces and urine at police, authorities said.

About 25 members of Iowa City activist groups participated in the St. Paul demonstrations, but Iowa organizers said they were aware of only one Iowa City demonstrator who was arrested. Those charges were subsequently dropped.

A key focus of the protests was anti-war sentiment, but the activists had other causes, such as environmental issues and helping poor people. Most of the Iowa City activists did not attend the Democratic National Convention held in Denver, Colo.

ACLU: Is spying’s focus safety — or politics?

The use of undercover informants to spy on political dissidents is a contentious issue. Law enforcement officials contend it is sometimes necessary, but civil libertarians are wary of such tactics as potentially violating people’s constitutional rights.

The FBI documents provide in-depth descriptions of more than a dozen Iowa political activists. This includes personal information such as names, height, weight, place of employment, cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The documents also include individuals’ plans for the convention demonstrations.

Some of the surveillance occurred when the activists met last year at the Iowa City Public Library.

The FBI documents show the investigative reports were written in August 2008 by Special Agent Thomas Reinwart, who is assigned to Cedar Rapids, based on reports from a “confidential human source” in Iowa City.

FBI spokeswoman Sandy Breault in Omaha declined to talk about the documents or whether the agency used undercover informants to conduct surveillance on anti-war groups in Iowa City.

Randall Wilson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, obtained copies of FBI documents involving surveillance of the Iowa City activists independently of the Register.

Wilson said he believes the FBI was “ostensibly investigating the possibility that some of these people might cross the line and engage in civil disobedience.”

But, he said, “My main concern is that they were really spying on people who were in the political opposition.”

Protest participants denounce monitoring

Russell Porter, director of the Iowa Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence Bureau, declined to comment specifically on whether law enforcement officers monitored Iowa political activists who planned protests at the Republican National Convention.

But, he added, “If people are planning criminal activity, we would be interested in having people report that information to us and share that with us.”

Porter, who coordinates Iowa law enforcement intelligence efforts with local, state and federal agencies, said routine Iowa political activities are not the focus of undercover investigations.

“When this work is done well, it keeps the community safe. But central to it is ensuring that we adhere and follow a solemn obligation to protect those principles enumerated in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution,” he said.

David Goodner, 28, a University of Iowa senior who participated in the demonstrations in St. Paul, condemned the undercover surveillance.

“There is no justification for spying on nonviolent pacifist groups,” Goodner said. “Our road blockade at the RNC and our peaceful preparations beforehand are protected under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. We have the right to speak out against the policies of our government. The criminalization of dissent and militarization of society are the actions of a police state, and they take valuable resources away from providing for unmet social needs. The FBI’s motives and methods are extremely unethical and go against basic American values.”

Robert “Ajax” Ehl, 39, of Iowa City, who also participated in the Republican convention protests in St. Paul, said he was surprised to learn afterward that the FBI had used an informant to monitor political activists in Iowa City.

“It’s pretty ridiculous to be watching small peace groups in Iowa,” Ehl said. “There are not a lot of bomb throwers in Iowa City.”

FBI report describes appearances, interests

The FBI documents described the Iowa City political activists as aligning themselves with one of three “risk” zones in preparing for the Republican National Convention. Some members were interested in protest activities and involvement in “affinity groups,” such as a legal collective, a medic group and a media group. Others were described as peaceful protesters. But a third unit of activists was willing to risk arrest and potential involvement in criminal activities, according to the documents.

Individual names of protesters were blacked out of the copy of the FBI documents obtained by the Register, but the dossiers included personal facts.

For example, one woman was described as white, 5 feet 10 inches, 140 pounds, with blond hair and glasses. The report said she lived in Cedar Rapids, and it provided her cell phone number. She was characterized as a member of a specific subgroup who had interests in medic training and as a legal observer.

“She drives a little, dark green four door hatchback,” the report said.

A white man in his 20s who had recently moved to Iowa from Mississippi was also profiled by the FBI informant. “He is planning on attending the RNC and participating with the ‘Queer Block’ and ‘Bash Back,’ which are groups affiliated with the lesbian, bi-sexual, gay and transgender movement. Several hundred people associated with these two groups plan on doing their own thing and blocking an unknown (intersection),” the document said.

The report told of a protest strategy at the Republican National Convention known as “swarm, seize and stay,” which would involve thousands of demonstrators.

This included a mass text-messaging program through cell phones of participants to coordinate the locations.

Activists say “Jason” likely was informant

In late August, before the Republican convention, authorities conducted a series of raids in Minneapolis and St. Paul as a pre-emptive strike against disruptive protests.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told reporters that the raids targeted the RNC Welcoming Committee, which he described as a “criminal enterprise” intent on blockading and disabling delegate buses, breaching venue security and injuring police officers. Authorities said they seized items that included buckets of urine, a gas mask, bolt cutters, axes, slingshots and spikes for puncturing bus tires.

Eight organizers of the RNC Welcoming Committee still face felony charges of conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to commit criminal damage to property. None of the eight is from Iowa. Separately, two men from a Texas group that went to St. Paul to protest the convention have pleaded guilty to federal charges after being accused of making Molotov cocktails – gasoline-filled bottles with wicks. Prosecutors said the two men intended to used the incendiary devices to hurt police or destroy property.

Political activists Ehl and Goodner said they believe they know the identity of the FBI informant who spied on the Iowa City protesters.

They say it was a young man from Michigan named “Jason” who claimed he was a U.S. military conscientious objector. He told people he had been discharged from the Air Force after he objected to being deployed to Iraq.

The man hung out with Iowa City activists for months, sharing beers and meals with them while expressing solidarity with their political beliefs.

Goodner and Ehl said “Jason” later admitted that he provided information to the FBI in exchange for money.

“It is my understanding that he just took money because he was unemployed,” Ehl said.

Looking back, the surveillance in Iowa City may have begun as early as the fall of 2007, Goodner said. He and three others from Iowa City traveled to St. Paul for a meeting with the RNC Welcoming Committee. A few weeks later, “Jason” started coming to their meetings in Iowa City.

“We didn’t think anything of it,” said Goodner, who was the Midwest regional coordinator for the Campus Antiwar Network and is a past member of the Register’s Young Adult Board of Contributors.

Undercover officer came to Iowa City

Hargadine, the Iowa City police chief, said he was not told the gender or identity of the undercover officer from Ramsey County.

But political activists in Iowa City and Minnesota have said she was a middle-aged woman known by the pseudonym “Norma Jean Johnson.”

She attended the Campus Antiwar Network Midwest Regional Conference, held April 18-20, 2008, at the University of Iowa Memorial Union in Iowa City. About 150 people from Iowa and other states attended.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis has reported that “Norma Jean Johnson” was Ramsey County Deputy Sheriff Marilyn Hedstrom, who infiltrated the RNC Welcoming Committee. Ramsey County sheriff’s spokeswoman Holli Drinkwine confirmed last week that Hedstrom worked as an undercover officer who investigated the RNC Welcoming Committee.

But Drinkwine said she did not know whether Hedstrom had worked undercover in Iowa City. Hedstrom recently received a 2009 Excellence in Performance Award from the Minnesota Association of Women Police.

Political activist Goodner said he recalled seeing “Norma Jean Johnson” at the anti-war conference in Iowa City.

She accompanied two members of the RNC Welcoming Committee and she helped with a slide show, but she said little and left the speaking to others, he said. He said the woman stayed at a hotel rather than sleeping for free on somebody’s couch in Iowa City, which should have been a tip-off she wasn’t a typical political activist.

“Because she came down here with two people who we did know, we just trusted them,” Goodner said.

So next time you’re wondering why there’s never money to fix the leaks in the roof at your kids school or fill the potholes in the road, you’ve got your answer right here – because the pigs wasted all your tax dollars fighting two illegal and immoral wars of aggression and then spying on citizens who dared to stand up and be counted in opposition to the governments’ crimes.

I live in a rather very small city in Austria. The only reason people from outside the country might know of it is because we are currently the cultural capitol of Europe according to the EU. It’s not a particularly good reason, but it’s a reason. In any case ever since 1991 a coalition of communists, anarchists and generally anti-fascists has organized an alternative mayday demonstration in Linz. Up until this year it was just a quiet, peaceful demonstration with no particular incidents. This year however it wasn’t as quiet. This is the article from indymedia.at that I translated into English, I thought you should know this so that news may spread further, maybe, in any case.

May 1st should have been as quiet as all the others that preceded this one. A march from the Blumau to the main square, a few speeches and then goulash and beer for lunch. But this year someone obviously did not want the local anti-fascist bloc to take part in this demonstration and got the police to stop this it (”Someone with a degree decided that,” verbatim from a policeman).

Shortly before the march was to move, a row of policemen prevented the last bloc from leaving. This bloc was then surrounded by the police who justified their actions by saying they were afraid that hooded demonstrators could cause trouble. The rest of the march showed their solidarity by also not beginning to march. This was followed by a few minutes of confusion on the part of the police force, who then began to single out demonstrators to check their identification. This included certain demonstrators being photographed whilst holding name-signs. Most people who were selected, however, did not comply with this voluntarily and the general sentiment in the surrounded crowd got louder and louder. The police reacted by escalating the brewing violence and brutally arrested a young girl. When a few of demonstrators tried to help the girl, the police responded with more violence. One of these demonstrators was the vice-rector of the local art university, who was brutally pinned down on the ground by 6 officers and arrested (one police officer broke his bat and boasted about that fact later on).
From this point onwards the police became ever more brutal, revealing the strategy of escalation more and more clearly. By this time the police-officers started to loosen the circle around the demonstrators by beating individuals out of the circle and arresting people (verbatim: “Of course we need to resort to violence, we can’t just tickle you out!”). The police also made heavy use of their pepper spray, though by doing this they sometimes injured each other (although that will most probably be pinned on the demonstrators).

After the police opened the circle surrounding the march, the demonstrators began to move towards the main square, without any police accompaniment. The demonstration went off without any incidents (seeing as there was no police to incite any violence), which shows that the argument put forth by the police earlier, that they were worried about violent behavior, was completely absurd. On the main square the demonstration encountered a group of fascists, who attacked the march. Suddenly the police was present again and another 2 leftist demonstrators were arrested, while the Nazis were told to move out of the way and from then on left alone.

Shortly afterwards the demonstration dissolved. That evening the arrested demonstrators were released, but they will most probably be charged with resisting arrest or aggressive behavior. In the next few days there will be solidarity actions on behalf of our arrested and charged comrades.

Ever since then I have been confused and angry. This shouldn’t happen in a place like Linz. I’d be really grateful if you could pass the news on somehow, I feel I have to do something, which is why I decided to send you the article.

So there you have it, police in Austria acting pretty much exactly like police in America.  the problem isn’t a few “bad apples” that give ‘good’ cops a bad name, the problem is cops, period.  Power without accountability breeds abuse, whether it’s a small town in austria or a big city like london or new york.

So I went and took a look at his website.  Apparently he’s going through and systematically contacting as wide a range of musicians as he can in one genre at a time, asking them all the same question, and then posting al their responses.  I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that there’s a sort of general Christian slant to his project, at least Christian Musicians were one of the first groups he did an interview set on, but I figured it doesn’t take long to write a short article like what he asked for and – worst case scenario – I get a post for this blog out of it, so I might as well put something together.

Here’s what i came up with:

“What do you believe is the spiritual significance of music?”

Human beings evolved as social animals, and social animals we remain. Despite our best efforts to pretend otherwise at the end of the day we are nothing more or less then highly intelligent bipedal Apes. That’s not a bad or good thing, it just is.

One of the most remarkable things about humans is that we are not particularly strong or ferocious or great hunters when left to our own devices, but we have still managed to become the most visible and impact non-insect species on our planet in just a few thousand years. The thing that allowed us to do that and gives us our great competitive advantage is our ability to cooperate with each other, to work together for common goals and share our ideas. That sharing and cooperation is at the root of all the things that make us unique – from our unusually developed language skills that allow us to communicate to the technical know how and technology that we have built up over the centuries by passing along one generations ideas to the next and slowly improving on them. And one of the deepest connections that we share across all cultures and climates is music.

Music is not unique to humans; of course, it’s a common element of communication in virtually every social species from birds to whales. But for humans its place is truly special. Music is at the foundation of our species, it predates language and everything else. In the beginning there was the drum and the fire – the two great things that brought our ancestors together in the dark nights of our earliest existence, claimed the space around them as Human, and proclaimed the common bond of tribe, clan, and family. All else came after. Even today it resonates in a different and deeper part of our brains then any other form of human communication. Everywhere you find social cohesion among humans, people acting together for any common cause, you will find music. It is the universal cement of our societies, the most basic way we assert our common identity within a group.

The fact that music brings us together and strengthens those common bonds has made it an indispensable element of virtually every faith in human history. More then the dogma or the scripture, it is the sharing of song that holds such groups together. That’s not to say that the actions of those groups will always be positive or easily reconcilable with anything I would recognize as Spirituality, only that any time people come together there will be songs. They may be songs about peace and harmony or songs of war replete with reference to “the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air” and so on. Ultimately it doesn’t matter which gospel is “true” or if none of them are, religion isn’t about truth after all. It is about identity and belonging and common values and – most of all – about a shared experience and group identity. Looking at history that’s often spelled disaster for those outside the group. Catholic Conquistadors who raped and murdered their way across South America and Protestants who ruthlessly exterminated indigenous people all across its North each had their hymns praising god and asserting their right to butcher their fellow man in his name. So did the European faiths that sent them forth who had been butchering each other for centuries and the early Muslims who spread Islam at the edge of a sword. All of these events were done in gods name to the tune of hymns praising His greatness. One could keep listing indefinitely, but it’s not really necessary. The point is that music can be used for good or evil, just like religion or science or anything else. Spirituality, however, remains more ambiguous. Would we, looking back today, see those movements as “spiritual”? They certainly did.

Because of all that history, I hesitate to even use words like “spirituality” because those who have come before have done so much evil in its name. So when I do use it I have to clarify that I mean something much deeper and more powerful then the worship of any of the various deities or religious dogmas men have created over the centuries. If spirituality is to be meaningful or positive it must be an acknowledgment that we all share a common bond with each other, with our planet, and with all of the other species we share that planet with. As a musician part of what I try to do is create songs that can speak to that alternative and deeper type of spirituality in order to lay the foundations for a new movement, a different way of understanding and approaching the world we share. As James Connolly wrote so long ago:

“No Revolutionary movement is complete without its poetic expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses, they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, fears, and hopes, the loves and hatreds, engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement; it is the dogma of the few and not the faith of the multitude.”
— James Connolly

I’m just one of the many musicians trying to sing those songs.

What makes this particular tax day interesting is that, thanks at least in part to the urging of Fox News and corporate-sponsored Astroturf (fake grassroots) organizing, there are “tea parties” happening in hundreds of cities all over America to protest Obama’s bailout and the absurd amounts of debt that the Dems are adding onto the already absurd deficits left by Bush.   Apparently it wasn’t enough for the ruling class to run up trillions of dollars in deficit spending to pay for 2 wars over the last 8 years, now that they’ve got a brand new puppet in place our corporate overlords have decided to keep right on spending our money to enrich themselves!  I’d like to say I’m surprised, but I’d be lying.

And, when people get outraged – as they should – the corporations set up a fake movement.  Unlike in France and the UK where working class rage at being robbed by the government to finance corporate bailouts has erupted into serious militant and autonomous protests, all America can manage is a made-for-tv series of staged event sponsored by the same corporate elites that got us into this mess.  Just another in an endless string of puppet shows, to let everyone who’s pissed at how we’ve been robbed rant and rave as much as they like without actually changing or challenging anything.  And then, through the magic of Spin, the corporate media will portray that outrage as a Conservative backlash.  Ha!  As though conservatives were the only ones objecting.  Just about every genuine leftist I know (and no, democrats aren’t leftists) is pissed at the bailout.  Ya’ll may remember that I even wrote and recorded a song about it a few months back.  And I’m hardly the only one who’s been speaking out on this issue.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about getting out in the streets and raising hell and I hope that doing so will be an empowering experience for everyone who participates in today’s protests.  After thinking it over though, I just couldn’t participate because as much as I hate the Democratic Party I hate the republicans just as much and I’m not willing to lend my time to what is essentially a giant corporate sponsored effort to rally their base.

So, for everyone out there who may be involved in the Tea Party “movement” here’s my basic list of things I’d like to see.  Not that ya’ll have any obligation to do what I want, but just to throw it out there since I’ve been involved in my share of demonstrations over the years and I like to think I know a thing or two about what makes a protest movement effective.

1 – drop all the stupid anti-leftist rhetoric.  Anarchists, libertarian socialists, and other anti-authoritarian lefties are actually on your side on this issue.  We hate taxes and big government (well, all government actually…) more then you do.  But we’re not going to join a movement that calls us nasty names.

2 – Get rid of the republican party shills.  They’re undermining your credibility in a massive way.  The Republicans have been all in favor of massive deficit spending for the better part of a decade.  Do you seriously believe that they’ve had a sudden change of heart?  They haven’t.  They’re using you.  And they’ll keep using you until you wise up.

3 – Stop letting Fox and other Corporate News stations shape your agenda.  Sean Hannity doesn’t give a shit about you or america or any of the issues you care about.  He’s a paid sycophant whose job is to promote whatever agenda comes down the pipe from his superiors.  And that “Thomas Paine” video from Fox News that’s circulating on YouTube?  Get it straight people – Paine frequently railed against the power of the monied elite, despised Christianity, and would have been disgusted with the people using his name to build up a corporate-backed two-party system designed to keep us all enslaved.  The people who run the corporate news networks are the same sort of people that Paine and his cohorts organized a revolution against.  They are not your friends.

In other words, act like a real independent movement.  Set your own goals.  Make your decisions yourselves democratically instead of taking marching orders from the Television.  Look for allies and build alliances with people and movements who may disagree with you on many things but agree with you on your core issues (whatever you decide those are).  In other words, start acting like the Revolutionaries you claim to want to emulate.

If you can do that then you’ll find me and a lot more folks like me out in the streets with you.  And maybe We the People really will have a chance of turning this thing around.

And here’s the catch.

Each band gets 100 tickets for the events and is expected to sell as many as they can at $10 each, the more you sell the better your time slot in the battle.  And since the winner is determined by audience applause, the bands that sell the least will be playing to an empty house at 5:30 in the afternoon and lose.  That makes sense, they’ve got to fill the venue somehow after all.  Thing is, the promoters keep ALL the money.  The bands, who have to go out and convince their fans, friends, and family to collectively drop up to $1000 in tickets, get NOTHING.  Nada.  Not a thing.  So at the end of the night if half the tickets get sold the promoter walks away with $4,500 free and clear – and up to double that if the bands sell more tickets – and the “winning” band gets no cash, not even gas money, and their prize is the chance to do the same thing again for the elimination round, after which – if they win a second time – they get $500.

If the promoter runs four preliminary battles at $4,500-$9,000 each that’s $18,000-$36,000.  Add to that the final battle where only the best-selling bands will play (we’ll estimate maybe $6000-$9,000 for that since any bands that were unable to sell tickets have been eliminated) and the promoter walks away with $24,000-$45,000 in cash. From that they pay the best-selling winning band a measly $500 “prize” and the other 35 bands get nothing and are expected to be grateful for the “exposure.”

The worst part of all this is there are thousands of musicians out there who are desperate or naive enough to believe this is a good way to make a name for themselves and will sign up for this type of thing and make the promoter rich. (most of them won’t have read the fine print or figured out that they don’t get to keep any of the money until the night of, but that’s another story and an object lesson in and of itself).

And that type of shit, dear friends, is why the music industry is run by evil bastards.  Because too many musicians lack the common sense and self-reliance to work together to build a scene instead of relying on opportunistic creeps who are in it for the money.

anyway.

so far it’s a lot of fun and a *lot* of work.  kind of expensive too, so far I’m in about $300 for the violin itself, new strings, a new bow, and a few other odds and ends,  plus $50 a week for lessons.

my teacher (Michael Mullen – one of my favorite celtic fiddlers on the west coast and someone you may recognize from his guest appearances on my band’s first album) assures me it’ll be at least 5 years, probably closer to 10, of intense study before I should even think about bringing my instrument on stage.  which kind of defeats the reason I wanted to pick it up in the first place.  except that I’m just stubborn enough to think I can probably do it sooner if I’m as obsessive compulsive about this as I am about most other things in my life. we’ll see.  I’ve got a bad history of getting really excited about instruments, playing for a while, then getting bored and moving on to something else, but I think that’s partly because I’ve been so broke for so long I haven’t been able to afford lessons and there’s only so far you can get being self-taught.  now though I’ve got at least a little bit of financial security and can afford lessons so no excuses – I’m going to need to put some serious work in.

anyway, that’s all my news.  hope ya’ll are enjoying the sunshine.  it’s a beautiful day here in oakland and I’m gonna go spend some time outside before it gets dark.