freakpowertix

the devil in mexico is in my playlist queue.

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bloomington, indiana, yo!



@ };->-----gonzo---------- ♥

(photo by gene smirnov.)

one of the greatest influences on my political consciouness as an adult has been alexander cockburn, from CounterPunch newsletter & The Nation magazine, among other outlets (btw: it's pronounced "coburn," as he's irish... it always gets me that people say "cock-burn," ha! that would drive me crazy if i was a kid experiencing that! but he grew up in ireland, so probably didn't happen!).




he weighs in here on the current domestic political implications of the war... i always love how he cuts to the chase. fuck the Demoncrats! whatever you think about the next election & all, just keep in mind that we need to figure out how to get rid of the democratic party (@ least as it is currently constituted). how to do that, though? tall order... damn...

@ @ @ @ @ @  @ @

CounterPunch Diary (March 25/26, 2006)

Why There's No Strategy to End This War

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

My local town of Eureka in northwest California had a pretty good peace rally on March 18, to mark the third anniversary of the U.S. attack on Iraq. They've put them on every year, including a big one just before the war started. It was a total local affair. An ad hoc group called Communities for Peace worked for eight weeks and, with the help of Veterans for Peace, pulled 2,000 people into the municipal auditorium on F street. There were plenty of young people and the crowd sat a bit restlessly through three speeches before hitting the streets. There were four marching bands.

They headed down to the square in Old Town, next to the rehabbed waterfront, where your CounterPunch co-editor was the designated final speaker. I cheered them all up by telling them no one present should ever look in the mirror and tell themselves they're not smart enough to run the country. They are. The country is being run by morons.

I read out some of the more spectacular moron predictions from 2003, finishing up with Chris Mathews on MSNBC: "We're all neo-cons now." and Vanity Fair's answer to Clausewitz, Christopher Hitchens: "This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.... The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling.... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."

I told them that two out of three Americans now opposed the war in contrast to maybe one out of 100 elected politicians. The problem is not in the heartland. The problem is at the national level. As popular opposition to the war across the country has mounted, the demonstrations have got smaller! There is no visible national strategy to end the war and bring the troops home. I attribute this in considerable part to the disastrous fealty of the leadership of some of the big organizations to the Democrats. This explains why United for Peace and Justice, for example, was missing in action for most of 2004. It didn't want to rock the Kerry boat, even as Captain Kerry was drilling holes in its hull.

Defenders of UPFJ said it register an antiwar presence at the Democratic convention in Boston, and anyway, it couldn't get too far ahead of the general mood of its base, which of course raises the question of how much of a left exists in the country these days. As your CounterPunch editors pointed out last week, If it wasn't for Cindy Sheehan and Jack Murtha the antiwar movement in this country would have all but disappeared as a presence on the national political agenda, from the late summer of 2005 on.

Even while I was speaking, the weekend news shows were detailing the latest attack plan of the Congressional Democrats. It's called "Real Security". And no, "security" here doesn't mean a living wage, a pension, a health plan, and no Stop Loss order for your kid to stay in Iraq. It means guns and cops and lots of flag-wagging.

"Real Security" calls for Democrats to hinge the 2006 fall campaign on how the Republicans have failed us on the issue of national security. Harry Reid says Democrats should wrap themselves in the flag, use tanks as backdrop and then try to outflank the Republicans from the right with demands for increased military funding, a better fought war, tighter borders, and ports run by white American-born Christians, preferably free of radical organizers from the ILWU.

As reported in the Washington Times, Reid's strategy memo advises: "Ensure that you have the proper U.S. and state flags at the event, and consider finding someone to sing the national anthem and lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the event." Next up was Joe Biden, standing between two gold-fringed flags, and probably with Old Glory underwear, telling the press that " to the extent that Bush fails in Iraq, American interests are seriously damaged, and I'm rooting for his success, not his failure." This is the man who explained his 30-minute opening speech at the Alito hearings by saying he wanted to put the nominee at his ease.

So what are we looking down the road towards, across the next year or two? A bunch of national Democrats like Hillary Clinton screaming about illegal immigrants and voting for funding for a wall running from Corpus Christi to San Diego, staffed by Israeli death squads. If the war gets mentioned at all, it'll be back to the old winning Kerry formula: We'll fight it better. They'll be drawing up Patriot Act 3, plus new national ID cards and street cameras on every street corner, just like they're installing in the UK.

Faced with this sort of challenge the Republicans will probably win again. Good luck to them. Who wants Democrats to get in, just to run a better police state, the way Blair and New Labor have in Britain where, last time I looked, the government was planning to gas every badger, from Lands End to Cape Wrath.

Who wants Democrats to get in, to run a "better" Empire? In the Bush years , Latin America is seeing a new dawn, with Hugo Chavez publicly deriding our Commander in Chief as a drunk and sending cheap heating oil to the poor in the North East. In the Bush years two professors, from the University of Chicago and the Kennedy School (which is now rapidly distancing itself), have published a 80-page paper outlining exactly why slavish deference to the Israel lobby is hurting America. I don't think that would have happened in Clinton time.

A couple of days after the Eureka rally I heard from David Simpson who, with his wife Jane Lapiner, was one of the organizers, that there'd been some grumbling from Democrats in the march at my attack on the ghastly performance of their party. They evidently felt that I should have held my tongue out of respect for unity that day. But how can one possibly avoid commenting on the elephant in the room, namely the fact that there is no credible opposition in Washington! The Democrats in Congress have caved on everything. They caved on the war, on immigration, on trade, on the Patriot Act, on the NSA eavesdropping program, on the bankruptcy laws, on Roberts and on Alito, and most recently on Feingold's motion of censure of Bush, a president who's using the Bill of Rights to clean up after his dog.

That doesn't mean there aren't Democrats in every county (or at least those counties where the Democrats still exist) fighting the good fight. David Simpson described going that same weekend to a hall in Ferndale, 15 miles down the road from Eureka, where Mike Thompson, our local US rep for California's first congressional district, was having a meeting with Humboldt county constituents. Thompson was arrogant and impatient with critics from his left. When someone asked what the Democrats were offering by way of a program for the fall campaign, Thompson said brusquely, We're working on that. Then a fellow got up and said that Democrats of Humboldt country were working on a program to, and ticked off a pretty radical list, starting with demands for impeachment.

The trouble is that there's no earthly prospect of such a program getting any traction inside the Democratic Party. It's as if some Prussian regional branch of the NSDAP in 1938 kept virtuously passing motions calling on the national party to condemn anti-Semitism and forswear territorial expansion. The Humboldt Dems can pass terrific resolutions and draw up wonderful plans and Rahm Emanuel will throw them in the trash, along with all the advisories from Howard Dean. Look at what they did to Christine Cegelis in Illinois, who narrowly lost last week in the sixth congressional district primary to Tammy Duckworth, parachuted into the district by Emanuel.

In the First District here Thompson is immune to pressure from the left. As he comfortably informed his Ferndale audience, Karl Rove could give his opponent a million dollars and it would make no difference.

The national Democratic Party long since abandoned even the pretense that the quadrennial national party convention is there to formulate a party platform responsive to the demands and programs of the party's base membership. Any talk about resuscitating the Democratic Party has to address this issue.

Just look ahead. Russ Feingold will make a great showing in the early primaries, then get creamed by the Democratic machine. He'll give a powerful speech at the convention, pledging allegiance to the candidate. And what will that candidate be pledging? Here's a omen: "Let's be clear about the threat we face now. A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not-must not-permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons." Yup, HRC, the same woman °©- as Justin Raimondo recently reminded us -- who told Bill to bomb Belgrade, shouting at him down the phone, "What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?"

 

Rosanne Cash on the War

'Compounding the problem was her public opposition to the war in Iraq, which angered many of her father's admirers. "I got so much hate mail," Rosanne Cash says in an interview with Rolling Stone. "Invariably, they would say, 'Your father's a real American, and you should go sleep with Saddam.'" Ironically, Johnny Cash himself was adamantly against the war. "It broke his heart, it really did," she asserts, claiming that her father was "addicted" to war coverage on CNN during his last months. "We talked about it in every single conversation we had," she says. "He was almost a Quaker in his pacifism. He thought there was never a reason for war -- and he had felt that way, he told me, since the Vietnam War."'

Footnote: an earlier version of this column runs in the print edition of The Nation that went to press last Wednesday.


 

¡Ya Basta! !Si se puede!

from www.commondreams.org

Published on Saturday, March 25, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times
More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights
by Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman
 

Hundreds of thousands protest against House-passed HR 4437, an anti-immigration bill that opponents say will criminalize millions of immigrant families and anyone who comes into contact with them. (Bob Chamberlin / LAT) Mar. 25, 2006

Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.

The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.

Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes annually.

Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only $10 a day. "As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."

Saturday's rally, spurred by anger over legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last December, was part of what many say is an unprecedented effort to organize immigrants and their supporters across the nation. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee is to take up efforts Monday to complete work on a comprehensive immigration reform proposal. Unlike the House bill, which beefed up border security and toughened immigration laws, the Senate committee's version is expected to include a guest worker program and a path to legalization for the nation's 10 to 12 million undocumented immigrants.

In recent weeks, hundreds of thousands of people have staged demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. The Roman Catholic Church and other religious communities have launched immigrant rights campaigns, with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony taking a leading role in speaking out against the House bill and calling on his priests to defy its provisions that would make felons of anyone who aided undocumented immigrants. In addition, several cities, including Los Angeles, have passed resolutions against the House legislation and some, such as Maywood, have declared itself a "sanctuary" for undocumented immigrants.

"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."

One of the marchers Saturday, Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, left his wife and children behind in Guatemala four months ago to cross the border into the United States so he could earn enough money to return home and buy a house.

Jorge Valdovinos, 43, is a legal immigrant from Mexico who has three US-born children and works as a financial advisor.

Amid a sea of American and Mexican flags, protesters chanted "Si Se Puede!" and waved banners in Spanish that read, "We aren't criminals" and "The USA is made by immigrants."

"I love this country as if it were my own, for the opportunities it has given me," said Laurentino Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who works at a garment factory. "The law is unjust for those who don't have papers. We come to work. We don't come to do harm to anyone."

Many of the marchers were immigrants themselves — both legal and illegal -- from Mexico and Central America. Some had just crossed the border, while others had been here for decades. There were construction workers and business owners; families with young children and people in wheelchairs. Throughout the afternoon, protesters heard speakers demand a path toward legalization and denounce HR 4437, which would tighten border enforcement and crack down on employers who hire undocumented workers.

The rally was organized by numerous unions, religious organizations and immigrant rights groups and publicized through Spanish-language media, which encouraged participants to wear white to symbolize peace and bring American flags. The mostly peaceful march stretched over 26 blocks, shutting down streets and tying up traffic around downtown for hours. Police estimated the crowd at 500,000, more than five times the size of the 1994 rally against California's Proposition 187, which would have denied services to undocumented immigrants. Participants said the massive mobilization shows that immigrants' voices must be heard and that they are contributing to the country's economy.

Copyright © 2006 Los Angeles Times

panic @ the disco?!?




why do i even have these 2 bands' names in my fockin' head?!?

gag...

photo of tad wagner ("tbone805") by zinwazi.

tomorrow, monday, march 20, during the closing segment (between 1030-11am, pst) of a special airing my radio program, "the freak power ticket" (typically alternating mondays, winter 2006, from 9-11am, pst, on kcsb 91.9 fm (kcsb.org), i will be speaking with santa barbara photographer & musician tad wagner (aka tbone805 in the buzz) about an upcoming photo exhibition @ buffalo records in ventura, with an opening @ 4pm on saturday, april 1st, including a special in-store musical performance as well (for more on tad's art & music, go to tadwagner.com or to his myspace address). tad's songs are as beautiful as his photography, so this should not be missed, as well! =)

thanks for your attention to this, y'all!!!
freaky

ps: for all'ya out there trying to figure out timezones, here's an online resource. =)

rachel corrie, "international solidarity movement" activist, was murdered by an Israeli government bulldozer three years ago this week, trying to prevent the illegal razing of Palestinian homes. For more on the aftermath of her tragic death, read the following piece by her parents, cindy & craig corrie...

from counterpunch.org

Help Us Get Senator Murray's Attention

Three Ways to Remember Rachel




By CINDY and CRAIG CORRIE

On the third anniversary of Rachel's killing in Gaza, here are three things that we urge you to consider doing today, or as soon as possible:

1) From New York: "The "Rachel's Words" initiative is made up of a broad spectrum of groups and individuals who believe that Rachel's words and her message of human rights and justice should be heard. We hope that Rachel's Words will open the door for other equally important and silenced voices. We resist the pervasive climate of fear and challenge to free speech that is increasingly prevalent in our society. Rachel wrote about issues that concern us all. People must have the opportunity to hear her message and decide for themselves what they think. Nobody's agenda should stand in the way of that."

To endorse this initiative, please go to Rachel's Words--and to the "About" or "Endorsement" links.

If you, your family, or your group are spending any time today or in upcoming days returning to Rachel's e-mails and words, please list this under "Actions" at Rachel's Words.

2) The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation held a day of action yesterday, March 16th. Please go to their website to learn about their Caterpillar campaign and more that you can do:

3) While the U.S. Government is on record stating that the report of the Israeli military investigation into Rachel's killing did not meet the standard of "thorough, credible, or transparent," the U.S. has taken no steps to investigate this killing of an American citizen by a foreign military. Our family's often frustrating efforts to demand accountability from both the U.S. and Israeli governments continue.




This week, family members are in Washington DC meeting with members of Congress. Please help us.

Pick up the telephone and call your representative and Senators in the U.S. Congress and tell them that more must be done and that after three years it is an outrage that members of the Corrie family must still walk the halls of Congress seeking support simply to learn the truth.

If you live in Washington State, please make a special call to Senator Murray's office noting that for three years she and her staff have drug their feet and have refused to take any leadership whatsoever in this matter-leadership that other members of Congress tell us they look to a senior senator to provide when a citizen of their state is so gravely impacted.

ted c., host. guest host: alecia martin
(aka, aleciafm).
musical guest: paul j. williams.


jello biafra kcsb i.d.
march 18, 2006 protest march announcement
pinback @ucsb psa

the make up - "save yourself" (dischord)
• paul williams - "smoke & stairs" (self-produced)

ars duo - "burdell 1900" (ars duo)  (music bed for intro)

the lemonheads - "being around" (atlantic)
• paul williams - "peter" (self-produced)
tys tys - "busses" (ilk records)

goblin - "dawn of the dead" (varese sarabande) (music bed)

• paul williams, live - "my house hurts"
paul williams interview
• paul williams, live "slowly take me back there"
paul williams interview

• the spires - "the city makes me want to do bad things" (beehouse records)
tys tys - "supermarket" (ilk records)
kissing tigers - "i died in a mall" (slowdance records)

• paul williams - "the following morning" (self-produced)
jawbreaker - "caroline" (blackball records)
• paul williams - "as i've seen you" (self-produced)
• petracovich - "telephone" (red button records)
cat stevens - "trouble" (a&m)
cat stevens - "on the road to find out" (a&m)

(recap)

last of the blacksmiths - "knowing me" (self-produced)
seu jorge - "life on mars" (hollywood records)
nina simone - "love me or leave me" (neon records)
deerhoof - "wrong time capsule" (kill rock stars)

(recap + interview)

paul williams, live - "love isn't love"
• monroe - "stupid" (self-produced)


(note: for more on paul williams go to his myspace account.)

(enid graham, star of "fluffy," with luis & marilyn cornejo.)



(enid graham at the famous moreton bay fig tree in santa barbara, the title shot for "fluffy.")

during the spring of 2003, a big group of my friends from ucsb got together to help my best friend, samara paysse, make a short film, "fluffy," which debuted at the "forest short film festival" in portland, oregon, in the spring of 2004.

samara had worked before in austin, texas on a number of movies (e.g., texas chainsaw massacre: the next generation, olympia, & shameless [sin vergüenza]) as a script supervisor. this was a chance for samara to serve as a director for the first time in her life, & to make a film based on her original screenplay.



although most of us had never even been on a film set before, we were willing to work for free & had enough skills to bring it all together. samara hired the cast & some of the key technical crew to work for scale.



(i'm in the background as an extra here, about to cross the street, in this shot from "fluffy." enid graham is in the foreground.)



(fluffy [tony nominee enid graham] strolls by as a street musician [luis prat] plays.)

our producer, eric galatas, had some experience working as a crew member on "northern exposure," & he & samara brought in mutual friend enid graham, a tony nominated actor, to play the title character. our cinematographer, nick hay, also had experience working on independent features, like one flick called "manic," with don cheadle.



(enid graham in "fluffy.")



(enid graham in "fluffy.")



(enid graham in "fluffy.")

"fluffy" is described in the following way in the program for the nevada city film festival:

"This delightful and heartwarming film tells the story of a woman who has opted out of the wage economy. The film follows Fluffy through her day, as she barters found objects which in turn bring joy, pleasure, and relief to the wage workers she encounters."

the major location for the film was the old house i used to share with jay. it's always surreal for me to watch "fluffy" now, because it captures some things about that house that will never exist again, in any other way...

jay was the main production manager on the film & also a second-assistant director (it was a SAG-cleared student/experimental production, which is a somewhat involved process to go through), & i also served in a production manager role during pre-production, in a lesser capacity (while also doing production assistant work during the shoot). i think that jay's investment in the film really cemented her friendship with samara, which is now hugely important to the both of them...

jay & i moved out of that home a year ago this past week, and went our separate ways. i remember skipping a local 'oscar party' last year because i was frantically trying to get on top of all of my packing, & to fix a few structural damages to the house, before we had to move out of there, entirely, 2 days later. that was so damn painful, & so crazy making.

i was really just wanting to share a few more personal images from the movie with y'all. just because...



(enid graham at our old refrigerator in "fluffy.")



(lucas lee, kathy harmening, & betsy mcintyre play the roommates at breakfast in samara paysse's "fluffy." this is our old dining room area.)



(betsy mcintyre, enid graham, & lucas lee in "fluffy." fluffy is about to share cinammon rolls with her roommates. this shot gives another angle on our dining room, with our former kitchen in the background.)



(kathy harmening, betsy mcintyre, & enid graham play the roommates at breakfast time in "fluffy." this faces out toward our old dining room window.)



(the character of fluffy bids 'good day' to her working roommates. betsy mcintyre & enid graham pictured. this is a view of our old front door & living room area.)



(enid graham says goodbye to her working roommates in "fluffy." this features a shot of our old living room.)



(another vantage of our old living room [with enid graham].)



(our old living room, as featured in samara paysse's "fluffy." i still have that couch, coffee table, & orange chair.)



(enid graham in "fluffy.")



(enid graham & kathy harmening play characters returning home at the end of the work day in "fluffy." this is a view of our old front yard.)



(enid graham & kathy harmening play characters returning home at the end of the work day in "fluffy." this is a view of our old front porch.)



(betsy mcintyre, kathy harmening, enid graham & lucas lee play characters in samara paysse's "fluffy." this shot is of our old dining room & living room at night.)



(enid graham, lucas lee, kathy harmening, & betsy mcintyre play characters about to share dinner in samara paysse's "fluffy." this is our old dining room at night.)



(fade to black...)

maybe i’ll be able to figure out how to upload the movie for y’all to see in the near future...

(i'm doing o.k., by the way...  :)