Friday Musing

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Tips for Girls Who Want to Rock
by Tamra Spivey
This is addressed to female musicians because there are too damn few of us. But males will find useful information and a few kind words, too. All the following is of course my hot air, and you may find that your own experiences contradict mine. Never forget that your life is yours alone to understand. Enjoy the adventure. 1. Are you a musician? I believe everyone is a musician. Your heart is a drum. Your heart beats a beat. The late great rock critic Lester Bangs said that rock and roll should be like playing marbles. It's no accident that Keep It Simple Stupid is an acronym for one of the world's most popular bands. Emerson, Lake and Palmer was the disease; The Ramones were the cure. Of course, in retrospect it's all in some way equally...(more)

Garage Rock!
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After the Great Depression of 1929, mass movements, such as rent riots, sit-ins, marches, and great demonstrations, struck the country. One such movement was for pensions for those who spent their lives working in hard toil. Movements such as these in the 1930s changed things. Scholars Frances Fox Piven and (the late) Richard Cloward, noted, in *The New Class War: Reagan's Attack on the Welfare State and Its Consequences* (Pantheon Books: 1982/1985 [revised/expanded edition]), p. 118: "In other words, the movements changed reality; they transformed the State."

Business, however, in its never-ending quest for more profits, continues its war through the political leaders that it buys, and by furthering their agenda. Now, as assuredly as the earth revolves around the sun, comes this vicious attack on pensions.
Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Business is on a never ending quest for profits. There are no moral concerns involved. The question that demands to be asked is why do we put up with it? According to most who give this any thought, it is put to human nature. Business is an outlet for our greed. My reply is bullshit! The "human nature" position is a capitulation to power.

Are there people out there who can see outside who can see this position as the smokescreen it is? A cover up for bestial tyranny. True, the balance of forces are not on the side of the just. Business (capital) are very much in control. But what we must do is try to get the best deal we can, look at the hobbesian choice Obama made for economic position that Sam mentioned in a post. Protectionists and reindustrialists who want to protect the US economy from the wealth sucking globalist schemes are called economic neanderthals. It is hip and modern to be a neoliberral wealth sucker at this time. Hipper than Kerouac. (Thomas Frank)
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NAFTA and the other trade deals are about selective protectionism. They are designed to put manufacturing workers, who tend to be less educated and less highly-paid, into direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, while leaving our most highly educated and highly paid workers (e.g. doctors, lawyers, and economists) largely protected. These deals also increase patent and copyright protection, two hugely distortionary forms of protection.
DEAN BAKER
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