Month: October 2004

Well, it’s only appropriate that today, on Halloween, I discuss voting. Voting this year is, first of all, scary as hell. Secondly, it involves people dressing up as something they are not, a practice all-too-familiar to anyone who pays any attention whatsoever to candidates and their empty promises to appease would-be voters. Third, this election involves both tricks for most of us (ie, everyone other than the economic elite) and treats for the candidates and the people they really represent (ie, the economic elite).

Having said that, I think that Noam Chomsky has the most poignant election comments yet, in his interview with Amy Goodman where he discusses his position on this election:

I took exactly the position I took in 2000, namely, the election is a marginal affair, it should not distract us from the serious work of changing the society, and the culture and the institutions, creating a democratic culture. That’s what you work on. You can’t ignore the election. It’s there. But it’s designed as a method of essentially marginalizing the population. There’s a huge propaganda campaign to get people to focus on these personalized extravaganzas, and make them think “That’s politics.” Well, it isn’t. That’s a marginal part of politics, and here, a very marginal part. So the main thing is keep on with your work. You can’t ignore it. You should spend five minutes, maybe, thinking about what you should do. In that five minute, you should recognize there is some difference between the two groups contending for power, and one of them happens to be really extremist, and very dangerous, and it’s already caused plenty of trouble and could cause plenty more. The other is bad, but less extremist and less dangerous. So in that five minutes that you devote to the topic, you should come to the rational conclusion, if it’s a swing state, keep the worst guys out. If it’s another state, do what you feel like. It’s the same thing I said in 2000 during the five minutes of time I spent on it.

My own thinking is similar. My ultimate belief is that The System™ is broken, and voting cannot change that given the bipolar political culture in america. For my own ideals about what good government would be to come to pass, a revolution is required. I know, I know. Be careful what you ask for. But given this, it makes sense for me to look at voting from a “damage control” perspective, and from this perspective, a vote for Kerry would most likely reduce the amount of damage done.

Bottom line, this is going to be an interesting election and aftermath. After the 2000 electile dysfunction, there is precedent for the Republicans to steal votes and commit massive, systematic fraud. In 2000, no one stood up to challenge them; I am of course reminded of the footage of Gore joking in the Senate floor while he hands power over to the Republicans from Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 movie.

This year, the Democrats are paying attention, and the potential for public outrage over election fraud is huge. The “anyone but Bush” crowd is motivated primarily by fear, and electoral fraud would stoke those fires of fear more than just about anything. But the Republicans are more entrenched, and because of the Democratic cowardice in 2000 they have legal precedent on their side. This country is more and more polarized, and the potential for near-civil-war conditions is huge.

I hope this works out with minimal violence. The next few days–and months–are going to be interesting.

On another note, I am completely suspicious of polls that are out. I do see quite a few Bush/Cheney signs, but literally NO ONE I hang out with is a Bush supporter. Believe me, I’ve tried to find one, because I am genuinely curious as to how anyone who uses their brain can support Bush. I really want to ask that question to a Bush supporter: “how can you support this guy?” And I haven’t been able to ask that of anyone.

So when I hear polls that say the race is about even, I am utterly suspicious. How are we to know that the “winner” of the election is really the winner? Just because CNN says so?

Bottom line, it’s impossible to tell.

Richard Stallman has a new article, Why the term ‘intellectual property’ is a seductive mirage. As with all his writings, it is worth reading.

The concept of the commons is one that needs to be discussed more often in political dialogue. I was quite pleased to see a forum in London during the European Social Forum. The forum, Life Despite Capitalism, “is a project/forum to approach the question of alternatives to capitalism in the here and now not ‘after capitalism’ has been abolished. This means a capacity to do and relate to each other, in ways rooted in dignity, respect and common access to resources.”

I was also pleased to see that my Virtual Enclosures article is one of the recommended readings for one of the panels. It’s always good to know that my work is rippling outward and that others see the value of discussion around commons. As I wrote in the conclusion of the article:

The virtual commons, I have argued, is a crucial element in the process of “globalizing resistance.” Empire is, of course, resisting this process; in response they are imposing the virtual enclosures. Information infrastructure is a key battleground in the struggle against neoliberalism, and even today the dominance of proprietary software and closed standards in fortifying the virtual enclosures is troubling. But there is an alternative. Globalized resistance can still organize itself within the virtual commons, strengthening both itself and the commons the more it is used and its fundamental values as a commons (no one owns it, everyone can use it, anyone can improve it) are embraced, celebrated, and foregrounded in the dialogue within globalized resistance.

Heh. I’ve written before about The Daily Adventures of Mixerman, a previously online journal about a recording engineer’s quest to record a major label bidding war band, that he dubbed “Bitch Slap.” It’s very funny, I suggest you go read it, or maybe even order the book that it became.

But anyway, he has begun writing part 2 after all this time. I just wanted to record that for posterity. Reading now.

This is a very insightful article, one that I think everyone voting for Kerry — or even thinking about voting for Kerry — should read. From the opening paragraph:

If the democrats take power this November they will probably continue the same policies as Bush. We know this because Clinton did basically the same thing when he was in office. To think otherwise is to ignore history and the democrat’s records. The “Anybody but Bush” (ABB) movement is founded on a basically irrational hatred of Bush that completely ignores the record of the democrats the last time they were in power. The ABB movement practices a double standard: when republicans do something it’s wrong but when democrats do the same thing it’s okay (or didn’t happen at all). In party politics it is always the other party’s fault, never the system’s fault. If a democrat were in office and implemented the same policies Bush has most of the ABBers would support him. We know this because Clinton implemented many of the same policies ABBers criticize Bush for yet they didn’t develop the same kind of hatred towards Clinton they have towards Bush. Most outright supported Clinton and the minority who didn’t support him did not develop the kind of irrational hatred towards Clinton they have towards Bush.

In some ways, it is a restatement of the Naderesque maxim that there is little or no difference between the 2 major parties. But this article takes a look at history. In 1992, when Clinton took the White House, very little changed. The value of this article is that it is a laundry list of ways in which nothing changed.

I’m still going back and forth on the vote, it will most likely be a game time decision for me. But I keep returning to the fact that a vote for Kerry is about as inauthentic as I can be in terms of voting.

1992 was the first election where I was truly excited by the results. When Clinton won, I had a real sense of “now things can change.” Even in 1996, when Dole faded out like the lingering overhang of a post-bean-burrito fart, I had the feeling that Clinton would save the best for last now that he didn’t have to worry about getting re-elected. Silly me. One disappearing cigar and a stain on a blue dress later, Clinton was done in.

Bottom line: The System™ is broken, and any attempt to fix things from within The System™ is not addressing the problem and will therefore fail.

So, like, viva la revolucion or something.

Though the back of my head says “be careful what you ask for…”

I just ran across this quote from Bertrand Russell: “it is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know – or care – about circumstances in the colonies.”

This is from the early 1970s, but it holds true today. Indeed I think it sums up the situation in America quite nicely. The problem is, “the colonies” are shifting from being a geographic entity to being an economic entity. The people of the US — and indeed people all over the world — are becoming “the colonies,” and the economic elite are the colonizers.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

This is an interesting, if a bit reactionary and preliminary, look at post-corporate information flow.

I’m still wrestling with this whole who-do-I-vote-for thing. To further confuse matters, I just read Amy Goodman’s interview with Ralph Nader.

And now my thoughts are even further blurred. Consider:

AMY GOODMAN: Last question, and that is the rage of your former friends that you’re experiencing right now. What is your response to this, to your being so — to them feeling so alienated by all of the things that you have represented in the past that they say they have supported?

RALPH NADER: Think they deserve John Kerry for another four years. So, then they’ll come back in a year and start complaining, oh, oh, this party, oh, the White House, so terrible on the environment, caving in to the coal companies and the nuclear and not doing anything about biotech or W.T.O. or NAFTA. How many times do they have to be betrayed? You can forgive them in they’re under 30. They have not been betrayed enough, but people — my peer group going like that? There’s no end to the lowering of their expectation level. The least-worsters have no end logic to their attitude. Because every four years until the end of kingdom come, there will be a least-worst party in America. They have no end, in 2008, 2012. And every four years, both parties get worse and they make no demands. If you are going to go for least worst, at least pull the least of the worst in your direction. They don’t even have the courage of their convictions to stand tall, and to say they have wimped out is truly an understatement. And it’s a tragedy because they’re very bright, and they fought a lot of good fights in the old days. They have either run out of gas, or they have lost their self-respect.

So for me it comes down to compassion vs. authenticity. The only authentic choice I have would be to vote for Nader or Cobb (I still haven’t taken the time to distinguish carefully between the two candidates). However, I can’t help but think that significant, nonzero suffering would be alleviated if I do everything in my power to get Bush out of office.

So what to do? Should I be authentic? Or should I be compassionate? Or is this line even a false one? In the long run, it may actually be more compassionate to vote authentically, at least that’s probably what existential philosophers would say.

Just when I think I have a nice ethos to help figure things out in my life, I am flummoxed by this.

Perhaps the only conclusion is that voting, at least in America, is utterly absurd.

Well, I wanted to record for posterity this fix I just did to my Linux install. Hopefully Google will pick it up soon in case others have this issue.

I just installed my Audiophile 2496 soundcard, which sounds much better than the old soundblaster I was running. When I installed it and rebooted, ALSA(Advanced Linux Sound Architecture…the Linux sound system) loaded the correct driver, ice1712, automatically. XMMS had no difficulty with it, and it played back mp3s, oggs, and CDs fine. It was a nice relief to hear good quality audio again.

However, when I went to play back a DVD using Xine, the audio was lower-pitched than normal. This is the problem I want to document.

The problem is a sampling rate problem. When audio expects 44.1kHz, and gets 48kHz, the pitch of the resulting audio is affected. The solution is to go to the config file, /usr/share/alsa/alsa.conf, and change every ‘48000’ parameter to ‘44100’. There were 2 instances of this in my config file. Once I changed it, I restarted Xine, and everything worked great.

So we went to the Marillion show at the Paradise in Boston on Monday night.

All I can say is, what a treat. Last night was my first and only time seeing the band on this tour, and man. The band is absolutely on fire. It’s a bit strange seeing a band with this much command of energy in such a small place. Each of these guys are highly skilled musicians, and they’ve been playing together for a very long time. They were at the end of the longest tour they’d done in years, so they were in great shape. This band should be playing stadiums, so to see them in a place like The Paradise Rock Club, where they can have intimacy with their audience and blow the roof off, is almost unfair.

They have an amazing back catalog of songs to choose from to play live, dozens and dozens of songs. And that’s not even including the Fish-era stuff. Every song on their setlist was a treat. The new Marbles stuff was particularly good.

Setlist:

The Invisible Man
Marbles I
You’re Gone
Angelina
Marbles II
Don’t Hurt Yourself
Fantastic Place
Marbles III
Drilling Holes
Marbles IV
Neverland

Bridge
Living with the Big Lie
Quartz
This is the 21st Century
The Party
Between You and Me

Beyond You
The Great Escape

Beautiful
The Bell in the Sea
Easter

Other highlights were h fetching his anorak until they turned off the air conditioning system that was blasting him onstage. Once they turned that off, it quickly became fairly sweltering as a good rock club should be. The venue was packed, it must have come close to selling out if it didn’t.

Also, John Wesley’s set was, as always, great. I haven’t heard him in years, his new stuff is great. I also like his new technologically-assisted sound. Very cool.

An exhilirating night, all in all. Even at $30 before Ticketmaster’s no-lube-anal-rape fee, a Marillion show has to be one of the best entertainment values going. Here’s hoping they come back, maybe hook up with a festival next summer.