Tag Archives: politics

Punkstalgia

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When writing I used to listen to music much of the time, but not so much anymore. But for some reason tonight I was inspired to put the pods in my ears and fire up some Stiff Little Fingers, starting with Suspect Device, one of the best Punk songs ever, then through Alternative Ulster and Can’t Say Crap on the Radio.

For a band with such an incendiary start, they have stayed together for a long time, and they produced memorable music for a couple of decades (it seems they are still making music together, which gladdens my heart). But those earliest, raw anthems that sing about “them” are my favorites. Stiff Little Fingers are punk, but the musicianship is there, always twisting, sometimes surprising, never dull.

Like all true punk bands, they were political. As a band in Belfast during the Time of Troubles, they were playing in a war zone. Those early concerts must have been damn near riots. I wish now I could have been at one, but I probably would have shit myself.

I haven’t got much writing done tonight, but I’m not sorry. It’s been a long time since I performed Suspect Device at Punk Rock karaoke down in San Diego (Yeah, I fronted a band with Greg Hetson (Circle Jerks) and Eric Melvin (NOFX) for one awesome and really loud three minutes. I’d like to believe Jennifer Finch (L7) was there too, but things are fuzzy), and it’s time to get back in touch.

Punk still lives today, but it’s not white guys with guitars who are making punk, it’s hip-hop and the countless variations I am not qualified to enumerate that carry that political torch of protest and disruption. But I like the guitars.

CODA: As I make my way through their catalog, I am reminded what pioneers that band could be on occasion. “This sounds like what <insert band here> did, only… [checks date] before them.”

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Fun Fact: Hatchet detector

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You are watching or reading or scrolling past a political ad. In that ad there is a photograph of a public figure. If that figure’s mouth is open, it’s an attack ad. Every time.

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Diversity

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If there is a big decision and everyone in the room agrees, then someone is missing from the room.

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Deadspin, I hardly Knew Ye

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It was about a month ago that I read on the pages of deadspin.com how corporate assholes had destroyed Sports Illustrated. There are no more journalists at that respected institution, and actually not even any more photographers. Three months ago Sports Illustrated broke a huge story about an athlete, rape, and intimidation. It was a careful, researched piece of journalism.

That will never happen again at SI. The new corporate masters want clickbait but no actual content. Many staffers — the ones involved with journalism or, ironically, illustrating sports — were let go.

One of the journalistic institutions that railed most loudly about the corporate machine silencing the voices of writers was Deadspin. They seriously do not pull their punches there. They will tell you exactly why your favorite team sucks (technically they are a sports outlet), but they will also tell you why mainstream journalists are so lost when covering a man-child president — looking for a plan when there is none, looking for a policy when the man in charge is incapable of formulating one.

But now Deadspin has fallen to the same corporate bullshit. Their media owners tried to impose a mandate that they only cover sports, and the social issues that were directly related, but to stay away from pop culture and politics in particular. The deputy editor said no, and was fired. Much of the staff quit in response.

This is not small.

Over at ESPN, there has been a slow, quiet purge of columnists who dare talk about race and gender inequality in the context of sports. Although management says they have “clarified” their rules about only talking about politics and race when it is directly germane to sports, it’s pretty much impossible to say that Jemele Hill crossed some invisible line. Her essays were always in the context of sport. But that wasn’t what the ESPN bosses really wanted, no matter what they said. The didn’t want anyone rocking the boat.

Deadspin, if you squint at the name just right, looks like it might have been born to mock ESPN. And up until this week, it was a fearless voice. Boat-rockers one and all. But in the last couple of days, in the wake of mass resignations, many recent “political” articles have been replaced by straight-up sports stories. Three years after Colin Kaepernick took a knee, even the “renegade” media outlets have been coerced to the idea that somehow that athlete’s protest was not related to sports — even if it was a protest about something that touched athletes and their communities directly.

To the writers who quit Deadspin, who have put their livelihoods at risk for a matter of principle: I have an underutilized little server in a bunker outside Las Vegas, Nevada. If you want to fire up Rebornspin, I’ll host you no charge.

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Maybe this is Why Americans Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

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The Battle of Puebla occurred on May 5, 1862. It was an unexpected victory for about 4,000 Mexican soldiers facing about 8,000 well-equipped French troops. Although it was a stirring victory, the outclassed Mexicans were eventually overwhelmed, and the French installed a new government in Mexico a few months later.

So… let’s climb on the alternate history bus and wonder what would have happened if the French had won at Puebla. Without that crucial lift to morale and Mexican national pride, would the French have won more easily? Would Emperor Maximillian have been able to hold his seat more comfortably for a couple of years?

A couple of years is all it would have taken. The Americans were slaughtering each other in their own civil war. Given a little breathing room, an enterprising European colonial power might have found it worthwhile to aid the southern states, and in return have a friendlier partner on Mexico’s northern border.

But, in part emboldened by their success at Puebla, the Mexicans never let Maximillian get too comfortable in Mexico City. As the US Civil war drew to a close, with France dealing with Prussia back in Old Europe and the Mexican Guerrilla warfare gaining intensity, Napoleon III bid adieu to Maximillian, and not long after that the emperor was executed.

Honestly, I don’t think for a minute that the French would ever have held Mexico with or without the Battle of Puebla. The colonization was a doomed endeavor from the start, and turned out to be a costly mistake for France.

So the Battle of Puebla may not have turned Mexican history that much. Maybe the Emperor would have lasted a couple more years, but that’s about it. That couple of years, though, may have been HUGELY significant to the United States.

So if you’re hoisting one tonight to celebrate Drinko-de-Mayo, stop for a minute and consider: about 4,000 hungry, ill-equipped Mexicans may have saved our nation. Now that’s something to celebrate.

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