All posts by Joseph

An atrocity by any other name

April 8, 2022 Joseph

It kind of feels like we crossed a line this past week. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called a massacre on the outskirts of Kviv a “genocide.” U.S. media outlets and cable television shows have picked up the term and run with it. The first I heard doing this was MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez, ordinarily progressive daughter of the bellicose New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, but it was really all over the place.

The Rachel Maddow show has, in her absence, played a lead role in platforming voices advocating deeper U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Her guest host has brought on one member of the Ukrainian parliament multiple times, giving her the opportunity to advocate for no-fly zones, shame the U.S. for not taking this more seriously, etc. I can understand the minister’s frustration, but seriously – this type of intervention simply cannot happen. And yet day after day I see the corporate media laying out the predicate for a wider war.

Opting for the “G” word

The act of calling what we’ve seen in Ukraine a “genocide” is inappropriate and, frankly, irresponsible. The legal definition of the term is fairly broad, but we should focus on the intent behind its use. This is part and parcel of the effort to invoke the “humanitarian intervention” impulse on the part of the NATO powers, particularly the United States. I touched on this a couple of weeks ago, and it seems to be a central component of the war-party’s argument.

Since the war in Kosovo back in the nineties, every drive toward intervention has been at some point associated with a claim of humanitarian necessity. It was deployed in the case of Afghanistan, certainly in Iraq, in Libya. It is an attempt to build the case for war on a foundation of moral outrage, inspiring a will to do something – anything – that will stop the killing. And because we’re Americans, the notion of “doing something” always amounts to military action.

Lies are helpful, but not necessary

Of course, what we’re seeing in Ukraine is horrendous, inexcusable. There is no question but that the Russian military is in disarray, and it is taking it out on the Ukrainians. I’m sure some of their wanton killing is fueled by the high casualty rate they have suffered since the start of the invasion. Many thousands of their fellow soldiers have died, much of their senior leadership has been killed, and they are apparently taking revenge on defenseless people.

It’s good that this war is being covered so thoroughly. This should happen with every war, especially those – like Yemen – that we are directly responsible for. But the fact is, we are being propagandized by our corporate media. That propaganda is not built on lies – it is built on the awful truth of what’s going on over there. The coverage, however, seeks to heighten the outrage, to drill the horror into us again and again, and to offer suggestions as to what we as a nation can do to stop it. It is a full-court press, make no mistake, and it is working to a large extent.

Keep calm, carry on

How do we counter this onslaught? By not losing our heads. By encouraging everyone within earshot to temper their outrage with some understanding of the stakes involved in global war. We simply do not have the luxury of treating Russia like it is Serbia; the risk to humanity is too great. We have approached the brink of destruction before, in the early 1960s, the late 70s, the early 80s, and we got lucky. Let’s not press our luck.

Ultimately, war will not solve this crisis. Indeed, resort to war will only make the crisis worse. We need to be more creative and constructive than that.

luv u,

*Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.*

Usual Rubbish

We’re number none with a rocket!

April 1, 2022 Joseph

It’s the damnedest thing, man. I can’t explain it. I mean, there must be a lot of that stuff floating around out there. Who would have thought the internet was that big? After all, the whole effing thing fits inside my smartphone. I’ll have to remember to ask Antman about that phenomenon – he might have some insights.

Yeah, here we are again, folks. Where is that? Well, we’re sitting around the abandoned Cheney Hammer Mill, our adopted home, trying to figure out how our recorded music has ended up in so many weird places. (1,880 results? That’s nuts.) After all, we are not exactly experts at distribution and marketing – far from it. In fact, I suspect you would be hard pressed to find a band that’s less commercially successful than us. (WE’RE NUMBER NONE!)

Scattered like snowflakes

Thing is, we sent out a boatload of copies of 2000 Years To Christmas back in 1999/2000 when we first released it. Like any band in those days, we sent them to college radio stations, publications, reviewers, relatives, tax collectors (in lieu of payment), civil engineers (for landfill), and so on. Next thing you know, they’re showing up in remainder bins, CD listings, and random shops from here to Madagascar. (That’s 8,698 miles, by the way.)

Okay, that would be weird enough in itself. What’s even weirder is that we get mixed up with other bands named Big Green. The shuffle up our albums with ones made by these doppelgangers, and it seriously muddies the waters. Frankly, I feel a little guilty about it. We’re bringing their overall popularity down by yards every time our work is associated with them. I’m looking at you, other Big Green.

Putting a stake in the ground

Clearly, we need to make a choice. We can either stand around and do nothing, or take matters into our own hands. Actually, come to think of it, there is a third option: have Marvin (my personal robot assistant) deal with it. I’m looking around and seeing a lot of shaking heads. Not a good idea? Right. Looks like we’re back to doing nothing. Or the other thing. (You see, THIS is why we’re NUMBER NONE.)

Okay, so we’ve been putting music out there pretty consistently for the last twenty years. A couple of years ago, we affiliated with a dude on Discogs to offer the CD of 2000 Years to Christmas. That said, others have been running rings around us. Like this dude on Ebay who’s selling a Cowboy Scat: Songs in the Key of Rick disc as a British import for $30! Man god damn, if he can get that price for them, I’d be glad to identify as British.

Flogging it to death

All right, so look – we’re working on new material. Thing is, we’ve got old material to shift. So if you’ve got someone with a birthday coming up, or just know someone who loves phenomenally unpopular music, this is the place to go. You heard it here first.

Political Rants

The titanic struggle: A-holes vs. effers

April 1, 2022 Joseph

Another week of wall-to-wall reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That characterization of the operation is tantamount to a federal offense now in Russia. Whereas there they use force to make people think a certain way, over here we use the Edward Bernays method. That’s why polling shows a majority of Americans wanting the President to be “tougher” in his approach to the Ukraine crisis.

Majority support for policies that could easily result in total nuclear annihilation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Reporting on the atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine flows in a constant stream from the corporate media. To be clear, it is 100% something that should be reported on heavily. But this is more than coverage. It is an influence campaign, and it may just get us all killed.

A game of absolutes

One of the sure signs that the networks are propagandizing us is the characterization of this war as part of a broader struggle between freedom and tyranny. Even Chris Hayes went on a tear about his last week, bizarrely extending this metaphor to the Cold War era. This claim doesn’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Did we fight our near-genocidal war in Vietnam for “freedom”? I think not. Read Nick Turse’s Kill Anything That Moves. This is not good vs. evil, for we are not good.

Now, I expect this kind of thing out of the likes of Joe Scarborough, who is constantly laboring at the Reagan myth, desperately trying to keep it alive for another generation. Even on his show you will hear from people counseling caution, like Richard Haas. Those are the exceptions, though. It’s mostly a chorus of voices bearing witness to the suffering of Ukrainians in minute detail, showing frustration out of a lack of action on the part of the administration. The absolutism of good vs. evil is an essential component in their argument.

More like 1914 … or 2003

Frequent MSNBC guest Michael McFaul is back on the network, having suffered no real penalty for his endorsement of a comparison between Putin with Hitler, in which Hitler came out ahead. He was on Twitter telling people to stop talking about World War III, which was odd because he seems so wrapped up in World War II. McFaul is a fan of brinkmanship with respect to Ukraine – he thinks we can get a lot closer to open conflict without risk of nuclear war.

This is what happens when people take their own analogies too seriously. This is not World War II. We have nuclear weapons – thousands of them. We cannot do the kinds of things we did before those weapons existed. It’s simply not an option. There are many reasons why this period is nothing like 1939, but the nuclear question is probably the most salient difference. In all honesty, if you’re going to compare this with a world war, the closer analogy is 1914, when an accidental war prompted Europeans to slaughter each other by the millions for no good reason.

Don’t burn bridges

I’ve said it before. There’s only one way out of this horrendous conflict, and that’s through some kind of negotiated settlement. Cranking up the rhetoric makes this less likely, not more. For the Ukrainians’ sake, it’s better to make the deal now than later when their country is in even more of a shambles and many thousands more have lost their lives.

Ultimately Russia and Ukraine are going to have to reconcile themselves to being neighbors. That’s never going to change – it’s just geography. They need to find a path out of this mess, and we need to do everything in our power to help them get there.