Sun, 12 November 2006  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it's a brave new world. I wanted to wait until after the election before I made this podcast to better guage the mood of the country. Well, the country has spoken. We're a democracy again. As fun as it was living under a dictatorship, I'm happy to go back to the way things used to be. Modern "Jam Band" music, in my mind, came from an old source, psychedelia. The Grateful Dead, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Moby Grape, Iron Butterfly, Country Joe, etc. all liked to have long jamming songs in both their albums and their live play. Modern jam bands have taken this talisman and run with it all the way to the bank. To honor that, today's show will feature the first Phish show ever recorded according to hippie Phish lore. Below are the stats: Title: It's A Brave New World Tracks: Scarlet Begonias > Fire > Fire on the Mountain, Makisupa Policeman, Slave to the Traffic Light, Spanish Flea*, Don't Want You No More, Cities, Skippy the Wondermouse**, Fluffhead** E: Eyes of the World First gig at Nectar's and earliest circulating tape (May be the first taped gig). With Marc Daubert (who was a member of the band at the time, though only briefly so). *Includes band introduction. **With the Dude of Life on vocals. Comments[5] |
My passion is music, but I also know a lot about politics since I study and research the goings on of the world daily. I make that my mission and I pride myself on my desire to know and be aware of what the government is doing, even if it’s impossible to get the specifics or the “truth� out of them. I learn enough to know the basics of the spying, torture, and other things that we ourselves used to prosecute other leaders for. It was in WWI and WWII that we prosecuted generals and individuals for water boarding, something our esteemed Vice President recently called a “no brainer� if it could get some dodgy information out of people. I have watched our own President break the law on numerous occasions with no repercussions.
Here is the definition of a dictator, which will fully clarify what I was saying:
dic‧ta‧tor [dik-tey-ter, dik-tey-ter] –noun
a person exercising absolute power, esp. a ruler who has absolute, unrestricted control in a government without hereditary succession.
We lived in a dictatorship according to the first part of the sentence, given the rubber stamp Congress we had. We have elections so that the second part of the sentence does not occur. It is very possible to have a dictatorship in a democratic society temporarily when the ruler abuses his power, the only positive side is that you can throw the bastard out in time or in this case, his term expires.
Glad you like the podcast but I felt the need to clarify my point. Did you feel you had a voice on the Patriot Act, the Detainee Bill, the Warrantless Spying Program, and whether or not we went to war? Did the majority want the Congress to do this? Do you even know what the above bills entail and mean for this country and for our soldiers who are captured by other countries? It seems doubtful.
posted by: Syd on Mon, 11/13 06:33 PM EST
How long is your list of American presidents who would allow acts of war or terrorism on our soil by foreign terrorists and then fail to respond? (I know, exactly two - Clinton WTC Bomb and Carter US Embassy -our soil - in Tehran.) Franklin Roosevelt hanged the Nazi spies who landed in Long Island. Lincoln hanged, imprisoned or exiled dissidents galore. Washington hanged Benedict Arnold and other traitors.
A presidents' first job is to protect US citizens. This president, having gained office with a greater percentage of votes than his predecessor, and subsequently re-elected in a near landslide, stewards his responsibility with the force at his disposal, fights to the enemy on their turf, and occasionally listening in as bad guys over there phone their spies here.
If instead our elected president were to believe a "Koombaya" session would work better, we'd see him try that. Perhaps via your passion, study and research you can point to where appeasement has protected us, rather than postponed danger. An example eludes me.
We fought totalitarianism and militarism in the 40's by removing those regimes and imposing democracy. We first had to kill their fighters, break their war-making ability, and then take out the leaders themselves. Innocents died, yet our action saved many times more innocents who would have died at the hands of these thugs.
We cut and ran from a similar commitment in Vietnam and the results bore out the predictable: 3 million slaughtered and starved in the subsequent Killing Fields imposed by those thugs.
If the cut and run forces here have their way again, expect the same in Iraq.
