I have to say I rather enjoyed this. A bit sweary, so if you’re at work or around kids, maybe dial it down.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKkUTAIpUMZ/?igsh=MTZhZ3NzZnRrYnZ1ZA==
June 13, 2025
June 12, 2025
There is No Line
With all the talk of immigration, the incessant panic about the southern border, and now the president’s authoritarian deployment of military power in LA, I’ve been reading up on immigration. Again. Actually, I’ve been at it a while.
I still hear repeatedly the refrain: “They need to get in line!” Or, “My grandparents did it legally!” And so on.
There is no line. And your grandparents entered a different country under different circumstances. In other words, you’re stuck in the 1890s. There is no line.
This article is five years old, but I think the author did a nice job, and it’s still well worth a read.
You can get a visa and hope for an eventual green card if you meet a short list of exclusionary criteria. For the many people fleeing violence in Central America—which the United States contributed to—there is zero hope of these things.
Were the National Guard and Marines deployed when the Capitol building was stormed? No. When you’re White and have a beer gut and an assault rifle, you get pardoned. The LA protests have been largely non-violent. This fact has been downplayed in the televised news.
White + violent = peaceful
Brown + peaceful = violent
We have seen this all before. It’s called systemic racism. Racism expresses itself at the bureaucratic level. It’s why White cops shoot Black citizens. It’s why White citizens display racist Thin Blue Line flags. “Leave White cops alone!” Systemic racism also manifests itself in tribalism. The Thin Blue Line flags are tribal. Tribalism is why Trump received 77 million votes. Make America white again! (I do not think Trump won strictly because of racism, but it helped. A lot.)
He’s trying, though most of his efforts are theater to appease his supporters—whom he holds in contempt. The real priority is to shower the seriously rich with free money. There aren’t enough people who are seriously rich, so you need to get votes somehow. Racism and tribalism work like a champ.
Oh, before I forget … there is no line.
https://reason.com/2019/12/18/there-is-no-line
I still hear repeatedly the refrain: “They need to get in line!” Or, “My grandparents did it legally!” And so on.
There is no line. And your grandparents entered a different country under different circumstances. In other words, you’re stuck in the 1890s. There is no line.
This article is five years old, but I think the author did a nice job, and it’s still well worth a read.
You can get a visa and hope for an eventual green card if you meet a short list of exclusionary criteria. For the many people fleeing violence in Central America—which the United States contributed to—there is zero hope of these things.
Were the National Guard and Marines deployed when the Capitol building was stormed? No. When you’re White and have a beer gut and an assault rifle, you get pardoned. The LA protests have been largely non-violent. This fact has been downplayed in the televised news.
White + violent = peaceful
Brown + peaceful = violent
We have seen this all before. It’s called systemic racism. Racism expresses itself at the bureaucratic level. It’s why White cops shoot Black citizens. It’s why White citizens display racist Thin Blue Line flags. “Leave White cops alone!” Systemic racism also manifests itself in tribalism. The Thin Blue Line flags are tribal. Tribalism is why Trump received 77 million votes. Make America white again! (I do not think Trump won strictly because of racism, but it helped. A lot.)
He’s trying, though most of his efforts are theater to appease his supporters—whom he holds in contempt. The real priority is to shower the seriously rich with free money. There aren’t enough people who are seriously rich, so you need to get votes somehow. Racism and tribalism work like a champ.
Oh, before I forget … there is no line.
https://reason.com/2019/12/18/there-is-no-line
June 10, 2025
Songs for Drella
In previous posts I have made clear my thoughts on rock-n-roll. Anymore, I find it tiresome, worn out, and at times comical. A friend of mine and I refer to Axl Rose as Rose Axl. I know he’s not representative of anything, but we think it’s funny. Because it is.
That being said, I wanted to bring this album to folks’ attention. It came out in 1990 and, at the time, blew my empty mind. Thirty-five years later, I feel it’s still a superb piece of work.
Lou Reed and John Cale, both Velvet Underground alumni, teamed up to reflect on their friend Andy Warhol. I do know that Lou and Andy were particularly close, and the album is a kind of love letter/farewell. (Warhol died in 1987.)
I think you just might enjoy this album. Even if you were never a Velvet Underground fan, or perhaps art is not your thing, there might be something here for you.
Coming from someone who has basically washed his hands of the genre, and probably couldn’t get through an entire Beatles record, Songs for Drella has an enduring quality. Because it’s art.
That being said, I wanted to bring this album to folks’ attention. It came out in 1990 and, at the time, blew my empty mind. Thirty-five years later, I feel it’s still a superb piece of work.
Lou Reed and John Cale, both Velvet Underground alumni, teamed up to reflect on their friend Andy Warhol. I do know that Lou and Andy were particularly close, and the album is a kind of love letter/farewell. (Warhol died in 1987.)
I think you just might enjoy this album. Even if you were never a Velvet Underground fan, or perhaps art is not your thing, there might be something here for you.
Coming from someone who has basically washed his hands of the genre, and probably couldn’t get through an entire Beatles record, Songs for Drella has an enduring quality. Because it’s art.
June 6, 2025
June 4, 2025
Episode 11
Bread! The Allman Brothers! Birds doing nothing!
https://youtu.be/vVS_VDGA3mk
https://youtu.be/PZ-VYQawWM0
June 2, 2025
Summer Reading
Summer has always been a time for reading for me. This summer I had planned on reading Isaac Deutscher’s three-volume biography of Leon Trotsky. But the stupid, dumb third-party booksellers don’t seem to know what “new” means. I have ordered volume one three times. (It has to be new! You know how I am.) The latest order won’t be here for a while. So, I have decided to do the Trotsky trilogy next summer—we’re burnin’ daylight. I have decided therefore to do Joseph Schumpeter’s (shoom-payter—pronunciations vary) Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy instead.
After Schumpeter, I’ll tackle Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation. I need these two standard works of political-economy under my belt; and I’m a bit self-conscious about it.
If anybody would like to join me, I’d love the company.
https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Socialism-Democracy-Perennial-Thought/dp/0061561614
After Schumpeter, I’ll tackle Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation. I need these two standard works of political-economy under my belt; and I’m a bit self-conscious about it.
If anybody would like to join me, I’d love the company.
https://www.amazon.com/Capitalism-Socialism-Democracy-Perennial-Thought/dp/0061561614
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