Favorite Music of the Year, 2016 Edition

As December rolls in, bringing Winter chills, it is time for this blog’s 8th annual favorite albums of the year list.

In perusing my music collection, I’ve collected 31 albums this year spanning 15 genres. My musical tastes run in the Southern Rock to Alternative Country styles, so if this is not to your tastes, you may want to check out some other lists available elsewhere. Of these, 8 stand out as my favorites. Before getting into that list, I want to touch briefly on 3 runners up.

Honorary Mentions:
Drive-By Truckers, American Band; Waco Brothers, Going Down in History; and Steve Earle/Shawn Colvin, Earle and Colvin. These are great albums and in a normal year would have made the final list, but this year had many great albums, read on for my favorites.

8) Hackensaw Boys, Charismo. I classify these guys as roots country but you probably know them as string band music. Long before Mumford and Sons were watering down this style for mass consumption this band from Virginia has been stompin’ and rollickin’. If you like music without frills, the Hackensaw Boys are worth checking out.

7) Whiskey Myers, Mud. The 4th album from this Texas band continues their unique blending of Southern Rock and Red Dirt Country. Like many genre bending bands, Whiskey Myers does not get the acclaim that they deserve.

6) Devil Makes Three, Redemption & Ruin. Eight albums in 14 years and this roots country band is just now getting the attention that they deserve. American Songwriter has a good review of this album.

5) Robbie Fulks, Upland Stories. Robbie Fulks is America’s troubadour, largely unrecognized, but still capturing the ideas of the nation. Rooted firlmly in American folk, it is only the vagaries of the pop country industry that Fulks is not played on every country station from coast to coast.

4) Cody Jinks, I’m Not the Devil. Despite his background in the thrash metal scene, it is Johnny Cash that Jinks channels in his newest release (the third for those counting at home).

3) Blackberry Smoke, Like An Arrow. Blackberry Smoke was on this list last year for a live album, this year they are back with a new release of original music. The voice of Southern Rock with a healthy dose of Americana. How this hard working touring band found the time to record and produce this album is beyond me, but the quality of the music speaks to the work ethic of these guys from Georgia. If you get the chance to see them live, take it, you will  not be disappointed.

2) Billy Bragg/Joe Henry, Shine Light. These two folkies compliment each other to a tee. Singing classic tales of railroads and those who rode them. An instant classic.

1. Sturgill Simpson, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. Simpson has been hailed as the saviour of country music. Surely that task is too much for one man, but Simpson has done more than anyone else in a long time. This album was written and recorded for his son who he missed while on tour. See NPR’s review.

If you liked this post, check out my past yearly lists:  2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014, and 2015.

Random Thoughts on Election 2016

Forty eight hours after Trump swept to victory, I feel that I may be at the point where I can offer up some preliminary thoughts on the election.

To start I voted for neither Clinton or Trump.  I had a slight preference for Clinton over Trump, but Clinton did nothing to inspire me during the election. Being a great admirer of Tolstoy’s thought, I recognise that choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. With that thought in mind, I left the top of the ballot empty. I also must admit that I was momentarily shocked by Trump’s win, although I now realize that I should not have been.

Alright, in no particular order, here are my thoughts post election 2016.

Random thought 1: To some degree this election was about race and gender. Eight years ago I recall folks saying that they did not agree with most of Obama’s platform, but they would vote for him to usher in the first black president. Likewise this year, many folks chose Clinton because she is a woman. This is called identity politics, voting based on what a candidate is rather than their competence and policy positions. Now we are supposed to act surprised when white males play the same game?

Random thought 2: This election was not wholly or even mostly about race. Trump took nearly a third of the Latino vote. Trump did better than Romney amongst both Latinos and Blacks. I am fearful that this election will be chalked up to racism with every other explanation ignored.

Random thought 3: We were given an impossible choice. Clinton’s negatives have been above 50 percent since forever. Trump’s negatives hovered around 60 percent. The majority of the nation wanted neither of these two as president, yet we were presented with a binary choice. Among voters who had a negative view of both candidates, they broke two to one for Trump. For many, a very sizable minority, they were given a choice that was similar to being asked to choose between having a stroke or a heart attack.

Random thought 3: I hope the Democratic Party does some deep soul searching. This was the year of the outsider but they nominated the ultimate insider and then acted surprised when she lost. Let’s be clear, these were both terrible candidates, neither of them should be allowed within miles of the White House. However, which Party is more culpable? Trump won with populism, and was nominated despite opposition from his party. Clinton won through backroom mechanizations and was nominated because of her party. With this in mind the Democratic Party is responsible for the election of Trump.

Random thought 4: The educated are elites, and like elites the world over, they are out of touch. Sixty percent of America does not have a college degree, and those are the folks who sent Trump to the White House. While we certainly must do everything in our power to make our nation tolerant of and accessible to minorities, we ignore the majority at our own peril. The problem with being educated is that you start to think that you are smarter than everyone else. The college educated in the United States view the world through a liberal paradigm. With the decline of the liberal arts, many college educated don’t even realize that they view the world through a specific philosophical lens. They are long on facts and figures and woefully lacking in knowledge. Very little of the differences between the educated and the non-educated have to do with facts but instead are rooted in norms and values.

Random thought 5: The media does not elect the president. If they did, this post would be about president elect Clinton. The media were in the bag for Clinton the entire campaign. Clinton got the endorsement of 57 of the nation’s 100 largest newspapers, Trump received 2. This didn’t matter to the voters as the media are made up of educated elites, see above.

Random thought 6: People did not vote against their interests. Clinton prevailed with large margins amongst those earning less than $50ooo/year. Conversely, Trump won among those earning more.

Random thought 7: Clinton failed to inspire. Turnout was low amongst those needed to carry her to victory. Trump only did about as well as Romney did, Clinton under-performed.

Random thought 8: Polls are just statistics, and statistics can say whatever their manipulator wants them to say.

 

Not so random thought: Trump is our president elect. We should give him a clean slate and judge him by what he does from this point forward. We should wish him well and hope mightily that he succeeds.

Too Wounded to Govern

Rather it is Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum that wins the election, the question becomes rather s/he can effectively govern. Trump has been proven a misogynistic racist while Clinton seems incapable of telling the truth even when the truth is innocuous.

With nearly a month left before the election, it is only going to get worse.

So how does either one gain the respect to effectively work with congress, the bureaucracy, or world leaders to move any agenda forward? Do either of these candidates have the moral authority to use the bully pulpit to sway public opinion?

Trump is a charlatan, he does what charlatans have aways done. His lone goal appears to be self-aggrandizement. He does not appear to have much love for country, community, or even family; like Narcissus, he loves only himself. While his stated motto is “Make America Great Again”, his behaviour indicates that “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” would be more fitting.

Clinton is a classic Machiavellian, she changes her position to get ahead of the prevailing (political) winds. She can’t be pinned down on her positions or beliefs because they are constantly in flux as she judges the political tides and calculates which stipulated reality will increase her power.

On January 21, 2017, one of these psychically misshapen golems will wake up in the White House only to find that, despite years of public and private mechanizations, despite selling their very soul to the highest bidder, s/he does not possess the moral authority to lead.

For the sins of the few, we all will suffer.

Presidential Election 2016

Last time I voted for president was 1992, Bill Clinton’s first term. If you recall that election, he was the man from Hope who was going to build a bridge to the 21st century. I had spent the previous few years protesting Bush the Elder’s war on Iraq. That war lasted about 3 months and was followed by an extended bombing campaign masquerading as a no-fly zone. I protested Bush and Quail’s local campaign stops and went and listened to Clinton’s hope filled message.  I voted for Bill Clinton without reservation.

Within 3 hours of Clinton’s inauguration, US war planes were dropping bombs on Iraq; a message to the world that while the US regime had changed, its foreign policy had not.

I have not voted for president since. On that day I realized that choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil.

Since then I have heard many argue that if you don’t vote then you don’t have any right to complain. However, I think that argument has it backwards. If you vote and your candidate wins, you can’t complain as you are getting exactly what you asked for; and if you vote and your candidate loses, well you knew the rules of the game and you should not be a sore loser by complaining about it.

I almost voted for Obama his first term, that whole hope and change thing had me a little giddy, but I resisted, and I am thankful that I did. Obama turned out to be as evil as any other president in my adult life. Habeas corpus has not been restored, our foreign empire has grown and not shrunk, black prison sites still operate, indiscriminate bombings continued and even increased, etc ad nauseum. Obama’s first term might as well have been Bush the Lesser’s third term. Needless to say, I did not consider voting for Obama his second term and am happy that I sat out his first election.

This brings us to 2016–Clinton v Trump. Of course I would not consider voting for Trump, a billionaire “populist” running on racism and tax cuts for the one percent. And I find the thought of a Clinton presidency of little more consolation. Hillary is gaining the support of the neo-cons who led Bush to war and she sits well to the right of Obama on foreign policy. She has not brought up the idea of restoring habeas corpus and has not mentioned wanting to bring any troops home, she has even touted Kissinger (a noted war criminal) as someone to look up to.

Of course the Green Party’s Jill Stein and the Libertarian Gary Johnson will be on most ballots. Sure those are real choices, the first an anti-vaxxer with no political experience while the latter states that the solution to climate change is to colonize other planets; uh huh, real choices.

So after more than a year of hoopla, with election day just more than a month away, our choices are going to be a war monger, a space cadet, and a couple of wackadoos; I’ll leave it to the reader to determine which is which.

This is Hillary’s Plan to Win Over Bernie Supporters?

All I can say is WTF?

Give a listen to Kain’s campaign ad from 2005. This is not ancient history.

Ted Cruz came in (a far distant) second in the Republican primaries, so Trump chose someone ideologically like Cruz to unify the party. Bernie came in a (close) second in the Democratic primaries, so Hillary chose someone who is his polar opposite. Is she trying to throw the election? Did she change her mind about wanting to be president? Or does she take the Democratic base for granted?

In her efforts to win over dis-affected Republicans, she is not even tossing a bone to Millennials, or to those who have already suffered through nearly 30 years of the Democratic Leadership Council’s brand of “Republican Lite”™.

Pro death penalty, pro TPP, anti gay marriage and anti abortion? WTF! Kain claims to have values to support his positions, is he now going to flip flop on every issue important to Democrats and claim he now believes just the opposite…will he still claim to have values?

Please excuse the swearing, but we are so Fucked.

 

Clinton ♥ Kissinger: A Love Story

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Kissinger is a friend, and I relied on his counsel when I served as secretary of state. He checked in with me regularly. –Hillary Clinton 2014

I was very flattered when Henry Kissinger said I ran the State Department better — better than anybody had run it in a long time. –Hillary Clinton 2016

Well, Henry’s the expert on theory and doctrine. I’m someone who thinks that it could help provide a framework and direction and lessons from history. –Hillary Clinton 2009

I’ve known her [Clinton] for many years now, and I respect her intellect. –Henry Kissinger 2014

This post is a public service announcement to remind you, the American voter, that when you step into the booth in November and choose the lesser of two evils; you are, in fact, choosing evil.

Top 10 Kissinger Quotes

 The following were lifted verbatim from here.

1. Soviet Jews: “The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy. And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.” (link)

2. Bombing Cambodia: “[Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn’t want to hear anything about it. It’s an order, to be done. Anything that flies or anything that moves.” (link)
3. Bombing Vietnam: “It’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs … I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month … each plane can carry about 10 times the load of World War II plane could carry.”  (link)
4. Khmer Rouge: “How many people did (Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister Ieng Sary) kill? Tens of thousands? You should tell the Cambodians (i.e., Khmer Rouge) that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won’t let that stand in the way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don’t tell them what I said before.” (Nov. 26, 1975 meeting with Thai foreign minister)
5. Dan Ellsberg: “Because that son-of-a-bitch—First of all, I would expect—I know him well—I am sure he has some more information—I would bet that he has more information that he’s saving for the trial.  Examples of American war crimes that triggered him into it…It’s the way he’d operate….Because he is a despicable bastard.” (Oval Office tape, July 27, 1971)
6. Robert McNamara: “Boohoo, boohoo … He’s still beating his breast, right? Still feeling guilty. ” (Pretending to cry, rubbing his eyes.)
7. Assassination:  “It is an act of insanity and national humiliation to have a law prohibiting the President from ordering assassination.” (Statement at a National Security Council meeting, 1975)
8. Chile: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” (link)
9. Illegality-Unconstitutionality: “The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.” (from March 10, 1975 meeting with Turkish foreign minister Melih Esenbel in Ankara, Turkey)
10. On His Own Character: “Americans like the cowboy … who rides all alone into the town, the village, with his horse and nothing else … This amazing, romantic character suits me precisely because to be alone has always been part of my style or, if you like, my technique.” (November 1972 interview with Oriana Fallaci)

Choosing the Lesser of 2 Evils is Still Choosing Evil

Unless something drastic changes between now and November it seems that we will have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Much has been written about the perils of a Trump presidency, I am going to assume that the reader is familiar with this information and focus on something that has gotten a lot less attention, the perils of a Clinton presidency.

The last time that I voted for president was 1992, it was Bill Clinton’s first term and after 12 years of Reagan/Bush the Elder, I and the majority of the country was ready for a change. Clinton, the man from Hope, offered a positive vision with imagery of a bridge to the 21st century. So I cast my vote based on that vision. Three hours after being sworn in, Clinton bombed Iraq, a symbol to the world and the nation that nothing had changed. We had a new regime in Washington but, in the end, nothing had changed. Those continued bombings of Iraq (which Clinton continued for 8 years) along with economic and trade sanctions were responsible for the deaths of at least half a million Iraqi children. I had chosen the lesser of two evils, but through my actions I had allowed evil to continue and even to flourish.

I decided that day to never again vote for a candidate that I did not want to win.  Until recently I lived in California, the primaries were decided before we ever cast a vote, so I have not voted for a presidential candidate since then. This election cycle, I find myself living in a state with earlier primaries and I did cast a vote in them. I chose Martin O’Malley even though he had dropped out of the race a month earlier, none of the other candidates met my criteria.

Being a social liberal, I have many lefty friends who argue that not voting for Hillary is a vote for Trump. Trump has proven himself to be a racist misogynist who promotes violence, obviously choosing Trump would be choosing evil. (I am not here arguing that being a violent racist misogynist rises to the level of evil, one of my best friends fits these criteria and I don’t consider him evil. However, placing one with these views in the most powerful office on the planet does rise to the level of evil.)

To get back to our original topic, does voting for Hillary equate with choosing evil?

The best argument Hillary has is that she would offer 4 years similar to Obama’s presidency. It is common knowledge that on most domestic issues Hillary is slightly to the left of Obama, but on foreign policy she sits somewhere between the two Bushes.

We all know that Hillary voted for the Iraq war and defended that stance until fairly recently. She was a driving force for our involvement in Libya, when presented with the clusterfuck that Libya has descended into she laughingly said of Qaddafi, “We came, we saw, he died.” Probably the most damning thing against Hillary is her reliance upon and claimed friendship of the war criminal Kissinger, this alone should disqualify her from the presidency.

Here is a short list of other things that illustrate the type of president Hillary would make:

• She Supported welfare reform which sharply increased deep poverty in the US;
• She opposes the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall;
• She received millions of dollars in wall street donations (see previous point);
• She actively supported the 3 strikes legislation of her husband; and
• She operated the “Bimbo Eruption Squad” during her husband’s campaign and presidency, which attempted to shame women who had been preyed upon by her husband.

For these reasons, it is my belief that choosing Hillary Clinton is, in fact, choosing evil.

Party Before Country

I watched most of the Fox News Republican debate last night from Detroit. My take away is that these folks don’t care about our country and it is all about posturing to attain personal power.

Cruz and Rubio took turns using Trump as a punching bag. The insults were fast and furious…con man, charlatan, unhinged, pathological, liar, racist, blowhard, dangerous, fraudulent, phony, too old, Rubio even brought up Trump’s penis size (I am waiting to see politifact chasing Trump around with a ruler to fact check that one).

All of these insults may have a basis in fact (I don’t know and don’t want to know about the penis size), and should probably disqualify someone from being president. But when the debate was all said and done…both Cruz and Rubio announced that they would support Trump if he got the nomination. WTF? I can’t trust anyone to be president who would support a con man or a charlatan, or a dangerous fraudulent phony who is too old to be president to hold the highest office in the land. The debate last night only served to disqualify at least 3 of the candidates (I am unsure if Kasich should be disqualified, he didn’t leverage the insults against Trump and may not believe them to be true). But certainly, Trump, Cruz, and Rubio are unfit to be president.

One frocked up election

Or, perhaps, the most frocked up.

Up until two years ago I spent 18 years in California. Before we ever got to vote the primaries would already be decided and we would be presented with tweedledee and tweedledum. It is a farce, everyone knows it and very few care. I would end up simply not voting.

Since then I’ve moved to Missouri which has comparatively  early primaries, I thought this election might be different, a real choice for a change. I liked the Democrats’ Lessig and OMalley and I found the Republicans’ Kasich was at least saying some of the right stuff.

Of course, the media excluded Lessig from consideration and OMalley gained no traction in the whitest of white early states. Meanwhile Kasich is still in the race but has been sidelined by those very same states. So even though we are still 3 weeks away from voting, every candidate that I could consider backing has already been excluded from the race.

But wait, the reader states, there are still choices, we have Clinton, Sanders, Cruz, Rubio, and Trump; there are still choices to be made. Let’s take a look at these choices, for entertainment’s sake we will look at them in reverse alphabetical order.

Donald Trump: A nationalistic populist. With no political history we can only guess how he would govern. Over the years he was swayed back and forth on every issue, all we know for sure is that he is (or at least acts like) a racist intent on stoking racial violence.

Bernie Sanders: A geriatric democratic socialist with a lifetime in politics. He says all of the right things about campaign finance reform, healthcare, and banking reform but does not appear to have put much thought into energy policy, foreign affairs, or many other important topics that the next president will have to deal with. He is already 74 years old and probably not very agile at taking in new information and processing it.

Marco Rubio: A first term Senator without a single accomplishment on which to stake a claim. His rhetoric makes him the most anti-libertarian candidate in the field, he is a classic neo-con.

Ted Cruz: A first term Senator known more for what he opposes than for what he believes. He is the obligatory paleo-conservative in the race. This is the same role played by Huckabee and Santorum in the past. If it wasn’t for our broken campaign system he would already be back dragging the Senate down.

Hillary Clinton: The most Nixonian candidate since Nixon, she touts Kissinger as someone to look up to. She also is a classic neo-con and has vowed to get us into more wars while taking away more rights. She has not spent a single day of her adult life scandal free but she blames everyone else and never once takes a look in the mirror. She, like Rubio, would further extend the Bush/Obama doctrine of executive overreach and denial of habeas corpus.

And that’s it, those are our choices. WTF? This is the best we can do? A nation of 320 million people and this is it? There is an old saw that we get the politicians that we deserve, if there is any truth to this, we truly are a debased and facile nation.

It appears that I will be sitting another election out.

It’s Not You, Hillary. It’s Bill.

For women and women’s power, Hillary being the front runner in the Democratic primaries is a momentous occasion. Hillary could be the first female president in our nation’s 240 year history. No one can doubt the momentous nature of the moment.

But just as Hillary’s candidacy is momentous for women, it is equally disastrous for men. Wait. Hear me out. This isn’t about Hillary, it is about Bill. We could get our very first First Gentleman in our nation’s history, a very big moment indeed for men. But we don’t get to choose our First Gentleman, we are saddled with whomever the presidential aspirant drags along. And in this case, it is Bill; to state that he is not representative of the best that men offer is a gross understatement. As a man, it pains me that Bill may become the representative of men of our generation in future history texts.

I can hear the reader stating that this is preposterous, but allow me to demonstrate with a small thought experiment and you will surely agree with me.

Imagine that the roles were reversed. If we had a man running for president and his wife was as deplorable as Bill. Many many affairs, numerous rape accusations, a documented one-sided affair with a person of vastly inferior standing. All documented and played out in public for the world to see. What would be our views of this woman? Would she serve as a role model for young women? Is it different when it is the First Gentleman instead of the First Lady?

After 240 years men may be about to achieve, for the very first time, a First Gentleman, surely we can do better than Bill. If we can’t do better than Bill at present, then it would be far better to wait. Far better to wait, to postpone this historic moment until a better candidate for the first First Gentleman comes along. After all, we only get the opportunity for the first First Gentleman once, do we want to blow this historic opportunity on Bill Clinton (pun unintended and kind of gross)?