I have belatedly discovered Sage Francis and am enjoying the music I stole from him very much. A lot of the music I listen to (but far from all of it) is political. I guess I can related to it or something like that which is why I like it. So I thought I’d post this one for ‘weekend reflections’: What would I (we) include in an anthology of political anthems. And I’m talking modernish here – post 1980. No ‘blowing in the wind’ shit, I’m far more interested in Sage or Le Tigre. So I thought I’d start things off with a quick list and edit it according to comments made – who knows I might even put the CD together:

• The Revolution will not be televised (Gil-Scott Herron)
• Television, the Drug of a Nation (Disposable Heroes)
• New Kicks – Le Tigre
• Cold Cut – Atomic Moog
• Something by Ani Difranco
• Sage Francis (can’t remember the name of the song I was thinking of but I did just find you that he has a blog
• NWA – Fuck the Police
• Public Enemy but I’m not sure which one yet – something off Fear of a Black Planet or It takes a Nation of Millions
• The Dead Kennedys have a long list and I’d want to include them all – Holiday in Cambodia or the Stars and Stripes of Corruption seems like suitable choices
• KRS One – Sound of da Police

Of course I’ve gone blank now – but that’s cool, I’ll post in comments as they come to me as well.

And you will all post your favorite song with a political message…

I get a regular newsletter from Eric Lee at Labour Start who is a great campaigner and I recommend signing up for their newsletter. He has a particular interest in online campaigning and his thoughts on it are worth paying attention to. So I thought I’d share this amusing tale with you all:

“A few weeks ago, I attended a conference on the subject of online
campaigning. One of the highlights was the appearance of someone from
“the other side” — the representative of a giant multinational
corporation which has been the target of many campaigns. She was a
pleasant enough spokesperson, and came with one very clear message to
all of us from corporate headquarters: when you are about to launch a
campaign, she said, please do contact us first so that we can agree on
the appropriate email address and thus avoid disruption in the company.

“This triggered a huge outburst of laughter from the conference
participants. The whole point of campaigning is to both send a message
– and to cause disruption. That’s what strikes do, that’s what picket
lines do, and that’s what campaigns do. They disrupt the day-to-day
functioning of their corporate targets.”

An article on Graffiti which reeks of ‘uncool’: “Peter has never tried graffiti before. He’s an emcee and DJ, which, along with graffiti and Bboy (breakdancing), make up the four corners of hip-hop culture.”

“Four corners” or five elements?

I also though this was interesting (although completely unrelated to Gaffiti)

Here Come the Zapatistas

A couple of people have been discussing the issues around a female teach who was sack, seemingly quite innocently, after she admitted to being a Lesbian.

So I emailed these links to a gay friend of mine, purely because I thought he would be interested and the discussion that followed was a bit of an eye opener for me in some sense. Considering I really value his opinion and I thought his response was really interesting I thought I’d post and edited (for privacy and coherence) version of the discussion:

Friend: Interesting – I think I am getting more right wing as I get older. I would have told the students nothing – my personal life has nothing to do with them. Maybe we will live one day in a world that it does not matter – but for many people it does matter – children do take leads (and while it would be good to set by example, for many that causes great problems.) As an example if I was a teacher – I would never say who I voted for – one of those things that remain unsaid.

Me: While the whole ‘it’s none of your business’ stuff is fine, it is true to say that it would be different if you were straight. This is precisely where the problem is. I don’t need to tell you that you have nothing to be ashamed of and I’m kind of fond of creating a stir.

When I was about 10 a few kids all of a sudden left my soccer team. It turns out the coach was gay so he sat us all down and ‘came out’. I remember thinking ‘so?’ But then again I had good lefty parents and was well aware of the issues at the time. It was interesting to see the response. Unfortunately the guy was a complete dick head and a bad coach but by coming out like that he actually calmed the situation a lot.

There was a long silence after he told us until one kid said something to the effect of ‘yeah, well just don’t try anything on us and I don’t care.’ His response was actually quite good as he nipped that one in the bud and in a way it was good that the kid said that because he didn’t have to bring it up but could address it in a sort of ‘third-party’ way.

If we don’t cause a stir then how will we ever overcome the discrimination?

Friend: No – when I was young I would not divulge my private life – But I am a very private person and I think it is very disarming sometimes to say, but I am gay – in a suitable audience.

The coach would have been better coming out as a bad coach than gay – as suddenly gay is the issue and people think differently. It’s a bit like saying, I play dungeons and dragons – there are some things that telling people does not matter. Adults are different story – but impressionable children are another story – bit like I would hate it if a teacher was liberal voting and telling students about there branch meetings – it has an influence.

Me: Being a private person is fine.

The good thing about my coach doing what he did is that in many ways he neutralised the issue. After a couple of weeks no one cared. I also think it made the kids go home and talk about it which is (in my mind) a positive.

I strongly believe that as Lefties we are entirely too sensitive. Homosexuality should be a neutral issue so why are we so sensitive about it? It is, for all intents and purposes, a biological fact and one I think children should be aware of, just like they are aware of sex in a basic sense from quite a young age. By not mentioning it you’re sort of going back to the days of your parents leaving a book on your bed so you can read about what is happening to your body when you get your first period. Talk about disempowering. It also makes it difficult for kids when they their sexuality starts to emerge and they can’t quite understand why they are attracted to people of the same sex when that has never been presented to them as an option.

The problem is that saying your gay is disarming and saying your straight is not. That said I don’t envy your position. I’d hate for knowledge of my sexuality to be disarming and I sympathise with you keeping your sexuality quite from time-to-time.

I guess my problem is that I’m so fucking normal: white, middle class, straight, male so I have no identity issues to fight and feel a little out of place marching in a pride rally – despite being pissed off. In many senses you’ve got a great responsibility because you belong to an oppressed minority. That can’t be easy. I’ve obviously got to let go of my politics from time to and try to understand the personal responses a little more.

Friend: This is a good one to discuss over drinks – let’s keep it on the boil.

Apparently I might have Gout.

Isn’t that a ‘dad’ disease? I’m only 25!!

I find this funny.

I would like to pay tribute to Kobayashi, who broke the world record for hot dog (and bun) eating with a massive 50 1/2 hot dogs in just 12 minutes.

Respect!

“It is a long way from the federal-state co-operation that marked the birth of the GST: the (almost) comprehensive tax of 10 per cent on sales of most goods and services, introduced on July 1, 2000. In a rare act of self-sacrifice, the Howard Government bore the pain of raising a tax that would be almost entirely given to the states — then, of course, mostly Coalition-run.”

Howard is now paying for the power he gave to the States when the states were mostly Coalition-run. This goes some way toward emphasising the importance of careful planning in a federation and why it is foolish for party politics to get in the way. It is interesting in the context of a push for a federalised Industrial Relations scheme.

Immigration, inflation and education/training all seem to be tightly linked at the moment and makes for some interesting analysis – which the blogsphere has proven pretty good at breaking down. See here, here and here.