Just Layin' it Out

-Guns are just plain bad.  Of course if you hunt, blah blah blah.  Military weapons should not be owned by civilians.  I can't believe I'm even writing this.  What the hell?!?  They shouldn't exist at all. They're pushbuttons designed to kill lots of human beings.  Just bad bad bad.  Necessary maybe for countries to defend their citizens, but I believe in the swords into ploughshares thing.   I've got friends and relatives with them, but I detest them (i.e. the guns).  Those who have promoted gun ownership will rot in hell, I'm sure of it.
-Toxic masculinity is the great cause of most of America's problems (and those of many other societies).  But toxic masculinity is not organic.  It's promoted by the rich and powerful to manipulate the weak for the sake of increasing and consolidating wealth and power.  It's why there is violence, environmental destruction, crime, rape, income inequality, you name it.  It all traces back to male insecurity and desperate attempts to soothe it by incredibly destructive means.
-Racism is likewise not organic.  Children don't naturally hate other people because of their skin color or facial features.  It's taught and learned and promoted by the rich and powerful to divide the weak and thus make it easier to control, defraud, subjugate and generally rip them off.
-The "left" in this country all but disappeared, starting with Dukakis (who famously shunned the word "liberal") and finishing with Clinton.  The democratic party has not been the left flank of American politics for a long time.  "Liberalism" has come to mean gradualism/incrementalism, which, in the face of the rapid destruction of the social contract by the right, actually has merely meant a somewhat slower degradation of the non-rich.
-Moreover, the democratic party has come under the control of rich people who have been hyper-focused on the loud promotion of personal liberties, but completely tone deaf to the needs of the non-rich, and especially of the poor.  This while simultaneously obsessed with somehow appeasing, or pleasing, or "compromising" with a force of evil that has no interest in facilitating any kind of success for them in the form of "compromise" or anything else.
-"Progressive" has come to be the only way to describe politicians who believe in the principles that guided American social policy from FDR to LBJ, and that facilitated the rapidly improving standard of living and opportunities our parents and grandparents enjoyed.
-Libertarianism is an idiotic, adolescent, evil (and literally Satanic) force that has infected our society at almost all levels.
-The republican part is a secret combination, likely the secret combination described in the end of the Book of Mormon.  One of the main messages of the Book of Mormon is that societies often move from idealism and egalitarianism to where greedy men create secret combinations to horde and to "grind upon the face of the poor", and protect one another.  The current republican party is hardly anything but this.  And it is controlled by the former KGB director and current dictator of Russia.
-The KGB has long used racial division to try to subvert America and thus weaken it.  Trump has simply been a Russian asset for a long time.  This was as clear as day during the presidential campaign and every day since.  Our lack of spine to just point this out and get rid of this bastard is an absolutely breathtaking act of cowardice, especially to those of us who lived through (and thought we had won) the Cold War.
-Back to the democrats. In the presidential sphere, we have seen a parade of corporate lackeys vying for and winning the democratic nomination. Before Sanders, the only exception was Edwards, who was literally the only candidate to even mention the poor.  Sanders was a genuinely transformative candidate.  Scrupulously honest, razor sharp focus on the screaming economic inequities that have been ignored by other dems, fearless, outwardly rough and not tv-ready, yet incredibly popular among swing and conservative voters, as well as intermittent voters.  Incredibly well-informed, courageous and ironically amazing at working with some of the most conservative lawmakers.  The democratic establishment made a terrible, terrible mistake in thumbing the scales for an unelectable technocrat who happened to be a woman, thus enabling the election of an unthinkably bad human specimen who is wholly owned by Russia, and who took the country out of the most important climate change initiative, and the most important peace initiative of the last decade.  These are actions which, in themselves will have baleful effects for decades.
-The "center", the "democratic establishment" has failed miserably, not just in the '16 election, but over the past 25 years since the '94 election.  They have consistently squandered majorities and super-majorities.  They have reneged on promises.  They have continually shown favor toward corporations and the rich with the justification that at least they're not criminal/racist right-wingers, i.e. slightly better than the republicans.
-They have been enablers.  Those who have been in abusive relationships, or even been bullied in the playground know what an enabler is.  They make the bully worse by trying to negotiate or compromise with them, rather than standing up to them or holding them accountable (as Gandhi/MLK did).  The big/strong playmate who you think will protect you from the bully, but who ends up sucking up to him instead.
-The "centrists" will tell us that if we'd been better at supporting they're crappy candidate in '16, we would have won, when in reality, we gave more than they did to help.  We're actually a lot better and scrappier in a fight.  And we have infinitely more at stake.  But we knew that their crappy candidate would likely do very little for us and likely continue to enable and facilitate the continued consolidation of the plutocracy.  It's very hard for us to comprehend the gall of "centrists" to blame us for their hideous and selfish blunder and to actually blame us in advance for their incomprehensible drive to nominate a doomed, greasy, dumb, fumbling, unelectable, usury-loving 80-year old, when there are so many incredibly inspiring, appealing, sincere fighters who could actually bring an end to the spectacular income inequality, climate change, and warmongering.

FaceBook and Politics

Gonna take a possibly permanent break from discussing/posting political stuff. Most who know me know how I feel. And I think most can see what's going on, even if the future is hard to predict. I continue to hope and pray for humanity and a country that I believe Providence smiled on at one time, and that brought immeasurable good to the world (and some bad). Our destiny is in the hands of a motley collection of highly compromised cowards who were never the cream of the crop to begin with. Those of us who made it through the cold war have a hard time giving up the idea that we are all stronger and happier because of shared values and resources in the midst of gorgeous diversity; that unwritten norms are often all that prevents us from oblivion; that safety nets, a few rules, and collective infrastructure of all kinds facilitate the glorious entrepreneurial spirit that has brought us unparalleled creativity, beauty, and fun.
I was a late adopter of FaceBook. I couldn't figure out the point of it at first. I soon found it to be the most useful tool imaginable for an indy musician. I built up an artistic practice that depended on FaceBook. In the process I reconnected with people I never thought I'd hear from. I made many new and interesting friends and met my amazing wife. It enabled me to book gigs in places I'd never been and to host musicians for performances that would never have otherwise happened. FaceBook is, of course, a deeply flawed platform and 2016 has soured many on it. There are also some weird generational things, like that Instagram is cool, not FB so much, etc. (a sentiment which my teens (who appear to be reappropriating FB) say is so "millenial" and thus uncool). It's kind of like saying Chrysler is so much cooler than Dodge. Anyway, I'm gonna stay on FB in a restrained way and let others do the political stuff. Thanks y'all for your beautiful spirits and keep groovin'.

To senators re: Putin/Trump in Helsinki

I sent the following to my two senators today, following the disastrous Trump/Putin summit:

"If you continue to support this treasonous traitor of a president and do not pursue impeachment, your are yourself a traitor to your country, a country that won a cold war against this totalitarian state. You will also have to answer to God, humanity, posterity, and history for your complicity. You must give up your insane "loyalty" to a political party that has gone completely off the rails and choose loyalty to country and humanity instead. It's time to do the right thing. God help us if you and your colleagues don't."

Kings: Bad Idea

Last week in Gospel Doctrine class we were talking about the transition from judges to kings in the Old Testament.  There was a lot of humming and hawing about how maybe this was necessary, etc., the judges weren’t that great, etc.  My comment was something along the lines that, taken as a whole, in addition to being a lineage of the Messiah, a secondary overriding theme is how utterly terrible kings and tribes are.  

Yesterday while waiting for stake conference to start I looked through every chapter heading from 1 Samuel to 2 Kings.  It’s just a series of absolute disasters caused by these kings.  And the first three were carefully hand picked, but even they turned out really bad and caused unspeakable suffering.  I know God sanctioned, selected and had these guys anointed, but I imagine it somewhat in the character of providing I.V. drug users with clean needles.  “If you’re going to do this really awful, dumb thing, then at least make sure that…” etc.

Kings and tribes are unmitigated disasters.  And why wouldn’t they be?  If we are children of a perfect and loving god, tribalism, racism, and nationalism have to be viewed as wicked.  Moreover, lifting up one man and his descendants as above the law, better than everyone else, able to boss people around and steal from, enslave, kidnap, and rape them at a whim are likewise wicked.  And yet we have this human tendency to want kings, strongmen, and celebrities.  We are also incredibly susceptible to believing in tribes, races, and nationalities.

I keep coming back the the lyric of the reggae classic from Carlton and the Shoes:

“God made man and He gave them all

An equal share of blessings.

Some men want to take it all and

Keep the rest of the world in

Bondage and oppression.”

The song ends with a hopeful note though:

“But the Father, He’s not sleeping.

He’ll set his people free.

Better days are coming,

Better days for you and for me.”

Demagogue

So the fact that there is a word for this, demagogue, and that vile strongmen throughout recorded history have taught and preyed on fear of the other to divide the majority or plurality and thus gain power and control; does the fact that history is replete with this ugly phenomenon and that despite our living in the information age, and thus having super easy access to all this history and information, does any of that matter? I guess we really have to look at root causes. About 50 percent of any society are susceptible to fear, easily manipulated, and generally not super smart or able to think independently/critically. This is just simply a given. And these people do amazing and beautiful things in most circumstances. About 35% of people in any society are both smart and have a social conscience. About 15% are smart and are douchebags, and just want wealth or power, at whatever expense. Sometimes the 15% (or a subset of them) get so greedy that they are willing to create/promote hatred to squeeze a little bit more, mostly out of the 50% (getting them to act against their consciences and their own interests). It's really all up to the 35%, and I think we've failed. We failed to educate. We failed in the political process. We promoted a doctrine of moral relativism at the very wrong time in history. We sucked up to mass media and popular culture also at the very wrong time in history. We allowed "wedge issues", tailor made by the 15%, to cause us to succumb to dislike of the 50%. We also failed to shame the 15%, but that is only possible when we sufficiently educate the 50% such that we have shared values with which to shame the 15%.

Avant Vespers

I shared the following on FaceBook today regarding a new series that takes over somewhat where the Locust Salon and Avant GaRAWge left off:

For many years I have been experimenting with different ways to structure time in music.  I’m very excited to present a piece tonight that does this in ways that I’ve imagined but never quite realized.  No Within No is also an exploration of liminality, the space within the supposed borders.  This is something I’ve been fascinated with for years, but I feel like I’m getting further into that groove.  The borders that become continua are those between speech and music, composed and improvised text, intelligible words and phonemes, humor and profundity, heterophony and polyphony, and a few others.  I’m so glad to have two of my favorite vocalist/performers joining me, Hannah McLaughlin and Stuart Wheeler.  And also very grateful to be surrounded with other fascinating music being made by Mr. Wheeler, Gavin Ryan, Devin Maxwell, and the music of Pauline Oliveros, Alvin Lucier, and Phil Niblock, composers rarely heard in these parts.  Incidentally, I share a regard for Sunday as a sacred time and consider this event, in a beautiful and intimate church, a wonderful opportunity for meditation and the celebration of the divine gift of sound, whatever your beliefs or life practices are.

Too Fast

Listening to Bach's sublime A minor violin concerto.  The tempos are so ludicrously fast that it forces one to ask many questions.  It's no wonder the esteem of classical music has suffered so much.  Why the obsession with rushing through this incredibly complex sublime music?  It evinces a kind of contempt for the music, its composer, its significance, its import.  Bach's music is about as fancy as music gets from the fanciest era of music.  It was the era of the doctrine of the affections.  It can't possibly work at these tempos.  Please, players of baroque music, stop trying to "get through" this or any music.  If playing it is such an unpleasant chore (like disposing of a dead animal, or something similar that is done quickly), then maybe do something else that you actually enjoy.  But please don't destroy this music for the rest of us.