I attended a GENEVA event last night at Conservative Central Office and was shocked. Based around a new book called Blue Tomorrow, it was the closest thing I have seen to a “real” debate about the future of the Conservative Party. Most in the audience and 3/4 of the panelists have come to realise that the Tory Party cannot fight a 1950’s campaign and expect to win. Gone were expressions of paternalistic nannying; they are to be replaced with the words freedom and responsibility. There were frank exchanges about the state of candidate selection at the last election (appalling, both in terms of candidates and the selection process), the life of the party (it’s dead), and the party’s focus. There were none of the stock phrases and twitch reactions normally found at CPF meetings. It was almost entirely intelligent, well informed debate. Oh yes, and one more thing, the average age was 35, not 65!

Alas, the only problem with this meeting was there were no MPs present (a fact duly noted by many) or higher-ups in the party. That room had the formula for a Tory comeback; will the party listen? They had better, if they want to win.

Michael Gove of the Times and Policy Exchange kept the audience in stitches whenever he spoke. As I said in a comment to the audience, Michael could tell someone he was about to be executed, and the man would go to the firing squad laughing his head off.

Got this email from one of my readers today. I think it pretty much says all that needs to be said. I support this guy for several reasons, one of which is who could support bat-pee like Heineken against a record label?

Click Here: antiMUSIC – The Music Site with
an Attitude! (Please click on Red Star).

Everyone,

My indie Red Star label is being attacked by the Heineken Beer company and my
only recourse is to publicize their attempts at stealing my company name, and
to force a confrontation to settle this dispute. My company has been in
business since 1977 and has released some important music over the years.

A growing number of weblogs and music sites have already covered this * and the news is spreading fast. I’m writing you in the hope that
you’ll mention this, too.

That’s it. Simply stated, I need your help and would appreciate any mention.
Thank you.

Sincerely,
Marty Thau
Mtredstar@aol.com
http://www.tres_producers.blogspot.com <—- I’m one of Eric’s
partners.

• Instapundit.com—a.beam—antMusic.com—Hollywood Investigator—Up
  Yours—Tres Producers—Hits Magazine—Beat Pharmacy—Craig’s
  Booknotes—cursor.org—Jim Treacher—Es 1st Egal, Aber (Dutch)—Dave
  Marsh @ Rock ‘n Rap Confidential … to name just a few.

  PS. The end is near on this. If you can help, now is the moment. Thanks, again.

  Comments are off for this post

From The Editor’s Desk….....

As you can all see below, the first half of this round of posting has drawn an eMail response. That must mean that the other half had best be posted, so here it is :

Part 2

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the softer side of hard rock/heavy metal; that of AOR. (Even metalheads have a soft side.) A brand of music that was so out of fashion that it had to go to Nashville to get noticed again (Shania Twain, Faith HIll, Lonestar) is now making a bit of a comeback. It combines the power of guitars, bass, and drums with softer vocals and tender lyrics. Hard Rock produces the ballads that rockers shag to, the drinking songs they drink to, and the party songs they party to. Hard Rock tends to be a more equal male to female type gig. In its heyday I went to many gigs where there were more women than men in attendance. Bands like Def Leppard, Poison, Whitesnake and Motley Crue were good at “pulling” the females into the gigs, many of the men on the other hand were there to pull the highly agitated females in the audience. Or as one of my friends (a woman) put it when asked what on earth she was going to a hard rock gig for: “the single women there want to sleep with the lead singer and the men that go want to sleep with the single women.” It is a quite simple idea; let some better looking guy on stage do the getting a woman all hot & bothered and then move in for the kill. This type of music tends be fairly heterosexual, while some of the truly harder types of the metal music (goth, industrial, darkwave, death) attract gay men, tranvestites, and the fetishists. Even so, you could argue bands like Manowar with their leather thongs, chisled naked torsos and good looks could be seen as a bit “camp”. (Think Chippendales with musical instruments and little talent to play them.)

I recently attended a Mortiis (see review: DtD) concert where the crowd could have been seen as a preview audience for the next weekend’s Torture Garden bash. Clothing choices ranged from fetish, through cybergoth, to goth and metal-heads. Leather, denim, pvc, rubber, as well as satin and lace were there for all to see. Ironically, the difference between a lot of so-called “bondage” clothes and “metal” clothes is just where you bought it. Ann Summers charges twice as much for a leather dress as the ‘metal’ clothier down the street. Metal and hard-rock is neither music for neanderthals nor is it only for maladjusted and socially inept men. It is for those who don’t like their music trendy or to be on Top of the Pops every week. HR/HM is as diverse and individualistic as it wants to be, a true example of liberty and free will in action.

Andrew Ian Dodge
.......................................................

oh for the love of all things unholy!

finally someone who gets it (hell, someone who even knows there’s something there to “get!”) as a rapacious “new blog reader/convert to a new world perspective” unfortunately thanks to 9.11, i have often wondered how to combine my love of sharp writing, reasoned argument and the most hideous of all musical forms—death metal, doom, grindcore, metallic hardcore, etc. and now you’ve done it.

your critical musings are most appreciated, especially your defense of us “untypical” metalheads (smart, perceptive, fairly well-off—i’m a tv writer by trade), as opposed to the aural australopithecines who get the most attention. like you, ive always found my metal brethren to be rather clever, interested and certainly interesting. (not that there’s anything wrong with the lunkhead who happily stagedives into the quickly-parting crowd…and quite frankly, provides much entertainment!)

anyway, looking forward the part 2—now i have to get back to my raging speedhorn, napalm death and new crown cd’s…

best, dan

update from dan: and i read bw&bk all the time so im not sure why i didn’t figure all this out before…

From The Editor’s Desk….....

Responding to the challenge, Andrew has gone on a wee tear with his writing; enough so that it, too, must be split for posting, otherwise it would take up too much length and leave no room for other good material.

Andrew Ian Dodge

Part 1 of 2

I had promised to write more on the subject of sex, drugs and rock & roll. I even made this promise to the Prof himself. I am going to go live these ideals this weekend as I head off to the “GODS” of AORgig in Bradford. The mini-festival will last from noon to 2am starting on Sunday. There will be lots of long hair, tight leather, and denim to behold.

This leads me to pointing out a few misconceptions about the world of hard rock and heavy metal. First of all, it is necessary to end the perception that all metal-heads (of whatever variety) are knuckle-dragging morons with only a basic ability for speech and the IQ of a newt. Metal heads come in all levels of intelligence, although “average” seems to be relatively under-represented. In my experience most of us are either above average intelligence or significantly below. The subject has come up several times with my fellow travelers in the world of hard rock, and much of the time there is concensus on this conclusion. I know at least one geneticist who used to splice genes listening to AC/DC. The man who could potentially create new forms of life was a metal-head. It is highly amusing to note he was also an Indian Hindu and not the whitebread cliche so often associated with the genre. I know of many highly successful, driven individuals who are into this sort of music. In some cases the more driven they are the more extreme the music; for instance a certain character who has a blog called Samizdata is into darkwave and goth metal.

It is possible that the perception of stupidity comes from contact with a few metalheads who might be bright but are so stoned out of their gourd to appear to be idiots. Much like at sporting events, intelligent men or women in a group can turn into a mob of morons with the right encouragment. Being amused or even aroused by a singer simulating sex with the stage (part of Bret Michaels of Poison’s repetoire) is a sure sign of the mob mentality, surely? Intensely lame “sing-alongs” or worse, crowd cheering contests, makes one wonder if all in the venue left their brains with their coats in the cloak-room.

There is also the problem that many of the purveyors of the music are not exactly that intelligent. They may be amazing musicians, but like athletes, they can be amazingly stupid off-stage. I have interviewed some absolute morons (Dizzy Dean Davidson of Britney Fox take a bow), incapable of speaking in even the slightest of coherent manner. This, of course, varies a great deal depending on the sub-genre; symphonic metal/progresssive musicians tend to be well-educated and highly intelligent men and women while some death metal & hard rock bands considerably less so. How bright do you have to be to write songs about having sex, getting drunk, and partying?

With the increase in sub-genres of the overall genre, there seems to be a sorting of those who like the music. There are certain types of gigs where you can expect the preponderance of the fans to be young, male and fairly thick, for instance. There are also regional variations. I find the caliber of people at death/doom metal gigs in the UK is higher than it is in the US. This might have something to do with the amount of people in the US who take death metal at its face value rather than as a chance to vent a bit. It might amuse some of you that there are two “camps” in the death metal world, depending on what side of the Atlantic one hails from, with the UK splitting down the middle. You find that deathmetallers in the US tend to loathe the European brand since it may contain female vocals, keyboards and even orchestral arrangements. The American version tends to feature a man grunting or screaming, with his cohorts playing as fast and as brutally as possible. Death metal on this side of the pond contains a melody; it does not on the other side. It is even possible to write a book on the sub-genres of hard rock and heavy metal. My friend Martin Popoff does a very fine line in specialist books on the subject.
..........................................................

Part 2 to be posted tomorrow

It was very pleasing to see that Joe Katzman’s SFSU Blogburst was so successful. He managed a good level of participation and support. It was a bit of a shame none of the biggies picked up on it on the day; however that might change. If you are a blogger you can still participate in this effort to highlight the disgraceful behaviour of both the students and the administration at SFSU. It is great to see so many people coming together to expose such an episode. I suspect there is a good chance that this might gain some momentum in the next few days, as I have to remind myself not everyone reads every blog every day.

In a closely related note, it was interesting to see that CBS accurately reported the situation on the ground for Jews in continental Europe. Instead of dragging out the “normal” nazi skinheads to blame, someone did some real research. It was made clear that is was Muslims and Arabs who were responsible for the attacks. They even managed to track down a white pro-palestianian convert to Islam who was only happy to take responsibility for co-ordinating such attacks. In a bizarre scene, he proudly showed a picture of Arafat taking pride of place next to Hitler on his wall. He called for Muslims in Europe to rise up against the Zionists and Americans everywhere. The man was clearly a living example of an Islamo-fascist.

This was some of the best reportage I have ever seen on CBS. It was certainly some of the best foreign reporting I have seen from any US network in a long time.

There seems to be more than passing interest in the SDR&R material, including a request for some additional writings, so this concept is underway, now.

In the meantime, here are the 3 links to put together the entire piece:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

I would like to thank all my fellow bloggers who kindly linked to the series.

On May 7, we saw a blatant example of how far our campuses had fallen, courtesy of the near-riot at SFSU. While a pro-Palestinian crowd swarmed pro-Israel rally members, used physical violence, and shouted “Get out or we will kill you” and “Hitler did not finish the job,” administration officials on the scene did nothing. Glenn Reynolds of FoxNews.com has the details.

These sorts of double standards are common at universities all over the West. It seems that it has become fine to offend and smear Jewish or white students, but one must not do so to anyone else. I saw the early manifestations of this while at Colby, in Maine. In its early stages the only ones picked on were “white” students who were not allowed to have views other than the “correct”. Somewhere between then, the late 80’s, and now, Jews have become “honourary whites”, and it is now open season on them. I would recomend that my readers get a copy of “Shadow University” for further tales of oppression of white students, and laterly Jewish ones.

What is most appalling is that this was allowed to happen at a state university. California taxpayers are paying the salaries of the administration and professors at this university. Surely the concept of “in loco parentis” extends to Jewish & pro-Israeli students as well. I would hope that any student who was abused at the event sues the hell out of the SFSU, or, even better, all of them launch a class action suit against the university.

This blog can only comment on one or two facets of the travesty at SFSU. Other dimensions of this incident and the alarming trends it represents are detailed in the full SFSU Blog Burst Index at Winds of Change.

A Snarl From The Den….....

MommaBear is a very firm believer in Equal Opportunity for women; however, seeing this bit in the DT this morning [USA time] makes her wonder if H. Sapiens(?), male or female, hasn’t taken this concept just a wee bit too far.

The Third Installment, as promised, for your reading pleasure:

Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll – III

The rock & roll lifestyle is liberty in action; get the message out to willing minds and you might just keep them over time. After all, rock musicians are entrepreneurs and, for the most part, yuppies in the making. They originate mostly from lower or lower middle class backgrounds. They sacrifice a stable future to pursue their dreams by creating something that others will wish to buy. They are naturally resistant to statist regulation, whether labeling or censorship and performance laws. They want drugs legalized so they do not have to risk getting arrested in their pursuit of the SDR&R lifestyle. By definition, hard rock/heavy metal musicians opt out of the norms that the state and statists wish them to adhere to. Rock stars inspire others to follow their lead.

Looking at the lyrics, we see that anti-statist messages are fairly common. Whether or not bands realize it, that is drift of their writing. Lyrics range from railing against small town statism to the interference of national and supra-national governments. Sex laws, policing, and war all come in for consideration. Whether it is Megadeth questioning �Peace Sells…but who is Buying?�, Metallica�s �Master of Puppets�, or Iron Maiden�s �The Trooper�, they all decry the state waging pointless war. Small town blues are railed against in Twisted Sister�s �We�re not going to take it�, �Welcome to the Jungle� by Guns & Roses, and �Let�s Get Rocked� by Def Leppard. Hypocrisy in religion is tackled by Ozzy Osborne in “Miracle Man”. Even the Phil Collins-fronted Genesis took a slap at tele-evangelists in their hey-day. Rush, Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, and Bonefire have all railed against the crushing hand of the state. Of course, Rush have extremely sound libertarian/Randian credentials with the release of an entire album inspired by Rand, “2112”.

And then, of course, there are the elements central to the sdr&r lifestyle: sex and drugs. Praise of sex and rants against prudishness are numerous. Praise of drugs, in all forms, are numerous and frequent. George Thurgood’s �I drink Alone’, AC/DC’s �Have a Drink on Me�, and W.A.S.P.’s �Blind in Texas� have spawned many a drink. Less numerous but still somewhat common are warnings about the dangers of these activities. It is, however, rare that these songs instruct or admonish the listener. Rather, they inform about possible results of these activities. Examples of this trend are Ozzy Osborne, frequently, y Enuff Znuff �Fly High Michelle�, and Guns & Roses �Mr Brownstone�. Hard rock and heavy metal rarely lecture but frequently inform. These songs rely on listeners to take personal responsibility and make their own decisions. This is in sharp contrast to the music of the 90�s, which contained strong instructions on how to live one�s life. Libertarian ‘take responsibility’ this is the right message.

With its emphasis on “doing one�s own thing” and “individualism”, Rock & Roll really is the music of liberty.

Andrew Ian Dodge

A Mini-Rant From The Den….....

A tip of her cap to I-P for leading MommaBear to the following article in the Washington Times-the other D[isneyLand] C[entral] paper.

MommaBear’s comment: Good on ya, W !!

The Telegraph has a great piece today sticking it to the Baby Boomers. As we all know, they are the selfish generation that seems bent on screwing things up for those who follow. Ironically, they are being so numb that it looks as though all the things they hold dear will no longer exist after they are through with them (the NHS, Social Security etc). I am looking forward to some of the letters the DT is going to get in response.

As you can probably tell, it is the generation that comes in for the most criticism in my book Statism Sucks!. Keen on their own freedom but not on anyone else’s, this rapidly aging group stands in sharp contrast to the generation that produced them.

From The Editor’s Desk….....

As Promised…......without further ado:

Part II

I didn’t really it appreciate it at the time, but when the 90s kicked in, I missed the 80s. Gone were the party anthems of Poison, Kiss, Motley Crue, and Hanoi Rocks, and the sex innuendo of Whitesnake, Aerosmith, Dogs D’Amour and AC/DC. Gone was the escapism of Anthrax, Iron Maiden, and Megadeth. In its place, rock radio played the whining and moaning of angst males and females. Alanis Morrisette and Pearl Jam were whining about how bad everything was. Seattle, instead of producing glamour girls like Heart, and prog-kings, Queensryche, was steeped in the misery and moroseness of heroin. It was no longer how to get laid, it was how to avoid killing yourself. Record companies took notice and started ditching feel-good rock for feel-miserable rock. In addition, the message of this music was decidedly left-wing. Pinching ideas from the sub-genres like punk and hardcore, grunge/angst rock was in full flow. Even Michael Jackson got in on the act with his vomit-inducing odes to current feel-good subjects.

It was almost a decade before mainstream rock came out of its misery. There still exists the dark element in popular bands like Slipnot and Marilyn Manson, but a new wave of album oriented/melodic rock (AOR) and heavy metal is emerging, replacing the depressing music of the past. Even rap-rock bands sensed the change; a song called ‘Nookie’, by the ironically named: Limp Bizkit, can only mean sex is back on the agenda, again.

The glam/rock of the 80s coincided with a time of unprecedented wealth and success. The 90s, with its angst-laden lyrics, paralleled a recession. This is no co-incidence. What do these observations have to do with libertarianism? I would argue, a great deal. When the populace’s thoughts are on SDR&R, that is when they are most amenable to libertarian ideas. After all, that is the life they are living. They want to be left alone to get on with it, free from meddling of the state or other statist institutions (like the church) telling them how to behave and what to do.

Andrew Ian Dodge

The finale will appear tomorrow.

A Grin From The Den….....

MommaBear hopes that all who read this post will go immediately to War Now and vote for Natalie Solent in the poll on the right-hand edge; she deserves it !!

John over at Rat’s Nest has demolished a leftie screed against the privitasation of the welfare state in the US. His demolition is both clever and piercing, and it is well worth a read.

From The Editor’s Desk….....

As promised, The Editor has taken Andrew’s fine piece on libertarianism and youth’s exemplification of that concept in action, divided it into manageable sections, and will dole it out to his adoring public today, tomorrow, and Tuesday.

Herewith, readeth the first installment:

+ + + + + + + +

Andrew Ian Dodge

Sex, drugs, and rock & roll: a libertarian view

The religious in the world have always looked upon rock & roll as a shining example of libertinism. I hope to show that, on the contrary, rock & roll, and, more specifically, hard rock and heavy metal are libertarianism in action. The hard rock scene and some of its side-genres are a good indicator of how open the young populace would be to libertarian ideals and ideas. It appears that if most of youth are concerned with sex, drugs and rock & roll (henceforth referred to as SDR&R), then there is a good chance your country is doing well.

I have been in the “business” of hard rock/heavy metal for 20 years and listening to it for 23. Ever since I heard the opening notes to “Number of the Beast” and heard the wails of Vince Neil of Motley Crue, I was hooked. After this awakening in my 13th year, I have bought, collected, and reviewed thousands of hard rock & heavy metal albums. It was not until I began to DJ on my university radio station that I began to identify the specific music I preferred. My listeners would party during my 2, then 5, and eventually 7 hour show. They would request songs about love, lust, anger, heartache, and horror, but never anything with a message. Ultimately, I learned what my listeners really wanted was an escape from reality.

+ + + + + + + +

Part II will be published tomorrow.

A Growl From The Den….....

As befits a good editor, MommaBear does her research and verification; in this case, she has to make an exception, relying on the good bona fides of Paul Harvey, an American radio commentator, whose sources of tidbits have been proven reliable.

Somewhere in the UK, there is a Town Council, or some such other governmental unit, that proves once again that the miserable sub-species of H. Sapiens(?) called ‘governmental-ignorames’ is hard at work. They saw fit to commission a sign depicting all the governmental units in and about their area, captioned in Braille for the use of the visually impaired as well as sighted individuals. If the only parameter for judging governmental units is the intent, so far, so good.

Here is the bad news: they had it posted 8’ in the air.

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!

The things you have to believe to be in favour of the Kyoto Protocol:

1. That something called global warming is happening.
2. That it is a bad thing.
3. That it is caused by human activity (actually this isn’t essential, I just thought I’d sling it in anyway)
4. That there is something that we can do about it.
5. That the benefits of that “something” outweigh the costs.

If any one of these points falls then the whole case for Kyoto (and its ilk) falls.

Over at i330 poor (almost literally) Joshua bemoans how much he has to pay in tax to the US Government. He mentions “titheing”, which amuses me. In my book Statism Sucks! 2.0 I call for a new tax system based on the system of tithes. It would cut the link between the individual and the federal government and mean that taxes were collected at the lowest level possible exclusively. It is also a flat (ie fair) rate of tax. Just think of my plan (which is all costed thanks to my accountant/mater) as the IRS unemployment program.

Yours truly has written an extended piece on the link between sex, drugs, rock & roll, and libertarianism. I plan to copy Joe’s multi-part format and publish it over 3 days. I hope you will enjoy it; it is a tad more humorous than some of my normal pieces, but is meant in all sincerity.

A hint: if you see the “youth” of the day listening to navel-gazing whining music produced by heroin-addicted musicians then buy bonds immediately!

The editor of the infamous left-wing rag Tribune has written a scathing article taking Labour to task for their volte-face on the Euro and the EU. He tells of a new anti-Euro Labour parliamentary pressure group called L.A.T.E. (Labour Against The Euro). It will be very interesting to see what kind of ruckus this lot can kick up on Tony’s back-benches. All power to them; I wish them the best of luck.

Well, Thank You ALL very much!

Dodgeblog hit that 10k last night, and we appreciate all the sets of eyes who come here to read our musings.

In the Daily Telegraph today, an EU report condemns the BBC for calling bin Laden an “Islamic fundamentalist” and “Islamic terrorist” on the grounds that his actions were “un-Islamic”. While most Muslims in the free world were horrified by bin Laden’s attacks, I’m quite sure 9 out of 10 Wahhabi clerics approve of what he did, or at the very least, a sizeable and influential amount. Anyway, by the EU’s reckoning, the Crusades were not perpetrated by Christians, and how to explain the pedophilia scandal in the US?

Update (from Andrew): Emmanuel Goldstein has taken on this issue and has some good points. In the text is a link to the PDF of the EU report. No doubt its contents will be rage-enducing, so a glass of wine or beer might be needed to calm the nerves.

Check this out and then tell me that Western civilisation is not under threat from militant Islam. The extended post on masturbation is tad amusing, however. And you thought the ole “hairy palms” myth was a daft scare tactic!

Iain Dale has a tale of bias in a recent Newsnight poll. You don’t say, Iain, bias at the Beeb? Now there is a total shock!

Update: The Spectator has an interesting article on the BBC prejudice against Israel and Jews by someone from the Jerusalem Post.

As you can see below I am back doing some serious blogging. Mater has gone back to Maine, and my ISP problems seem to have been solved. You can also thank (or curse?) Classic Rock Magazine for including a brilliant 17 track cover disc with their latest issue, a great soundtrack to any writing.

David Cameron MP has written a well thought-out piece on a possible solution to drug-related crime. While it is not the full legalisation that some hard-core libertarians, including me, want, it does seem to be something the public and MPs could handle. He also calls for heroin and crack “safe rooms” where addicts could go so they would leave the rest of us alone.

I called for the return to opium dens (safe rooms in 19th century speak) in my treatment of the subject in Statism Sucks! Ver 2.0. The reason for the reluctance to this approach appears to be that some do-gooders seem to feel that this is an admission of failure of the drug war. They don’t seem to think that high drug-related crime rate and the abundance of drug dealers & the natural effluence thereof in certain areas is a good enough sign of failure.

The press here is full of the drug debate yet again, as there is a Parliamentary Report on the subject recently published. The paternalistic ninnies at the Beeb outdid themselves last night. They managed to find a group of pathetic cretins no one in their right mind would have any sympathy for, whatsoever. It was almost funny to see two mothers of early teens heroin addicts whining about government inaction. I mean, perish the thought that these two adults might take some responsibility for their children and not leave it to the taxpayer.

Half a world away a war is brewing; bloggers and the serious papers seem to be pondering its potentials. The Telegraph seems to think there is a fair chance it would go nuclear. Their simple reasoning, you ask? Well, the Indian army would flatten the Pakistanis, as it has a much bigger army, more equipment, and better/bigger weapons. Their only saving grace is the fact that the countries and their capitals are so close together. It seems the concept of M.A.D. keeps the peace in the Indian sub-continent as well.

Joe Katzman, the current darling of the Blogosphere, has written to his idea that a nuclear war in unlikely. He does admit that a conventional one is more than likely.

Being the natural cynic, I tend to go with the pessimistic lot on this one, agreeing with analysis of the Kolkata Libertarian.

Everyone seems to be redoing his site; Rantburg has improved for the better! Great writing, great content, great site, go visit it!

Kolkata weighs in on the Indo-Pakistan borders tensions. Instapundit seems to think he is too pessimistic; I prefer to think he is erring on the side of caution. It could get very ugly very fast. A million men at arms and both sides talking war, not a good thing.