It might seem like we plug Steve Angellos tracks a bit too much at the moment, but its purely coincidental. And he is producing a lot of great songs at the moment, so here they are -

Steve Angello – Rolling (Original Mix) Acid/Tech/House. A really nice build – up track with some great hi – hats and a nice bassline. Keeps on building until 3.09 in to the song and then comes the real kick! Sounds a lot like “Steve Angello – Teasing Mr. Charlie” from 2006 (I think it was 2006).

Steve Angello – Monday (Original Mix) House. Incredible song! I think its named after Swedish House Mafias residency at Pacha, Ibiza, this summer, which took place on Monday nights. Really good feel to it and a nice “guitar – sound” running through it and with a big break in the track. Really recommend this one!

We got a nice live set from the reps of Hardwell, a really talented Dj/Producer from Holland, and as a bonus his bootleg of Dirty South vs Funkerman – Speed Alamo Up (Hardwell Bootleg). So thank you very much! And here it is -

Hardwell live @ Escape, Amsterdam 08-23-2009

Tracklist -

01. ID
02. ID
03. Steve Angello, Axwell, Sebastastian Ingrosso & Laidback Luke ft. Deborah Cox – Leave The World Behind (Daddy’s Groove Magic Island Rework)
04. Funkerman feat. I-Fan – Remember (Hardwell Remix)
05. Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams (Fedde Le Grand Remix)
06. Sebastian Ingrosso – Kidsos (Original Mix)
07. Fedde Le Grand – Let Me Be Real (Hook ‘N’ Sling & Goodwill Remix)
08. Modjo – Lady (Taped & Havin Zagross Bootleg)
09. Youri Donatz & Franky Rizardo – I Like This Sound (Original Mix)
10. Starkillers vs. Armand Van Helden – Funk Phenomena (Starkillers Re-Edit)
11. Mark Mendes – Gypsy Woman (Original Mix)
12. ID
13. Sébastien Léger – Le Moustique (Original)
14. ID
15. DJ Tonka – Freeze
16. Hardwel & Rehab – Blue Magic
17. David Guetta, Dirty South, Ingrosso – How Soon is Now (Extended Mix)
18. FatBoy Slim – Praise You (Fedde Le Grand Remix)
19. ID
20. Fedde Le Grand – Are You Scared Of Me (Hardwell Remix)
21. Daft Punk – Around The World (Funkagenda Remix)
22. Afrojack – Polkadots (Original Mix)
23. Hardwell – Display w/ Boris Dlugosch – Keep Pushin’ (Acapella) (Bootleg)
24. Danny Tenaglia ft. Celeda – Music Is The Answer (ID Remix)
25. Dirty South – Alamo (Original Mix) w/ Funkerman – Speed Up (Acapella)
26. Olav Basoski & Erick E – Don’t Turn Your Back On Me (Sander van Doorn Remix)
27. Laidback Luke & Steve Angello – Be w/ Robin S – Show Me Love (Hardwell Remix)
28. Laidback Luke vs. Benny Benassi – Be Satisfaction (Angello & Ingrosso Bootleg)
29. Chuckie – Let The Bass Kick

Cheers / T

Like it needs an introduction. I would credit this as one of the tracks that probably turned me off my Hip-Hop leaning path back to the heavier techno sounds of hardcore. It was close but with a gurntacular piano riff like this who could blame me? Its so good that I credit it still with being in my top five records of all time. I could put it down to nostalgia but once that piano break gets going, I challenge anyone not to smile and start tapping their feet. Its the very example of why I love so many early nineties independent house tracks. It wasnt done for the money, it was done cause two guys with a synthesiser wanted to get their track played at their favourite club, The Hacienda.

Awesome.

Also See : The End by John Carpenter

From Discogs
‘Hardcore Uproar’ was written and pressed as a white-label with the specific aim of getting it played at the legendary Hacienda nightclub in Manchester. Not only did it get played there but the track proved so popular that it went on to get a commercial release and reached #12 in the UK music chart.
Suddi is still based in Manchester, has composed the music for numerous video games and now has his own audio design company.
Tragically Jonathon and his girlfried Emma (who provided the vocals on The Together Mix listed below) were both killed in a road accident on the island of Ibiza, circa 1991. R.I.P. A tribute night for them called Harmony was held at the Hacienda in September 1991.

so first blog i guess gotta start with somethin simple, name is tyler i live in toronto (hopefully we all know where that is…) and yea thats about all im willing to share for now. A blog well never really cared to read any blogs and never made one before so im sure the only question everyone would be asking is “why are you making a blog?” good question, well its simple i really have to much to say most of the time and honestly i need to provide to a bigger amount of people plus I cant sount the number of times I have randomly come across cool pages people make and stuff so I figure the least I can give back to the internet is some sort of help and randomness back…yea this all really sounded better in my head when I thought it…gotta get used to this whole blogging idea…last note just wanna say im very much about what people have to say so please feel encouraged to write anything on your mind in reguards to what I say, who I am, and what is bothering/impressing/compelling you to wanna write something, trust me I actually do read all of your comments even if I dont respond to them all. So take it easy for today everyone and lets regroup tommorrow. (i unno why i think lots of people are reading this when I know no one is…leave me in my semi happy state)

A softserve cone
swirl
half-anger, half-denial
sprinkles of shock
and after it goes down
smooth and creamy
lactose-intolerance
acid-reflux

the hearth in my chest
cannot be fed with sugar
and the kindling is screaming
as the fire dies down

Briy Dd7 is a pretty shameless take off of ambient Aphex Twin house tracks, the kind of stuff from Selected Ambient Works. The reason for this was that this was written around the time of all the really experimental stuff like Eadhiivek and Klolm, to offset the abrasive nature of some of these compositions I tried to balance it out with something nice and ultimately a bit pointless. It’s cute but pretty soulless.

Download Briy Dd7

I try and start my Saturdays on a positive note.  I look at the CBC, a few Science Blogs usually something upbeat is going on.  Not today though.

With a hat-tap to Shakesville, I excerpt from the linked article:

“Acid attacks and wife burnings are common in parts of Asia because the victims are the most voiceless in these societies: They are poor and female. The first step is simply for the world to take note, to give voice to these women.” Since 1994, a Pakistani activist who founded the Progressive Women’s Association (www.pwaisbd.org) to help such women “has documented 7,800 cases of women who were deliberately burned, scalded or subjected to acid attacks, just in the Islamabad area. In only 2 percent of those cases was anyone convicted.”

I post one of 12 pictures representative of thousands of women who have been permanently disfigured by acid attacks by men.  When women are not people, when they cannot speak or be heard, when they have no rights…

Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.

They get male centric justice.

The Analog General released his 2nd album of 2009 on Tuesday Nov 24th! The Album is already up on iLike and Last FM and will be on sold itunes and amazon in just 2 weeks. Now is your chance to not only listen to the complete album, but download The Analog General’s ‘Electric Playground’ for FREE!!! Once this Album is on itunes all the songs will go back to 90 sec previews, so if you are into tripped out electronic beats then click this link and download the album for FREE NOW!

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Analog+General/Electric+Playground

La comunidad de djs y la mayor escena de música de baile en el mundo, están de luto por la pérdida de un elemento básico en la escena clubber de hoy en día. Han surgido noticias de que la icónica fabricante de tocadiscos Technics detendrá la producción en sus universalmente amados  Technics 1200s y Technics 1210s.

En una declaración que se ha colocado en el foro Global Hardstyle, la compañía detrás de la producción de los platos Technics (Panasonic) anunció que cesaría la fabricación de plataformas giratorias Tehcnics en febrero del próximo año, citando una disminución creciente de las ventas como la motivación detrás de la desaparición de la línea.

La sede de Panasonic en Australia  emitió una declaración similar el día de hoy, expresando su decepción de que la marca de 35 años haya llegado a su fin.

“Es un día triste hoy, pero debido a la baja de ventas a nivel mundial en tocadiscos análogos, se ha tomado la decisión de detener la producción de platos Technics. Para Australia, esto significa que recibiremos nuestro último envío en marzo” Explicó el portavoz para Panasonic, Ian North.

Aunque estamos seguros de que los clásicos platos Technics vivirán en los corazones de muchos artistas, también lo harán en los corazones de los clubes más puristas.

Visto en: http://www.inthemix.com.au/

Download:

00 Cover image (jpg)
01 Xib I
02 Bits ‘N Bytes
03 Rectangle Dots
04 Voxels
05 Horizontal Pitch

Here are the tracks that I wrote for Monotonik last winter. After waiting for months and getting various promises from Simon it now appears that these tracks are never gonna come out on the label. Therefor I decided to make them available here, for free and for your pleasure. I hope you enjoy.

As you have probably noticed, I’ve not been uploading much new material lately. It is simply due to the fact that I’ve got a job again and being made redundant was the idea of this blog in the first place. I don’t have as much time for writing music now as I am working during the week. Nothing abnormal there But I’m not gonna stop writing music that I’ve written for over 20 years nor will I be burying this blog. I hope patience from you.

Peace.

Here’s a gene whose relationship to mental function is very straightforward.  If you hold your breath, your blood pH falls (more CO2 leads to more free H+ protons dissolved in your blood stream).  You also may become anxious, or worse if you are forced to hold your breath.  How does this process work?

Ziemann et al., in their new paper, “The Amygdala Is a Chemosensor that Detects Carbon Dioxide and Acidosis to Elicit Fear Behavior” [doi 10.1016/j.cell.2009.10.029] show that the acid sensing ion channel-1a (ASIC1a) gene is a proton-sensing Na+ and Ca++ channel – designed to activate dendritic spines when sensing H+ and drive neuronal activity.  Mice that lack this gene are not sensitive to higher CO2 levels, but when the protein is replaced in the amygdala, the mice show fearful behavior in response to higher CO2 levels.  Mother nature has provided a very straightforward way – ASIC1a activation of our fear center – of letting us know that no oxygen is a BAD thing!

     Cum spuneam, iata ca am revenit cu o noua poveste despre METROCK.

     Prin anii nouazeci si ceva, doua mii….au inregistrat citeva piese remarcabile.

      Luati aminte !!!

     Greu cu rock-ul taica !!!

     Rock nu inseamna doar joagare si traforaje umplute cu latraturi ragusite.

     Ele trebuiau sa faca parte dintr-un album soc, un album cum nu se mai produse-se in Romania. Trebuia sa fie bomba rock a anului, puntea de relansare a METROCK-ului.

     In acel moment faceau parte din trupa pe linga omul debaza ‘’Zapada’’, Paul Sima, Silviu Tesu, Fernando Draganici, Cristi Margescu. Daca am gresit va rog sa ma corectati.

    Au mai trecut prin trupa Dan Musetescu “Muscone”(chitara, ex Acid, Partizan), Vasile Malic “Bebea”(ex Partizan, Nicola, Cortez) .Cu acestia din urma METROCK  a sustinut un concert la Sala Polivalenta chiar la concertele organizate de TEO PETER.

    Trupa asta a avut noroc de instrumentisti de prima mina care si-au pus amprenta  cum au stiut mai bine numai, ca de fiecare data, banii i-au scos din joc pe unii dintre ei.

    Rock-ul se face fara a avea pretentii de imbogatire rapida.

    Cam atit pentru astazi, ascultati  una dintre piese si luati aminte !!!

pregnancy herbal

I capital to allocution to you about acerbic abatement during pregnancy. This is a abnormality that happens to a lot of women and it isn’t the best acceptable affair to occur. I pregnancy herbal apperceive a lot of women get afraid and anticipate that it ability aching the baby. It doesn’t aching them but it is affliction you. When you’re accepting a baby you’re activity to be activity through a lot of stuff. A lot of it Pregnancy Remedy is activity to be hormonal and you’re activity to be appealing affecting about Pregnancy Herbal bringing a activity into this world. You shouldn’t accept to anguish about this. I Pregnancy Herbal capital to allocution to you about acerbic abatement during pregnancy so you could bigger accord with it.

The capital acumen that this is accident is Pregnancy Herbal due to the actuality that there aloof isn’t Cure For Infertility abundant space. Basically you accept acerbic in your abdomen and now that you’re pregnant you’re activity to ample in. The babyish is activity to alpha blame on organs and your abdomen is activity to be pushed on. At some point the acerbic escapes into the esophagus and you run into the botheration of acerbic reflux. There’s annihilation you can do to stop the authoritativeness of the babyish Cure For Infertility growing.

Acid abatement during abundance can be prevented Pregnancy Cures if you change the way you eat. Obviously the accomplished affair comes bottomward to volume. There aloof isn’t abundant amplitude with the baby so you should be bistro abate commons added often. That agency there is beneath in your abdomen at any accustomed time and you’re pregnancy herbal beneath acceptable to accept a problem.

“Filled with french perverse 70’s LSD funk, some monstrous jazz + samba flipouts, several cult and very influental songs mixed with ridicule of The Beatles and the non-existent hippie-parody Dewey Cox himself.

This small collection went through some big changes over time. At first, I made it the most obvious way – indie experiments with japanese and NY noise bands (OOIOO, Optimo, Pullsallama etc.) but that was simply to simple, raw and it was’nt “romantic” and humorous enough. So I basically shifted entirely from that direction into sex, retro, french, jazz, kinky, ridiculous direction and tried to make a sort of a “soundtrack” that is not that tough at rhythm but more into the freedom loving atmosphere of the swinging sex organs.

Standout tracks, and maybe tracks that make this comp a must have (for those who never heard them before) are definitely: the gorgeous and life-fulfiling, jamming Andrew Bird’s Coney Island Shuffle, Janko Nilovic’s by far the best composition Xenos Cosmos from 1972 (the last 1 minute of the song is golden and the rest of his work is mostly crap), magickal Senor Coconut’s – Rydeen, of course Serge Gainsbourg’s cult classic Bonnie and Clyde, Sohail Rana’s Soul Sitar – a perverse take on bollywood humour (Guys from Ninja Tune label had lots of fun remixing this gem) and the infinite Piggies - spitting humour from The Beatles. Also, I should mention Marsha Hunt with her nipple shaking (Oh No! Not) The Beast Day, a strangely missed groovy 70’s funk club hit.” – Bleeding Panda

01 Medeski Martin & Wood – Pat A Cake (2008)
02 RJD2 – 1976
03 The Pinker Tones – L’Heros (2006)
04 Serge Gainsbourg – Bonnie and Clyde
05 Georges Garvarentz – Nues Dans L’eau (1970)
06 Sohail Rana – Soul Sitar (1970)
07 Marsha Hunt – The Beast Day (1973)
08 Paul McCartney – Coming Up (Thumbs Aloft Edit 2007) M
09 The Mystic Moods – Honey Trippin’ (1975)
10 The Delfonics – Funny Feeling (1971)
11 Os Mutantes – A Minha Menina M
12 Andrew Bird’s Bowl Of Fire – Coney Island Shuffle (1999)
13 The Beatles – Piggies (1968)
14 Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story – Black Sheep (2007)
15 Der Dritte Raum – Swing Bop B (2008)
16 Senor Coconut and His Orchestra – Rydeen (2008)
17 G. Bordonneau & DJ BNX – Ultra Bossa (2000)
18 Janko Nilovic – Xenos Cosmos (1972)
19 Funkadelic – Can You Get To That (1971)

LINK

KONTAKTIERE Human Rights Watch und spende ihnen mal Kohle, damit das aufhört…

Übrigens gibt es bei All Eyes vom Tampabay.com Blog 11 weitere Bilder, und ich weise darauf hin, dass sie auf den ersten Blick gewöhnungsbedürftig erscheinen, jedoch, wer bin ICH um zu sagen, dass sich diese Frauen gewöhnungsbedürftig anzuschauen sind !?

Weitere Links: Progressive Women’s Association und die New York Times.

Human Rights Watch pdfs zum Download:
“NO REFUGE
MIGRANTS IN GREECE
Photographs by Moises Saman”

und

“WORLD REPORT
2009
E V ENTS OF 2 0 0 8″

Ok, so I’m pretty late in getting down to a review on this one, but if there’s anyone out there who is unfamiliar with this track, now you know.

“Reality Collapse” is THE track of 2009, full stop. This is DJ Hidden at his very best, in my opinion, as he combines gabber, hardcore drum and bass and, last but not least, a sublime acid line. Mark N has been caning this one for a long time now and the first time I heard it was when I saw him play. In a set full of amazing moments, the breakdown in this track flat out sucked the air out of the room with the creeping acid line and then the drop blew everything to pieces. Maybe it was the time and place (a sweaty room packed full of heads raised on Midwest acid), but this track has burned itself a cozy little place in my brain. Over a year later and some kind of flashbulb memory takes me back to that room every time I hear it. But my personal experience aside, this track is the real deal and needs to be in your crate. In a word, amazing.

There doesn’t seem to be any place to get this stateside, but The Hard Store has a repress in stock and they have acceptable shipping rates plus a quick turnaround time.

one of the trends i’ve noticed over the last year or two is that many of the producers making waves are people who’ve been at it for a long time.

http://mnmlssg.blogspot.com/2009/11/mnml-ssgs-mx41-hauntologists-vs-cheap.html

As I left the grocery store, a red strobe came from every wall, sending all other shoppers into grand mal seizures. An auto tuned Morgan Freeman impersonator asked me to wait for an employee to assist me. A giant steel cage slammed down over me, separating me from my cart full of foodstuffs. I asked to be taken back to the security office so the ex-marine-looking gentleman eyeing my receipt could search for the stolen merchandise in my ass. But they wouldn’t do it. So I guess this Vizio LCD is mine.

What pisses me off about shoplifters is not that they violate social norms or contribute to the overhead that fuels price increases. It’s that they think they deserve some kind of dignity when they’re caught. You took a pack of Rolos, cock flap. You don’t get to walk to the back with a jacket over your hands and your head held high. You get to be tackled by seven cart-pushers and dragged, weeping, through the produce aisle, while they announce your legal name and address over the loudspeaker. You’re not taking a loaf of bread or a pair of baby shoes. You get no pity, queef whippit. Actually, even if you were, I’d still point and laugh because you’re fucking poor.

Even better: the fat bitch who tries to fight the security guys off. She’s always screaming something trashy, like “he’s trying to get down my panties!” or “Fuck you, man! I brought that chicken in with me!” or “Kick him in the nuts, Kenny!” She rolls around, pseudopods of corpulence stretching outward and covering onlookers with a yellow, pube-garnished paste before sliding back into the vicinity of her Tweety Bird tube top. She is the complete opposite of the “don’t draw attention to me” breed. She wants everyone to know that she’s the kind of nasty whore who hides crack rocks and stolen makeup in tampon applicators.

Stealing is wrong and hilarious. Seriously… is the cost of petty theft so high that it justifies the camera systems, security guys, electronic anti-theft systems and those little tag things that cum ink and battery acid? I have a great idea: smaller stores where inventories can be monitored by the people who actually work there. If you want one-stop shopping, go to the mall, shithead. Besides, they have corn dogs there. And corn dogs rule.

Obama's Brother Malik - Holding Family Photo From Kenya

These photos show what happens to real women who wear the Islamic Veil. The photos depict horrifying hate and the unbearable suffering it inflicts upon female innocents. The photos were taken by Emilio Morenatti of the Associated Press. The text is based on work done by Nicholas Kristof—one of the few people at the New York Times whose work I am proud to quote. You may find them  HERE. (Thanks to Yehuda for calling this to my attention).

What are we seeing?

The Arabization or the Saudi-ization of Muslims in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan is the hidden hand behind these acid attacks upon women. These poor girls and women have had their lives ruined; some have been forced to undergo surgery 20-30 times in order that they may see a little, or breathe a bit, hear something, perhaps in order to eat or make themselves understood. They look like…monsters. That was what their attackers wanted to accomplish. To render their faces into self-portraits of their attackers.

Why was acid thrown into their faces? The main reasons are because they dared to reject someone in marriage or because they wanted a divorce. The “jilted” suitors (or husbands) took their revenge in this fashion. If he can’t have her, no man will; I will make sure that no man will ever want her.” One young girl was gang-raped aftger which her rapists threw acid on her face. Another committed the “crime” of disappointing her father by being born female, not male. Many were disfigured as a result of a “family dispute.”

Thus, the punishment for being born female, for exercising any will of one’s own is, Saudi-style, the most horrible punishment. The men tried to make the women loathsome to humanity, to sentence them to painful surgeries, self-hatred, perhaps to lives lived in isolation.

Make no mistake. This tendency to disfigure women–even those who wear the Islamic Veil–is real. And, it might be coming our way if we do not stop the Wahhabi and Salafi influence which is funding our universities in North America as well as the Islamic religious schools.

For once, I will leave aside the question of what must be done and allow the photos to speak to you.

Irum Saeed, 30, poses for a photograph at her office at the Urdu University of Islamabad, Pakistan, Thursday, July 24, 2008. Irum was burned on her face, back and shoulders twelve years ago when a boy whom she rejected for marriage threw acid on her in the middle of the street. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shameem Akhter, 18, poses for a photograph at her home in Jhang, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 10, 2008. Shameem was raped by three boys who then threw acid on her three years ago. Shameem has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.

Najaf Sultana, 16, poses for a photograph at her home in Lahore, Pakistan on Wednesday, July 9, 2008. At the age of five Najaf was burned by her father while she was sleeping, apparently because he didn't want to have another girl in the family. As a result of the burning Najaf became blind and after being abandoned by both her parents she now lives with relatives. She has undergone plastic surgery around 15 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shehnaz Usman, 36, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Shehnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute five years ago. Shehnaz has undergone plastic surgery 10 times to try to recover from her scars.

Shahnaz Bibi, 35, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Ten years ago Shahnaz was burned with acid by a relative due to a familial dispute. She has never undergone plastic surgery.

Kanwal Kayum, 26, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Kanwal was burned with acid one year ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has never undergone plastic surgery.

Munira Asef, 23, poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2008. Munira was burned with acid five years ago by a boy whom she rejected for marriage. She has undergone plastic surgery 7 times to try to recover from her scars.

Bushra Shari, 39, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, July. 11, 2008. Bushra was burned with acid thrown by her husband five years ago because she was trying to divorce him. She has undergone plastic surgery 25 times to try to recover from her scars.

Zainab Bibi, 17, adjusts her veil as she poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Zainab was burned on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars.

Naila Farhat, 19, poses for a photograph in Islamabad, Pakistan, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2008. Naila was burnt on her face with acid thrown by a boy whom she rejected for marriage five years ago. She has undergone plastic surgery several times to try to recover from her scars. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)

Saira Liaqat, 26, poses for the camera as she holds a portrait of herself before being burned, at her home in Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, July 9, 2008. When she was fifteen, Saira was married to a relative who would later attack her with acid after insistently demanding her to live with him, although the families had agreed she wouldn't join him until she finished school. Saira has undergone plastic surgery 9 times to try to recover from her scars.

PC

or: I’ll trade you civil liberties circa 1980, for the right to beat your wife circa 1920

or: If Glenn Beck were a decade, which one would he be?

For almost a year now, and even further back possibly, I have been fascinated with politics and punditry. I have become a self-proclaimed politico and I follow politics and media pretty closely, as closely as my tenuous hold on sanity will allow. In following politics my liberal mind has always been perplexed by the conservative party line of ‘returning to traditional American values’ and trying to recapture the ‘lost spirit of what it is to be an American’. In recent months it as been the loud ram’s horn call of Glenn Beck, and his ever growing audacity matched only by his ever growing audience, that has caused me to pontificate further on this subject. For the past few weeks this idea of lost values and traditional American fundamentals has led me to research where we might have gone wrong. Is there a specific time and place, a particular era that the GOP and other right-leaning hard-liners would want us to return to? If I can put my finger on the ethos that these guiding principles existed in, can we get back there? I delve in to this quagmire of American history to try and find “Glenn’s America”, so that he and others can stop preaching in general broad strokes and say, “we need to get back to what we believed in 19XX (or 18XX as it may be).”

When examining the general party ideas of what I understand to be the GOP’s fundamental idealogical structure I take my understanding from some 25 years on this planet, though you can’t count the first 16. I think that until you turn 17 and start trying to find yourself and begin to shape your views and identity in preparation for voting and contributing to society you are more of a blank slate in terms of personal free thought; up until this point you do not question a source but only try to fit in to the general parameters of ‘normal’ life as to not rock the boat and interfere with the indoctrination that American public schools instill in our youth. My true views have been shaped in my most recent years and as such I have adopted a view of the world quite different from my parents’, a direct result of informing myself for the first time in my life. In my home growing up as a small boy liberal leaders and democratic ideals warranted venom and crass, lewd criticism. The views I set forth will be of my own creation, independent of those I was raised on, either despite or in spite of them, I cannot tell. A crazy person isn’t crazy if he knows he’s crazy. Indeed.

The GOP seems to feel that gays should not marry, and are sinful. This makes no sense to me as sinful is a religious idea, not a political one; though it seems one position is quite often the result of the other. Gun rights should be protected at all costs to personal safety and public responsibility. Abortion is a no-no, ‘nuff said. They want smaller government, tax cuts, reform to let states decide things, though not gay marriage rights or any of the other items I just mentioned. They are for fiscal responsibility. GOP feels that a free market should regulate itself, again smaller government. They claim to fight for the middle class but public programs and universal anything is bad, that’s more government. They hate the environment as far as I can tell. Campaign finance reform (yeah right), education in America (no child left behind has gone so well after all). Prayer in school is ok, capital punishment and the death penalty are pretty much thumbs up, and the Ten Commandments should be at the steps of a courthouse flying the confederate flag. I am pretty close on this, right? So, basically it is a small government that has an abridged copy of the constitution, a cliff’s notes of the Bill of Rights, and a bible as it’s guiding principles. Hmmm, ok.

So, in American history, where can we find this utopia we strive for every day? This shangri-la we lost so long ago would obviously be the one saving grace for this country of godless sodomites. If we could only return to this point in time then everything would be fine. As far as I can tell it is the GOP that can save us if you believe the rhetoric. The liberals and the liberal media have scattered us across the nation and we are divided along partisan lines and are all doomed unless we jump on the Republican band wagon like some lifeboat after the Titanic sank. This is what self proclaimed “libertarian” Glenn Beck would like you to believe. I will give him credit for criticizing the government as a whole, even in the Bush days, though not in such inflammatory terms, but in reality he is like a Liber-publican. So, let’s take a step, Glenn, in to the way back machine and start a search for the time in American history you would like us to return to, as well as all of the Republican nay-sayers.

I want to start by saying that I am skipping the nineties completely being that he wasn’t happy with Clinton either, and it is far too close to the 21st century and the liberal progress this country has made; there is no way anyone wants to get back to how we were in the nineties, not even me and I loved my teen years in the nineties. And I am going to come back to the eighties later, they were too soon as well, but I will look at them briefly. We are sending our way back machine to a time when I think this country went bat-shit crazy and we were in maybe the most turmoil as a nation than anyone today can recall. I want to start out in the era that good old Glenn was born in, and that many of our current figure heads today, that make our decisions, can remember very ‘fondly’…the sixties.

Well I start here, in this decade of utter unrest by trying to illustrate that this can’t possibly be the America Glenn wants back. This cannot be the period in American history we want to recapture. This was a time that the late Strom Thurman must have hated with more zeal than any other period in history. It is hard to decide where to start. The sixties started out innocent enough, Kennedy beat Nixon and became the President, what followed was the Bay of Pigs incident, rumors about Marilyn, the meager beginning of Vietnam, the cuban missile crisis, then the man is assassinated. Further Vietnam BS, Malcolm X is killed, the Compton Cafeteria Riots in San Fran, then Nixon and all his Vietnam BS and his ‘secret plan to end the war’, the massive inflation crisis, MLK Jr. is killed, Bobby Kennedy is killed, the Stonewall riots of ’69, oh and a little thing who was named Manson did some killing. Great decade.

The sixties were a time of massive riots in the black and gay communities. Civil rights on all fronts tore the fabric of this country apart from women liberation, blacks, gays, even the Chicano revolution in this country. Outside of that was the acid wave of the sixties, a complete change in television, film, art, and especially music. The counterculture as it came to be known galvanized this country after the death of JFK, I think. The nice, homely manners of the 50’s were gone in a big way and now came very free thinkers, revolutionaries, protests exploded, demonstrations, inflation choked the middle class as they tried to compete with the changes in the landscape. The sixties were an ugly, hate-filled time, the emerging civil rights movement after the death of JFK was really the catalyst for it all. There is no way we want to return to the sixties as a country. America was in a violent turmoil and unsure of it’s identity and where the road we were on was going to lead us and people were strung out or scared for their lives, or both. I don’t think Glenn wants that back, so let’s move on.

How about we take a step forward and find Glenn in the seventies as a small boy, maybe these are the innocent and moral times he wants back…but I doubt it. Well in the seventies music really got good including the first ‘rap’ song, movies got weird, TV got lewd, and the country just got fucked up worse. This country started watching shows like All In The Family and the Brady bunch, dealing with some of the issues of the day. Vietnam choked the first few years while a little thing called Watergate slipped by the news press during Nixon’s re-election campaign and then killed him by ’74. It was the most embarrassing and shocking scandal in American political history, which in my opinion was the death of politics. I think that Nixon and his escalation of the doomed Vietnam war and his scandal killed the American political system. Outside of the US revolution was abundant across the world. Woodstock was a shining beacon of what drugs and music and mud can do for young people, a complete change from how we started the decade on the campus of Kent State where the National Guard gunned down peaceful protestors of the war on a college campus; unthinkable today, one would hope. The draft was the height of outrage, an unbelievable moment when Ali fought the draft and Elvis went in. Protest and anti-war sentiment was as widespread in this country as pant legs were flared. The Cold War ramped up a bit and this country got really scared, really fast. Our involvement in a few revolutions and military coupes as well as an assassination or two was a continuation of poor foreign affairs decisions. The middle east started down the road to where we are today with Israel, Egypt, Syria, the Soviet Union, and Afghanistan, all starting to kick each others asses.

The seventies brought women’s rights to the forefront as the sixties had civil rights for minorities eclipsing women’s rights to some extent. Vietnam ended finally, well our involvement, leaving the North to just wait for us to leave and drop Saigon to it’s knees and claim the country unified again. A sad end to a war we should have not been in and an end that was mostly our fault. Oh and lest I forget the massive recession we were in mixed with oil crises a couple of times resulting in rationing and further middle class stresses that included a very high unemployment rate. Then of course there was Jonestown, about 900 dead there. Idi Amin started his tyrannical, violent rule of Uganda as well. Is this the era we should return to? Hatred, war, violence, and tragedy pock marked this era. The seventies hold within their years scandal, racism, and fear-mongering, of the most epic scale one can imagine. There is no way we want to return to the moral or political views of this era. The seventies were the time for change for sure, but it came at great expense on the heels of a decade of radical change and upheaval. The 70’s continued the massive crime rate spikes that the sixties brought and the country still sat on the edge of it’s seat every day as nothing seemed to get better. Surely we don’t want the seventies back.

Ok, the eighties might be better, the days of Reagan and Bush, this might be the most likely time we want to return to. The eighties would be the most formidable years of Beck’s life; the decade of excess. The eighties brought the yuppie, and with it, all the coke, parties, and BMW’s we could handle. We saw great multinational growth and wall street was glamorous, they were kings then, still total scum, but they had better PR people then. Of course Reagan declared a War on Drugs, the Cold War raged to a massive scale. Sure, communism fell apart as did the Berlin Wall, but we saw the further mishandling of the middle east that is the source of our problems and involvement there today, can’t argue with that. Reagan put a major black eye on his presidency with the discovery of the Iran-Contra debacle that Oliver North was the mastermind behind. This country saw massive economic growth against the backdrop of very complicated and protracted battles all over the world including Asia, the middle east, central and south america, and ever Ireland with ‘the troubles’ brewing. (Only badass Irish would call a modern, religious civil war ‘the troubles’, an understatement to say the least)

The eighties, I think were a time of thinking that we could not be beaten, being the short attention span of Americans forgetting the seventies. We were coked out of our minds, living beyond our means, and we were kicking Commie ass. But the eighties, world wide, were complicated, painful growth, some democratic, but on the whole we saw massive famine and destruction abroad as the industrialized countries were making head way. The middle class of nations was being evaporated as the gap between rich and poor nations grew drastically. Domestic issues were tough though, as it seemed we were trying to use our power for good as a people with things like LiveAid and becoming more aware of issues in Africa and other countries, the eighties saw the rise of the religious right. They really got fired up on the gay issue and the discovery of AIDS, ‘the gay plague’. This country grew in many way, a decent decade I guess, I don’t really remember much of it but it seemed like a lot of people were having a lot of fun, safer fun.

Glenn probably liked the eighties, he used to be a liberal and an alcoholic, he draws a fine parallel between the two in a Katie Couric interview you should look up on YouTube, and this might have been his favorite time. Old enough to enjoy and understand it, he probably had a great time. Conservatives in power, strides made internationally, excess and money everywhere. The eighties were a wild party time, a decade that seemed to be a release of the past twenty years of hard work, growing pains, and controversial conflict. The 60’s and 70’s were going to lead inevitably to a time when we finally just cut loose and took a deep breath after so much bloodshed, upheaval, and serious talk. It was the decade we all remembered fondly on VH1. Music was weird, movies were great, TV was filled with classics we all watched, and standup comedians were making it big; the country was having a good laugh, a bump, and some beer. Not too bad.

I discount the nineties entirely so let’s jump back to a more general era I don’t think we can reasonably go back to, the 50’s to the 30’s. This was another era of massive wars, depression, civil rights injustice, bigotry, no women’s liberation, industrialization, organized crime, et al. These were times when blacks were openly hung from gallows, women were expected to be barefoot and pregnant in front of the stove, except when they were making tanks for the troops overseas for next to nothing wages. A time where minorities were rightfully scared at night of police or white boys out for a joyride. The prohibition, crime in the streets, Bonnie and Clyde, the Tommy gun, the B.A.R., saloons, speakeasy’s, and rampant bank robberies and crooked cops on the beat. This was a different time for this country and I don’t think we can agree with many of the ideals that were held to in this time and apply it today, the role of women alone is too much inequality to bare, let alone the rest.

OK, let’s take a big jump to my favorite era, the old west. You know the times, I’m talking post manifest destiny, pre-FBI. A time of no gun laws, showdowns in the streets, legal prostitutes, and riding in to town on a horse. Tombstone, San Francisco, Indian and cowboys. A time where gold was rushing and crazy white drunks ran amok and contracted TB and polio. Yes, when there were still a few Indians around, you had ranchers with thousands of acres, cattle drives, train robberies, and the men of storied legend lived and died by Winchester, Colt, and Smith&Wesson. I like to think I lived in the times with a town sheriff, shitty beer, floozies, and general martial law over most of the country. A time where you could shoot a man in the street in broad daylight in front of 50 people, and they might actually clap and then go about their day. The good times.

I think this might not be far enough back though. When I hear Glenn speak, he talks about the founding father’s principles. The true foundation of the country as he sees it with the men who earned America through blood, sweat, and tears. Jefferson’s America. OK, well let’s first examine the fact that we are talking late 1700’s and early 1800’s. These are pre-electric, pre-phone times. We are talking Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, plantations, etc. If this is the time Glenn thinks we need to get back to I want to highlight a couple of things. First off, slavery was alive and well…need I say more? Secondly, this country treated women like shit, there were no civil rights, and it was unindustrialized. This country was populated and run by rich, white land owners, and then there was everybody else. I don’t want anyone to romanticize this era. This country was created, founded, and declared on the bodies of millions of natives and the death and suffering of minority races of people removed from their homes and treated worse than dogs in the time period.

America has never been truly righteous. We revolted for selfish reasons, nothing simpler than that. We turned against the imperialism of the Queen and her rule and declared our independence; the worst “dear John” letter ever. Up to that point we had slaughtered, tricked, infected, raped, and pillaged our way to the Mississippi and thought very highly of white skin and could kill a black man for any reason at any time, or sell them, whatever struck our fancy. What I am about to say is going to piss off the right, but if I could meet George Washington I think I would take the opportunity to shake his hand and then slap the wooden teeth out of his head. These were racist white bigots with an knack for the written word and hard on for ‘freedom’ by their definition as it applied to them as an emerging nation of first class citizens at the top of the shit pile. All due respect, but their ideas and principles were fundamentally offensive and their beliefs of equality were for themselves and those they agreed with. How many minorities or women were running around enjoying their freedom of speech or right to bare arms…or even read? I rest my case.

So maybe Glenn does have a time in mind. Maybe he wants the scandalous, violent 70’s, or the civil unrest and inequality of the 60’s. The old west certainly had smaller/non-existent national government, and the 40’s sure were good times to be a gangster, Nixon would have done well, that’s for sure. The eighties surely had the best coke, and some unprecedented growth, outside of post-industrialized America (without all of these pesky labor laws we got). Maybe he wants the great depression era, maybe to live amongst the greatest generation, or rub elbows with white men who raped their slaves on their plantation as a matter of principle and patriotism. The history of America is short, embarrassing, and seemingly without a lesson learned throughout. Glenn, I dare you and your constituents to point out that shining beacon in American history that is so much better than now, ‘cause I must have missed it. All those moments have led up to now, and I’ll be damned if where we are isn’t a hell of a lot better than where we were; you can pry this progress from my cold dead hands, pal.