blargblog

Ah, Lieberman. He'd be a Republican if they would have let him into the country club....

You have my blessing in advance not to vote for Lieberman if he's nominated. My particular brand of yellow-dog craziness assures that I will vote for him if he's nominated, but I'll do everything in my power to prevent his nomination. I didn't join the DP to support a Republican-lite creature like him.

And honestly, he's gotten worse since he was Gore's running mate: back then, I did my homework and found that his Senate votes were about 75 percent in line with my positions; now, he seems to have gone off the deep end.

Some columnist (sorry; I can't locate the link at the moment) wrote that "Just War" has become nothing but a brand, perhaps the name of a shop, like "Just T-Shirts" or "Just Window Dressing" or some such. Maybe I "don't know a just war when I see it," but I won't know until I see one, and I haven't seen one during this administration. I guess they'll have to build a "Just War" outlet store in the shopping center around the corner from me... then I'll know it when I see it.

What is up with the Snoop talk? Ya been hanging at Tha Shizzolator?

As for J-Lie, I am so . . . so . . . damn speechless. Really, what can you do with bullshit like this? Against GWB I'm as yellow dog as the next guy, but I'll be damned before I vote for someone who calls me a traitor or lacking in patriotism.

I employ the Snoop talk for shits-n-giggles, as Austin Powers would say. Besides it sounds really funny when you are indignant.

So far, I am following the electoral discussion here and on "Alas" and "Body&Soul", as carefully as my current work allows it. I'm not an US voter, so I'll just keep reading.

Lieberman's declaration simultaneously brings to my mind three titles from Linton Kwesi Johnson's 1979 album "Forces of Victory":
- "It Noh Funny"
- "Want Fi Go Rave"
- "Fite Dem Back".

From "Snoop talk" to Patois talk. Take it as a tribute to Aaron McGruder's Black English Month arc (by the way, I would be curious to know how popular "the seminal dub poet" LKJ is among American alternatives/radicals).

I think LKJ has some decent respect, but I wouldn't call him popular. I have only known a handful of lefty music geeks who dig dub, probably by way of The Clash, and who honor Linton. Didn't he run for public office in England?

England is a bitch.

Good reference, J. Pinkham! "Inglan Is A Bitch" was the title of one of LKJ's first published poetry books, and a poem that became a song:

"well mi dhu day wok an' mi dhu nite wok
mi dhu clean wok an' mi dhu dutty wok
dem seh dat black man is very lazy
but if yu si how mi wok yu woulda sey mi crazy

Inglan is a bitch
dere's no escapin it
Inglan is a bitch
yu bettah face up to it"

Kevin, I haven't heard about Linton running for election, but it wouldn't be surprising, since he has always been deeply committed in many socialist, pro-immigrant rights, political movements in the UK (he was a Black Panther as a 'yute').
I was introduced to his musical work by friends who were themselves close to the "Black Britain" movement ('Black' being a generic a generic term for every 'visible' minority). I only have five of his earliest records, but listen to them quite often, a lot more likely than to more popular Jamaican music (dancehall, ragga) or rap. His lyrics may be as limited by their ideological purpose as any kind of committed artistical expression, but I like the subtlety in most of them and his purism in the use of patois, which I interpret as a consequence of the fact that he grew up a lives away from Jamaica, in Brixton, "Inglan".

The song "Mi Revalueshanary Fren" (from "Tings an' Times", 1991) was played repeatedly on Radio Libertaire, the Parisian Anarchist Federation channel, during the Nineties. I strongly recommend it if you don't know it already.

I have a video of LKJ performing this, spoken-word style, on some German live music TV show. I had no idea who he was until you two fine educated fellows filled me in. Thank you for the schoolage, my bretheren.