Thursday, November 02, 2006

i think that like most folk (especially american folk) i do not normally consider myself a political person. in more reasonable times i see the battle across the aisle of government being fought by two teams with remarkably similar styles and each representing lobbyist and special interest groups that i know very little about. this battle, in most years, is fought basically to a draw that looks more like kabuki theater than any real exchange of ideas. nothing drastic happens. certainly people dont die at the rate they are dying these days.
it is one of my core beliefs that the most effective and consistent way to help the world is to ask people to look at their lives through art. it is arts charm that makes it subversive. and i guess that there is a core optimism buried in here. because i also must believe that people, in general, are good. when we make rational decisions, with little intrusion from fear, we tend to make basically decent decisions. so how do we operate from that reasonable place. we enlighten ourselves and each other when we can.

when i heard recently that north korea was returning to multi-lateral talks, i thought i have to give bush props because he didnt cave and now l'il kim is returning to talks as bush predicted. if i am going to complain about the awful job our president is doing, i have to transcend my resentment of him to credit him when he does something right. if i dont do this then i lose my ability to be fair and i become a schoolyard name-caller with a schoolyard world view. in short i lose my soul and join the mob. it turned out my moment of transcendent generosity was short lived. now i know that a politicians life is a mix of trying to institute a sytem of government you believe in and another part playing a game you must figure out how to win; elections. this blend between ethics and gamesmanship is one of the more interesting things about politics. but as daniel schorr reported on npr here, beijing is reporting that bush sent someone to meet with north korea, one on one, to strike a deal to get l'il kim back to the multi-talks. things just seem to continue to be all games and no ethics at this point.

maybe after this election the democrats will win something back. some semblance of a balance of power will be re-established in government and my interest in politics can fade back to its pre-war levels. i wrote a song on my solo cd that is as close to a political song as i will probably ever write. its called "revolution (of no one)". it is about (amongst other things) the lack of a sixties style voice of dissent in this country. that our 'debate' seemed to have only one side arguing. hopefully, come nov. 7th, my song will be made irrelevant.

5 comments:

Brian Smith McCallum said...

Speaking of Little Kim, here's an interesting article from Psychology Today about what dictators collect or hoard:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20060920-000004.html

It appears that Little Kim has quite the the VHS/DVD library: 20,000 items total! Of Daffy Duck, etc.

Barak Obama for President!

Tanya said...

Hopefully, with next week's elections, we'll see some type of change.
Unfortunately, we still have two more years to go. Will the momentum be there in 2008 for the Dems? Hypothetically, Bush and company could screw the country even more so than they have already.

With the new music, are you planning on doing any showcases at all?

Mr. Hayes said...

Dude--

I totally disagree with you, Bush had nothing to do with this. China turned off the oil spigot to DPRK, nothing more, nothing less. They get like 95% of their oil from China. They don't want to see a nuclear DPRK anymore than we do. They also don't want to see millions of NK's on their border b/c the US premptively invaded, either.

-ea. said...

actually hayes according to daniel schorr at npr and beijing the americans had alot to do with it. i wasnt clear in my post. i wasnt applauding what bush had done. i meant to point out that after years of saying he would not deal one to one with korea, and he would still say that, he sent someone to meet one to one and strike a deal in secret.

Anonymous said...

hey eric...

good to know that you're present. like everyone else here, i'm a huge fan & was saddened that you didn't rejoin the guys in those dubious reunions but understood fully as it was less than jane's w/o you.

i look fwd to hearing your new music & your continued evolution as an artist.

all the best


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