A few random political-ish thoughts.

Full disclosure:  I’m not a fan of our political system/climate/arena/etc.

Thankfully, the general election is coming up shortly, so I think I’ll stop receiving all the annoying phone calls after that.  My friend told me that the reason I’m receiving so many calls is because I live in a “battleground” state and am registered NPA (no party affiliation).  Clearly, registering as such may have been a mistake.

I’ve mentioned the toxic polarization that seems to be fostered by the media before, and I’ll say it again.  Not Good.

Why do we still have an electoral college? I get the idea that people living in Idaho, uh Iowa, are just as important as people living in New York or Texas, but they aren’t more important either.  In our digital age, it seems like everyone’s vote should count and the dude with the most votes wins. Continuing on with a tradition simply because it’s the way we’ve always done it is… dumb.

So, I mentioned that Florida is a battleground state.  You probably knew that already.  Did you know that nearly 2 billion dollars have been spent on just on Presidential campaign advertising so far?  What do you think rich business people or corporations are thinking when they give, uh, $10m to a campaign?  A shout out on twitter?  These rich people made their money making decisions based on ROI.  Do you not think they are looking for a return on these investments donations?

I fully understand that it takes a lot of money to inundate the public with a message.  In fact, the other day on NPR, a guy was arguing for even MORE campaign spending.  He said the general population has no idea what’s going on (can’t argue with that) so more money needs to be spent so they do. Then he went on to argue that all this money being spent is really good for the economy, so no one should be concerned about it.  I have a couple thoughts on that last part.

1.  The bulk of campaign spending is used for attack ads on television.

2.  The media companies are the ones making money off of those ads.

3.  Therefore, it is in the media’s (seemingly) best interest to keep things as polarized as possible, so the ad revenue keeps flowing.

I’m pretty sure that campaign contributions are one of the best examples of disposable income. The money would have been spent on something else if not the campaign, so the money would have flowed back into the economy anyway.

I also think that arguing for billions in campaign spending to stimulate the economy, would be a lot like arguing that the terrorists really helped our economy after 9/11 because of all the new TSA jobs created…

In other words, at what cost are we being stimulated?

Did you know that most governmental departments of whatever get a budget each year.  And if they don’t use all of their budget money, then they usually lose that amount for the next year.  To keep that from happening, many departments will spend a ton of money “redecorating” or on “office supplies” at the end of a fiscal year so that they will show that they used/need every penny of their budgets.

But our government works great.

How did we get to this place and why are we content here and why aren’t we doing anything about it?  Are we distracted, lazy, apathetic? Evidently.

Finally, and this is pretty basic but clearly needs to be restated–Debt is not Good.  For anyone.  For the individual or the country.  They say that Solomon was a bright guy…. The borrower is slave to the lender.

 

Do the Good.

unpacking the western man

A friend of mine suggested I explain the thoughts behind some of my songs.  Here you go.

 

This link will open up a page with song and the lyrics.

 

For my first real exposé, I want to use The Western Man.   I think the fact that the musical aesthetic (neo-western?) was so different from most of my other pieces, this may have inspired a fresh approach to the lyrics as well. They came quickly, like never before.  I think this new spirit, if you will, helps make this one of my favorites as well.

 

In general, this song is a criticism of our culture, the things in it that are not good–the words and the deeds.  This Western culture dominates half of the world and it’s expanding.  And it’s disconcerting.  The more I put this post together and put more thought into examining my feelings, I’m almost a bit ashamed of my diatribe.  But my anger is toward the zeitgeist.  I pray that this is a righteous anger.

 

 

red fish, blue fish turns me on / and a holy court saint on the run

 

At some level, I am turned on by childish things/thoughts/desires, maybe immature is a better word than childish.  I am not alone.  And it concerns me.  I want to be mature in mind.  But this immaturity is the Doctor Seuss reference in the first line.  The 2nd half of the line is my indictment of the pedophile priests whose sins have been kept hidden and shuffled around from one Parrish to the next. And why?  For fear of the Holy Roman Catholic Empire crumbling, this wasn’t talked about and dealt with?   I know it is too much to think the Church would operate differently than a heartless corporation that makes decisions based solely on dollars.  But I wish we would be different.  I know we ought to be.

 

cut ’em down, get high and low / echopsychobabblers all

 

I was thinking about bullys, slanderers, gossips, addicts, sowers of dissension and division, and the talking heads that are constantly babbling and complaining and rehashing the rote and the ridiculous, our media culture, the similarities between addicts of the Hannity/Maddow crowds and true substance abusers.  They are literally sick, both the consumers and the dealers.  At what point do we start uniting in our sameness rather than harboring unhealthy emotions that do nothing but destroy us.  Such energy spent in derision.  It’s painful.

 

the western man, I’ll do as I am told.  I’ll do it on my own

the western man, I’ll do it on my own

although the warnings tell me no man is an island or alone

 

The chorus.

Throughout this piece, I made a conscious attempt to connect the western musical aesthetic to the idea of Western culture, very overtly in this case.  It seems to me that one of the major flaws in Western ideology is the idea that the lone wolf is somehow better off or stronger.  I think if we really knew each other we wouldn’t be having the problems, particularly politically, that we are having.  All most of us know of others is what we are being told by the babblers.  We are being taught to be adversaries with each other.  I am trying to mock the idea of doing it on my own, whatever it is–life maybe?  Because we have all heard that no man is an island.  I think this is particularly true for those of us with a gospel perception.  We know we aren’t alone.  That we can’t make it alone.  But we need each other just as much as God.  I think this message gets lost even in the church.  But at the same time that I know all this, I am just as guilty of buying into the isolation as well.  It is a sickness.  If you see it in me, call me out on it!

 

slit red throats, bruised ids and arms /  the common themes are the greedy marks

 

I won’t go into any kind of psychoanalytic exegesis on the id, I wouldn’t be able to.  But in my rudimentary understanding, the id is basically a reservoir of desire that makes up our unconscious and influences us in conscious thought and actions.  In our fallen state, our desires are out of sorts.  We lie, cheat, kill, use, exploit, destroy.  Like murderous addicts we have the tract marks proving it.  We all bear these marks.  Again we are united.  Perhaps, we can use this to our advantage in moving forward the gospel life.

 

cold fusion haunts, come crashing down / disposability’s the charm

 

I used cold fusion as a metaphor for all sorts of things we think and do and spend time on that seem like good, but really are illusions.  We try to live in these places but they are not real.  When we chase the wind we end up crashing.  And we need to.  The crash needs to happen to wake us up.  I’m calling for a crash as well as noting that it happens.  The final part of this line is not so much related to the first, but really is another general indictment of our cultural mindset. We want everything to be disposable.  Even each other.  What can I do to satisfy me, to get ahead.

 

shady lights the streets at night  / all hail the green, beloved envies

fortunate fame or so they say

yeah we all are gone away / yeah we all are led astray

 

Shady here is a concept of a kind of mindset.  A not wholly moral or ethical one lights the way for us in the West. We laud money as king.  We also laud and reinforce the desire for money.  And anyway to get it keep it spend it.  We look at others and think we deserve it, or we are consumed with desire and jealousy.  We long for the fame and fortune of the supposedly fortunate.  Celebrities are like the cool kids in high school.  But it really just looks cool, right?  They weren’t actually that cool.  Which is an important truth.  We are believing this at some level, but it is a lie.  All of this is a lie.  And we know it.  What will we do?

 

 

I’ve been using the word we a lot.  We, us, are affected and coconspirators and complicit in the spread of this Western ideology that we’ve been talking about.  But doesn’t it seem like there is something else as well.  Something more seditious and ethereal.  As individuals we are simply sick, but where is this illness coming from.  Sin has a life of it’s own?  Does full gospel life cure it forever?