It's All About Me, Man

I've finally achieved consistency in my life. Any person of average or above intelligence can predict what I will say next with unerring accuracy. And what I say will always be wrong.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] contacting the NPR Ombudsman using the online form.

 

this is the address:


Here is a sample letter

Subject: "...brushed his long, stringy grey hair out of his face"

It may seem trivial to complain about "reportage" on the owner of the 8-track museum - but hey, way to alienate one of your few remaining constituencies, the grey ponytail crowd. NPR never would have said "Bush delivered his speech with a childish smirk on his chimp-like face" - because NPR always bows before power, and mocks ordinary people.  I remember one of the NPR idiots laughing gaily about where were those people who said they were moving to Canada if Dubya was re-elected.  I think it might have been one of those people who were double dipping at Fox (not Juan Williams).  Well, this one was in Canada.  And when we got our pictures taken for our permanent residency cards, the photographer told us that MANY people from the US said that's why they were in Canada. And the CBC said that 30,000 people from the US moved to Canada to get away from Dub.  But I doubt very very much this was ever mentioned on NPR.  It's too late to cover Bush accurately - unless he makes the news by being arrested in Europe or something, which would be a wonderful thing. It's not too late to start covering the current decider accurately - though your people might have to do it without Federal funds. It shouldn't be a problem, Democracy Now!  does a very good job of it without money from the government.

Which reminds me, I sent this to the Takeaway, which I gather is not an NPR program.  their pro-authority bias seems pretty much identical to NPRs, but this message was actually meant for your people, so if you could forward it, I'd be grateful. And let people know I'd like for them not to start practicing better journalism, but to start practicing journalism. I still can get a small charge out of the entertainment shows on NPR, but on the "news" programs, i haven't heard anything resembling news for months.

"Subject: Dictators and their money

NPR really makes me sick. You people knew that Mubarak and his cronies were looting billions of dollars (how much of it came from US taxpayers?)  but you never said a word, because it didn't serve the interests of US power. 

It's only after the government cuts them loose that you start telling the truth about them - again, in the service of creating a unified propaganda message. It's happened so many times - you just mentioned Marcos, for example - you wouldn't think anybody would be fooled. But it does seem to work over and over again.

And I've never heard a word about US kleptocrats, even after they are out of power. Tell me, how much money did Bush help himself to through his tax cuts to the rich?  I'll bet you know, but you won't say.  Reporting is not part of the NPR agenda.

I'm surprised that congress is talking about eliminating government support for NPR. If they really mean it, it's very stupid of them.  They more than get their money's worth.  The tweed and brie set don't fall for Fox propaganda, you need to feed them something more sophisticated to bring them into the consensus, and that's the job of NPR.  NPR does an excellent job of pacifying then. 

I wouldn't mind if NPR went away all together, liberals might be motivated to activism if they had to turn to Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, etc for information. Imagine if all those campus stations were cut loose. They'd re-affiliate, and no doubt offer better programming.

But no, NPR will become even more servile, like a kicked dog, become more conservative and serving the interest of power, pick up more Fox commentators and never fire one again no matter how much they deserve it - in exactly the same way you responded to the Gingrich assault.  

Instead of dying the death of a thousand cuts, you could try to remember why you studied journalism in college - and practice it. But I don't expect that. I know what it's like to work in a beleaguered, demoralized bureaucracy that has lost direction.  It takes organized effort, and everybody just wants to try to stay below the radar. People that put their heads up get hammered down.

Possibly you don't understand what I'm saying. If you don't, I have no sympathy for you. But if you do, you do have my sympathy, been there, done that."

Name:  Matt Love
Help us pronounce your name:  Matt (rhymes with "That") Love (rhymes with "Smell the glove")
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I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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Tuesday, February 15, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Fwd: Matt, Voting is open – tell your friends!

 

Vote for me!  It's the most awesome song ever!  If I'm successful in this, I may come back out of retirement!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Talenthouse <no-reply@talenthouse.com>
Date: Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 11:34 AM
Subject: Matt, Voting is open – tell your friends!
To: Matt <mattlove1@gmail.com>


Login / Signup | Blog | Creative Invites
Talenthouse logo

Matt,
Voting is now open for the Andy Moor Creative Invite!

Andy Moor Creative Invite
VOTE: February 15-21, 2011

Thanks for submitting your entry to Andy Moor Creative Invite on Talenthouse. Voting is open until Monday, February 21, 2011.

Now is your chance to shine – spread the word about your submission.

Increase your chance to receive full recognition and credit for their original song that will be recorded and produced by Andy Moor.

Vote for yourself. Ask your friends to vote for you. Ask them to ask their friends to vote for you.


View Submission


Voting is easy via Facebook:
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--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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[ItsAllAboutMeMan] John Kerry traveling to Pakistan to attempt to negotiate the release of Raymond Davis

 

Apparently he's seen as a good friend of Pakistan (that is, has worked hard to line the pockets of the crooks running Pakistan), so he's doing what any good friend - a principled peacenik, a clear alternative to the awful Bush - would do.... offering some sort of deal to the Pakistanis to release a mercenary on some shadowy mission who murdered two Pakistan citizens in public.  NPR is careful to use words like "alleged" and so on, even though that's one thing all parties, including Davis agree on - he killed them.


And we wonder, why do they hate us?  Is it our freedom, or our dedication to the rule of law, maybe?

Also, re: Pakistan, read The Siddiqui Case on the main page of the Counterpunch.org website. When we were in Canada, we were appalled by how little Stephen Harper cared about Canadian citizens in trouble abroad, even if they were innocent of any crime. Things are certainly no better here, look at what happened to this poor woman's children. Even if she were guilty of all of this - an absurd proposition that only a fool would believe - her children had done nothing to anybody, and consider what the US government did for them. No, mercy and assistance are reserved for mercenary killers.

And Pappy Bush is getting some kind of freedom metal tonight?  Ah, the corruption and follies of empire.

--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Dictators and their money

 

NPR really makes me sick. You people knew that Mubarak and his cronies were looting billions of dollars (how much of it came from US taxpayers?)  but you never said a word, because it didn't serve the interests of US power. 


It's only after the government cuts them loose that you start telling the truth about them - again, in the service of creating a unified propaganda message. It's happened so many times - you just mentioned Marcos, for example - you wouldn't think anybody would be fooled. But it does seem to work over and over again.

And I've never heard a word about US kleptocrats, even after they are out of power. Tell me, how much money did Bush help himself to through his tax cuts to the rich?  I'll bet you know, but you won't say.  Reporting is not part of the NPR agenda.

I'm surprised that congress is talking about eliminating government support for NPR. If they really mean, it's very stupid.  They more than get their money's worth.  The tweed and brie set don't fall for Fox propaganda, you need to feed them something more sophisticated bring them into the consensus, and that's the job of NPR.  NPR does an excellent job of pacifying then. 

I wouldn't mind if NPR went away all together, liberals might be motivated to activism if they had to turn to Democracy Now!, Alternative Radio, etc for information. Imagine if all those campus stations were cut loose. They'd re-affiliate, and no doubt offer better programming.

But no, NPR will become even more servile, like a kicked dog, become more conservative and serving the interest of power, pick up more Fox commentators and never fire one again no matter how much they deserve it - in exactly the same way you responded to the Gingrich assault.  

Instead of dying the death of a thousand cuts, you could try to remember why you studied journalism in college - and practice it. But I don't expect that. I know what it's like to work in a beleaguered, demoralized bureaucracy that has lost direction.  It takes organized effort, and everybody just wants to try to stay below the radar. People that put their heads up get hammered down.

Possibly you don't understand what I'm saying. If you don't, I have no sympathy for you. But if you do, you do have my sympathy, been there, done that.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] The Return of Mr. Roboto!

 

I was very excited to see this on Mr. Roboto's Facebook page (he's incognito now, he's learned his lesson and under deep cover after Google erased his account and set his world conquest mission back months). Despite the carefully established deep cover, you can see the classic Roboto silicone footprint all over these projects.  I hope you folks will support them both, I know I will!





--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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Sunday, February 13, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Huh.

 

Fuck you for submitting your entry!

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I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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Friday, February 11, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] How does he do it? And why won't he stop?!

 

In case youae't following me on Facebook, I just wanted to let you know I posted this there few minutes ago:

Matt Love
I celebrate the departure of Mubarak with a complete non sequitur: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzcnphLNhcg
The Mystic Knights of the Ooga Chakka Present Tongues of Renown
www.youtube.com
Once again the Mystic Knights serve up a dollop of pop music entertainment madness for those who appreciate only the uppermost of the toppermost.
--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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[ItsAllAboutMeMan] "Obama needs to stop being two-faced"

 

When I was a youth, I was a comic book nerd.  I came to be embarrassed with my preoccupation (when I started to date) and got away from it, but I continued to maintain an amateur sociologists interest in the field, and the people that read and create them. It's rich material.  


What's troubled me is how vast swaths of what used to be the adult population have embraced them - or rather, their celluloid incarnation.  These multicolored diapered vigilantes generate billions of dollars for the multinationals that now own them, and the people who used to be considered to be of adult age flock to them. I'm back in touch with a Junior High pal, and he wants me to go to every superhero movie that comes out - he lives in another city, and I go when I can. The audience is interesting - there's a lot of guys our age, suggesting that there were a lot more of us back in the day than I realized - closeted, no doubt.

Or maybe they are later day converts to the notion that there are "good guys" and there are "bad guys" and there's nothing in between, and any sort of force necessary to impose ones own idea of justice and fairness and balance on the world is justified - celebrated, in fact.  

I've posted here before about how sickened and astonished I was the first time I heard an "adult"  (a cop, yet) talk about "catching the bad guys" - like a grade school child.  Now its hard to go a single day without hearing people talk that way.  

But the trouble with such simplistic thinking is how much slippage you get from reality when you impose this model on it. I also wrote here, somewhat jokingly (but only somewhat) that all the people that were trying to impose the model of Batman 2 on the world were getting it wrong (Bin Laden as the Joker, Bush as Batman).  Of course, Bush was actually the Joker, spreading death and chaos through the world, seemingly just for the fun of watching things burn - and cracking jokes while he did it.  I identified Obama as Two Face - formerly a crusader for justice, turned into the Joker's protege by disastrous mid-term elections.  Or something like that.

I'm sure it seemed preposterous to people (both of them that paid attention) at the time, but look at this, Kevin Alexander Gray endorses my theory in the first line of his article.

Of course, I am not in favor of comic book thinking, and here I am doing it. I realize the world is complicated, and politicians have to balance a lot of conflicting interests to try to come up with a path that will be the least noxious to the most people. I don't think that's the same thing as being a duplicitous weasel.




February 10, 2011

"When Will Obama, the Peace Prize Laureate, Do Something in the Name of Peace?"

Obama and Egyptian Liberation

By KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY

President Barack Obama needs to stop being two-faced on Egypt.      

On one side of his public face he gives the impression of pressing Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak to consider his legacy and "leave power in a way that would give his country the best chance for peace and democracy."

But then he sent presidential envoy Frank Wisner to Cairo, who later publicly urged Mubarak to remain in power, saying, "President Mubarak's continued leadership is critical."

In the realpolitik world of Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton it made sense to send someone Mubarak knew to deliver their message.  Wisner's Washington-based law firm, Patton Boggs works for the dictator's government. 

After being called out on the Egyptian streets for Wisner's comments the Administration put out that his comments "were his own" as though Wisner were some "disavowed" member of the mythical "IMF" - Impossible Missions Force. 

Yet tossing Wisner into the fray is consistent with Clinton's initial expression of "confidence in the stability of his [Mubarak] regime" and Vice-President Joe Biden saying, "I would not refer to him as a dictator."

Even so, it leaves Obama (and the rest of world) where we started out – what's the United States' response to the unraveling of neo-colonialism?

Obama should consider his own legacy and let the American people know whose side he's on: the dictator's, or those who clamor courageously for democracy.

The most often used word coming from the Obama Administration is "transition" which suggests they are biding their time.  Which boils down to what Egyptians protesters clearly see, feel and hear.  That U.S. officials "speak about their own interest, not ours."  Another said: "Tell America that we get to choose our president . . . not them." Yet another opined: "We believe America is against us."

Mohamed ElBaradei, Egypt's Nobel Peace Prize recipient, has blasted Obama's stance by saying: "To ask a dictator to implement democratic measures after thirty years in power is an oxymoron. It will not end until he leaves."

Unlike Obama, ElBaradei actually earned his Nobel Peace Prize while serving at the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). He stuck his neck out against George W. Bush over his false claims that Iraq had a nuclear program along with stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in 2002, and in 2003 he revealed that the documents that the Bush White House had touted about Iraq's alleged purchase of uranium in Niger were fabricated. He also battled the Bush administration over the issue of Iran's nuclear program.   

In demanding an end to Mubarak's dictatorship, ElBaradei stands alongside Nawal El Saadawi, a leading Egyptian feminist, sociologist, medical doctor and writer.

He stands alongside Ahmad Maher, the 28-year-old construction engineer and leader of the secular, pro-labor April 6 movement (which takes its name from April 6, 2008, when a series of strikes and labor actions by textile workers in Mahalla led to a growing general strike by workers and residents and then, on April 6, faced a brutal crackdown by security forces).

He stands alongside Asma Mahfouz whose Internet video outlng Mubarak's abuses went viral.

He stands alongside Wael Ghonim, the Google employee detained for two weeks by Egyptian security forces as the January protest in Tahrir ("Liberation") Square began.

He stands alongside dissident Ayman Nour, a former presidential candidate and member of the Egyptian Parliament and chair of the El Ghad party who was imprisoned in 2005 by the Mubarak government for political reasons and released on health grounds in 2009.

They all stand alongside the National Association for Change, the Egyptian Movement for Change, members of the Facebook-formed We Are All Khaled Said group (named after a man whose death in a brutal police beating was captured in a photograph circulated over the Internet), The Muslim Brotherhood, and other banned political parties and organizations such as Kefaya, The Democratic Front and  the liberal Wafd (which means "delegation), just to name a few. 

They, and millions of other Egyptians, are facing and fighting injustice.

Meanwhile, Obama seems intent on managing injustice.   

The reasoning the Nobel Peace Prize committee used to justify what many considered a "premature" award, an honor that Obama admitted, " he didn't deserve..." was the hope "that he would live up to it."

What the world has witnessed from him to this point is: an increase in the use of deadly unmanned drones wreaking "collateral damage" in Pakistan and Afghanistan's tribal areas, support for an assassination program, contractors replacing soldiers in Iraq, an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and backtracking on the closing of Guantánamo Bay, just to name a few of the disappointments. 

This leaves people asking: "When will Obama do something in the name of peace?"

A foreign policy with peace at its core would mean: instead of sending more US warships to the region, reapportion some of the $1.3 billion plus in annual military aid compared to about $250 million in economic aid to Egypt, so that a much greater share goes directly to people instead of the military; that the United States will no longer "rendered" unto Egypt (or anyplace else) alledged "terrorists" kidnapped by the U.S. who are then tortured by the same secret police that have been torturing, terrrorizing, extorting and abusing the Egyptian people; investigation and prosecution of U.S. officials who have ordered renderings, and public discloure and status of those individuals taken without an open and due process and; a focus on freedom, democracy and universal human rights instead of global capitalism/corporatism and militarism.

Obama shouldn't be playing games with the Egyptian people, but that's what he's doing. At the moment, the Obama administration seems to be hoping that Omar Suleiman, Egypt's spy chief and now vice president, can reshuffle the totalitarian government and things will quiet down. Suleiman was Washington's "point man" in Egypt for the policy of renditions. This is the CIA's illegal policy of kidnapping detainees and shipping them to foreign countries, like Egypt, where they were tortured. Suleiman himself has a chilling reputation when it comes to torture.

In the mid-1990s, Suleiman worked with the Bill Clinton's administration in devising and implementing its rendition program.  Back then, rendition involved kidnapping suspected terrorists and transferring them to a third country for trial.  Under the Bush administration, US renditions became "extraordinary," meaning the objective of kidnapping and extra-legal transfer was no longer to bring a suspect to trial - but rather for interrogation to seek actionable intelligence – by any means necessary. The extraordinary rendition program landed some people in CIA black sites - and others were turned over for torture-by-proxy to U.S. dependent regimes. Egypt figured large as a torture destination of choice, as did Suleiman as Egypt's torturer-in-chief. Suleiman himself reportedly tortured at least one person extraordinarily rendered by the CIA to Egypt —Egyptian-born Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib. 

So one thing is for certain:  Suleiman is not the man to bring democracy to the country. His hands are "too dirty and bloody."

And given the history of the security police in Egypt, at the top of the reformers' list is establishing a criminal justice system based on human and civil rights protections, reform (and prosecution) of some members of the police and secret security forces with the possible elimination of the latter.  Consequently, with the elimination of the secret police, the U.S. will have to do its own dirty work. 

Obama should be standing squarely not with Suleiman but with the Egyptian people and their right to reject an oppressive and brutal regime.

And we should not demand or expect the Egyptian people to automatically put U.S. interests before their own, especially as they endure being fired upon by tear gas canisters with "made in the USA" written on them.

If the United States is going to talk the talk of freedom and democracy, then it has to walk the walk. Anything less is hypocritical.

Kevin Alexander Gray is a civil rights organizer in South Carolina and author of Waiting for Lightning to Strike! The Fundamentals of Black Politics, published by CounterPunch Books. He can be reached at kagamba@bellsouth.net.


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Tuesday, February 08, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] songs

 

In order to stop a terrorist plot by a bunch of America haters, I'm pretending to come out of musical retirement during the month of February.

While I can't go into any further details about that, I can tell you where the songs are:


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1144075

--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends. 
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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Saturday, February 05, 2011

[ItsAllAboutMeMan] Gullible much?

 

Oh yes I think so, I truly do. Got this message on YouTube:


Sent to: mattlove1
Sent from: jdbm03

crowley-Bbush
I was reading the comments on the Crowley/Bush, dad/daughter deal on
Cannonfire and I saw your post re: Crowley being related to all the
Trailblazers in Portland BB? Since that is where I lived, I am
curious...fact or fiction?

Thanks

--
I want to play in your town for you and 2 of your friends.
http://eventful.com/performers/matt-love-/P0-001-000156481-4/demands

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