Bad Timing

I’ve been a regular listener of Democracy Now via podcast for about 12 months now, gottaluvya Amys & Juans. Prior to that, pre podcasting, I used to copy and paste transcripts to Word at lunchtime to read at home that night.
I feel lucky to have come across them during the lead up to the Iraq invasion. I used to have a flick around at lunchtime to world newspaper in the US / UK (in draft 1 I had named and linked to the newspapers but I'm too gutless – don’t want to be sued) and then english.aljazeera.net for balance. Without doubt I found Al Jazeera had the best ‘journalism’. Going to press conference and regurgitating verbatim a government official without question or investigation is not even a poor facsimile of journalism. The main stream UK press certainly didn’t instantly morph into unquestioning sycophantic propagandists as most of the US (and all Australian) mainstream media did... ranting now.

To paraphrase ‘the truth was out there’, just bloody hard to find as the mainstream media weren’t interested and various governments were trying to bury it. Democracy Now were / are a beacon of truth in a thick fog of ‘spin’. They do daily news headlines then generally topical interviews but occasionally have lectures from preeminent scholars; I recommend this one.

Another great thing about Democracy Now is that they have some great music breaks. Two songs in particular I had to get straight away were Buffy St Marie’s ‘Universal Soldier’ (not a Donovan fan) and Phil Ochs ‘I aint Marching Anymore’. Yep shoulda been a hippy.

Two observations.

I may be many things, arrogant, opinionated, a bit of lefty – but first I’m a capitalist. This war would be handsomely swelling the coffers of many protest singers of the sixties – gottaluv the irony in that. The very thing they are opposing is what introduced them to a new generation / market. I found Phil on YouTube and also Donovan doing Universal Soldier and there are comments like “My teenage son asked me for Best of Phil Ochs CD for...”, “I just bought...”. In part they need to thank Dubya for that – so it not just big oil and Haliburton that are reaping (raping?) it in :-)

The second observation is that I feel robbed for having been born in the early 70’s. My formative teenage years were in the 80’s, so I’m not responsible for my dress sense. I got a global recession for my 21^st then 11 years, and still suffering, of John bloody Howard. Goodonya.
During early teens I wanted to be born about 1935. If my parents could keep me alive through the end of the depression I would be 22 when Chevrolet released the ’57 Belair – mmmmmmm ’57 Belair – still freekin adore that car. That was the sole reason for wanting to be born in 1935; ah the innocence of youth.
Later, and still to this day, I’m became plain pissed I wasn’t part of the sixties. I got the antiauthoritarianism thang, organising ability, author of bad poetry, less than terrible orator, defiantly single and unlike Bill Clinton – did inhale. If I could compromise on personal hygiene, bit of stickler for a shower, I could have been the real deal man. Perhaps the long haired ‘Gerry Adams’ of a radical Australian militant group called the Cyan Koalas. OK not as tough as the Black Panthers but better than the Purple Platypus, the Eggpalnt Emus, the White Wombats, the Blue Bilbys? I'm on a role but I'll stop.
I look at the girls looking at Phil Ochs on youtube and am filled with envy. He’s was a pop star in the free lovin’ sixties about the time they invent the pill. I was a geek in the nothing eighties about the time they discover AIDS.
It's freekin wrong I tellsya!

Seasons greetings. Be safe.