jazz band seen in a dream

The frontmen are two muscular identical brothers with close cropped hair. Perhaps they are Hawaiian, or Filipino? They play the melodic portion and sing in harmony.

Behind them, the rhythm section consists of seven majestic polar bears, standing on their hind legs and shuffling back and forth in unison. Each one wears an open breakfast cereal box on his left foot and a tambourine around his right ankle. As they shuffle together, the contrast between the shaking cereal and the rattling tambourines creates a subtle but grandiose rhythmic accompaniment.

nothing wrong

government is rape

Fascism and slavery are two sides of the same coin. Control implies the controlled; subjugation implies the subjugated.

When is this relationship legitimate? Only when the subjugation is agreed to by the subjugated starting from a position of equal power. Typically, this only occurs in the bedroom.

The relationship between the government and the citizen is one of unequal power. The government spies on, searches, taxes, controls the movements of, the employment of, the abilities to express oneself of the citizen. This power relation is one of slaver and slavee. But is it legitimate?

Never.

Because the citizen has never agreed to this subjugation beginning from a position of equal power—s/he was never in a position to spy on, tax, search, or control the movements of the government. The agreement was made from a position of power imbalance.

Just as one may "agree" to hand over ones valuables to a thief at gunpoint, we "agree" to hand over our autonomy to the government.

The situation here is not unlike statutory rape. Even "consensual" sex between an adult and a child is reprehensible because the child is in no position to give consent. This is because of the power imbalance between the two participants. The adult abuses the child no matter what the child thinks s/he may have consented to or not. Such "consent" cannot be legitimate.

It is incorrect to identify reason as the distinguishing factor. The child is in no position to rationally assess the consequences of hir actions, one might say, but the mature citizen is, and can legitimately decide to cede power to the government.

This is a red herring. It is completely incorrect.

The only analysis of rationality we have is means / ends rationality. But by this reasoning, it is rational for the slave not to run (because s/he will be whipped); it is rational for the unarmed at gunpoint to hand over hir wallet; and it is rational for the child to submit to the adult who controls hir future. Rationality does not coincide with legitimacy or morality. The means / ends reason for ceding power may nevertheless be morally illegitimate.

This also explains why the government systematically grants itself more power (greater powers to spy, to search, to tax, to control), and why this is so dangerous. Not just pragmatically dangerous (though it is), but morally dangerous. In doing so, the government distances itself further and further from the ideal of legitimacy. The more powerful the government, the less possible any legitimate moral mandate from the governed.

We are being systematically raped by a villain who uses the money from our pockets and tears licked from our cheeks to empower himself to rape us more easily and frequently.

We are slaves.

when i'm cleaning windows

George Formby

dream

I'm backing a large red convertible slowly through dusty streets. Not quite the middle of nowhere - a water tower in the distance, the town just out of sight (across the tracks, over the hill, a presence in the background). The convertible is dusty and old and I'm backing it very slowly, uncertainly avoiding the occasional car parked by the side of the road. Becoming more steady I start to accelerate.

Suddenly, at the intersection at the end of the next block, I see a group of enormous figures slowly processing down the cross street - a giant human shaped figure with enormous antlers, four stories high; a couple of articulate stuffed-animals (a bear, a bird), almost as high (20 feet?); an animate stegosaurus skeleton, less majestic than the others, smaller, more ominous.

I leap from the car and huddle behind a rickety fencepost, a treetrunk, hoping I'm not noticed. A couple of the figures break from their majestic line and slowly start prowling down the street on which I abandoned the car. I run hunched and creeping from tree to tree through the undergrowth, the dusty half-park that fills the block, trying not to be seen.

Just out of sight, behind the tree in front of me, a munching sound, rustling, a large presence. I pick up a long, thin branch from amongst the many fallen and piled around the trees. Coming around the corner, I see it's the large stuffed bird, towering over me. I prod it with the branch which it snaps at hungrily, beginning to eat it.

I rush past with another branch, leaping ten feet into the air, but behind it, suddenly, the stegosaurus skeleton - attempting to feed it the branch, it clearly wants more, and its jaws snap dangerously close to my face as I fly by. Crashing to the ground, I run full tilt back toward my car, not looking back, uncertain if the stegosaurus follows or continues on its way.

In the distance, piles of much smaller stuffed birds arranged in rows, forming a tall triangle between the roots of a giant tree, sing a sad, wailing chorus. A similar pile, again organized into a triangle between the roots of another tree of stuffed teddy bears joins their voices. They are covered in dust, oversized, animate in a sad, slow manner. A dirty lament.

killer mike live

. . . . like Church for Anarchists.

how it's done