An Echo, A Stain, Bjork
Quiet Solitude, Skinny Puppy
Jimmy, Tool
My Evil Twin, TMBG
Riot Proof, Tori Amos
I Zombie, White Zombie

okey I'm feeling news-starved since I can't listen to the radio in my car, where I usually do, and anyway KCRW is having their subscription drive, so I try to stay away. (I'm a member already, so I don't like listening to them beg for more money.) But I was hungering for an NPR fix and went over to listen to their online stream. The news stories were about Daniel Pearl, something about the history of executive privelidge, and finally, a sort of "conservative response" to a study that was released earlier this week stating that more college freshmen this year were considering themselves liberal or left-leaning than in a long time (I don't think they said "ever before" but I'm not sure what time context they were putting them in.)

I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a little on the liberal side myself, but I sure never saw it at the school I went to. USC is pretty conservative, but also in trying to "reach out" to the minorities in the city it is situated in. Of course, everything USC does is has to make a buck or else they won't be around for long, so that colors things as well.

But the thing that I liked about college is that usually when the topic of politics would come up most people were open to talking about it. If any felt uncomfortable, they bowed out gracefully and were on their way. Of course, some people "talk" politics like it's a fight to the dead and woe unto you if you're not 100% up on your history, current events, international and domestic policy, etc, etc. But still, it is an exercise that I miss. Far, FAR too many people that I've met as "grown-up" are apathetic, they just don't care, they want to live for as long as possible, be as rich and comfortable and to never think about politics. Not that it stops them from spouting off uninformed drivel about social programs that are meant to help a neglected few.

So anyway. This story was about interviewing a bunch of college students at some convention for young Republicans. And it was astounding. It really was. They might as well have been talking about cross-town rivalries with how much they were talking about how "they" (liberal students) were so uninformed, and were inundated with liberal teachers, MTV and other TV programming that is clearly liberal.

There was this one girl who was talking as if all of us hapless liberals had just had a local chapter of Young Repbulicans to help us out we would come to see the light and the truth of the Right. There was a guy who was talking about how everyone spoke in terms of their feelings, rather than in observations and facts. As if there never was a liberal who could actually think for herself.

Fine. bite me.

Do you know why I'm liberal? I can tell you it has zero to do with MTV. Growing up I didn't have cable television, my parents let us watch *some* TV that was pre-approved by them. My dad was a school teacher and my mom was a secretary-type person before going back to school. They were Catholic and raised us as such. In the Catholic tradition, one gives. One loves. One expects no return.

Yes. I know there are plenty of you out there thinking of the history and the facts that several people within the Catholic church, and in her name have committed countless tragedies. But that's people for you. Bad apples mixed in with good. Let me tell you it sucks massive donkey dildos that I have to practically defend myself when I do something like wear a cross or demand time on Sunday to go to church rather than spend the day at work. It blows more than you can believe to be asked my belief, then get an "I'm sorry." when I say I'm Catholic. I'm not sorry. I feel terrible to consider the atrocities, the horrors, the absolute abominations that were done throughout history under the auspices of the church.

Northern Star, Hole
Terminal City, Machines of Loving Grace
Kingdom's Coming, Bauhaus
The Carnival is Over, DCD
Bells for Her, Tori Amos

But the simple fact is the church also encourages generosity, caring, love, forgiveness, mercy and acceptance. It is in this spirit that the Pope at the time (I forget his name) read Marx's Communist Manifesto and declared that, but for it's turn away from God, it clearly outlined a most Christian way to live. So why does it come as a surprise that there are a lot of liberal Catholics?

Before continuing I do want to point though, that on the subject of sex and family values though, the Church is pretty conservative. But then I still don't understand why the Bolshieviks needed to tackle the topic of sex and change it all around. I guess when they wanted to outlaw the church they had to outlaw church-sanctioned marriage, too. But I'm on thin ice now.... Anyone know a good resource to check this out at?

Sorry, I digressed a titch there... Anyway. So my dad's a Catholic. And a liberal (mostly). But that shouldn't really be a big surprise. He's benefitted from liberal administrations. It hadn't been for the GI Bill he would have been a trucker, I think. If it hadn't been for the Teacher Core... well things would be a *lot* different, and I doubt I'd be writing this.

It was my dad who always explained to me that he didn't have a lot of money, and often what he had went either to the government or to the Church. But since he could support us on what he kept it was okey. It didn't matter to him to keep a little more of his money. He said he might eat fancier food or live in a bigger house, but how could he justify that before God when there were children starving or going cold? Being just one person he wouldn't be able to help them all, but giving his money to those he could did help some.

Inundated indeed. My teachers mostly didn't talk politics and the distinct few that I remember that did were mostly conservative (I'm from northern Orange County, remember?). Television? Faugh! Television will say anything that will make another dollar.

Driven by emotion? You better believe it buddy. It was left-leaning thinkers that got us to where we are and where we are is a hundred times better than where we were a mere hundred years ago.

I don't need MTV to tell me John Ashcroft is a nutcase with way too much power. This war is as insane as it is stupid. I'm thoroughly sick of the divisions being based on semantics that makes it okey for the Dubya to encourage us to volunteer to support the war, but then the folks who are unfortunate enough to try to stand up to the U.S. military and are now sitting around at Guantanamo are *not* prisoners of war. This is crap. It's either a war, or it ain't. One way or the other buddy, but not both. And while I'm at it. Executive priveledge?!? For this shit?! Dick, honey, unless you told Kenny-boy the positions of our troups, the locations of the nuclear bunkers, or went down on him, you have shit for priveledges.

I have a mind. I've even been told that it works adequately well. So now my views are held in something approaching common among young adults who have no idea what it's like to support themselves. So now it's a fashion to be liberal. Great. So? Why demean an entire group in one fell swoop?

Frogs, Alice in Chains
Crime for Crime, Ani di Franco

I'm sure most of the people who were interviewed had people who taught them right from wrong and explained to them how the government had a priority in seeing the strength of the economy and the military and *then* in seeing that the people were treated fairly. But it's not like I couldn't just point at a few places where they might have been "inundated" themselves. It's practically *expected* that if you're from the deep south you're going to be conservative. I know that to be a sterotype because all of the southerners I've met have been in California, and they're mostly calm and kinda lefty. (maybe it *is* the cheese?) And then the kicker was that their big hero was president when they were born. What a joke. Their peers that supposedly outnumber them were born *also* when Reagan was president.

Reagan. ahhh reagan. What to say, what to say? Other than, ffeeewwwwwww.... dubya is sorta trying to be like him, Ashcroft definately is channeling him all over the fucking place. The crackpot tax bill that's meant to give corporations breaks, regardless of how they spend that money. Dubya's great idea is that a company that is given some money back will retain more workers, and maybe hire more after that. Fuck, why doesn't he just say "trickle down" and get it overwith?

And while I'm at it why does every Reaganite insist that it was Reagan who fixed the economy single-handedly when he left a big-ass deficit in his wake? And on that basis why do these same people refuse to give Clinton the same credit??

fffffffffttt I could go on and on about this but it's sorta pointless without someone to bounce thoughts off of. And I have to be going...

So I will leave you with this.

"The only proper response to an outrage is to be outraged."
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