(MRR 342) Mykel Relates Mexico to His Colon

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

(Note: It's shorter than usual this month. (TWSS) I have not been censored... just timed. I'll be in Mexico for the column deadline, so I have to get it in early.(TWHS))

"These self-anointed Protectors of the Overprotected endlessly yammer about breaking the "cycle of abuse," oblivious to the concept that imprisoning someone is a particularly vicious perpetuation of that cycle.” --Jim Goad

“Death begins in the colon.” --Sir Jason Winters

 I'm fetally curled into a human comma. My arms are thrust between my legs. Those legs are pulled up toward my chest. A bubbling perks in my intestines. Bullump. Bullump. Bullump. I feel it along my right side... the side pressed against the naked mattress beneath my naked self. The bubbling moves. Up my right side, across my abdomen, down my left side. Bullump... Bullump... Bullump... the gaseous track of my large intestine. It presses rectally downwards... gurgling through the netherworld. Building pressure.

I cup my hands over my struggling sphincter... contract my stomach muscles...push... hard. BLAAAAATTTTT. Just a few milometers north of a liquid explosion... whew! I blow pure hot gas into my hands. Now I raise those hands to my nose... inhaling my own smell. I turn the inside out. How is it that it smells so good? How is it that other people's farts stink to holy hell and mine out-roses any rose ever risen?

The fragrant gas enters my body. From my nose and mouth, down deep into my lungs. It's a physical, spiritual, metaphysical cycle. That beautiful smell... leaving my body... entering my body, traveling through my body.

I drift back to sleep.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! What the fuck?

The alarm clock. As beautiful a smell as my own fart... that's how horrible is the sound of the alarm clock. In the 1400s clocks had no minute hands, just an hour hand that lazily circled a Roman-numeraled face. Then came the minute hand, and 8AM became 8:09AM or 7:59AM. It wasn't long before a someone added a SECOND HAND. In Union Square, you can get the time to five decimal places. Who the fuck needs five decimal places? My boss?

How can I lay in bed and enjoy my farts? There's work to be done. Time to get up.

I try to sit up. Pain shoots through my pelvis, down my leg. Excruciating. Aaaaaaah! My leg, my balls, my prostate. On fire. A burning mass of pain.

“AAAAAAAAH!” I cry out

BAUM! BAUM! BAUM!

My neighbor bangs on her side of the wall. The universal signal for SHUT THE FUCK UP!

I lower my cry to a whimper.

From the waist down, is pain. Everything hurts. Last night's beer bulges in my stomach. The sciatica presses against my back and legs.

Unable to stand, I roll like a log until one arm reaches over the side of the bed. Then, pressing down, I slowly... painfully... drop my body on to the floor... knees first. Using the arm already touching the floor, I push myself up... stagger forward, grabbing a lamp for support... hobbling as fast as biology will let me... I enter the bathroom... fall ass-first onto the toilet.

PLOW! I explode... just missing spurting brown down the back of my legs. But the usual bliss that follows a massive beer shit is lost.... buried in the pain in my back and legs... Is there a reason to keep living if you can't enjoy a beer shit?

NEWS FLASH: A court in Mexico has just found an American teenager, who goes by the nickname "El Ponchis," guilty of torture, murder and kidnappings.

Edgar Jimenez, 14 years old, was convicted of torturing and beheading at least four people and kidnapping three others. The bodies were found hanging from a bridge near Mexico City last year. The judge sentenced El Ponchis to three years in a correctional facility, the maximum permissible for a minor. He was also ordered to pay a fine of 4.5 million pesos, the equivalent of about $400,000.

Flash Ahead: My Mexican pals have invited me back. It's OLD PUNK FEST, in Agua Prieta, one of those border towns where 14 year old Americans cut the heads off who-knows-who. I was there last year. Maybe you read about it. It's one of my favorite towns in the world. Home of Walmarcito and Burger Queen.

My Mexican pals have put together a cover band again. Sin Arte.. I'll be “singing” and hosting an OLD PUNKS night. La Merma, Grito, Pop Gestapo... Except for BEEF, I may be the only non-Mexican in the show. I hope so. That's the way I like it.

When I started this column, I planned to write about circles. My fart leaving and entering my body. My return to Mexico. Old punk rockers rejoining and playing again. This column continuing the theme of the last, and one before.

I've changed my mind.

Going to Mexico will complete a circle. Like sniffing a fart. Last year, this year... but the circle is not round. Just as my beer shit lost its ecstasy in the pain of my sciatica, these circles too become less perfect, more jagged, over time.

My circle metaphor for life may be a spiral. Or something else. When Jim Goad talked about “the cycle of abuse” (check out the opening quotes), jail did something. It knocked that circle a bit. Stretched it. Made it even nastier than it already was.

The circle is such a nice metaphor. But it's wrong. The zen circle is not a circle. Maybe it's shapeless... or shape-shifting like a vampire in a bad TV show... or an amoeba with no shape at all. Maybe it's a spiral... an ever smaller circle that ends in nothing. The neat package of this column has come unraveled.

With my metaphor gone and visions of headless bodies in the street... 14 year old Americans caught and those not caught... I board the plane to Mexico.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->One step forward two steps back department: In October last year, the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian featured it's first exhibition "to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture." Pretty bold for a government gallery, huh?

      Not so fast, the Catholic League attacked one of the images in a video displayed in the collection: 11 seconds of ants crawling on a crucifix. Rep. John A. Boehner led the congressional threat to stop funding if the video was not removed. Within an hour, it was gone. 

-->Sometimes bad news isn't dept: Gay City News reports that a recent court ruling "may place nearly insurmountable obstacles” to porn producers suing illegal downloaders. The lawsuits worked in the past, because they'd embarrass the downloader as much as hurt financially.

      The way the porn companies worked in the past was to collect IP addresses (your unique computer id number) of "violators" and then sue them as a group. Unless another court overturns the ruling, they can no longer do that. 

Awww too bad, right?

Yeah, right.

-->Cause and effect dept: I've often written about how the US has the world's second highest NON-smoking rate, and the world's highest cancer rate... showing that NOT smoking causes cancer.

Now, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the number of children killed in car crashes in 2009 was 9.6% less than the previous year. They also report that the number use of professionally fitted child booster seats also went down.

     So what are we to conclude? NOT using a car seat saves kids lives. Seems reasonable to me.

--> If there were more profs like that, I wudda got my Phd dept: A former assistant professor of psychology at John F. Kennedy University in Pleasant Hill, California, has sued the institution for sex discrimination. She says that she was fired for performing in an off-campus burlesque act.

     Sheila  Addison was hired in Sept. 2007 to teach graduate students under a one-year contract as an assistant professor of psychology. The following July she was awarded a two-year contract which stated that she could be fired only for “just cause.”

     At about the same time that she started working at JFK, she started performing under a pseudonym, Professor Shimmy, at the Hubba Hubba Revue, a burlesque show in San Francisco.

She belonged to a group of performers who sought to bring social commentary to their acts. Some of her performances tell stories, including one in which she performs with a classically trained male ballet dancer. He dresses as a snow fairy and she as the abominable snowman. When they remove their clothes, the audience sees that the fairy and the snowman are not the genders they're supposed to be. Yeah!

     The university declines to comment on the case. 

-->Completing the Circle Dept: The mercenary company Xe Services, which pre-scandal was called Blackwater, has brought shamed former Attorney Gneral John Ashcroft on board in a new position. And what exactly is that position? Why, ethics chief of course.

    (I shit you not.)

-->Humane torture dept: Senator James Inhofe, told Fox News that torture victims in Guantanamo have it easy: "These detainees, they have things they've never had before. You know what the biggest problem in Gitmo is right now? It's obesity. They're eating better than they've ever eaten before.”

-->Reality theme park dept: Parque EcoAlberta in the Mexican state of Hidalgo allows tourists to sign up for a three-hour trek that simulates a refugees passage into the U.S. According to THE PROGRESSIVE magazine "Tourists must navigate craggy ravines and rolling rivers with only a flashlight-- no food or water.... The trek ends with gunshots as the would-be migrants are thrown into the back of mock U.S. border patrol trucks." The cost for the trek is $20 a person.

-->Buy a liberal today dept: AT&T is plugging to buy competitor T-Mobile in a bid to out-monopoly Verizon. So how do they get support... especially from liberals who usually oppose corporatocracy? They give money!

      In 2009 alone, the NAACP received a million dollars from AT&T. GLAAD, the pro-Gay-censor-the-opposition group got $50,000 from the Apple-Loving Giant.

     I say (with palm out, facing upwards) Go AT&T! Buy that sucker! I support you! Is the check in the mail?

-->Cut! Print! It's a take dept: The Rumanian Doctors Union has criticized a decision to make a surgeon pay almost $200,000 after he lost his temper and hacked off a patient's penis during surgery.

     Surgeon Naum Ciomu had been operating on the patient to correct a testicular malformation when he suddenly lost his temper. 

      According to the  BNI Newsletter “Grabbing a scalpel he sliced off the penis in front of shocked nursing staff, and then placed it on the operating table where he chopped it into small pieces before storming out of the operating theater.”

     The doctors union objected to the court decision, saying “Doctors in Rumania earn too little to be able to pay amounts like this.” 

     I say that if the doctor would only support the ATT T-Mobile takeover, he wouldn't have any trouble paying the fine. 

-end-

(MRR 341) Mykel Refuses To Keep His Shirt On

  

 If you want to read more about Mykel's adventures in Albania, The US South-- or life in General-- check out Mykel's Diary For a look at the weird, the scary and the funny in real life, check out Mykel's Article's and Propositions.

You're Wrong
An Irregular Column
Column for MRR 341
October 2011

by Mykel Board

aka  Mykel refuses to keep his shirt on.

If people vote themselves into slavery and give up their liberty, is this freedom? --Isaiah Berlin

It's 1995... the same Toronto anarchist festival I wrote about last week. That was the Vegan Reich story. This one's about Alekz Vermont... and some other girl... I can't remember her name.

It's like a dream. I'm in an open field. Two girls are chasing me. Two attractive girls... the kind I usually wouldn't run from... but would turn to... nuzzling my muzzle between their legs... savoring the clitoral sea breeze.. lapping languidly between the labia. 

But now they haven an agenda. They want to hurt me, I think. So I run. 

BLAM!!! Something hits the back of my legs. I'm down... tackled... like a football player. The other girl... the one who's not Alekz... grabs my KLANARCHY t-shirt... SCRRRRRT... tears it... tears it off... Then Alex is on my shirtless self... her knees on my shoulders... She does not lower herself, pressing her luscious mons veneris into my face. Instead, out comes a magic marker... a thick one... indelible... She draws two arrows on my chest... one pointing to each nipple. Under the arrows... equally indelible... she prints THESE ARE TITS TOO.

Then they skedaddle... both of them... waving my shirt like a captured flag... off... to wherever girl anarchists go when they strip a boy... gone... leaving me to walk around half naked... for the rest of the day... smiling at cops who have better things to do... Some anarchists asks me what it means. I shrug.

 

1999: I'm happier than a Christian at a book-burning. At ABC NO Rio... one of my top 20 live bands of all time. Mmmm boy.


They were on the cover of Flipside. I heard the record, saw them at CBGBs. Now I can get even closer. 

As usual, Esneider is at the door. I hand him my $5. He stamps the NO VALUE rubber stamp into the pad and then on the inside of my wrist.  

“Be careful today, Mykel,” he says. “Stay out of the pit. They've got the most vicious pit I've ever seen.”

“I'm five foot three inches tall,” I remind him. “I weigh 130 pounds. I NEVER go into the pit.”

“But Mykel,” he says, “sometimes the pit goes into you.”

Inside, the tiny club is packed. Back in those days, the shows were in the basement. There was no ventilation. It was always hot. 

A packed house and a tough pit means SUPERHOT. Maybe people will take off their shirts. Yeah!

I stand on the side... in back of a short attractive girl. She'll be a buffer in case the going gets tight. I've got a great view of the band. Shirts have already come off because of the heat.

Then the music starts. Wowee! Slam-away. Fuck, right in the ribs... in the shoulder... OUCH! ...in the balls... I back off more... a little more peace... 

Then the lead singer, Lynn, takes her shirt off. Yeah, it's TRIBE 8, the best Lesbo band in herstory. And Lynn, the greatest of the great, has the balls to take her shirt off at a punkrock show. Just like everyone else. Tits like everybody else has. Yeah!

The academic part:  Kurt Vonnegut once wrote a story about equality. In that story, the society required everyone to be equal. So if somebody lost the sight in one eye, everybody had to wear blinders on one eye to make them equal.

In the quest for equality, people walk around with weights on their legs or an arm tied behind their backs. That makes them equal to the cripples among them. They are braced, their backs forced into a curve, to make them equal to those with scoliosis. They have earplugs to make them equal to deaf people. You get the idea. Equality is the first value.

Vonnegut is dead. (Sometime soon, I'll be HIS equal.) But he was not against equality. He was against a narrow view of equality-- a NEGATIVE equality that makes people equal at the bottom rather than at the top. 

I'll explain further: Imagine I have a gold pen. There are ten people sitting with me. We can make everyone equal in two ways. One is to give everyone else a gold pen. The other is to take away my pen. The former is a POSITIVE equality. The latter a NEGATIVE one.

The marriage equality act-- homo marriage-- is an example of NEGATIVE equality.


Right now, you can only get “free” health insurance if you're married to someone with paid insurance. You can only get hospital visitation rights, or child adoption rights if you're married. You can only file a joint tax return or get easy citizenship if you're married. You can only pass on your apartment to a spouse. Share veterans' discounts on medical care, education, and home loans with someone you're married to. You can only receive crime victims' recovery benefits if you're married to the victim (or if you are the victim.)

There are two ways of dealing with the inequality of laws related to marriage. NEGATIVE equality is to force more people into marriage and thereby strengthen the institution. The other is to get the government out of the marriage business completely and make no special privileges based on what should be a religious institution. 

POSITIVE equality is to eliminate all marriage laws. Make all people-- married or not, homo, het or neither-- equal. Instead, homos decided to put blinders on the rest of us. Weigh down one leg to make us equal. So now New York has gay marriage. And insurance companies that used to insure “domestic partners,” now require marriage! The freedom to marry becomes the DUTY to marry, and with gay-marriage it's harder than ever to escape.

2011: I'm reading Razorcake, home to former MRR columnists and those who'd like to be. Amy Adoyzie is one of my favorites... a girl that doesn't act like one... until now.

Jeezus fuckin' Christ. She's writing about how punk rock boys make girls uncomfortable... You know how? By taking their shirts off. That's how.

When you take off your shirt in a hot, muggy basement show, you're not just trying to cool yourself off. You're saying something with your body and who you are. You're saying “I'm a dude and as a dude, I can take my shirt off in a room full of other people...” You're unknowingly asserting your dude-ness for all to see. You're saying, “Check me out. I'm a fucking dude.”

And you know what? That makes some people feel unsafe. Just because you think it's innocuous doesn't mean it is. Just because you don't agree that it makes people feel unsafe doesn't mean it doesn't. Put your fucking shirt on.

Fifteen years after Tribe 8 opens the door to a POSITIVE equality, we've got a girl here saying NOT that girls should be able to take their shirts off... but that boys shouldn't! 

Just like the right to marry is actually the duty to marry... and increases inequality for those who choose not to. The right to comfort is the way to limit the freedom of others who choose to... to... show their tits.

In Europe, toplessness is the order of they day... for men and women. Alas, even in the punkrock world, this is not Europe.


Hey Amy, these are tits too! Instead of saying I shouldn't be free to take my shirt off-- you should be saying you should be free to take off yours. Instead of saying Cover up boys, you should be saying Take it off girls. Your freedom doesn't come from my repression. It comes from your own liberation.

ENDNOTES:  [email subscribers god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->That gives me an idea dept: The Texas Office of the Comptroller granted tax-exempt status to THE CURCH OF FREETHOUGHT, an "atheist church" in Texas. After an initial denial and run in with Americans United for Separation of Church and State, government officials backed down.
   The Comptroller's original objection said if they granted the status it would lead to applications from "any wannabe cult who dresses up and parades down Sixth Street on Halloween."
    Hmmm, dress-up anyone?

--> Where? dept: We all know that the locations of most phones can be tracked, either via their built in GPS devices or by triangulating the signals they bounce off the cellular towers. And not only is it possible to figure out where a phone has been, you can also get software or online services that will let you track the location of a phone in real time. You can keep tabs on your teenagers, other family members, employees, or someone you want to stalk. In addition to the location (as it moves), you can also find out how fast it's going.

      One such service, which works with certain Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Android phones, is AccuTracking. Since it's probably illegal for me to say some hackers should get on 'em ASAP... I won't. But I can imagine posting some way you can attach a fake tracking chip to a stray cat or a street crazy. Attach a fake device to a hamster, and let it loose in the subway. Watch a panicky parent call the cops as their “child” runs down a subway tunnel in front of a raging train.
    Not that I'd propose such a thing. Who me? Such a proposition is likely to be illegal.

-->Speaking of where dept: Gizmo.com reports that Google has a bunch of places that Google Maps won't show you. According to the site, most of the censored places look like imaging anomalies, rather than some big black bar with "CENSORED" written in large text.
    You can see 18 of them at: tiny.cc/mapcensor. You can also ask Google what's up widdat?

-->Corporate humans vs Union humans: The Supreme Court ruled that corporations and unions are "humans" with the ability to fund candidates with no limits. The corporations go to the conservatives. The unions go to the liberals.
     NOW do you get why so many Republican state governors are trying to break the unions? And there's a new law now in the House of Representatives. Republicans introduced bill HR 1135 that denies foodstamps to any family if a member is out on strike. How low can they go? Maybe I shouldn't ask.

-->For the good of the kids dept: THE UK Government says it's fighting “the early sexualization of children” by blocking internet pornography unless parents request it. The move is intended to ensure that children are not exposed to sex as a routine by-product of the internet.
    Instead of using parental controls to stop access to pornography - so-called "opting out" - the tap will be turned off at the source. Adults will then have to "opt in."
   More info at: http://tinyurl.com/UKpornban

-->It shudda been my parents dept: Landon & Anette Parris of Nashville pleaded guilty to hiring a stripper for their son's 16^th birthday. They were sentenced to two years' probation and ordered to take “parenting classes.”
     I say they should be TEACHING those classes.

-end-

Mykel Asks the anti-Fascists to Look in the Mirror (MRR 340)

You're Wrong

An Irregular Column

by Mykel Board

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.” --Ernest Benn

It's 1977: The Sex Pistols have stolen punkrock from New York and shipped it to London. They're changing the fashion a bit. Making it more Carnaby Street... and at the same time, more offensive. That's the idea of punkrock, ya know?

“Piss on your ancestors,” said proto-punker Patti Smith. 

Only the Brits can make piss into a fashion. And what could be more piss-making than THE NAZIS? Something rude for every occasion. Sid Vicious walks down the stairs, at a very polite concert... in a Swastika shirt.

 

Flash ahead to 1986: ARTLESS is on tour in The South. We're just leaving West Virginia. I wear a SKREWDRIVER t-shirt given to me by one of our hosts.

“Mykel,” asks Gavin, “can't you find us some more fascists to stay with? Those guys fed us well, gave us clean beds, and didn't keep us up all night playing Crass records. Those other guys, those anarchists we usually stay with... they're filthy. The food is awful... and they won't let us sleep.”

 

Flash ahead to 1995: The anarchist festival in Toronto. I stay at the house of MRR columnist Steve Beaumont. (A decade later he'll be a world-famous beer writer.) Also at the house are a bunch of guys I don't know from some band I don't know. They're funny and friendly. I've never seen them before.

“What's the story on those guys?” I ask Steve. 

“Oh Mykel,” he says, “you're in for a surprise. That's VEGAN REICH.”

The big guy in the band wears an even bigger t-shirt with MEAT IS MURDER stenciled on the front. He's fiddling around in his backpack.

“Got it!” he says, taking out a box of something. 

“What's that?” I ask. 

“It's tofuburger mix,” he says.

“Yuck!” I answer. “I wouldn't eat that shit in a million years.”

“That's what you think,” he says. “Steve, get the camera.”

And he reaches for me. 

I'm out the door... sprinting across the front yard... into the next yard. I can easily outrun this big guy, I think. I think wrong.

Blam! I'm on the ground. Tackled like some football player. Another guy from the band kneels over me. I can't see him clearly. Things are a blur. I'm face up. The guy clamps my head between his knees. He reaches over my face and squeezes my jaw, forcing my mouth open. He does not open his fly and lower his turgid tumor into my mouth. Instead, the big guy, who's faster than he looks, has that box of Tofu Burger Mix open in his hand. He pours it into my mouth. 

It's like he's force-feeding me sand. Awful. Grains of tasteless nothing... filling my mouth... spilling over my cheeks... clustering first around then into my ears. I'm gonna suffocate. I can't talk... breathe... nothing. I try to shake my head... turn away from the granular invasion. The other guy's knees keep my head just where it is.

Then it's over. 

They let go of me. And they help me stand up. 

I spit out the crap. Stick my fingers into my mouth to scrape the insides of my cheek. Steve is laughing behind the camera. The Vegan Reich guys are laughing. My piss-offedness turns to laughter. It really is funny.

 

Flash ahead to 2003: Two years after Al Qaeda (or SOMEBODY) drove a couple planes into the World Trade Center... and one into the Pentagon.

Suddenly, all Muslims have become terrorists in the eyes of America. More than that... everyone who wears a turban... Muslim or Sikh... Christians in Ethiopia wear turbans for Allah's sake... all have become THE ENEMY.

The enemy? Hey: it could be like Sid Vicious in his swastika shirt... singing My Way. What could be punker in the 21^st Century than becoming a Muslim? In my April Fool's column of 2002, I explained my conversion to that religion.

This year, Vegan Reich says: 

 

Perhaps the outward form varied, due to time and place variations. But essentially, every message has been that of "Tawhid," or "divine Unity." Islam includes Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and accepts their Prophets as being Prophets of Islam. So that is why I came into the din or faith of Islam. To me it seemed to have the most inclusive attitude and complete understanding of spirituality that I had found in many years of searching. And on the outward level, I think it is one of the only traditions that really is inclusive of all racial backgrounds, and absolutely revolutionary in it's demand for social justice.

Are they serious?... or is this just an extension of the elaborate put-on that included me being force-fed tofu in Canada? I don't know. Good satire/parody should skirt the border of reality... touching the possible and the funny at the same time.... like THE ONION. If it's a satire, it's a great one. If it's sincere... it's still funny as hell.

 

Flash ahead to 2011: The Saudi Arabian punk band Sound of Ruby covers GG Allin's Bite It You Scum. You can see it on YouTube live in a Bahraini disco, complete with the mirror ball and Saudi punks in white robes. Real Muslims assuredly pissing off their world. I love it.

Meanwhile, in England, there's THE SLIMELLIGHT, a venue for Industrial and Goth bands... maybe neo-folk, I haven't been able to figure it out yet. Actually, I don't even know what neo-folk is. Billy Bragg? Not so neo, I'd say.

The Slimelight has been the subject of much protest, including boycott calls... and calls to shut them down. 

Of course, music clubs throughout history-- from Negro Jazz through Rock'n'Roll through Punkrock to Hip Hop-- have ALWAYS been the subject of shutdown attempts. Good music is threatening. Those who feel threatened want to shut it down. 

But this shutdown call is new. It's organized by Islington Alarm a buncha lefty Brits who don't like the “fascist” aspects of this music. Some Celtic Crosses, and band members in right-wing organizations... or having friends with memberships in right-wing organizations... or being EX-members of right-wing organizations. Without really defining fascism, they brand bands or members as fascist and try to ban them from playing.  

In a related blog, Vegan Reich are called fascist because “they're Muslim.” WHAT???

I'll explain. In England, fascist is a common left-wing bully word, similar to the American hate-group. (The U.S. Southern Poverty Law Center brands more than 1000 American organizations as Hate Groups. This includes a number of bands like Tightrope, Fetch the Rope, and Poker Face.)

What is a fascist? For the average British crusty anarchist, it's anyone with a totalitarian attitude. Anyone who thinks “My way is the only way.” Of course, a certain fashion sense, as well as a certain degree of cleanliness, helps.

But what does  fascist REALLY mean? Why not ask a fascist? This is the internet age. You can do anything.

So I go to  americanfascistmovement.com to see what they say. I don't have space for the whole list, but here are some key points:

*****

Fascism is NOT Racism or Nazism. Races, though unique, are equal. Individuals, however, are not.

Fascism is NOT Materialism: Fascism does not see history as class struggle, and denies that there is nothing to life, and power politics, except what one can put in one's mouth or pocket.

Fascism is NOT Globalism: The integrity of all cultures must be preserved. 

Fascism is NOT Capitalism or Communism: Those are materialist systems that promote degeneracy and crush the human spirit.... Man cannot live on peace, land and bread alone

Fascism IS Meritocracy: The degree of which men and women manifest honor and merit in the service of their country is determinant of their place in civil society. 

Fascism IS Nationalism: Everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

Fascism IS Virtue: Above all: a Fascist believes in virtue and will thus tell you the truth and not just what you want to hear. Truth, courage, integrity!

*******

Hmmm, I like that NOT Racism or Nazism. I like that NOT Materialism or Globalism and NOT Capitalism or Communism. I could do without the Nationalism and Meritocracy, but I like the truth-telling part, at least when it comes to things political.

 

I score 5 out of 7 on the fascisto-meter. Does that make me a fascist? A 5/7 fascist? Does it matter?

No it does not. We can sit and debate the fascist or not of any person or band from here to Laibach. It's likely, just as some great literature has been written by real fascists (Ezra Pound, Celine), great music has been and is probably being made by other real fascists... whatever that means. 

If you don't like the politics, protest the politics. Present alternatives. Counter-demonstrate. If you don't like the music, don't listen to it.  

But trying to shut down what you don't like... especially if you shut down music because you don't like the politics. Why that's... that's fascist! Just ask any British crusty street punk.

ENDNOTES: [email subscribers (god@mykelboard.com) or website viewers (www.mykelboard.com) will get live links and a chance to post comments on the column]

-->Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Ass dept: US Congressional representatives Robert Aderhold and Nick Rahall co-sponsored a resolution which proclaims the "influence the King James Version of the bible has had on countless families, individuals and institutions." The resolution also "expresses gratitude for the influence The Bible has bestown (sic) upon the United States."

      A Michigan-based group called "the Bible Nation Society" lobbied for the bill during the giant budget debate. That society was founded by Pastor Douglas Levesque. In 2010, at a society conference, Levesque asserted that President Obama "might be the antichrist."

      It's good to know who's making the laws in THIS country!

-->Right in there, not even an amendment dept: Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says "No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification of any office or public trust under the United States." Clearly, that's why we've had so many atheists and Muslims in public office. Right?

-->Get that handbill design... free dept: I got a jail letter from Ryan Homsley aka Waldo. He's in the clink for bank robbery and he's an artist. (Pretty damn good too... I use his portrait of me for my Facebook pic.) He said he'd be happy to exchange handbill or poster designs for a letter. It gets lonely in jail.

So write to him: Ryan Hombsley,. #74767, MCDC, 1120 SW 3rd Ave., Portland OR 97204 Tell him what you want for a record sleeve, poster, or handbill... tell him about your life... tell him I sent ya!

-->Cursing the dark dept: California became the first state to outlaw the incandescent lightbulb. Typical of the mommyism of that state (they've also outlawed the sale of violent video games to youngsters), they've decided that despite the extra cost-- and extra mercury-- of fluorescent bulbs, they're better than the old hot-wire ones. Like the Brits they say, “If you don't like it... ban it.

    You used to have a choice: 25¢ for a bulb or $10 for one. Guess what happened to that choice.

-->Talk about Mommyism dept: A new Tennessee law makes it a crime to "transmit or display an image" online that is likely to "frighten, intimidate or cause emotional distress" to someone who sees it. Violations can get you almost a year in jail time or up to $2500 in fines.

     The ban on “distressing images” is an update to existing laws which already make it a crime to make phone calls, send emails, or otherwise communicate directly with someone in a manner the sender "reasonably should know" would "cause emotional distress" to the recipient. 

     For image postings, the "emotionally distressed" individual need not be the intended recipient. Anyone who sees the image is a potential victim. If a court decides you "should have known" that an image you posted would be upsetting to someone who sees it, you could face months in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

    Now, if I lived in Tennessee, I'd protest my discomfort and “emotional distress” at every picture of Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich. 

     Details at:  http://tinyurl.com/comfortoverfreedom

-->The end of scalping dept: The San Francisco 49ers football team joined with Ticketmaster to adopt paperless-only tickets. They became the first NFL team to officially restrict the rights of their fans.

    Now, fans have no control over what they can do with their own tickets. Instead, Ticketmaster dictates who they can give their tickets to, and how much that transfer will cost. Details at: http://tinyurl.com/endoftix

-->The beginning of the end dept: Remember how we railed against Google for caving into Chinese calls for them to censor their search engine in China? We've got a bigger problem now.

The "Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act" (COICA) is an Internet censorship bill which is rapidly progressing through the Senate. Although it's supposed to focus on copyright infringement, a huge amount of other stuff, including political and other speech, could disappear off the Web if it passes.

     The main mechanism of the bill is to interfere with the Internet's Domain Name System, which translates names like "www.eff.org" or "www.nytimes.com" into the numerical IP addresses that computers use to communicate with each other. The bill creates a blacklist of censored domains. The Attorney General can ask a court to place any website on the blacklist if infringement is "central" to the purpose of the site.

There are already laws in place for taking down sites that violate the law. This act would allow the Attorney General to censor sites even when no court has found they have infringed copyright or any other law.

    Strange how that  Wikileaks site just happens to infringe on something, isn't it? You doubt it? Why just ask the Attorney General. He'll tell ya.

   Details at:  http://www.eff.org/coica

-->Whoa yeah! dept: From a so-to-be interfered with website: “Jesus Diaz—Lulzsec and Anonymous declare war on all governments, banks and big corporations in the world.”

And it just gets better from there. A network of information stealers... not for money, but for MORAL GOOD. Are they fascist? I don't care. I love 'em!

http://tinyurl.com/antisec for details.

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