Tea Party Punks vs Stodgy Progressive Establishment

Tea party conservatives are now the anti-establishment radicals

We've got the dogmatic progressive prigs backed into a corner, screaming that we're terrorists and kidnappers, or bloodthirsty carjackers stabbing babies in their car seats, or whatever the fevered ranters are telling the Obama-bots to repeat this week. 

I guess the imagery of the tea partiers being bad drivers and running Uncle Sam's car in the ditch wasn't morbid enough.

The 1900's: A Progressive Century

The 20th century saw the founders' constitutional republic grow into a monster, gobbling ever more money and personal freedoms. Sure, some good things happened: Womens suffrage, civil rights. But we also got a pay-for-play government of czarist fiat and special exemptions. America's ruling oligarchy makes money crafting dense bureaucratic sludge and then selling indulgences to the moneyed class who don't want to eat it. And the progressives continue to defend this stinking status quo that now has us teetering on the Eve of Destruction.

Greg Gutfeld over at Breitbart's Big Hollywood writes...

To me, the Tea Party really is the punk rock moment of politics – harkening back to simple math – rescuing us from 20 minute organ noodling found on Emerson Lake and Palmer records.

Yep, in a bloated world typified by Yes’s Roundabout on F-M circa 1977, the Tea Party offered “Beat on the Brat,” a jolt of Ramones wisdom that reminded us of what worked before.

It also exposed a key problem with “hope and change” of 2008. When an organic American movement rose up to question the direction of the Administration, those ephemeral “good feelings” of 2008 withered against simple principle.

George Will piles on...

"Think of any customer experience that has made you wince or kick the cat. What jumps to mind?

Waiting in multiple lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Observing the bureaucratic sloth and lowest-common-denominator performance of public schools, especially in big cities. Getting ritually humiliated going through airport security.

Trying desperately to understand your doctor bills. Navigating the permitting process at your local city hall. Wasting a day at home while the gas man fails to show up.

Whatever you come up with, chances are good that the culprit is either a direct government monopoly (as in the providers of K-12 education) or a heavily regulated industry or utility where the government is the largest player (as in health care)."

Since 1970, per-pupil real, inflation-adjusted spending has doubled and the teacher-pupil ratio has declined substantially. But math and reading scores are essentially unchanged, so we are spending much more to achieve the same results.

That is what we are rebelling against. Will reviews Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch's new book on libertarianism in America, and he brings us good news. We are raising a generation of libertarians:

A generation that has grown up with the Internet "has essentially been raised libertarian," swimming in markets, which are choices among competing alternatives.

And the left weeps. Preaching what has been called nostalgianomics, liberals mourn the passing of the days when there was one phone company, three car companies, three television networks, an airline cartel, and big labor and big business were cozy with big government.

The America of one universally known list of Top 40 records is as gone as records. (George Will – Minds Opening to Libertarian Ideas)

And we punks aim to toss big government statism on the same junk heap...

Hard Luck Woman

Despite being a bluegrass picker, I was a Kiss fan as a kid, probably because it really upset my parents...

Fast forward 10 years or so to dusty southern New Mexico, where I was invited to join a country-rock band because the lead singer/rhythm guitar player was on the run from the law and they needed someone to fill in...

The Kiss tribute CD  Kiss My Ass:  Classic Kiss Regrooved  was released with a mystery singer doing a freakin' awesome version of Hard Luck Woman.  I recognized that it was Garth Brooks immediately and almost went crazy.  My band mates would not let me do it on stage; our crowds were too traditional.  My Bob Seger renditions were about as edgy as we got.

Anyway, here it is, a classic rock ballad redone:  Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley*, Gene Simmons, and Peter Criss* on drums, with ...  Garth Brooks on vocals.  It's a great example of how genre really doesn't matter.  Good music is good music.  I love the acoustic guitar riffs...



Endnote:  Wikipedia reports that Giuliano Palma & The Bluebeaters did a cover version on their 2005 album "Long Playing".  Ain't the innerwebz just full of useful tidbits?

* Update from Bastiatarian:   Ace Frehley and Peter Criss aren't in this one.  "I think that's Eric Singer on drums and Bruce Kulick on guitar. (They were in the band in 1994.)"

Have a great weekend!

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

I found an old friend by doing an internet search, so the innerwebz really is good for something.  You know you're a true musician when you look up fiddle players you've known and not old girlfriends.  It was with excitement tinged by trepidation that I went to see him.  He's almost 80 years old now, and it's true, you can never go home again.  Time marches on and things are not as you remember them.

We played together in a band back when I was single, but I got the most enjoyment from simply sitting down at his house or wherever and just the two of us playing.  We'd go into these dark dusty taverns in Southern New Mexico and unplug the jukebox and play.  Bob Seger, Bob Wills, Fiddle Tunes, Motley Crue, whatever.  Bikers, cowboys, Indians and Mexicans would eat it up, throw money in the hat and buy us drinks.

I took the family down to meet him, and we played all afternoon just like the good old days.  Words cannot express how happy I was to be playing with Valentino again, if only for a few hours.  I was out of practice, country music was never my forte, but it was awesome.

Valentino is a Pueblo Indian, born in Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.  Blind from birth, his family sent him to the Blind School in Alamogordo where he learned to play the violin.  He is the best damned fiddle player I've ever had the pleasure of knowing.
 
Here's a little montage...