Raw Talk Revival- The Listening Post at Camp Casey Two

[beetbox]

Raw Talk Revival

The Listening Post at Camp Casey Two

By GREG MOSES

If by socialism you mean the kind of world that officer's kids enjoy, then I'm pretty much for it. It's the kind of world I grew up in. Free health care, pretty good job security, cheap movies (that I could afford to attend every night in a row), swimming pools, bowling alleys, shooting ranges, craft shops, safe streets, and no private property to speak of. The toughest day on base was the day you "cleared quarters", when a soldier with clipboard would come to your house and tell you whether you had to spend another day scrubbing the most out-of-way corners of your home so that it could be turned over to the next family. Of course, if you passed that dreaded inspection, you were off to see the world, living somewhere far away in quarters recently cleared.

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Meanwhile, when Cindy Sheehan attempted to re-center herself at ground zero of a peace tornado that blew up overnight over the Texas prairie, she pointed our browsers to lewrockwell.com, which is not socialist but libertarian. In Texas, if a libertarian stands a far better chance than does a socialist of coming out and not getting beat up, it has nothing to do with anyone's considered opinion of the issues. It's just the way our contradictions work down here. But libertarians also have been pretty reliable opponents of the so-called war on terror and right up until Saturday, even in Texas, the libertarians and socialists have stood in solidarity against the extremist initiatives of the Bush administration. Now is not the time for either side to provoke a sectarian sideshow.

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And I think this need for raw honesty was the artistic motivation for why James McMurtry played his Oklahoma tom-tom song (the same one covered so well, so well on Ray Wylie Hubbard's new CD). This just ain't the time to sing like we're living in Disneyland. Just as slick talk and censorship got us into this godawful butchery, raw talk is going to cut the path that gets us out. Under the listening tent, we have to put it just the way we feel.

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"Right over there," says Eddie pointing next door. "Is a president on Va-Ca-Tion! We've got wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the Philippines and other places. And this man," says Eddie pointing, "decides to go on vacation! Today the line must be drawn."

http://www.counterpunch.org/moses08222005.html

[blue sky at night]

1. Yo........beetbox!! Welcome to DU!!

Marvelous Post, thank you so much. I have heard of Greg Moses on Mike Malloy, but have never read him. He rocks. So does your link. Where the heck have you been??, we have been waiting.........

[FtWayneBlue]

2. I went and read the whole thing. It is

well written and thought-provoking, and I agree with (most of) the writer's sentiments. I haven't read Marx yet, but what I have heard of him, he prophesied that someday the workingman would rise up and throw off the yoke of the elite. Are we reaching that time?