Klamath Democracy Laboratory

new blog

2011-03-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

HERE

People doing things

2010-11-22T18:24:00.000-08:00

an audio slide show about people in Oaxaca managing the forest where they live (from the NYT 11/22/2010)

Wow! -- Chris Hedges on America 2010

2010-11-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

depressing but crucial viewpoint for understanding the current state of our society...

Framework for a true democracy revolution

2010-11-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Buried beneath the company town indentured servitude of modern capitalist life is the fundamental, tripartite freedom-power-capacity that defines being human:

.....you can think,

.....you can use language to communicate,

.....and you can work with others, from one other to multitudes, to get things done, make things happen, and create things.

You can think, you can talk, you can work with others. Together these three abilities constitute the fundamental human freedom and power to CREATE REALITY through shared language and values

– and that freedom is always there

– it doesn't go away

– and it's radical, "to the roots"

and these three freedoms/powers constitute the always-there potential for a starting-at-the-roots sociocultural revolution that, over time and in cooperation with others, constructs new social realities in which the participants use their freedom and accept their responsibility to work together to create the best possible societies they can at any given point.

So RIGHT NOW, if we choose to, we can use our human freedom to start creating new societies and new realities. All we have to do is identify some shared values about what it means to be a good person and to have a good society, and then determine to start trying to live according to those values, including, over time, seeking out others who are on the same path and creating society with them. Revolution is really and truly that simple -- live it and it is on! -- right here in the interstices of the company town.

Drawing on the Enlightenment tradition of which we modern citizens are a part, I propose the following five, interrelated social-civic values as good ones upon which to start creating true democracy:

(a true democracy credo)

Step 1) HUMAN DECENCY At birth, every human being is equally deserving of respect and equally deserving of a society where she or he can live a good life.

Step 2) THE GOLDEN RULE / MORALITY Good citizens and decent people live by the following principle of morality and freedom: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or your children or grandchildren or mother or whoever you care most about in the world. The golden rule demonstrates that morality ("the way a person should act") is social; it's about how you treat other people and the extent to which you consider how your actions will affect other people. *

Step 3) DEMOCRACY With golden rule-morality as the starting point, the ideal political form is what can be called "true democracy," which is to say that people govern themselves – any governing is by and for the people being governed in any particular situation. Wouldn't you want to participate in any decision that affects you? The golden rule demands we extend that right to all. And that is true democracy. **

Step 4) JUSTICE Within the open-honest-thoughtful discussions that make up the political process of true democracy, good citizens and decent people will consider the good of everyone affected by the decision to be made, as called for by the golden rule. If people try to argue for a course of action based on selfish self-interest, good citizens and decent people will recognize and critique such positions as anti-democratic.

Step 5) FREEDOM Live and let live; look kindly on people, both generally and specifically; feel free to find and create ways to be happy and enjoy life any way you can without hurting or infringing on others.

We have the freedom and the power to create true democracy. 'All' we have to do is believe in it (concur with the credo) and then start finding ways to enact it, especially in cooperation with others who are on the same path. It won't always be easy, but it's the right thing to do.

* Important aside (1): In other words, morality is not a code laying down specific "don't dos" and "do dos" in order to be a good person. If you personally want to ALSO live by some code of ethics with strict rules of what you can and cannot do, that's your business, you are free to do so as long as it does not interfere with anyone else. We have the right to expect people to act morally, but good citizens and decent people do not try to impose their particular ethical code on anybody else who does not choose to live that way.

** Important aside (2): Fundamental respect for our fellow humans, and the consequent application of the golden rule, means that decisions in true democracy are not determined by 51-to-49 votes; they are decided through open, honest, thoughtful discussions aimed at consensus, and if no consensus can be reached, when about 2/3 of the people agree on a course of action, the other third should accept the democratic decision and go along, or else break away.

Letters to Klamath Conservatives

2010-10-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

comments on the Herald and News website, September-October 2010 [complete] (The Herald and News is the daily (almost) newspaper in Klamath Falls, Oregon.)

[comments at heraldandnews.com require approval before they are posted; the second to last comment was posted for a few days then removed by the paper; the last comment was never posted.]

******

Is Dennis Linthicum ignorant, or is he the typical (wannabe) politician who is willing to distort reality to fit his ideological preconceptions?

He writes that advances in Klamath County "do not stem from any government program, strategic plan, or collaborative policy effort." Has he not heard of the Bureau of Reclamation, a government agency responsible for the possibility of about 95% of the agriculture in this county? Does he think the highways and roads that connect our communities to each other and the outside world are unrelated to our development? And then there's the sheriff and police and fire departments, the schools, the community college, OIT. If Linthicum really wants to be a leader, rather than another ridiculous conservative spewer of ideology, he needs to step back and think about what he says before going public with it. This editorial is a serious strike against Linthicum being a serious leader for our community in these troubled times.

******

Right, so elect Republicans and enjoy the "freedom" to be a serf in the service of the corporate plutocrats. The Democrats are lame; the Republicans are evil. The only REAL agenda of the national Republican Party, as opposed to bogus distractions like imposing religion on others (e.g., outlawing abortion), which they never do even when they have power (see 2002-2006), is to advance the wealth and power of the wealthy and powerful. What is good for the wealthy corporate ruling class (such as "free trade" and "outsourcing") is NOT good for the vast majority of Americans. If you're not wealthy (i.e., worth more than a million dollars) and vote for Republicans in national elections, you are a dupe. Unions built up and protected the working middle class; Republicans and plutocrats destroyed the unions and now the rich get richer and everyone else sinks. People need to wake up before the plutocrats and their Republican toadies utterly destroy our nation. (For a little preview, see financial collapse under Bush, 2008.)

******

And yet the statistics show that crime has gone down in Arizona in recent years. Maybe the problem is one of people believing things that sound like what they want to believe rather than find actual facts and basing one's analyses on those. Some actual facts about Arizona crime is available here: http://www.opportunitygreaterphoenix.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5325

******

The desire to have "the news" reflect one's ideological proclivities is a sign of intellectual and moral weakness, which has, unfortunately, reached epidemic levels in America at a time when we can least afford it.

*****

Cowboy -- those are excellent, pro-democracy sentiments that I totally agree with. The problem is that certain of "us" have almost all the wealth/power, so that a small minority (less than 5% of all households) control the politics, the economy, and the mass media public discourse. The obvious fact is that the rich run the United States, and government by and for the rich is called plutocracy. Currently, we have plutocracy, not democracy. Ultimately (as a whole), all the wealthy ruling class cares about is maintaining and extending their wealth and power. And as we have experienced over the last 30 years (under Republicans and Democrats), when government is run in the interest of the wealthy, the rest of us sink. That's how "free market capitalism" works -- wealth is steadily concentrated at the top, leaving less everywhere else. (For instance, worker productivity is up over the last 30 years, but wages are down -- where did the profits from the increased productivity go? Record-level corporate profits and luxury living among the plutocrat class.) So the point is that any accomplishments we make as a country benefitting the large majority of people will be based on taking control of our nation away from the wealthy and powerful minority who currently control it and instituting democracy (not, as the conservative scare-mongers prefer to call it, "socialism").

******

More evidence Linthicum is a lightweight who is unfit to serve in any significant political position. But since he calls himself a "conservative" and mouths the kind of dimwittery Fox News dupes are trained to appreciate, he will most likely be elected as one of our three County Commissioners, and get to work further snuffing out Klamath County's potential to overcome the current crises we face.

****

Mrs. Fairfield, I think you need to broaden your reading list. Conservative Republicans are not answer to our country's problems because they support plutocracy (rule by the wealthy), which is the biggest source of our problems. Thus, if elected, Mr. Huffman can be counted on to follow the lead of other "Conservatives" in the Senate and advance the interest of the wealthy over the great majority of Americans with votes like this: "Senate Republicans beat back an effort by Democrats Tuesday to end tax breaks for companies who send jobs offshore only to import products back into the United States." See, Republicans LIKE outsourcing of jobs because it helps the wealthy make more money. The fact that outsourcing is bad for regular working Americans doesn't matter to Republicans in Washington. If you don't have a net worth of over a million dollars and an annual salary over $250,000, and you vote for Republicans for national office, you are being taken for a ride. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU!

*****

So, the " Klamath Conservative Voters Political Action Committee" shamelessly distorts reality in order to advance its ideological interest. I guess I was wrong -- the local "conservatives" are no less intellectually and morally bankrupt than the national-level Republicans whose success depends on a population of dumbed-down Fox News viewers who believe anything that fits their disgustingly self-righteous biases.

*****

I note that this letter includes not a single actual example of how the current administration has trashed the Constitution (there actually are some examples, all of which are continuations of Bush/Cheney policies). And then to hold up Bush 43 as an example of what a good president was like? That is just delusional. Where were you when Bush was violating the Constitution with warrantless wiretapping, issuing signing statements to undermine legislative intent without the veto called for by the Constitution, precluding judicial review with bogus "state secrets" excuses, exposing CIA agents for political gain, torturing and starting a preemptive war in violation of international treaties to which the US is a signatory (see Article 6, Sec. 1, clause 2)? Those were all impeachable violations of the Constitution. Oh, but since he was a Republican, it was okay, right? You obviously don't care about the Constitution. This letter is truly a sorry commentary on the state of United States citizenship in the year 2010. With people like this in any significant percentage, America has no future.

*****

Notably, this letter does not contain a single fact (as opposed to the letter writer's opinions) to support the assertion that removing the dams would have negative consequences. In this way, the letter is an example of one of the biggest problems in American politics today -- facts no longer matter to some portion of our population, including most of the people who call themselves "conservatives." What matters to them is affirmation of their own self-righteousness. Unless this trend is corrected and people make the effort to engage with reality, instead of just believing what they want to believe, the United States is doomed.

****

Mr Jefcoat -- I get the joke. I can tell you are really a good-hearted person who is trying to parody the Alice-in-Wonderland, up-is-down Fox News Tea Party disengagement with reality. But to be honest, I think you overplayed it -- not even Klamath County conservatives are as delusional and backwards-thinking as portrayed in your letter.

******

QrtzCam -- your explanation is a much more honest representation of the typical opposition to the KBRA in Klamath -- it's all about making sure the Indians don't get anything. That's what "conservatism" is about among non-wealthy people -- finding "others" to despise and blame for our problems. That's why conservatism is in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus and is, in actual fact, anti-Christ. You can't be a Fox News Tea Party conservative and also follow the teachings of Jesus as related in the New Testament. Fox News Tea Party conservatives who purport to follow the Ten Commandments need to stop calling themselves Christian because by doing so they are taking the Lord's name in vain.

****

So "it is time" to put Republicans in every office? The party that's only real concern is advancing the interest of the wealthy minority ruling class? The party that ran the economy into the ground following that path? The part that votes against unemployment insurance and food stamps and tax cuts for 98% of the population if the plutocrat overlords don't get their own tax cuts? What would Jesus do, Ms. Kerns? I am not a member of the Democratic Party, and I vote for the person I think best regardless of party affiliation, but there can be no doubt among thinking, good-hearted people that the contemporary Republican Party and those prancing around calling themselves "conservatives" preach and practice the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. It's time to lay it on the line: conservatives and the Republican Party are anti-Christ. If these people purport to follow the Ten Commandments, they need to stop calling themselves Christian because by doing so they are taking the Lord's name in vain.

*****

It's interesting that as the election draws closer, local "conservatives" are increasingly unable to hide their true beliefs. This guy doesn't even want to be part of the United States! Very "patriotic"! And, given your concern with "sovereignty," and since I am sure you are not a hypocrite, you are not going to use any services provided by government medicare, no deposits in FDIC-insured banks, right? And you must surely oppose tax dollars going to the very bureaucratic armed forces, right? If you are really so concerned with your "sovereignty", I suggest you move out to Sycan Marsh and let the rest of us move on without your misery.

****

Why get rid of the dams on the Klamath River? Because they have messed up a crucial natural ecosystem and they don't provide that much power. (Some reasonable conservation would more than make up for the power lost by taking out the dams.)

You accidentally revealed the real issue for most of the anti-KBRA people in the Klamath Basin at the end of your letter -- it's not about green power, it's about making sure the Indians don't get anything. (That's the sorry state of morality among "conservatives" in Klamath [WWJD?].)

*****

HEiz -- it is clear you know nothing about the teachings of Jesus. Those are the red letters in the New Testament. You should really read them for some education based in reality rather than the plutocrat propaganda crafted to elicit hate-filled self-righteousness that you have obviously based your views on to this point. People who think like that are objectively against Christ -- it's right there in the red letters of your New Testament! But it's not too late, HEiz -- Jesus will forgive and welcome you with open arms!

******

Wow -- the Jesus who says words in the Bible would not recognize himself in HEiz's post. Most particularly, HEiz, you write that Jesus "simply gives us a way to separate ourselves from sin." There is nothing simple about the path Jesus lays out (check out those red letters). The kind of "easy does it," pseudo-Jesus theology you propose may be helpful to assuage the guilt and advance the interests of the ruling class (as they accelerate their self-enrichment and immiserate more and more of the global population), and therefore be profitable, but it has nothing to do with the prophet whose words are marked by red letters in the New Testament.

I have read your archive and I know you can't see this, but it is psychotic hate -- it really and truly is. Even so, I think there may still be hope we can all come together and create a good society if you would be willing to acknowledge and adopt the following principles if they pass the "What would Jesus do?" test.

[*CREDO*, edited out here, reproduced below]

Now let's work together to create a better society!

*****

Other words not in the Constitution: God, Jesus, Christian, Christianity, marriage, individual, corporation, capitalism, free market, stock market, federalism, police, agriculture, labor, ... The semi-subtle point is this: If people would only take the responsibility to think about things with a little independence and heart, rather than constantly absorbing and regurgitating the Rush Fox News Tea Party line (always specially crafted to advance the interest of the ruling bankster elite by eliciting hate-based self-righteousness from the media-ted mass), we could take a significant step toward restoring good will among ourselves as citizens, a necessary step if we want to be a democracy, which I, for one, do.

******

The idea that somehow there has been some increase in "tyranny" since Obama took over after the most authoritarian president in American history (the beloved Bush, whose authoritarian policies surpassed even those Lincoln imposed during the Civil War) is totally totally ludicrous. It is literally deranged: so disengaged from reality that I don't know whether to laugh or step up the stockpiling of shotgun shells. People who think Obama has instituted tyranny or is a Socialist or a Muslim are so WILLFULLY disengaged from reality that it is IMMORAL -- they are bad citizens and a threat to democracy based on their susceptibility to plutocratic propaganda.

Here's the key point: Obama and the Democrats WON the right to govern in democratic elections -- this means that until the next election, they get to define "the will of the people". That's how democracy works, right? When the other side wins, they get to govern, right? Or are you an authoritarian and only people who believe the same things you do get to rule? For instance, you Conservatives don't have some exclusive right to define the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution -- WE ALL GET TO! -- that's democracy -- love it or leave it -- and don't tread on me! And we anti-conservatives can read "fairness" and "privacy" into the meaning of those documents as easily as you can read God or the free market or anti-immigrant hate into them.

Now there's an election and you have the right to win back the part of the government up for vote. I can't wish you luck, but that's democracy. (And if you succeed, I have no doubt any power the conservatives have will be used to become even better tools of the ruling bankster elite.) But take a slightly longer view and the perspective changes -- the time during which "conservatives" have that much say in the federal government is running out fast. The demographics of the United States will make Whites a minority before 2050 (less than 40 years!) and half of those Whites are not "conservative" anyway. In other words, it's too late, Teabaggers! It's only a matter of time before you become a small, angry minority left behind by the tide of democracy (one person, one vote!). Better start brushing up on your Spanish!

****

What's on my mind: Apparently my most recent comment (which was, I daresay, a devastating critique of the Fox News Tea Party "conservative" world-view) has been excluded by the Herald and News. (And, presumably due to an unrelated software limitation rather than editorial intent, several of my most recent comments are not included on the "my recent comments" page.) I note that the H&N's invitation to comment says "no rants," and the definition of a rant includes "speech that incites anger." So I can only presume my comment was banned because it surely would have "incited anger" among the "conservatives" whose sub-par and anti-democratic citizenship was exposed therein. Well, it's your "community" and, since you aren't the government, you actually have the right to create your community by banishing free speech. But it must be acknowledged that by doing so you are enacting an extreme version of political correctness in a transparent effort to protect local "conservatives" from having to confront the ugly, abased position they occupy as the hate-rallied shock troops of the bankster overlords, the plutocratic/authoritarian ruling class whose core values of greed and power are the exact antithesis of those advanced by Jesus (whose own speech, by the way, "incited anger" [see, e.g., Mark 10:18, John 5:18]). Anyway, I will accept the "banishment" represented by the refusal to post my comment and take my message elsewhere. So let it be known: I tried to bring the good news to Klamath conservatives but you couldn't hear it, distracted as you were by the shrieking on Fox News and the shouting-style anger and self-righteousness it creates in your head. But, again, the voice speaking in this letter, this bit of unwelcome-here freedom-speaking, will happily move on (more and more in Spanish, by the way), with one last well-intentioned reiteration of the fact that you, Klamath "conservative," still have the chance to save yourself even though I'll be gone. Here, again, is the first and fundamental lesson of the good news: the path to being saved, the path to light after death, requires you adopt and strive to put into practice the following basic principles of morality and freedom:

Step 1) HUMAN DECENCY --- At birth, every human being is equally deserving of respect and equally deserving of a society where they can live a good life.

Step 2) THE GOLDEN RULE --- Good citizens and decent people live by the following principle of morality and freedom: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or your children or grandchildren or mother or whoever you care most about in the world. The golden rule demonstrates that morality ("the way a person should act") is social; it's about how you treat other people and the extent to which you consider how your actions will affect other people.

Step 3) DEMOCRACY --- With golden rule-morality as the starting point, the only acceptable political form is what can be called "true democracy," which is to say that people govern themselves cooperatively – government of the people by the people and for the people, whoever the people happen to be in a particular situation. Wouldn't you want to participate in any decision that affects you? The golden rule demands we extend that right to all.

Step 4) JUSTICE ---- Within the open-honest-thoughtful discussions that make up the political process of true democracy, good citizens and decent people will consider the good of everyone affected by the decision to be made, as called for by the golden rule. If people try to argue for a course of action based on selfish self-interest, good citizens and decent people will recognize and critique such positions as anti-democratic and immoral.

Step 5) FREEDOM --- Live and let live; look kindly on people, both generally and specifically; feel free to find ways to be happy and enjoy life any way you can without hurting or infringing on others.

Living by these principles is a necessary precondition to being welcomed to the light after death. Put another way, if you decline to adopt and live by these five principles, you will not be shown the way to the Kingdom of Heaven. But it is up to you.

Vivan la democracia y la luz! Adios.

-- Jefferson

____________________________________

*************************************************

WOW!

2010-10-19T22:43:00.001-07:00

It's becoming brazen.

If the Koch brothers get their way, "Prosperity" will be the code word for corporate-plutocratic authoritarianism (what Mussolini, one of its imagineers, called Fascism):

Secretive Republican Donors Are Planning Ahead

Do-It-Yourself Deprogramming for Conservatives!

2010-09-29T20:59:00.000-07:00

Conservatives! It is surprisingly easy to get rid of your soul-killing fear of and hatred for those you think are not enough like you and, at the same time, stop being a brainwashed tool of the plutocrat fat cats who rule the country with the sole aim of maintaining and increasing their own wealth and power!

Here – absolutely free of charge! – is an easy-to-follow, five-step ladder out of the Fox News Tea Party sludge pit and into the light of being a decent person and good citizen.

You can deprogram yourself very simply by understanding and accepting the following principles (every one of which, by the way, is more in accord with the teachings of Jesus than the anti-Christ gospels of greed and resentment spewed by morally-bankrupt scam-artists like Pat Robertson and Sarah Palin [for some, it might be helpful to ask "What Would Jesus Do?" when considering the steps up the ladder]):

Step 1) HUMAN DECENCY At birth, every human being is equally deserving of respect and equally deserving of a society where they can live a good life.

Step 2) THE GOLDEN RULE Good citizens and decent people live by the following principle of morality and freedom: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or your children or grandchildren or mother or whoever you care most about in the world. This golden rule necessarily makes the point that morality is social; it's about how you treat other people and the extent to which you consider how your actions will affect other people. (In other words, morality is not a code laying down dos and don'ts for how to be a good person. If you personally want to ALSO live by some code of ethics with strict rules of what you can and cannot do, that's your business, you are free to do that so long as it does not interfere with anyone else. Good citizens and decent people do not try to impose their particular ethical code on anybody else who does not choose to live that way.)

Step 3) DEMOCRACY With golden rule-morality as the starting point, the only acceptable political form is what can be called "true democracy," which is to say that people govern themselves cooperatively – government of the people by the people and for the people, whoever the people happen to be in a particular situation. (Wouldn't you want to participate in any decision that affects you? The golden rule demands we extend that right to all.) Decisions in true democracy are not determined by 51-to-49 votes; they are decided through open, honest, thoughtful discussions aimed at consensus, and if no consensus can be reached, when about 2/3 of the people agree on a course of action, the other third should accept the democratic decision and go along, or else break away.

Step 4) CITIZENSHIP Within the open-honest-thoughtful discussions that make up the political process of true democracy, good citizens and decent people will consider the good of everyone affected by the decision to be made, as called for by the golden rule. If people try to argue for a course of action based on selfish self-interest, good citizens and decent people will recognize and critique such positions as anti-democratic and immoral. (In this way, true democracy adopts the theory of justice proposed by American philosopher John Rawls who asserted that the most just decisions would be made by people who did not know how the decisions would affect them personally.)

Step 5) FREEDOM Live and let live; look kindly on people both generally and specifically; feel free to find ways to be happy and enjoy life any way you can without hurting or infringing on others.

Welcome to the light, citizen! Now let's work together to create a better world!

Hope on the horizon...

2010-06-28T13:00:00.000-07:00

from pollster type Ruy Texeira:

The growth action on the religious front is among unaffiliated or secular voters, who are the fastest-growing "religious" group in the United States. From 1944 to 2004 the percentage of adults reporting no religious affiliation almost tripled, rising from 5 percent to 14 percent. Projections indicate that by 2024 somewhere between 20-25 percent of adults will be unaffiliated.

This trend, combined with growth among non-Christian faiths and race-ethnic trends, will ensure that in very short order we will no longer be a white Christian nation. Even today, only about 55 percent of adults are white Christians. By 2024 that figure will be down to 45 percent. That means that by the 2016 election (or 2020 at the outside) the United States will cease to be a white Christian nation. Looking even farther down the road, by 2040 white Christians will be only around 35 percent of the population and conservative white Christians (a critical part of the GOP base) only about a third of that—a minority within a minority.

_______________________

The question is can we wait that long, and how far will those who believe the USA's status as "a white Christian nation" is based on something more "essential" than demography go to arrest the process and either "take their country back" or trash it so no one else can have it...

Rugged individualist Americans

2010-06-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of ways to read THIS ("Sweet land of Conformity...", by Claude Fischer, Boston Globe, boston.com)

but on a general level, a combination of self-righteousness and dimwittedness -- the perfect attitude for the imperial homeland -- seems like the most accurate interpretation...

A Note to the Parade of Idiots Called My Country

2010-04-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

presented in the Comments section of an AP/Yahoo news story on the Senate's proposed climate bill, which would begin to limit the amount of carbon dioxide businesses can add to the atmosphere...

Americans' willful ignorance about the undeniable effects of our industrial/consumerist way of life on the environment and climate is a sure sign of the end of America's short time as the #1 nation. It's not Obama who's ruining the country (altho he's not doing much too stop it) -- it's the ignorance and selfishness and self-righteousness of the white middle class, the losers who think Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are something other than imbeciles or charlatans. The people who trust the scientists bought and paid for by the petroleum industry to tell them what to "think."

Facts:
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat below the atmosphere.
Increasing the heat under the atmosphere causes climates to change -- it won't necessarily be warmer everywhere, but climate will change, become unpredictable and chaotic.

Our way of life is causing that and our willful ignorance is making it worse.

Fellow Americans: don't fear the truth -- stop being stupid -- everything's not all about you -- be a decent person and citizen.

Tea Party Through the Looking Glass

2010-04-15T18:19:00.000-07:00

Klamath County is notoriously conservative – 70% for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and almost that much for McCain (or maybe Palin) in 2008. Like others around the country, the Klamath Tea Party people held a rally on April 15, 2010, on the little plaza in front of the County Government Center on Main Street downtown.

I didn't go out of my way to go by there; I was on my way to the library about a block away to sit at a table and get some work done. But as I was walking on the other side of the street, one hand-scrawled-on-cardboard sign grabbed my attention. It said: "No taxation without representation." That was, of course, the rallying cry of the original Boston Tea Party, which occurred before the Revolution, in other words before the United States existed and while Massachusetts was still a colony of the British Empire, under the ultimately absolute power of the King. Back then, the people in the American colonies were taxed, but they actually had no democratic representation – they did not get to vote for Parliament, the body that made many of the laws with which they had to comply, including the Stamp Act, a tax on tea. In other words, the people at the Boston tea Party had a point – they paid taxes to a government that did not allow them any democratic representation. Maybe you can see where this is headed. . . . In 2010 in the United States of America, we have, it is true, taxation; but we also have representation – specifically the Congress people and Senators and President elected in regularly-held, more or less democratic elections. Of course it is also true that many people live in States or Congressional districts where they did not vote for the people who are the representatives in Washington at any given moment. I, for instance, did not vote for the currently-serving congressman representing Oregon's 2nd District, which includes Klamath Falls. Of course that does not mean we are not "represented." Even though I did not vote for Greg Walden, he is my representative in Congress; that's how American democracy works. This system does mean that our representatives might not vote on issues the way we want them to (mine doesn't). But that cannot mean we are not "represented" or the idea of American democracy, as constituted through the Constitution, would collapse. In American democracy, we have the individual right to vote for representatives in democratic elections, but we do not have the individual right to pick our representatives; that right belongs to the democratic majority in any particular election. What thinking person could disagree with this? I went over to the guy with the sign, pointed at it and asked, "What does that mean?" He looked at the sign, then back at me, and said, "No taxation without representation." "Well you are represented; you have a congressman, right?" "Not my representation; they're not doing what I want." "You don't support Greg Walden, he's your congressman, he's a republican." "I voted for Greg Walden." "Well then you have representation, right?" "Well, not in the Supreme Court [?], not in the White House." "Well that's how democracy in American works, right? You get to vote for representatives-" His scraggly wife interrupted: "Well none of the Senators [both in Oregon are Democrats], not the President." "Well that's how democracy works right? You have elections and whoever wins is your representative, and they probably vote along the lines of the people who voted for them, right?" The wife then suggested I go read another sign. As I was walking away I looked at the husband and suggested he try using his brain.

At least 90% of the crowd was over 40 years old, at least 75% was over 50, and at least half seemed clearly to be of retirement age. At least 95% of the crowd was white, with a few people who looked possibly Hispanic or Native American. The crowd was, not surprisingly, mostly composed of the kind of folks we call "Klamath people" (and whom I call "Crew Cabs"): flannel shirts, jeans, sun-faded baseball caps with agricultural company logos printed on the front. These are the stereotypical "ranch culture" people who have long held the cultural center of gravity in the Klamath Basin (but whose grasp is slipping as more and more "Subarus" arrive, depressing the percentage of "Crew Cabs"). About half the signs people held were hand-made and half were apparently paid for and handed out by some person or group. Almost all expressed resentment over taxes.

Shortly after I walked away from brain-dead husband and wife, a white man about 60 years old, wearing a flannel shirt, and apparently one of the organizers of the rally, got up to the microphone on the steps above the plaza and started talking. He reassured the crowd that they were good people, good Americans, and that if there were people there who opposed the tea Party movement (I didn't see any that were obvious), well, that just proved they were having an effect on American politics. He then reminded the crowd how good they were, told them that the United States was founded "based on the Bible, and then launched into a not-short prayer requesting that God intervene in upcoming elections, so as to assure their "freedom." At that point, I am reminded of my one-time realization that I am not ultimately the journalist type. I have a very hard time sitting quietly and documenting what people say when what they say is based on ignorance or lies. It's why I gave up listening to Rush Limbaugh years ago. I am interested in what is being said, in what is going on in America, but not to the point I can sit there and take it without talking back, and since there is no talking back to the radio, I just can't take it. So I left the rally and went to the library where rather than work on what I should have been doing, I typed this up instead. By the time I decided I should go back, about an hour later, people carrying little American flags were streaming away from the Government Center. The rally was over and the people were off to wait for their tax refund checks...

Some core features of the 2010 Tea Party:

1) Ignorance of the contents and history of the Constitution.

2) A political philosophy holding that if the government institutes policies they disagree with, the government is thereby illegitimate – a philosophy that is flagrantly anti-democratic and subtly authoritarian (i.e., the people they deem "real Americans" get to decide government policy, as opposed to a government elected by a democratic majority)

3) A selfishness and unjustifiable self-righteousness that is the opposite of morality and could not be more anti-Christian.

RADIO SILENCE

2010-04-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

I-5 at Lost Hills, California

Due to the cumulative effect of related and unrelated crises, Radio Free Klamath is compelled to vacate its KTEC time slot.

For yr avant sound needs, try these continuous streams available thru WFMU and playable thru itunes...

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Also, subscribe to the Some Assembly Required weekly podcast!

And check back here once in a while for updates on the pursuit of true democracy ...

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 207

2010-03-31T22:10:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 207

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atmospheric transmission 3.31.10
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RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 206

2010-03-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 206

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radiowaved 3.17.10
on KTEC * 89.5 FM
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"American Conservatism"

2010-03-12T20:26:00.000-08:00

Two smart conservatives on what conservatism is about:

"What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth. These qualities are the bequest of our Founding and of our cultural heritage. They have always marked America as special, with a unique role and mission in the world: as a model of ordered liberty and self-government and as an exemplar of freedom and a vindicator of it, through persuasion when possible and force of arms when absolutely necessary. " [from RICHARD LOWRY & RAMESH PONNURU, "An Exceptional Debate: The Obama administration’s assault on American identity", National Review]

I appreciate this statement's clarity in revealing a fundamental flaw with contemporary "American Conservatism." The core at the center of conservatism, according to Mrs. Lowry and Ponnuru, is the assertion that the United States is "freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth." The problem is that Lowry and Ponnuru have no real factual basis for the comparative nature of this assertion (and in fact, in an online response to their critics, they admit it is hyperbole.) Instead of facts and accurate history, what they have is faith that their assertion is true, a desire to believe it is so. And that faith, that willingness to believe something just because it is desirable, that core of conservatism, is pretty much the worse thing about "America" as a nation. "American exceptionalism" is the smiley face sticker covering the black heart of the soul of a nation that has always been about self-righteously enacting the principle that might is right, that those with the most power have the right to take what they want from those with less. It is a faith or belief that some Americans of every generation have had to believe in order to live with the ugly facts of American expansion. Thus, it is acceptable, even providential, to slaughter and/or exile the people who were here when we arrived because "God" gave this land to the white English speakers. Getting rid of the native Americans and taking over their land was not ethnic cleansing, but the "progress" of "Civilization" over "Nature"! And if you build an economy on the backs of forced slave labor, the most evil kind of social exploitation, and oppressed immigrant workers, that's just the natural order of things, justified by either the Bible or "evolution," depending on the audience. And when you provoke a fight with a weaker neighbor and then take almost half their land at the point of a gun, it is an example of "Manifest Destiny," merely the acceptance of what was granted by our benevolent God. The examples that undermine the Conservative's narcissistic delusion of America could pile up of course: the suppression of democracy and the democratic will, the hidden concentration of power behind the corporate form, the harsh centralization effected by the totalization of a money economy, the soft centralization of the consumer culture mass media. But the point is this: Conservatism is based on "American exceptionalism," which is necessarily based on blind faith or willful ignorance, one or the other of which is required for the kind of self-righteousness that enables people to justify immoral, might-makes-right actions. Thus, Lowry and Ponnuru have added to the mountain of evidence that "American Conservatism" is a morally bankrupt cover for the interests of America's ruthless plutocratic ruling class.

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 205

2010-03-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 205

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RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 204

2010-02-25T00:31:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH # 204

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atmospheric transmission 2/24/10
on KTEC * 89.5 FM
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HOW CONSERVATIVES ARE UNWITTINGLY OPENING THE DOOR TO A RADICAL DEMOCRATIZATION OF AMERICA

2010-02-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

Conservatives today purport to base their political principles on the Constitution, which they say supports their demand for "limited government" and "freedom." Of course, as the George Bush years of unconstitutional rule showed, conservatives' fealty to the Constitution wanes when they actually have power to do what ever they want. But we will put that aside and take their assertions at face value. Doing so not only shows the lack of thought and morality at the core of the asserted beliefs of contemporary conservatives, it may also be the opening to the radical rethinking of our government that people who believe in true democracy have been hoping for.

Conservatives like to attack "big government." But no one who thinks about it is likely to defend "big government" as some abstract principle of political science. In fact, "big government" was developed by establishment elites like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson as a solution to the overweening power of big business, specifically the increasingly-powerful, industrialization-based robber barons and the corporations and banks that masked and extended their interests. (These are the direct cultural ancestors of our contemporary plutocratic ruling class.) Notably, the role of bigger government was never intended to dismantle the power the capitalists wielded, but was actually implemented to preserve the power of big business by mediating and facilitating its integration with society as a whole. In this way, big government saved American-style big business capitalism – that is why "big government" came into existence.

A lot of Americans would probably agree that ideally we would get rid of both big government and big business, agreeing, at least after thinking about it a bit, that a society without significant concentrations of power will generally be better for the supermajority of people, and will produce a government more accurately reflecting "the consent of the governed." But, notably, the elimination of both forms of concentrated power – big government and big business – is NOT what the Republican and Tea Party conservatives want, at least the ones we hear from and about. No, they want to get rid of big government, but leave big business in place. In other words, they want to return America to where it was in the 1890s, which in economic terms was one of the worst times to be an average American.

According to these conservative "Constitutionalists", the United States Constitution allows big business to concentrate power without limit (that's "freedom"), but does not allow a democratic majority to use its democratic power of government to control the concentrated power of big business. In other words, according to the conservatives, we are at the mercy of concentrated capitalist power and there is nothing we can do about it – they say that is written into the Constitution. Of course, there are not actual words in the Constitution that say that, but that is their interpretation and they insist their interpretation (and derivatively their interpretation of what the writers of the Constitution 'meant' and the fact that we are somehow stuck with whatever the writers 'meant') is the proper interpretation that the rest of us must bow down to. It would be easy to engage the argument in a liberal/conservative way and defend 'our' interpretation of the Constitution. But better yet, why not take the radical approach and say, if the Constitution says and requires what the Conservatives say it says and requires, then it is not serving the interests of the democratic majority (and indeed CANNOT serve the interest of the democratic majority unless the majority decides that its interest is to be at the mercy of concentrated capitalist power), and therefore, under the more fundamental authority of the Declaration of Independence, We the People can choose to reassert that "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 203

2010-02-18T13:43:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 203
__________________________________
radiowaved Wednesday February 17, 2010
on KTEC - 89.5 FM
OIT's freeform statio for the klamath basin
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you can stream or download an mp3 of the show.
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CLICK HERE for more info on the
corporate consumer doltification drug called
high fructose corn syrup.

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RADIO FREE KLAMATH #201

2010-02-05T13:31:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

returns to the southern oregon airwaves,
charting sonic territory
off the maps of consensus perception,
with show #201
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radiowaved wednesday, february 3 2010
on KTEC 89.5 fm
OIT's freeform station for the klamath basin

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America 2010

2010-01-25T21:01:00.001-08:00

Pandora.com and the psychosocial implosion of capitalist modernity

2010-01-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

If you are one of the 17 million people with an account at Pandora.com, you know it is a website and internet service that turns your favorite songs into personalized "radio stations" specially tuned to your particular tastes. And you know Pandora is a great way to hear music you like and learn about new musicians and bands you will probably like. And you might be aware that Pandora is at the cutting edge of data-based, web-mediated, hyper-personalized entertainment. And you might even have a feeling, as I do, bubbling up into consciousness, that Pandora is a harbinger of the impending end, the crack-up, the psychological collapse of capitalist modernity as a society and way of life.

Pandora is able to turn your musical preferences into personalized streaming radio stations through use of the Music Genome Project. The Music Genome Project (MGP) started in 2000 when, according to the Pandora website, "a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever." The MGP involves analyzing songs by breaking them down into component characteristics descriptive of some feature of the music. In this way, the MGP purports "to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level," and claims to have done so for the music of tens of thousands of artists.

Pandora was developed by people involved with the Music Genome Project. After you sign up and type in a favorite song, Pandora accesses the MGP database to determine what characteristics that song has. Pandora then searches the database for other songs with similar clusters of characteristics, and streams those similar songs to you through your internet browser or smart phone, on a special for-you-only "station."

I just called up Pandora on my laptop. One of six "stations" I have created automatically started up, playing a song I have never heard by a band I like – The Residents. According to the "Song" tab, this song's music genome "characteristics" are: electronics influences, a subtle use of paired vocal harmony, repetitive melodic phrasing, groove based composition, minor key tonality. Three "similar songs" by other bands (two of which I have never heard of) are listed on the side. Notably, you can't tell Pandora what to play – there is no provision for specific requests. You can listen to a sample of any song Pandora has in the database, and there are indeed an astounding amount of them, and start a station based on any of them. (Although searches for a couple of my favorite cutting edge music creators – People Like Us and Ergo Phizmiz – shows they remain below the Pandora radar for now.)

Pandora generates revenue with ads on their web pages, apparently somewhat targeted based on your identified tastes, an occasional audio ad between songs, selling music downloads, and selling premium access. (Premium access includes no ads, higher quality streams, and access to a Pandora-specific, special-features web application to listen to your stations).

It's hard not to be impressed by Pandora. You'll most likely hear some music you haven't heard before and you'll probably like quite a bit of it, because it is after all based on your "preferences," defined as the characteristics and clusters of characteristics associated with music you tell Pandora you like. Notably, you might not even recognize the identified "preferences" as things you particularly prefer since most of us have not thought to analyze the music we like into the highly-specific characteristics identified and categorized by the MGP.

This is where Pandora starts to become disconcerting: in a certain way, application of its analytic tool allows Pandora to know you in a slightly more profound way than you understand yourself, and then feed that preference-based image of you back to you. And at that point Pandora is not only constructing your listening experience, in some sense it is constructing YOU.

Pandora represents a truly advanced form of capitalist consumer culture. Starting with an analytical breakdown of the particular consumer's particular "preferences," Pandora crafts a super-targeted product – your "stations" or "streams" – that is both based on and aimed at YOU, the only one receiving the experience defined by your particular streams. When you listen to the actual radio, broadcast on electromagnetic waves or through the network of cables and wireless transmissions making up the internet, there is an implied community of people who are hearing the same thing you're hearing at the same time you're hearing it – the "broadcast audience." In this way, radio is a public, social experience, a connection to a temporary community. Even if it is usually fleeting and anonymous, based only on hearing this broadcast at this moment, radio is in fact a social event. Pandora is different. Pandora doesn't broadcast; it provides the narrowest of narrowcasts. The audience is just YOU, which can be further divided into modes of you, with different stations set up for different moods. The Pandora experience is beyond anonymous; it's autonomous. You're the center of attention, but you and Pandora are the only ones there to pay attention. You're off on your own little planet, in your own little bubble of specially-constructed sonic experience, created just for, and presented only to, YOU, based on Pandora's binary analysis and categorization of your "preferences."

And not only that – it's an autonomous little sphere of YOU that is created and 'brought to you' by the global techno-capital infrastructure that builds and manages the universe of experiences defining our contemporary, hypermodern consumer culture society. I'm not saying Pandora is a totalitarian corporate overlord like Exxon or General Electric or NewsCorp. As far as I can tell, Pandora Media Inc. is a privately held corporation controlled by the people who developed the idea, the kind of company that should be encouraged (along with cooperatives) in a community-centric economy. What I am saying, and what is indisputable to the point of truism, is that the Pandora experience is a paradigm capitalist consumer culture experience.

Ultimately, Pandora's digital techno-construction of consumer experiences in pursuit of profit is not a corporate conspiracy, it is US, and beyond that a glimpse of what we are on the precipice of becoming.
As you listen to Pandora, you are cut off from everybody else, by yourself with your preferences, dependent on the global techno-capital structure for your very own insular, autonomous, self-centered reality. In this way, Pandora signals the psychosocial cul de sac of capitalist modernity as a way of life and form of self, the end of the road in the burned-out, graffiti-tagged, sub-prime suburb of American consumer culture.

if there were no radios, no tvs, no cd players,
no record players, no tape players, no dvd players,
no mp3 players, and no computers,

people would make their own music

THREE THINGS COMBINING TO MAKE THE FUTURE OF THE UNITED STATES PROBLEMATIC, AND ARGUING FOR PROGRESSIVES TO PRACTICE THEIR RIGHTS UNDER THE 2ND AMEND.

2009-09-14T11:48:00.000-07:00

1) PLUTOCRACY – America has long been run by the wealthy. But over the last 70 years or so that power has been counterweighted by the expansion of the "middle class" tied to the labor movement and the globalization of the economy. But over the last 25 years, post-Reagan, the wealthy have had their power expanded through the rise of the financial sectors of the economy. When capitalism works as intended, money makes money, and when the "Market" was made into a religion that politicians of both parties came to worship, that meant the people with money would make more money and centralize their power. Thus, the immoral gap between the rich and everybody else that has come to characterize American society. While the financial crisis was a bit of a setback for the plutocracy, "Wall Street is back!", meaning the wealthy have reestablished their grip on our economy and all that flows form that. And it could get much worse. Currently the Supreme Court is deciding a case, Citizens United versus the Federal Elections Commission, that conservatives are hoping will overturn all limits on election spending by corporations. Something like 80% of stock wealth (that is, corporations) are owned by less than 10% of the population. If the conservatives have their way, that 10%, through the corporations advancing their interests, will be able to dominate the public space (even more than they already do) and determine who is in and who will win elections. How much plutocracy will the majority of Americans take? With the media dominated by private wealth, will the majority of Americans be able to accurately discern what is going on? How will the media dominated by private wealth seek to divert attention and redirect discontent away from the social arrangements organized to advance the interests of private wealth?

2) SHIFTING DEMOGRAPHICS – The fact is that the white suburban type people who constitute the core of the Republican Party, and the fans of people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly are losing their electoral power at a rate that they will soon not be able to ignore. With the shifting demographics of the US, mostly the increases in people of Hispanic/Latino heritage, the white suburbans are simply losing their ability to control national elections as they have over the last 50 years. When this reality sinks in, many of these people are likely to see it not as the progress of American democracy, but as interlopers stealing "their" country.

3) THE RISE OF UNREASON AMONG WHITE SUBURBAN AMERICANS – The summer of "Tea Parties" and screeching town hall meetings promoted by Glenn Beck and Fox News opened a window onto something serious. Suddenly people who served as cheerleaders for the undermining of the Constitution by the previous president think attempts to bail out the American auto industry and make the health care system more fair are "fascism." This is truly nutty – obviously something else is going on. Obama's policies are not 'all that,' but to call them fascist and socialist and communist is just divorced from reality, just like the insistence that Obama was born in Kenya until he "proves" otherwise. What does it mean that some percentage of Americans can be so far off the mark in their assessment of reality? What does it mean that Glenn Beck, who is either mentally ill or a total charlatan, has become the leader of these people? When these people assert they will "take their country back," they apparently mean they will take it back from the large majority who elected Obama in the last election. In other words, these white suburban Americans believe they have the right to choose who leads America, apparently even when they cannot get a majority of people to agree with them. This belief and the larger inability to engage rationally with reality is a dangerous combination.

The politics of no meaning among the Beckshirts

2009-08-31T18:32:00.000-07:00

After an argument at the Farmer's Market with a guy who loudly proclaimed Obama is a fascist and a communist, I am not naive enough to believe reason or even the meaning of words can influence the emerging right-wing idiocracy. But to help future digital archaeologists clarify the chronology of the Age of Stupid I feel compelled to point out that under any reasonable interpretation of the history and semantics of the words, a person cannot simultaneously be a communist and a fascist. Communism is a dictatorship of the proletariat. Fascism is a dictatorship of corporations. Not the same thing. And for people willing to acknowledge there is such a thing as history, communists and fascists were always mortal enemies.

Storm on the horizon

2009-08-29T16:42:00.000-07:00

The view from Alamo Square, San Francisco

So, the pro-plutocrat faction on the Roberts Supreme Court is apparently looking to use the case described here (Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission) to make the ultimate ruling: The Constitution of the United States offers no democratic protection against plutocracy. In other words, as the supporters of the plaintiffs in this case would have it, the Constitution allows wealth to govern our country without interference from the governed masses, as represented by Congress -- the law requires us to shut up and take it. If this does indeed go down the "conservative" way, resulting in a political system where corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections, democracy in America is dead. We will have reached a point where our "Form of Government becomes destructive of [the democratic] ends" for which this nation was founded, at which point "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish [that Government], and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Such a situation will obviously make for troubled times as some significant percentage of us (those who believe in the democratic values animating the creation of this nation) will refuse to live on our knees.

Healthcare reform and the ongoing doltification of America

2009-08-27T16:43:00.000-07:00

Nowhere fast -- Humboldt Bay, Eureka, California

The center-right of USAmerican politics is at it again – trying to protect the interests of the plutocratic ruling class through the doltification of the public discourse. The primary mantra against any REAL reform of America's healthcare system, which would necessarily include some kind of public plan that does not depend on the profiteering that mars our current system, is that we need "COMPETITION" and that a public plan would undermine "COMPETITION" by competing the profiteering healthcare corporations out of existence. The center-right liars and/or dimwits (there are, of course, both, and it's not necessarily easy to tell which blow-dried helmet head falls into which category) insist that it's "COMPETITION" that made our current system "the best in the world" and that any strong non-profit option that undermines the profiteers will thereby threaten our "best in the world" system. Of course, we Americans do not have the best healthcare in the world. The World Health Organization lists us at number 36. In other words, somehow the "COMPETITION" the center-right wants to protect does not actually deliver high quality health care to society at large. (It can deliver high quality healthcare to the top 10% or so of the wealth-holders, but serving well 1 out of 10 does not equal a high quality system, as the miserable WHO ranking shows.)

But the real point is that the "COMPETITION" among the profiteers the center-right wants to defend is not competition to provide better health care to more people. (That needs to be said over and over and over: it is NOT competition to provide better healthcare to more people.) The "COMPETITION" they engage in is competition to increase their profits so that their shareholders get a higher return on investment. That is the "COMPETITION" of the "FREE MARKET." And when it comes to healthcare, that means insuring as few sick people as possible, never covering "pre-existing conditions," and finding creative ways to dump insured people who actually need to use the insurance they've been paying for. In other words, the "COMPETITION" among the healthcare profiteers -- the "COMPETITION" championed by Republicans and centrist Democrats -- is competition to avoid providing the healthcare people pay for! That is why they cannot tolerate a non-profit healthcare option – because in order to "compete" the healthcare profiteers will actually have to make healthcare a priority, which will cut into profits, the generation of which is their sole reason for existing.

This is not to say that the Obama administration and the center-left Democrats have the key to a decent healthcare system. At best, that remains to be seen. But at least they are not proceeding by shrieking, misinforming scare tactics designed to protect the interests of those who already have the most power.

Experience and/of/through light

2009-08-13T21:11:00.000-07:00

Normal everyday experience is spatiotemporal

Spatiotemporal experience is possible by virtue of light

The character/quality of our experience is to some degree
the character/quality of spacetime, an experience possible by virtue of light

The nature of human experience is rooted in a relation to light

Perhaps not surprisingly, our understanding of light is poor

('Not surprisingly' because the things that are closest,
embedded in everything we do, become so 'natural' as to be invisible.)

The poor state of our understanding of light is manifest in the physicist's conception,
which requires light be both a particle and a wave,
two things that - by definition - cannot be the same thing

We need new thinking about light, a new language of light,
a language that will, ineluctably, alter our experience of spacetime

Rocky Point canoe trail, Upper Klamath Lake

Deprogramming capitalist temporality -- the 20 Hour Day

2009-08-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Temporality -- the way people exist in time -- is one of the basic frameworks of human reality. Particular temporalities are constituted by particular societies (or, more accurately, sociocultural systems). In other words, the ways a person experiences and practices time will depend on the ways their society constructs time. And just as the continuing existence of society depends on us continually doing 'society' in our everyday lives, temporality does as well – time, like society, is something we actually *do*, and therefore, if we get a good handle on it, it is something we can do differently.

Thus, the way we practice/enact time should be a prominent issue in the democratic discussion of how we should govern ourselves, how we want to organize our societies and everyday lives. For instance, I would advocate, within this politics of time, that a good society will strive to maximize the amount of FREE TIME its members have.

We here in modern Euroamerica practice time the particular way we do *because* it works effectively for capital accumulation. We have and live a hyper-rationalized time where a difference of 1 out of the 1440 minutes that occur every day can make a real difference in a person's life – no wonder we're so stressed out!
(For a bit more more on "capitalist time" and its discontents, see "Boo to Captain Clock.")

My idea is that part of a process of deprogramming ourselves from our corporate capitalist consumer culture is to begin shifting our way of being in time, finding a temporality that is more humanely paced, which is to say, tuned to the rhythm of a democratically-governed everyday life rather than the needs of plutocratic global capital accumulation.

In that spirit, I humbly propose for democratic discussion -- the 20-HOUR DAY.
I propose we endeavor to begin reorganizing our temporality in a more relaxed, enjoyable, humane way by adopting a whole new clock -- a clock that only goes to 10 twice a day (rather than 12), with fifty minutes in an hour and fifty seconds in a minute. Doing the math shows that one second in 'new time' would last for 1.728 seconds in 'old time.' Theoretically, this slower second/minute/hour would eventually structure a more relaxed everyday life. (To help us get there, I would further propose that our 10-hour clocks have no minute marks and no minute hand.) Part of the system could also be that the typical work day is 5 'new hours' (1/4 of the day, so the equivalent of 6 old hours), so that people have more free time. Over time we could try to make the work day even fewer hours so people could have more time to do whatever they enjoy doing when not pressed for time...

Social value -- democracy versus "the market"

2009-07-31T12:34:00.000-07:00

skylight

Since value – how much a thing or activity is worth – necessarily involves social relations, a democratic society has the right to determine value. A democratic society has the right to say that people doing certain kinds of work are particularly valuable or not. A democratic society has the right to say some people will not make thousands of times more money than other people, that no one can be that much more valuable than another to our society, and as a democratic society, we can insist on the right to define our values. There are limits under the Constitution, but they do not encompass anything like capitalism or corporate orchestrated consumer culture. No matter what right wing pundits try to tell you, capitalism and democracy are not the same thing. These right wing opinion leaders desire a society in which there is an elite minority defined by the capital overclass that gets to control everything. They believe that the Constitution defines a society in which there will necessarily be an elite market-based minority. They believe democracy is limited by that basic structure. But there's nothing in the Constitution to which they can point to refute our insistence on democracy, and particularly a democracy of social value. We as a democratic society insist upon the right to define social value, to have thoughtful participation in developing ideas of what is a good life and how we can organize society to best attain it. Conservatives, and capitalists in particular, have to say, at least subtly, that this is the best of all possible worlds or at least that we are on the most direct route to the best of all possible worlds through the capitalist process of commodification. This is an excellent point for debate and public discussion, because it will quickly have the conservatives and the people in power on their heels, and probably reverting to arguments that are basically threats, which would not be surprising because true democracy would undoubtedly threaten their positions of authority and their lives of luxury.

Arcata Marsh

2009-07-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Arcata, California, is an incredible little city on the Lost Coast in Humboldt County. Among their progressive practices is Arcata Marsh, a reclaimed marsh and wildlife sanctuary that also serves as the city's wastewater treatment plant.

Along the trails of the
Arcata Wastewater Treatment Plant and Wildlife Sanctuary

from "The Abolition of Work"

2009-02-02T20:41:00.000-08:00

Shane's pond, New Orleans

"The official line is that we all have rights and live in a democracy. Other unfortunates who aren't free like we are have to live in police states. These victims obey orders or else, no matter how arbitrary. The authorities keep them under regular surveillance. State bureaucrats control even the smaller details of everyday life. The officials who push them around are answerable only to higher-ups, public or private. Either way, dissent and disobedience are punished. Informers report regularly to the authorities. All this is supposed to be a very bad thing.

"And so it is, although it is nothing but a description of the modern workplace. The liberals and conservatives and Libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phonies and hypocrites. There is more freedom in any moderately de-Stalinized dictatorship than there is in the ordinary American workplace. You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. In fact, as Foucault and others have shown, prisons and factories came in at about the same time, and their operators consciously borrowed from each other's control techniques. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors, he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called "insubordination," just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. Without necessarily endorsing it for them either, it is noteworthy that children at home and in school receive much the same treatment, justified in their case by their supposed immaturity. What does this say about their parents and teachers who work?"

Bob Black, "The Abolition of Work"

A graphical representation of Sino-American economic relations during the coming period

2008-12-11T13:19:00.000-08:00

(mini white guy endeavoring to exhort semi-indifferent Chinese giant)
[click for bigger, more dramatic version]

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 14.8

2008-11-13T19:10:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 14.8
STRANGE NEW LAND
radiowaved on the
frequency modulation band
November 13, 008, 7-9pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 13.8

2008-11-06T19:10:00.000-08:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 13.8
atmospheric broadcast on the
frequency modulation band
November 6, 008, 7-9pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 12.8

2008-10-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 12.8
radiowaved on the
frequency modulation band
October 23, 008, 7-9pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 11.8

2008-10-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 11.8
radiowaved on
October 9, 008, 7-9pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 10.8

2008-10-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 10.8
atmospheric-electromagnetic
broadcast on
October 2, 008, 7:30-9:30pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 9.8

2008-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

transmission 9.8
radio broadcast on
September 25, 008, 7-9pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
*** *** ***

WHITE HOUSE REDUX / the democracy demanded by free people

2008-09-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

The Storefront for Art & Architecture in NYC held an architectural competition to redesign the White House for the 21st century -- WHITE HOUSE REDUX. Here is KDL's (nonwinning) entry. The third panel was included in the exhibition at the Storefront and the White House Redux book.

[click for legible version]

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 8.8

2008-09-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

opportunity/crisis transmission 2.4.8 [8.8]
radiowaved on the frequency modulation band
September 4, 008, 8-10pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 7.8

2008-08-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

opportunity/crisis transmission 2.3.8 [7.8]
radiowaved on the frequency modulation band
August 21, 008, 8-10pm
--------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 6.8

2008-08-23T21:03:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

opportunity/crisis transmission 2.2.8 [6.8]
radiowaved on the frequency modulation band
August 14, 008, 8-10pm
------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 5.8

2008-08-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

threnody transmission 1.8 [5.8]
radiowaved on the frequency modulation band
August 6, 008, 8-10pm
------------------------
including "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima,"
a piece for 52 strings by Krzysztof Penderecki
in memory of the 63rd anniversary of the
U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan,
killing 70,000 (!!!) people on that day
and another 70,000 by the end of the year
----------------------------------------
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 4.8

2008-06-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

opportunity/crisis transmission 2.1.8 [4.8]
radiowaved on the frequency modulation band
June 11, 008, 8-10pm
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST
here

*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 3.8

2008-06-05T18:32:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

wartime transmission 3.8
electromagnetic spectrum broadcast June 4, 008, 8-10pm
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
****************
download
PLAYLIST
here
*** *** ***

RADIO FREE KLAMATH 2.8

2008-05-28T20:00:00.000-07:00

RADIO FREE KLAMATH

wartime transmission 2.8
electromagnetic spectrum broadcast May 28, 008, 8-10pm
on K T E C * 89.5 fm Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
******
download
PLAYLIST
HERE
*** *** ***

Tribute to the Martyrs of the Haymarket

2008-05-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

Haymarket Memorial, DesPlaines Street, Chicago

May 4 marks the 122nd anniversary of the Chicago's Haymarket "riot," a police-provoked disturbance at a workers rally for which four innocent men were hung. Two of these four did nothing more than express unpopular political views in public, the other two had no demonstrated connection to provoking the riot leading to the deaths 7 police officers and at least 3 civilians (probably more). Two of the Haymarket martyrs, Albert Parsons and August Spies, were particularly admirable leaders of the Chicago labor/anarchist movement in the 1870s and 1880s that had as its first priority an 8-hour workday (over 30 years before national implementation of the limited work day with overtime requiring heightened compensation), and as its long range vision a society in which members of "self-governing communities and workplaces would determine their own rights and responsibilities democratically, without the domination of a powerful national state with its judges and laws, its police forces and armies." (J. Green, DEATH IN THE MAYMARKET p. 129.)

The event known as the Haymarket riot occurred at a May 4 workers rally, called by local anarchist union leaders in the midst of a series of industry-wide strikes for the 8-hour day and better wages. The featured speaker was Albert Parsons, a confederate officer as a teenager who became a defender of former slaves in Reconstruction Texas before being driven north to Chicago by the retrenching racist elite who could tolerate neither his pro-black political stances nor his marriage to the mixed race Lucy Parsons. In Chicago, Parsons was confronted by the evils of capital's extremist domination and suppression of working people and quickly became a leader of the idealistic movement to organize workers to demand better hours, wages, and, ultimately, a more humanely organized society. For this, Albert Parsons was made a martyr to American evil and became a model of American righteousness.

The day before the Haymarket rally, company thugs had provoked violence among striking workers at the giant McCormick Reaper Works and police then gunned down several strikers. The May 4 rally was called in part to refute bogus police allegations that the workers, and particularly German-language anarchist newspaper publisher August Spies, had provoked the violence. Spies spoke at the Haymarket rally and urged calm in the face of police confrontation. The crowd that night grew as large as 3000. The mayor of Chicago watched the rally for a while from the back of his horse, and then went to a nearby police station where police Inspector Bonfield had amassed a force of officers to counter any violence at the rally. Mayor Harrison told Bonfield that the rally was breaking up and that there was no need to worry about any violence. By this time, as it had started to rain, several of the speakers and organizers, including Parsons (with his wife and two young children), had walked to a tavern a block to the north where they were having a beer and talking about the day's events. Shortly after the mayor rode off toward home, a police agent erroneously told Bonfield that the last speaker, Samuel Fielden, was urging violent action. The trigger happy Inspector ordered the massed force into formation and down the street to the Haymarket, where they came to face the remaining few hundred workers. A police captain called for the rally to disperse peacefully. The speaker Fielden said they were being peaceful. The captain repeated his order to disperse. Fielden said "All right, we will go," and moved to climb down from the speaker's wagon. At that point, someone (probably a lone anarchist worker, but possibly a police agent provocateur) threw a small bomb into the mass of police officers, many of whom immediately began shooting the handguns they had recently begun carrying. Eventually, seven police officers died, one or two from the bomb blast, the rest from bullets fired by other police. (No non-police witnesses saw any of the workers with guns.) The establishment and the "respectable" middle class was of course outraged and terrified; the Haymarket became a symbol of the tenuous control the Establishment classes had over the workers who were suddenly susceptible to utopian visions of a radically different society. This, the establishment could not stand; someone had to pay the price to erase the power of the symbol and the potential power of the democratic majority of worker-citizens.

Despite the acknowledged lack of evidence any of the four martyrs threw the bomb or were involved in any planning for violence or had any advance knowledge of the bomb, they were convicted of conspiracy. The case against Spies and Parsons was basically that they had publicly said the time was coming when striking workers would use force to protect themselves against the increasingly violent attacks by police forces and company hired thugs. Spies and others had romanticized dynamite as a great social leveler, potentially enabling workers to contend with the violence of the bosses and their public and private armies. But there was no substantial evidence Spies ever possessed dynamite or encouraged others to use it. He and Parsons engaged in idealistic, prophetic rhetoric about what would happen if the bosses continued to violently suppress workers organizing and striking to gain better working conditions and wages. For talking about dynamite as a way to resist police suppression, Parsons and Spies were sentenced to die by hanging. Partially in response to an international uproar of the unfairness of the convictions and sentences, the governor indicated he was willing to commute their death sentences to life in prison. But the rules of commutation required the prisoners acknowledge some guilt and plead for mercy and neither Parsons nor Spies was willing to do that. On November 11, 1887, Parsons and Spies were executed, killed, hung from the neck by officials of the State of Illinois.

As a tribute to the memory of the martyrdom of the Chicago anarchists, KDL posts the following passage from the book where this information came, DEATH IN THE HAYMARKET (Pantheon 2006) by labor historian James Green. The point of posting this passage is not to 'nostalgize' about some past idyll that of course never existed, but to evoke the conceptual freedom from a time when workers could envision taking society in a different direction than the one being orchestrated by the big money capitalist overclass. This was the real reason the anarchists had to be killed off: they insisted there was a non-capitalist and better way to organize society, a better way to live life cooperatively, a way that would not enable or allow the kind of super stratified wealth and power a capitalist society requires.

Green writes that in the mid 19th century, white American and European craftsmen "expressed 'a defiant sense of egalitarianism' toward other men who acted as their superiors. Their code was based on a sense of self-worth gained through long apprenticeship and mature workmanship in an honorable trade. They believed their work was noble, even holy, and that they should be regarded romantically as 'knights of labor.' Thus, manly workers refused to be put upon by their bosses or to accept any affront to their dignity. They also opposed efforts to pit themselves against one another. An honorable, respectable working man did not steal from his fellows or seek to undermine their customs and standards by rushing to please the boss or simply to make more money. . . . The habits that craftsmen cultivated were first expressed in the early benevolent societies based on the principle of mutual aid and then in the first craft unions their members called 'brotherhoods.' These 'rituals of mutuality' fused readily with the practices of democratic citizenship that evolved during the nineteenth century among white mechanics and workingmen who came to see themselves as the backbone of the republic.

"Being a skilled tradesman, a competent craftsman and an intelligent citizen required, above all, enlightenment through self-edification. Many craftsmen took pride in the breadth and depth of their reading, and appreciated what they learned from each other on the job. Cigar rollers sometimes asked a literate among them to read a book or newspaper aloud to them while they worked. . . .

"Manufacturers exerted little control over the cigar makers, who worked by the piece, and some producers complained that many of their men would come into the shop in the morning, roll a few stogies and then go to a beer saloon and play cards for a few hours, willfully cutting they day's production and voluntarily limiting their own earnings. These irregular work habits appeared in other trades as well, for instance, among German brewers, who clung to their Old World privilege of drinking free beer while they worked in the breweries. Coopers would appear at work on Saturday morning, like all wage earners did in those years, and then, in some places, they would pool their pay and buy a 'Goose Egg,' a half barrel of beer. 'Little groups of jolly fellows would often sit around upturned barrels playing poker . . .,' wrote a historian of cooperage, 'until they received their pay and the 'Goose Egg' was dry.' After a night out on Saturday and an afternoon of drinking on Sunday, the coopers were not in the best condition to settle down to a regular day's work. They would spend a 'blue Monday' sharpening tools, bringing in supplies and discussing the news of the day.

"Into this world, with its honored traditions, its irregular work habits and its rituals of mutuality came the machine. It rattled on relentlessly 'never tiring, never resting,' . . . dragging the worker along with it. And behind the machine stood a man, an owner or a foreman, who regarded the craftsmen's stubborn old habits and craft union rules as nothing more than ancient customs, relics of medieval times in a modern world governed by the need for industrial efficiency and the unforgiving laws of political economy." (DEATH IN THE HAYMARKET pp. 107-109.)

***

Albert Parsons at his sentencing hearing, October 9, 1886:
"I am doomed by you to suffer an ignominious death because I am an outspoken enemy of coercion, of privilege, or force, of authority. Think you, the people are blind, are asleep, are indifferent? You deceive yourselves. I tell you as a man of the people, and I speak for them, that you every word and act are recorded. You are being weighed in the balance. The people are conscious of your power – your stolen power. I, as a working man, stand here and to your face, in your stronghold of oppression, denounce your crimes against humanity. It is for this I die, but my death will not have been in vain."

We can help ensure Albert Parsons did not die in vain and pay appropriate tribute to Parsons, Spies, and the other worker-visionaries of the nineteenth century by keeping alive an American moral imagination – a vision and eventually practice of a more humane, cooperative society driven not by the imperatives of wealth and social stratification, but by the quest for good, meaningful lives for all.

Let nine thousand flowers bloom.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p4308

2008-04-30T23:11:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 4308
electromagnetic spectrum broadcast
April 30, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
-
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
A DUCK ON ACID / EXPFM SWAN SONG
*** *** ***
-

CLICK HERE
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************

MAY DAY 2008

2008-04-30T15:09:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p4238

2008-04-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 4238
electromagnetic spectrum broadcast
April 23, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
Appropriation as heroic moral act
(or, Music leads the way to the future)

*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p498

2008-04-09T15:47:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 498
radiowaved April 16, 2008 on K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
Transcultural collagification
and the collapse of space and time
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p428

2008-04-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 428
radiowaved April 2, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
Sonic Spin Cycing (Points, Orbits, Time)
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Brian Eno & David Byrne, "America Is Waiting" / NO EXPFM THIS WEEK

2008-03-26T23:43:00.003-07:00

No show this week (3/26) due to facilities issues during OIT's spring break.
Back on the air next week (April 2nd).

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p3198

2008-03-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 3198
radiowaved March 19, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
ODDIO ANARCHY
*** *** ***
station mixing board is all screwed up for recording.
sound quality on music is listenable, but
can't hear dj speak, so click past ...
***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p3128

2008-03-12T14:00:00.000-07:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 3128
radio broadcast March 12, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
Player Piano Moroccollage
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p358

2008-03-05T12:50:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 358
fm broadcast March 5, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***
this week's adventure in sound:
reification and resistance in america's
corporate-orchestrated consumer culture
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p2278

2008-02-27T20:59:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 2278
radiowaved February 27, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin

*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***
NOTE: Audio levels on "dj speaks" are especially
ungood this week (was ok on fm) -- so skip past!

Cornel West: To Be a Leftist in the 21st Century

2008-02-26T18:31:00.001-08:00

Another American hero...
Part 1 of 3; double click on video to go to youtube for the next two parts.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p2208

2008-02-18T18:28:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

special DEMOCRACY CRISIS edition

Constitutional eclipse

***************************************************
radiowave transmission Feb. 20, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin

**************************************************

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Stereolab, "Brakhage" / No EXPFM this week

2008-02-13T18:12:00.001-08:00

No EXPFM this week as the laboratory staff is temporarily relocated to Alta California.

Instead: a fan-created youtube video combining film from Stan Brakhage and the Stereolab song, "Brakhage."

The End of America

2008-02-13T18:00:00.001-08:00

A talk by American hero Naomi Wolf.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p268

2008-02-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 268
old timey radio broadcast Feb. 6, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

The End of Suburbia

2008-02-04T19:34:00.001-08:00

Watch this whole movie! (available thru netflix)

Our way of life in hypermodern America is no longer a question of "choice" and "lifestyle." Like it or not, it's time to move on. Local democracy is the way through the impending collapse of our corporate-orchestrated capitalist consumer culture and into a new, better society and way of life.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p1308

2008-01-30T20:32:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation

experimental protocol 1308
radiowaved Jan. 30, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

The War On Democracy

2008-01-27T18:29:00.001-08:00

Part 1 of 10 of a documentary by John Pilger. Watch the whole thing on youtube.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p1238

2008-01-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation
experimental protocol 1238
electromagnetic wave broadcast Jan. 23, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Noam Chomsky on the political system in the U.S.A.

2008-01-21T21:38:00.001-08:00

The smartest American breaks it down.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p1168

2008-01-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation
experimental protocol 1168
old timey radio broadcast Jan. 16, 2008 on
K T E C * 89.5 fm
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

Is America Really a Democracy?

2008-01-05T22:17:00.001-08:00

Seriously, the evidence suggests not.

Experiments in Frequency Modulation p12267

2007-12-27T18:06:00.000-08:00

Experiments in Frequency Modulation protocol 12267
*****
originally radiowaved Dec.26, 2007 on
KTEC 89.5 FM
Klamath Falls, Oregon
OIT's freeform station for the Klamath Basin
*** *** ***

CLICK HERE [pending]
to open a page where you can
play or download the show
*****************
download
PLAYLIST here
[pending]
*** *** ***

protocol 12267 includes KDL mix
"be a democracy"
*** *** ***