A Cabaret Voltaire video from their 1979 single. Just to whet the appetite, here's a bit from Methodology: 74/78 Attic Tapes -
I remember the 70s as a time of austerity, a crackdown after the so-called liberal times of the 60s. Racism, repressive policing, hijackings, Baader Meinhof, The Angry Brigade, Operation Julie, cheap sulphate, boredom, industrial unrest, but a feeling that something was on the boil within an alienated and disaffected "youth culture."My emphasis added.
[snip]
I suppose we took our cue (and also our name) from the Dada movement and maybe in retrospect from the situationist movement. The bottom line is, it was never just about music, but about confrontation, challenging peoples conceptions on everything from sound and image to reality itself. Trying to be a thorn in the side of authority. From run of the mill war obsessed jobsworths, constables, in fact anybody who wore a badge, to politicians. All considered fair game for baiting and satirization. In some ways though it was just an innocent reflection of the times, not different from the Beach Boys singing about surfing and the good times in California. But there was no surf to ride in Sheffield, just postwar desolation, unemployment and ugly urban landscapes.
53 comments:
Noticed Mickey Z.'s been doing a little guerilla posting over at Big Green. His latest: Four Left/Liberal Fantasies. His blog, Cool Observer is a daily read for me.
Well, that's simple and to the point. Bravo.
For a while he was doing the same thing at Daily Kos, and the comments to his diaries there were hilarious. I don't thing the frogponders have quite figured out what to make of Mickey yet.
From the department of deliberately obtuse. Oh, and a bonus.
Mickey Z's all right. [thumbs up sign] He sort of has a tightrope act going between a to-the-point (some would say glib) style I sometimes see in mainstream editorials and an attempt to shoot slightly above the reader's head-- just to make sure we're really paying attention. M. Junaid Alam is like that, too.
I really can't believe that spider is still defending the public posting of emails without permission. Using the chickenshit excuse that the emailer has no business expecting that her de facto desire for private discussions will be respected.
I reiterate to anyone who agrees with Spider: If I posted your damn private email without permission, you would have gone ballistic. It wouldn't matter if you'd confessed that you'd attempted suicide or merely shared your childhood crush on Ben Casey. You would have been displeased, not over the content, but over lack of a chance to give or withhold consent.
Don't insult my intelligence by feigning otherwise. Period.
James..don't you have enough blogs to bad mouth without muddying the waters at ecfs? PLEASE leave it clean of this shit PLEASE?!
[rolleyes]
Well, spider points out that there were no rules in place here regarding the unapproved public postings of private emails. So in spider's mind, it was a-okay for her to post my private email in the public section of Mo Betta.
Meanwhile, she's pissed that I am on MBM's masthead because she thinks that everyone should have gotten to vet me first. Even though there were ALSO no rules in place involving the group having to vet each new masthead until AFTER I'd already been invited to join by an individual.
Obtuse is too kind, frankly. C'mon, spider. Which is it ? Do you err on the side of assuming there are unspoken rules in place or on the side of assuming that there are not ? In demanding the right to adjust the assumption as you see fit, you are playing a disingenuous game here to make me look bad and yourself look good. It doesn't wash.
I think the first links on this site, besides the rant inspirations, were Dress Paris Hilton and Dress Tinky Winky. And Mr PicassoHead and of course Make Over Mona Lisa.
Just sayin'.
If y'all are going to take yourselves so seriously, why not ditch whatever it was Ductape intended... as, I'm pretty convinced he's about the only one who could actually pull that off successfully... and make something better suited to the various personalities and goals of the people who are here?
All this nasty, vengeful, whiny stuff just does not fit in well with dressing Tinky Winky, in my opinion.
(Also, now that I've used preview, I am halfway convinced that it is the dreadful colors of the blogger comment window that is causing half the problems. New Baby Poo Green just is not all that soothing.)
Just had to make my side of the story known. That's it.
Also aloha, you might consider who chose to muddy the waters over at ecfs. Hint: her blogger name starts with an "s". I just do not like half truths and damn lies going unanswered.
I thought ECFS was supposed to be free of that sort of thing. I was wrong, obviously. Oh well.
If y'all are going to take yourselves so seriously, why not ditch whatever it was Ductape intended... as, I'm pretty convinced he's about the only one who could actually pull that off successfully...
You seem to forget that he was also around at times when things were rough. And this place certainly has been "successful" since he left as well. There have been a lot of truly inspired posts and comments. Why should we ditch what he intended? Because it makes some people uncomfortable? Because someone has decided we don't meet up to his standards? I don't recall that ever being a criticism of his towards any of us when he was here - when the mud was flying as well.
Nobody's forced to read anything here. People do have choices. There are literally millions of other blogs out there. I don't know why that fact escapes some people.
If you don't want to make this place work ("you" in general) find a place where that is your goal. We're doing just fine and this place won't be destroyed by a few malcontents, believe me.
Why is James suddenly under attack? It was Nancy over at ECFS who brought up MBM there in the first place - asking what happened to it on the blogroll there.
Why is James suddenly under attack?
Now there's the $64k question. I apparently did a "bad thing" by trying to respect some norm regarding the privacy of emails, which according to all of this year's run-way models is just so last season. Everyone who's anyone on the internets knows that, silly!
Oh, and the sun now rises in the west and sets in the east.
All clear as Guinness yet? ;-)
Frenzy. It's just frenzy.
Oh, elsewhere on the internet tubes, Terry Jones is absolutely disgusted with the uncivilized manner in which the Iranian government is treating its British captives. We Westerners have endeavored to teach these savages about joys of using indefinite solitary confinement and stress positions (ala Guantánamo Bay & Abu Ghraib) and they just don't get it.
Nobody's forced to read anything here. People do have choices. There are literally millions of other blogs out there. I don't know why that fact escapes some people.
If you don't want to make this place work ("you" in general) find a place where that is your goal. We're doing just fine and this place won't be destroyed by a few malcontents, believe me.
Yes, see... well this is one of the things. Instead of "You have a problem? Discuss!", it's a kos-like "You have a problem? Leave!".
Which is perfectly fine, for an authoritarian blog structure - which this was not, originally, although it appears to be one now.
That also was one of my (obviously unwelcome, but that certainly didn't stop me with BooMan, don't see why it should stop me here) concerns, the increasing authoritarianism - well, that and the attacking and pushing out of long time commenters and participants (or, er... "malcontents" lol), or even short time ones. Definitely a familiar blog pattern, and I guess even a blog devoted to blog meta is not immune from that sort of thing, unfortunately.
Anyway (as I've also said to BooMan, in so many words... (so much deja vu!), no worries, I've moved on and I have no problem doing so, even tho I may feel a slight nostalgia for 'the good old days'. There are, indeed, any number of other sites out there to wander about in, though.
And, after all, one can dress Paris or Tinky Winky from anywhere!
No one pushed anyone out here and the thing is, Nanette, there are plenty of other blogs out there to read for those who are disturbed with what they read here. That's just a statement of fact. Some seem to think this blog owes them something. What, exactly? I don't know because no one has made that clear. Does Michelle Malkin owe me something just because I read her blog? No.
Which is perfectly fine, for an authoritarian blog structure - which this was not, originally, although it appears to be one now.
How is this place authoritarian? People are free to come and go as they wish. The only comments I and I think James have deleted have been those identifying people's real names and some content from a personal e-mail. That's authoritarian? How? Is it suddenly alright for everyone to post private e-mails here without the author's permission? When was that ever acceptable? Was I wrong to delete Tracy's real name from a comment when someone with a personal vendetta against her posted it here? No one was pushed out. People left. Happens all the time - everywhere.
Has anyone been banned here? Has anyone been censored besides those who haven't respected peoples' privacy? Wouldn't you want your privacy respected? Hasn't everyone, including some of the most vicious-minded, been able to say whatever they want here?
I don't know why you're suddenly upset and excuse me for my confusion since you've been, imo, one who has spoken most loudly against an us v them mentality. And that's what some people have chosen to make this latest squirmish: my friends v your friends. That's exactly what we didn't want to import here. Trolls and stalkers are trolls and stalkers. They're not worth my time. Everyone else is free to be here. No one has silenced them.
even tho I may feel a slight nostalgia for 'the good old days'.
What good old days? This blog has always been a place of contention and fierce debate. That hasn't changed. There awlays seems to be some imaginary "gold old days" scenario to invoke and it is imaginary as far as this place goes. We've constantly had disruptions and arguments. The only thing that has changed are these new "sides" some people have aligned themselves on because they don't want to take responsibility for their own behaviour and are supported by friends who would rather enable them than challenge them to behave more appropriately.
This place is what we make of it. If some people want to make it a junior high lunch room, they can go right ahead but they will not succeed. Rationality will prevail. It always does and it doesn't take authoritarianism to make that happen - quite the opposite. It takes a group effort to keep things on course and that's what we have here - a group of people who are invested in keeping this place rationally grounded. I'm not going to apologize for that.
You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem. That's the way it goes.
I'm not sure I see the authoritarianism of which you speak Nanette. By all means enlighten us. I say this as one of the alleged "authoritarians" which I'm still rolling on the floor laughing about. The way I look at it, some folks simply took the title of "serial blog wreckers" literally. As someone who saw that title in a more humorous vein, it's been a bit jarring to say the least. Echoing Jello a bit, I caution against believing one's own hype - in blogging or in life.
The other thing that I see happening: whatever forces that brought this motley bunch together were bound to tear us apart. Some of us came in with already tightly formed cliques, others did not. Eventually when conflict occurred, one could easily predict that members of the cliques would "protect their own." That's going to be a turnoff to those either outside the various conflicts or to those who end up on the receiving end.
By all means, I'd be curious Nanette as to your solutions. Can you lay out what you see as the specific problems, and then lay out what you see as specific solutions? We await with open ears.
Catnip sez:
Nobody's forced to read anything here. People do have choices. There are literally millions of other blogs out there. I don't know why that fact escapes some people.
If you don't want to make this place work ("you" in general) find a place where that is your goal.
Nanette sez:
Yes, see... well this is one of the things. Instead of "You have a problem? Discuss!", it's a kos-like "You have a problem? Leave!".
That's not how I read catnip's statement. Rather, I see it more along the lines of "you have a problem? descuss; but realize that if you have a better way of doing things the power is all yours." Many of us here already have our own blogs - whether we're talking admins or regular readers/commenters. It's so ridiculously easy to set up a blog that even I can do it. Nanette, you have that wonderful Human Beams site that as I understand it is being revitalized. If you discover something cool that works at your site that we can learn from and apply here, that would be awesome.
All I know to do is to re-emphasize that several of us who are still standing here have put in an fair amount of effort into building this place up, and take ownership for is here. We do our best to be up-front about decisions and to discuss those decisions as transparently as possible. I also know that we are fallible human beings who nonetheless stand by what we've done so far.
Otherwise, my head hurts from banging it on the damned computer desk.
You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem
no, the world & people in it are rarely that simple. this doesn't speak for me.
It's late, I'm tired, g'night . . .
James, this is the last time I post on this site, but since you guys keep talking about me here I feel compelled to respond.
Check the history, I didn't bring this site's issues there. I founded that site and coded it and set it up with CookTing for the community. I added MoBetta and when I realized what a bunch of juvenile high school kids you are I deleted it. Then *gasp* NL asked about it. Super responded. Then I did. That was it. But keep twisting and turning with your own reality. Really, it's fabulous to watch.
And I responded to you there as well since you keep neglecting to see the LARGER issue of why I got so pissed off.
And Ms_Xeno, seriously, get a life already, your sniping is pathetic. spider this and spider that. Do you not have any one else to gossip about?
Nanette: authoritarian this blog is.
Yup.
And as someone I know DTF respected above most others I'm glad you brought up what the original goals were, not what the folks in this thread keep trying to make it to avoid self-reflection.
And James, the only ones who seem to have taken the masthead seriously are the ones left in this thread.
Some people sure are awfully free with their usage of the word "authoritarian."
Hint, Nannette: A person who expects some respect from her peers (that is, she does not want a private email published w/o her express permission) is not automatically an "authoritarian." A person who does not like others playing disingenuous games, who tells the player to "buzz off," is not automatically an "authoritarian." For you see, just because I get exasperated with someone whose behaving like a jerk and I tell them to buzz off does not compell them in any way to actually leave. Just like if I have a bad experience at the supermarket one day and come home muttering, "I could kill those idiots in the parking lot ! Where the hell did they learn to drive ?" I'm not actually going after them with a gun and they are not actually dead just because I'm annoyed with them.
Despite the parlor games of certain trolls her of late, words do have agreed-upon meanings and only liars and manipulators expect to routinely distort those meanings without being called on it.
Sweet dark chocolate Jeebus. Why is this so bloody hard for some people to grasp ? Oh, right. Because it's *their* good buddies or clique members who are pulling disrespectful bullshit against others and then whinging when the others tell them to knock it the fuck off.
Yeah, spider. I get it already. I'm outside your sacred circle of aquaintances so you don't have to give a fuck what I think. Those you don't personally know have no feelings and no opinions worth engaging. We are not full-fledged humans. Whatever. Dredge up all the excuses you want, but you still behaved in a weasely fashion and any ensuing damage is as much your responsibility as it is any other participant in this little tete-a-tete.
With the possible exception of your friends and a troll or two, spider, nobody else here has treated me as shabbily as you have. "Gossip" implies triviality and given that this blog is supposed to be about meta, I don't see why I should regard your disrespect as trivial. Like I said, you behaved like a weasel and now don't seem to want to engage somebody that you offended. All you want to do is play "nyah nyah." If you want me to stop being annoyed with you, maybe you should change your behavior.
Own your words and actions, spider. If you act like an asshole to people you hardly know, they are allowed to talk about your behavior as much or as little as they like.
<< and when I realized what a bunch of juvenile high school kids you are I deleted it.<<
My name is also still on the masthead here, Spider. So when you post stuff like the above, that flack hits me too, and everyone else o9n the masthead, just like it does when Booman writes his nasty, judgemental crap about this site. I need you to know that does not feel good at all, coming from you.
I also do NOT understand it when people get disgusted enough with a site to publically and angrily declare they are leaving, yet they DON'T LEAVE, but choose to stay and continue the fights with the very people who caused them to get so mad they wanted to leave in the FIRST place!
So, because you were so angry at this site, you decided to take it off the blogroll at ECFS. This was noticed and questioned, because no site had been removed from the blogroll there up to that point. So you answered that question on ECFS, which is how the Mo Betta issue made it in the door over there. You took an visible action there that others would see, based on your personal anger at this site.
Sure, you had every "right" to do it, and yes, I am well aware you and Cookting did all the work of setting ECFS up. Can't argue with any of that and don't intend to try.
But I pay more attention to the actual outcomes of actions like this, rather than their intent, or the "justifications" for taking them.
There can be "no intent to cause harm" present at all, and 100% "justification" for any certain action, as well as the perfect "right" to take that action and still, that action can lead to harmful ripple effects one never intended to cause.
There are a variety of ways to handle interpersonal conflicts such as you and James and ms xeno are having now. Playing them out publically like this, on the blogs and across the blogs is only one of them.
And yes, to do it this way certainly IS your absolute right.
I do not think it's a constructive method, but that is only my personal opinion, which, along with what, 2.00 just might get you cup of coffee at best!
Scribe, Spider posted my damn email in public without permission. She continues to justify this action by basically saying a longer version of "thems the breaks." Please do not tell me then that you think private email is the proper way to resolve differences. How long would it remain private, exactly ?
And damned if I'm going to take it to my home page. This shit has nothing to do with my home page.
You know, I could almost understand that she figures a stranger is fair game for this sort of shit, but then she starts bad-mouthing James over it, too. And trots off to another board where I haven't even ever posted to start grousing about it some more to people who are also her friends. So once I was a big blank over there, and now I will be known forever as somebody who was just terrible to poor old Spider and Super and aloha for no reason. WTF ? Not exactly a fair picture if you ask me.
At any rate, it is clear to me that she is not interested in answering my queries and only wants to fling some more mud. So never fear. I'm done.
BTW, Scribe, my emails to you seem to have bounced over the weekend, so I don't know if you heard this: But thanks for welcoming me to stay around.
Uh... hello... hello
I have NO idea what the hell has gone on this week. I've been busy with work and activism.
Can I just have the cheat sheet so I can catch up? Or do I wanna know?
I wish you all the best. Stay "safe" and keep your heads on a swivel. It's getting damn scary out there.
BTW, today I'm hooking up with Manny.
And I responded to you there as well since you keep neglecting to see the LARGER issue of why I got so pissed off.
There is no LARGER issue. You posted the contents of a personal e-mail. The only people on this site who have the ability to delete such comments are other admins. One took up that responsibility. That should have been the end of the story after an apology was forthcoming for posting it in the first place.
And since you're so fond of saying that her e-mail was to the "group", it would have been the group's decision to post the contents then, wouldn't it have been? (Not that the group would have decided that anyway.) Perhaps you wouldn't mind it if someone in the group decided to post some of your private correspondence with the group here using that rationalization?
There is no way to justify this one. That's what this comes down to and there is no amount of arguing that's going to change that. It's done. Agree to disagree and get on with it. Going on and on about this (a la Booman and his year old grudge) serves no one.
Whoever runs ecfs, please remove me from the contributors list. Thanks.
ms_xeno, have only read here until today. This entire situation seems very unfair where you are concerned. I hope you don't leave here. Your responses are my favorite.
Lovechild
Hrmph! I may just have to delete that comment, Lovechild. What about MY comments, huh? Aren't they THE BESTEST?
:)
I hear ms x has been paying people to say nice things about her. I'm just sayin'...spread the rumour...
well catnip, I would have pointed you to the comment I left at ecfs which explained my larger issue, but James has decided he was within his right to delete the thread there.
Nutshell - you could have asked ME to delete it for the reasons you expressed. Instead you took unilateral, authoritarian action to delete it yourselves. That is the larger issue. You destroyed trust just as much as you claim I did.
scribe, anything you have to say to me you can say on ecfs, I came back to this site to see what was being said about me by James the first time and to ask him why he felt he had the right to delete my comments at that site.
And no, I was not talking about the masthead group of people, I was talking about 4 people who participate her the most frequently and vocally.
You may not have agreed with the decision for me to remove the link from ecfs, but since I added it to begin with it is my right to remove it. We don't take a vote or ask when we ADD a link, I certainly didn't think I needed to ask permission when I removed it.
And scribe, you asked to be removed from this site in the past before when you didn't agree with it's direction, yet still kept posting here - is there a different standard for me?
Ms_xeno, I don't know who you are, don't care and really have no interest in any further discussions with you, although you seem quite obsessed with me in this thread. Why don't you just let it go?
Spiderleaf, let's put this in a way that hopefully makes sense: I simply do not wish to have any association with you anywhere on the internets under any circumstances. There is no way that I can foresee us coexisting peacefully. At ecfs, it's pretty clear that I am the odd man out as it were, and figured that the best thing was to seek a clean break.
Ah, I see. So your answer to that was to delete my comments again, at a different site. A comment which spoke to our long-standing relationship and my expectation, as a formerly equal member of this site to being ASKED and SPOKEN to before having authoritarian actions taken by my fellow site owners.
And you also decided that it was acceptable to post links here to my comments at ecfs? To turn me into one of the crew you guys call out?
Instead of speaking to me yourself you are fine letting this entire thread be about ridiculing me?
You don't think we can peacefully coexist? Fine. In the comment you deleted and subsequent comment I made to NL I actually expressed how hurt, and yes, pissed off I was by what had transpired. That was an attempt at dialogue and instead you delete my comments. That's sad James. Really sad and not what we started this site to be.
I don't see how with all your stances in this you can at all justify deleting my comments at ecfs.
No what you did was slag me, and bring this conflict over at what was supposed to be a "pristine" blogging environment, against what I presume was the collective will at ecfs. We should all be happy - y'all are rid of me and of any hint of mobetta tainting your place. If you're going to complain about having your safe haven safe again, well, I'm simply at a loss for words.
Nutshell - you could have asked ME to delete it for the reasons you expressed.
Well, that's new, isn't it? I don't recall ever seeing that type of sentiment expressed by you here before. All along, you've been defending your right to post it. Would you have deleted it, if someone had asked you to?
Regardless, the moment it was posted and seen to be a privacy violation, James was well within his rights to delete it - no matter who posted it - just as we all are when we see similar privacy violations. That is the bottom line.
You deleted db posts about me and justified that in my defence when I hadn't even seen them. Did I criticize you for that? No. I trusted your judgment.
James' judgment in this case was correct. I don't know why he is continually under attack for it. He did the right thing whether you like it or not and it would have been done no matter who posted it. Do you think admins here are special and exempt from privacy standards? I sure don't.
And you also decided that it was acceptable to post links here to my comments at ecfs? To turn me into one of the crew you guys call out?
You post it, you own it. No one ever stopped you from posting numerous BT comments or links here, did they?
A few stats for the curious:
Out of 431 comments since mid-March, four (4) have been deleted. One was deleted by its author. Three were deleted by admins: 1 due to posting private email content, 1 due to referring to females with as "c***s", 1 for posting a real name of one of the regulars here. Given the dross that's been in the comments, I'd say that's pretty lenient. Of course there's no way to know about how much spam has been blocked.
Spam...that's all we need! Although some of that might be an interesting diversion now and then.
...Spam...that's all we need!
Not just for some/But for ev'ryonnnnne...
Ms_xeno, I don't know who you are,
Yep, spider. Which shows up in the way you've been treating me. I would hope that having been on the receiving end of snap judgments from people determined not to know you, a little empathy might have developed. I guess I was mistaken. [shrug] Not the first time or last, I'm sure.
...don't care and really have no interest in any further discussions with you...
Well, there's been an attempt at discussion on my end. I don't really think that any of your recent comments count as discussion. As I understand it.
although you seem quite obsessed with me in this thread.
"Obsessed ?" Nah. Try "disappointed with," "sorry for," or perhaps "irritated with." "Obsessed" is a little melodramatic, I think.
Why don't you just let it go?
Weasels and jackasses first.
Hey, Janet-- if you're still around. I'm gonna' have a little art show in early May at a coffeeshop on the N-side. If you think you might be around...
Not just for some/But for ev'ryonnnnne...
I'm hungry now. Great. I wonder if they make cheesecake Spam.
I'm gonna' have a little art show in early May at a coffeeshop on the N-side.
Spam Jesus?
Oh, don't I wish. There's not enough space for sculpture there, though. Just 2-D art.
Just for the record, as a reader here who was once invited by DTF to be a contributor, I don't think emails are fair game to be published online wihout the consent of the person who sent it - period. To publish the content of an email otherwise is to be petty and uncivil. IMO, there is presumed to be a reason why such communication is taken to the email channels and not posted as a comment on a blog. The two types of communication are qualitatively different. Blogging something is definitely a public act and emailing something is definitely a private act.
As a result of finding out that certain people don't respect that distinction, I'll further tighten up my already tight emailing policies. The effect will be to further stifle private communications between me and anyone I meet on a blog. I will also not contribute to any blog that allows the public posting of private emails without consent of all who are parties to the email.
Sounds like a good policy, blueneck. You just never know what might happen, unfortunately. I know this gave me pause for more concern.
I only share other people's emails with my good friends at Amway and Herbalife. I used to send them all on to our local branch of Homeland Security, too. But then Tom Ridge stopped sending me cards at Xmas and that kind of pissed me off.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go reward Lovechild's kindness by bombarding him/her with a round of (cough) "very special" chain letters.
But then Tom Ridge stopped sending me cards at Xmas and that kind of pissed me off.
I hear Alberto Gonzales is pretty receptive.
Yeah, but I don't think he'd go for Xmas '07's card design: It's Bill O'Reilly clad in nothing but a red satin thong and a giant gold lame' crescent-shaped codpiece. Oh, and a Santa Bin Laden beard.
Christians are a humor-challenged lot, if you ask me.
I just threw up a bit.
Well, there are Christians and then there are Bush's inner circle Christians like the smirking asshole from hell, Gonzales.
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just doesn't belong,
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?
That reminds me. I once wrote a song about trolls to the tune of Oscar the Grouch's signature number. Maybe I should post it again, later...
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