Recording Artists vs. Recording Industry -- Update
Somehow this got by me, but the lawsuit led by Sam Moore of Sam & Dave that I discussed previously has made some progress. The part of the suit charging AFTRA with failing to make sure the record companies paid into the artists' pension fund was settled in December. The record companies are still on the hook for overdue payments. Funny, isn't it, how the jerks complaining about free downloads were themselves getting free music for years? Moore is suing under RICO, which may not get him far, but also under ERISA, the retirement law. He may have good leverage there.
Incidentally, a search for "Sam Moore" on the RIAA website came up with no results.
About two and a half years ago, there was a hideous massacre in an office a couple of blocks from me. Now yesterday, the helicopters were hovering again, and I felt this sinking feeling. It turns out there was a man living in the neighborhood who has spent the last two years in prison for possession of a sawed-off shotgun. One of his family members thought it would be nice to hire a cleaning crew to fix the place up. When the cleaners went to the basement, they found guns, ammunition, explosives, and instructions for making bombs and booby traps. The state police bomb disposal crew was working well into the night under the lights of the news crews. I think it's about time we moved.
The islamofascists have resumed blowing up busses in Israel. Their manifest intent is to prevent a peaceful solution based on two states side by side. We should not be surprised -- the Psalmist understood this several millenia ago.
Psalm 120
6 My soul hath long dwelt with him that hateth peace.
7 I am for peace: but when I speak, they are for war.
The New Marianne? I didn't know there were any libertarians/classical liberals in France, but it turns out there are a few and they have a lot to say. Here is a translation of a speech made at a counter-demonstration against the chaos caused by the strikes.
No to the undeserving trade unions!!!
Speech given Sunday May 25, at the rally at la place de l'Hôtel de ville.
My dear friends,
My name is Sabine Herold. I speak for the association "Freedom, I write your name," co-organizer of this rally. First of all, I want to thank you for coming in such large numbers today, particularly on such a day as this. I know the difficulties you must have faced in joining us, and I thank you for it! I thank you all for your courage and determination! We do not have chartered busses from all over France to get you here, the media wants to shut us up, we have only our e-mails, our faxes and our will to spread the word.
But today, we have decided to join together to say no, no to the attitude of undeserving trade unions. There they are! Not far from us! They probably expected to have their demonstration in peace. Nothing doing! We will not give up the streets to them! Today something is different: for once, we will say NO to them!
We are nothing in their eyes, nothing but anonymous citizens, only allowed to curse under our breath. But we will prove to them, together, that from now on, they will have to take us into account! The silent majority has become noisy and it does not intend to be silenced!
I am a student. I have classes and examinations, but there are no busses. I buy my orange pass, but there is no subway. Later, I will pay my taxes, but my children will not go to school. Much later, I will sign up for a retirement pension, but I will get one?
Like you, like all of us gathered here today, I am angry. I am very angry!
How can one accept that our democracy is left at the mercy of the with good will of trade unions who got no more than 20% in labor elections, elections ignored by the employees? Which is legitimate, those policies made by those freely elected to office by all voters, or those of the trade union bosses? Where are the two sides of industry where one sees only adversaries of the company? Who are these trade unionists who represent only themselves? What right do they have to deprive us of our freedom of movement, of action, even of speech!
Fortunately, thanks to you, the voice of freedom is finally raised in protest against the cacophony of the vested interests. It already rings in the ears of the tycoons of FO, the CGT and SUD.
It is time to say to these terrorists of social action, to these hostage-takers of public opinion, that we have had enough! It is time to remind the politicians, those whom we elected and who govern in our names, that are waiting for them to show some determination!
We will not put up with the calamity of chronic strikes and trade-union barons! This is the true motto of our gathering.
Because yes, there is a right to strike. But certainly not a duty, as these perpetual demonstrators seem to believe!
We wait for the day when trade unions behave responsibly, and not as bastions of reactionary egotism!
We are joined together this evening to express our anger. But that is not enough. As the poet Goethe wrote, "Nothing is true which is not fertile". Also, we must prepare today the next change. We must transform our anger into new action.
These are questions which must be answered:
- who will pay for our retirements? Do you think it will be the civil servants of the SNCF?
- after that, who will pay the for retirement of our children and grandchildren? Do you think it will be the South-Rail or CGT trade unions ?
Citizens, let us require answers to these questions! The reform started by the Government is a good first step, but still insufficient. But how can we go further, when the conservative interests are already cast in concrete? The government should not yield to the pressure of the streets.
It must preserve our fundamental personal freedoms, like the right to take the train, the subway, the bus, which our taxes pay for!
All of us, joined together today on this place, we are the resistors! We are the precursors of change! The law of silence has fallen! We will not keep silent any longer!
It is our duty to roll back the trade unions and to save true social justice, which is equality among all citizens against the privileges of a minority!
Let us swear together, here and now, to resist so that tomorrow will be a different day, a day of Freedom!
How Can I Miss You if You Won't Go Away? Eight years of the self-absorbed, mendacious Clintons, and here's Hillary!® plugging her new book. You know, the one with the $8 million advance from the friendly publisher? Does anyone recall the prodigious amount of crap given to Gingrich for a much less lucrative deal? Must not have had enough oral sex in it. But I digress.
So, according to the reports of the interview (which I could not bear to watch), Hillary!® opined that she will not run for president in 2008, since the country is "not ready" for a woman president. I think rather that as God is just and merciful, the country will never be ready for President Hillary!®. However, I think the country would be ready for its first Black woman president in 2008 -- Condoleeza Rice. Imagine a president both able and willing to call Chirac, Schroeder, and Putin a bunch of sneaking thieves, each in his own language.
LT Smash has a few pointers for the rest of the world on how to cope with Americans, since it doesn't look like we're going away any time soon. His section on our reverence for the Constitution is worth reading, if you're not yet part of the family. When the International Court of Justice was being discussed, many US commentators objected that some of its provisions violated Constitutional guarantees of due process (small matters of double jeopardy, self-incrimination, ex post facto law, trial by jury, unreasonable search and seizure, etc.). When its advocates suggested that we simply amend the Constitution to bring it into line with international standards, there was a national gasp that caused onshore breezes all along our shores.
I guess I must have strayed into leftie land, but I can't figure out which blogger it was. My browser history didn't help. Anyway, there was a snide remark made about right-wingers sitting around blogging in their Star Wars jammies. There may have been some use of the odious Britishism "wankers." If I could remember where I saw it, I would visit condign punishment on the miscreant. Let me just say, though, that you can have my Star Wars jammies when you pry my cold, dead fingers out of them.
Democracy in Iraq? The short answer is "not likely."
The long answer is that democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else that has been tried, as Churchill said. This implies that many other forms of government will be tried first, and this is usually the case. Consider France, which has gone through two monarchies, two empires, five republics, one commune, and countless failed uprisings since the US established its constitution. Sure, we had a civil war to tie up the loose ends, but nothing like the Reign of Terror, the Vendee massacres, Napoleon's police state, or Vichy. Even now, their acceptance of democracy is so grudging that they are eager to give it up to a European super-state, and their contempt for the bourgeois values that maintain democracy is well known.
Iraqis are likely to take the wrong lesson from Saddam. Instead of concluding that a concentration of power is dangerous, they are likely to think that the problem was the concentration of power in the wrong hands. They will therefor look for the right man in whom to invest power. They will look for a virtuous man -- or a convincing counterfeit. Right now, Iraqis are demonstrating against the US occupiers, demanding withdrawal, demanding restoration of utilities, demanding suppression of banditry -- demanding, in effect, the imposition of the reign of virtue. They want someone to do something for them, and the sooner the better. The chanting and fist-waving are on TV every night. What I don't see is Iraqis organizing library committees, holding PTO bake sales, or joining a volunteer fire department. They are not doing much for themselves; instead, they want someone to do things for them. They are, in effect, clients in search of a patron. If you want someone to put things right and take care of you, if you will not expend effort voluntarily for the good of the community, you will not get democracy.
I live in Massachusetts. We still have a town meeting, and every time I go to one, I wonder how the institution has lasted some 300 years. There is a Norman Rockwell illustration of a stalwart fellow standing up in the town meeting, unloading some plain homespun wisdom, oblivious of the admiring gazes of his wife, his neighbors, and his parents. A more honest picture would show people rolling their eyes and pondering a bathroom break as one of the notorious cranks stands up to mount his hobbyhorse for a good 15 minutes. Picture a crowd of Iraqis limiting their display of annoyance and disagreement to mere ocular calisthenics. Democracy is not just the freedom to express your opinion but the duty to let someone else express his, no matter how foolish. If you are unwilling to sit still while someone says stupid things, you will not get democracy.
The idea of a loyal opposition is foreign to the Arab world. Under Saddam, of course, dissent was fatal, but an opponent is an enemy to more Arabs than Saddam. Kinship, clan, tribe, ethnic group, and religion all have claims on Iraqis' loyalties and form the basis of the opposing groups now seeking power. These groupings are permanent and not amenable to compromise. Because they form the basis of the distribution of rights and favors, the success of one means the failure of another. In the US, our Civil War was provoked by the irreconcilable differences over slavery and the unwillingness of one faction to abide by the results of an election in which they were free and full participants. If you will not accept a political loss, or if you fear for your property, rights, and safety as the result of one, you will not have a democracy.
More bloviation to follow, but I need to get some work done.
Richard Chamberlain outed himself today. I wonder why he bothered? Was this supposed to have been a secret? Oh, wait, I see -- he's plugging his memoirs.
