The Audio Stylings of Chris Levens
"I'm a Gangster"

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The Good Old Days

Ever hear people talk about the moral decay in our modern society?
Ever hear people talk about the way the Church has lost its way?

Pictures like this remind me that the Good Old Days wern't all that good.


 8:16 PM   •  10 satisfied customers!!  

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Christians & Blackwater

Ya'll know about Blackwater, right? They are one of the many Mercenary groups Neo-Cons employ as they try to privatize the military.

I was watching this video, don't ask me why, about this automatic shotgun Blackwater developed.



I don't know about you, but people who are in love with the military and guns freak me out a bit. Anyway, as I was watching this I was struck once again with the weird romance between Conservative Christianity and Warfare.

The Blackwater company has ties to Conservative Christian groups. Its founder, Eric Prince, was an intern for G.H.W. Bush, but didn't like him because he was too liberal. Prince's father co-founded the Family Research Council with James Dobson. Eric is a big doner to the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Calvin College, and Christian Freedom International.

The association of E. Prince with the Conservative Christian cause leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Prince seems to be a modern Christian warlord. The development and legitimization of private military groups with advanced weaponry and permission to act outside of any law (if you follow the scandals about Blackwater, you know what I'm talking about) is terrifying. Private military contractors are stateless armies -- isn't that what makes terrorists bad? -- that can kill with alarming efficiency, and they do it while making a profit. And a portion of that profit, praise the Lord, funds conservative Christian causes.

Is it just me, or is there something very twisted about all this? Who are these people that love Jesus and love shooting guns at people? They remind me of a friend of mine, a Baptist, very conservative both theologically and politically, who wanted to join the army after 9/11 so that, as he said, "I can spread the word before I spread some lead." He was talking about going to Iraq where they need both the Gospel and more bullets flying around.

You shall know them by their fruits -- a condemnation of mainstream conservative Christianity? Not sure how to answer that, but Jesus's words haunt me every time I smell this crap.
 11:10 AM   •  3 satisfied customers!!  

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On Being Popular

You've heard me talk about Edward Said before. You've heard me talk about Antonio Gramsci before. But I don't think you've heard me talk about Raymond Williams before. I've been reading a litte more Williams lately and I thought it was about time I gave him props.

"On Being Popular, huh?" -- just give me a second, I'll get there.

Those three guys, (Said, Gramsci and Williams) have probably had the largest influence upon my theoretical opinions as of late. What I like about these guys is they are able to steer clear of the deterministic forms of dialectical materialism, yet they perform vigorous and exciting materialist readings of cultural products.

"deterministic dialectical materialism?" -- yeah, I know, what's with the jargon. I'd both to clarify, but that would distract me from touching on the popular stuff, so forgive the theoretical shorthand.

And so, one thing that I dig about Williams is his perspective toward people. The progressive solutions he offers are always grounded in mass solidarity. Williams, as well as Said and Gramsci (in their own way), emphasizes the need for people to recognize their common interests. To achieve this, counter hegemonical art must be popular art -- it must somehow enable alienated individuals (individuals who have been taught by the market to think and act as an individualist) to see what they already share -- to see those things they share that have somehow been hiding from them.

One thing I like about this is its view of art: it is populist, not elitist; art is not refined, not understood only by the trained, but art is common, and offers something for everyone; counter hegemonical art is oppositional to systems of domination and cherishes the inseparability of goodness and beauty.

Now, don't confuse what I'm saying with something Said, Gramsci or Williams say in their books. If you think I'm misreading them, that's fine -- maybe I am. But what their writings do to me is increase my appreciation for pop-art's counter hegemonical function -- that good art does not create loners, rebels, anti-socials, individualists, but good art is popular, increasing connections of co-operation between people everywhere.
 11:41 PM   •  7 satisfied customers!!  

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Hoods

I'd like to offer a little interpretation about the use of hoods on terrorist suspects, but first, a little context is needed.

Back in 1963, the CIA produced an interrogation manual called KUBARK. This manual, which is pretty diabolic, suggests that cutting off as much sensory stimulation as possible is one way to break a detainee. To quote one section, "The chief effect of arrest and detention, and particularly of solitary confinement, is to deprive the subject of many or most of the sights, sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations to which he has grown accustomed."

This explains why terrorist suspects are hooded, bound and imprisoned, like in this picture from GitMo.



According to the manual, severe psychological damage is created by sensory deprivation. It states, "The symptoms most commonly produced by isolation are superstition, intense love of any other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as alive, hallucinations, and delusions."

Besides sensory deprivation and psychological damage to suspects, there is another benefit hoods provide for the interrogation process: they enable the interrogator to treat the detainee like an animal. Hoods hide an important part of the humanity of the detainee. Without seeing the suspects face, an interrogator can behave like a barbarian or a Nazi without the pangs of conscience that a human face might elicit. A hooded terrorist suspect makes it easier to molest and brutalize them.



In the power structure of world domination, it is essential that atrocities committed are done so at a distance. At the top are those who give the command, who never see children's' heads split open. Below the commanders are those who execute the command -- for these, they are more likely to see old ladies with full body burns. Such visions of the fruit of one's labor are likely to make an individual question the morality of their actions. To prevent this, it is important to erect blinders to their own brutality. One way of doing this is by placing them in airplanes high above a town -- all they see are blips on screens -- they press buttons -- bombs drop but they don't see the inhabited apartment complex they hit. Remote controlled fighters are the next step. Hoods also fit into this process -- they are a barrier between the human interrogator and their faceless, sub-human detainee. In order to maintain a fighting force of Stormtroopers, the powers that be must make sure those who do the brutalizing don't question the morality of what they are doing.
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