Robben Ford Discussion

[BlueRunner]

OK, OK, OK! My two cents, then off to bed:

Elizabeth: Thanks so much for the review from the Russian River, posted on the "Robben Discussion" thread. Sounds like a great time was had by all.

As for hot and heavy political discussion: We have an "Open Discussion" forum on this BBS. Like, right HERE. And I hope everyone feels really "open" here on this thread, regardless of their various opinions. The only other BBS I check into is the Carvin guitar BBS, and believe me, the folks there really go at it. That BBS has fundamental religious types, atheists, left-leaning almost radicals, vocal active military, teenagers, geezers like me, Satanic death-metal players, Country & Western fans, and everyone in between. And like this BBS, they're from a host of countries. But while very little gets held back, there are some rules: No obscenity, no personal attacks, and at the end of the day, we're all musicians with something in common that's a stronger glue than politics.

My bet is that if everyone on this BBS sat around in a room for a few hours, face to face, we'd find that we're all in sync on about 90% of what's going on around us in the world. But BBS's are the "safe haven" where we can vent like crazy about that other 10%. And we ought to feel blessed that we actually have that 10% that we can argue about. Otherwise, this would be such a plain-vanilla world that we'd all barf.

And whether you love or hate Michael Moore (or love or hate President Bush), isn't it wonderful that this past weekend a clearly controversial and uncomfortable film about very current and critical events outdrew a silly movie about two African-American cops who go undercover as caucasian debutants and end up doing silly things on screen? I'd much rather see Americans argue vociferously with each other than avoid discomfort by hiding in dumbed-down cultural drivel.

Finally, for any of you of any persuasion who are tempted to call those who disagree with you "unpatriotic" or "facist" or "leftist" or whatever, I commend the historical analyses of classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson is a supporter of the Administration's war tactics who as the result of his writings now has the ear of very high level people in the Administration, but he continually points out that one of our most important inheritances from the early days of western culture is the free argument and criticism of the councils in ancient Greece. For centuries Greece was a powerful and prosperous region because free discourse, including criticism of government and military tactics, was encouraged, not stifled. So on the one hand, while I believe that we have for many years now been at war with Islamic terrorists whose sole objective is to see us all dead, on the other hand I believe that the Administration's efforts to silence critics is counterproductive, in that it may actually delay or even destroy careful thinking and ideas that may be critical to eventual victory.

So please, KEEP ARGUING. Just do it in the nice sort of way blues fans always do.
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- BlueRunner

[PierreL]

I don't know... I have seen a lot of political threads on other music message boards turn into a "name calling party", that just makes want to avoid them at all costs. In the end, it will cause bitterness and resentment in my opinion.

[BlueRunner]

Thanks, PierreL. I hope, however, that your concerns about name-calling can be addressed by methods that include:

1. Switch to a different thread, or BBS, or web site, or just turn off the computer. I.e., no one is forcing anyone else to read (or respond to) anything that the recipient might find offensive.

2. Posters can actually review, proofread and edit posts before hitting the "Submit" button. Honest! So if you find that you've typed in something to the effect of "Mrs. Smith is a [commie/facist/idiot/terrorist/liberal/warmonger/drummer - insert your own name-calling]," try erasing and typing in something closer to "I respectfully disagree with Mrs. Smith because based upon [research/article/experience] I believe that [circumstance] will actually lead to [your effect], not [her effect] as she argues. But I still like her as a person, anyway."

And I don't mean to stereotype anyone here, but I've actually been to Paris, and have sat in cafes during national election time. Do you mean to tell me you are a Frenchman who doesn't like to argue politics?

Finally, are we actually arguing about arguing here? Seems sort of existential to me. Cool.
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- BlueRunner

[elizabeth]

BlueRunner, I love your style.

[BlueRunner]

I didn't vote for Mr. Bush either in 2000, but the guy I'm really upset with is Bill Clinton. The Bush-Gore contest was so close in so many states that I have to assume that if Clinton had just kept his blankity-blank zipper unzipped, the outcome would have been different.

Whether the past three years would have been different is a question I'll leave to others. But I very much doubt that upon Gore being elected, Mr. Bin Laden would have said, "Oh gee, those Americans are really nice folks after all. Phone our 'student pilots' in Florida and tell them they should come home to Kabul and take blues guitar lessons instead!" And even though Mr. Cheney wouldn't have been Vice President, as a former Secretary of Defense I would bet President Gore would have at least phoned him for some suggestions about how to fight back. All in all, there's at least a remote possibility that as we sit here today at the end of June 2004, the only difference in having a Gore administration would be that whenever the President worried publically about dictators developing nuclear weapons, he would pronouce "nu-cle-ar" correctly.
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- BlueRunner

[BlueRunner]

Er "unzipped" ?? I meant "zipped up." Freudian slip, I guess.
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- BlueRunner

[telefunk1]

Who teaches blues guitar in Kabul?

[JohnnyZ]

BlueRunner,

If you can play the guitar as well as you can write, I wanna hear you play!

~JohnnyZ~
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Soul on Eleven

[Aeolian]

I still think that Elizabeth's original point (or at least the one that stuck with me) was to draw attention to the blatent disregard for ethics and the law being exhibited in Washington as private jets scurry around picking up "friends" while all other traffic is grounded, and billions in contracts are awarded without competitive bids to cronies. If the American system is based on an "informed public" then I'm glad that there is someone to point these things out to folks who wouldn't otherwise realize them.

Out here in California, we used to be saddled with this character Willie Brown (a liberal Democrat, and not the harmonica player from Crossroads). The shenanigans he pulled while Speaker of the House caused me to change to being a Republican (Bush caused me to change back last year). The blatant cronyism and "my way or no way" tied up many sessions and screwed up important situations such as the state budget on many occasions. Fortuntately he ran into term limitations and after terming out as mayor of San Francisco has retereated to the shadows for now. I'm sure he's still pulling strings, just not rubbing my face in it as he does it. Which is what annoys me so much about what is going on right now. We all know that backroom deals are made and so on, but the present cast of characters seems to have no concern for how they are perceived. They just forge ahead, lining their pockets just as blatantly as Saddam did, with no concept of the irony involved.

As for whether Michael Moore is the Devil, or whatever. He spoke last summer in Santa Cruz (talk about preaching to the choir) and there is an extensive interview with him in the current Playboy (yes Martha, I do read the articles). He is also on the promotion circuit during this movie release. My take: Revenge of the Nerds. He deflects questions about how he is center stage by portraying himself as the proxy for everyman. But I kiind of think he is enjoying the spotlight. It has been suggested that the neocons went after Clinton so hard since he represented the prom king who got all the babes that they didn't. In the same light, Michael Moore is after any big shot who represents any flavor of the Alpha Males who wounded him in his youth.

Of course having fallen into the spotlight, I think it's kind of human nathre to play to it a bit. If Robben were to invite anyone here to tour with him as an opening act, hang out between shows, and basically be treated as a peer, do you think that you could come back to this board and deal with the rest of us civilians the same way? I'd posit that it would be very difficult.

My Ten Yen worth
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There are no such things as wrong notes, there's only the look on your face.
My Stuff: www.stevekirbymusic.com

[BlueRunner]

Aeolian: I can assure you that if Robben invited me to tour with him, it would not change me one iota! I'd be exactly the same person, just as it wouldn't change me a bit if I were to win $40 Million in the California Lottery. Honest! (Oh yeah.)

And switching something you mentioned on the Robben forum to this forum, so THAT's where RJ went to! Mischo played a regular weekend schedule down here at a small club in Ventura for a while. Fantastic to have that traditional harp style around here. Glad he's got a new regular venue, and even gladder to hear that it's loose enough for some jamming.

I'm proud to be an American, but there are times when it would be great if we could be a bit more like Wales. Like sometimes in a bar or a club, during those moments when EVERYONE should sing. Whether in key or not!
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- BlueRunner

[hilgirl]

A central theme of Michael Moore’s controversial documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” is a bare allegation that Saudi Arabian interests provided $1.4 billion to firms connected to the family and friends of President George W. Bush.

However, as a special Newsweek investigative report notes, there is really less – not more – than meets the eye re the dramatic Moore claim:

Nearly 90 percent of that claimed amount, $1.18 billion, comes from contracts in the early to mid-1990’s that the Saudi Arabian government awarded to a U.S. defense contractor, BDM, for training the country’s military and National Guard. The “Bush” connection: The firm at the time was owned by the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm whose Asian-affiliate advisory board once included the president’s father, George H.W. Bush.

· But, points out Newsweek, former president Bush didn’t join the Carlyle advisory board until April, 1998 -- five months after Carlyle had already sold BDM to another defense firm.

· As for the sitting president’s own Carlyle link, his service on the board ended when he quit to run for Texas governor -- a few months before the first of the Saudi contracts to the unrelated BDM firm was awarded.

· The Carlyle Group is hardly a “Bush Inc,” noted Newsweek – but rather features a roster of bipartisan Washington power figures. “Its founding and still managing partner is Howard Rubenstein, a former top domestic policy advisor to Jimmy Carter. Among the firm’s senior advisors is Thomas “Mack” McLarty, Bill Clinton’s former White House chief of staff, and Arthur Levitt, Clinton’s former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. One of its other managing partners is William Cannard, Clinton’s chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.”

· According to the report, the movie neglects to offer any evidence that Bush White House intervened in any way to bolster the interests of the Carlyle Group. In fact, the one major Bush administration decision that most directly affected the company’s interest was the cancellation of a $11 billion program for the Crusader rocket artillery system. The Crusader was manufactured by United Defense, which had been wholly owned by Carlyle until it spun the company off in a public offering in October, 2001. Carlyle still owned 47 percent of the shares in the defense company at the time that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld canceled the Crusader program the following year.

· As Moore’s dealings with the matter of the departing Saudis flown out of the United States in the days after the September 11 terror attacks, the 9/11 commission found that the FBI screened the Saudi passengers, ran their names through federal databases, interviewed 30 of them and asked many of them “detailed questions." “Nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9/11 investigation was allowed to leave the country,” the commission stated.

· The entity in the White House that approved the flights wasn’t the president, or the vice president -- it was Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism czar who was a holdover from the Clinton administration. Clarke has testified that he gave the approval conditioned on FBI clearance.

[Leftbender]

[telefunk1]

This is getting a little tedious, and I love talking politics! All I have to say is, remember, this is a movie we are talking about and neither it, nor a Newsweek report, can wade through all the BS and hype, truth or fiction, whatever, that revolves around what we as a country are going through. What Moore has done, as Blue said earlier, is to get us talking and thinking and arguing about this, which is a great thing. Us Americans are perhaps the most out of touch country politically speaking, considering the low voter turnout at most elections - local or national - and anything to get us off the dime and into engaging our fellow citizens in debate is a good thing. A democracy is only as good as its citizens are willing to make it.

And Leftbender, I am going to be spending a few hours in Schipol Airport in a few weeks - anything fun to do while I wait?

[Leftbender]

Yeah, there are some things you could do depending on what type of guy you are:

1: Buy a book about windmills, wooden shoes and bone China.

2: Put on a white dress, buy a toy machine gun and start running through the tax-free area yelling things in any foreign language from the far east.

3: Take the sub to Amsterdam and stay there for the rest of your life.

4: Find as many Americans as possible and discuss politics. Avoid difficult questions and keep telling everybody how proud you are to be one of them! Watch how time flies!
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"Don't play what's there, play what's not there" Miles Davis

[JohnnyZ]