[ANALYSIS, OPINION, NOTES & TUNES]
[Welcome to another edition of TNnT which is short for “Tick’s Notes & Tunes”, where we start with “Notes” of interest on various, usually important, topics which are followed by “Tunes” which is the transcript of a fictional short wave radio transmission from where and when we do not know.
WARNING: Those who are underage, squeamish and/or insist on political correctness might want to consider another blog, vlog or other reading material.
Except where otherwise expressly noted artificial intelligence was not used in the preparation or publication of this blog post.]
NOTES
Its sounds self-evident and perhaps even trite, but if the United States, as a democracy is to survive, indeed, if the World is to survive, folks must learn to get along with one another. This requires that they be reasonable and be able to peacefully compromise their differences. It’s really that simple. Folks who are unwilling or incapable of accepting this fact are a mortal danger to everyone, including themselves. Moreover, the danger that they pose to everyone increases dramatically each day and it’s gotten to the point where mankind cannot afford to tolerate them. Why? Essentially, it’s because of the increasing lethality of weapons, the accelerating pace of the development of computing power, particularly artificial intelligence, advancements in robotics and the ability of governments to spy on everyone. Moreover, it is actually getting easier for governments and the rich and powerful to manipulate information and to totally control the ability of people to communicate with one another.
The foregoing naturally assumes that peace is preferrable to war and that people value freedom and want to have some meaningful say in who governs them and how they do it.
If there is no ultimate referee, no ultimate authority to decide who’s right in any controversy between humans then what determines what happens and who wins and loses is determined by power alone. If who wins and what happens is determined by power alone, then all of mankind will have a natural tendency to seek to acquire more and more power, if not to dominate, then just to survive. The same is true for politicians, political parties and nations. The acquisition and retention of power becomes the goal itself, with little or no attention paid to respect the needs of all folks and their inherent right to be treated with fairness and respect. Holders of ultimate power like dictators might be able to act decisively but they typically aren’t concerned with fairness or respecting the rights of the weak and less powerful. In short, dictators place more importance on enriching themselves and keeping power than they are in actually solving society’s problems. And sooner, or later, everyone is expendable, because eventually the interests of any person or group will be viewed as an obstacle that must be removed in order to stay in and/or increase the dictator’s power.
Fortunately, nations that are true representative democracies, have chosen a form of government that makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for any one person, party or group to dominate all of the affairs of society and to unilaterally impose their will on it. This is done through a variety of supreme laws, typically found in a constitution, that apply not only to the people but also to the government as well that cannot be amended or changed without some kind of difficult-to-achieve super-majority approval of representative segments of the country in question. In short, the governments of genuine representative democracies have fundamental foundational principles that include rules that assure: open, free, fair and voluntary voting for a truly representative government; governmental recognition of the fundamental rights of its citizens, including that of freedom of speech and freedom of press and the right to due process of and equality before the law. The fundamental foundational principles are designed to guarantee and unbiased and procedurally fair rule of law. Very importantly, these foundational principles also include the strict rules that preclude any branch of government from having total unfettered discretion to make the law, enforce it and then decide any cases or controversies that arise under it. This is because the powers of government are spread between three separate co-equal branches: a legislative (like our Congress), an executive (like our President) and a judicial branch (like our court system).
There are several reasons why genuine representative democracies are preferable to dictatorships. To name but a few: (i) everyone, through the right to vote has some say in what laws are passed and how government operates; (ii) everyone has certain protected fundamental rights, such as the right to free speech, freedom of religion and not to have their property taken without just compensation; (iii) everyone is entitled to due process of law in cases brought by or against them in the courts; (iv) everyone is entitled to equal protection of the law and no one can be discriminated against because of their race, color, religion, national origin or sex; and (v) a neutral judiciary that decides all cases neutrally and objectively according to the law as written. It is because of characteristics such as these that those who govern are infinitely more likely to consider the needs, wishes and desires of all citizens when making and implementing new laws and policies. This means that genuine democracies are far more likely to make rational decisions that actually address societal problems than dictatorships and/or autocratic governments where the primary concern is the acquisition of wealth and power of those already in power. In short, assuming rational decisions are ones that take into account the whole of society and not just a privileged portion thereof, democracies are far more likely to make rational, and therefore fairer and better, policy decisions than dictatorships.
Importantly, once a democratically elected government, passes a law or makes a decision, it has the power to enforce that law or decision. Moreover, the court system in democracies can decide cases and controversies amongst citizens and/or the government and enforce those decisions by punishing or penalizing parties who do not abide by the law or the courts’ decision. As such, despite the fact that the interests of all citizens must, on some level, be taken into account, still, should anyone decide to disobey the law or a court’s decision they will suffer the pain of some kind of punishment. In short, democracies do have mechanisms to ensure domestic peace and the healthy functioning of society as a whole.
All of the foregoing assumes, of course, that the democracy is functioning the way it was designed to function. If it’s processes break down, because of some failure in the system, a power vacuum will result because no one can enforce government policy or the law. This would result in civil unrest and perhaps open societal conflict and bloodshed. The point is that if a democracy breaks down there will arise an urgent need for someone to bring societal order about and this could well be by imposing that person’s will on society by force. In short, if democracy suffers a breakdown because, for example, citizens cannot elect representatives capable of resolving their differences during the legislative process, then the rise of a dictator becomes a likely possibility. This is why electing hardline militants, political zealots and extremists (who we will collectively refer to as “ideologues”***) incapable of reaching across the aisle to compromise with folks who have different opinions is dangerous. Elect enough ideologues and democracy will be a thing of the past. In short, the maintenance of democracy itself depends on voters voting for and electing candidates who realize all of the foregoing, and for that reason, are willing to compromises for sake of democracy and the national good.
When it comes to the relationship between nations, the situation is equally dire, if not more so. This is because, there is no worldwide government to begin with. In other words, there is no worldwide government that has power to adopt and enforce laws that all nations must obey. Various organizations such as the United Nations, the U.N. Security Council, the International Court of Justice and the World Trade Organization attempt to perform a lot of the functions of a world government, but the fact of the matter is that no international organization can really enforce its resolutions and rulings without the voluntary compliance of the affected nations. Thus, there is really no supreme world power that can force any nation or any of its citizens to do anything. Thankfully, this is not the case in a functioning democracy where if someone breaks the law, the government can put them in jail.
Because national governments can enforce their laws on their citizens, they are in a position to maintain the peace within their own countries. There is no such body on the international scene unless the seven member nations of the U.N. Security Council all agree as to what is to be done to resolve a particular international conflict. And getting such unanimous agreement has proven to be too rare. Why? More often than not, the permanent members of the Council, which includes the U.S., Russia and China can rarely agree on how to handle the most important international conflicts. As such, the U.N. is often incapable of maintaining world peace.
In this crucial sense, representative democracies and the World at large face the same existential problem. Because there’s no singular power that can make a decision for all nations or for all its people or citizens, everything depends on the ultimate cooperation of its members. In the case of a democracy, the members are the citizens of that particular nation. In the case of the World, the members are the various nations. No person or nation voluntarily cooperates unless their rights and legitimate self-interests are respected by others. Other nations and peoples must recognize and respect the legitimate interests of other peoples and nations. Inevitably, the rights and interests of various parties will clash. Thus, the ability of potential adversaries to compromise is essential, simply because if they don’t the system will break down because there is no omnipotent international government to force them to come to their senses and compromise. And, if compromise is not reached the result will be lingering resentment, protests, violence, bloodshed and perhaps even nuclear war—a war in which mankind is not likely to survive. And even if man were to survive the resulting devastation and disorder would make it more likely that the power that prevailed in any such conflict would impose its will on the rest of the World much a like a worldwide dictator.
Moreover, and to make matters even worse, any dictatorship on any level that would arise in the future is likely to be permanent, or at least very long term. This is because in the 21st century and beyond, any autocratic or dictatorial government will have at its disposal unbelievably effective tools to impose its will on every nation and every person within its powers. Again, one need only consider artificial intelligence, the emergence of robotics, supercomputers, and the ability of the powerful to slant, alter, manipulate and control information to realize that it would indeed be difficult to ever wrest control back from any future dictator. Consider how long Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have been dictatorships.
In short, the ability to compromise and cooperate is crucial not only to the survival of representative democracy, but of mankind as well. It is for this reason, that hardliners and ideologues, whether left or right leaning, often present a mortal danger to both democracy and world peace.
Our “TUNES” section follows the endnotes below.
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-ENDNOTES
** We do not consider countries whose governments are consistently and overwhelmingly dominated by one party, where elections are not open free and fair to be democracies even though they profess to be one. Russia and China are not true democracies.
*** What is an ideologue? This is a subject deserving of its own article. As used in this article, however, the term ideologues usually includes militants, zealots and extremists as well as persons and parties who focused almost exclusively on serving one and only one segment of society or one interest group. They often denigrate or totally ignore persons who do not agree with every position the ideologue takes. Their language is often inflammatory and designed to instill in others some kind of fighting spirit. Often they and their followers feel unjustly victimized by others. Often they focus on one or two litmus issues to the exclusion of everything else. Often demagogues are also ideologues.
**** It was thought by the author and many others that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the interjection of significant capitalistic and free market reforms in Communist China, the formation of the World Trade Organization, and several other international treaties that the rise of international trade would raise the worldwide standard living and usher in an era of peace and prosperity for everyone everywhere. In a sense it was hoped that free trade and open markets around the world would bring the world together in prosperous peace and harmony. Unfortunately, this has turned out not to be the case with two big reasons being: (i) a reactive rise of nationalism fueled by widespread immigration problems and job loss caused by the offshore production strategies employed by many multi-national companies and (ii) the emergence of leaders particularly in Russia and China, whose consuming focus is the acquisition, retention and expansion of power for both themselves and their country. And, we are currently witnessing the extreme danger that these developments pose not only to the Russians and Chinese but to the World at large and to the existence of democracy itself. In short, dictators and extremist political parties often use wars, including those of conquest, to divert their countrymen’s attention away from and/or to solve certain domestic problems—and they do so without any input or debate from their fellow countrymen, who in turn are fed a constant stream of disinformation justifying wrongful aggression. Meanwhile tens, if not hundreds, of thousands die or are seriously injured and the world finds itself on the brink of extinction. While it is true that democracies sometimes get involved in ill-advised wars as well, Congress’s power over the defense budget and the promise of future elections make democratic leaders much more controllable when it comes to making and carrying out any kind of war.
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TUNES
Good evenin’ folks
Stony here
to start your weekend
with another round of
tunes that will
fill your sails
float your boat
and allow us all to
cast off to a great weekend of
…in GURU’s case…
Diet Coke
Oatmeal
And
Though he’s loathe to admit it
Karaoke.
But good fun will be had by all
Talkin’ about havin’ the boss
Have total control over your life
Here’s a duo
Who were classmates
Who turned to song writing
And singing
And eventually touRare with
Some of the biggest acts
In rock and pop music
Including the Rolling Stones.
Interestingly, the record producers
Of our first tune
Which was their first hit
Didn’t tell Mary (her real name)
That they were changing her
Stage name to Dee Dee
So she didn’t find out her new name
Until after our first record
Her first as well
was released.
But be that as it may
It’s now time to enjoy
Dick & Dee Dee with
The Mountain’s High
https://youtu.be/ecj3J0gvKbI?si=OESgoZxhYXpFxqDG
Y’all better hang on
Because ya gotta get up
Early in the mornin’
To fire things up
As hot as our next
bruthas and sistas
my Gosh Suzi
are they wearin’
copy cat versions of
that outfit I saw
Rare Dog wearin’
Down there
At Butts, Butts & Company
Yeah…back in ’79?
Yeah, the silvery one
Cowboy hat and all.
Yeah
He had all the sistas
Out there with him too
Just a dancin’ away !
Yeah on the
dance floor.
Of course it was at the club!
Looked like
Kinduva a
frilly cross
Between Clint E and Travolta
But here folks
I’ll just shut up
and let all Yinz enjoy
the show with….
The Gap Band and Early in the Morning
https://youtu.be/aobIboK_z34?si=72xmIrPl5Rdcl_NW
[I think it’s fair to say that
Regardless of any pleading
Rare Dog might do
that they do so
that Rory McIlroy and company
Won’t be wearin’ those outfits
When they tee off at Augusta in a few days]
Okay
now that we’ve fired everybody up
We’re going to have to follow up
With an artist
who can carry that kinda momentum
forward
so….
next up
Is the lady who fronted the group
That absolutely ruled Motown in the 60s
And she needs no introduction
Because she’s
Clearly one of the biggest names of her era
this is one of her later hits from the 70s
after she embarked on a solo career.
https://youtu.be/yOzO_4NS8NI?si=hd97PQspGcMH0Yp7
[That of course was Diana Ross
Doin’ her hit Love Hangover.
I know I know,
GURU is not a big disco fan
But since we were talkin’ bout the
Butts, Butts & Company club
Circa 79 80 81 or
Somewhere’s in there
I couldn’t resist
And in any event
Stony finds the intro to that tune to be
absolutely spellbinding…
in fact it took a long time for
Stony to figure out that that
was none other than Diana Ross herself
singin’ it…
and so….]
Well anyway
GURU just called in
And said
Now that we’ve met our disco quota
…for who knows how long…
He suggested that we transition to
Somethin’ he typically listens to
And we all know what that is
But..let’s not slam on the brakes too hard
Suzi here
…she’s not just a pretty little face ya know….
She actually has some pretty decent
Musical taste
(I guess that’s why GURU hired her.)
Anyway…I’m gonna take Suzi’s suggestion here
And play our next tune
..which is from 1969 titled
That’s What I Want by The Squares Set
https://youtu.be/-qcXhl8d0Qw?si=HborbBnkdUvJ1hPv
Yeah, some of those pics
Really take Stony back
Anyway…
According to the Oracle of Wiki
Our next artist
Was originally given the birth name
Roberta Lee Streeter
Her parents split very shortly after her birth
And she grew up with her grandparents
on a Mississippi farm
where the house apparently
had no plumbing or electricity
But very importantly
Her grandma
Traded a family cow for a
Neighbor’s piano when she was 7.
be that as it may
She went to California to live
With her mom at the age of 13
She eventually attended UCLA
and did some modelling.
The story of the beginning of her recording career
Is simply extraordinary
She was signed to her
first 45 rpm record deal…a single
because she wrote a song called
“Mississippi Delta”
Which is a good tune sure enough
But that particular record had
As a Side B
Yes you heard that right
As a Side B she had
This little tune called
“Ode to Billie Joe”.
(don’t ya just love
the musical taste
of business managers?)
And as they say
The rest is history
She went on to host her own TV shows
Including one or two in Britain
All of the foregoing is not to mention that
She also wrote many
of her own songs
and, for her stage performances
did a lot of the choreography etc
And on her albums
She also played several instruments including the
piano, guitar, banjo, bass, and vibes
and… when performing live
she could really put on some dance moves
in fact watching
some of the videos of her performances
you can really tell that TV Producers
really just loved having her as a “live” guest
because they seem to go out of their way
to give her fairly elaborate stage sets
(–which she probably designed herself)..
And they obviously wanted her to dance
Because as will be seen in our next video
They dub her singing over her dance moves
(…I’ve never really seen it done the way
they do it in the next video, and GURU
said he’d bet dollars to donuts that that’s the way
she scripted it)
And yep
she won 3 Grammy awards
But GURU says
the most amazing thing she did
Was knock
The Beatles’ 15 week run
of Sergeant Peppers
off of the
Billboard 200 No. 1 spot with
…amazingly enough…
her very first debut album
titled after, yes
that very same B side of her first record
Ode to Billy Joe
…and as all Yinz
old foggies out there know
Knockin’ the Fab Four
off the top spot of anything
Was virtually
impossible to do back in those days.
She also had a short marriage to
Spiders and Snakes man
Jim Stafford
(what a talented duo that would have made
had it lasted!)
But that marriage did produce a son
And Stafford and Bobbie seem to have always
Had a relatively positive relationship.
But right in the middle of a very successful
career….sometime in 1982
She seems to have gotten tired
Or fed up with both
the show
and the music businesses
And simply quit both
And since then
she has become pretty much of a recluse.
In fact, she’s sort of like Howard Hughes
No one seems to ever know where she really is.
This next video
Is a clip from the Ed Sullivan TV show
And even though she did not write
this particular tune
it is right up her alley
talk ‘bout Old South !…
https://youtu.be/jdPg7scOcdo?si=gFaznnsOHX6krDyP
[ Yep, that was Ms. Bobbie Gentry.
There’s another video
that better show cases
her great dancing and singing talent
(no lip syncing while she dances,
she hits the high notes
stays in rhythm,
a mega talented lady for sure.
That other video is
from the Smother’s Brothers TV show
But the sound quality isn’t quite as good
as the Sullivan clip..
The song itself…Niki Hoeky…
was written by Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas from
from the band Rarebone along with Jim Ford.]
oh….alright…alright
I said alright already!
Folks…
now our switch board’s just a flashin away
wow….
Yes Bobbi’s old hubby is quite the popular guy too
And so, with a wink and a nod
To all Yinz critter lovers out there
Here’s
Bobbi’s also mega-talented
former hubby Jimbo
with a tune
everyone is sure to remember
Spiders and Snakes by Jim Stafford
https://youtu.be/4vudA72hibg?si=ncqAugZj5Jz535bu
Yep,,,that’s just way too much fun
And Jim Stafford is not only a great comedian
But a great great guitar player ta boot
Okay,
time to bring our ship of joy
home to port
We posted our
Power hitting
Clean up band before
Several months ago
And they are
probably better known as a live act
on the “pub rock circuit” in Britain
than as studio guys
but they definitely have a sound
and a stage act
that’s all their own
These boys got together in the 70s.
Lee Brilleaux their original lead singer
Who sings in tonight’s cleanup spot
Definitely has his own style
Originally He Was born in South Africa
Before moving to England
The band’s original guitar player
Wilko Johnson
Who had the most distinctive
Guitar playing style
GURU says he has ever seen
…frantically walking to and fro
back and forth
across the stage
,slapping the strings…..
much later played
the rather famous role of
the mute executioner,
in the
HBO series
Game of Thrones.
He also eventually had some musical
recording success
with none other than
Roger Daltry of the
Who
But Johnson ultimately
left the group
And/or was then replaced on guitar
by Gypie Mayo
A great guitar player in his own right
Who appears in this next video
The stage act
Always leaves one with the sense
That the everyone in the group
Has popped a little more
than just corn before the show
That and/or
That they
have snorted some of the stuff
that neither ma
nor pa
nor the law
would appreciate.
The band still performs today
Albeit with a totally different lineup
Due to the passing
of several key members
Of the band
And let’s face it
None of us are getting’
Any younger
Anyway we’re gonna leave yinz tonight
With one of this group’s biggest hits
So…enjoy
Dr Feelgood performing their hit
Milk and Alcohol
https://youtu.be/y0PYT48UY80?si=zMhPXW9xdx-6M6bi
Well folks that’s it for tonight
We’d like to thank the Oracle of Wiki
(otherwise known as Wikipedia
and their various authors
For providing a lot of
the background info tonight)
As always
Yinz are the best
And so,
Until next time
Thanks for listenin’
Thanks for watchin’
Good Night
And don’t let the bed bugs bite!
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by David Dixon Lentz April 9, 2024
( All written material exclusive of music and lyrics thereto are subject to the following copyright
© Copyright* 2024, David Dixon Lentz, All Rights Reserved)