"Temet nosce, tibi fide" (A personal lesson in self reliance)

It's always interesting to collaborate with others.

At first you begin thinking about all the great possibilities that exist when you get the best effort of others to achieve a common goal. It makes you think of grandiose scenarios, where your dreams are within your reach, and simply a matter of continuing on that diligent path. It's a beautiful thing when several people can visualize the same outcome and work together to achieve it.

But more often than not, it changes. What was once a shared goal becomes several different versions of the same thing, each with it's subtle nuance, each tinted by the perspective of the person who is unknowingly (at least in most cases) molding the original vision into their personal aspiration. And that's where it all goes sour. Communication breaks down, tempers flare, expectations are left unmet, and what once was full of possibility and hope, dies a painful memory. Kinda stating the obvious here.

But there's an aspect of ourselves that is often lost or diminished in the process of collaboration. It's self-reliance. Recently i've experienced this on a couple of my endeavors, both as a music producer, and as the founder of MTB. In both situations, there was a clear vision when I started, and a collaborative effort that in principle was solid, but as time went on, the concepts that led to the collaboration in the first place diverged until both endeavors became a mix of personal agendas, unmet expectations, and rancor. Oh it's been quite the shitstorm over the last week, I won't lie. After a long series of arguments and debates, I am the last standing member of MTB, and my music production business has been downsized to it's original staff (i.e. Me).

You would think that this would be upsetting, but oddly enough, it's been quite the opposite... Yes, there's been some sad/angry moments in both cases, where i wish things would've worked out better, felt disappointed in people, etc... But then hope crept in, followed by an amazing feeling of calm. For all that had gone wrong, standing by myself looking over the rubble of what had essentially been my life for the last year, I felt inspired, like I was more hopeful of these failed attempts being possible if I just relied on myself to do what I set out to do.

So today I tried my hand at writing some music again. I reminded myself there was no one else to work on it with me, that I was on my own, and that it was entirely up to me to make the best music I could. And I wrote. Better music than i've written in years, and more of it than I did in the entire 6 months I was trying to collaborate with another producer. Not just a bunch of 20 second riffs, but actual songs, with lush arrangements, and sounding pretty good without even having mixed them yet. It's like not having that 2nd person around unlocked a flood of creativity that had been repressed for the sake of collaboration.

To cap off the night, I read an article about Rick Rubin (the iconic music producer who I think embodies everything a producer should be), and it was the perfect close to an incredibly rewarding day. Now don't get me wrong, I am well aware I have a long way to go before reaching that kind of status, but reading about how he sees music, how he distinguishes between what's good and what's not so good, and how he marries professionalism with creativity, it restored my confidence in my approach to the work side of things, and in my ear for things, something that I had admittedly doubted through the course of collaborating with the other producer.

Obviously MTB will take a lot more to rebuild than a good day of writing music, and a pleasant article, but I take solace in this feeling that it will be ok as long as I stay true to my vision. Even if it's a few years to build this project back up, I've realized it's up to me to fulfill the promise of what MTB could be, and instead of bemoaning having to take a few steps back, i'm happy taking on the challenge of doing this by myself for the time being. In time, there will be new bandmates, new songs, and new opportunities, but for now i'm glad to just bring this back to it's essence, and rely on myself to build it back up better than it ever was before.

"Temet nosce, tibi fide"

(Know yourself, trust in yourself)

White Snuggies in Utopia (A comment on majority rules)

Is "majority rule" an acceptable way to govern? As some of the more avid readers of the MTB blogs may have noticed, this is a prevailing question. It's a topic that's been often debated whenever talking about the IRP, even internally among us who are working on it.

To begin with it's a difficult concept to define, because in human history, we have never really seen a true "majority rule" scenario. Even the most democratic of countries usually hand power back and forth between a privileged minority, and even if the occasional social-progressive/revolutionary rises up from the ranks of the common citizens to win a benchmark election, they are usually quickly invited to join the privileged minority, or join the martyr club. I'm sure you get the metaphor.

So based on the lack of real data to examine, the question of whether to follow majority rule or not is a purely hypothetical question: If we could ever manage to figure out a way to have verifiable knowledge of what majority opinion is, would things be better or worse?

Let's assume for the sake of this particular discussion that the IRP is the tool that allows us to finally have a factual majority opinion. We wake up one morning, and suddenly we all know if we're in the majority or minority on any given issue that we care about. Majority rule is suddenly not just a loose concept but a tangible reality.

Does that mean that we all don white Snuggies and live in Utopian harmony for all time?

Not a chance. The majority will make many mistakes, simply because people make mistakes. So if that's the case, why bother with something like the IRP? Don't our representatives speak for the majority? In my eyes, no.

When we legalized bribery in congress (that's what lobbying is folks, a legal way of bribing legislators), we planted the seeds of a puppet government, one where representatives are in place to play on the passions of constituents, all the while furthering the agenda of the wealthy few that keep them in the money. The recent Citizens United ruling only made this worse.

It's a broad generalization, but most of our representatives are in fact corrupt, and I'd be willing to bet a public flogging that if someone were to hook up all of congress to polygraphs, the vast majority would splatter the page on most, if not all, questions regarding misuse of power.

So given this sad truth, is our representative system a real democracy? And here we get to the essence of what democracy is. Democracy IS majority rule. By definition, democracy is: “a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them”. But if those that the body of citizens elects are, or become, corrupt, then are we really being represented? Or is it just the illusion of being represented, while in reality they work for their financial benefactors?

When a privileged few are in control, change and reform come at the pace they feel is necessary (if at all). Public well-being is secondary to wealth and power, leading to government of the wealthy, by the wealthy. What "trickles down" (thanks Ronnie) to the common citizen is essentially what those privileged few feel they can spare, which is in most cases much less than what the rest of us need to prosper. How do we improve things like health care and education for the general population, when it's up to the approval from those who only stand to lose from reform? In this country it roughly breaks down to 10% of the population defining what's good enough for the other 90%. Is this really a democracy? Or should we just call our government for what it is, a subtly disguised oligarchy?

If there's a tangible, relevant way to gauge public opinion (such as the IRP) putting the majority truly in control, this problem is resolved. It's not that education and health care immediately improve for the sake of following majority rule, that would be a foolish assertion. It's simply that we can improve these things as most of us see fit, when we see fit. It forces reform to be built for the common man and woman, centered around what the majority needs in order to prosper. No one person's agenda is above the others, no revenue stream is above the public good. The privileged few still have a voice, just not louder than anyone else's. And our representatives are forced to represent us, for we can finally know when they are working for us, and when they've been bought off.

Can the majority make mistakes? Absolutely. Even in this hypothetical world, there will still be bad laws, bad programs, and bad ideas that become public policy. But it's in these bad ideas that the brilliance of true democracy would shine brightest, because when most of us realized something wasn't working, we can simply vote to change it, without having money laden lobbyists and self serving Supreme Court justices derailing what the majority decides.

For me, it's simply the choice of oligarchy vs. democracy. I believe in majority rule because I believe in a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Selective Ideology

Fuck the Tea Party and it's followers. Yeah I said it.

Why?

Simply because for all their blustering and preaching, there is not one thing about their ideology that is real. They are the political equivalent of the child that throws temper tantrums when their parents don't give them exactly what they want. Their whole ideology seems predicated on a selective morality that is rigid to those outside the group, and flexible for those within. Here's some examples:

1) Spending.

- Obama and the democrats are spending a whole lotta money (for the record, I believe democrats, Obama included, are simply the "good cop" in this dog and pony show that we call a political system) and driving up the deficit. Agreed. But the previous administration did way more damage to the economy, not only through their equally loose spending policies, but even more so with their "anything goes" approach to regulation (see housing market crash, for example).

Where was the tea party then? Where were the "Bush is a Nazi" signs, the Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck rants, the teabag hats and the don't tread on me flags? After all this country was driven from surplus into deficit way before Obama was even a murmur in the presidential race, yet for some reason all these "patriots" didn't find it urgent or worthwhile to step out and make their voice be heard...

2) War

I'll flat out state that I am against any and all wars. Regardless of my personal feelings, I find it odd that once again, there were no tea parties protesting the wars during the Bush years, yet now, they are protesting "Obama's War" in Afghanistan... How exactly did he manage to acquire full ownership in 2 years, when the war had been raging for 8 years prior?

More importantly, how did the same people that questioned someone's patriotism if they opposed either war during the last administration rationalize changing sides on the issue?

3) The role of government

There is clearly a libertarian basis for a lot of the Tea Party's arguments, and in principle I agree with concept of a non-obtrusive government. Where I diverge is when the principle of a non obtrusive government gets used to further personal agendas. How is it that the Tea Party can say the government can't provide healthcare, yet the same government is supposed to block abortion? How can they argue for freedom, when they demand the government infringe on freedom of religion and block a mosque from being built near Ground Zero?

These are just a few examples of the disconnect between their ideology and their actions. You may agree with me, you may think i'm out to lunch, but in the end...

Fuck the Tea Party

Evil hippie treehugger

It couldn't be quieter here. It soothes the mind. Almost makes you forget. And then you close your eyes. Realize that this could all be gone by the time they open.

Shouldn't some things be protected? What if your children never get to experience the overwhelming feeling of being one with nature? If all they ever know is a concrete jungle, cars for animals, buildings for trees, smoke for air. Is that our legacy?

Or do we stand and fight to give them the same priviledge we got? Do we say enough to the idiots that deny Global Warming? Forget political correctness for those who are willfully ignorant. Call it as it is. Go out of our way to make them feel like imbecils for choosing convenience over fact? Peer pressure is a powerful thing. Why not leverage it in a good way?

Just a thought.

The what, the why, and the how

And so it begins... After much deliberation, composition, rehearsal, recording, strife, and joy, we're officially putting our as-of-yet-to-be-determined footprint on the collective consciousness. Or maybe all we'll do is blow hot air for a while, then fade away into obscurity like the millions of bands before us that didn't quite "make it". Either way, we are and will be saying some things that some may take as politically inflammatory, so I feel I need to explain my basic political stance, so as to not unduly confuse anyone.

Simply put, I think it's all broken. Yes, I am a liberal, and at times in my life I have identified with the democratic party, but that prior foolishness has been replaced by the realization that in the end it's all one party: The greed party.

To me it amounts to the difference between masturbating with your right hand and masturbating with your left hand: it feels a bit different, but in the end the outcome (no pun intended) is the same. Both sides take bribes from the same people, and cater to the same wealthy interests, the only difference being if they yell or cry while they do it. You can figure out who's who in that example.

And yes, this sounds like the same old complaining you hear from everybody. And you may ask what am I doing to change things? Is simply speaking some words over music enough?

No.

So what is my substantial contribution to fixing the problem?

My plan is to start an internet referendum in this country.

Sound far fetched?

Crazy?

Naive?

Impossible?

Probably all of the above. But then think of what this country could be if the majority could be truly represented, by using the internet to direct our elected officials in their actions. Think of what would happen if we could all see, in real time, when our elected officials cater to special interest over the will of the people. Imagine what it would be like to hear the phrase "The American people want..." and have it be factually supported!

Is it worth the effort then?

And yes, simply put like this, it sounds like a pipe dream...

But stay tuned...

I will be posting the progress on this effort here, and I encourage anyone to praise, ridicule, support or debunk my concepts. In the end it all helps, and if this is gonna truly be the solution I hope it can be, i'm gonna need as many people as i can get to help me. This is by far the most massive undertaking of my life.

Also, go ahead and steal my idea if you want. If it takes someone else to figure out how to make this work so that we get on a better track, I'll happily defer any credit.

So now you know where I'm at.

And if you want to know more, just ask.

MFN