I hate memes…

by matttbastard

…but I love music (and lists). So I’ll make an exception in this case. Meme originator James Bow explains:

Politics is an important part of our lives, and it plays a big part in defining who we are and how we see the world, but it isn’t the only part of our lives, and it doesn’t play the biggest part in defining how we respond to the world.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to ask every political blogger in the Canadian blogosphere to stop thinking about politics a moment, and think about rock music.

I’m serious. I am compiling a list of songs for an iTunes playlist which I am calling “Rock Essentials”. These are songs that I’ve arbitrarily decided are important to the history of rock and roll. You may not own the albums, but whenever you hear the single, you recognize it immediately and smile, and possibly say “rock on”.

So, tell me: what would you say are your top five most essential rock songs for an iTunes playlist? Or top ten. Or top fifteen. Take a moment to list our choices and explain them. Then link back here and leave me a comment pointing to your post. Let’s see what your choices are.

My 15 picks in no particular order (and in YouTube format) are below the fold:

Larison: “The real anti-establishment candidates are known by their marginalization.”

by matttbastard

Paleocon blogger Daniel Larison doesn’t think much of the “anti-establishment” credentials of candidates (in this instance, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama) who belong to, brazenly court, and are eagerly championed by establishment parties:

[T]his entire debate about the anti-establishment populism Palin supposedly represents and its similarity or lack of it to Bush’s style simply reproduces McCain campaign propaganda that presents Palin as an anti-establishment reforming champion.  Challenging and throwing out incumbents are not enough–if that constituted being anti-establishment, Macbeth would be one of the great anti-establishment heroes of all time.

[ …]

Something that seems to elude these discussions is the recognition that ambitious, new pols are not anti-establishment–they want to be the establishment, or a part of it, or else they are bound for long, disappointing, stagnant careers in the backbenches or the backwoods.  The basic truth about anyone competing at this level for high office is that they may not yet be of the establishment, but they are very much in favor of the establishment provided that they are an important player in it. The real anti-establishment candidates are known by their marginalization.  Washington pols and their allies who run against Washington are having us on in the same way that the branches of the federal government con us by pretending to check one another while constantly aggrandizing more power for the central state as a whole.  Every wave of reform is stymied because Washington pols will never of their own volition yield power that Washington possesses, which gives the citizens less and less leverage over each succeeding generation of so-called reformers.  No one in the major parties calling for reform or change intends to alter this structure in any meaningful way.

h/t Ampersand

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