A very different Frank Zappa

[Dan Rowden]

Found this posted elsewhere. Zappa debates censorship:

It's words - WORDS

[David Quinn]

A not so different Frank Zappa, really. Zappa had been clashing with government censorship and cultural mores for most of his musical career, and they were themes which cropped up in a lot of his work. He was a strong believer in freedom of speech. The album, "Joe's Garage", for example, was primarily about government censorship, while also laughing at yahoo culture.

-

[Trevor Salyzyn]

The interviewer on the right did this thing that always ends the conversation for me when someone does it. Basically, the "I'm right, and you're a child, so I'm going to talk down to you like you are a child, and I am going to lead you by the hand to my conclusion" tone of voice. It's hard to describe, but it annoys the fuck out of me. It's a total mockery of the Socratic method. I can imagine someone doing it if he is familiar with how Socrates' thought works in principle -- you know, you trick the person into contradicting himself -- but then never actually bothers to read Plato, or gets any more information on that method, or engages someone in an argument designed to establish truth.

[Dan Rowden]

A not so different Frank Zappa, really. Zappa had been clashing with government censorship and cultural mores for most of his musical career, and they were themes which cropped up in a lot of his work. He was a strong believer in freedom of speech. The album, "Joe's Garage", for example, was primarily about government censorship, while also laughing at yahoo culture.

True; I was thinking more the self-declared conservative in a suit Zappa....

[hsandman]

Presenter, with a straight face: "..or do you want to make decisions of your own."<- Thanks for asking.... O_o

[xerox]

...

[The Duke of Khal]

Greetings,

I perceived this short a while ago, and whilst at the time I found Zappa sympathetic, I find him less so now. Zappa is indeed a kind of anarchist, a cultural anarchist, who has no grasp of the importance of national solidarity and the restriction of inappropriate materials. That he emphasises how what he sings are "just words" should ring a huge warning bell in the mind of any serious person, for, words are vastly important and they do mean things.

He was right in spirit in regards to the drive toward fascism, just wrong in that he couldn't see that he was part of the counterculture that acts with it and towards it in a kind of gang-countergang operation. People degraded by counterculture are that much more retarded in their ability to realise what fascism really is, and notice it developing, much less act to stop it.

Where he was wrong was the notion that he faced a Christian threat, as if the "moral majority" faction is the real problem; it's only a problem to musicians like him, who get free publicity from these sorts of sensationalistic attacks on the counterculture anyway. Fascism might use Christian theological trappings, but, it is just a mask. Christianity is increasingly being deracinated from public and private life in favour of the Diversity cult ("holiday trees" etc.) and we should expect uncensored versions of the Bible to become banned eventually.

The other striking thing I noticed both times about the programme, was how childish the people involved were, constantly overlapping their dialogue and trying to butt in. Zappa does his best to keep firm and crisp. This isn't as bad as the sort of hysteria common to today's "news" programme "debates," but, it does show the trend.

K

[hsandman]

Greetings your highness.

Zappa is indeed a kind of anarchist, a cultural anarchist, who has no grasp of the importance of national solidarity and the restriction of inappropriate materials.

And who should do this "restricting"? Can I ? Should I do it for you as well? Can I choose for my self? De ja vu? I think I am also one of those scary "anarchists".. what ever shall I do! Protect me from what I want... Ohh, great censor in the sky.

Zappa does his best to keep firm and crisp.

He looked bored to me... but what ever.

The other striking thing I noticed both times about the programme, was how childish the people involved were

I call that "being rude"... but what ever.

Edit: Hey, Duke, what do you think of this crazy guy? Guy Fawkes(?) goes to Washington DC. - youtube vid. kinda long.

Edit2: Hey, Duke, What do you think of THESE NUTS? 100+ Guy Fawkes(?)Protest Outside White House hmm Washington DC - youtube link. kinda long

Now that is childish... 1st ever protest I have seen people in masks O_o that is not in the movie... umm well it is in the movie, but it is for real too... man that is childish. I see two ways to nip this in the bud.. 1. To stop selling Guy Fawkes masks and 2. Outlaw said masks. - Scrach that.. 2. Sell them at 2 X the price! Damn I am good. ups.

Look at this dog. <=- OMG.

[daybrown]

How dare the pagans steal the Christmas tree?

But ya, Zappa was never more than a sophist to the real hippies I lived in communes with. You get the idea from the media that all the kids back then were hippies. bullshit. Zappa hadda get real outrageous to get any press, and I guess they deserved him.

I lived in Tampa in 1968. Every single hippie in town could, and did, meet in Rasputin's den. The *one* hippie bar, the other hundreds of bars were all for rednecks. Zappa knew how to push their hot buttons. Real hippies didnt giva fuck.

I moved to New Orleans in 72 because I was tired of being a volunteer nigger in Florida. There, between the quarter, frenchman, and storyville, there was mayb 400 hippies. Whoop de do. I worked with the underground newspaper, the "Good News Acid", which had a few dozen subscriptions, but we mostly sold thousands of copies to the tourists as if there really was a counter culture that counted.

Ya, I'd been to a couple of rock concerts; 20,000, then 50,000, then Woodstock drew 100,000 or whatever. But hey- the draw was *national*. If you had a national draw at that time of beer sucking redneck NFL fans, you couldda filled a small state with them. Zappa got off on pissing them off. Socrates would have admired such talent in sophistry.

[The Duke of Khal]

hsandman,

The government, of course, presuming the government is in the right hands and is properly constituted. This is the principle of oligarchy, that the elite, enlightened few must guide the development of the commoner, with a mind to his improvement, rather than suppression (as the current oligarchical model presumes). It subsumes into the principle of the General Welfare's conception of man as made imago viva Dei, recognising that some men are more developed than others, as referencing Plato's Republic, and, thus, more suited to rule, including guiding education in order to maximise personal development and exposure to profundity and to minimise exposure to corporate, antihuman, and similar propaganda--ugliness, lies, and evil.

The contradiction arises in the conflict with the First Amendment, here; the question is in preserving that amendment without destroying the commonweal. In other words, nothing whatever is banned, merely regulated, to preserve the public life, festivals, and such. If people wish to see photographs of war atrocities, or read books on witchcraft, they will, once they acquire a certain license of maturity, gain access to the archives. Thus, a zymotic interplay of ideas is maintained without contributing to the culture of ugliness and chaos currently consuming the Western world. Those who try to defend "The First Amendment" as though it were received wisdom from on high, as part of a wholly arbitrary contract-between-animals called the Constitution, without defending the culture that produced these things and understanding the underlying principles of Natural Law that inform them, are ICES (ignorant, crazy, evil, stupid) serving the currently oligarchical elite.

He looked bored to me... but what ever.te

Maybe he took a pill.

Edit: Hey, Duke, what do you think of this crazy guy?
Edit 2: Hey, Duke, What do you think of THESE NUTS?

I don't see you doing anything to help the situation.

Nor do I see any purpose in divulging my views on the matter to you, as you are obviously unserious, apparently about anything.

To others reading the thread, though, I see this as an ominous sign. Those protesters are now recorded permanently on camera, and nerds with computer programs are going to be analysing voice patterns, gait patterns, height, weight, sex, race, group cluster patterns, gesture patterns, and collate it all into the master database. "V" is assuredly classified by the government as an anti-government, terrorist character. Showing up dressed as "V" is like showing up at the White House dressed as a Mujahadeen. This is what happens to "V" in real life.

K

[hsandman]

fckit time for a break.

censorship

Censorship isn't only concerned with banning porn, books, or violence. Censorship wears many masks and comes excused with many rationales.
It can insinutate itself into everyday life. It can lurk in the mind of the average careerist who simply wants to “get ahead” in the organisation, and doesn't wish to “rock the boat”.
It is present when a student refrains from asking an uncomfortable question of a teacher from whom he/she needs a good grade in order to get a good job in order to pay off the student loan.
It can, of course, come overtly as a “requirement of national security” or merely a family court judge’s shutting down the press coverage of a story that could irritate the medical hierarchy.

From childhood on, we learn to “couch” what we say, relegating the value of truth to the back burner, while elevating other values like “getting ahead”, or "being accepted".
But whatever its mask, censorship emanates from concepts that cannot logically be defended – such as one group of people (an elite) mandating what should be seen, heard and thought by another group of people (the rest of us).
While censorship often hides behind sweet reasonableness and rewards for our compliance, sometimes the velvet glove is removed and “authority” is revealed for what it really is. It is then we feel the fear that authority ultimately relies on to keep you and me and billions of others in line.
The tragic result is that throughout history, but rarely more so than now, we have unwittingly held ourselves back from our true potential as co-creators in evolution itself. Most frightening, though, many of us actually believe the lie that our true potential was probably never all that attainable anyway.
So now we follow the dark agenda of those whose primary aim in life is control, and we have learned to hate and fear and turn on ourselves and others as we turn off our potential for love, trust and “the good”.
Most of us still don’t realise that when we bought the lie that the truth is only for suckers, we censored ourselves from the vastness of our possibility. By surrendering our priceless heritage of independence of mind, we actually slid backwards in our own evolution, dumbing ourselves down (and our children as well) for the “greater good” of those who would control us for their own status, power, ego and wealth.
And thanks to the fact that we have accepted the cynicism of our materialist elites, our entire species is now rapidly embracing Thanatos (the death force), wantonly killing, maiming and destroying each other, and indeed the planet itself. Thus we now see impotence and depression and degradation as “normal”.
“I refuse to believe I’m living in denial” –used to be a funny little quip. Now it has become the centre of the materialist authoritarian mind-controlling culture itself. Deep within our comfort zones, we cheerfully (or neurotically) go along with the lies that not only is nothing sacred any longer – nothing really matters anyway. In this concept, power, material wealth, status and ego are the only things that are real, and everything else is ... somehow not.
Not art, not music, philosophy, God, or love. Censorship thus stands revealed as totally joyless and cut off from the stuff of life. Censorship, then, is on a permanent death trip in that it has no meaning other than its own personal aggrandisement – a futile and pointless exercise of the terminally insecure.
Because the root of censorship is deception for power’s sake, censorship has no truth in itself. As such it daily digs the grave of our potential for discovery and REAL enlightenment with its petulant, ugly and repeated insistence that it knows better than we do, knows what we should and should not see, hear, read or think.
It assumes that it even knows better than Life itself

[The Duke of Khal]

hsandman,

Now, try justifying what you've submitted in terms of truthful principle relating to the true nature of mankind and the process of the republican versus oligarchal conflict characterising the past 2,500 years of history of European civilisation.

That, and enjoy pulling the fire alarm as part of your uncensored free speech. "Oh, no, but, that's different, ma-a-a-an."

K

[daybrown]

One of the curious patterns in the last 2500 years of European civilization is the pioneering of land by yeoman farmers, who reproduce beyond the ability of the good land to support. The extra sons then move up out of the fertile valleys to farm the thinner soils on the ridges.

Which play out after a couple generations. The resulting famine creates civil war, and a warrior class takes over deciding who will live, if at all, in slavery. But another portion of the farmers see what is coming down, and thus move from Attica to Italy. Then from Italy to Gaul, then from Gaul to Germany, Poland, and Scandinavia. And then finally from Northern Europe to America.

And now, its the end of the line. What formerly were landed estates worked by slaves, is now called agribusiness worked by wage slaves. At least the ancient aristocrats had the moral duty to take care of their slaves the same as any other livestock. Those who abused their horses, oxen, or men were looked down on. But today, agribusiness has no such moral duty.

Curious as well is that the original meaning of the Roman censor was not about what a man said, but what he did. There was an active effort in the days of the republic to maintain the moral standards of behavior. Gibbon commented that while a republic requires the moral standards to be maintained, that once lost, no censor has been able to restore them, and no republic has been able to endure without them.

It is curious as well, that those most known for their moral standards, indeed the inventors of the highest moral standard ever, the Stoics, were notoriously crude, vulgar, and profane in their language. It was the way they acted, not how they spoke, which mattered. The corollary is
that as the republic becomes more corrupted in hidden ways, it becomes more hypocritical about the outward forms of its expression.

This has to do with the urbanization of a republic, which the Founding Farmers fretted over. If you recall, Vol I of Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" came out in 1776, and much of that first book had to do with the fall of the republic into tyranny. Gibbon explained how Crassus, on the way to becoming the world's first millionaire, bankrupted farmers all over Italy, and they saw how this dried up the supply of yeoman farm boys for the Legions.

As a result, the ranks, which formerly had men who had an investment at home, a say in the formation of the laws, and therefore an interest in the preservation of the republic, were replaced by men, often from other nations who didnt even speak the language, who only saw their future in advancing the power of the military industrial complex.