Shaun Richman

May 31, 2006July 17, 2023

Overpopulation, or Overconsumption?

Ward Sutton, who was much funnier when he was drawing cartoons that lampooned rock-n-roll culture, makes an extremely dubious point about overpopulation and the “culture of life” in this week’s “Sutton Impact.”

In it, Sutton mourns the loss of greenspace and farmland in his hometown to “exurban” housing developments, blames overpopulation and then mocks the right-wingers who want to ban contraception. While the effort to ban contraception is ridiculously puritanical and begs for mockery and outrage, I find it extremely hard to blame American urban sprawl on “overpopulation.” The great big land mass under the stars and stripes is a whopping 5.9 million square miles, while our population is – as Sutton points out – soon to be 300 million. That means that, on average, we have to squeeze about 83 people to each square mile.

India, on the other hand, with its billion citizens, has to find enough living space for about 328 people per square mile. Taiwan gets comfy with about 636 people per square mile, the Gaza Strip makes room for about 3,823 in its relatively few square miles, and even prosperous countries like Britain and Germany accommodate 243 and 230 subjects and citizens to the square mile, respectively. The United States, in fact, ranks just 144th out of nearly 200 countries in terms of population density.

So, is the problem that there are too many people in the world, or that there are too many Americans in the world, demanding strip malls, office parks, sport utility vehicles and McMansions? Do we need fewer Americans, or do we Americans (who, with 5% of the Earth’s population, consume 20% of its resources) need to consume less?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of sex and contraception as the next single male hornball, but cries of “overpopulation!” often sound to me like cries of “There’s too many damn brown people!” And countries like India and China, while poorer than the U.S., somehow find a way to accommodate their masses without uprooting every forest in sight to build more goddamn Best Buys and 7-11s.

Perhaps I’d be less antagonistic to Sutton’s cheerleading for contraception if it was accompanied by a call for massive new immigration into this country. After all, there are places in this world where there is legitimate overpopulation (India, Palestine and China being good examples), and here we are in the U.S. of A. wasting perfectly good greenspace on giant styrofoam houses and honking huge parking lots. Brown people of the world, help fill our wide open spaces!

May 25, 2006July 17, 2023

Fascist Rock

One of fascism’s most insidious tendencies is to warp history with revisionist interpretations. The National Review’s recent list of the 50 conservative rock songs of all time is a contemptible attempt to claim protest music for the forces of reaction. Freedom is, indeed, slavery and rock is Republican if you believe these pinheads. I see no more than twelve actually conservative rock songs here (and that’s being generous with Sammy Hagar’s weenie complaint about the “nanny state,” “I Can’t Drive 55”).

Some of the 50 are non-political songs given a right-wing spin by the magazine, like the Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice?,” an innocent song about dopey teenagers daydreaming about living together which National Review interprets as a paean to marriage and abstinence. My filthy mind interprets it as a post-coital parting of two teenage lovers who would rather spend the night together than sneak back home. Similarly, where National Review hears a “law-and-order classic” in “I Fought the Law,” it sounds more like an anti-establishment classic when covered by the Clash and Dead Kennedys.

Context is crucial, but the National Review ignores and obscures context when reinterpreting these songs. Sure, the Band sang “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” from a Confederate perspective, but it’s storytelling. On the same record, they also sang from a pro-farmworkers union perspective on “King Harvest,” declaring “I’m a union man all the way!” And to declare Bowie’s “Heroes” as some kind of anti-Communist ballad is to ignore the prominent quotation marks around the song’s title, signaling Bowie’s ironic detachment (Jakob Dylan made the same grave error in his overly earnest cover).

Most galling is the usurpation of the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” as the #1 “conservative” rock song of all time. Pete Townshend’s “pox on both your houses” fury has been particularly misinterpreted since it became a staple of post-9/11 airplay. The context of the song is that it comes after the British elections of 1970, when the Conservatives defeated the Labour Party, whom Townshend had supported and in whose leadership he was disappointed for acting just like the Conservatives and squandering their opportunity. (“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”) A rank-and-file complaint about the Labour Party not being left-wing enough is a bit of a stretch as a “conservative” anthem.

Further stretching brings the Rolling Stones of the 1960’s into the conservative ranks. Nevermind that young Mick Jagger had a political conscience and compass and was mulling a run for Parliament as a Labour Party candidate at this time, because clearly his playing the role of the Devil is a clever use of moral relativism to to critique…um, er, Bolshevism! And “what you need” in “You Can’t Always get What You Want” is apparently neo-liberal hegemony, and not a break-up with your girlfriend, Marianne Faithfull, the one with the bloodstained hands from her drug-induced miscarriage.

Bloody fetuses abound on this list. Graham Parker’s frankly gruesome “You Can’t Be Too Strong” (“Did they tear it out with talons of steel, and give you a shot so that you wouldn’t feel?”) is mistaken for a criticism of the right to choose. No, he’s just calling a spade a spade, much like his current labelmate, Jon Langford’s band the Mekons who exclaimed “Chop That Child in Half!” twenty years ago, before updating the song as the less ambiguously pro-choice “Born to Choose.”

The Sex Pistols’ anti-abortion anthem, “Bodies,” is one of the genuinely conservative songs on the list. What a pisser that the only explicitly political song of the flagship band of the punk era had to be reactionary. Blame Johnny Rotten’s Irish Catholic upbringing.

The Beatles’ “Taxman” is also pretty fucking reactionary. A bunch of pampered rockstars whining about too much of their vast fortune being taxed to pay for universal health care and social security? Boo-fucking-hoo.

Skynnard’s “Sweet Home Alabama” is undeniably reactionary. But who has the nerve to be proud of segregation and Gov. Wallace?

The one elegantly conservative song on the list is the Kinks’ “20th Century Man.” Ray Davies is a curmudgeon, the kind who can complain about the government razing bombed-out tenements to make room for inhabitable new homes, but he is still eloquent when he sings about tradition and history and fears or too much artificial change. He is a genuine conservative, not some lying, deceitful right-winger. If there were more of him, the National Review could fill out a proper list without stealing from the left.

April 27, 2006July 17, 2023

Union Beer

When it comes to beer, there is only one factor that’s more important than price and taste: is it union? Molsons, Miller, Anheuser-Busch, Pabst are all good union products. Always look for the union label, comrades, even when getting loaded.

Beer drinkers, I regret to report that Yeungling is on the Unfair list. Management at Yeungling are busting the longtime union for their workers, Teamsters local 830. They cut off negotiations long before the recent contract expired and threatens employees’ jobs if they didn’t sign a petition to decertify the union – all in blatant violation of federal labor law. But the law won’t mean anything if people keep drinking their union-busting beer. Boycott Yeungling, Yuengling Premium Beer, Yuengling Light, Lord Chesterfield Ale, Dark Brewed Porter, Traditional Lager, Light Lager, and Original Black & Tan.

Let the company know that you deplore their wholesale violation of their employees’ rights. Demand that they resume negotiating with the union before you ever take another sip of their beer.

Yuengling Brewery
5th & Mahantongo Streets
Pottsville, PA 17901
(570) 622-4141
http://www.yuengling.com/contact.htm

(This article was written while under the influence of Labatt Blue – “UNION MADE” in London, Montreal and Vancouver, Canada.)

April 25, 2006July 17, 2023

The Death and Life of Urban Planning

Hearing of Jane Jacobs’ death, I am reminded that Elana borrowed my copy of “Death and Life of Great American Cities” and never returned it (and people wonder why I’m stingy about lending out books and CDs). She does work in policy, and I’m just a union organizer. I would like to read it again, though.

When I was in my final semester at Queens College, I was able to indulge a budding interest in urban planning with a few courses on the subject. Within that stale air of academic urban planning – with baroque architecture, the White City of the Chicago World’s Fair, garden cities and Le Corbusier – Jacobs’ writing still is a breath of fresh air. Her simple theses about the “eyes on the street,” diversity of use and how success can drive out success remain such a useful way for viewing street life. I still think about these ideas when driving around on lawnguyland, with its lifeless cul de sacs, sterile office parks, smoggy highways and antiseptic shopping malls.

But I’m also sympathetic to Le Corbusier and the idea of high rises and green space. It’s socialist, albeit the variety of socialism puts academic planning ahead of how people actually live their lives. And Jane Jacobs is so anti-socialist, particularly the convoluted plan for corporate welfare that she proffered as an alternative to simple, public housing (form does not follow function; publicly-owned housing doesn’t have to be cheap, drab and ghettoized – that’s just what capitalist politicians did to it).

Moreover, Jacobs’ simple observations missed the obvious points that not every street can be Christopher Street, and that no one wants to live in the tenement apartment building next door to the hog fat rendering plant. Some planning is required.