[citation needed] Apart from the heightened requirements for being considered legit anti-corporate and the fact that Death Grips isn't that political, it almost seems possible. Time moves in cycles, and it has been a while since there was a Rage Against The Machine-esque group in or near the mainstream, that I know of, but Death Grips seem to be the perfect candidate. Behind the facade, they don't even have coherent words to get an agenda from... actually this whole thing is falling apart: the new Rage would obviously be a New Sincerity band.
However, I get this sense from Death Grips that they're projecting an even bigger identity than what they actually possess. It's like how Rage was part of the 'Che Guevara T-Shirt era' of counterculture, a largely corporate construction referencing or alluding to deep things like a Tibetan monk on fire or how bad racism was. Death Grips is the new counterculture, which may be more legit, but has even less coherence.
As far as I know only Death Grip's tendency to release their albums for free is solidly anti-corporate or at all activist, and they don't really project any leftism or rightism in their lyrics at all. They more exist in a great, drugged out realm where politics can't claim them for its own insidious purpose. The idea that they are not just dudes making music, and instead dudes getting paid a lot to make music for some kind of viral marketing project, is very tempting mostly because I'm a hugely cynical skeptic.
The machine has won. Rage was one of its products and the crowd that used to listen to them sincerely have all moved on, mostly towards being yuppies. Death Grips exists in the absence of hope or progress, an aesthetic the group wallows in, as if to prove there is nothing left – a statement powerful enough to put it on equal footing with the largest, least counterculture countercultural movement of the 1990s.
It all relies on the idea that maybe Death Grips is saying something by screaming incoherently about drugs and paranoia and lust, but I know for a fact the group's listeners do not wear Che Guevara shirts. I have my ideas about their fans, in particular I think a lot of them are anything but as hardcore and mentally unsound as the music suggests, and the music writes a bigger cheque than Rage ever did because it seems to mostly be balls-out insanity.
Note that both groups were signed to Epic Records Co. Death Grips is no longer with them due to self-releasing albums and other rebellious things that Rage never did at all. Rage did manage to get a very comprehensive listing as 'questionable music' in the wake of 9/11, when any actual radical had not listened to them for nearly a decade. Ultimately very idea of counterculture 1990s is either very scary or incredibly laughable so I would put the two groups in different categories at least temporarily. I don't think the distinction would help either band and to be honest I don't think they have anything in common at all.
However: this does not mean that Death Grips is not this era's Rage Against the Machine. Epic Records execs must have seen the same underground/indie/counterculture buzz in both bands in order to want to sign them. Nobody cares that much about either band right now, but Death Grips is alive at least. Death Grips did not get the over-mainstream cool people and instead nabbed the indie nerds who are too cool and self-aware for horrorcore but into something similar, to the eternal chagrin of the Execs, who then dumped DG after finding or making a suitable excuse. I know they were part of the corporate overlords' plans somehow. Just like Rage. More the fools us.[citation needed]
Showing posts with label petroleum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label petroleum. Show all posts
9/27/12
Pay Before You Pump
About a week ago there was a fairly big story about a malicious death (essentially a murder, technically a hit-and-run) in Toronto, caused by $112 worth of gas. The victim was the clerk, fearful about having a day's wages garnished because of theft. The manager of the location, and the industry itself, which likely institutes and enforces pay-for-theft measures (like many service industries – remember, if you don't want to tip, at least pay), criticized the entire incident but itself did little. I am no customer-service scientist, but I have a feeling that franchise owners and employers weren't ever truly warned against garnishing wages for fees.
Just ask a bartender or, especially, a waiter at your next time out. They'll tell you that for dine-and-dashers, or drink-and-stumblers, they are held responsible for the lost money. They buy it. They pay for theft. It's a stupid, malicious business, but it is rational in that it makes sense. That's business – if an employee can't keep profits then the employee is punished for that. Fine.
However, the scene of this crime is far more complex even than a simple theft of food and service at a restaurant or bar. Gas prices are rising like thermometers around the globe. Record summer heat means more cars on the roads, burning gas to maintain their spots in traffic jams, and operate A/C for the frustrated, overheated drives. Let's face it: when you're a privileged North American in a car, in dense traffic, it gets slow and it gets lonely. Carpooling doesn't figure at all in the story of gas theft and murder, but I figured I'd give it a moment, since passengers can be made to pay for their passage – and they should, with gas prices as they are.
The worst part of the story was a story about a teenage pump attendant (I forget where or if he was even a teen) who was dragged to his death for something like fourteen dollars and change. It's pretty damn despicable, but potentially the worst part is how many times it took before some politician realized there was exposure in acting on it. It only took a loose bunch of lives before the righteous opportunists of the political sphere even took notice of a looming problem. Gas won't get cheaper. People won't suddenly begin to treat low-paid service staff as legitimate humans deserving of life, as worthy and valuable others – as they won't in any of dozens of arenas around the world. Anyone who's worked retail will tell you about it, if you were wondering.
Meanwhile, angst continues to pile up in Canada. Gas costs $1.25 a litre (that's like three something a gallon) and we have something like the third-largest oil reserves proven in the dirty, shitty oilsands. Meanwhile we sell it away, part and parcel, to foreign interests and continue to pay unreasonable prices at the pump when we buy it back from those foreign interests. Instead of refineries, profits are used in a pathetic attempt to greenwash the original extraction operations. Somewhere in this nest of wasteful fallacies lies a sensible route to well-priced gas or an achievable alternative. Politics, though. You gotta have politics. Opposition to oil sands development must be the exclusive domain of malicious idiots and borderline eco-terrorists – you know: 99 percenters, Occupiers, and other idealist trash who don't know anything about business, the economy, or why the status quo is set as it is.
So it's only a matter of time until Nexen is sold to Chinese investors. I'm not even of the opinion it's a mistake. The oilsands are a mistake, what is done with them now – and if it gains certain people in this country billions of dollars, and improves trade relations with China: so much the better – hardly matters. Sovereignty has not been anything more than a byword by which the Harper administration rustles up support among the smug and hopeless of Canada. Under such circumstances, the sale of Nexen Inc is a no-brainer, and any turn-around likely to harm Canadian prospects in international trade, making it seem as reactionary and uncompetitive, as well as uncooperative and dishonest.
Looking at what Canadians will do for gas, down to the cowardly killings of attendants, some good publicity will be a windfall. So long as the oil and money continue to flow, little else matters. The big companies (NHL and NFL are currently great examples of this, as well) don't care about the lives of their most-ubiquitous employees, or pollution, or who owns what bit of oilsands. Politicians will only act if it fits in with their specific brand, and if their mandarins have seen fit for action, or if the public applause will overpower the private censure. Nobody cares, and, seemingly, neither do the people – and who can blame them? They've got to get to work, and the highways are full of inept, asshole drivers in practically empty cars, just gumming up the works.
Just ask a bartender or, especially, a waiter at your next time out. They'll tell you that for dine-and-dashers, or drink-and-stumblers, they are held responsible for the lost money. They buy it. They pay for theft. It's a stupid, malicious business, but it is rational in that it makes sense. That's business – if an employee can't keep profits then the employee is punished for that. Fine.
However, the scene of this crime is far more complex even than a simple theft of food and service at a restaurant or bar. Gas prices are rising like thermometers around the globe. Record summer heat means more cars on the roads, burning gas to maintain their spots in traffic jams, and operate A/C for the frustrated, overheated drives. Let's face it: when you're a privileged North American in a car, in dense traffic, it gets slow and it gets lonely. Carpooling doesn't figure at all in the story of gas theft and murder, but I figured I'd give it a moment, since passengers can be made to pay for their passage – and they should, with gas prices as they are.
The worst part of the story was a story about a teenage pump attendant (I forget where or if he was even a teen) who was dragged to his death for something like fourteen dollars and change. It's pretty damn despicable, but potentially the worst part is how many times it took before some politician realized there was exposure in acting on it. It only took a loose bunch of lives before the righteous opportunists of the political sphere even took notice of a looming problem. Gas won't get cheaper. People won't suddenly begin to treat low-paid service staff as legitimate humans deserving of life, as worthy and valuable others – as they won't in any of dozens of arenas around the world. Anyone who's worked retail will tell you about it, if you were wondering.
Meanwhile, angst continues to pile up in Canada. Gas costs $1.25 a litre (that's like three something a gallon) and we have something like the third-largest oil reserves proven in the dirty, shitty oilsands. Meanwhile we sell it away, part and parcel, to foreign interests and continue to pay unreasonable prices at the pump when we buy it back from those foreign interests. Instead of refineries, profits are used in a pathetic attempt to greenwash the original extraction operations. Somewhere in this nest of wasteful fallacies lies a sensible route to well-priced gas or an achievable alternative. Politics, though. You gotta have politics. Opposition to oil sands development must be the exclusive domain of malicious idiots and borderline eco-terrorists – you know: 99 percenters, Occupiers, and other idealist trash who don't know anything about business, the economy, or why the status quo is set as it is.
So it's only a matter of time until Nexen is sold to Chinese investors. I'm not even of the opinion it's a mistake. The oilsands are a mistake, what is done with them now – and if it gains certain people in this country billions of dollars, and improves trade relations with China: so much the better – hardly matters. Sovereignty has not been anything more than a byword by which the Harper administration rustles up support among the smug and hopeless of Canada. Under such circumstances, the sale of Nexen Inc is a no-brainer, and any turn-around likely to harm Canadian prospects in international trade, making it seem as reactionary and uncompetitive, as well as uncooperative and dishonest.
Looking at what Canadians will do for gas, down to the cowardly killings of attendants, some good publicity will be a windfall. So long as the oil and money continue to flow, little else matters. The big companies (NHL and NFL are currently great examples of this, as well) don't care about the lives of their most-ubiquitous employees, or pollution, or who owns what bit of oilsands. Politicians will only act if it fits in with their specific brand, and if their mandarins have seen fit for action, or if the public applause will overpower the private censure. Nobody cares, and, seemingly, neither do the people – and who can blame them? They've got to get to work, and the highways are full of inept, asshole drivers in practically empty cars, just gumming up the works.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)