The emergence of Twitter as a tool of unbridled and unfiltered information and first hand accounts hit home for me this weekend. As the mainstream media tried to keep up and as many of us were trying to figure out what was happening to friends and family and what the real story was, I coped by firing off a lot of "Twitters" as The New York Times likes us to say. I put this together did using Tweetake> A great tool to back up your stuff as it can be turned into useful meta-data, link references and well blackmail if you're so inclined. I said what? And it was RT'd? Shit! People will be looking at there Twitter accounts and Facebook as a diary of what they felt as this weekend unfolded. Also, it will help legal experts and journalists as they sift through the mire of the battlefield to figure out what went wrong, and what went right? So here it is in all its spelling mistake littered, inflammatory and anger induced glory. 

Saturday:

On Anarchy:

This is all made into a distraction. The frustration of the anarchists are a harbinger of the future. they are yes thugs, but also canaries in the proverbial coalmine. If massive world issues over climate, food security, water rights, indigenous rights, health, education and social policy deconstruction are not discussed in a truly inclusive and meaningful way, these guys will turn into an army. it will only get worse. It's sad that in the 21st century there is still a huge swath of have-nots with no voice and the tiny groups of haves who don't care and want to be protected, and THEIR spokespeople are OUR governments now.

Is This Our Government's Fault?:

Yes. it is. The violence is abhorrent but not surprising. There have been other cities that this has happened in that have been handled differently but the lead up to this has been a great big middle finger to civil rights, rights of dissent and freedom of assembly. Know that there is a terrible erosion of core democratic values happening and the viability of our environment and communities are at severe risk. This is born of frustration that has not been diffused by our governments. Security instead of inclusion. A fence instead of a bridge-anarchy happens.

On July 19^th,1848, in 90degree heat, Lucretia Mott stepped up to a podium to give one of her famous speeches. Her talk was peppered with some humour, borrowed from an article written by her sister Martha Wright “why, after an overworked mother completed the myriad daily tasks that were required of her but not of her husband, she was the one upon whom written advice was "so lavishly bestowed.". Mott lent her support and instruction to a document that was a working declaration for what was one of the first recorded women’s rights gatherings. Based on reports from the time it can be presumed that she spoke with authority and purpose and with little fear, never betraying what must have been a tremendous amount of unspoken trepidation about the waters her and the 300 other women in attendance were walking into. What proceeded was a weekend of discussion on totally small subjects such as reforming women’s roles in society, the role of religion, and the abolition of slavery.  What did YOU do last weekend?

 On the afternoon of Saturday the 20^th in the audience a firm and booming mans voice no doubt was heard. He was a black man, and one of the most famous of his time even though the true fruition of his fame and purpose were still more than a decade away.  From the many now historic discussions within Wesleyan Methodist Chapel the most contentious of course was a resolution declaring support for a women’s right to vote. Frederick Douglass now rose with respectful but paternal dignity and argued with eloquence in support of the Declaration of Sentiments. His North Star paper had picked up the announcement of this gathering weeks before and he was a welcome and powerful addition. Douglass had spent the better part of the last two decades running from slave hounds, seeking protection and guidance in England, becoming the most famous orator of the time, creating an abolition newspaper and was a part of the network known as the underground railroad. He was a self-taught, self-made man in an era made famous for the birth of the self-made man but his rise was even more unfathomable as this was a concept thought only achievable by a white man. He was the unintended product of his generation and the perfect confluence of pain, timing, spirit, geography, economics, politics and well, luck. He settled in Rochester and was like the tip of the spear into the heart of slavery and the southern power structure that gripped the nation’s politics. His presence at that moment in time of course says much about the man but speaks volumes about the time and place that these revolutionaries existed in.

 After just a glance at this seminal moment in the mid 19^th century one is immediately struck to dig deeper into how two of the most formative social movements found rich and fertile soil in what was known then as the West, what we now know as upstate New York. These movements were able to spread the roots of protest, which would shake an empire ready to move into a second revolution, industrialization and a first true taste of modernity.

Awake and Dreaming 

The religious freedom and experimentation that was dreamt of since the arrival of the Mayflower became much closer to the reality of life from the early 1800s and on. What is now called the Second Great Awakening was then probably a natural way of things and a coping mechanism for the rapid changes that had taken place after the revolution. The greed, self-interest and lack of communal ideals in the growing republic had many worried that the dreams of their mothers and fathers of yore were being lost to the degradations of the frontier and the decadence of urban growth. Questions about religion’s role in shaping the individual and fundamental concerns of what the rising new national identity of the American would look like made many turn to answers in the revivalism that swept many parts of the South and the frontier North. This religious introspection called for a return to more fundamental concepts found in the New Testament. Communal experiments were tried within and outside of defined religious groups. The impacts on the politics of the time from this were that decisions were being made based on God’s plans, or a “higher law”. Man’s laws were viewed as corrosive and corrupt.  Much of this revivalism had little association with the big old churches of the time and “lay” people in fact founded many, being that in frontier towns the pickin’s for men and women of God were slim. The revivalism in Western New York in particular was so great that in an 1876 study it was deemed by mid-century to have been burned-over. There was no fuel left. The fire of religious and communal ferocity had essentially gone out but not after lighting the fires of many movements.

Education and self-improvement were key to the proliferation of these folks. The bible was so well read people could repeat huge passages and entire readings from memory. Understanding of the concepts embedded in key books and documents like the bible, the Declaration of Independence (this over the constitution-as the Declaration was seen as approximating God’s wishes or a more “natural law” for some as opposed to the man made laws set forth in the constitution). Also widely popular was The Columbian Orator setting forth principles of patriotism one was to follow. As well, the work of Byron was widely read and a major influence of key actors of the time. People were encouraged to read. There was a manner of acceptance about bringing one to a higher conception of self and seeing an individual’s role as apart of a larger movement, not in the political sense but cultural and social movement forward. This was social reconstructionism and the progressive movements forward taken by divergent societal groups were spurred on by the improvements in the hard things of progress.

Bond of Union

 We've hauled some barges in our day, filled with lumber, coal and hay.
 And we know every inch of the way from Albany to Buffalo. Low bridge, everybody down,
Low bridge for we're coming to a town. 
And you'll always know your neighbor, you'll always know your pal.
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

Improving the infrastructure and the connectedness of the country brought people of like minds and aspirations together rapidly. The building of the greatest project of it’s time in the world brought thousands of settlers via labour to the tiny outpost towns of Rome, Black Rock, Schenectady, Monroe, Seneca and Albany to name just a few. I have been stunned by the Historic plaques that line the i90 at rest stops and turn offs. While having a smoke, pee and coffee you can stop and read on your way about a series of singular events and people that when strung together created the basis for immense changes in society that we still feel today. Let’s face it. Some of these plaques are lame, and excuses to entice the traveler to drive 15 miles off course and hit some inevitably convenient gas station, liquor store or tchochke littered gift shop. But the idea of driving along a road that follows a similar route along a now mostly defunct canal that at one point linked the industry of New York with the resources of the interior and spawned the connections of politics, industrialization, commerce and social development, (breath) for a history buff is pretty hot! The making of the Erie Canal is of course an epic feat of engineering that was the result of an unstoppable need to be connected. In the words of Gerard Koeppel who also quotes the revolutionary war hero Lafayette when he toured the canal:

The canal’s effect on America was manifest: “(I)n the midst of these encroachments of civilization on savage nature, there is going on, with a rapidity that appears miraculous, that gigantic work, that grants the canal, which, in tightening the bonds of the American Union, spreads comfort and abundance in the wild through which it passes.

The “bonds of union” brought comfort and allowed more attention to bettering the human condition. It gave physical form to the power that existed in these communities and what resulted was greatness in the sum of its parts. New York State quickly moved into a much more powerful economic force as it was now linked with the trade of just not New York but the world. The Ohio canal was developed further linking this part of the country to the other great human and economic unifier, the Mississippi.

We Are The People

The protest movement, the change of society and the great powers of this time derived from actors in a moment supported by a will to be better, a need to be safer, healthier and happier and by politicians which had a vested interested in bettering “the home and hearth”.  A study of this time period by an armchair baby historian like myself requires the attention toward people like DeWitt Clinton who as governor of the state and commissioner of the canal project who had national aspirations but sacrificed these for creating the greatest project of the age. Vanity had much to do with this as much as charity but the politicians of this time show more of a simple accommodation of reality and connectedness to the people they represented than ours do now. They did this while mired in corruption with comparatively little transparency and exclusionary structures (no visible minorities and definitely no women).  New York State at this time gave rise to the nation’s 8^th president and important member of the transformative presidency of Andrew Jackson. Martin Van Buren or “the little magician” presided over state politics was a rival of Clinton and quickly made his impacts felt outside of the state. Later, the state would give us William Seward, who fought hard for his party’s nomination but lost out to little known “rail splitter” candidate from Illinois named Abe Lincoln. Seward by all rights should have won, should have been President but took the position of Secretary of State and for the years of the civil war served with honour and forged the new political identity of the union after the war. There are many political actors to numerous to mention in a little crap article like this but they all came of age in a time and place where the spirit of improvement and investment was alive. What this comes down to is a national story that highlighted a time and place where investments were made on a grand scale to improve the mind, body and soul of the republic. People fought and clawed their way to new lands and reformulated the idea of religion and community and were supported by their government in doing so. People decided to take it upon themselves and improve the physicality of their environment and built great towns, industry out of necessity and pride and were supported by there government (although begrudgingly in some cases albeit) It would take a brutal, brutal war to cleanse the nation of the last vestige or unfinished business of the revolution but what this time and place holds up to the light is how important and fragile our civilization really is. That the ideas that we hold dear are in truth not very old and could be argued still adolescent.

And I Thought This Was Just Going to Be A History Blog

There has been in the last 3 decades a consistent attack on the tenets of democratic freedom and justice. Why do we bother? I have been immersed in 18th century US history for the last year and I'm just starting to get it. This started as an exercise in information evacuation but as I was writing while watching the news it struck me that we are still fighting the same battles again and again. The struggle is forever in jeopardy. The work of great people is always being forgotten for political and economic expediency. 

In Oshawa, there is a point at the top of the hill on Harmony Rd. before Taunton that on a clear day you can see Rochester. Its smokestacks always caught my eye as a child. The news came from that city and Buffalo. Channel Seven. The music, the house fires, the tacky car dealer commercials, Commander Tom. That was Rochester. For me, now it’s Frederick Douglass. Lockport is not Lockport Gambino Ford to me anymore. It’s the site of an amazing engineering feat. A terminus for the aspirations of a nation being built. Of ideas manifest in labour, ingenuity, protest power and change. People crowded in tents by the tens of thousands to be at a political speeches with no chance of hearing the candidates but just to be there. But with no armed guards, no police on horseback. No fear. What we are going to be witness to in the next 3 days in Toronto is another meeting of international representatives while the people and the ideals of community and progress are going to be left on the other side of a great fence. Not much of what will be discussed inside the Bastille of the Toronto Convention Center will be called useful. It's hard to live inside history and come out looking at the fruits of modernity. Is Sarah Palin a perversion of the ideals first expressed in 1848? Is Obama someone that Douglass would be proud of or is he just a pawn in the Great Elite’s plan to slowly overcome the constrictions placed on capitalism by democracy through placation, deception and distraction?

The New York I can see from my room, and on a bike on a hill is the New York of events that strung together create a patchwork of change that enabled a stumbling new republic to stand on solid ground, a house undivided. Many friends have asked me will I be participating in the G20 protests. At first I was hesitant as the years have brought wisdom but also jadedness to political reform via shouting with a placard. But I will most likely be on the streets of my community tomorrow with friends, families, workers, politicians, writers, artists, musicians, and academics. I will remember Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Emerson and Thoreau to name just a handful. We are all standing at a precipice where choices of inaction or choices against the greater betterment of the human condition and the physical environment will be choices not easily taken back or choices that can't be changed at all.  

___________________________________________________________________________

          Afghanistan was on the minds of a lot of smart people this weekend. Including, and I use the word smart cautiously when speaking of the Honourable Member from Central Nova Scotia, Peter MacKay. You see, I had a lovely little blog put together, that was going to be a full frontal assault laid at Prime Minster Harper and the opposition for allowing our petty domestic politics to meddle with such an incredibly important international situation such as Afghanistan. A country that has already been an international shitting ground for almost 40 years. But now, according to some reports on the weekend, we maybe changing our tune a little bit. You see, Canada has been planning to get the hell out of dodge next year. For me, this is one of those truly rare cosmic moments when the politicians on both sides see eye to eye but are both wrong. Wrong you say? Shouldn't we be happy to get our men and women home? "Fuck that country, they hid them terrorists, so let 'em rot" (dispatch from an Oshawa Tim Horton's this weekend-yay Oshawa!) It's decidedly harsh but reflective of a certain brand of Canadian conservative thought on this issue. The left has given this a pass as well. War is wrong, not the way to solve the issue, bring them home. As much as Paul Martin got us in there, he was just caught up in the worldwide "Let's Roll". But it seems there are rumblings that we are going to remain on in a "teaching role". The combat mission will end but the development and police training will continue. What does this mean? Is this the right approach? I know one thing for sure, this mission has not been discussed properly with the Canadian people. There is a mess of a mire of a shitstorm in Afghanistan but a national conversation on what we should do has always alluded the better sense of the Capital. More information that gets to the Canadian public the better. It may help the argument on both sides but before we truly leave our tools on the ground and the military work unfinished, and hand over protection of our civil servants, NGOs and private organizations to other NATO countries maybe we should look at the situation a little better, you think?

Pass the dutchie pon the left hand side?

The country is currently run by a seemingly de-legitimized President that, according to Peter Galbraith is a hash smoking corrupt erratic politician who we can no longer trust. But he is our guy. We put him there. Sure, there's a pretty good chance the elections last fall which were a fucking mess, were also very corrupt. But his presidency is a reflection of the country at this moment in time. As Fareed Zakaria said on the weekend, if we're thinking some Jeffersonian Democrat is going to come down from the sky like a repentant Judas on a white cross in full leathers with a gospel choir, this is Afghanistan-not gonna happen (he stopped at Jeffersonian Democrat). He is a leader from an ethnic majority of the country and there is no other option at this point. "Undermining" him does nothing but strengthen his enemies, and demoralizes the troops on the ground.

Security

As much as the elections last year are a reality check for the gestation process of democracy in the country, the security challenges that wreaked havoc on the election are a report card on the country's domestic police/military strength and training. Last year was one of the most violent years yet since the whole thing began. Kandahar has been racked with problems, essentially what were thought of as safe zones of operation have been compromised. The Taliban has gathered apparent strength and the fire power of some of their weapons of choice, like the trusty IED, has gone up significantly.

On the police force side, the mandate of the NATO mission is to create a police force with the size of 110,000 by the end of October. That's a lotta cops to train in one of the toughest regions in the world. Quality is out the window when you're talking about staffing a force of that size so quickly. In a land where narcotics are intricately linked to the economy, you can easily guess the pressures that there guys, who are mostly illiterate and poor to begin with are under to look the other way, big city America styles, with bagmen all over who are in the direct employ of your friendly neighbourhood Al Queda.

Our super smart friend, Dr. Stephanie Carvin, summed up her thoughts for me with this sit. rep.:

"1. We have no clear mandate nor any idea of what "success" looks like. (Although I'm pretty sure we know what failure looks like.)
2. The government there is corrupt and incompetent and is unable to assert authority. The people don't trust it and I can understand why!
3. We don't have enough people on the ground. Counter Insurgency theory tells us that we need something, like a 20:1 ratio of civilians to troops to be successful. I think in Afghanistan we have something like 70:1 over a gigantic area. Unless other countries are willing to commit (which they are not) then it's not going to work."

The conversation has not given us a clear idea of what we're shooting for. And we're pulling troops? I'm still not convinced Mr. MacKay.

Development

To say that the objectives and challenges of the development community that is working in Afghanistan are enourmous is unfortunately an understatement. The country exists at levels of industrialization that are pre-colonial in some regions. We are talking about nation building writ large. This is language straight from the Canadian International Development Agency's (CIDA) website 

"Canada will invest up to $210 million over three years toward helping the Afghan government deliver basic services such as:

• education;
• vocational training;
• roads;
• job creation for Afghans, including promoting agricultural production and providing access to credit for entrepreneurs; and
• repairing infrastructure for irrigation and potable water"

Canada is part of a coalition of development but with a focus on the Kandahar region. Agricultural irrigation projects and school building are the main project foci going into 2011. What is clear to me is that we are trying to do the work of a generation on the timetable of an election cycle. CIDA et al and their progress and success are being evaluated in terms that are wholly unrealistic and the futility at times seems truly transparent, so much so that it almost feels like it's being set up for failure as an excuse to get out. With the advent of our apparent military withdrawal seeming still on course the question I have not been able to get answered is whether it makes sense at all to leave these folks to continue their work without protecting them ourselves and sticking with a military and police force training that can have a greater chance of success the longer we stay. 

Governance

There are essentially three forces of nation building being attempted in Afghanistan: security, development and governance. The realities of the work remaining are going to be effected the most by the outcome of the political and legal infrastructure that has to be "created". Again, a generational plan is what is required. This is a mini-Marshall plan that is being implemented in the country but one on a shoestring budget and one with a subtly different moral objective. When we rebuilt Europe and Japan we were looking at creating a safer world but also brining countries and regions back into the economic architecture of a world economy. Afghanistan is seen a security threat, a hole in the wall that needs to be filled to prevent spillage of terror and instability from gathering steam, which we have already seen-see Pakistan. The cynics also view it as just another pawn in the great worldwide energy war that is ramping up. It has geo-political strategic importance for oil and natural gas concerns. This may explain why the work that is being done may seem viewed as fly by night. But the work of democracy time and time again has been shown to be work best done from a place on the inside, from a place of truth and from the bottom up, not top down. 

The loya jirga, or grand council, the assembly of delegates traditionally selected from tribal leadership, is the form of governance that is being encouraged to solve national questions in a disparate and diverse country. In a report by Crisis Group these recommendations are made to solving what is a brain cramping complex issue:

"a convocation of a loya jirga with the express purpose of undertaking constitutional reform, including consultations on the role of the Supreme Court; separation of powers by enhancing the independence of the judiciary and legislature; and the strengthening of provincial and district level governance through a meaningful devolution of authority and resources;..."

Sounds amazing. Although well intentioned and brilliant on its own as an idea, it must seem to Afghans as 'sure, just do it, why don't you. Easy stuff. There's app for it somewhere'. And from NATO, it's on OUR timetable, because we can't afford to be there long enough to see something like this through in the "natural" period of time it will take to develop. This shit took our countries hundreds of years to develop. Sure there is a template now, which is the definition of comparative politics but still, this is decades, and I will say it again, not a couple of election cycles worth of work.

As an aside, another thing I have said before in my blog that bears repeating, my work is easy-this shit is hard. But too often musicians have been guilty of talking about politics from a thin top view level. "It's the war man". I praise those who do fight and shout, and don't just "shut up and sing". Especially now in such an environment where you can't rock the boat to hard or you may fall off and miss your paycheck. But it is a different time in our business and a different time in the world. We all have to be more informed and speak on issues from a place of intelligence and authority. The web can make an idiot out of you in a heartbeat and I feel that it's important to walk the walk. Rock n' roll should learn to be a little more academic and academics a little more rock n' roll. 

     What this boils down to is a question. Can we afford to leave Afghanistan? It requires a long view and a 360 degree view. Canada has been leaned on HARD over the last few months to re-think it's position by the US and Britain. Hillary Clinton has scolded us, the British Foreign minister wants to country punch us. America is in with an "uplift" strategy. Obama has a seriously short amount of domestic capital, both literally and figuratively to get results in his "right" war. His country is in MASSIVE debt and taking on domestic policy interventions that are going to have to find money from somewhere and the biggest line item on the hit list has got to be the military. Once the health care debate simmers down and jobs start rebounding, people will be looking at the trillions of bucks in hock to China and saying "whoa we gotta start cutting". How much time does that give everyone to do this work in Afghanistan? And how much can Canada realistically expect to get away with sneaking out the back door? You think NATO won't notice? Our country has a proud tradition of truly kicking ass when it counts. We just celebrated (for lack of a better term) the anniversary of Vimy Ridge. I have heard it said by American military folks "don't get in a fight with a Canadian". We have just over 3000 troops in Afghanistan. 3000 of us, I'm going on a national bragging tip here, are like 30000 other NATO troops. We are worth our weight in gold. We are a peaceful country but will fight hard for the creation and protection of democratic stability. We have somehow carved out a peaceful coexistence over one of the biggest land masses on Earth, with a vibrant economy and a strong national identity. We know what the good life really looks like and want to share that with open hearts and intelligent minds.

We lost another one today. I grew up in a Navy family. It's about service. My cousin has spent time in Afghanistan. It's about wanting to make it better. Not just hold the line, or hope for status quo, but change.

I believe in what we are doing there. We all know now that if the BILLIONS that were spent on Iraq to kill a tin pot dictator and find phantom WMDs were spent on this crucial country this would be an entirely different discussion. But sadly it's not, but one worth continuing to have.

__________________ 

http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/priorities-priorites/services.aspx?menu_id=46&menu=L

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/fareed.zakaria.gps/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/07/AR2010040703685.html

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/apicazo/2010/04/afghanistan-beyond-2011-its-done-deal?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rabble-news+%28rabble.ca+-+News+for+the+rest+of+us%29&utm_content=Twitter

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=3071&l=1#Current

“When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”

This is going to be a strange post. I will give anyone the opportunity to back out from reading this…..now. If you are not an uber politico history geek, someone who can’t wait until Sunday to watch CNN, get your Fareed Zakaria on, then hit the NYT’s World and Politics section and finish the day with a killer book on US Antebellum history-run don’t walk from this post as you may fall into a learned, but deep coma to be revived 20 years from now Awakening styles and I don’t need that drama on my hands nor the guilt, lawsuits, and bad TV movies etc.

 If history is your thing then and you want to join me on the professor train than keep reading. This is my continuing attempt to sharpen the pencil that is my brain. It is an exercise to “download” as the kids say and free up some room in the idea trap for other things like thinking about what to eat tonight and where I left my glasses. I also really friggin’ dig American history. If you have followed my ramblings over the last year (first thank you, second why?! ) you may have noticed my crush on what de Tocqueville called “the greatness of America” and it’s history. The reason is simple and I will turn to that travelling Frenchman again as he said ,““When the past no longer illuminates the future, the spirit walks in darkness.”

What follows is a survey of primarily the 1830s and 1840s. Where the country found it’s legs and the platform of its hegemony was constructed. Without the confluence of ideas, people, turn of events and that intangible quality of American spirit and ethic we would have a very, very different world. They say that all the answers are in history. I say that all the answers to America are in 2 decades of its history.

It’s unimaginable how much can happen in such a short period of time. To the frenetic ’it’s always the future’- world we live in today, 20 years is a generation or even still an epoch.  In the mid 19^th century, the changes that befell America in these 20 years are astounding and would have left those of the Revolutionary days still alive in abject shock, dismay and fear. It was a time of crystallization and firmament. On the one hand the seeds planted by the authors of the Revolution began to bear bitter fruit while on the other the protections and almost mythic like vision and forethought that guided the Constitution and creation of the republic began to show it’s true genius. The framework developed by the “fathers” protected the country just long enough for it to gather the head of steam of development that only a catastrophic civil war could retard.

Providence Shine Upon Thee

If there is one word that surmises the American outlook of this era it is Providence. Divinity was relied upon to explain what seemed unimaginable. The roots of American belief in its unearthly role in the shaping of the future are founded in part on the New England ethic and belief system. The birthright of the sons and daughters of New England was based on exceptionalism. They were the progeny of people who believed they were handpicked to go through the trials of marginalization, persecution and expulsion and because they held onto beliefs that had the price tag of poverty, untold hardship and death, they were rewarded with the bounty of heaven on Earth. The extent of that bounty became clearer as the westward move gathered force through the country’s expansion. Thomas Jefferson foretold that the future of America laid in its agrarian gifts. The farm and the fruit of the earth would provide and turn a small collection of states into a world power. The sheer abundance of land catapulted the American economy. With the invention of the cotton gin in the late 18^th century and the massive enforced subsidization of labour resulting from a slave economy the time it took to go from subsistence based net importer to exporter was relatively short and quickly became exponential.

The Revolutionary period, the early Antebellum and the “era of Good Feelings” were all birth pains. The solidification of America by way of the War of 1812 led to a peaceful time that was sleepy but much energy was being stored up. However, the Jacksonian Era for me is when America was born. The ideas of independence and the ancillary dreams of Adams and Washington of a democratic republic based on the rights and freedoms of man were moved to the next level. The converse dread of these two men was the realistic vision of Jefferson-a “political” nation of parties and a division of ideas, an adversarial system of governance was further developed. In fact, this period was the nursery of the “go ahead” society. The emergence of materialism was a definitive aspect of Andrew Jackson’s Presidency. Freedom for all to be all. It started with a rock n’ roll inauguration. The most debaucherous house party in the most esteemed house in the country marked the beginning of his Presidency. Spirits were high and the spirits were flowing. Music, dancing and brawling. It was more like an Irish wedding then the ushering in of the most “democratically” elected President. For the first time the “common man” was given the franchise. The aristocratic and elitist fears of the Revolutionary Gentlemen were finally cast aside. Although women and black people were still excluded-democracy with a giant asterisk. This was a symbolic match that started the fire of the next 20 years. If the common man could choose his leader than he could do anything. Materialism gained strength. America was about making money. Greed was good for the first time in the country’s history. Again, to de Tocqueville-   “As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in?” The protection of peace and disconnection from the troubles of Europe let the sons and daughters of liberty relax, let their hair down and focus on themselves and their dreams. People could dream for the first time. Dream about more than a shitty apartment in some stank European backwater. LAND. You could be anything anywhere. Remake yourself in the image one saw fit. God had granted you freedom and given you the largest piece of his back-forty to do with what you please. Go forth and multiply.

The materialism of the time and the refinement of its democracy-the good and the bad-were tempered by a spirit of improving the human condition. The 1830s laid the groundwork for the second revolution and the work done then tested the state through agitation and empowered the forces of democracy by also testing the government’s willingness to shut down freedom of expression and try to curtail the definitions of the freedom of man. The demands to improve the quality of the human condition were most acutely typified by the abolition movement. North and South, both literally and figuratively were entrenched by political decisions, a war with Mexico, the protestations of an emerging literati and result of voices seeded by the most educated nation in history. The sons and daughters of New England who were still grounded in piety and respect of God’s will, came to view the institution of slavery as a vile distortion of that will. They saw the dream of their America dying with every new day a slave was forced to create the great American economy and society but have no part of its benefits. The groundwork for the final revolution of the Civil War was laid by Waldo Emerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas to name just a few.

A Shrinking Giant Country

The events above are enough for any time period to call itself important. But while the society of America was in a great convulsion of change, its political and governmental infrastructure was transforming, modernity kicked into high gear. Distance was the great gift and obstacle of America. When Lewis and Clark reported their great findings on the size of the country, the collective inside voices of Jefferson and Hamilton, et al must have been “holy shit this country is big”.

Necessity is the mother of invention and the only way the conquering spirit of the Republic was going to be successful was through improvements in how to get around and how to get information to each other faster. When Jackson fought the last great battle of New Orleans in 1815, the war was over-but he had no idea. It took FOREVER to get anywhere. You can quickly enter into a hyperbole death spiral when talking about the enormity of the country and what it took to get from a to b. But four giant steps toward modernity came to bear during this period: The railroad, newspapers, steam power and the telegraph. Ya, all in this period. The West was won much later but the energy and ideas of the people of this era are to thank.

The country began to be viewed for the first time as finite. With all the improvements, expansion and construction, although in their time it would never be, a finality of growth was just perceptibly on the horizon. Part of this was also developed by some of the first great waves of immigration. When nearly a quarter of the Irish population left a famine stricken country, most of them heading to America, the idea that you need to stake your claim and get what’s yours took off. This was best conceptualized in the term coined by John O’Sullivan, a journalist who would forever be famous for distilling the great American idea down to two words-Manifest Destiny. In 1845 the last metaphorical spike in American transcontenentalism was driven into the collective psyche. When John Quincy Adams, then Sec. of State drafted The Monroe Doctrine, a new world paradigm was developed that many argue still drives the intention of the country today. A sphere of influence was defined and a line in the sand was drawn to any comers. This land is our land. You can come and take it if you try but we will defend it. The Monroe Doctrine was developed with Latin American dominance by Europe in mind and set a comfort zone for international interest. Manifest Destiny took it to another level. That it was Providence that we are to have the entire nation bounded by the oceans. It was an unstoppable fact that Americans were chosen to direct the future of the continent. It was an excuse to beg, borrow, buy and steal the remaining last land and before the 4^th decade of the 19^th century was up, the geographical extent of America as we know it today was more than on its way to being defined. Manifest Destiny and the spirit that brought it to fruition was the crowning philosophical achievement of the era and has gone on to guide the country’s view of the world and its role in it from the muddy roads of Polk’s Washington to the Green Zone of Iraq.

There is a certain irony in the fact that this era is named and therefore sadly defined by the fact that it was pre war (Ante Bellum). A time of some of the nations greatest achievements as a culture, society, and political entity is viewed, as something that was just setting the stage for the conflict that would tear the nation apart. This I think is a sad but an unavoidable reality. Admittedly, a great deal of the achievements that gave meaning to the period were also the cause of the civil war, but war is a failure, never an accomplishment. What America did accomplish in the middle of the 19^th century before the war has had a much more enduring and important impact on the nation that exists today than the civil war. Those 4 years were just another approach that maybe an older and stronger nation could have avoided. However, as a new student of this history I believe without the conquering spirit (good or bad) the pursuit of happiness, justice, development, and enlightenment from 1815 on, the United States would not have survived.

Context:

Number of distilleries in the United States in 1810: 14,000

Annul alcohol production of American distilleries in 1810: 25 million gallons

Number of Americans who drank liquor in 1810: 7 million

Amount of alcohol industry produced per American in 1810, including men, women, and children: 3 gallons (not counting cider, beer, or wine, so you can imagine how much the adults were drinking!)1

Population of the United States in 1850: 23,191,876

…White population as a percentage of the total: 84.3%

…Black population as a percentage of the total: 15.7%2

Year in which races other than black and white were first listed in the US census: 1860Number of free blacks in America in 1850: 434,495

…Number of slaves: 3,204,313

Male population as a percentage of the total in 1850: 51.02%

…Male population as a percentage of the white total: 51.28%

…Male population as a percentage of the black total: 49.78%

Average number of children born to women in antebellum America: 6-7

Average number of children born to women in America today: about 2

Decline in American birthrate from 1800 to 1850: 23%3

Increase in per capita income of American families from 1820-60: 100%

Increase in proportion of Americans living in cities and towns from 1820-60: 200%4

Number of newspapers (nationwide) in 1833: 1,200

…in 1860: 3,0005

Miles of rail laid in the US by 1850: 9,000 (the most in the world)

Miles of rail laid between 1850-60: 21,000 (giving the country a larger rail network than the rest of the world combined; train wrecks soon exceeded steamboat explosions as a prime cause of accidental death)6

Ratio of Americans living in cities in 1860: 1 in 6 (6.2 million out of about 30 million total)

Number of passengers on public transit in 1860: 70 million7

Average annual income for male manufacturing workers in urban New England from 1820-60: $323.25

…in rural New England: about $303.25

…in urban Middle Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey): $337.10

…in rural Middle Atlantic states: $292.588

Number of German Jews who immigrated to America during the 19th Century: 250,000 (additionally, several hundred thousand Germans, most of them Protestant, arrived in the 1850s after the failed revolutions of 1830 and 1848)

Source: http://www.shmoop.com/antebellum/statistics.html

More Stuff: 

American History by Era - Antebellum America: 1784-1850, Volume 4 Edited by William Dudley (http://www.amazon.com/American-History-Era-Antebellum-1784-1850/dp/0737707178/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b) 

American Lion by John Meacham (http://www.amazon.ca/American-Lion-Andrew-Jackson-White/dp/1400063256/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269044238&sr=1-1)

What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (http://www.amazon.ca/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195078942)

Where to begin? The idea of this post has been ruminating for a while. It comes out of some discussions I have had with friends, memories I have, and plain old school Woodward and Bernstein style late nights of too much reading-minus the secret tapes and deep throat... he hmm.

I listened to a Podcast of a Vanda Felbab-Brown talk at the Brookings Institute about her book Shooting Up. Which really just confused the heck out of me. The intersection of politics, development, history, and culture with drugs or specifically narcotics and their production and consumption is in a word fascinating and has many surfaces. How people talk about drugs to us is equally fascinating, amusing and mostly useless. There is the old fashioned Tom Clancy-good-guy CIA analyst trying to save the western world from some poorly acted Columbian cartel boss-who usually has a big gut, 43 Hummers and a batting cage. There is the after school special style of analysis that takes aim at trying to explain why poor people do dumb things like growing poppies instead of coffee. There is also the rock star-fish-out-of water-photo-op style of talking about drugs. Usually this is some reformed Betty Ford alumni working off ten years of debt to their publicist by sweating it out in front of a documentary crew with lines like “I had no Idea” and “my dealer didn’t tell me that”. We live in a serious times for sure and it seems that the 80s fascination with drugs is almost romantic compared with the problems of today. Recession/depression, the environment, 2 wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, The Jonas Brothers…

The idea that drugs are a big deal, and maybe even one of the single greatest threats to modernity is seen as quaint, church league and so Nancy Reagan but drugs to me are fucking scary. I have a long history of hating them and I know in my mind how to talk about drugs but in the context of their greater influence on where we find ourselves in the world I am a neophyte. But from experience-they suck. I have tried pot and hash and have known the very few times I have that I hate them. I couldn’t fathom taking the next step up in terms of harder types. I would rather drink vinegar and listen to cats screw. I hate the loss of control, the paranoia, the weakness, and the sense of losing time. I have seen almost everything tried-from mushrooms to cocaine. I have witnessed a heroin coma and taken a friend to the hospital after she had not really eating anything of note for three weeks because of being strung out. That same friend’s heart stopped while in the ER and that was a moment that every 16-year old needs to be a part of. I have seen a friend take 3 hits of LSD before a concert and watch their fear and anxiety take over their unconscious mind. So much so that a simple pyro explosion made him jump so high that he landed on a bar and crushed his knee. I have walked with friends on a Trainspotting spiral just to throw my hands up in the air in abject acquiescence to the futility of battling with the demon and its food. When it comes to recreational drugs and my friends-I say nothing. I trust their decisions but don’t condone it. I have never surrounded myself since childhood with people that see drugs as an important part of their lives mainly because the drugs are a symptom of far greater diseases that would threaten my safety and sanity. But if ever asked, I’m honest- I think they are one of the most destructive forces created by human hands. Drugs prey upon social sickness and castrate the moral fortitude and credibility of entire socio-economic groups. They are a modern experiment in social Darwinism that has been allowed to continue. They are both the chicken and the egg.-the cause and affect of so much pure evil.  Need more? Here are some bullet points.

 -Their romanticisation in music culture is sad and dangerous. The list of dead stupid rock stars due to the combination of head issues, too much money, leaches and pimps in disguise as managers and friends is cliché and hopefully a happy casusalty of the new monetary and structural realities of the business. Art will still attract and require the damaged and disengaged for its propegation as the Brooks Brothers types make shitty music but what we don’t need is the tortuted artists getting a pass in posterity for his/her transgressions and the subsequent wink that it’s a part of the business and necessary for great creativity.

 - Wars are being fought and funded for the proliferation and profit of drugs. Fucking wars. Drugs are power, land and money all wrapped up in one. While the western lapdogs of reason were busy painting the sorry picture of why terrorism exists-religious fanaticsm, anti-Americanism, blah blah, The depth of understanding about the realities of how and why terrorist networks have been funded seems to be lost under a flag of irresponsible media coverage and spin.

 -Enviroenmental degradation and diversion of resources from the food supply (thirty years ago Afghanistan grew vines known for its raisons) and subsequent fortification of a poverty trap are a bunch of great reasons why drugs are insane. Just as you are hooked on the score, the grower is hooked on the cash and forced by the barrel of a gun to not even think about reserving that acre for food for his/her family.

 -Wasted millions on prevention, education, enforcement and rehabiliation not to mention healthcare expenses.

 -The holes and scars they leave on countless communities. The worst, by far worst are the Native reservation drug realities.

 So why do they exist? What are our failures that open ourselves up? I have smoked on and off for years and still drink a little. Do I have a moral authority to speak ill of narcotics, their uses and users because my choices are not illicit?

What this comes down to is the never ending debate about legalization and control. In the suppression of the illicit economy, interdiction is important but it's where the focus is that's the problem it seems. The big score. The photo op on the boat with bags and bags of (insert drug type here) is the goal and the burning of crops etc. are the great battle victories in the "war of drugs/terrorism". Getting back to what smart people like Felbab-Brown have to say, this approach has been deemed to be unsustainable. Its too scorched earth, literally- and undermines the support needed and "antagonizes" the population. It is also seen as western interventionism and rarely utilizes the local government as a method of support in convincing people to help with the cause. The alternative that is talked about is "licensing particular parts of the illegal economy of drugs". This has been used in other economies such as illegal commodities trading in parts of Africa. But interdiction should be refocusing on the "coercive..power of crime groups" not being "dominanlty focused on suppressing flows as ...thats a rather illusive goal". Drugs are a moving target and the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ails of the society that produces them and the society that consumes them.

Along with the battle there has been the control which has been an equal misspent effort. Prohibition of a commodity has failed repeatedly and has served to create an underground economy that grows its customer base and entrenches into formal aspects of society-from police curruption to methodone clinics. The money that is spent hand over fist on enforcement, education, health and rehabilitation needs to be drawn form the revenue source. The legalization of illicit drugs on the street coupled with a directed and progressive focus on issues of poverty and development in source countries is more of an answer than what we have now. 

At the individual level, it makes me cringe and bite my tongue when the same person who espouses anti-corporate rhetoric and lives their life in a decidedly world view - knowledgeable of the interconnectedness of political and social issues will light a joint. Sure there are debates on its medicinal aspects and no revolutions are started by potheads, but the idea of yelling at Pepsi for some untoward corporate agenda while ignoring the uncontrolled and violent repercussions of the trade in drugs is shear hypocrisy. As I get older my parental wagging-finger mentality may get the best of me when it comes to drugs and I may start to speak up more about them to friends and family. They don't exist in a vacuum and seem to be viewed the same way we view meat on the table, with an ignorant detachment toward the line of intended and unintended consequences that their travels to you created. They show up in a bag, the end result of an unregulated industry thats probably bigger than Apple, Microsoft, Shell, Coca-Cola, and Halliburton combined but with little testing, no safe-guards, no consumer protection, no taxes, and no regulation beside their out-right contraband. Seriously. Judges, counsellors, doctors, lawyers, academics and cops are saying that that is failing and I agree. The only place it seems that this is not talked about with any intelligence is in the arena of the political elite. What more do they honestly need?

Happy 2010 Canada-you have no government. We are the kids who woke up at a friend’s house on New Years day to come home to find our parents took the keys, sold the house and are halfway to Tijuana. What did we do to deserve this we are asking ourselves in this proroguing time? Nothing. Well, exactly nothing. It’s that we have done nothing, seen nothing, asked for nothing, that well… we get a government of nothing. We are in the land of nowhere politics: a great society without a captain, a ship or even a fucking map. Analogies aside, we’re in trouble here.  The discontent that followed Ad-scam has manifested itself into a long, disaffected, and disinterested malaise typified by a series of ineffectual sideshow parliaments. While America has been revolutionizing it’s political discourse-both for good and evil and electing a dynamic leader we have been listing. Not even naval-gazing. That would mean a quiet time of introspection. No-we haven’t got a fucking clue who we are, where to go or how to get there. After the worst decade for the Western world since the 70s for failures in democracy, statecraft, the environment, civil rights and the demise of the dream of the Great Society we have let a government shut the door on our political assembly.  Prime Minister Harper has crafted a government that is exclusionary (see media control), secretive, and almost fictional. What has he done, minority constraints aside? He has protected his self-image and his power by avoiding anything that resembles a working executive and government. His reign has solely been predicated on self-preservation and methinks he has finally found the proverbial line and crossed it. And don’t hit me with the argument that this has been done before by both sides-yes it has and it was bullshit then as it is now but this is the cherry on top of a cake made of horse dung. A move that in the context of the Harper “government” cannot be excused.

I have been lost in the world of revolutionary America. Reading the stories of U.S. Independence and the architects of its inception. It was impossibly hard to live let alone create what these men and women created 250 years ago. Then I close the book and look at the TV to find that we are living in a time of absolute antipathy toward politics. They’re all “crooks”-“salesmen, cheats and liars” if you please. As much as we have the unalienable right to freedom, we also have the unassailable responsibility as democratic citizens to at a minimum give a shit. The tendency lately has been to play the great useless game of blame. It’s our “parliamentary system”, “party politics”,  “no Trudeaus or Mulroneys”, we need “proportional representation”, “republicanism”. All valid, but all theoretics are about as helpful as a fart in a windstorm if our civil society continues down the road of ‘who cares’.  Two examples of why we should care and where the buck stops politically in terms of responsibility -squarely at the federal governments doorstep.

1. Since 2002 138 Soldiers have died in the line of duty in Afghanistan. I’m not debating here why we are there (I have before if you care ) But that is 138 people’s families I’d love for the local Tim Horton’s “fuck this country’s politics” blowhards to have a sit-down with.  Our involvement in this war needs to be directed by a unified government with a clear mandate. This is not a place for half measures, murky debates and statements or worse-the game of hot potato that has been the MO of the Harper government.

2. Copenhagen was just great. Thanks Mr. Prentice for at least showing up. I haven’t heard a thing from David Suzuki on Facebook since. I think he has been so pissed he went into his back forty in Vancouver and punched a tree.  The environment, as much as the bumper sticker on your local lefty’s car says act local-is not something the Mayor of Cornwall can fix by himself. Your local Church Women’s League, Mosque or high school Global Issues club is not going to be where this gets fixed. It will take the weight of the biggest consumer in the country-the same monolith that is responsible for the future of the environment to take action. This crosses, borders, religion, gender, class, time zones, histories, cultures, markets, languages,-it is the great multidisciplinary clusterfuck of responsibility. If there was ever a rallying point for a national conversation and meaningful national strategy led by the federal government –this is it. The federal government is in charge of “the big stuff”-the things that move the national idea of Canada forward. What has happened in our factionalized, regionalized little state of ours is that we have downloaded responsibility for all the really important big stuff to the point that most people in Ottawa are looking around and asking, “what do we do again?” Health and education are a provincial “responsibility”. All the cache without the cash. The Feds have given away the uniting work of the country to a level of government that has neither the time, money, staff nor resources to manage and implement. There are no great national projects. The environment is the one thing that could create a unity and sense of national purpose but-well…Copenhagen.

I digress in the details here. This is the time to put the gloves on. You know all those times when an election was imminent and you said to yourself, I'm going to volunteer, knock on some doors, make some calls, read the platforms-enter the fray? Well this is the eve of that time again that I think is our last kick at the can before we really descend into a suicidal depression.  It is the time to find out who your local MP is, find out about the party structure in your riding and be prepared to be active.  This has been my little “burning down the barn” rant. But what we need is a country of builders. We have been asked before by politicians, “what kind of country do we want?”. Some of those politicians have been good, and we have given them resounding shoulder shrugs and they have moved on to better higher paying jobs. Some of those politicians have been bad and our shoulder shrugs have enabled and entrenched power hungry ineffective “salesmen, cheats and liars”. They have quietly been holding back the tide of democratic action by stifling the media, stoking the slow flameless burn of voter apathy all the while dreaming of how to really disassemble the government and sell it to the highest bidders-usually their friends and ex-business partners who I’m sure will set a aside a piece for their elected friends upon retirement.

L.

It’s 1984. I’m in the basement of Paul Lacroix’s house. I can remember it vividly. He had a jukebox. I thought it was the coolest. You didn’t have to put money in. You just selected the 45 you wanted to hear and boom. Rock n’ roll came pouring out in a big bass infused volume. The house shook and we danced.  Bryan Adams “Cuts Like a Knife”, Madonna’s  “Holiday” and MJ’s “Billie Jean” were the trifecta of pop. You knew every word. The first time I heard “Born in the USA” was in this basement. The B-side was “My Hometown”. I had no idea what the singer was saying. I had no context of what by this point was already one of the most important artists of a generation. It was rock n’ roll; girls liked it and well…so did I.

The next memory I have of Bruce is personal. One of the first albums I bought was Tunnel of Love on cassette. Along with The Lonesome Jubilee, The Joshua Tree, Graceland, Appetite for Destruction, Electric, and Nothing Like the Sun, 1987 was the best year of music of the 80s. That year was my awakening. Tunnel of Love gave me the first glimmer of what its like to be an adult-the complexity of human emotion and what can and will go wrong in life. One Step Up and Two Steps Back. That’s life going bad. His marriage was failing and he was doing all he knew how to do. Bruce has often said that he is in a life long conversation with his audience. This record is when I joined the conversation. 

How does one know greatness? How do we express the best of our intentions and shine a light on all that makes us human? When we try and fail so openly in plain sight of our friends and family in the tests of life whom do we look to for solace and inspiration? The George Harrison song “Here Comes the Sun” has been lately talked about as one of the greatest songs of the 20^th century. I can remember sitting in a coffee shop one morning in high school. I was lonely, sad, and depressed. I felt the true weight of teen pain, anger and guilt. The intricacies and steps one has to take to feel like they have nothing left to gain in life and so it is reasonable to stop living I have never felt after hearing “Here Comes the Sun”. That is the infinite power and wisdom of music. 

I have turned to Springsteen for the past decade. For our parents their leaders were of the political, meta-religious and social elite. They spoke of truth and power and more often than not paid for it with their lives. Rock stars are bandied about as influential people for boomers but for me-my MLK and Kennedy is Bruce. Art is power and influence as well as a dialogue about our being. I have come to the point in my life where the lyrics of songs by the great poets of my musical life experience are ringing true. They are not abstract expressions or phrases to move the song ahead. The ideas in a record like Tunnel of Love are real to me. He warned me but I still made the mistakes. Melloncamp’s song “Cherry Bomb” says- “17 has turned 35, I’m surprised that we’re still living”. I never thought I would be 35 when I was 17. It’s not just a physical age it’s a time and place filled with a head full of memories, joys and regrets. “If we’ve done any wrong. I hope that we’re forgiven”

Two other Bruce moments in my life. First is The Rising. No other musician has done more to help us talk through 9/11 and the discord of the American idea more than Bruce has in the last 10 years. He has been relentless in trying to win back the country of “truth and light”. America is his religion. His purpose. “My City of Ruins”, “Lonesome Day” and “The Rising” are fire and brimstone, preacher inspired theology of what went wrong and how to consol a nation. His pulpit was a telecaster and the album his Good Book and the E-Street Band his Church.  He asked us to confess our sins, ask for forgiveness and help one another.

For my last Bruce moment I give thanks to my friend and true passionate music lover Jeff McAloon.  He introduced me to The Seeger Sessions. I will always remember Jeffy playing with earnest “O’ Mary Don’t You Weep”.  I got the record the next day. It’s American history. It’s a translation of songs that speak to the core of pain, drought, misery, slavery, poverty, the bond of union and love. The small stories that make a great nation. It’s the soundtrack to my US history obsession. Bruce’s catalogue is about making linkages and reminding us of history. He works within an oral tradition that got its start as a way of moving the story of a people, time and place forward. Songs carry memory and ideas. They existed before books as our literature, and our press. The masters create new stories about us.

He has made mistakes. The past ten years have seen the most praise lauded on him as well as the most criticism. His Greatest Hits was released exclusive and his last record was mediocre at best. He has made deals with the devil that I hope he regrets. His credibility is enormous but not infinite. It was a difficult and interesting thing to watch him last night. The Kennedy Center Honors was a television moment of life full circle -all these artists that I have grown up listening to paying tribute to our one great storyteller. He is of an age that relevance is usually derived from work done years and years previous. For me, his most relevant work was in the last ten years. He stepped out of his leather jacket and persona and took risks with the politicization of his message and demanded a better future for his country. He is a classic rocker who could have stopped in the 70s and still would be honoured. But he has walked and talked us through 4 decades and that is why he will always be honoured. Dylan and Guthrie gave him the inspiration and he has lived a life full of purpose and meaning.  Last year I had the chance to finally see him play. Alex got me a ticket and we saw him at Copps. I’m eternally grateful for being friends with Al for many reasons-near the top of the list is being with a fearless friend who had no intention of us sitting in the shitty nose bleeds that we had. We got some food, and I sat down and he took off. Fifteen minutes passed by and he called me on my cell and said, come down here by the stage. I got us better seats. Meaning, we sat in the seats that are set aside for local friends family and bullshit important people that half the time don’t show up. We we’re side stage behind the monitor desk 15 feet away from Little Stevie. My only true religious experience in my life so far was that concert. Almost three hours of intoxication, catharsis, joy, sadness and elevation. It’s not about being a fan and seeing a performance. It’s about being human and living through the greatness of music. No matter what your musical center is, the idea of Bruce Springsteen you cannot ignore.

So 2010 has kind of snuck up on us. Bob Lefsetz was one of the first trusted media guys to bring up the topic of the best music of the decade. The iPod has been on fire in my house the last couple of weeks with a HUGE playlist of tunes from my favourite records of the last 10 years. The list at the bottom is not a declaration of quality and success. It is a list of albums that defined music, culture, politics for me in the last ten years.

We will all do a lot of reflecting in the coming weeks especially once the Christmas shopping is done. This decade has made the 90s look like what they were: a time of relative peace and success. Music was reflective of that. Rock n roll was all but dead. Soul and folk were stale. Genres like Emo, and Americana were mostly unknown The last decade has seen the equivalent of 50 years of change in comparison. Quite literally the last 50 years of music have been taken apart. It's actually been revolutionary. Technology truly took control. Politics and war re-lit our rock n' roll fire but it took a female country act to lead the charge against a bad war.

How we consume music has changed entirely. It is more ubiquitous, accessible and powerful at the same time as being powerless and obscure. Music is now like wallpaper. It's there in the background-a choice, a definition of personality, a statement of aesthetics- but not so much about our beliefs, our gender, race, nationality or politics as it was for the post-war generations. The Iraq war and 911 created many reactions and ripples across culture and society and did wake up the creative inertness of the 90s but nowhere near the cultural revolution of the 60s and Vietnam. Technology is now our music. Technology is our statement of beliefs. Our tool, our voice our comfort. We are inward looking not a commune. We are escaping from freedom through a tyranny of rational choices of how we should "get connected". We are better able to communicate with much less to say. We are more and more accessible to each other but know less about our communities, environment, politicians and apparently respected sports stars. We have been living with fear for the better part of our lives. Fear, of war, fear of disease, fear of the environment and now added to all of this the fear that we really don't know if our modern democratic capitalist experiment is all it was cracked up to be by the fathers of its inception last century.

The great promise of generational ascension, where the children live better than the parents and the aspirations of dreams are within reach for all has been questioned. We are hiding behind computers and mobile phone screens, iPods and Playstations to escape a reality that is apparently beyond our comprehension and control. This passage of time for me has been a reluctant nod to the wisdom of age. An envy and respect of a generation that preceded the modern rise of the techno-economy. Where planes were flown by humans, our politicians were smart, wars were fought for freedom, there was an ignorance of the future and the hubris of knowing everything was enforced.

We will be truly forced to live better in the next decade or the many doomsday clocks that are ticking well be past the hour of no return. It has been 11.55 for too long now and this decade has been about the ship of humanity listing. No course set just preparation, procrastination and preoccupation with everything and anything except the most important-our health, our education, our environment, our government. We will all wake up next year to find a very different planet. China is again the center of the world. We will all be Marco Polo in the future making our way along the ancient lines of human existence and we will look to the oldest civilization on Earth for guidance and hope. Copenhagen will be another line of city names dropped when talking about environmental failure. If our past is our future not enough people have died for the truth however inconvenient it is to soak in.   

Where does the song come in or where did we come in on the song this decade? What will I be listening too 20 or 30 years from now? Remembering the time that was and remembering where we realized how much the world around us- the one we created- changed while we didn't.

The Music

2000

A tie to start. Stephen Fearing is actually the 90s to me. I started listening to him in 1994 with his big first full length. He got me through university. He released a live recording in 2000 that spanned his three plus albums by that point. JD once told me he remembered it being played at HMV and he had no idea when it first came on that it was live until people started clapping. He is that good. He is a true folk singer. Political, personal and funny in the same verse. A story teller and poet. He will make you cry and get right to the point with little effort and much grace. I have seen him live many times and he is my favourite artist and will be the first person I force my kids to listen to.

U2 were dead to me. They lost me with Zooropa and made me vomit with Pop. I didn’t really get the big tours. I saw them tour Rattle and Hum. That was enough. They were my childhood, one of the big influences. With “All You Can’t Leave Behind” they came back to rock n roll when it was needed. When the veneer of the 90s was getting thin. I have never been so happy listening to a record than the first time I listened to this. The Edge guitar sound was back. The best rhythm section in rock were given the tools to do their work. And Bono was singing about stuff he really cared about again. A band with this much vision, creativity and power can fuck it up real good, but also soar beyond hope and expectation when you least expect it.

2001           

Gold was released September 25^th 2001. I remember the video for “New York, New York” where the last shot is of him staring at the Twin Towers from Brooklyn. This decade officially started on September 11^th. I woke up that day and will always associate the beautiful sunny weather of late summer with that day. I turned on the TV and the phone rang off its hook, the rest is our history. This record woke me up. It was new and old. It was raunchy and sweet. It was cool and vintage and made guitars sound like they used to. Although he is not the new Bruce as maybe the tongue and cheek cover alluded too, but this is his best work.

2002

Released in June 2002 it took until the end of 2004 before it was number 1 on Billboard. Everyone heard at least one song from this record in those 2 years. It was fun, funky, hook laden and brought back soul and jazz to mainstream pop. “Sunday Morning” is one of my favourite all time songs. Thank God for break-ups and lovesick music.

2003

Released in June 2003 it was recorded in Bearsville New York. Rock history is empty without that studio. This is my favourite record by one of my true favourite groups. I remember sitting on my chair in the living room of my apartment at the time and listened to the record front to back and didn’t move, didn’t stop or pause.

2004

June again. This was my first taste of Wilco. I came late but stayed forever. Patience and questioning. Longing, break-ups and something about spiders, smoke and Michigan? Guitar sounds on this record are epic. The breadth of arrangement is stunning. Theologians-they sure don’t know nothing, about my life, about my soul. Wishful thinking is sometimes all we have. A band looking inward, shocked at what they see, shocked at what others see in them.

2005 

I will admit, that I missed this record the first time around. I remember “I will Follow You into the Dark”, but didn’t put the face to the name. This record has come to live with me full tilt this year. It sounds next decade and beyond. These cats are some of the trail blazers. Taking the Emo spirit, maturing it like champagne to wine. The bitterness has soul, texture and flavour.

“ If I could open my eyes, and span the length of the Isle of Manhattan, I’d bring it to where you are, making a wake of the East River and Hudson, if I could open my mouth wide enough for a marching band to march out they would make your name sing, bend through alleys and bounce off all the buildings.”

New York is a pattern and a place that has webbed its way into my soul and maybe all of ours in the last decade. I have been drawn to it more and more every year. It’s our Rome. It’s spirit and what it stands for was enough for us to go to war for, however misguided. We are everything and everywhere within its boundaries. It’s a city that is as big as you think. It never disappoints but can break your heart faster than it can beat.

2006

The kid can play. We have a guitar God for our time. He soaked up Stevie, Clapton, Beck, Hendrix and Page and shot it out in full pop colours. But he did it with cred. and a finger to his record company. He wanted to release it without Waiting for the World to Change. He hadn’t written it. It was done to him. And he was right. World is a sore thumb on this record. But the execs barked they needed more solid candy. He wrote World in a night and recorded it the next day. This record was about us maturing in the decade. Growing up and the mainstream catching on to what most folks felt. We are going the wrong way. Where is our heart? Where is our soul? When pop singers and country stars are calling out the president its time to right the ship. The wisdom that comes with age also brings a weight of responsibility that catches up to you. The longer we are on this planet the more gravity has its effects. The more it tries to bring us down, and the more we need to find love to get us through.

2007

Modernity is complicated. The pull of the urban lifestyle has grown on me. The city lights. The apartment life. The stores, the bars, the parks, the people. Cities are a where we get lost. They are contradictions and juxtaposition. Cities store memories for us. This record is Toronto for me. I will remember the subway, the street, the coffee shop, the parks that I listened to this album in forever. It is a soundtrack for thinking about love and life. It made me feel warm and cold. it made me forget and remember. Fake Empire is two songs in one where you feel like it has opened up another dimension where the same song at a different time in space is playing at the same time. It confuses you and lets you get lost. I will remember the fights, the long nights, the love and the fear of being alone this album gave me. 

2008

If Guns n' Roses, Bob Dylan, Frank Black and Bruce Springsteen somehow managed to not start a war while making a record this would be it. This record makes me want to play guitar. It will be the road for me. The miles the band has travelled are catalogued by this record. It is a full circle record. Folk becomes punk becomes classic rock. Murder and Mayhem writ large. It's a novel set to big music. It challenges you and makes you think about rock n roll differently. 

2009 

I'm cheating a little with this one. This was a 2008 release but it has hit me the hardest this year. They toured with Coldplay have a hugely successful album in the UK but are not widely known here outside of musos that I know. It's rare that music illicits such a visceral response for me nowadays. Mostly it catches up to me after I analyse it and let it soak in. But this record hit me where it hurt right away. "The Bones of You" made me cry while driving on the DVP late one night. It made it clear to me that I had to deal with stuff. Lyrics that zero in on a memory are a gift. We have a list of things that we don't want to regret that builds as we get older. They include relationships, career choices, how we treat our mind, body and soul, how we have engaged in the body politic or have ignored the realities of the world in which we live. When one lives to avoid regret we can leave a trail of bodies that are the result of unintended consequences. The hubris of thinking we know everything and can live the "perfect life" is dangerous. "The Fix" is always in. Fate is our master. You will dodge it, lose the tail it has on you and just when you think you are free of it you run in to your ex on a street corner, an old friend in a subway station, or find a photograph or a note you left yourself years ago saying "don't fuck it up". We live life in increments. Every 5 minutes in a conversation there is a break. It's unavoidable-the brain wants to stop and process what was said. Think about the next move. Every ten years we break. Stop and think about our next move. This record is a stop and think moment for me. I may be going down the right road or not, but it has reminded me that I have learned before that there are things within my domain of control and there are things I have to let happen. Choose the ones you trust based on your wisdom, leave the ones you can't to the divine. There will never be a perfect time in our life. The good and the bad are forever in ones midst. Great art comes from change, from movement, from fear, devotion, heartache and torment. The last 10 years will catch up to us. They have made us all older than we feel right now. It's like we have been running in circles trying to shake fate. Trying to think we are new and that history is irrelevant. But we are not moving at the speed of sound and are not somehow better at being human. We are ten years older and have only ourselves to look in the mirror and know what we have to show for it.