Owen Macdonald is a longtime Twitter mutual from the left wing politics community (that community has really died off thanks to Elon Musk’s takeover, but I digress) and he invited me to go on his YouTube channel to talk about the US Presidential Election with some other left wing YouTubers and I decided to join. Even though I’m much more focused on music these days, I still have a lot of thoughts on politics. Even if there are artists that always insist that their art isn’t political, all art is political, to some extent at least. Pretty much anything you do is political. You can watch the livestream below. Occasionally, I hop in to yap about politics and share my points of view.
I am not going to rewatch the stream to listen to my voice because I hate listening to myself, but I’ll share a few thoughts I’ve been having on US politics. I’ll keep it simple and talk about three things on my mind: the genocide in Gaza, legalisation of cannabis (something that I’ve talked quite a bit about in the past on the blog), and capitalism and the creative fields. Sorry if it sounds rambling or stream of conscience, I just have a lot of thoughts and I’m going to try to keep it short form, well whatever that means on this blog because 5,000+ word blog posts are kind of the norm on my site (by the way, thank you to my readers for being so patient and putting up with my classic rock infodumps).
Gaza
I never made much of a statement on my blog about Israel/Palestine and that’s because I’m a music blog primarily and I don’t feel like I am the most qualified to speak on the issue and I’d rather leave it up to those who know more than I do. That said, I am very much Pro-Palestine, and pro-peace and love in general. As much as I hate on hippies and how phoney they can be, I am and always have been very much a peace and love hippie-ish person as far as what my ideology is. Even when I was a liberal, I was always anti-war and I was disappointed when President Obama didn’t end the war in Iraq quickly enough and he didn’t close down Guantanamo Bay. I hate how the US likes to get involved in issues that are happening in other countries. Always enough money for a war, but never enough money to give every American healthcare and tuition-free university. Priorities, where are they? And you know that the rich aren’t sending their kids to the frontlines of a war. And even on the rare occasion a kid from a rich, influential family does serve in the military, they’ve got a cushy job. War is just a game between rich people and they send their slaves, I mean poor and working class, as pawns. The working class have always just been objects for the rich.
I was born Jewish and at one point I was pro-Israel, but the birthright trip of all things made me pro-Palestine, and I am disgusted by what Israel has been doing. I understand if any pro-Palestine activists hate me for my past views, but I think that changing minds is really important and those who used to be on the opposite side can really provide some good insight into what the opposing side think. Israel are committing war crimes and the US and UK are complicit as well because they enable this genocide by continuing to give Israel weapons and money. It needs to stop. We need a ceasefire now. I am tired of the identity politics and pro-Israel people weaponising antisemitism. It’s so dishonest and by calling people Nazis or antisemites for criticising Israel, you are harming Jewish people because now people will take real instances of neo-nazis or antisemitism less seriously. Yes, there is real antisemitism, but not all criticism of Israel is anti-Jewish, just like not all criticism of the American government is anti-American. Do not assume all Jews support Israel. Many Jewish people are against the government, including some brave left wing Jews who live in Israel.
It was talked about in the stream and I’ll say it again, the US still hasn’t even truly ended slavery because read the 13th amendment, it says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Pay special attention to the bolded section, which leads me to…
The Legalisation of Cannabis
They say that we haven’t had a more pro-weed candidate than Kamala Harris. Well, the US could have legalised weed a lot sooner had Bernie Sanders been elected, but no the ultimate boss of Karens Hillary Clinton had to be so entitled after losing to Barack Obama in 2008. “It’s my turn!” and so Hillary Clinton Tonya Harding’d Bernie Sanders and rigged the primaries against him. The Democrats are not a left wing party and they’re definitely not a party with courage. They’re not leaders, they’re followers and they follow corporate interests instead of listening to voters. They stick their finger in the air and see which way the wind is blowing and only support progressive causes when it’s politically convenient. To say they’re out of touch is an understatement. They took forever to get on board with marriage equality. Sure marriage equality happened while Obama was president, but he didn’t really do much. All he did was wait until it was politically convenient to say he’s supportive of marriage equality. The reality is that it was the work of all of these LGBT activists to get marriage equality and anti-discrimination laws passed, not straight politicians with no courage. A lot of groups have been wronged by the US and politicians need to take accountability and do the right thing to fix past wrongs. Sure, what’s done is done, but we can learn from the past and create a better future. How many more people’s lives must be ruined before we say enough is enough? Every day that prohibition continues is another day where more and more people are victimised.
Anyway, Hillary Clinton didn’t support legalising weed. Joe Biden claimed to support decriminalisation, which is an inferior half-measure, and yet it’s still not even federally decriminalised. And now that the former Attorney General of California/District Attorney of San Francisco who has put many poor people behind bars for using cannabis, is claiming that she supports the legalisation of it. Gee, where was that Kamala Harris when she was Attorney General or District Attorney? Just saying you support legalisation doesn’t help all the people you’ve locked up, those whose lives you’ve ruined and traumatised. What about legalising weed during the last moments of Joe Biden’s presidency? Sure, California has legalised weed, but it needs to be legal from coast to coast, and hopefully that will lead to more countries legalising weed. I’m tired of waiting for legalisation. Legalise it, allow people to grow their own – it’s a plant ffs, and automatically pardon and free all of those who have nonviolent drugs offences. Legalising weed isn’t about debauchery, it’s about freedom. That’s what all human rights issues are about. Freedom!
And freedom isn’t just about what you put in your body or what you do to your body, it’s also about how you live your life, which leads me to…
Capitalism and the creative fields
This is something that really stuck with me in the livestream and it’s something I talked a bit about and I even got a bit vulnerable, talking about the sad realities of being a creator with a small following. I don’t want anyone feeling bad for me. The last thing I want is a pity party. I want people to enjoy what I create. I really hope that something I’ve written or a picture I’ve taken has inspired you or even just brightened your day. That’s the point of art and creating, it’s something to break up the routine. Travel is expensive and not accessible to all, but something that is more accessible is art, whether it’s a book, a poem, a painting, a movie, a play, music, a photograph, a video game. Life is boring when you have to go to work and do chores when you get home, but art and travel are things that make life worth living and a lot of fun.
The ultimate freedom is having enough money to live comfortably without working, but unfortunately that’s only a small percentage of the world. They’re living. Meanwhile, the rest of us are existing. There’s a saying about how if you work a job doing something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. But the reality is that no matter how much you love doing something, it does become a grind and you can get in a rut. You see it in successful YouTubers and musicians. You’d think they’re living the dream by making really good money doing something fun for a living, but at some point I think they’ve internalised capitalism and the fun, creative thing that they’re doing is not about pleasure, but about money and meeting people’s rising expectations. No one is immune to capitalist propaganda, or any propaganda really, and I think we’ve all internalised it. I think that’s where we get this idea of if you have to work a job to make a living or if you don’t achieve commercial success, you’re a failed artist and why do you even bother?
Last week I spoke to a musician and he said that the struggles I experience as a writer trying to find an audience are much like what a musician goes through in getting people to listen to their music. Social media is pay to play now and nothing is organic anymore. It’s all corporatised and that’s what I hate most about this world. Everything’s a commercial. Everything’s a commodity. We’re internalising it and treating each other as commodities and relationships are becoming more transactional. Social media has gotten so smart that it can tell when you’re trying to sell or promote something and it downranks it in the algorithm and then asks you if you want to promote or boost it, only to get no engagement and deal with a bunch of spam bots. AI-written content and content farms have taken over search results, hurting legitimate writers and bloggers who have worked hard to educate themselves and curate what they’ve learnt through research and turn it into an informative article. For a long time I’ve said I hated the common progressive refrain of “educate yourself” because there’s a lot of misinformation out there. I had no idea how bad it would become. So much of this AI and content farm stuff is slop, full of inaccuracies, poorly written, and no heart or soul.
As outspoken as I am on my hatred of capitalism, I’ve internalised it too and the reason I haven’t been writing as quickly or as prolifically as I used to is I’ve felt worthless because I haven’t done as well as I would have liked to as a writer. I know I’ll never make the money back from my book and it depresses me. For weeks I’ve been trying to write and the words couldn’t go from my brain to my fingers to the keyboard to the screen. It didn’t help that I had bullies tearing me down all because I said something supportive of trans people. They called me ugly (to each their own, I guess). They said I was lying and I was born male (I wasn’t, and even if I was, who cares?). They called me a grifter with a book to sell (If you don’t like what I write about fine, don’t buy it. But just because you don’t like something, it doesn’t make it a scam). They called my writing so bad that’s why ChatGPT was invented (that was rude!). That wasn’t even the worst of it. I got sexually harassed with some of the most vicious attacks.
I was much happier when I was writing for the joy of it, but the pressures of making money and monetising everything really get to me. When I first started this blog, I was so much happier and I was happy for quite a long time, until a couple of months ago. All I would think about is money and how I’m not good enough and I’m way behind everyone else. I see posts of my book being ignored and in my head it translates to “you suck”.
That’s enough about me, let’s talk about the problems with capitalism and creative fields. The only people who can afford to be full time artists and creators now are rich people. There’s that saying about indie musicians’ parents being in blue on Wikipedia, and it’s so true. Thanks to greedy landlords and gentrification, moving to creative cities like London or New York is out of reach to the working class. That’s why the arts can be so snobby, a lot of it is bratty rich kids living off generational wealth, the real privilege in society. Money is really what divides people and sure while it doesn’t buy happiness, it buys peace of mind and opportunity. Money is a cushion if you fail as an artist or entrepreneur. Money can buy services like having a cleaner or a cook. Knowing the right people in the industry can help you succeed, and you’re more likely to know them and be well-connected if you’re wealthy. On top of that, creative fields are undervalued on so many levels. Internships are often unpaid and therefore only available to the wealthy. People think that Ā£5 or Ā£10 for a local gig is too much money (that’s cheaper than a movie ticket these days), even though they’ll gladly pay exponentially more than that to see Oasis. Few people buy albums and streaming pays basically nothing. There’s also that hyperfocus on the charts and the business side of the industry. If you’re not selling well, then you’re thrown out like yesterday’s rubbish.
Society is far from a meritocracy. It’s much more about who you know and which class in society you’re from than about what you know. My heart breaks for all the talented people whose work you’ll never hear or know about because the top 40 is not all music, it’s just a tiny fraction of it. As an Instagram mutual, @beatledirt on Instagram, put it “you’re not listening to enough local music”. The cool thing is when you see small and local bands, you often get a chance to meet them and buy their merch from them and they might even sign it for you. Small local gigs are way more fun than stadium gigs, and I’ll die on that hill. Similarly, indie authors deserve so much more love and when you meet indie authors, often you can get to have a conversation with them and it feels much more personal than those meet and greets with famous people. Sure, they may not have that star power or that big name, but they’re passionate about what they do and they really really appreciate your support.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, appreciate artists and creators whose work you love. And especially appreciate them and their work while they’re still alive to hear it. Words aren’t magic wands, but they certainly can cheer someone up and I think we all need a reminder of why we do what we do, because it’s not just about us, it’s about impacting others. If I only wanted to write for myself, I’d keep a diary. If a musician only wanted to make music for themselves, they wouldn’t record it. Everyone wants to be adored and appreciated, and it’s not about money, it’s about belonging. That’s why I never understood the “attention-seeking” insult. It’s human nature!
Anyway, this is your sign to show appreciation for that artist or creator whose work you enjoy. Post a nice comment. Write a review of their work. Give them a shoutout. They’ll appreciate it.
If you’ve enjoyed my book Crime of the Century, please take a second to write a review or even just leave a rating on my Goodreads and Amazon pages. It would mean the world to me and it won’t even cost you a penny. Thank you!
That’s enough politics for today. See you soon, hopefully with something more cheerful!
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