boombox's Comments (58)

“Briefly, three examples:
1. The collapse of neo-liberalism and its belief that the marketplace should be the ultimate arbiter of all human endeavor.
2. The election of an African-American president that over time will strengthen new forms of social consciousness that will affect the arts. This new social consciousness will run counter to the aesthetic of narcosis the Downtown has developed over the last 30 years.
3. The increase in funding of the NEA by 50 million which help move America toward the same sort of comprehensive public funding of the arts that ALL other major countries already have. This will weaken the isolated and unrealistic American notion that modern classical should somehow be positioned in the marketplace (which is also part of the Banger ethos.) The music industry will try to stop these developments, but I think the tide is turning against them.

Of course, the changes won’t be very large. Wasn’t it Cage who said that Republicans and Democrats are two branches of the Business Party? American plutocracy will remain intact, but even small changes are better than nothing.

It would be fun to discuss how developments like these and many others might shape the arts world to create a fresh wind, but it is pointless when the intention of the dialog partner is specious, sarcastic condescension. It is exactly this arrogant insularity that has ossified the Downtown scene. Perhaps someone else would like to talk to you.”

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“How about an article exploring how BoaC was, in part, a manifestation of the Reagan era and to a considerable degree reflected the social and aesthetic philsophies of the economic system known as neo-liberalism? And perhaps show how this move by the artistic community in NYC was a response to the massive social and economic collapse of the city in the 1970s.”

“Strauss could have, and should have refused the Presidency of the RKK from the outset. No one at that point had any illusions about what the Nazis stood for. There is no question he deeply compromised his integrity. That his music might not contain specific political meaning is beside the point, and another attempt toward rationalization. The music world of Nazi Germany is replete with examples like Strauss. So many were willing to jump on the band wagon until their positions became untenable. We should learn from this.
Read the wiki article about the Iraq War and the horrific effects it has had on the country. Look at the photos of the dead children in the link in the above article. We should not give valuable PR to deeply immoral corporations by allowing them to so prominently host our concerts. If it were just their fraud that would be one thing, but murderous behavior is another. This isn’t 60s radicalism, its just basic human decency.”

“I have never had direct contact with BoaC and I have never submitted a work to them. I have, however, followed their work for years.

Strauss was President of the Reichsmusikkammer. He was one of the most extreme collaborationists in the music world of Nazi Germany, including high publicized speeches prasing both Hitler and Goebbles. His life is an excellent object lesson concerning collaboration and the loss of artistic integrity.

And back to America, go to the wiki article about the World Financial Center and click on the links for the tenants. Almost every American firm is involved with several simultaneous major ethical scandals including massive befrauding of investors, child labor, union busting, securities fraud, and war profiteering. It is far more extreme than even I had realized -- and excellent material for an article about aspects of our music world. I would list them here but it would go far beyond the word limit.

One astounding example is that tenant Merrill Lynch gave its executives 3.6 billion in bonuses using bailout money under the Federal TARP program. That's over 100 times higher than the scandal-plauged AIG bonuses.”

“Legitimizing what? This is an important question, so here is some more information.
For one example, the Iraq War was initiated for financial reasons that serve the interests of significant parts corporate America. Several of the tenants at the World Financial Center are among those corporations. The 2006 Lancet survey of casualties of the Iraq War estimated 654,965 Iraqi deaths. An Opinion Research Business (ORB) survey conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,220,580 deaths due to the Iraq War. (These numbers include all excess deaths due to increased lawlessness, degraded infrastructure, poorer healthcare, etc.) The War has cost about 3 trillion dollars. Over 4100 Americans have been killed. Malnutrition rates in Iraq rose from 19% before the invasion (the levels due to the embargo) to a national average of 28% four years later even without the embargo. As many as half of Iraqi doctors have left the country since 2003. The numbers for homeless Iraqi children are astounding, though I do not have them at hand. Disease is spreading rapidly due to the destruction of infrastructure. World opinion of the US is at its lowest levels in history. We should consider carefully what sort of behavior we legitimize with cultural adornments.
Boombox, even though we disagree, I thank you for the useful and important discussion.”

“Culture has always been used to legitimize political and economic systems. We see it from the crown of Charlemagne to the Versailles Palace of the Sun King to the literature glorifying British colonialism. To ignore this is a form of willful denial that has become strongly characteristic of the American classical and post-classical music world. History is replete with examples of the negative effects of this denial. For extreme examples in recent history, we need only look at composers such as Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner, and Carl Orff -- or by contrast the integrity of Paul Hindemith and Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Fortunately, we are not dealing with such extremes, but it would be foolish to ignore these historical lessons. With the current corporate oriented war we are suffering through, it would be ridiculous to write these concerns off as 60’s dorm talk, or to assume the the lack of politically oriented art is not a problem, or to think that we do not have obligations to respond or to take a stand. Sadly, many have come to expect these convenient rationalizations when talking to the BoaC crowd, though I must admit it extends well beyond them in the classical/­post-class­ical music world.”

“In the process they help legitimize aspects of corporate Manhattan that would be better strongly criticized. We need more artists who would not allow their work to be appropriated in this way. And even more, critical work that the World Financial Center would not even want around. (As an example, one might think back to Diego Rivera and the destruction of one of his murals at the Roosevelt Center.) The Bangers are not naïve; they know what’s going on. There are many views of artistic integrity and social responsibility, but BoaC defines an extreme.”

“What should the music mean? Politically, for BoaC, absolutely nothing. They evolved during the Reagan Era. One of the hallmarks of their work, with rare exception, has been its spectacular obedience.”

“Edwards was running for President AT THE TIME of the affair...”

“Retroactive immunity still exits under the guise of a judicial sham. Who is kidding who? And that says nothing of other issues chief among them being there is limited oversight. That lack of oversight has a great deal to do with why we have this problem in the first place.

If our elected officials in the house and senate, who we elected to do our bidding, are barred from knowing what is going on in our intelligence community then we are asking for another beating at the hands of whoever happens to be running things.

It couldn't be more obvious that the structure of this law is crucial to preserving this nation. There is just no way to make a law that contradicts basic precepts of the constitution. That the law is written in such a way that it can't be challenged in court clearly informs us that it is flawed.

Under our constitutional form there can be no law that effectively grants unlimited power to a government entity. It isn't permissible because you can't square its intent with constitutional protections. This is not hard to understand. This law can't be created now or at any time no matter if it is repealed next week or the day after Obama takes the oath of office.”

“It haddent happened yet, 8 years ago.”

“Actually, they thought it was OK when the DNC under Bil l C linton stripped all the delegates from Delaware in 96”