Columns

Rev. Billy Talen Versus Black Friday and Jeff Bezos

It's a regular holiday tradition, and we're not talking about turkey and stuffings. As Black Friday approaches, the Rev. Billy Talen and the Church of Stop Shopping Choir is once again confronting the cardinal sin of mindless consumption. This year, the Stop Shopping chorus directed its choral disapproval at "the dirtiest retail company in the country"—Amazon. According to Rev. Billy, Amazon's vast enterprise "puts 1 million metric tons of CO2 into the air every week, while working conditions leave 20,000 of its workers infected with Covid. Human injustice and Earth injustice always show up together."

At noon on Black Friday, Rev. Billy and his bullhorn showed up at the New York mansion of Amazon chief Jeff Bezos to "mourn with us the pain and suffering and death caused by this company" and to "find joy in the presence of workers who fight such a giant." You can link to Rev. Billy's Bezos videos here. 

A License To Be Licentious? 

On November 26, the Chronicle ran a story about the Department of Motor Vehicles exercising its prerogative to deny issuing personalized licenses plates that the DMV deemed "offensive to good taste and decency." It's the abiding conflict between the noble cause of "free speech" and the ignoble curse of "hate speech." 

All that aside, I'm wondering how a local Honda Accord owner managed to acquire DMV-approved plates that bear the startling message: "POOP." 

Be the First One on Your Block to Own One 

Looking for a unique holiday gift? How about an inflatable poo emoji? Back in 2017, a New Zealand environmental group called ActionStation made international headlines when it created a bunch of iconic, inflatable emojis that volunteers used to protest the then-government's plan to lower national water standards.  

According to ActionStation: "We've lent them to various groups for other environmental campaigns, but they're now just taking up space." As the upstart Kiwis put it: "we're channeling our inner Marie Kondo and setting up a pop-up shop to clear our shelves while also raising funds for the campaigns. These pool-sized poo-balloons sell for $15 (plus shipping and handling from Down Under to your doorstep). 

The ActionStation Pop-up Shop also offers T-shirts, books, and bumperstickers. 

Arnie Passman's Pedantic Antics 

Berkeley poet/provocateur Arnie Passman (a shaman form the Sixties and a well-vetted veteran of the legendary underground weekly, The Berkeley Barb) passes along word that The Deejays, his classic history of jive-time radio Disk Jockeys (aka "DJs") has been just been re-issued in paperback. 

The book was originally published in 1971. In a clever bit of repackaging, the new version has been re-titled: The Deejays: The First 50 Years. (No word yet on the sequel.) 

If you'd like to step into the Wayback Machine and learn about the glory days of pre-TV broadcast entertainment, you can order The Deejays direct from the author. The book is priced at $22.50 but the book is being offered to Planet readers for a discounted price of $20. Just mail a check to AP at 2224 Spaulding, Apt. D, Berkeley, CA 94703. 

A Cutting-edge Ad 

For the past week, a full-page ad has appeared in the Chronicle that looks like an homage to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The ad was created to promote STIHL gas-powered chainsaws under the banner: "One Thing We Can All Agree On." 

And what is that "one thing"? It's the "spirit of independence that makes America great" and "maybe that's why more Americans pick STIHL over every other brand…." 

Yep. Nothing says "independence" like a majority acting in lock-step. 

But what makes the ad even stranger is the image of a lean cowboy leaning against a parked truck, facing the sunset at the end of a busy afternoon, holding his trusty chainsaw at his side. He appears to be surveying the day's work as he faces a small pile of logs freshly cut from a backyard tree. 

But here's where it gets creepy. It's not just a pile of cut logs. The pile also includes a skateboard, a child-sized football helmet, and what looks like a football jersey. 

Has anyone seen little Timmy lately? 

Could Trump Become America's Franco? 

On Thanksgiving Day, Reader Supported News sent out a line-up of stories that buoyed my spirits one moment and dashed my hopes the next. A jolting emotional experience—elation followed by deflation. 

The first headline (for a Guardian article) read: "Here's Something to Give Thanks for this Thanksgiving: Our Democracy Survived." 

That was followed by a ProPublica piece headlined: "Trump Races to Bring Back Firing Squads, Electrocutions, Exclude Transgender People from Shelters." 

We need to face an alarming reality: Trump may be leaving the White House but he's not going to disappear. If he's not tied up in court over his tax scams, hush-money, and bribes—or shackled and tucked away in a jail cell—he's going to be bounding around the country stirring up trouble. 

Trump is already engaged in an anti-Democrat media-war-cum-cultural-vendetta that feeds on division and lies. He will target the Biden-Harris administration for destruction on a daily basis, using every wrench, hammer, and crowbar in his toolbox. 

As Jesse Jackson recently warned, Trump's inability to accept his election loss will be answered with "brazen subversion . . . . a clown show marked by wingbat lawyers, delusional tweets, and hailstorms of lies. . . . a counter-reformation right to the edge of succession, if not beyond." 

As Jackson recalls, the last time a presidential election was contested was in 1860, when Abe Lincoln's ascension to the Oval Office (1) prompted the South to succeed from the Union and (2) triggered a bloody Civil War. 

In it's current issue, The Economist observes that the world is facing a "global recession in democracy" and the US is not immune: "Mr. Trump has still done harm, as have the Republican leaders who indulged him." As a result, "Trust in the fairness of elections has been shaken . . . . The threat is not from military coups but presidents and prime ministers as they erode norms and institutions." 

Trump has not vanished nor has he been vanquished. He still has the power to propel a fascist tide that could sweep the country. With stunning suddenness, Trump could become as politically destabilizing to the US as the Taliban is to Afghanistan or as the al-Nusra Front is to Syria. 

War with Iran? Declaration of National Emergency? A Trump Coup? 

Shocking news from the Middle East: Israel is accused of assassinating Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian nuclear scientist. CODEPINK has just posted a petition calling on world leaders—including US President-elect Joe Biden—to "condemn Israel's illegal execution" as "an act of flagrant disregard for international law." 

CODEPINK writes: "We are worried about an escalation to an all-out US-Iran war" that could derail Biden's promise to return to the Iran Nuclear Deal. It has been widely reported that Trump has been planning a US attack on Iran and has tried repeatedly to provoke Tehran. Some observers fear Trump might start a war in order to declare a "state of national emergency" that would allow him to remain in power. 

According to the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a president can unilaterally declare war in the event of an attack "upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces." (The heavily armed US naval ships that Trump has ordered to patrol the waters off Iran could be seen as tempting targets.) 

As Elizabeth Goitein noted in The Atlantic: "The moment the president declares a 'national emergency'—a decision that is entirely within his discretion—more than 100 special provisions become available to him." Those "provisions" include the power to shut down the Internet, freeze citizens' bank accounts, and declare martial law, sending US troops into American cities to "subdue domestic unrest." 

Goitein's article (published in January 2019) contained this chilling speculation: "[W]hat if a president, backed into a corner and facing electoral defeat or impeachment, were to declare an emergency for the sake of holding on to power? In that scenario, our laws and institutions might not save us from a presidential power grab. They might be what takes us down." 

Singing Songs of Sense and Sedition 

Back in the 1920s, labor leader and political martyr Joe Hill made a good point about the utility of a good song when he wrote: 

"A pamphlet, no matter how good, is never read more than once, but a song is learned by heart and repeated over and over; and I maintain that if a person can put a few cold, common sense facts into a song and dress them . . . up in a cloak of humor to take the dryness off of them, he will succeed in reaching a great number of workers. . . ." 

Taking Joe's advice to heart, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)—better known as the Wobblies—created a chapbook of lefty tunes that became known as "The Little Red Songbook." 

The Wobblies would frequently show up at Salvation Army events for dueling duets in public places. When the Salvation Army band started to sing "Onward Christian Soldiers," the Wobblies would warble back their own lyrics to the tune. 

Herewith, the Complete Lyrics to Christians at War 

Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty's way is plain;
Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain,
Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,
God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,
All your acts are sanctified by the Lamb on high;
If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die. 

Onward, Christian soldiers! Rip and tear and smite!
Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.
Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;
Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.
Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;
Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please. 

Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;
Rob with bloody fingers, Christ okays the bill,
Steal the farmers' savings, take their grain and meat;
Even though the children starve, the Savior's bums must eat,
Burn the peasants' cottages, orphans leave bereft;
In Jehovah's holy name, wreak ruin right and left. 

Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;
Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.
Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;
Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.
File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well;
God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell. 

Onward, Christian soldiers! Blight all that you meet;
Trample human freedom under pious feet.
Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!
Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.
Trust in mock salvation, serve as tyrant's tools;
History will say of you: "That pack of G.. d.. fools."