Things to do during the republican convention

The Teamsters weren't afraid of the Minneapolis coppers. 

I don't even have a TV. I'm glad I don't have one. I haven't turned on the radio in days. That doesn't mean I haven't been online. Nossir. So I know that the police are fucking with protestors in Minneapolis, home of the great teamsters rebellion.

Whether or not you have a TV, don't get sentimental about the goddam '60's. That was a long time ago and chances are you weren't born. Here's a useful quote from Dave Van Ronk:

“[M]ost of these people were not really radicals, just a bunch of very pissed-off liberals. They had no grounding, and indeed no interest, in theory, and their disdain for studying history and learning economics infuriated me. The core problem with the New Left was that it wasn’t an ideology, it was a mood – and if you are susceptible to one mood, you are susceptible to another. They wanted the world to change, but essentially it was a petty bourgeois movement that had no connection with what was really going on. The working class at least has some power – if the working class folds its arms, the machinery stops – and as for the ruling class, its power is obvious. But what power does the middle class have? They have the power to talk: yak, yak, yak. To interpret, reinterpret, and re-reinterpret. And that is the history of the New Left in a nutshell"

Thanks, hat tip etc. to These Things Too. A great blog from Indiana. 

If you must watch the convention, try playing Count The Negroes. Remember, you are not allowed to count the same Negro twice.

"watching the RNC is so funny. Almost all the Black Republicans will be *on the stage* and they will zoom into the "other" guy in the audience 6 times a day, every day, like he's someone different. last time I was laughing hysterically by the second day. They keep showing the same 12 people of color over and over again like they are different people. From different angles, from different cameras but the same dozen non-white delegates."

Thanks, hat tip etc. to The Field Negro. A great blog from Philadelphia.