Jay Z’s American FascismRemember those stories about how NWA was going to turn your kids into foul-mouthed murderers? David P. Goldman has revived the formula for PJ Media -- with an extra shout-out to liberal fascism!
Who would have believed that a performing genre (it is a stretch to call it “music”) dominated by convicted and confessed criminals, brutally misogynistic, preaching and practicing violence, would come to dominate American popular culture?Someone who's ever seen Jimmy Cagney shove a grapefruit in Mae Clark's face, that's who.
Violence is not only a legitimate form of expression: it is the only manly form of expression, as in his rap “D.O.A.”...Despite some demurrers -- inserted, no doubt, to keep the men in the white suits off his tail -- Goldman's clear implication is that Jay Z is Obama's Ernst Rohm, enforcing the Kenyan Tyrant's big takeover with an Ooga Booga Army of brownshirts.
One should not conclude from this that Obama favors criminal violence, but rather that the popular response to Jay Z’s evocation of felonious rage is so great that Obama finds it convenient to exploit it.
Jay Z appeals to the same kind of rage that Hitler and Mussolini exploited during the interwar years. Never in the postwar period has the United States had youth unemployment in the 25% range for over half a decade...
Religion can't compete, because the kids aren't going to church anymore, says Goldman. His best advice to fellow conservatives is to heed the example of the Orthodox Jews' stubborn resistance to modernity:
It is an extended war of attrition to recreate a conservative majority from the grass roots up, in the face of a truly evil effort to exploit the rage and frustration of young Americans. It will last the rest of our lifetimes and more.Maybe Goldman can give this as a speech at the 2016 GOP Convention. I bet it achieves some real movement at the polls!
For a competing but equally valid conspiracy theory, check out Michael T. Snyder on how Jay Z's mobbed up with the Illuminati. Obama isn't mentioned, but Hillary is -- it's a long game!
UPDATE. Famous rapper Jay B has one of the many normal-person reactions in comments: "Jesus Christ, I guess the last 35 fucking years of conservative race panic over 'rap' flew past this guy, seeing how he's just now heard about this new fangled rhyming ghetto thing. He takes on literally the only rap artist that my mom knows about and who seems to rap with about the same amount of rage as the average mall walker and still, even after all this time, tries the ol' 'if you can call it music' bullshit. It's like this was beamed in from 1988. Someone should sneak him a copy of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back, he might never go outside again."
Great song!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Xae9jsqxU
~
The best part is that he quotes Kanye's verse from No Church in the Wild. I guess they all sound the same?
ReplyDeleteCan I get a FUCK YOU?
ReplyDeletePuffy's "I'll Be Missing You" is the Horst Wessel Lied? Eminem is a kapo?
ReplyDeleteThis is an outrage! A calculated insult. I play in a rock band, composed entirely of three old white men and one old Jew (Okay, I'm not Orthodox, but you can't have everything. I have, however, been described, many times, as "typical") We are doing our best to corrupt both the morals, politics and bodies of our audience (and I use the term "audience" quite generously) for over a quarter-century, without any help from affirmative action! But now the conservative, traditional, All-American form of corruption is under attack! Think about it: One fine night, they leave the pool hall, headin' for the dance at the Arm'ry! Libertine men and Scarlet women! And Rap-time, shameless music, that'll grab your son and your daughter
ReplyDeleteWith the arms of a jungle animal instink Mass-staria!
Friends, the idle brain is the devil's playground!
Does that have something to do with amphetamines?
ReplyDeleteHearing a nice Jewish boy from Queens singing that he's a "Nazi schazi" is cognitive dissonance I can live with.
ReplyDeleteToo coked up?
ReplyDelete"I shot a man from Compton, just to watch him die. When I hear that Cristal flowing, I hang my head and cry."
ReplyDelete- Johnny Cash Money
Also. But aside from that, it's that thuggish Cole Porter got me all bothered. You know, he wrote an entire song suggesting that people "do it" like animals? He also wrote a song from the perspective of a prostitute. No wonder I'm an alcoholic, cocaine addicted prostitute specializing in zoophilia!
ReplyDeleteYou don't even have to read the lyrics it's right there in the fucking title, but that was too much for this dude, apparently.
ReplyDeleteDuh, the pyramid represents the motherland.
ReplyDeleteGood, someone covered the Gang Starr lyric. I can check that one off my list.
ReplyDeleteDer Ring des Brooklynlungen:
ReplyDeleteDas Willemsburggold
Die Barclayscenterlied
Beyonceopfer
Hipsterdammerung
Or Frankie and Johnny. Heaven forfend.
ReplyDeleteYou had me at das Willemsburggold!
ReplyDeleteApparently the WH photogs released an artistic shot of Obama in the rain. the internet has been having fun with it.
ReplyDeletehttp://i.imgur.com/1tVHr47.png
Der Fliegender Holland Tunnel, also.
ReplyDeleteJay Z appeals to the same kind of rage that Hitler and Mussolini exploited during the interwar years
ReplyDeleteWho among us cannot forget Neunundneunzig Probleme, which wowed at Bayreuth?
The year is '34, in my trunk is Rohm
In my rearview mirror is Werner von Blom
Got two choices, put the pedal to the Sturmabteilung
Or bounce on the devil through gleichshaltung
Jay Z appeals to the same kind of rage that Hitler and Mussolini exploited during the interwar years
ReplyDeleteI think he's confused by the similarity of problems and luftballons.
The funny thing is that "rage" is the last word I would use to describe Jay-Z. The typical Jay-Z song is about 1) how Jay-Z is awesome 2) how Jay-Z has his shit together 3) why Jay-Z is extremely good at what he does. For rage, I'd go with Eminem. Ooga booga!
ReplyDeleteIf you wanna hang out you've got to take her out; cocaine.
ReplyDeleteIf you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; cocaine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.
If your thing is gone and you wanna ride on; cocaine.
Don't forget this fact, you can't get it back; cocaine.
She don't lie, she don't lie, she don't lie; cocaine.
--Eric "Straight Outta Surrey" Clapton
Timbaland Uber Alles
ReplyDeleteAh, but we all know what Hitler eventually did to his old comrade Ernst. Jay Z better watch his back for Kenyan assassins bearing long knives.
ReplyDeleteAl Capone is still a cottage industry in Chicago. But I haven't been unable to unload all these Jeff Fort t-shirts on any of the tourist shops around here.
ReplyDeleteYou know who was a real badass baller? Horace.
ReplyDeletepopulus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca
But it was cartoonishly transgressive. That was kind of the point. "A shock trooper in a stupor, yes I am."
ReplyDeleteWait till they discover Tyler the Creator.
ReplyDeleteI normally hate Autotune, but it gave us THIS, so I have to look at it with some nuance.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFzXaFbxDcM
I'm thinking that popular music just hasn't been the same for Goldman since Myron Floren hung up his accordion.
ReplyDeleteIt is an extended war of attrition...from the grass roots up
ReplyDeleteI love these conservative attempts to pack as many hackneyed metaphors as possible into a single clown-car of a sentence, following the theory that two cliches are always better than one. Is it written down in the PJMedia style guide somewhere?
Such is Corporal Goldberg's facility with words, I do not think he will be leading the charge over the top and across no-mans'-pastureland any time soon.
My favorite was Hipsterdammerung.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imf25Squ8ro
~
Serial photographer.
ReplyDeleteHeisenberg wit' da fat stacks, yo!
ReplyDeleteFelonious Manque will be my nom de rappe, to be sure.
ReplyDeleteHave you met Ms. Jones?
ReplyDeleteI got 99 problems but a blimp ain't one.
ReplyDelete*It has come to M. G. "Monk" Lewis's attention that, in the song, although Miss Otis was indeed awaiting execution, she in fact was removed from the jail by a mob and lynched.
ReplyDeleteMgmonklewis regrets the error.
Isn't that a brand of champagne that the hippety-hop types swill by the magnum?
ReplyDeleteNeeds more "Burning Hindenburg" illustrations.
ReplyDeleteGothamdammerung.
ReplyDeleteSince BBBB got to C&W first, I'll just mention the Blues.
ReplyDeleteEven the dog on the extra-cheesy PJ Lifestyle (!) masthead seems to implore, wordlessly, "Please! Get me outta here!" As the great and prescient culture critic Bugs Bunny used to say: whatta maroon!
ReplyDeleteThis has been just one of those things.
ReplyDeleteSomeone should sneak him a copy of It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back, he might never go outside again.
ReplyDeleteRemember, it's the Internet era. For all we know Goldman stopped going outside years ago.
"Baby if I'm the bottom you're the top."
ReplyDeleteYeah, Porter was pretty fucking explicit about his proclivities, 'twould seem.
Compared to the confessed crack dealer and knifer Jay Z, to be sure, Adolf Hitler was a man of high intellect and deep culture.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's a man who agrees with you wholeheartedly, David.
http://youtu.be/AIZKZ3C1ML8
Not hardly. That serial shot from guns.
ReplyDeleteAre you sure he even means that Jay Z's followers are "the blacks?" Isn't the real fear and rage that maybe Obama and his Ernst Rohm have given voice to the howls of rage from dispossessed white youth? Because otherwise why the surprise? The blacks have always been revolting. It doesn't become an actual problem until white youth join them in the OO or the ZZ or whatever is our version of the SS.
ReplyDeleteXG that is so profoundly true. I would like to marry this comment and never let it divorce me when I got old and fat.
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding me?
ReplyDeleteWell sure--the blues are black. Plus all the girls are bobbing their hair and smoking and jazzing.
ReplyDeleteThe freakin' Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written story on the planet. The murdering and fucking start on page two.
ReplyDeleteJezebel--they can go out as a pair of hands.
ReplyDeletei loved that my daughter's 9th grade english class began with Gilgamesh.
ReplyDeleteOf course that's what he means. Jay Z is black; Jay Z is a rapper; rap is "ghetto music," therefore and ipso facto Jay Z is inciting scary black youth to rise up and kill Whitey. Q.E.D.
ReplyDeleteSay what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, at least they had real music.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite Osmium outtake.
ReplyDeleteOn that subject of real martial music, there's "The Ipcress File."
ReplyDelete[Palmer and Dalby are attending a performance of a military band playing Mozart]
Palmer:
Very neat. Must we sit through any more of this torture? I've got a lot of things to do.
Major Dalby:
I think they're playing very well.
Palmer:
Tell me who wins.
The thing is, Goldberg isn't an awful writer. He's demonstrated no evidence that he's able to think, mind you, but he's not all that bad at putting words in a row. His subjects and verbs agree, he knows when dependent clauses need to get pruned off a sentence, and he knows what a paragraph is and what it should do. in fact, he's even learned the lesson that Cooke obviously didn't: overwriting reveals your insecurity. If you think your ideas are strong, there's no need to try and impress anyone with your language. You actually want to write as plainly as possible, so that a larger audience can grasp your idea. Dragging out the flashing cliches and extravagant four-syllable words is admitting your idea needs a lot of propping up.
ReplyDeleteAnother rousing message from the political pool that thinks art is just a synonym for propaganda.
ReplyDeleteJJ Cale of Oklahoma, also.
ReplyDeleteHeartland!
Mr. Goldman has an interesting history, used to be a Larouchite among other things.
ReplyDeleteAlso too, it speaks volumes about the strength of IT'S ALWAYS PROJECTION when a wingnut, launching a crusade against Degenerate Art, feels that his case is strengthened by comparing the genre to Hitler.
ReplyDeleteSo - Eddie Cantor was the Prohibition Era's Jay Z?
ReplyDelete...need to try and impress anyone with your language...Dragging out the flashing cliches and extravagant four-syllable
ReplyDeletewords...
Christopher Hitchens Has Risen From The Grave !
the umbrella-holding marines were deemed "non-essential," eh?
ReplyDeleteWell, golly... I thought that "Rap" music would be the one genre where Auto-Tune wouldn't be NEEDED...
ReplyDeleteGoldberg does cliches. Perhaps he just doesn't know any four-syllable words.
ReplyDeleteBurning airships give you so much more.
ReplyDeleteIt's true. Both Hitler and Mussolini expertly exploited anti-autotune rage to ascend to power.
ReplyDeleteCab Calloway actually was considered dangerous. Bird too.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'd rather my man would hit me
ReplyDeletethan follow him to jump up and quit me
Ain't nobody's business if I do
I swear I won't call no copper
if I'm beat up by my papa
Ain't nobody's business if I do
But I'm not sure thats correct because when they are talking about black youth don't they always distinguish it from "normal" youth? To whom does the 25 percent unemployment figure pertain, in his reader's mind? I think the current tea party fear is that unemployed black youth and unemployed white youth are all moshing together, as it were, and that by losing control of youth culture they have lost control of everything in a white future. Its not that they think Jay Z represents black militancy--he represents black leadership of a mixed race anarchy.
ReplyDeleteThat's almost escher like in its perfection.
ReplyDeleteTaking on Oswald Spengler as one's nom de web is both unfortunate and telling.
ReplyDeleteAy n'ako! This computer has double vision!
ReplyDeleteI've got a fever only more conservatism can cure.
ReplyDeleteWell then, let's misbehave. Cole Porter also wrote a song called "Experiment" which is all right with me.
ReplyDelete"Kenny Rogers had a song on the air about murdering his cheating 'ho of a girlfriend"
ReplyDeleteI love "Hey Joe"! He took the money and ran!
Hey, there's a rock song wingnuts might like: "Take the Money and Rant!"
And he brought George Orwell with him.
ReplyDeleteWell, obviously neither of us can climb into his mind to know exactly what he meant. I'm just banking on the fact that "rap music" has been used as a dog-whistle for old white people for over 20 years now, and that the average age of the reader on NRO, PJ Media, etc is probably north of 50...just the use of the signifier "rap music" makes it unnecessary to spell out "black youth" with his audience. I also doubt it would be much of a stretch to assume that the 25% unemployment figure will translate to "shiftless layabout black youth" in his average reader's mind.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I don't know for certain - but imputing a racist motive with these folks is never a bad bet.
In the morning. And "fervor" all through the night.
ReplyDelete"Death Grips" are pretty good rage rap too.
ReplyDeleteI've got 99 luftballons but I denk an dich und lass' ihn fliegen...
ReplyDeleteMore like a "Human Centipede" Ouroboros.
ReplyDeleteIf that' ain't a "shonda fur the goyim", I don't know what is.
ReplyDeleteBesides "television", that is.
ReplyDeleteAnd "Begin the Beguine" is about choosing to live in denial and fantasy.
ReplyDeleteOh yes let them begin the beguine
Make them play
Til the stars that were there before return above you
Til you whisper to me once more
"Darling, I love you"
It's a wing-nut anthem par excellence!
Oh, my interpretation isn't to say that his version isn't racist--of course it is! I agree with that. But to say that one of the component parts of modern racism is anxiety that the blacks are taking over our youth (white), our wimmen and our country. He's expressing a lot of sympathy/empathy with the 25 percent unemployed youth which I just don't think he would express if he meant that they were black. Alternatively, he could be pulling the "Obama is just using his black voters but he's not really doing anything for them" lever.
ReplyDeleteStop that. I need to be able to sleep at night.
ReplyDeleteTsurris! Right here in River City! With a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for plotz!
ReplyDeleteI'd love to play this dude some Blood of Abraham and watch his head explode.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szfkjibJJes
Yeah, watch your step, or they will mess their shit up.
ReplyDeleteThe murdering and fucking start on page two.
ReplyDeleteBut that was okay, because impressionable young children lacked the strength to lift the first page.
If you're talking about "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town", remember that the lyrics are from the point of view of a paraplegic Vietnam War veteran, so it's different. Support our troops!
ReplyDeleteWhen he finds out about jazz he'll have one of those "The Killer is in the Basement!" moments.
ReplyDeleteMinnie the Moocher
ReplyDeleteWho Put the Benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
Reefer Man
Geechee Joe
There are a lot of stoned people in Cab Calloway's songs.
Bessie Smith has one song where she threatens to shoot her man's underpants off, so there's that.
ReplyDeleteDude is playing a Mosrite. Hipsters!
ReplyDeleteOh man, I remember when I got my first bike. My Mom just kept on saying "oy! a shonda, a shonda" And just kept saying "no, Mom, a Honda!" Never could get her to change her mind.
ReplyDeleteWait. Are you saying that Timberlands are rappers' shoe of choice? I never knew I had anything in common with those cats.
ReplyDeleteNot also. Cale wrote the thing.
ReplyDeleteTimbaland.
ReplyDeleteJayZ's song “D.O.A.”... is a song about the Death Of Autotune.
ReplyDeleteThe only person that should object to this song is Britney Spears...
But hey, don't let facts keep you from your victimization fetish.
Thanks for pointing that out. Looks like he's blaming it on a) having been a hippie and b) not being a religious fanatic. Of course. And I was amused by this:
ReplyDelete[Larouche] also portrayed himself as the opponent of Nazi tendencies that lurked everywhere. In a caricature of the reductio ad Hitlerum, everything he didn’t like pointed to the Nazis. The economist Milton Friedman, whose students had advised the Pinochet regime in Chile, must be a fascist because LaRouche didn’t like his economics, and I coauthored a book with LaRouche in 1978 with that silly allegation.
Et tu, Pantload?
Wait Goldman is the Asia Times Spengler? That explains everything. BTW only a complete nutso wouldn't recognize that the the real Oswald Spengler was a complete nutso. And only the pope of complete nutsos would use Spengler as a pseudonym.
ReplyDeleteIs this fool completely unaware of say greek myth or a relative obscure poet named Shakespeare?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure "modern" needs to be in there. My first boss, in 1974, referred to top 40 radio as "n***y bopper" music when complaining we wouldn't turn it off in favor of the nice Muzak.
ReplyDeletethe real Oswald Spengler was a complete nutso
ReplyDelete...noted for his collection of pronography.
I remember Frank Zappa pointing out that not only was country music at least as violent and misogynistic as any of the music they were complaining about, but that because the singers enunciated so clearly more people could understand exactly what they were saying.
ReplyDelete"Who would have believed that a performing genre (it is a stretch to call
ReplyDeleteit “music”) dominated by convicted and confessed criminals, brutally
misogynistic, preaching and practicing violence, would come to dominate
American popular culture?"
I believe Spy magazine had this shit cold 20 something years ago...
here it is:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=kRgc0vPcVqwC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false
"Of course we meant rap. Did you think we meant those old songs the Rolling Stones played on their Steel Wheels tour?"
David Goldman's got 99 problems, and he displays about half of them in that one column.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding? :)
ReplyDelete