Guitar Chords of Mass Destruction
A Brief Review of U2's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

U2's new record hits stores next week, and the hype machine is, well, kinda loud right now. How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb is U2's first studio album in a few years (not counting the Best of 1990-2000 release), so the first question that comes up is are they washed up yet?

No.

This is probably their best record since Achtung Baby. I'm unusually fond of Pop, one of their least popular records, but this record is more consistent than that late 1990's album, and has more punch than the moving but front-loaded All That You Can't Leave Behind.

The Edge has covered this record with HUGE guitar riffs, in a variety of styles that all sound like...The Edge. Mullen & Clayton continue their climb from weird sounding rhythm and bass combo to very talented weird sounding rhythm and bass guys. Bono is slighly less didactic than on their previous record, which is a good thing.

Their are a few tracks which stand out, but nothing on the album is particularly bad. Most of U2's records have a tendency to burn out after their "A-side", but HTDAAB manages to stay consistently engaging throughout it's eleven tracks. The opening single, "Vertigo", also opens the album, and is probably the most radio-friendly of the album's tracks. "Miracle Drug" plays the role of thoughtful heart-tugger, and largely works, even if it sometimes yields to moments of the aforementioned "didactic Bono" songwriting.

"Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" might be the most effective song on the album. It's a lovely pop ballad, clearly about Bono and his recently deceased father, that nicely melds BeeGees style falsettos in it's chorus with a slow emotional grandeur that builds in the song. The song probably has the best "U2 Moment" on the record, where Bono manages to take his own pain and yearning and fill an arena with it...and that's just the studio recording.

The Eno & Lanois produced "Love & Peace or Else" is a strong track, mixing blues with a dash of industrial fuzz that works well. "All Because of You" brings a slightly more casual rock, but it's a fun tribute to Stones style rock and roll. Two of the later songs on the album, "Crumbs From Your Table" and "One Step Closer", offer a respite from the harder material of other songs, and work better than much of the late album filler of All That You Can't Leave Behind.

Of the album's other tracks, only "A Man and a Woman" is a dissapointment. "Original of the Species" is surprisingly lively, and "Yahweh" is an appropriate album closer.

Shell Game

The White House is floating the usual trial balloons in the Washington Post today discussing possible tax reform proposals. As expected, the proposals suck.

Actually, the proposals are completely unworkable in a political sense. Even with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, it's unlikely they'd be able to ignite popular support for some key changes, including:

1. Removing the deduction for state and local taxes.

2. Removing the deduction for employers providing health insurance to their employees.

Those ideas are supposed to keep the overall package revenue neutral, so that they can eliminate Capital Gains, Interest, and Dividend taxes. Yup, the Republican battle to make the poor and middle class suffer for their immoral non-richness continues.

The idiocy of these proposals isn't really the point of this exercise. The strategy behind them is. Putting these poison pills into any proposal formally introduced will just give a different target for Democrats to attack, which Republicans will end up conceding as long as Democrats give them their nice little tax cuts on investment income. Republicans then frame Dems as "pro-tax" and pin the blame for larger defecits on Democratic resistance to shifting the burden of government further onto the backs of the working class.

Democrats need to make sure their opposition to this is framed by them and not the Republicans, and they have to be the party of responsible government. This is about not bankrupting the government, and not screwing over an increasing marginalized middle-class. They shouldn't let themselves, or the public, be distracted by the repeated slight of hand of the Right. The whole agenda is rotten to the core, and that's the best way to approach this.

Up Next: Tom DeLay has some "Rolax" watches he'd like to sell you...

Firefox

Anyone out there using Mozilla Firefox yet? I've been using it today and like it so far, although it's frustrating to find IE only sites on occasion. I like the built in RSS functions, and using multiple tabs in one browser window really makes research easier.

Comments

I've finally added comments to the site (via blogger) so if you're one of the six or so people who read this blog, feel free to post snarky responses to my blathering.

Post Election Music

I'm not feeling nearly as funereal as I was on Wednesday, so I figured I'd put together a list of post election music that worked as a nice soundtrack to the last day or two.

"Badlands", Bruce Springsteen
"Like a Rolling Stone", Bob Dylan
"Vertigo", U2
Armed Forces, Elvis Costello & The Attractions (the whole album)
What's Going On, Marvin Gaye (the whole album)

The Election: Some Rambling Thoughts.

That didn't go as I'd hoped.

November 2nd went from a day that looked pretty good to a day that looked kinda weak.

November 3rd was a very rude day.

George Bush's victory was both narrow (in its popular vote and electoral numbers) and large (in the growth of the Bush base and the tide of extremist Southern Republicans joining the Senate). Given the Republicans behavior after 2000, even having a narrow popular majority in this election should yield a wild rightward shift in the agenda of the federal state.

On the naval gazing side, it seems impossible to resist asking the question "what went wrong?" In the days leading up to the election, Kerry had solidified his standing with independents and moderates and seemed to be getting the subtle swing in the polls to close the election. The early exists certainly echoed this on election day. But then something changed, and all of a sudden the results from the south and other rural states trickled in , and Kerry and the Democrats were getting solidly beaten where they were looking competitive.

The strengths Kerry showed in the political middle ground vanished under a title wave of votes cast by social conservatives (largely of a religious background). Add in the slightly heightened state of fear some right leaning voters had due to terrorism with the usual suburban economic shortsightedness and you had a perfect storm of voters willing to vote for (really) narrow self-interest without regard to the incompetence of the candidate they were supporting.

I'm inclined to agree with the chorus that seems to be rising that the Democrats need to start engaging the south and winning back some working class voters who are marching with socially conservative evangelical groups. Certainly working to marry progressive stances with Christian rhetoric can help, but it can't be done in a haphazard way. It'll take time to wear down the right wing frames that some fundamentalists use to talk about the world. (I'll probably write a more detailed post on this topic this weekend, but I want to cover some other issues regarding the election for now.)

The struggles of the south are amplified for Democrats because they have to win everywhere else to win the presidency. Losing the South and it's brethren in the mid-west locks democrats into a place where they're either a minority or very narrow majority, while Republicans can dominate the federal system. There is virtually no margin of error if a Democrat wants to run without some of the south, which is why it was so disheartening early in the campaign to hear Kerry simply dismiss the south.

While the sweep of the south and the high turnout of evangelicals appears to be the dominant story of the election, it's not the only significant one. Democrats need to do a better job of hitting home on the price that the middle and upper-middle class pay for the reckless tax cuts that Bush & Co. peddle so regularly. During the primaries Dean did a good job linking the tax cuts with the decimation of state and local government budgets, rising tuition costs, rising property taxes, etc.

Taking this one step further, "The-Not-Republicans" need to start reclaiming their rightful hold on themes such as empowerment, opportunity, and entrepreneurship. The need to show a clear difference between the opportunity a $300 tax cut gives you and the opportunity an affordable education, good health care, and a strong, stable, growing economy give you. Essentially, the tax cut helps you tread water, but that's only because the republicans keep digging the pool deeper and asking you to hold your breath longer.

Finally, Democrats and the Left need to focus both locally and nationally. The benefits of this strategy became obvious this year, where the Republicans managed to use the confluence of years of local political engineering and a national, compete-and-GOTV everywhere strategy (at least on the presidential side) to get a popular vote win which probably doesn't reflect the actual mood of the country. They simply turned out voters in places where they didn't even need it, but it aided in their ability to create a positive environment for all of it's national candidates to win.

I'll probably be posting more on these topics over the next week, so check back regularly.