The Linear Canvas
This journal is about the wrongs and rights of the world, as I see them.

The Linear Canvas

Liberal Opposition destroying American Democracy for Profit

July 8th, 2017 . by Alexander Fisher

Corporate media likes to give liberals advice about changing their message so they can "win" elections. The liberal opposition (not really conservative) bought up the media, gerrymandered the states, and gave us hack-able voting systems and still couldn’t win everything to establish their anti-democratic "Permanent Majority". So they brought in an experienced authoritarian country to "fix" our election system once and for all for them. Seems to me that same liberal opposition is the one that needs to change their message, and actions, to conform to the spirit and content of our Constitution and the action expected from them to protect the republic it helped create from foreign influence. But there’s no money in that.

Loving America on July 4, 2017

July 4th, 2017 . by Alexander Fisher

 

On July 4th I am reminded of patriotism by the things I do not have to do to prove I love America:

 

· I do not have to fly any flag to prove I love America and doing so does not make me love America more than any other person.

· I do not have to belong to any one religion or have any religion at all to prove I love America.

· I do not have to be an American citizen or even live in America to prove I love America.

· I do not have to be any specific gender, skin color, or sexual orientation to prove I love America.

· I do not have to live in any one neighborhood, village, city or state or even have a home to prove I love America.

· I do not have be above or below any income level to prove I love America.

· I do not have to know any important, famous, or infamous people to prove that I love America.

Anyone that thinks that requiring any preconditions as proof a person loves America does not themselves understand what loving America means. For those individuals:

· You do not have to respect the opinions and rights of others and not quite get the democracy thing and you can still love America. It’s just that if you act out with violence against other American’s you should probably be in prison.

· You do not have to not be incarcerated to prove you love America.

The Republican Party Incorporated

April 17th, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

 

For the last half century, the national Republican Party has had a track record for not achieving the goals of their conservative electorate. I considered myself a Republican, the Party of Lincoln, when I was young. I thought being conservative meant being responsible with the public’s tax money and keeping government out of one’s personal affairs. A naive boy I was.

Then the wedge issues came along. Opposition to same sex marriage, abortion rights, and other controversy’s that became embedded in the Republican Party platform. On those issues however, they actually failed to change, outlaw or control any one of them in any meaningful way nationally. There was even a period during George W. Bush’s residency in the White House that the Republicans controlled the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and no doubt the national media dialog. But still, the Republicans made little change to the existing laws or proposed any legislation that had any chance of being enacted concerning those issues.

After the Republican’s Reagan Revolution, Corporate Taxation, Government Spending, the Environmental Protection Agency, Terrorism and Voting Rights have all been on the national party’s agenda. Since that time, there are now lower taxes for corporations, greater government spending, a worsening environment, highly visible acts of terrorism and more restrictions on the democratic process. It seems the Republicans can make changes, but only to benefit the special interests that profit from anything related to those things. The party has been taken over for some time by a well dressed criminal class and has become a party that wastes public money on political agendas and giving preferential treatment to others based on lives of wealth and privilege.

The Republican Party needs to explain to their voters why so little has been done on the wedge issues they were elected to change. They should have to tell whether they are ever going to make any effort to change things in the future or not. Beyond just sound bites and symbolic gestures. I think conservative voters deserve to know that. Whether I agree with any of them or not. I would want to know. But If someone is waiting for The Republican Party Incorporated to do anything about the perpetual wedge issues that galvanize conservative voters who keep voting them into power because of them, they will be waiting for a really long time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-obamacare-replacement_us_570ffe63e4b06f35cb6f08ee

President Nixon: A Bullitt Dodged

April 1st, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

 

I am currently reading John Dean’s book “The Nixon Defense”. The content of the book is mostly transcribed from White House recordings made during Richard Nixon’s years as President. Dean helps to organize the conversations and adds some commentary, but not that much. He was working in the WH then and helps to explain some of the seemingly ambiguous conversations. The Nixon aide quoted in the article at the link below, John Ehrlichman, is one of the players in this book as well. In it, he even discussed with the president rounding up all blacks and putting them on trains, then dropping one off in every town to work as domestic servants.
President Nixon was also making plans to round up newspaper reporters he didn’t like and jail them. He was using the IRS and the FBI to target his enemies. He believed he was above the law, so therefore he was not committing crimes. He went on about how honest he was and how his enemies were not. Then he would break the law to get back at them. Nuts.
As it turned out, the Watergate scandal saved America and our free speech for a few more years. Nixon’s goal was a country run for the benefit of himself and his rich friends. Had he not been hobbled by press and congressional scrutiny in his second term, he would have put his fantasy into action.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie/index.html

CREEM Magazine

March 31st, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

I was just sitting here thinking about the music I listened to when I was a teenager. I read Rolling Stone magazine a lot. But CREEM magazine was a big influence as well. They talked about a lot of name acts like David Bowie, Alice Cooper and Kiss, but they were also writing about The Dictators, New York Dolls, and The Ramones. I remember they had a full photo spread once called “Wayne County At Home” which were photos of a cross dressing punk singer lounging around his house in a dress, heels and a bouffant hairdo. The good old days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creem

The Discussion We Need To Have About The NFL

February 6th, 2016 . by Alexander Fisher

No matter how much I have always loved the Cleveland Browns, I think that the NFL has gotten too big and powerful. You aren’t even allowed to say “Super Bowl” on television without their permission. Public financed stadiums make little sense when the teams and league are phenomenally wealthy. Corporate team owners often select the team’s hometown based on which city is willing to go into debt further to build a shiny new football field for them. The takeover of our colleges for the needs of the football team pushes the education they were founded for to the background. No one should disagree that a college football coach shouldn’t make more than the university president, state governor, or a U.S. president. None of this is fiscally responsible behavior in any way.

I never watch the Super Bowl. This time is no different. It is mainly because the Browns aren’t in it. But my love of the Browns should never interfere with what I see as tax payers being robbed and football fans being terrorized. Just ask the fans in St. Louis.

Forty Years Journey: From Herro-Wine to Oxycontin and Heroin

July 5th, 2011 . by Alexander Fisher

Gerald D FisherMy dad worked at a local prison and was at the BCI, Ohio’s FBI, one day in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. A policeman came through the front door with a bottle of wine. He requested that the BCI laboratory analyze the contents of the bottle. When the agent asked why, the policeman told him he suspected the contents was "herro-wine". I don’t remember my dad ever laughing so hard when he told me this story.

Illicit drugs were only a burgeoning problem at that time. Most teenagers’ biggest problem was getting caught with cigarettes and 3.2% beer. In most small communities illicit drugs did not exist for the majority of people. Moms and dads were a little over medicated on the sleeping pills, diet pills, or anti-anxiety drugs, but not in any overly large amounts. There were controls on the system. There was no advertising the benefits of a prescription drug on television. Most pharmacies were locally owned. Pharmacist’s in all states knew most of their customer’s by name and could oversee the distribution of medications to these people. Now most pharmacies are parts of large corporations. Sometimes you can see your former local pharmacists working for the new super chains, filling prescription after prescriptions to unknown faceless customers. Whatever the doctor’s say, well it must be OK, right?

In the 1970’s, drug use became a profitable business for both local and foreign investors. The blame was always squarely put on that long haired kid on the corner. The blame then as now goes to those that finance illicit drug importation. I guarantee you that very few of these people were, or are, long haired kids, even if they are standing menacingly on the corner. The cocaine business that was broken up in Florida in the 1980’s proved that these people were more likely to be the more affluent in the community. They were usually standing alongside and contributing to local and national politicians who controlled enforcement of their illegal activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

My Newest Recording – I Don’t Know (09/12/2001)

September 26th, 2010 . by Alexander Fisher

BuildingWhat I personally would never call “I Don’t Know (09/12/2001)” the blues. All I’m going to say is that it has a bluesy sound and I had the blues when I wrote and recorded it.

By definition I guess it is then…

“I Don’t Know (09/12/2001)”

[audio:http://www.linearcanvas.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/I Don’t Know 20100926_1039m256.mp3]

If The Above Player Does Not Appear Or Does Not Work, Click Here

When I wrote this song on September 12th, 2001. I didn’t know as much about the events of the previous day as I do now. I must say that my internal skeptic was in full gear though. I, like every one else that day, was too shocked by the events to do any real critical thinking. Like how did they know so much about the hijackers so quickly when none of their names appeared on any of the flight manifests?

The reports started coming in about the incidents of that day as I was nearing Cincinnati, Ohio on I-75 listening to the radio. I was on my way to the town of Amelia to work on a TV distribution system there. I worked eight straight hours on the distribution network and did a good job fixing the problems. But I had some TV channels off most all day. People were probably trying to watch the events unfold on TV like I was doing, but their favorite channels were probably going on and off. Lucky for me, I knew what channel to watch.

I didn’t think of that until days later. I probably should have come back the next week. But not knowing the scope of the situation, I just kept working.

Not suspecting any conspiracy yet, I knew that whatever the Bush administration did next would be wrong just based on their performance to that date. They certainly didn’t take long to prove me right. The whole war thing has been a bungled disaster that will have cost the suckers, er, I mean the taxpayers two trillion dollars and the lives of countless thousands of poor innocent people.

I don’t know what really happened that day. But volumes of evidence and common sense should tell us that there is more going on here than we’re being told. They want me to believe that nineteen men, mostly Saudi Arabian’s, defeated the trillion dollar defense I and many others have been paying for since World War Two? Then, a) I want my money back and/or b) I want a new investigation into what happened on September 11th, 2001.

Any national defense and airline employee that dropped the ball that day, should be at least fired because they failed their duties to protect America.

If someone were found responsible for the act itself in some way, life in prison or the death penalty. Either will do. I don’t even care if they are an Arab, Israeli, Asian, European, African or American. Osama Bin Laden even. As long as we have the evidence. I think there is most likely plenty of it.

To this date, no one has been fired or criminally charged for the attack.

Will Someone Ever Pay For This Crime?

I was in my basement in Swanton, Ohio at the time and sat down at the drums. I started playing this beat. I thought it was cool so I recorded it with one microphone and built the rest of the song around it. It was the first time I had ever done this. Use one microphone that is. I love overkill.

These tracks were originally recorded on a Fostex VF-16 digital multi-track recorder. I played electric guitar on a Fender Stratocaster. The bass was a Rickenbacker 4001. I played drums on my Ludwig’s. I digitally processed the instrument and vocal tracks using Cakewalk Sonar 8.5 Producer DAW and Sony Sound Forge 9 audio editor.

Corporatism: Killing Demcracy For Profit

March 4th, 2010 . by Alexander Fisher

No matter what you think about the current administration or the previous one, the problem with our government has always been the level of corporatist influence in it and the corruption that it has caused. But I just don’t believe that it has ever been this bad and out in the open. The last thirty years has been a real bonanza for the well connected corporatist

The end of the broadcast fairness doctrine and relaxing media ownership concentration rules certainly played a part in this, as the watchdog of investigative journalism was finally under the control of the corporate owned media conglomerates with no equal time for dissenting opinions and any real fact checking. Other factors are the uncontrollable propaganda that 500 different cable channels could broadcast, again without any requirements any of it be true, or fair. The fairness doctrine never covered cable, so that was never an issue anyway. Another is that corporations have long been about controlling whatever government agencies and branches they could, to extinguish labor and safety regulations and their resulting law suits and other responsibilities. Corporations know that it’s hard to market a defective product when people know the truth about it and them.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Best of Stephanie Miller (2009)

December 31st, 2009 . by Alexander Fisher

One of my favorite entertainers is radio host Stephanie Miller. I have pretty regularly listened to her radio show since its beginning in 2004. She is witty and very funny. I am the “Official Cable Guy” of The Stephanie Miller Show. Here is the best of Stephanie Miller from 2009 (so far) from her many TV talk show appearances.

 

If the video player does not appear or work, click here (part 1)

 

If the video player does not appear or work, click here (part 2)

« Previous Entries