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As many people already know, President Obama has been sworn in for another 4 years. In the typical imperial splendor we have come to expect from the DJ's on the titanic's last party I watched the inauguration in half horror/ half bewilderment. Beyonce performing Jesus songs over the navy's marching band, various politicians to come out to deliver eulogies in spanish, sprinkled in with a safe amount of gay rights, MLK and Islam, while drones killed 3 children a few thousand miles away. Anyway i digress, this video from Anarcho-Anon(anonymous) says it all. And this video from Cornell West says a lot too.

To celebrate I've decided to put up Live From Rome as a free d/l. When it first came out old fans were really upset that I had abandoned my beat poet style of stream of conciousness half-critiques for all out assault. Hipster critics and purveyors of "The Great Nothing" attacked me and wrote me off. This marked a huge change in my motivations & aesthetic. It's when I began adapting my approach to reflect a more modern folk aesthetic, building on what Brecht called, "Epic Theatre." I wanted to make songs like Pete Seeger & Jay Z, and it wasn't until I started doing Nuclear Winter did I figure out how to actually pull that off.

Thats not to say this is a perfect record. Its far from it, there is some awkward shit on there. Halfway through it I quit smoking weed and tobacco, had a complete breakdown and left the country. I had grown frustrated with what was happening with anticon, I felt like I deserved more success and it drove the people that I had counted on as collaborators away from me. So I was kind of on my own musically, and wasn't fully prepared for it.

I listen to it now and think how little in the U.S.A. has changed, actually I think about how Obama has essentially doubled down on everything Bush was doing, albeit with a slightly different tact.

The problem is not Obama, it lies with us, and it lies with the passive society that we prop up, and of course our form of government. As long as we are relying on the government to improve our lives we are doomed, because they don't give a flying fuck. You can not plead with them, you can not reason with them, they must be FORCED to listen.

That is why I support projects which empower people outside of government and create a culture of Mutual Aid. For examples I point to the recent Keystone XL fundraiser we did which successfully helped get the brave blockaders out of jail, the campaign to buy P.O.S. a new kidney(Grieves, Grayskul and Sadistik raised over $5k for it!), strike debt, the rolling jubilee, Sage's fundraiser for UBUNTU, Food Not Bombs, shit even my kickstarter campaign.

If you are still reading... check out Just Do it, EndCiv, Political Fail Blog, This Anonymous Video, and my new favorite website Build The Party. This vegan/ animal rights video really fucked me up this weekend as well.

Oh yeah, and I'm about to announce a new album, which is going to blow people away.

War is here, if you want it.