Examining electoral votes by State given current polls it would seem that John McCain has a mountain to climb come Tuesday. That said, I wouldn’t write the Republicans off just yet. Since I’ve been down here I have only met a handful of people that plan to vote for Obama, most choosing to vote for McCain because they fear Obama’s tax increase for those that make over $250,000 dollars a year. The race in Nevada is close, with Obama scheduled to speak here tomorrow, so it will be interesting to see which way the State goes next week.

Nevada, along with Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina are going to be crucial if Obama is to succeed. If he can take all of them, the White House should be his. If he loses all of them, the it will be a very tense evening.

While not all that important to many of the people that I’ve spoken with down here, the international reputation of this country is certainly on the line next Tuesday. Eight years of the Bush Administration has left much of the world disenfranchised with the United States, not to mention resulting in most regarding it as a greater threat to global security than any other nation or entity. Unfortunately, while I do think that Obama will change various aspects of domestic policy, I do not believe that he will seriously confront the military establishment or the stranglehold that the defense sector has on the nation. He may very well work to disengage the United States from Iraq, but those resources will only be moved to another theatre of war, and in many ways it will be business as usual. And while I am sure that Guantanamo’s days will be numbered if he succeeds next week, I do not believe that the detention and interrogation of prisoners will stop at undisclosed locations.

Do I believe that an Obama victory is crucial next week? Yes, I do, but primarily for the sake of perception – not only with regards to international perception, but that of the nation’s youth, who may very well view an Obama victory as proof that if they engage themselves change is possible. If anything is needed in this country, it is the resurrection of that belief from which real change can hopefully spring.

This morning I signed all of the Live At Massey Hall covers that were sold through pre-sales. I tell ya, your signature sure does turn into a mess after a while.

I find myself, sunglasses strapped to my head in the shade, in the grips a hangover. Yesterday was one of my close friend’s 40th birthday. A few weeks ago his wife contacted me and asked if I would secretly fly into town – they live in Las Vegas – and play a few songs at his party. So I got on a plane yesterday morning, after a nice visit with Dan Lilly at the airport, and came down.

It was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, my penchant for straight vodka on the rocks isn’t all that fun the next day.

A few people were disconcerted by a recent entry I posted about diplomacy, particularly the historical references that I chose to use. Obviously, we all have varying points of view with regards to history, and such points of view are shaped by how much we have been educated regarding various historical subjects. But more importantly, it is the information with which we expose ourselves to that says a great deal about how our beliefs are shaped.

History has many dimensions, but two of its most important are the truth and the manipulation of the truth for the purposes of perception. It is routinely the latter, not the former, that we are commonly exposed to.

Universal Historic Culpability

War, conquest, exploitation, slavery, torture, theft, deception, religious subjugation – elements of all of these things can be found in the histories of every great society that has existed, some more than others, and certainly in numerous cases more blatantly that others. The progression of morality is the façade that has altered the methodology of such societies throughout history, ultimately limiting their ability to act in a shamelessly transparent fashion. The Romans tortured and enslaved without shame, as did the Greeks and the Egyptians, but all of them, at the height of their influence, were also considered to be the most civilized of societies. That reality has not changed in over two millennia, only the mechanism used to disguise the reliance on those things deemed immoral to achieve various ends.

Every great power has, in its time, been guilty of the worst crimes conceivable on a mass scale. No matter the ideologies on which those societies were based, be they monarchies, dictatorships, or democracies, the reality is that all of them are just as culpable as their forebears. But it is perception and context that skew our understanding of history, often leaning on necessity as justification for those things that we consider despicable though condone because of context. That phenomenon is the usurpation of history itself, no matter what point of view you happen to hold, and thus the manipulation of the truth for the purpose of perception.

Proper Context

The Soviet Union was invaded by Germany on the 22nd of June, 1941. In the four years that followed the Soviets suffered over 10 million military deaths and over 11 million civilian deaths. And yet, in the context of Western history with regards to the Second World War, the role played by the Soviets is significantly downplayed for various reasons – Stalin’s murderous and dictatorial reign, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and the East-West confrontation that emerged after the war.

Historical truth, on the other hand, tells a very different story, one in which the Eastern front was the deciding factor of the war itself. Be it German miscalculation or Soviet resolve, the reality is that what occurred on the Eastern front played a significant role in the ability of Western powers to successfully invade Western Europe. Without it, the likelihood that Britain would have been invaded is considerable, which would be why the West went to great lengths to aid the Soviets on the Eastern front. As a result, the Soviet Union lost 23 million people. In comparison, the losses suffered by the major Western Allied powers in the European theatre were paltry by comparison.

No nation in the European theatre paid a greater price than the Soviets, and yet theirs was a contribution wholly undermined by anti-Communist sentiment that ultimately led to the mass manipulation of historical truth in classrooms throughout the Western world.

In the decades that followed, the Cold War saw the world’s two primary super powers stoop to the same degenerate levels in various instances, both engaging in situations that would carelessly waste lives. This game, justified by both powers as a battle of ideologies, was anything but. It was, in truth, the desire for global military supremacy and the cementing of those regional influences required to achieve it. Ultimately, the United States won that battle, primarily because its citizens were never exposed to the sort of widespread destitution and corruption that their Soviet counterparts were. Theirs was a just cause, and the dirty work that occurred out of sight and mind was concealed by both the mass belief that freedom was the guiding principle of the struggle coupled with those elements prevalent in Western societies that provide distraction.

If the Cold War proved anything, it’s that democracy is a far easier guise to exploit with regards to the advancement of global military dominance.

Cuba

Cuba is a touchy subject, especially for Americans. While I’ll not argue that Castro’s governance of the country didn’t produce human rights violations, and that such violations are never excusable, proper context must once again be applied.

Prior to the Cuban revolution, Cuba was a nation governed by an American puppet regime that ensured that US economic interests were vehemently protected. In truth, General Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorial rule of the country was much hasher than that of Castro’s, with his guiding principle for the ill treatment of segments of the Cuban population being the protection of the interests of a foreign nation. In any other circumstance, Batista’s removal would have been viewed as just, especially by a populist movement. But given what the United States lost after Batista’s removal, it was seen as criminal.

Like it or not, Fidel Castro did initially attempt to work within the nation’s corrupted democratic framework to invoke change. When that failed, primarily because of Batista’s seizure of power, which was wholly backed by the United States, the method of change, and the ideology behind it, was altered. That alteration, steeped in Marxist-Leninist ideology, ultimately led to the successful populist uprising that drove Batista from power, one which was supported by the majority of Cubans at the time. What’s crucial to remember is that prior to the revolution 75% of Cuba’s best arable land was owned by foreign interests, predominantly American.

There is no questioning the fact that the revolutionary government was flying by the seat if its pants when it took power, nor that it used extreme methods to deal with those that supported Batista. But what should not be overlooked is that it also implemented programs of worth, such as a nationwide literacy program and land reforms that actually raised the standard of living. But Cuba’s post revolutionary future was not one that would be allowed to naturally unfold.

The United States waged nonstop covert warfare against the Castro government for years as a part of the CIA’s Cuba Project, which included everything from psychological to agricultural warfare. Ultimately, using a brigade of US trained Cuban exiles, an invasion of the country was attempted. When it failed, US covert operations continued unabated.

Threats of invasion, coupled with a crippling economic embargo, forced the Cuban revolutionary government into a corner. In that corner was, of course, the Soviets waiting with an available hand. But the question has to be asked – had the revolutionary government been allowed to focus on domestic matters rather than being driven into a state of paranoia and economic disparity, what would Cuba look like today?

We will never know the answer to that question because the United States refused to allow it to happen. In the end, the spirit of the revolution was replaced by paranoia and fear, leading to a dictatorial government rather than one that could have evolved into something else had it the chance to.

The Challenge

If there is one thing that history demands of us it’s vigilance, and to be vigilant we must be prepared to open ourselves up to those things that cause us discomfort and that challenge accepted norms. It is there that the eclipsed side of history is to be found, the completion of its totality, and therefore its whole truth.

One of the reasons that a new design has not been implemented yet is that I have been spending some time developing a philosophy based on my online experiences that will best serve users.

Anyway, I need to ask a favor. Believe it or not, I don’t actually have copies of any of my videos. I have started a YouTube account and want to post my entire catalogue to it. So if you happen to have a high quality version, please feel free to email it to me. I would very much appreciate it.

PS: Does anyone know how to go about implementing a graphic on YouTube pages to personalize them? Leave tips in the comments if you could.

When you are the most powerful nation in the world you risk nothing by sitting down and talking with those you consider enemies. Any fool can claim that preconditions have to be met before dialogue can happen, but without dialogue nothing changes without the use of force, and even then change is never assured nor lasting, as has been demonstrated very clearly over the last seven years.

It takes a bigger man to talk than to pull a trigger or order others to do it for them. It takes an individual with vision, determination, and moral fortitude to exhaust every option available before sending young people to their deaths. It is a quality that President Bush completely lacks, as does Vice President Dick Cheney and others, past and present, in the current administration. The foreign policy doctrine adopted after 9/11 erased diplomacy from the American political dictionary, replacing it with unilateralism and preemption. Subsequently, more Americans have died in Iraq than did on September 11th, with tens of thousands more wounded. The real tragedy, of course, is that that is nothing compared to what the people of Iraq have had to endure.

When it comes to the invasion of Iraq, diplomacy was not something that the Bush Administration was ever interested in. In truth, the possibility of sitting down with their once notorious ally was never an option. A permanent military footprint in the region cemented through regime change was the goal of the invasion, rendering diplomacy laughable. It would have been as fruitful for the Iraqis as Chamberlain’s negotiations with Hitler. Despite those negotiations, the German inner circle had already decided on a course of action that no amount of diplomacy was going to alter. And yet, that very same historic example was applied in reverse with regards to the regime of Saddam Hussein – that diplomacy was pointless, even though the Bush Administration set about engineering the appearance that it was attempting to exhaust diplomatic options. What is commonly overlooked though is that those options were direct threats that, if not adhered to, would result in military action that was wholly premeditated. Compounded by the entirely false link between the regime of Hussein and 9/11 spread by the Bush Administration, there was nothing that Iraq could have done to avoid a US invasion. Even if Hussein, his sons, and his closest confidants had either left the country or given themselves up, the United States military still would have ventured onto Iraqi soil, still would have played the leading role in the creation of a new government, and their presence would have still led to the unforeseen uprising that no one at the Pentagon thought a seriously damaging proposition.

During the run up to the invasion the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission under Hans Blix attempted to make headway, but even they were bullied to the point of having to acquiesce to the premeditated determination of the Bush Administration, which also included dealing with British Intelligence’s Rockingham operation.

Over the last seven years we have had front row seats at a show that has demonstrated the ineffectiveness of both threats and force. When Afghanistan was initially invaded how many people would have believed that seven years later negotiations with the Taliban would be seen as a option? How many people have truly paid attention to NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe and seriously considered the ramifications? How many people still labour under the misconception that Iraq is a war that must be won to save face, as all other considerations have been rendered practically implausible? The Iraqi government doesn’t want foreign forces in the country, the majority of Iraqis, no matter their affiliations, don’t want foreign forces in the country, and yet foreign forces, primarily American forces, remain. So what is it about the American psyche that refuses to face reality? If anything it’s rooted in those occurrences in which diplomacy was not attempted prior to military action.

This is certainly not new territory for the United States. During the Vietnam war US forces fought for three years before Hanoi and Washington began dialoguing. It wouldn’t be until 1973 that any definitive agreement was reached, and not until 1975 until US personnel completely left the country. During the majority of that conflict many Americans considered it unfathomable that anything other than complete victory would be the outcome. After yet, after ten years and the deaths of just over 58,000 men, the North Vietnamese prevailed. Not surprisingly, given the outcome of the war, the Vietnam War Memorial that stands in Constitution Gardens was wholly funded by private donations.

Like Iraq, the Vietnam war was one that was a premeditated inevitability. After the assassination of President Kennedy, and the reversal of his decision to begin reducing the number of US military advisors in South Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs finally got what they wanted. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, real or not, provided the pretext that various individuals within the military establishment had been seeking since Kennedy’s last minute decision not to directly support the invasion of Cuba, a covert operation that his administration inherited when he took office – a reason to go to war. Communism was the threat with which they justified it, driven by belief in the Domino Theory which, with regards to South East Asia, was hollow given that the North Vietnamese struggle was nationalist in nature and that the Sino-Soviet split demolished the reality of a global Communist umbrella.

So what would the United States lose by sitting down with anyone from the Iranians to Hamas? Absolutely nothing. In fact, doing so would open vital lines of communication that could work towards solutions rather than impede them. Unfortunately, when preconditions are put into place, the willingness of others to enter into such relationships is severely impeded.

The moral high ground is not something that the United States can claim that it holds, despite the beliefs of those such as John McCain. Ironically, McCain’s imprisonment in Vietnam came to an end because of diplomacy, not because of the successful use of military force or diplomacy with precondition. Thus, to claim that preconditions must be met before diplomacy can occur only deters the possibility of its success.

During stump speeches, Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has exhaustively repeated that John McCain knows how to win wars. I find such an assertion utterly ignorant being that the United States lost the only war that McCain was ever involved in and that for most of it he was a prisoner of war. How that makes McCain qualified with regards to achieving military successes is quite beyond me, though it does explain his reluctance to sit down with the leaders of countries, such as Iran, without preconditions being met.

Ultimately, diplomacy at gunpoint is not diplomacy, it’s geopolitical extortion. If ever there was an example of the detriment of the lack of diplomatic access, look no further than the Cuban Missile Crisis. While it has since been wholly mythologized as an American political victory over the Soviet Union, the reality is that the roots of the crisis began with US covert actions against Cuba and support for its invasion. After Kennedy refused to allow US forces to directly support the failed invasion, which was undertaken by Cuban exiles, the government of Fidel Castro turned to the Soviet Union to help ensure that his government possessed a deterrent against the possibility of another invasion, perhaps one wholly undertaken by US forces. And so the USSR placed MRBM’s in Cuba, which were ultimately detected by US U2 surveillance, leading to a series of events that brought the world to the brink of global nuclear war.

The Kennedy brothers were smart enough to realize that had US forces openly assisted in the failed invasion of Cuba that the Soviets would have reacted elsewhere. As I mentioned earlier, the invasion of Cuba, or Operation Zapata, was inherited by the Kennedy administration and sold to them as one in which only Cuban exiles would participate. When things went bad, and the President was faced with the decision of providing air cover for the invading force, he refused. The disaster that resulted is well known, but it also led to the dismissal of prominent, and powerful, US political and military figures, among them CIA Director Allen Dulles, who Kennedy would later claim lied to him about aspects of the operation. That said, Kennedy was guilty of green-lighting Operation Mongoose after the failed invasion, a part of the CIA’s Cuban Project which was a wide ranging aggressive covert operation that’s stated purpose was to help Cubans overthrow the Communist regime. Another operation included in the Cuban Project, which was not adopted, was drafted by the Joint Chiefs and signed by then Chairman General Lyman Lemnitzer. Codenamed Northwoods, it was a false flag operation that outlined the use of CIA and other operatives to kill innocents and commit acts of terrorism within the United States to create public support for an invasion of Cuba.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was a direct result of the failed invasion of Cuba. Rather than attempting to open lines of communication between Washington and Havana, the United States, under two Presidents, opted to isolate it, placing Castro’s government in the position of having to acquire a deterrent to ensure its survival. Being that Cuba is only 90 miles off the coast of Florida, and that US naval and air stations are within 100 miles of Cuban soil, Castro’s decision to turn to the Soviets for help was a forgone conclusion. Thus, the lack of concerted diplomatic efforts from the time that revolutionary forces in Cuba seized power up until the failed invasion played a significant role in what would ultimately result in the most dangerous two weeks the world has ever known.

Had the White House had open lines of communication with Moscow following the detection of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the crisis might never have escalated to the point that it did. But because both the Soviets and the Americans were operating largely in the dark, the situation was one that played out in a slow and dangerous fashion. While the United Nations was used as the pulpit from which both nations preached, it was largely guesswork and the Kennedy Administration’s decision to rely on the contents of the first of two missives sent via teletype from Premier Khrushchev. In that first missive, which may have been the result of backchannel communications between Washington and Moscow brought about by ABC’s John Scali’s relationship with Aleksandr Fomin, the Soviets top spy in the US and a long time friend of Khrushchev, it was evident that Khrushchev understood the gravity of the situation and that a diplomatic solution was required to defuse it. In the end, in exchange for the removal of the missiles from Cuba the United States pledged to remove its missiles along the Turkish-Soviet border within 6 months, a compromise that left both governments in the position of claiming that success had been achieved.

So the question has to be asked, especially given the fact that during that two week period the Joint Chiefs were breathing down Kennedy’s neck to launch air strikes to destroy the missiles and follow them up with a full scale invasion of Cuba, which would have only resulted in the Soviets acting elsewhere and producing a direct conflict between the two super powers – what other course of action was realistically available other than diplomacy and concessions on the part of both the US and the Soviets?

The answer is – none. Because had diplomacy failed, chances are that I would not be sitting here writing this.

Compared to the threat that the West believes that Iran currently poses, the Soviets were in a class far beyond anything the Iranians could ever dream of. And yet diplomacy was the method used to defuse a situation in which this world came the closest it ever has to nuclear war.

In the end, diplomacy is not the art of the weak. In truth, it is the art of hope and progress. And while it may be said that diplomacy is far more affective when your position is backed by significant military force, the truth is that, in most situations, honesty gets you a lot further than threats, and the willingness to talk gets you a lot farther than the willingness to fight. Unless, that is, those that you are talking with have already made up their mind that death and destruction is their goal. But even in such cases, what decent human being can say that by not trying to be civilized before civility is abandoned isn’t what makes us civilized in the first place?

- Yesterday, Alaska’s largest daily, The Anchorage Daily News, endorsed Barack Obama for President.

- Reports are beginning to surface that US forces crossed into Syria to conduct a hit and run operation.

- Despite years of harsh rhetoric, the Bush Administration is planning on establishing the first US diplomatic presence in Iran since 1981 according to the The Seattle Times. According to the article, the announcement will come in mid November.

A lot of people email me questions about my recording process after I post a demo, so I thought that I would write an entry about it in hopes of answering some of those questions.

First let me say that a decade ago I didn’t even demo songs at home, I just wrote them and continually played them until they were either performed, recorded, or demoed in a studio. Prior to the business imploding, there was a time when you would actually demo material in studios, as was the case with the songs on Beautiful Midnight for example. In fact, they were demoed in the exact same studio that the record was recorded in months later. Those demos also costs literally tens of thousands of dollars to record, which is ridiculous when you think about it given the quality of the demos that I can now produce at home by myself.

Anyway, that’s the past.

I didn’t start recording demos on my own until I switched to using Macs and GarageBand was released. In the beginning, like anything, I sucked at it. It’s a very simple program, but given my inherent impatience it took a while for me to wrap my head around it. So I spent a lot of time refining the process until the songs became workable outlines of the final product. In fact, when we tracked Hospital Music we just muted the drums and Pat Steward simply played along to the demos for the most part. On a few songs that didn’t happen, but on most of them it did. But that process took a few years and a lot of trial and error to master – and again, we’re talking about a very rudimentary program here, something that is nowhere near as complicated as Pro Tools HD or Logic Pro, both of which are very expensive and come with manuals thicker than telephone books.

All of that said, let’s start with the program that I use.

GarageBand

GarageBand comes standard on every Mac as a part of iLife. Over the years they have made a lot of improvements, and have also released what are known as Jam Packs, which provide countless tools and sounds with which to work. Of all five of the Jam Packs available the only one that I do not have is the World Music one.

Besides these additions, I don’t use any other programs or plugins when I record – everything is done in GarageBand, from guitar and bass sounds to effects.

Now, if you’re seriously thinking about using GarageBand as a tool with which to demo, and want a wide variety of sounds with which to work, then I highly suggest getting the Jam Packs, especially Rhythm Section and Remix Tools. Personally, I couldn’t live without the Symphony Orchestra pack, I use it all over the place. In fact, there wasn’t a single live string on all of Hospital Music. All of the strings were played on a keyboard using GarageBand sounds that I just messed with here and there.

Drums

One of the toughest things to master is the drums. While GarageBand comes with countless loops, using them is rather pointless if you’re working on something that requires beats to change to support original arrangements. That said, you’re left with using a keyboard and your fingers, which is challenging to say the least.

When I record drums, after selecting the kit that I’m going to use and making a few adjustments to the sound, I go about it in five steps.

The first is the main drum track. On this track I record kick and snare and, on occasion depending on the beat, toms. The second is the first of two cymbal tracks, which I use to record hats or ride. The third is a duplicate of the first main drum track that I use to record complicated fills. The fourth is used to record crash cymbals and the fifth, if needed, is used to record percussion, such as tambourine or hand claps. It’s important to remember that you can use a variety of different kits for each of the tracks.

Obviously you don’t just sit down and start recording drums to nothing but a click, so I always lay down a scratch bass or guitar track to click first. I then go back and play the first drum track to the scratch track. It’s important to remember though that if you play to guitar that your kick placement might change when you lay down bass, so after recording your initial drum track you might find yourself confronted with having to map out a pattern and then replace the guitar with a bass track to ensure that a proper groove is established.

After that, for the sake of ensuring that time is solidly established before recording other instruments, it’s best to record hats or ride. You can then record whatever complicated fills are required and then crashes to help establish dynamics if you like.

Once that’s done you have a base to work from.

Bass And Guitars

When it comes to both bass and guitars I simply plug straight into a USB M-Audio MobilePre that I purchased some years ago. I believe there are better ones available now, so check the M-Audio website. Beyond that, I use the different guitar and bass sounds that come in GarageBand and simply tweak them until I get what I want. Unlike most people, I have a lot of different guitars to work with, so I also have the ability to alter sounds using different instruments. But with all of the different sounds available in GarageBand you don’t need a big guitar collection to get what you need.

Keyboard

I use a small USB keyboard to play a variety of different instruments, from drums to synths, strings to piano. Again, I just tweak the various sounds until I get what I’m looking for. One trick with regards to strings is to add a touch of distortion to them and concert hall reverb. If you start there and then mess with compression and EQ you can produce some pretty realistic sounds. There are other ways to go about it as well that don’t involve using distortion, but I can’t give all of my secrets away.

Vocals

Most of the time I have my Neumann at home, which I also use on stage. Obviously, given that it’s an expensive microphone, it’s head and shoulders above what your average enthusiast is going to be using. That said, it’s been packed away with the rest of my gear for months now, so I’ve just been using a Sennheiser E935. The bottom line is that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a microphone to get decent results.

As with guitar and bass, I simply plug the mic into the MobilePre and sing. I don’t use headphones, so there’s bleed from the speakers. If you want to eliminate bleed then just use headphones while tracking. And just like anything else, you can record them dry and then work on the sound or your can work on it as you go along. I do both, it all depends of how fast I want to get something down.

Mess Around With It

The best way to get acquainted with all of the different functions in GarageBand is trial and error. Just make sure that you’re constantly saving as you go, and that if you’re going to try something drastic that you save your changes under an alternate file name.

Unlike a lot of recording programs, which require a lot of knowledge to use properly, GarageBand is perfect for people that just want to have fun and make music without being intimidated. You don’t have to be an inspiring musician to use it either – it comes with tons of fun features that allow anyone to create music, even if they don’t have instruments and can’t play or sing a note. Even my mom has messed around with the samples that come with it and created fun little projects.

Anyway, I hope that answered some of the questions that people have asked.