Occupy Liam Flynn’s: Our Bi-Weekly Political Roundup

Tomorrow is the second Wednesday of the month, and as usual some of Baltimore’s finest progressives of all stripes will gather for pints and politics in Station North. The Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets twice a month at Joe Squared, Liam Flynn’s Ale House, which will be our new home for the Winter months. Meetings are 7 pm til whenever, and open to all. Just look for the big red, white and blue bottle on the table.

Of course the big story in the news right now is the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has now spread to more than 100 cities including our own. What was at first all but a non-story has become an ongoing top national headline for the last week or so. While much of that is attributable to those in the movement who are especially tech savvy, we suspect a lot of it has to do with just plain good luck. There’s not a whole hell of a lot else happening at the moment. The news has been pretty slow this week overall, so all we’ve got to blog about is Occupy.

We’re certainly no expert in protest and demonstration tactics, but we do know that the main thing in any protest is just showing up- boots on the ground, bodies in the crowd. The Participants have done a decent job of that, but unfortunately that’s about all they’ve done so far. It’s kind of like that scene in The Jerk where Navin is asked if he’d like to be president of Shell Oil. You don’t get to run the whole system just by showing up.

Ever since the movement came to Baltimore, we’ve been in an odd position. We’re actually very sympathetic to this cause, yet all we’ve done all week is find ourselves making snarky wisecracks at the Participants’ expense. We were at the harbor during the first day of the protest, when it was mainly 20-something kids from middle class backgrounds playing campout. Those kids are easy enough to make fun of, but the truth is we felt a little guilty about not participating. (Not much.) Stopping by again Yesterday morning though, the entire face of the thing had changed. people who are used to sleeping in nice beds and eating 3 square meals a day all seemed to have found their way out of McKeldin Square, and the only people we could see about all looked like they’d recently fallen off a boxcar.

Littered signs outnumber people down there now. There’s composting going on. People have staked out their own little areas and are going about their daily ablutions in a way that makes us think that they are not the 99% but are in fact the other one percent. The one percent that is perfectly comfortable not showering for a week on end; that eats food directly from cans, that actually sees itself as America’s happy, noble poor and likes it that way.

The real 99% don’t find anything particularly noble about living in poverty, and are not happy being poor. And things are going to have to get a lot worse for them before they start showing up to occupy.

Bi-Weekly Political Roundup: Mega-Rich Cartoonish Super-Villain Edition

This week was the Solstice, which marked the longest day of the year. Today is the fourth Wednesday of the month, which marks the regular meeting of the Baltimore chapter of Drinking Liberally, an informal, open group of mostly 20- and 30- something Baltimoreans who gather twice a month to share pitchers of beer and talk politics at Joe Squared.

Joe Squared has always had several shelves stocked with more varieties of rum than you would ever expect from a pizza joint, but they’ve also recently rolled out a brand new rum cocktail menu for your enjoyment. While today might not be the longest day of the year, it is the third longest (we guess), so that means there will be plenty of bright warm daylight by which to drink rum on their outstanding patio.

Baltimore Drinking Liberally meets at Joe Squared tonight. 7 pm - ???

One’s got to be careful with rum though… unless you’re a seasoned British sailor it can really turn your stomach. Speaking of British sailors who turn our stomach, Tony Hayward simpered his way through an Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Friday, abdicated all his responsibility (but not his job, title, or paycheck) on Saturday, and sailed his giant luxury racing yacht in a hoity-toity British yacht race on Sunday.

Were we the Admiralty, we’d have him hung from the gallows at low tide on the Thames. Seriously. We’d like to see him dead.

Equally galling in his cartoonish ultra-rich supervillain-ness is Rush Limbaugh, who (one week after paying Elton John $1,000,000 to sing at his wedding) said with a straight face that American children should eat out of dumpsters rather than receive free or reduced price meals at school.

We don’t know what Rush feeds faster… his fat ass or his drug habit. Either way, we’d like to see him choke on it. Rush is number two on the list of people we really, truly, honestly, swear-to-fucking-God want to see dead. Soon.

Since all good lists come in threes (or fives), we’re going to go ahead and say that Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff can drop dead as well. Shurtleff relished the chance to approve an execution by firing squad this week, and then saw fit to tweet about it immediately. What were his follow up tweets? A potshot calling death penalty opponents “whiners” and some cheerleading about college football. He can die and go straight to hell any time now.

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In a rare bit of good news, we’re pleased to announce a grand discovery. The Chop is a great fan of snarky political blogging, and this week we got our first look at UNAMERICANA, which is a love letter to America. With Pictures. And Swearing. This new blog brings you all the dumbness of beltway politics you can handle with several posts a day. We suggest you do like we did; bookmark their site and follow them on Twitter.

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Drinking Liberally meets the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at 7 pm. Joe Squared is located at 133 w. North Ave. All the above opinions are that of the Baltimore Chop Blog, and not of Drinking Liberally, it’s Baltimore Chapter, Chapter members or Joe Squared.

Defiance, Ohio and Ryan Harvey @ Charm City Art Space Today

There’s an interesting contrast before us today. We can go up to the second day of Honfest, which is (ahem) a a community celebration of homespun charm, independent creativity, and the blissfully absurd or something like that. We can celebrate those things while we drink a cool Heineken and check out some dad rock on the Bacardi stage, all courtesy of a great friend of Wal-Mart.

We could do that. It’s a nice thing and people like it. It would be a pleasant afternoon. For us though, we like our independents a little more independent, our our homespinning a little more homespun, our absurdity a little more absurd and our politics a lot further to the left.

Defiance, Ohio and Ryan Harvey play CCAS today. 2 pm.

That’s why we’re heading down to the Charm City Art Space today for a good old fashioned punk rock Sunday matinee show. This one’s definitely worth rolling out of bed at the crack of noon for, as we haven’t had a chance to see Defiance, Ohio live yet. How do you describe them to the unfamiliar? It’s not quite adequate to say they’re “folk punk,” although they’re certainly one of the mainstays of that sound and have influenced countless “folkers” since their inception in 2002. But maybe the next-easiest way to describe them is to say they’re kind of like Against Me!, except that they’re not a bunch of trite posers.

But don’t take our word for it. Whether or not you show up to see them today, the band would be more than happy to give you all of their songs for free on their website. How’s that for power to the people, Hon?

Playing in support today is local Riot-Folker Ryan Harvey, who’s been playing punk influenced folk music in Baltimore’s church basements, VFW’s and punx picnics since about forever. Not really forever, but since he was knee-high to a Crasshole anyway. He’s all growed up now, and still doing what he does best. Come set a spell and listen, Hon.

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Charm City Art Space is at 1731 Maryland Ave. in Station North. 2 pm Show, all ages.

Bi-Weekly Political Roundup: We Say Fuck a Lot Edition.

Are you ready Baltimore? Are you ready for outdoor dining weather? The glory of al fresco dining (and drinking) is upon us in all its splendor. This time two weeks ago the Baltimore Chapter of Drinking Liberally took over most of the Patio at Joe Squared and kept the pitchers and political discourse flowing all night. If you weren’t there, you missed out. The good news is that if you did miss out, new faces are always welcome at tonight’s meeting at 7 pm.

Baltimore Drinking Liberally meets tonight at Joe Squared. 7 pm til ?

Are you ready now, Baltimore, for some of the most brilliant and insightful political commentary since Alexis de Tocqueville? Sike! This space is rapidly turning into a place where we just say fuck a lot and call people racists, and you know what? We’re okay with that. There’s still a lot of fucking racism in America, and a lot of it comes straight from the halls of power, and it’s not going away until it’s called out and confronted in a much larger forum than this insignificant blog.

There’s plenty of racism down in South Carolina, and sex appeal and good ol’ boys and Sarah Palin and everything else. Yawn. That shit’s so 2008. Frankly all the primaries that happened yesterday were pretty boring, despite the sex scandals in SC, the trading chickens for healthcare in NV, and the multi-millionaire vs. multi-millionaire battle in CA. Although we would have liked to see Blanche Lincoln get her ass handed to her for being a twat about healthcare reform.

We’re starting to see some fundraisers for oil cleanup pop up here and there. It feels strange to say, but we’re against them. The oil cleanup should not depend at all on the generosity of ordinary people or non-profits. This is not our oil that spilled and we didn’t fucking spill it. It belongs to BP, they fucked up, and they should pay every fucking dime of cleanup costs. We don’t think we’re alone in saying that we’d like to see the leak stopped entirely, all the oil cleaned up, and then BP go the way of Lehman Brothers and AIG.

BP should not fucking exist anymore on this earth.

Call it Socialism, but we won’t be satisfied until the Obama administration freezes and seizes the entirety of their assets. They love us about as much as Al Qaida does, and they’ve fucked us just as much, if not more.

Finally, if there’s one difference between Republicans and Democrats in this country, it seems to be that the GOP will stand up and try to defend, justify, or casually pass off racism, sex scandals, embezzlement or any number of other atrocious actions while the Democrats will gleefully throw anybody under the bus at the slightest provocation.

The Chop would like to personally take this opportunity to throw old crone Helen Thomas under the bus. Previously we had nothing but the highest respect for her, but her recent comments on Israel put her batshit-craziness right up there with William Donald Schaefer. She can pretty much die and go to hell any time now. On the other hand, it is kind of cool to be around for so long that you can say “Fuck it. I’m tired of hanging out with the president. Screw you all, I fucking quit. Effective immediately.” The Chop should be so lucky someday.

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Drinking Liberally meets the second and fourth Wednesday of every month at 7 pm. Joe Squared is located at 133 w. North Ave. All the above opinions are that of the Baltimore Chop Blog, and not of Drinking Liberally, it’s Baltimore Chapter, Chapter members or Joe Squared.