Partisan Free Politics

Not that I didn’t enjoy the new primetime expanded-cable summer series that was “The Endless Procession of Primary Debates,” presented by MSNBC, FoxNews, YouTube, and just about any and every interest group you can think of, but the third quarter numbers are in and I’m expecting a big shake-up to really kick off the 4th quarter stretch run in a higher gear.

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For those of you who didn’t know, I spent most of the last couple weeks on a journey to Washington D.C.  Overall, it was a great trip, thanks to the hospitality of my good friends Andrew, Ruben and the Matts, as well as the many new friends I was lucky enough to meet.  It was the coming and going of it all though, that made me feel the need to relate my story.

 First, as a devoted fan of ABC’s LOST, I found it hard not fantasize while I waited for the call to board Zone 6, thinking about the potential new life awaiting me upon the crashing of the plane in a remote, paranormal paradise.  Unfortunately, as I sat there at 4:30 am, I could soon tell that my plane clearly lacked many of the elements that make the castaways life so appealing: there were no coquettish Australian pregnant women, no washed-up UK rock star/heroine addicts, no Nigerian gangsters, no emotionally conflicted attractive convicts, and not even an overwhelmed spinal surgeon, or a disturbed cajun con-artist…  There was a woman in a wheelchair, but I had strong doubts that she would be hunting boar anytime soon, regardless of how magical an island we landed on… and then it hit me, best case scenario we’d probably be crashing in Kansas, and there my fantasies ended.  Now on to the real point…

 Another pastime of mine that tends to occupy my head before departure is trying to imagine the plethora of holes in the airport security I have just passed through.  I always laugh when the old woman has her fingernail scissors confiscated, or the young man must surrender his soda, or when the TSA agent demands that I take off my shoes, but in the end I would probably be okay with these slight inconveniences if I had even the smallest level of confidence in their efficacy.  Now I could go all Geraldo and actually list off the many ways I’ve imagined that a dedicated person could easily sneak aboard something at least equally lethal as the box cutters we are told were used in the 9/11 attacks, but I have faith that you are all smart enough to supply these for yourself… and well if you and I can think ‘em up I’m pretty certain that those elements of the world who are dedicated to getting the ear of the American public, or the cockpit of a 747, can think them up to.  So why do we continue to put up with this costly, inefficient, system, the same sort of logic that clearly failed us on 9/11???

Why do we continue to address the system, in the same way we prosecute the hopelessly misguided ”War on Drugs,” with increasingly intrusive policies, instead of promoting autonomy and self-defense by allowing airlines to manage their own security? (or allowing consenting adults to manage their bodies in the case of the drug war.)  And why do we continue to ignore the most important steps: addressing the demand-side, by discontinuing the interventionist policies that provided the impetus for 19 dedicated men who sacrificed their lives, in the words of Bin Laden “to change the direction of [America’s] compass,” and continue to provide the fuel that bolsters terrorist recruitment?

 Primary season is nigh upon us, and we will soon see if America has learned anything from the public perception of Bush’s re-election, and the ineptitude of the winners of the 2006 election to bring an end to America’s interventionist policies, or will we nominate two establishment candidates that will promise to deepen American overseas entanglements and perpetuate the cycle of terrorism.

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I recently came across a post at Freespace, a relatively new blog by my friend and former Positive Liberty blogger, Timothy Sandefur.  Sandefur asserts that his observation in The Myth of “Harmony” is not original, but is “one that needs to be made frequent and with fervor.”  Since I’ve found The Myth of “Harmony” to be founded on faulty ground, I felt its necessary to respond with equal fervor. 

Sandefur begins by citing a Café Hayek posting from 2 years ago by George Mason University Economics Chair Donald Boudreaux.  Boudreaux had recently visited Sea World where he was inspired by a video at the manatee exhibit to “do [his] part to make extinct the notion that modern, civilized human beings live less harmoniously with nature than did pre-Columbian Indians.”  Now I have sympathy for Boudreaux, I am often miffed by the oversimplification that corrupts almost all programming that is designed to be consumed by the general public at-large, and I certainly can recall sitting in theme parks, monuments, and zoos stupefied by the often slanted stance of their programming, but in reviewing their arguments I’ve found that both Sandefur and Boudreaux have made a vital error in the usage of their term “harmony.”

First, they both err by employing a very modernized ideal of harmony, and Sandefur compounds the problem by equating harmony with the Garden of Eden.  Harmony does not entail some sort of blissful, idle existence, nor does it stem from frappuccinos or fruit smoothies as Starbucks or Fruitopia would’ve had you believe.  Harmony comes from the Greek root for agreement or concord, and in that sense is much more commensurable with dominant eastern philosophies than modern Judeo-Christian notions, like Eden.

Boudreaux provides us a pretty tenable definition of harmony: “to understand and accept natural forces.”  In my understanding of the term, however, the first clause is complementary at best, but this is the more easily quantifiable one that an economist would focus on, and that is exactly what Boudreaux does.  Further, he perverts the second clause by making it bend to empiricism, like a good economist, and makes it almost synonymous to the first.  He might be able to convince me that irrigation in its less industrial forms, like those employed by Pre-Columbian Meso-Americans which were immensely superior to their European contemporaries, is harmonious with nature, but the administration of antibiotics fails that test completely.  Most importantly, society living in disharmony with nature is the cause of the vast majority of disease.  Of course modern antibiotics have done a tremendous job of facilitating this disharmony, and they’ve even arguably overcompensated and provided us with a higher quality of life, but to equate that to harmony is an abuse of language.  I find it hard to accept that receipt of a remedy for an absent evil would be worth allowing that evil in, just as it would be hard to suggest that a prosthetic arm, even arguably a more proficient one, is preferable to the intrinsic connection that each has to their natural limbs.  Boudreaux, again acting the economist, makes other errors, most egregiously claiming Pre-Columbian peoples were impoverished, which is another abuse of language, but since the post is more than two years old I will stop my assault there.

Our argument is now laid out as such: I have a sense that if Boudreaux were to graph humanity’s proportional harmony with nature, as any good economist would do, it would start low on the scale and move gradually up as time and the sciences have progressed.  Whereas, if Sandefur were to make the graph it would be a flat line at 0 reflected in his claim “there is no such thing as living in harmony with nature.”  However, if you extrapolate those lines they make no sense, unless you espouse an Eden-like creationism and the fall from grace (which I’ve gathered that neither of them do,) or you employ a fallacious use of the term harmony, which I have already rejected.  Most theories of evolution rely on the assumption that humanity developed out of nature, were once a part inseparable from nature, and thus by definition in harmony with it.  It seems to follow that the most plausible graph is then one that begins at perfect harmony and continues a general trend towards disharmony, allowing for some variance and without here deciding on the magnitude of the trend (though I’d suggest it would be vaguely proportional to the growth of human society.)

The First Part of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Discourse on Inequality” provides a stark rebuttal to Sandefur’s claims that Pre-Columbian American Indians existence was one of a “constant fight for survival and subsistence.”  (Which is in error only by the addition of the word constant, but when that is removed remains true today.  In fact, I would indeed make the argument that their struggle was much less constant, though at times more severe, than the struggle of Americans today.)  Rousseau of course makes a few flaws, and is often rightly accused of an idyllic romanticism, but I think his treatment of this issue provides a very stark contrast to the Hobbesian state of nature that is reflected in Sandefur and Boudreaux’s conceptions of Pre-Columbian Americans, and one that is not only more optimistic, but also more commensurable with my personal experience with nature.

That being accepted, I would then suggest that our argument becomes one about whether harmony is preferable to the benefits of disharmony, and that is a moral argument that I won’t take up now.  However, I will suggest that by the progressive nature of humanity, which still seeks to attain perfection, or at least pursue it, we are either always moving to reharmonize ourselves with nature and accept the loss of some of the benefits of society, or trying to harmonize nature with human society and accept the loss of some of the benefits of nature, with the noble, yet silly-looking, sea cow being one of them.  So I would suggest that we as individuals, and as society, work to better understand nature as a whole before we decide to reject it and wholly trade it in for a filthy city like Manhattan, which Boudreaux in his follow-up posting touts as “hugely harmonious with nature,” but in reality is an epitomic example of nature being subordinated, and bent to the will of humanity.  (That being said, as cities go, it does get much worse than Manhattan.)

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Last night, 8 GOP candidates squared off in yet another televised debate from the University of New Hampshire. I can’t fault any of you for not watching, as usual it ended up looking more like 8 parallel press conferences than a true debate. But for about 3 minutes, however, a real debate managed to break out in what was without a doubt the most interesting moments of the program.

As I watched live, I couldn’t believe my eyes: this is what real democracy is supposed to look like. Wouldn’t it be grand if we could see every candidate up there engaged in a real honest discussion with each other? Maybe we could actually understand the differences between them, and maybe we would weed out the ones that rely solely on their advisors and talking points so that we can find a true leader.

All in all Huckabee came off much more sincere, intelligent, and respectable than did Rudy Giuliani at the SC debate back in May:

Our country would be much better off if we’d devote more coverage to honest men like Paul and Huckabee than we do to obstinate children like Giuliani.

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One of my good friends, Pete Eyre, from the DC area has an interesting story to tell, that I’m sure some of our readers in the area will be interested in.  Despite the District’s draconian gun control laws, the State of Virginia has done a slightly better job of maintaining the liberty that helped to produce such patriots as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and George Wythe.

  As Pete recently discovered, Virginia allows for the open carry of firearms, which of course inspired my freedom-loving friend to go for a test walk.  It didn’t take long for Pete to discover the truth of his words from his first post on the subject: “a right not exercised will soon be ceded to the State.”  In short, while walking on Fairfax across from the Ballston Metro Station, Pete was stopped and interrogated by Arlington police who had received a “man with a gun” call.  Now if I didn’t know Pete, I could understand a little anxiety on the part of whoever called in the complaint, but I can’t for the life of me understand why the complaint would be acted on in such a manner as it was.  It seems like Virginia is failing in its duty to inform the police force, including dispatch operators, of the law and the proper response to such a complaint.

  In my opinion, the call should’ve gone like this:

Anxious Arlingtonian: “Yes, I was just walking down Fairfax and I saw a buff dude with a Master of Puppets T-shirt carrying a gun!”

Sober dispatch operator: “What sort of gun?”

AA: “A handgun”

SDO: “Was it holstered?”

AA: “Yes”

SDO: “Well sir that is completely legal in the State of Virginia, but we’ll send an officer out to make sure nothing is going on.  Thank you for your concern.”

AA: “Really, I never knew… Thanks, we’ll feel better now because he does look scary.”

  Then the nearest cop does a brief drive past Pete, maybe he drives by a couple times, or maybe he briefly asks him to stop and have a chat (with much less confrontation, and say 8 less cops, than what really occured.)  Instead the officers tried to overreach their limits and requested more than Pete was required, or willing, to surrender: a digital photo, his SSN, his city of birth, and to relinquish this right for the rest of his journey home.

Of course, I expect the dispatch operator knew nothing of Virginia’s laws, nor does every member of the police force (as suggested by the “what if you had been stopped by a rookie officer” comment by the officer in charge of the stop,) which seems to me to be the most important thing the State should be teaching them, so that patriotic citizens, like Pete, don’t have to.  I hope this acts as a clear reminder to all of us that in the words of my good friend: “a right not exercised will soon be ceded to the State.”

 For more on exercising your rights, check out another DC friend of mine, Steve Silverman’s organization Flex Your Rights, and their video courtesy of YouTube.  It is actually quite entertaining for a PSA-style video, due in part to the small budget behind it, and it certainly provides a starting point to a discussion on the abuse of executive power, and the encroachment of practice over law.

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Could it really be? With all these billions of dollars being thrown around on ad-time and barnstorming? Have all the campaigns just coincidentally skipped over an issue of such great importance? An issue that almost undoubtedly will be thoroughly lobbied, legislated, and litigated throughout the next President’s term? Well, unless I missed something on my recent search through candidate websites and an extensive collection of youtube videos (and please feel free to check in with your favorite personalities if you can find anything) that appears to be the case. [Outside of John Edwards‘ plan for a “New Deal”-like national broadband project, to connect all wireless devices, and ensure that internet providers do not discriminate “against rural and low-income communities in building their broadband networks,” (even this is buried deep within his comments on “Innovation,”) and Ron Paul who only touts his “vote[s] against regulating the Internet,” (though to be fair he has plenty of other battles to fight, so I can understand why this isn’t at the forefront of his campaign. I’ve also now found a video and press release where Mitt Romney proposes a plan to increase software regulation, and institute mandatory sentencing and stringent probation procedures, including lifelong GPS tracking, for people “convicted of preying on children using the internet.” Fred Thompson, who has finally announced that on Sept. 5th he will announce that he is going to announce his candidacy on Sept. 6th, also makes brief mention of the internet while talking about Federalism, he describes the internet as “a haven for illegal activity,” and a proper place for Federal intervention.)]

On that head, I’ve recently come across an extraordinary debate, that really hits the very heart of everything we are confronting with this site. If you can wade through the British vernacular it is well worth it, but since I’ve sensed that some of us here would prefer brevity, I will try my best to provide an overview: Andrew Keen, who I first saw on the Colbert Report promoting his recently published book, The Cult of the Amateur, argues that the internet as it exists today contributes to a “dumbing down of culture.” He derides the internet’s end-run around “cultural gatekeepers” for its introduction of these “amateurs,” and he cites the devaluing of the copy as an impediment to the creation of “professional” art, by which he means art that creates profit. He even eventually makes the statement: “Where on YouTube can I watch the next Lion King?”

The Guardian’s Emily Bell relentlessly takes him to task, so I won’t bother with that, but I would like to start a discussion here on the merits and future of the internet. Now I’m not surprised that the issue is being mainly overlooked by the campaigns, it just isn’t as sexy as healthcare to Democrats and gay-marriage bans to Republicans, and lets face it most of these candidates have little to no idea of what the internet is, or what goes on there. I am, however, scared that another election season will come and go without these critical issues getting discussed, and I worry that they will eventually be decided by bureaucrats with gold-lined suitcases in back room deals. Am I alone on this one?

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As I’m sure most of you have already seen, our President actually had the audacity last week to compare Iraq to Vietnam.  Now I know what you are thinking: we’ve all been comparing Iraq to Vietnam for years, and it actually is a pretty good comparison, so how has Bush screwed this one up?

 Well, Bush wasn’t saying Iraq was another Vietnam and the only way out was America’s withdrawal, and a painful internal process of reconciliation in the country.  No, Bush actually is making the argument that we left Vietnam TOO EARLY!!! and that our leaving led to the violence and tragedy that followed both in Vietnam and in neighboring countries, like Cambodia.  The idiocy and myopia that he portrays in this comment leads me to the conclusion expressed in the title, Bush has taken off the training wheels and is now riding high with the misguided confidence of an eight-year old.

Now, as I said, it is an apt comparison, but the conclusions that Bush draws are horribly misguided.  Bush cites Japan as a case where American occupation helped “turn defeat into democracy,” and South Korea as a case where “the defense strategy… helped raise up an Asian Tiger.” 

First, the Japan case is of great qualitative difference than Iraq: Japan was a predominantly homogenous and politically united nation before U.S. intervention, Japan was the admitted aggressor in the hostilities and for the most part welcomed U.S. forces throughout their stay (in understandable respects Americans were much more welcome than Soviet occupation,) and perhaps most importantly Emperor Hirohito, the unchallenged “divine” leader of the nation, came on radio to address the Japanese people and announce that the best course of action for his Japanese subjects would be reconciliation with America, (in most likely the first ever public address by a Japanese Emperor.)  There are of course vast cultural differences too, of which I am in no way an expert (maybe my good friend Ruben will deign to enlighten us on these.)

Now Korea strikes a much more similar situation, though quantitatively tougher, but it still should lead to very different conclusions.  Bush trumps South Korea up as an economic juggernaut, and American presence as a benefit for the South Korean people.  In both of these respects I am willing to agree for the most part.  However, Bush has inexcusably overlooked an entire half of the country (actually more than half in terms of geography.)  I have no doubt that if America wants to, it can secure Baghdad (at least to some degree: see the Green Zone,) or Kurdistan, and prop up the governments with military and civilian aid to the point that it would drive the other parts of the country into a permanent stand-off and much closer ties with Iran.  This would clearly be relatively advantageous to the people in the secured areas, but it would also create yet another rogue state and humanitarian quagmire, not unlike North Korea, and another perennial combat zone, much like the DMZ.  Also important to keep in mind are the quantitative and cultural differences: First, Iraq borders six different nations, whereas the Koreas only border China, each other, and under 12 miles (19 km) of Russia, and South Korea itself only borders the North.  The total land distance of the border of South Korea is 147 miles (238 km,) as opposed to 2268 miles (3650 km) in Iraq, even if you add in coastline South Korea’s border still remains less than 75% of the length of Iraq’s.  More importantly in my opinon, the new rogue state, unlike North Korea, would be in close proximity to a neighbor, Israel, that they have avowed to remove from the face of the Earth, and they would soon have the capabilities to do it.  Currently, I would say North Korea is the most likely state to carry out any nuclear strikes (outside of arguably the U.S. and Israel,) but I have some confidence that Kim Jong-Il is rational enough to understand that any such attacks would be the surefire end of his reign and probably his nation.  I’m not sure I would have any such confidence in the new leadership that is arising in the fringe elements of Iraq that were empowered, and continue to be strengthened, as a result of the U.S. insurgence and occupation.  Perhaps the most striking assumption, however, is that the U.S. actually has the power and will to continue our presence in Korea and elsewhere, expand our presence in Iraq, and still be able to improve our domestic situation (see failing schools, failing infrastructure, and our failing political system) and maintain an at-ready force capable of defending real threats to our sovereignty and that of our allies.

Bush was right to bring up Vietnam, but he should’ve studied the case a little better.  Sometimes situations must get worse before they get better, and I have reached the conclusion that that is, sadly, probably the case in Iraq.  Our continued persistence their only empowers the fringe groups, weakens America’s power and standing in the world, and threatens to discredit the peaceful, reconciliatory elements of the nation.  Once we finally withdraw, I would assume there will be some level of violence and conflict in the country, but I have faith, that just like in Vietnam (which now experiences an 8.2% real GDP growth rate,) real leadership will arise to bring Iraq into the 21st Century.  I don’t assume the resulting government will be anything like I would propose, or want to live in for that matter, but it is far past time that Westerners realize we don’t fully understand the cultural nuances that dominate the region (and haven’t since heavy involvement began in the early 20th century,) we no longer have any political capitol amongst the constituents of the region, and we cannot rightly promote our conception of freedom with the point of a gun.  In my mind these two concepts, force and freedom, are utterly incommensurable.  As Max Cleland, former U.S. Senator from Georgia and a victim of both the Vietnam War and the Karl Rove/George Bush political attack machine, asserted in this weekend’s Democratic Party’s weekly radio address: “One of the lessons to be learned from Vietnam is that the commitment of American military strength alone cannot solve another country’s political weakness.”

Bush, his few remaining advisors, and his political allies and adversaries would do well to study up on history before they make broad claims and allusions like the one they made last week.  America’s 20th century was marked with increasing global intervention, it is past time that we return our focus to our own soils and work to improve our own understanding and undertaking of freedom, and justice.  If we continue our present ways we are surely doomed to fail, but I have faith that an America that lives up to its potential, which was seen so long ago, and described in words better than mine by Puritan John Winthrop in 1630: 

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word throughout the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake.  We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us til we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

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Well due to the popularity of my last NFL-related post, I figured I should add a little update.

For those of you who haven’t heard Mike Vick is facing a deadline tomorrow to accept a plea deal, or a grand jury will meet to consider more evidence and additional charges against him.

Rather than rehash what I’ve said so far, I wanted to take this opportunity to shed some light on actions of the NFL that even I missed, mostly because I am not a resident of Florida. Since January, Deion Sanders, the only arguably more recognizable Atlanta Falcon alum, has been writing a weekly column for The New-Press, a media outlet based out of Neon Deion’s hometown, Fort Myers, Florida. He has covered a wide range of topics, mostly focusing on cultural and racial issues, and done so in a surprisingly elegant and insightful fashion. It only makes sense that when the most recognizable black athlete in his main sport is accused of federal crimes, that Deion would weigh in with his sincere opinions, and he did, with a much more clear and concise treatment of the issue than I.

On the Thursday after Sanders’ Sunday column, ESPN Radio used the Vick arraignment to bring national attention to Deion’s words, which sparked an outrage much more widespread and much less civil than the one I was faced with here. The most disturbing response, however, came out of the NFL Network (and just when I was starting to forget their heinous TV ad campaign from last season.) Deion has never been one to shy away from the national spotlight, and as just a glance through my last Vick post will show you this debate is highly nuanced and even the most well-meant expressions can be grossly misunderstood or misrepresented. So when it came time to pen his next column Deion understandably used the chance to respond to the criticisms and pillory and better elucidate his statements. Now I would love to link to that column, but unfortunately the NFL Network, which has Sanders under contract as an analyst, decided to exercise its dominion over Deion’s “image and opinions,” and The News-Press was forced to withhold it, instead publishing an apology to its readers who came looking for another Neon Deion column.

SHAME ON YOU NFL! How can a business possibly justify this… Muzzling one of their employees (Sanders) in order to keep him from expressing an appeal to justice and understanding that supports another employee (Vick.) The NFL has tried to deflect blame by stating that the decision to withhold it was based solely on ensuring “exclusivity” to Deion’s NFL-related opinions, but can we seriously identify this post as an NFL-related one? This isn’t Xs and Os, this is criminal justice, race relations, and cultural understanding at play here, which goes well beyond football. If the NFL was truly interested in maintaining its exclusivity to Deion’s thoughts, they could just have easily have taken the withheld column (and the attention focused on it by national media) and posted it on their website, or had it picked up by nationwide press under an NFL banner, this clearly would’ve given them a wider audience while still promoting the NFL and the essence of free speech that we hold so dear in our society. Of course the NFL isn’t worried about all that, they’re just interested in controlling the message.

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We’ve been at this for more than a month now, and I feel like there just has to be hundreds of devoted readers out there who just haven’t had time to author a post and just haven’t been excited enough by posts on dogfighting and “orange shirt guy” to chime in.

Well here is your chance!

Now I know most of us here are quickly becoming the iPod generation, but I have retained a strong affinity for the piece of art that marked the latter half of the last century: the album. I’ll admit many of my favorite songs were recorded by bands that would never string together 2 or 3, let alone a whole album’s worth of good tunes, but there is nothing more fulfilling than sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying one of the all-time perfect albums.

Of course it is far from an original idea of its own, but I should credit Tim Sandefur, of http://positiveliberty.com/, for the definition I will employ. So here it is PFP community, “what are the truly perfect albums?—albums you can listen to all the way through, over and over again, and never get tired of them, and never want to skip any of the songs?”

I’ll get the ball rolling with a few nominations of my own, to showcase my eclectic tastes:

The Mothers of Invention: “Freak Out!”: Arguably the first and perhaps the epitome of the concept album. A heavy influence on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s and an unusually cogent album from a composer who would become reknowned for his ability to make his audience listen to musique concrete by surrounding it with the most complex and intense form of popular music. The only possible weak link is the closing numbers “It Can’t Happen Here” and “The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet,” (Honorable mention to the follow-ups Absolutely Free, and We’re Only in It for the Money, after these three Frank Zappa was able to more freely subject his audience to more far-out tunes only appreciable by patient FZ fans.)

The Beastie Boys: “Paul’s Boutique”: The best rap album ever made by white people. The Beastie Boys at their best, with a raw sound. A great album top to bottom.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: “Blood Sugar Sex Magik”: Even though it seeded the end of the Chili Peppers prime by thrusting them into the MTV spotlight, BSSM is one of the best albums to come out of the ’90s. Sir Psycho Sexy lives on as the song that the creepy old man sings every night at that dingy karaoke bar around the corner from your house.

WEEN: “12 Golden Country Greats”: Perhaps the best country album ever comes from a band who never ventured before or since into conventional country/western. After surrounding themselves with 12 lifelong country legends, Gene and Dean Ween (contemporary music’s best kept secret of a duo) produced an amazing hybrid of experimental rock and country which entertains anyone who can get past the sometimes comical lyrics. (Honorable mention to their latest release “quebec,” which also provides uninterrupted entertainment.)

TOOL: “undertow”: A great album from top to bottom. Another instance of a band having to reign in their craziness, this time to sell to the MTV audience of the ’90s. I’ll never forget the claymation videos, who knew they would get further out on their later stuff.

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