charmicarmicat

born in paris france, lived in israel, went back to paris, was in london for a bit, went back to paris, lived in holland (amsterdam) and I am now living in the us: 12 years of los angeles and two years of san francisco. I've been to every state in the continental us, which is quite something for not being born and raised here. proud of it? not really. played bass in beaver, the obsessed, goatsnake and acid king. played some shows filling in for scream (wdc band) and melvins. and i work at amoeba music in hollywood. my politics are to the left but not a democrat. at least not the version that's being pushed in this country. now that i think of it, i'm not a democrat. period. don't get me started :) speaking of politics, if you are interested i would highly recommend reading this really long piece about why america is fighting in iraq. you can download the pdf version. it is about fifty pages. very informative.here's a quote from one of my favorite movies, bad boy bubby: You see, no one's going to help you Bubby, because there isn't anybody out there to do it. No one. We're all just complicated arrangements of atoms and subatomic particles - we don't live. But our atoms do move about in such a way as to give us identity and consciousness. We don't die; our atoms just rearrange themselves. There is no God. There can be no God; it's ridiculous to think in terms of a superior being. An inferior being, maybe, because we, we who don't even exist, we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth. We measure; we plot; we create wonderful new things. We are the architects of our own existence. What a lunatic concept to bow down before a God who slaughters millions of innocent children, slowly and agonizingly starves them to death, beats them, tortures them, rejects them. What folly to even think that we should not insult such a God, damn him, think him out of existence. It is our duty to think God out of existence. It is our duty to insult him. Fuck you, God! Strike me down if you dare, you tyrant, you non-existent fraud! It is the duty of all human beings to think God out of existence. Then we have a future. Because then - and only then - do we take full responsibility for who we are. And that's what you must do, Bubby: think God out of existence; take responsibility for who you are. and here is another opinion that's worth a few minutes of your time: My opposition to the draft, to any sort of draft, is fundamental. (Disclosure: I was drafted and I "served" in the French foreign service for two years, ie twice as long as it would have been had I chosen to serve in the army.)I deny any government, elected or not, the right to kidnap my children and ship them off to a battlefield to kill or be killed. I accept to pay taxes and that's the sum total of my debt to my government. In every other respect, my government owes me, not the other way around.Conscription is the most fundamental denial of liberty, on a par with slavery.I am not a pacifist and I support a professional army. But I oppose the draft even in times of war. If your country cannot find enough volunteers to defend itself when attacked, then it's not worth defending.Perhaps someone can mount a philosophical defense of the draft that I will reject but I can still respect. So far, no one has. Nothing I've read even rises to the level of respectability.The typical line justifies the draft on the basis of its wonderful consequences. For example, a draft might make politicians think twice about starting wars, which would be good. Yes, that would be very good. So what? I can list all sorts of wonderful side benefits we got from slavery, too.Even if a draft saved lives I'd be opposed to it. Just as if someone could make a persuasive case that enslaving a population would be the best way to protect it, I'd still be against it. I do not base my opposition to slavery on a cost-benefit analysis. Some things are wrong in and of themselves. The right of the state to own my life and turn my children into murderers and murder victims is absolutely, entirely non-grantable.