Monday, May 25, 2009

An Outlet for My Political Rage

At long last, I've finally gotten around to creating a blog. Given my level of obsession with news and politics, it was inevitable that I would require some kind of release valve for my mounting frustration with the endless exploitation of people around the world by our respective elites. What can I tell you about myself? I'm a 22-year-old white Canadian male living in Ontario, and as you might have guessed by the title of my blog, I am a) a serious metalhead, and b) a democratic socialist. With my future blog entries, I plan to muse on both the political events of the day, and how the corporate media completely distorts it. There'll be comments on heroes (Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Glenn Greenwald, Amy Goodman) and villains (Dick Cheney, Larry Summers, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity). Beyond that, every time I'm really into a certain band, song, book, TV show, movie, obviously I'll be heavily hyping it for you. You can also expect occasional discussion of certain geeky stuff as well, particularly anything involving superhero movies.

Looking for a black metal-style pseudonym (which would sound cooler than my actual name), I settled on Mulciber, the name of an architect demon in John Milton's Paradise Lost who constructs Pandaemonium, Satan's palace in Hell. Originally, I wanted something Satanic because it applied to both heavy metal and socialism. The connection to the former is obvious, the latter perhaps less so. As an atheist, I've always been inspired by Marx's famous quote, "religion is the opiate of the masses." Many readers of Milton believe Satan to be the hero of his epic poem - certainly the most charismatic character. The appeal for me - along with many famous poets of the Romantic era - was Satan's admirable rebellion in taking on the ultimate authority: God. Not only does this reflect my disdain for organized religion, it also applies to the need to rise up against the powerful in our own reality - the capitalist elites in our political class, the media establishment, and the corporate parasites that control them both. With this blog, I want to be an architect of that rebellion. Beyond that, there are a couple extra things about Mulciber I like. In Roman mythology, he was known as Vulcan (Star Trek kicks ass). And in Greek mythology, he was the son of Hera, queen of the gods, who cast him down to Hades. However, he was rescued by his own wit (wisdom may be the highest virtue in my eyes) and the help of Dionysius, the god of wine (who doesn't love a little alcohol-soaked misadventure every now and then?).

This is my first time writing a blog, so it'll probably start out shitty. But I can rest easy knowing that, whatever I write, I will always be a more legitimate journalist than anyone at Fox News.

ROCK 'N' ROLL!