This is part one in a series that will run over the next few days (up to and including New Years Day) featuring predictions for 2008 by folks somehow connected with Amoeba Music - staff, owners, and AMOEBLOGGERS (including The Bay Area Crew, Whitmore, Gomez Comes Alive!, and Eric Brightwell) plus other individuals who are either fans of the AMOEBLOG (such as DJ ALF) or have been featured in some way in past AMOEBLOGs such as hip-hop author/journalist Michael A. Gonzales (interviewed months back in a report about the book "Bronx Biannual") 

Each contributor was asked to make a prediction for 2008 on any topic - music, film, technology, politics, sports, social trends, etc. Their prediction could be real or imagined (IE wished for) and they could be done in all seriousness or in jest or in half-jest. And the responses could be anywhere from a few words to a paragraph or longer in length.  Very special thanks to those who took the time to share their predictions for 2008 including today's contributors: Eric Brightwell, Amoeba Marc, The Insomniac (Bay Area Crew), and DJ ALF - all below:

                  
INCREASING OUTSIDE PRESSURE ON THE USA TO CHANGE ITS WAYS:

    I predict that the biggest criminals in the history of humankind, literally having stolen the entire contents of the US Treasury several times over in the last decade, not to mention all the lives ruined or lost along the way, will continue their thieving virtually unabated in 2008.

Amoeba Marc linked me to the must-see above video of a recent editorial (Special Comment)  by MSNBC's Keith Olbernann on December 6th who tells it like it is with no sugar coating.  Everyone who is seriously concerned about the future of this nation and of the world and whether or not we all end up caught in the crossfire of an unwanted World War III needs to spend eight and a half minutes and view this direct and sobering commentary.

         
                                                   

I understand that many of the readers of this AMOEBLOG may not dwell in New York City or be anywhere even close to the East Coast but the issue that is planned to be protested today (Thursday, August 2nd) in NYC - fighting the possible ban on our freedom to take photographs in public places in New York City - is something that seriously affects all of our civil liberties.

Here's the deal with this latest possible ban (bear in mind it may not even happen or may not be enforced even if it is made law) as reported recently by the New York Times and by New York City politically charged group called NYC 911 Truth.  They say that the  proposed banning would essentially mean that any non-insured still photographer or filmer, solo and more specifically a  team of camera operators, would be targeted by this proposed ban that calls for a requirement of a one million dollar liability insurance policy in addition to a permit, for various photography and filming actions that occur for more then 10 minutes.

Reportedly the city claims it is only enforcing and "adjusting" old permit laws, to justify these actions. The police department has stated it will begin enforcing the laws, as of today August 2nd. Hence the planned protests for today which are scheduled for protesters to begin gathering at 4:30PM today (Thursday August 2nd) at City Hall, downtown New York City (Manhattan) to challenge the Mayor Bloomberg-enduced ban on filming and photography. 

If indeed this ban were to fully go into effect (and even in these crazy post 9/11 paranoid times seems unlikely - but possible) the implications of this proposed ban would be very great and far-reaching. For example at one NYC Critical Mass gathering I attended some time back (like in SF also held on last Friday of the month) there were countless cyclists (unfairly in my opinion) arrested by the ever-vigilant NYPD who packed them into the backs of Paddy Wagons and hauled their asses off to jail.

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Exactly thirty years ago, June 1977, pioneering San  Francisco punk band The Avengers, fronted by a very talented and very young songwriter & vocalist named Penelope Houston, emerged onto the then very fledgling US punk scene to play their first show. Over the next two years this band, which featured Greg Ingraham (guitar), Jimmy Wilsey (bass), and Danny Furious (drums)., would go on to blaze a trail of raw adrenaline-fueled, politically charged punk rock legend, tirelessly playing a hundred-plus shows that included countless gigs at their hometown punk mecca, The Mabuhay Gardens booked  by the late great SF punk visionary Dirk Dirkson, and sharing bills with the Dead Kennedys, X, the Go-Gos, and even the Sex Pistols for their final ever show at Winterland in January 1978. 


          
 The Avengers are one of those bands of legend that   most people didn't catch the first time around but learned of them after they had broken up - thanks mainly to their releases most of which surfaced after the band's demise.  In fact during their whirlwind two year existence the Avengers only released one three-song 7" record on Dangerhouse Records.  Their second record (the four-song 12" EP on White Noise) didn't drop until after they had disbanded and the record that most people know them by (the self-titled pink album) wasn't released until much later in 1983.  But none of this mattered to the legions of fans who later discovered and fell in love with such timeless Avengers songs as "I Believe In Me" "Fuck You" "White Nigger" "Corpus Christi" and "The American In Me" whose lyrics are reprinted below  along with a video clip of the Avengers performing the song circa '78 (scroll all the way down to end of this article).