Ex - from the Latin ex meaning 'out of,' so used to mean something that was but isn't any more - ex-footballer, ex-wife, ex-directory.

I'm here to help - it says so on my badge.

It's a Latin root which means "out of" I think. As in Deus ex machina

Edit: oh Ignatz beat me to it.

"prefix, in Eng. meaning mainly "out of, from," but also "upwards, completely, deprive of, without," and "former;" from L. ex "out of," from PIE *eghs "out" (cf. Gaul. ex-, O.Ir. ess-, O.C.S. izu, Rus. iz). In some cases also from Gk. cognate ex, ek. It has stood on its own since 1929 as abbreviation for ex-wife, ex-husband, etc."

may help explain words like exualt

It's meant ex-husband/wife since 1929? That surprises me, in a small-scale, raised eyebrow, nerdy kind of way.

Ah, cheers

Something I've wondered lately:

Did Jello Biafria really think Jerry Brown could get elected president in 1984 and if so, wouldn't that actually be really awesome compared to the people who were elected president in 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004? They did a more recent version about Arnold Schwarzenegger getting elected which is, also super unlikely and even if it did happen, he'd probably be better than Bush. So what's his gripe?

A recent interview with Jello--he says that "California Uber Alles" was not meant to be about only Jerry Brown, but also liberal apathy.

It's an odd way to express that.

Awesome song, of course. All-time classic.

Jerry Brown didn't run in 1984, did he? That was the one that ended up being Mondale v. Hart. I thought Brown only ran in 1976 and 1992.

Right. He didn't even run, which makes the song's lyrics that much odder.

The DK's are great for bringing in a feeling of real horror about the state of affairs to political punk. I just think it's odd that of all the stuff happening in 1984 with Reagan and all of that, that he wrote about Jerry Brown.

So France has lots more strikes than here. Or at least is appears so. Did the French union movement develop in parallel with the British one? Or is one the off shoot of the other?

Similaraly with regards to laws protecting union activity. I know that the British ones are less protective of workers ability to act in union, or at least I assume they are. But how similar is (or was) the law between these two countries? And were they enacted at similar times?

I guess I'd like to extend this question worldwide but that seems like enough for now.

Maybe I should jsut have asked for a book recommendation.

Reed of the Valley People wrote:
Right. He didn't even run, which makes the song's lyrics that much odder.

The DK's are great for bringing in a feeling of real horror about the state of affairs to political punk. I just think it's odd that of all the stuff happening in 1984 with Reagan and all of that, that he wrote about Jerry Brown.

Jerry Brown was governor of California from the mid 70s until 1983 so if it was about Jerry Brown the political context would be California rather than the US as a whole. I can say that Brown's politics (esp. related to crime) directly influenced the rise of convservatism in the state during the Reagan era. Brown had appointed judges that appeared to the average person to be very soft when it came to true criminals. Life sentences with the option for parole was a regular move, which even for many folks who would identify as liberal seemed insane in many cases.

It's interesting because I guess it shows the tensions between people who would identify as liberal and those who would identify as progressive. Remember that Brown's nickname was Governor Moonbeam, because he was seen as a kind of hippie (too liberal for centrists and conservatives) but obviously too conservative for progressives. I can't remember enough about his politics from that time to have an opinion since I was too young to care about politics when he was in office, but he obviously did something for Jello to see Brown as a Nazi.

Life sentences with the option for parole was a regular move, which even for many folks who would identify as liberal seemed insane in many cases.

Insanely liberal? Seriously?

TonTon wrote:
Life sentences with the option for parole was a regular move, which even for many folks who would identify as liberal seemed insane in many cases.

Insanely liberal? Seriously?

High profile cases, such as Charles Manson, seemed to be a bit much for folks, as if Brown's appointees weren't in-line with what folks thought was reasonable. But I didn't say "insanely liberal"--decisions that would seem to be insane even for folks who identified as liberal.

Yes I saw what you wrote. I even quoted it.

I was looking to find out some more about what you meant. I was wondering if you meant "insane" in the sense of "insanely liberal" - i.e. insanely soft. I suspect you did, but that does rather stretch the credulity here (here meaning in my head). So I thought I'd seek to confirm, and express my incredulity all in one.

Is that clearer?

As someone who actually voted in the Rose Bird re-confirmation election, I think that danielmak is overstating the case a bit here.

Californians who self-identified as "liberal" in 1986 were strongly in favor of Bird and Reynoso, which is unsurprising given that population's general opposition to the death penalty. That said, the fact that Bird lost the election by approximately 2 to 1 is proof that "liberals" did not form anywhere near a majority in the California electorate of the time (again, unsurprisingly (at least to me) given that the state had voted for Reagan in a roughly similar percentage (58 to 41) in the presidential election just two years earlier).

I guess the thing is that it depends on what one expects when discussing the term or identity of being liberal. I would put myself in that category but I would not consider myself to be a person who automatically follows some kind of imagined liberal program (i.e., cause X is a "good" liberal cause and therefore I should support it). So I guess what I've been trying to say and maybe I'm just not clear about it and the 2 to 1 stat put forth by ursus is clearer: Rose Bird doesn't get ousted with that margin if she hasn't lost voters who were middle of the road, left-leaning Democrats, and some liberals. But maybe liberals voted in mass to re-elect her and made up that "1" in the stats and it was the centrists, left-leaning Democrats, so-called Reagan Democrats, and the conservatives that sent her packing. Ultimately, I was reflecting in my previous posts on a general feel of the time in Southern California, but it's been a long time and perhaps my recollection of the situation is off.

I can say that by the time Bird was ousted and Brown left office that people seemed to be glad to have them both gone. But maybe that was part of some larger shift that was happening that led to Reagan and Bush Sr. winning the California vote (Bush Sr. did win that vote, no? I think I had moved to NYC that year).

@TonTon: insanely soft, not insanely liberal per my explanation above. Liberal and soft are not the same thing, although blowhards on talk radio have attempted to intertwine those terms.