MESSAGE OF CONDOLENCE AND SOLIDARITY FROM U.S. PEACE ACTIVISTS TO THE SYRIAN PEOPLE

To the People of Syria: 

We were profoundly saddened to learn of the tragic death of Ghiyath Mattar, a 26-year old non-violent activist who inspired his fellow Syrians in their struggle against the cruel repression of the Assad government. We send our deepest condolences to you and to Mattar’s friends and family, in particular to his widow, who is expecting a child.

 

Mattar was murdered after being arrested on September 6, and when his body was returned to his family on September 10 it showed massive bruising and other signs of horrible torture. According to Amnesty International, this brings the total number of reported deaths in detention in Syria since April to more than 90, and heightens concern for four other activists from the Damascus suburb of Daraya who were detained at the same time as Mattar and who are at grave risk: Yahya Shurbaji and his brother Ma’an Shurbaji, Mohamed Tayseer Khoulani and Mazen Zyadeh. All four have been held incommunicado at an unknown location since their arrest.

 

We want you to know that you are not alone. People around the world have been moved by your determined fight for justice and elementary democratic rights, by your refusal to end your protests despite the brutal violence rained upon you and the arrests of thousands of protesters. As peace activists in the United States, we are writing to express our solidarity with your inspiring struggle. We do not support military intervention in Syria by our government or NATO because we know too well the history of such interventions, made in the name of democracy but actually bolstering Western power rather than popular movements for freedom

 

We wish you success in your courageous resistance to tyranny. Below is the letter of protest we have faxed to President Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Mu’allim.

 

In peace and solidarity,

 

 

Joanne Landy Thomas Harrison

Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison

Co-Directors

Campaign for Peace and Democracy

New York, NY, USA

cpd@igc.org www.cpdweb.org

 

OPEN LETTER TO THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT IN PROTEST

AGAINST THE DEATH OF NON-VIOLENT ACTIVIST GHAYATH MATTAR AND BRUTAL REPRESSION OF SYRIAN DEMOCRATIC ACTIVISTS

 

President Bashar al-Assad

Presidential Palace

al-Rashid Street

Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic

Fax: +963 11 332 3410

Minister of Foreign Affairs Walid al-Mu’allim

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

al-Rashid Street

Damascus, Syrian Arab Republic

Fax: +963 11 214 6251

 

Dear President Bashar al-Assad and Minister of Foreign Affairs Walid al-Mu’allim,

 

We are peace activists from the United States, and we write to express our horror and outrage at the reported death in custody of the non-violent activist Ghayath Mattar. We call for an immediate independent investigation of the cause and circumstances of his death and for those responsible to be brought to justice.

 

We protest the continuing detention of Yahya Shurbaji, Ma’an Shurbaji, Mazen Zyadeh and Mohamed Tayseer Khoulani and urge your government to immediately disclose their whereabouts in detention, allow them immediate access to their families, lawyers and any medical care they need, and to protect them against possible torture or other ill-treatment. These prisoners should be released from custody.

Beyond these particular cases, we call for an immediate end to the mass arrests, the release of all of those detained for exercising their basic democratic right to protest, and the violence and killings your government has inflicted on Syrians fighting for their elementary freedoms.

 

Sincerely,

 

Joanne Landy Thomas Harrison

Joanne Landy and Thomas Harrison

Co-Directors

Campaign for Peace and Democracy

New York, NY, USA

cpd@igc.org www.cpdweb.org

Follow us on Facebook

MeretzUSA (Partnrs for Progressive Israel) on Palestinian Statehood Bid

On Sunday, September 18, 2011, Partners for Progressive Israel (Meretz USA) President Dina B. Charnin, Chair Theodore Bikel, and Executive Director Ron Skolnik issued the following statement on behalf of the organization:

The Palestinian decision to advance their statehood drive via the United Nations, and outside the framework of negotiations with Israel, is a diplomatic turning point that creates risks but also offers new openings for progress toward peace. For the benefit of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, we urge the government of Israel to focus on the positive elements we expect to be contained in the Palestinian request, as outlined below, and to refrain from precipitous responses that would escalate tension and serve the agenda of both sides' extremists. Such responses, hinted at in the press, would include a decision to annex West Bank territory, the annulment by Israel of current Israeli-Palestinian agreements, and the easing of rules of engagement to allow live fire to be directed at unarmed Palestinian protesters.

The unilateral Palestinian application for full UN membership is not a development we hoped for when the peace process began. More than anything, it represents the failure of that process to produce a mutually satisfactory outcome, 18 years after the first Oslo agreement was signed and more than a dozen years after a final-status agreement was supposed to have been reached to end the occupation.

We regard the current move by Palestinian President Abbas as an act of desperation, brought on in large part by the Netanyahu government's refusal to resume negotiations where they left off under the government of Ehud Olmert, and to negotiate seriously on the basis of the 1967 lines, adjusted by mutually agreed territorial swaps.

Over the last two decades, and more, governments, organizations and individuals on both sides committed actions that were counterproductive to the spirit of compromise and reconciliation. Acts of terror and the indiscriminate killing of civilians were foremost among these. But the failure of negotiations was also brought on by other factors, including the expansion of Israeli settlements and a rhetoric of intolerance on both sides that has dismissed the other's historical narrative and legitimate national aspirations. 

Regardless of whether or not the Palestinian application at the UN is approved, it will not replace the need for a bilateral Israeli-Palestinian accord, and Israelis and Palestinians will still have to learn to live alongside one another in peace and security. We therefore urge the government of Israel to embrace the positive elements that we hope and expect the Palestinian request to contain:

1.  Non-violence: The Palestinian application is a diplomatic gambit, not a military offensive. It is imperative that this be the playing field on which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. 
2. Two-state solution reinforced: By referring to the 1967 lines as the basis for their state, we expect that the Palestinian application will reinforce the concept of the two-state solution, and weaken the idea, promoted by each side's extreme elements, that one side or the other should dominate the entire area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. 
3. Recognition of Jewish rights to statehood: By hopefully incorporating a reference to UN General Assembly resolution 181, the international basis for Israel's creation, the Palestinian move could serve to implicitly recognize the Jewish people's right to national self-determination and statehood.
4. The 1967 lines will not be the final borders: We expect the Palestinian application to indicate that the pre-war 1967 lines will be adjusted in subsequent negotiations with Israel to take into account Israel's security needs and some of the demographic results of its settlement policy.

Should the Palestinians go forward with their application to the UN, we urge President Abbas and his government to include these elements in their proposal - 1) Non-Violence, 2) A Two-State Solution, 3) Reference to the UN partition plan, 4) Final border based on the 1967 lines with negotiated land swaps - and to continue expressing their readiness for renewed peace talks with Israel. We urge Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government not to waste time, and to engage with the representatives of the Palestinian people on the basis of these principles.

While we believe the tactic of seeking UN affirmation of a Palestinian state outside the framework of direct negotiations is far from ideal, approval of a Palestinian request containing the elements noted above could have two positive outcomes for future negotiations. By elevating Palestine to the level of a state, it will reduce (though not eliminate) the asymmetry of power between Israel and the Palestinians that has complicated the process to date. It will also determine the general territorial outline of the conflict's resolution. These two outcomes will allow Israel and Palestine to recommence negotiations from a more productive baseline, and be better positioned to utilize the accepted tools of statecraft to engage with one another constructively.

Palestinian moves at the UN will not bring peace or end the occupation on their own. If handled properly, however, they can serve as the basis for a reenergized and revamped diplomatic process with the potential for resolving the conflict on a bilateral basis.

 

Blues on a Saturday: Eric Clapton "Groaning the Blues"

Here is Eric Clapton with a nice version of Otis Rush's classic "Groaning the Blues>" Pay attention to the discrete,but effective horns. Nowadays, I find myself often preferring the original blues to the more contemporary covers. Here is Rush's version from the classic 1957 Cobra sessions.

Rob Boston on Church and State issues at Wichita UA annual meeting

Rob Boston of the national AU (Americans United for Separation of Church and State) was the featured speaker at the Sept 16 annual meeting of the Great Plains AU, the Wichita chapter.

International Protests to Save North Korean refugees

From the North Korea Freedom Coalition (via via)

Wherever you are in the world on Thursday, September 22, 2011, please join the International Protest to Save North Korean Refugees slated for 12:00 noon by participating with one of the thirteen countries and twenty-four cities where events will occur. Country and city coordinators are delivering petitions at 12:00 noon to the Chinese embassies calling upon them to end their policy of forcibly repatriating North Korean refugees back to North Korea to face torture, imprisonment and even public execution.

We are simply calling upon China to abide by its international treaty commitments and allow the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to be able to carry out their mission to help refugees. China's policy has caused this crisis and led to these refugees to be in extreme danger while threatening to arrest and jail those who try to help them

4 posts and 2 videos for the Democratic Left

Pablo Velasco takes down a "sophisticated apology" for Castroism's repression of workers.

Scott Keyes on seven progressive policies that make the NFL America's favorite sport by promoting quality, fairness, and diversity, while the loony conservapedia laments  that soccer is socialist

Michael Stephens on infrastructure and free lunches on Multiplier Effects, the blog of the Levy Institute

Numerous studies indicate that the US needs to make $2 trillion worth of necessary repairs to its roads, bridges, and sewage systems.

The key word here is “necessary.”  The issue is not whether to invest $2 trillion to make these necessary repairs.  Unless we decide that we want to return to dirt roads the only question is when.  Right now we are well below full employment (with serious unemployment in the construction sector), and borrowing costs are not just low by historical standards, but comically low—negative real yield territory.  The federal government is being paid to borrow money.

These conditions won’t always hold.  Borrowing to invest in infrastructure, right now, is about as close to a free lunch as you can get.

John Quiggen on Socialized Health care as a feasible utopia

Two videos, each about 1.5 hours worth watching.

"Historical Treatment of the Rosenberg Case" was a panel of the conference "The Rosenberg Case, Soviet Espionage, and the Cold War," sponsored by the Harvard Project on Cold War Studies and George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs.

"The Rosenberg Case and the Historiography of Soviet Espionage in America" A panel of historians and professors examined the effects that Soviet spies had on the American public's mentality and on history itself. .

Blues on a Saturday: Hound Dog Taylor and Little Walter

 Hound Dog Taylor & the Houserockers featuring Little Walter on harmonica in 1967, about a year before Walter's death.

When Delmark Records shipping clerk Bruce Iglauer couldn't convince his boss to record Taylor, he launched Alligator Records.

And there's a Kansas angle. Bob Koester, the owner of Delmark Records and the Jazz Record Mart, was born and grew up in Wichita.

Democratic Left Roundup

Steve Hendrix, Bayard Rustin, organizer of the March on Washington, was crucial to the movement

for hundreds of civil rights veterans, Aug. 28 will also always be Bayard’s Day, the crowning achievement of one of the movement’s most effective, and unconventional, activists.

Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes & Ronald Radosh “Childs at Play: The FBI's Cold War triumph”

A piece from the Weekly Standard won't often make a my recommended list, but here three expert scholars analyze new revelations from  declassified FBI files about the CPUSA. In the 1950s and 1960s, the FBI had informers in the very highest echelon of the American Communist Party. 

Paul Berman, "Do Ideas Matter: From September 11 to the Arab Spring.

An interesting analysis, but no discussion of independent workers' movements in the Arab Spring.

Sacha Ismail, Atrocities by the Libyan rebels? Some consistency, please!

The reality is that those using the facts of racism and atrocities by the Libyan rebels to justify their hostility to the Libyan revolution are generally not too concerned about the records of those they support. Repression and atrocities of all sorts can be justified or ignored if they fit into the “anti-imperialist” world schema. It is perfectly possible, of course, to raise issues such as racism among the Libyan rebels in good faith - as this article attempts to do. But they are being highlighted by pro-Qaddafi "anti-imperialists" primarily because of the rebels' alliance with NATO, and in order to whitewash Qaddafi.

Jake Blumgart, 4 ways government policy favors the rich and keeps the rest of us poor

James Bloodworth, CUBA: A Paradise of Sexual Tourism 

Since the early years of the Cuban revolution, the government claimed as one of its shining achievements the elimination of prostitution. In reality of course, it lingered on; but through the provision of job opportunities and training for former prostitutes, the revolution did go a substantial way to eliminating the sex trade relative to its documented abundance during the pre-revolutionary era.

Spending time in Cuba in 2011, one cannot but be alarmed by the frequency one notices young Cubans, often no more than 14 or 15 years old, fraternising with European and Canadian tourists of a certain age. Disturbingly, this hustling or "jineterismo" of foreigners often camouflages a more basic sex-for-cash transaction.

Juan Cole on 10 myths about the Libyan War 

Angelo Lopez ,Non-Marxist Critiques of the Capitalist System

Blues on a Saturday: B.B. King: I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living

Blues on a Saturday: Louis Armstrong "West End Blues"

It has beena little over 110 years since the birth of Louis Armstrong, perhaps the greatest musician and artist of the 20th century.  Shiraz Socialist has a great essay on appreciating and understanding Armstrong. Here's a great video which analyzes the great "West End Blues" from 1928.




The blog  "Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong" has a great history of the West End Blues. 

Louis Armstrong’s 1928 performance of the tune has probably been the subject of more words and analysis than any other in the history of jazz. Gunther Schuller devoted page after page to it in 1967’s Early Jazz, writing, “The clarion call of “West End Blues’ served notice that jazz had the potential capacity to compete with the highest order of previously known musical expression.” Gary Giddins wrote that this tune “came to symbolize more than any other the ascendancy of a classic American music.” John Chilton called the introduction “a great moment in 20th century music.” Ken Burns devoted an entire segment to it and if you’d like to hear Artie Shaw, Wynton Marsalis and Gary Giddins expound on it, as well as hearing “West End Blues”

And, to close things out, here is a segment of Ken Burns' Jazz devoted to West End Blues

Louis Armstrong’s 1928 performance of the tune has probably been the subject of more words and analysis than any other in the history of jazz. Gunther Schuller devoted page after page to it in 1967’s Early Jazz, writing, “The clarion call of “West End Blues’ served notice that jazz had the potential capacity to compete with the highest order of previously known musical expression.” Gary Giddins wrote that this tune “came to symbolize more than any other the ascendancy of a classic American music.” John Chilton called the introduction “a great moment in 20th century music.” Ken Burns devoted an entire segment to it and if you’d like to hear Artie Shaw, Wynton Marsalis and Gary Giddins expound on it, as well as hearing “West End Blues”

Ken Burn's Jazz devoted a segment to "West End Blues" which is apparently no longer available on YouTube, but it is well worth searching on the Burn's series.

Verizon Mobilization Wichita

45,000 CWA and IBEW members are on strike against Verizon. It has been called the "private sector's Wisconsin."  The striking workers are on the East Coast, but CWA is organizing information and solidarty actions at Verizon stores all across the country .

Yesterday afteroon, Paul Hendrix and myself from the APWU joined members of Wichita's CWA 6402 local outside the Verizon store on North Rock Road.  The temperature here in Wichita peaked at 105.

Here are a few photos from the mobilization. (If the slideshow, doesn't play automatically, hover over the lower left corner and click on the arrow.)



Please take a moment and sign the CWA's petition

Despite record profits, Verizon is refusing to bargain and is demanding that its workers add to those profits from their own pockets. In the last four years alone, Verizon made more than $19 billion in profits and compensated their top five executives more than a quarter of a billion dollars. But apparently that’s not enough.

Now they’re refusing to bargain. Starting on June 22 Verizon pushed proposals that would let them outsource more jobs, including sending jobs overseas, slash sick days, eliminate benefits for workers who get hurt on the job and cut the healthcare benefits they promised retirees. And they haven’t budged.

KOSE Executive Director Jane Carter Responds to Administration’s Proposed Voluntary Retirement Incentive

I am quite disappointed by the Administration’s announcement of the Voluntary Retirement Incentive proposal. To be very clear, KOSE (Kansas Organization of State Employees) is not opposed to voluntary retirement plans in general. However, it is essential that all factors be considered before enacting a Voluntary Retirement Incentive. The State has not, at this point, considered those factors nor met its legal obligations to KOSE. 

KOSE heard rumors of a proposed early retirement incentive weeks ago, and promptly requested meet and confer over the incentive. The State indicated it would meet and confer with KOSE prior to rolling out the Voluntary Retirement Incentive. By mutual agreement, the first meet and confer session was scheduled for August 10, 2011. The State never informed KOSE that a planned rollout was scheduled for the first week of August, nor did the State ever indicate that an earlier meet and confer date would be required, or suggested. The State's rollout of this program, one week in advance of the scheduled meet and confer session, violates both the State's agreement to meet and confer and the legal requirement to meet and confer.

Secretary Taylor's contention that this is not an issue which must be discussed with KOSE is blatantly untrue. Under the Kansas Public Employee/Employer Relations Act, the State is required to meet and confer in good faith with the Union regarding terms and conditions of employment. The statute defines "meet and confer in good faith" as the process where the representative of the public agency and the representative of the employee organization to meet personally and exchange information, opinions, and proposals to try and reach agreement on conditions of employment. K.S.A. 75-4322(m). The statute goes on to define "conditions of employment", in part, as salaries, wages, hours of work, vacation allowances, sick and injury leave, number of holidays, retirement benefits, insurance benefits..." K.S.A. 75-4322(t).

The Voluntary Retirement Program involves both retirement benefits and insurance benefits, two items that by law are subject to meet and confer. Meet and confer is particularly important on this issue because of the potential impact of the Voluntary Retirement Program on State employees, the citizens of Kansas, and the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System. The Voluntary Retirement Program, as announced today, contains no limit or cap on how many employees will be allowed to accept the retirement incentive. Some departments across the State, already crippled by budget cuts, are so understaffed employees are working shifts of sixteen hours or more, multiple times during a work week. Removing more employees from the system would create an even greater strain, and endanger the ability of these workers to deliver the services that many citizens depend on every day.

KOSE had hoped to discuss some of these very real concerns with the State during meet and confer, with the objective of developing a program that could meet the State's objectives while also ensuring employees, citizens, and KPERS were not negatively impacted. KOSE has not yet decided how to respond to this early rollout, but we are meeting with our attorneys to discuss all available options.

- # # # -

The Kansas Organization of State Employees (KOSE) is the largest certified, State recognized employee organization for state employees in the executive branch, representing more than 11,000 state employees.

Blues on a Saturday: Horace Silver "Senor Blues"

Blues on a Saturday: B.B. King and T-Bone Walker

A rare clip of T-Bone Walker sitting-in with B.B. King at a festival in the later 1960s or early 1970s.

Blues on a Saturday: Bille Holiday "Fine and Mellow"

I recently watched Ken Burn's Jazz and was struck again by this 1957 clip featuring Bill Holiday and one the few blues she wrote and performed "Fine and Mellow" This originally aired live as part of a special telecast ("The Sound of Jazz") on a short-lived CBS Sunday afternoon "cultural program", "THE SEVEN LIVELY ARTS". The man setting the scene for the number is host John Crosby, best known as a TV critic for the New York Herald-Tribune. This was also Billie's last major appearance on network television. the first tenor solo is by Ben Webster, the second by Lester Young, and the third by Coleman Hawkins. The trumpet solo is by Roy Eldridge.

The entire show is on DVD. Well worth watching. And there's a CD as well.

How Higher Education Favors the Rich--Great Infographic

Via: onlineschools.org

Rachel Maddow on Rick Perry's Prayer Partners

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Brownback wants to save your marriage--unless you're gay

Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has already used his administration to make Kansas one of the most social conservative in the nation. Kansas has become the first state to end public funding of the arts and has narrowly missed being the first state to do end abortions. Now, Brownback is developing a plan to promote marriage. To head up this effort, Brownback has hired Robert Siedlecki. Ironically, Siedlicki is divorced, but he is an advocate of “faith-based” solutions and an opponent of gay marriage. And, he's from Florida, as if Kansas has a shortage of religious right activists.

Tim Carpenter reported recently some juicy details about a secret April meeting to design Brownback's marriage agenda. The Topeka Capital-Journal uncovered some through a Kansas Open Records request. The Kansas government spent $13,000 to bring together 20 mostly far-right marriage “experts” for the closed door meeting. Thanks to the reporting of Tim Carpenter and other public information we know something of what Brownback has in mind, even though the details of the meeting remain confidential.

Organizations represented included the Heritage Foundation, Institute for American Values, Georgia Family Council, National Center for Fathering, Stronger Families, Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Marriage Savers, Kansas Healthy Marriage Institute, and National Center for African American Marriages and Parenting.

Governor Sam, according to Carpenter, “urged invitees to think in terms of 'Hail Mary' approaches to boosting marriage rates and slashing divorce rates in Kansas.” According to SRS secretary Robert Siedlecki, a Brownback import from Florida "The governor wants us to create a national model." Perhaps because he is not the best model as a divorced father and to begin the work on this national model, Seidlecki has hired a minister—from Florida! Carpenter also reported that Joyce Webb of Catholic Charities' Kansas Healthy Marriage Institute, recommended that SRS fund a new marriage with $1 million from federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.

Ethics of Brownback's Experts

Carpenter points out that one invitee Wade Horn “departed the Bush administration amid reports of cronyism in awarding federal grants to the National Fatherhood Initiative he founded. According to OMB Watch, NFI received a five-year, no-bid contract for $12 million.”

But, Horn is not the only invitee with shaky ethics.

Michael McMannus, according to wikipedia

On January 28, 2005, it was discovered that McManus was one of three media figures to accept money from the George W. Bush administration for targeted public endorsements of government policy.

McManus was the third person to be implicated in an article by Tom Hamburger of The Los Angeles Times. It was revealed that McManus, who is a self-described "marriage advocate", was paid through a subcontractor of the Department of Health and Human Services to endorse a Bush-approved initiative defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman. The payments were said to be $4,000 plus travel expenses, with an additional $49,000 paid to his organization, "Marriage Savers". McManus did not disclose this payment to his readers

Maggie Gallagher, again according to wikipedia

received tens of thousands of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services during 2002 and 2003 for helping the George W. Bush administration promote the President's Healthy Marriage Initiative. During this time, Gallagher testified before Congress in favor of "healthy marriage" programs, but never disclosed the payments. When asked about that situation, she replied "Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it? I don't know. You tell me. ...frankly, it never occurred to me".

After the Washington Post revealed this information on January 26, 2005, Gallagher claimed significant differences between her situation and that of conservative columnist Armstrong Williams, going on to add that "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."]

Gallagher received an additional $20,000 from the Bush administration for writing a report, titled "Can Government Strengthen Marriage?", for the National Fatherhood Initiative...

Gays No, Polygamists Maybe

It should surprise no one that Sedlieki made it clear to the TCJ that there would be “ no room in the state's program for gays and lesbians interested in marriage or parenting.” What is surprising is that some of Brownback experts think polygamy isn't so bad.

Gallagher has said that gay marriage is worse than polygamy, which, "for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children".

Another invitee founder of the Institute for American Values Daniel Blankenhorn

was presented to the court as an expert witness in Perry v. Schwarzenegger by the proponents of California Proposition 8 (2008), a constitutional amendment stripping same-sex couples of the right to marry. On cross-examination by David Boies, Blankenhorn stated that marriage's "rule of two people" is not violated by polygamy, because "Even in instances of a man engaging in polygamous marriage, each marriage is separate. He — one man marries one woman." (source)

The Agenda?

We can't know what the Brownback marriage  agenda will  look like, but there here are some possibilities.

Mike McManus of Marriage Savers wants to get rid of no-fault divorce, limiting it to only cases of physical abuse or adultery. Gallagher not only want to end no-fault divorce, she want to prosecute spouses for adultery.

 And, a definite--no room in the state's programs m for gays or lesbians interested in marriage or parenting.

Blues on a Saturday: Tracy Nelson "Down So Low"

In April, Tracy Nelson released her 26th album Victim of the Blues. She's done not only  blues,  but also country  and rock, and in-between. She got her start in the folk and blues revival of the sixties and was part of the San Francisco rock scene in the late sixties., where she helped lead the under-rated  Mother Earth.  I bought their first LP Living with the Animals back in the day and it has long been one of my favorites.  it is out on CD from Wounded Bird records and is recommended. There are those, myself included, who ranked her as as superior to Janice Joplin

BluesWax recently published Don Wilcox's two part interview with Nelson--part one and part two

Here is Nelson in 1987 doing her 1968 song Down So Low.  It seems to be a modern blues standard, having been covered by Cyndi Lauper, Linda Ronstadt, and others.

Bachman's Third Try at a Theme Song

Far right Presidential candidate Michele Bachman has had almost as big a problem with theme songs for her campaign as with American history.

First,  Tom Petty send a cease-and-desist letter to stop Bachman from using American Girl. Next, Katrina Leskanich announced that she wasn’t cool with Bachmann’s “misuse” of Katrina and the Waves’ hit song “Walking on Sunshine.”

Today, it is reported that Bachman, apparently rejecting an offer from Ted Nugent,  is using Elvis Presley's recording of "The Promised Land."

It is interesting that Bachman picked an Elvis cover of a song written by the still-living African-American Chuck Berry, which in turn is a reworking of  Wabash Cannonball, most famously recorded by Roy Acuff, and dating back to at least 1882.

Even more interesting is that Berry's original lyrics referred to the 1961 Freedom Ride. Presley completely omitted the second verse where Berry says he bypassed Rock Hill, the place where future Congressman John Lewis and other riders were attacked by a white mob.

We stopped in Charlotte,
We bypassed Rock Hill
We never was a minute late
We was 90 miles out of Atlanta by sundown
Rollin' out of Georgia state

The next verse goes like this and seems to also refer to another key Freedom Ride site.

We had a little trouble,

Turned into a struggle

Half way across Alabam

Our 'hound broke down

Left us stranded
In downtown Birmingham

I'm not saying that Chuck Berry was transformed into Woody Guthrie, although Woody also borrowed the Wabash Cannonball tune for the Grand Coulee Dam. But the background of the segregation and Freedom Rides ought to inform the performance of this great Chuck Berry tune.  Sadly, many  versions of the "Promised Land" mangle the words, leaving out key lines.

Here's nice version of Chuck Berry doing the 'Promised Land", probably in the UK.

I kind of hope that Chuck Berry as composer of the Promised Land can and will bar the crazy lady from the North Country from using his song.

Who Needs a Pension When You Can Have a Pizza Party?

Blues on a Saturday: Junior Wells and Buddy Guy

Junior Wells performing Cryin' Shame, with Buddy Guy, guitar, and David Myers, bass, from the movie Chicago Blues, in 1970.

Why Is Everyone So Down on Child Labor?

Negotiating Like It's 1999

The AFL-CIO has a new, informative, clever website on Collective Bargaining. It features three entertaining, funny videos by director/writer Negin Farsad, producer Justin Krebs, writer Lee Camp and punchup artist Katie Halper of Vaguely Qualified productions. Here's  the first one.  Others will follow in coming days.

Blues on a Saturday: Otis Rush and Eric Clapton--"Double Trouble"

Performing Rush's classic "Double Trouble" --the song that Stevie Ray Vaughn named his band after.

Surveying the Democratic Left

Judie Newman "Bellow and Trotsky"

The later Bellow’s reputation as a neoconservative has obscured the centrality of his early enthusiasm for Trotskyism to his life and writings. The 2010 publication of a selection of his letters opens with Saul Bellow aged 17 writing to Yetta Barshevsky, a fellow high school student who introduced him to Trotskyism, and for whom he wrote a eulogy more than sixty years later. Bellow was still thinking about Trotsky in the 1990s as his correspondence with Albert Glotzer, his lifelong friend and (at one point Trotsky’s secretary) indicates.

Gus Tyler--Labor Activist and Forward Columnist, Is Dead at 99"

Commemorating the Forward’s 110th anniversary in 2007, Tyler, in this column, recalled his mother’s anger when a fishmonger handed her a purchase wrapped in the newspaper. “My mother literally threw the package back at the fish handler. Startled, he said, ‘What’s the matter, lady?’ ‘It’s the Forward,’ she shouted. `If you have to wrap the fish in a paper, use The Times.’”

Bill Fletcher Obama, Progressives, and the White Nationalist Backlash




To borrow from a comment offered by television commentator Tavis
 Smiley, the 2012 elections are likely to be the most racist that most
 of us have seen in our lifetimes. Given this, what are the
 implications?

 It has been striking that many progressives, particularly those who 
have not only written off President Obama but also written off all
 those who offered critical support to the Obama campaign in 2008, have 
said so little about race, racism, and the discourse of right-wing
 populism in the context of the upcoming elections.
  ...

Despite our knowledge of history and awareness of the antics of white
 right-wing populism, few progressives are discussing the implications 
of any of this for the 2012 elections. The implications, it would seem
 to me, are quite profound, and range from what this means about HOW to
criticize the Obama administration, to how to ensure that the
 elections are not outright stolen by the white Right.


Devin Burghart and Leonard Zeskind , Tea Party Nationalism: A Critical Examination of the Tea Party Movement and the Size, Scope, and Focus of Its National Factions

     Prepared for the  NAACP, an excellent website, and a 94-page PDF report here for those so inclined.
Must reading.

Matthew N. Lyons, "Liberalism’s Limits: A review of Burghart and Zeskind’s Tea Party Nationalism " Three Way Fight

Political Research Associates, "

Jon Stewart on Fox bias

The Daily Show
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Blues on a Saturday: Jimmy Rushing--"I Let My Baby"

The great Kansas City blues shouter Jimmy Rushing at the 1957 CBS "Sound of Jazz" television special. It is a great CD and DVD. Shouter is the traditional way to describe Rushing and Big Joe Turner, but it is not adequate. Towards the end of this cut, catch how Rushing sings back to back verses, boldy and then gently. Wow!



How many greats can you identify? Here is who I noticed. Count Basie, Freddie Green, Ben Webster (first tenor solo), Coleman Hawkins (second tenor solo), Jo Jones (drums--not Phiully Joe, but Jo), Stan Getz. Who else?

We've got a winner: LabourStart Video of the Year contest

From the IBEW



LabourStart is one of the best sites around,anyone interested in unions, workers struggles, and solidarity should take a look.

Democratic Left Roundup: Economics Edition

Matthew Forstater, The Freedom Budget at 45 Levy Institute (PDF)

Discusses the Freedom Budget and its continuing relevance and presents a functional finance primer.

Pat Garofalo.Failing To Raise The Debt Ceiling Would Wipe Out All Of 2011′s Estimated Growth In 95 Days Think Progress

allowing the U.S. to default on its debt would have widespread consequences for the U.S. and world economies, including potentially pushing the U.S. back into a recession or, in the words of Princeton Professor Alan Blinder, “reignit[ing] the world financial crisis.” And as the Wall Street Journal noted today, failure to raise the debt ceiling would force draconian spending cuts that would wipe out all of the anticipated 2011 economic growth in just 95 days

“Exiting from the Crisis: Towards a Model of More Equitable and Sustainable Growth” is a new book (over 270 pages) now available on line.

This volume of essays from global trade union leaders and economists is the product of the Global Unions Taskforce on a New Growth Model, a joint project of the Trade Union Advisory Committee (TUAC) to the OECD, the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Global Union Research Network (GURN).

The task force involved more than 30 global trade union economists .... from a wide array of advanced, emerging and developing countries. The report includes a Preface by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, and fills a long-standing need to set out the global labour movements economic alternatives in a systematic fashion.

William K Black on cost-benefit analysis and Mitch Daniels on the New Economic Perspectives from Kansas City blog

Daniels warmed up his global warming denial audience (pun intended) with this joke, which he said he often shared with his daughter. Many of us who are parents look for these opportunities to mix family meals and an opportunity for moral instruction. This is how Daniels relates his efforts at teaching moral reasoning:

'If James Carville and Geraldo Rivera were both drowning, and you could only save one [laughter], would you read the paper, or eat lunch [laughter and applause]?'

Altruism is, as Ayn Rand stressed, a grave error. To be a Good Samaritan, particularly to save the life of someone who disagrees with you, is not a mitzvah but an unpardonable sin. It follows that one should teach their children that the correct response to learning that a person is drowning and only they can save a life – is to let them drown – while noshing. The death of those who disagree with us is a cause for celebration [“laughter and applause”].

One of the nice things about this post from Black is a list of 15 cases that undermine the argument that any economic regulation harms consumers.

Doug Henwood "What Financial Emergency"

Close examination of the CBO's projections cannot support anything resembling hysteria. The two things that have everyone terrified, Social Security and Medicare, actually look quite unthreatening.

In 2010, Social Security spending was 4.8% of GDP. In 2021, the CBO projects it will be 5.3%, an increase of 0.5 point. In 2010, Medicare spending (less premiums paid by beneficiaries) was 3.1% of GDP. In 2021, the CBO projects it will be 3.6%, also an increase of 0.5 point.

In other words, the budgetary monsters that are supposed to be the ruin of the American way of life will increase their share of the national economy by about 1%. That's a bit less than what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing us, and less than half the cost of the Bush tax cuts.

Ron Baiman explains how tax increases on just the upper 10% offamilies, restoring their income to 1973 inflation adjusted levels,would immediately erase the federal deficit.

Kathy Ruffing "What the 2011 Trustees' Report Shows About Social Security" Center for Budget Policies and Priorities

“The revenue loss over the next 75 years from making all of those [Bush]tax cuts permanent would be two and one-half times the entire Social Security shortfall over that period. Indeed, the revenue loss just from extending the tax cuts for people making over $250,000 — the top 2 percent of Americans — would itself be almost as large as the Social Security shortfall over the 75-year period. (See Figure 1.) Members of Congress cannot simultaneously claim that the tax cuts are affordable while the Social Security shortfall constitutes a dire fiscal threat.”

Gar Alperovitz "The New-Economy Movement" The Nation

Blues on a Saturday: Bob Dylan and Miles Davis

This week marked the 70th birthday of Bob Dylan and the 85th anniversary of Miles Davis' birthday. So, our first double header. We'll get bak to hard core blues next week and, perhaps, come up with a post on Rolling Stones list of Bob's 70 greatest songs.

Best of the Democratic Left

David McReynolds, "The View from Over the Hill"

 On April 26, 2011, there was a book party in New York City for Martin Duberman's double biography of Barbara Deming and David McReynolds, titled A Saving Remnant.
This is McReynolds expanded version of his remarks.  He is a former chair of War Resisters International, and was the Socialist Party candidate for President in 1980 and 2000. 

Dissent writers on the killing of Osama Bin Laden  

Michael Walzer and four others. 

Russell Fox on "The History and Legacy of Kansas Populism" 

Alan Johnson, "The Mind of the Pro-Tyrant Left" 

This pro-tyrant left thinks it holds the key to the entire world in the palm of its hand. If America is opposed to a tyrant, then—there is some dubious logic here, but this really is the crucial move—the tyrant must be opposing America. And—this is the last stretch, stay with me—therefore the tyrant is an “anti-imperialist” and, objectively, “progressive.”

And these ideas have been adopted in softer forms throughout the culture—we see it in the refusal of emotional commitment to the West in its battles against dictators and terrorists, the refusal to credit the West with anything but malign intent, the tendency to blame ourselves when we are attacked, the demonization of Israel, and the pathological refusal to see plain the nature of forces such as Hamas and Hezbollah, who were defined by the leading American academic Judith Butler as “part of the global Left.”

When the 17th-century English revolutionaries dreamt of “a world turned upside down” it was not this they had in mind.

 David Osler, Rawanda: test case for absolute anti-imperialism

The more I think about it in retrospect, the more I am convinced that the UN should have gone in. Rwanda was hardly a purely academic question, and moral stances taken at the time had discernible outcomes. If there are any good counterarguments, they do not immediately occur to me.

This is not to say that the left should cheerlead the use of armed forces in every situation of humanitarian concern; opposition to the demands of the military-industrial complex rightly remains very much the default position. Nor should we back any old intervention; the risk of making a hash of it are invariably huge. Minimum preconditions include careful planning, thoughtful execution and widespread regional support.

Blues on a Saturday: Mose Allison "Ever Since the World Ended"

Seems like the perfect day for one of Mose Allison's best. (wikipedia bio website)




Ever since the world ended,
I don't go out as much.
People that I once befriended
Just don't bother to stay in touch.
Things that used to seem so splendid
Don't really matter today.
It's just as well the world ended--
It wasn't working anyway.

Every since the world ended,
There's no more bible belt.
Remember how we all pretended?
Going 'round, lying 'bout the way we felt.
Every rule has been amended,
There's no one keeping score.
It's just as well the world ended
We couldn't have taken much more.

Ever since the world ended,
There's no more black or white.
Ever since we all got blended,
there's no more reason to fuss and fight.
Dogmas that we once defended
no longer seem worthwhile.
Ever since the world ended,
I face the future--
With a smile.

Rapture Day

The free-thought community in Wichita has organized an interesting event for Rapture Day on Saturday May 21.

Rapture Day is going to be a day of great speakers giving presentations with a focus on religion and how it relates to various doomsday claims. The event will be held at the Wichita State University CAC theater on 21 May 2011. This is the date that Harold Camping, a Christian broadcaster, has claimed will be the day of the Rapture. We are putting this event on for two primary reasons. The first and most important is to have some fun and let other secular thinkers in the area know that they are definitely not alone. The second is to help educate people on the nature and history of these types of claims and help expose how this fatalistic thinking is a danger to our modern society.

Democratic Left roundup

 Some good reads from blogs and websites on the democratic left.

Marc Cooper blasts  the "worst of both worlds" in Cuba.

Right Wing Watch notes "Historians Agree: David Barton Is No Historian"

Eric Lee on "Israeli ‘apartheid’ and the ghost of Bayard Rustin"

Christopher Hitchens reviews the letters of Rosa Luxemburg

More evidence that those who think Hitch has become a rightist are, to put it gently, wrong.

Josh Harkinson on Ron Paul's 15 Most Extreme Positions

Guy Molyneux cautions that Obama should resists calls from  conservative Democrats to move to the center.  Instead, he should redefine the debate.

Having signaled to voters that he got the message they sent him in 2010, Obama must pivot and broaden the discussion. Democratic moderates urge the president to seize the political center, which is somewhat akin to telling a baseball team to "score more runs" -- elections are won in the center by definition. But conceding ground and moving to the right is not the only, or best, strategy for capturing the political center. Democrats can also seek to define the GOP as further from the center than the public currently understands. Fortunately, today that simply requires telling the truth. A strong contrast message, with well-targeted attacks on Republican priorities, will allow Democrats to seize the center -- and over time, to redefine where the "center" is.

Taking the fight to Republicans can also bolster the public's perception of the president as a strong leader. In February of 2009, 80 percent of Americans thought Barack Obama was a "strong and decisive leader," but that has fallen to only 53 percent today. Obama has said he aspires to be a transformational president in the mode of Ronald Reagan, but Democrats came to fear Reagan, while no one fears Obama (with the possible exception of liberal Democrats). Obama needs to shatter the Republican conceit that the GOP's agenda is actually popular. That will only happen if he draws a sharp line and proves that more Americans stand on his side of the line.

 

Freedom Riders documentary

Another great PBS  documentary, The Freedom Riders, will premiere on Monday May 16. (Most places 9/8C.) 

Watch the full episode. See more American Experience.

FREEDOM RIDERS is the powerful harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.

From award-winning filmmaker Stanley Nelson (Wounded Knee, Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, The Murder of Emmett Till)

FREEDOM RIDERS features testimony from a fascinating cast of central characters: the Riders themselves, state and federal government officials, and journalists who witnessed the Rides firsthand. The two-hour documentary is based on Raymond Arsenault's book Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice.

I've seen shortened versions of the documentary twice, as part of the Tallgrass Film Festival and at the Kansas African American Museum, and recommend it enthusiastically.

I also like the book that the Freedom Riders documentary is based on: Raymond Arsenault's Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice As part of the documentary promotion, Arsenault has prepared a significantly abridged version of the book (roughly 320 vs 700 pages). PBS is offering a special deal on a DVD and the abridged book.

I should also add that there is an excellent website for Freedom Riders.

The Storm That Swept Mexico

PBS airs an important two-hour documentary, The Storm That Swept Mexico,  about the Mexico revolution tonight (May 15). Check your local listings or the website for details.

Watch the full episode. See more The Storm That Swept Mexico.

 

Here is how the producers describe the documentary

The Storm That Swept Mexico tells the gripping story of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the first major political and social revolution of the 20th century. The revolution not only changed the course of Mexican history, transforming economic and political power within the nation, but also profoundly impacted the relationships between Mexico, the U.S. and the rest of the world.

Leading the initial wave of 20th century worldwide political and social upheavals, the Mexican revolution was the first major revolution to be filmed. The Storm That Swept Mexico incorporates photographs and motion pictures from the earliest days of cinema. Much of this material has never been seen before by North American and international audiences.

The first hour, “The Tiger is Unleashed,” charts the struggle by Francisco I. Madero and his followers to end the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, and traces the emergence of two remarkable rebel leaders: Emiliano Zapata and General Francisco “Pancho” Villa. But the Revolution was not merely an internal affair; it was an international event, profoundly influenced by U.S. and European foreign policy.

The second hour, “The Legacy,” examines international influence on the Mexican revolution, investigating the extraordinary plan, hatched in Germany, to seek Mexico’s support against the United States, if it was to enter World War I. In addition to the warfare, there was a cultural revolution as well. Beginning in the 1920s, and continuing through and beyond the 1940s, Mexican artists burst onto the international cultural stage, and Mexico City became the nexus of an indigenous art movement. Against this backdrop, the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas in many ways fulfills the promises of the revolution. But after Cárdenas’s extraordinary administration, politics regress, and in 1968, shortly before Mexico City is to host the Olympics, a new type of revolution explodes.

Interviewing distinguished scholars from the disciplines of history, economics, literature, political science, women’s studies, and art history, The Storm That Swept Mexico explores the beliefs and conditions that led to the revolution, influenced the course of the conflict, and determined its consequences over the century that followed.

Blues on a Saturday: Robert Johnson "Sweet Home Chicago"

Last weeks artist Big Joe Turner and and this week's, Robert Johnson ,were born weeks apart in May 1911, so even though there is no film of Johnson performing, I thought it fitting to feature the "King of the Delta Blues." This video couples his classic "Sweet Home Chicago" with street scenes of Chicago in the 1930s.

Allmusic puts Johnson in perspective

If the blues has a truly mythic figure, one whose story hangs over the music the way a Charlie Parker does over jazz or a Hank Williams does over country, it's Robert Johnson, certainly the most celebrated figure in the history of the blues. Of course, his legend is immensely fortified by the fact that Johnson also left behind a small legacy of recordings that are considered the emotional apex of the music itself. These recordings have not only entered the realm of blues standards ("Love in Vain," "Crossroads," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Stop Breaking Down"), but were adapted by rock & roll artists as diverse as the Rolling Stones, Steve Miller, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton.

If you want to learn more about Johnson, I highly recommend Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. Wald has revolutionized our understanding of Johnson and the blues.

Elsewhere on Democratic Left Blogs

Russell Fox longs for a certain kind of left

The left I want is a complicated one: it's a left which wants to put empowerment first, and that means helping people--as I must always remind myself as well--grasp the limits, the particularity, within which such empowerment is possible. That's a hard left to maintain, and who knows? Perhaps it's an imaginary one. But allowing oneself to think that the conservatism inherent to a seriously liberalism, that the communitarianism that ought to ground any left, is some sort of unfortunate nostalgia, isn't correct, or at least not necessarily. In fact, if the left is to be rightly understood--or at least so I believe--it is anything but.

Norm Geras examines four reactions to the killing of Osama Ben Ladin: l)justified and legal; 2) unlawful but justified; 3) lawful but not justified; and 4) neither lawful nor justified.

Marc Cooper takes on a leading advocate of the neither lawful nor justified position, and says it is time for Noam Chomsky to retire.

Adam Holland on why Ron Paul's racist newsletters still matter.

Mark Engler warns that  the internet can be  a tool for repression.

Eric Lee writes defends Bob Dylan against Margaret Dowd's criticism.

Blues on a Saturday: Big Joe Turner "Roll 'em Pete"

May 18 is the centennial of the birth of Kansas City blues shouter Big Joe Turner. Turner played a key role in the creation of boogie woogie and rock 'n' roll. Turner has quite justly been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

One of his early --and enduring--hits was "Roll 'em Pete" co-written with his piano playing partner Pete Johnson.

I've always liked this verse, the opposite of the sacchrine.

Well, you're so beautiful, you've got to die someday
Well, you're so beautiful, you've got to die someday
All I want's a little loving, just before you pass away

Gloria: 4 different songs, 4 rock eras

Russell Fox devoted his Friday 70-80s music video post to Laura Branigan's "Gloria". It took me only a few seconds to realize that this wasn't a cover of Van Morrison and Them's "Gloria." which isn't all that surprising since it was a big, big hit-probably outselling the Them 45 and the Shadows of Knight cover.*   I realized that I had heard the song before. Another generation would think of "Gloria" as yet another song by U2. And, what do you know there was a doo wop song "Gloria" a hit for the Cadillacs in 1954, though this "Gloria" was a 1948 hit for the Mills Brothers and recorded by several artists a few years earlier.


I wonder if there is another song title that has been given to so many different songs.

Vote for your favorite in the comments. (Mine would be for Van Morrison/Them.)




There's also a video of Van Morrison performing the song with blues great John Lee Hooker.







*The Shadows had slightly altered the song's lyrics, replacing Morrison's original "she comes to my room, then she made me feel alright" with "she called out my name, that made me feel alright" after influential Chicago station WLS had banned Them's original version. That gave the band a hit record