Huckabee's racist ties

I thought it was a little strange when Mike Huckabee picked up his electric bass and played "Sweet Home Alabama" the night of the Iowa primary. So it wasn't all that surprising to learn that Huck has been pandering to South Carolina racists by defending the confederate flag.

SHA is Lynyrd Skynyrd's answer song to Neil Young's "Southern Man" and has been named of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs by the National Review

The lyrics say

Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow

[They also extoll George Wallace and minimize Watergate]

Pretty much echoes Huck's stance on the Confederate flag.

What I didn't know was that the Huckster has a long relationship with the neo-confederate movement. Max Blumenthal discusses the connection on the Nation website

well before he was a nationally known political star, Huckabee nurtured a relationship with America's largest white supremacist group, the Council of Conservative Citizens. The extent of Huckabee's interaction with the racist group is unclear, but this much is known: he accepted an invitation to speak at the group's annual conference in 1993 and ultimately delivered a videotaped address that was "extremely well received by the audience."

The person behind the independent ads promoting the Huckster's flag stance is a neo-confederate. According to Right Wing Watch

a belated Civil War battle is being fought in this year’s Republican primary in South Carolina. But if advocates of flying the Confederate battle flag over the state capitol hope to convince people it’s unrelated to racism, they could hardly have a worse spokesman than Ron Wilson.

Wilson is the man behind the eloquently-named Americans for the Preservation of American Culture, which is running radio ads lambasting John McCain and Mitt Romney for their stances on the flag issue while praising Mike Huckabee.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says

Wilson is a former member of the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens, both hate groups. His education expertise is limited to the business he ran out of his home selling textbooks to home-schoolers. One of these, Barbarians Inside the Gates, theorized that Jews are working towards world domination — and was specially touted by Wilson's Web site, which insisted, "You MUST READ THIS BOOK."

In his role heading the 32,000-member SCV, Wilson was part of a takeover attempt by extremists, and led efforts to purge more than 300 members for publicly condemning racism in the SCV. Since Wilson left that post in August 2004, the SCV has started to implode as the raging internal controversy continues.

Note: The intention of Lynyrd Synyrd in making Sweet Home Alabama may not have been racist as this webpage argues, but it can be a good indicator.

Presidential Matching

A friend told me he leaned towards one of the candidates, but wasn't really sure where s/he stood on the issues. So I thought I'd compile a list of on-line quizzes that claim to match your views with the candidates.

My experience is similar to that of the Seattle Times asked four readers to try several of the quizzes and concluded that the "results were all over the map."

Here are some of the quizzes I've found.

USA Today/ABC News Candidate Match Game

Comment: Very technically sophisticated. Gives a bar chart or matrix comparison, not a percentage comparison. Allows user to rate importance of issues. Doesn't seem to have caught Huckabee's shift to a strong anti-immigrant position.

No question about worker's rights or poverty.

Vote Match Quiz Not so high tech, everything on one page.

No workers right question. If you answer question "teach moral values in school" that means you favor official prayer in schools and believe "Judeo-Christian values are American valuea." Says that Ron Paul supports increased federal funding for health care.

Select Smart Presidential Candidate Selector.

This is not done by a big media company, there are annoying ads. Does have a labor question. Allow user to rate issues as more or less important. Last updated August 2007.

Didn't match well with my views.

Minnesota Public Radio

On education and other issues, it gives far too many options. Rates Ron Paul as being opposed to privatization of social security, but then explains "CANDIDATE'S POSITION: According to the Cato Institute, 'Paul contends that Congress must stop spending in order to best fix the problem of insolvency. Paul opposes personal accounts because he believes Social Security is unconstitutional. Instead, he believes that individuals should have total control over how to invest their money and is in favor of cutting payroll taxes to allow this to happen."'

Electoral Compass USA

From a Dutch company. High tech, rates user along economic and social axes.

It does show that the Democratic and Republican contenders are in two distinct clusters.

But there's something deeply flawed about this test. It shows John Edwards to the right of Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson on the economic axis.It doesn't show Ron Paul--who wants to abolish social security, the Federal Reserve, anti-discrimination legislation--as furthest to the right on economics.

It doesn't ask a question about the right to form a union. It doesn't ask a question about so-called free trade.

Votematch USA

From another Dutch company. Has a question about teacher's unions. Has a question about trade, but it is framed in terms of protecting markets. Let's you rate issues as being of special importance. Gives a one-dimensional graph of how you compare to candidates. Shows the results for everyone who has taken the poll.

Latino Studies Conference at KU

This looks like an extremely interesting conference at Kansas University, February 8 -9. I don't think I'll be able to attend, but here are few sessions I would want to catch if I could. That should give you since of the conference.

The Friday morning plenary looks outstanding.

Juan Flores, New York University: "There Is No Americano Dream." Flores is author of From Bomba to Hip Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity and Divided Borders: Essays on Puerto Rican Identity

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, University of Southern California: "Migration Nation: Fronteras and Fences." Hondagneu-Sotelo is author of Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence and Gendered Transitions: Mexican Experiences of Immigration

Emma Pérez, University of Colorado at Boulder: "Nuestra America: A Decolonial Landscape." Perez is author of Gulf Dreams and The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History

Roberto Suro, Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California: " The Humpty Dumpty Moment." Suro is author of Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America and Watching America’s Door: The Immigration Backlash and the New Policy Debate

Here's one panel I would like to hear.

Panel #3: Latinos/as in the Midwest (Kansas and Missouri)
3–4:20 p.m.Session IV —Friday, Feb. 8 Malott Room

Moderator: Lourdes Gouveia, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Donald D. Stull, University of Kansas, and Michael J. Broadway, Northern Michigan University: "Meatpacking and Mexicans on the High Plains: From Minority to Majority in Garden City, Kansas"

Lisa Y. Flores, Corinne B. Valdivia, Stephen C. Jeanetta, and Domingo Martinez, University of Missouri-Columbia: "Acculturation and Identity Development Among Latino Newcomers in Three Rural Communities in the Midwest"

Stephen C. Jeanetta, Corinne B. Valdivia, Lisa Y. Flores, and Domingo Martinez, University of Missouri-Columbia: "The Role of Social Capital in Latino Immigrants’ Efforts to Integrate in Rural Communities in the Midwest"

Katherine Acosta, University of Kansas: "New Immigrant Gateways: Latinos in the Heartland "

And another

Panel #1: No Mas Muertes and the New Sanctuary Movement: Humanitarian Immigrants Rights Groups

10:30–11:50 a.m.	Session VI — Saturday, Feb. 9

Moderator: Marta Caminero-Santangelo, University of Kansas

Angela Ferguson, Missouri/Kansas American Immigration Lawyers Association: "Current Immigration Spectrum — The Left, the Right and the Middle"

Jane Juffer, Pennsylvania State University: "The Limits of Tolerance: Latino Immigration and Religion in the U.S."

James Diego Frazier, University of Kansas: "¿Agua? ¿Comida? ¿Atención médica?: Diary of a No Más Muertes Volunteer"

Mónica Russel y Rodríguez, Northwestern University: "Moving and Staying: the Gendered Choreography in the Immigration Movement in Chicago"

Support Campaign To Stop Violence Against Iraqi Women

The British Trade Union Congress and others are supporting a new campaign to stop violence against Iraqi women. The campaign launched on January 3rd by the Iraqi Women's League (IWL) Co-ordinating Committee Abroad against violence against women in Iraq.

Their press release is below. You can sign the online petition at www.ahewar.org/camp/i.asp?id=111

Iraqi women are being killed and subjected to all forms of violence every day. What they have suffered in the city of Basra is perhaps something unprecedented in Iraqi society. Women have been killed and their bodies thrown in streets, especially since July 2007. According to Basra police chief Abdul Jalil Khalaf, the bodies of 50 women were found in different areas of the city during recent months. This may not be the real figure, as families of victims are often reluctant or too frightened to report these horrific crimes.

This phenomenon in particular, and violence against women in Iraq in general, has been a cause of great concern for us in the Iraqi Women's League. We have therefore launched this campaign to mobilize public opinion, exert pressure and intensify efforts to stop these inhuman and barbaric acts. It is also intended to allow the voice of Iraqi women, rejecting all forms of exploitation and abuse of dignity, to be heard by the world.

Your solidarity with Iraqi women will strengthen their resolve and their struggle to change this tragic reality. It will certainly contribute to speeding up the process of uncovering the perpetrators of heinous crimes and violence against women in Iraq, and help to put an end to this barbarism.

We appeal to all the people of free conscience in the world to uphold lofty humanitarian values and support our campaign.

The petition can be signed online in Arabic and English

The invisible candidate

My friend, Eric Lee, has an interesting column on the invisible candidate (John Edwards). You might also want to take a look at his post on which candidate should the unions back.

Implicit Presidential Preference

Okay, so you haven't been able to decide who to back for President. You could closely study the positions of the candidates, or you could take the Presidential Implicit Association Test.

The IAT is, according to Wikipedia, " an experimental method within social psychology designed to measure the strength of automatic association between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory. The IAT requires the rapid categorization of various stimulus objects, such that easier pairings (and faster responses) are interpreted as being more strongly associated in memory than more difficult pairings (slower responses)."

Here's my Presidential IAT. On the intellectual and contribution level, I'm a strong Edwards supporter and no great fan of Hillary Clinton.

I've taken some of the IATs which deal with implicit prejudice, their first subject and felt more satisfied with the results.

Best of year-end lists (in progress)

When the calendar turns, it is time not only for making resolutions, but also for the best of the the year lists. Here are some that I've come across.

Hatewatch's 1st Annual Smackdown Awards Southern Poverty Law Center's list of the very worst in hate in 2007.

Americans United presents some resolutions for the religious right.

Midwest Skeptic has a list of secular-oriented charities.

Judeosphere has the top ten Moonbats of 2007

Middle East Web's "prophet and loss statement for 2007" --what they got right and wrong.

Scott McLemmee, perhaps today's best intellectual, picked three best books of 2007 for Newsday's

Top ten under-reported humanitarian stories from Doctors without Frontiers.

Progressive economists for Edwards

Economists pick Edwards because he will fight for sustained growth, full employment and an end to poverty

Chapel Hill, North Carolina – Today, the John Edwards for President campaign announced that more than 30 leading U.S. economists have endorsed John Edwards for president. "Economists for John Edwards" includes such notable scholars as James K. Galbraith from the University of Texas at Austin; Deirdre McCloskey from the University of Illinois at Chicago; Thomas Palley, founder of the Economics for Democratic & Open Societies Project; Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategies Institute; Harley Shaiken from the University of California, Berkeley; and Edward Wolff from New York University.

"I'm proud to endorse John Edwards and his campaign to build One America.," said James Galbraith, the Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin. "Edwards understands that in order for America to prosper, our economy needs to reward work as well as wealth – and he's proposed detailed and comprehensive policies to address the growing income gap, the health care crisis, job loss and the other critical social issues facing our nation."

"I am honored to have earned the support of this distinguished group of economists," said Senator Edwards. "Today, families across the country are working harder than ever, but struggling to make ends meet. To help middle-class families get ahead, we need a president who will fight for universal health care, smarter trade policies and a new energy economy."

In their endorsement of Edwards, the "Economists for Edwards" signed on to the following statement:

"As professional economists, we support John Edwards for President of the United States in 2008 because we believe that John Edwards has best demonstrated the capacity and the policies to be the next president of the United States.

"We support John Edwards because we believe his campaign is the single best expression of progressive political values in American politics today.

"We support John Edwards because we believe that as president he will best wage the hard fight that lies ahead for the principles and programs we endorse.

"We support John Edwards because as economists, we seek effective public policy aimed at sustained growth, full employment, an end to poverty, and progress toward solving the major social and environmental problems associated with health care, education, trade, taxation and climate change.

"John Edwards' approach to these issues has been uniquely serious, honest, and far-reaching. We urge all Americans – and particularly the Democratic voters of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina - to join us in supporting John Edwards for president."

A complete list of the members of "Economists for Edwards" is included below.
Economists for Edwards

Note that institutional affiliations are for identification purposes only.

Gar Alperovitz
Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy
University of Maryland-College Park

Lourdes Beneria
Professor of City and Regional Planning
Cornell University

Michael A. Bernstein
Provost
Tulane University

Martha Campbell
Associate Professor, Economics
SUNY Potsdam

Manuel Castells
Chair Professor of Communication Technology and Society
University of Southern California, and
Distinguished Visiting Professor of Science and Technology
MIT

Jane D'Arista
Former staff economist
U.S. House of Representatives

William Darity, Jr.
Arts & Sciences Professor of Public Policy Studies
Professor of African and Africa-American Studies and Economics
Duke University

Paul Davidson
Editor, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics
Bernard Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis
The New School University

Gerald Epstein
Professor of Economics
University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Susan F. Feiner
Director of Women's Studies
Professor of Economics
University of Southern Maine

James K. Galbraith
Lloyd M. Bentsen, Jr. Chair in Government/Business Relations
LBJ School of Public Affairs
The University of Texas at Austin, and
Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute

Richard Garrett
Associate Professor of Economics
Division of Accounting and Business Management
Marymount Manhattan College

Mary King
Professor of Economics
Portland State University

Jan Kregel
Visiting Distinguished Research Professor of Economics
The University of Missouri - Kansas City

Peter Hans Matthews
Department of Economics
Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont 05753

Deirdre McCloskey
Professor of Economics
University of Illinois at Chicago

Richard McIntyre
Honors Program Director and Professor of Economics
University of Rhode Island.

Thomas Michl
Professor of Economics
Colgate University

David Miller
Assistant Professor of Economics
University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

John Miller
Professor of Economics
Wheaton College

Tracy Mott
Professor of Economics
University of Colorado at Boulder

Thomas Palley
Founder
Economics for Democratic & Open Societies Project

Dimitri Papadimitriou
President
Levy Economics Institute
Bard College

Chip Poirot
Associate Professor of Economics
Department of Social Sciences
Shawnee State University

Robert Pollin
Professor of Economics and Director,
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI)
University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Robert Prasch
Associate Professor of Economics
Middlebury College

Clyde Prestowitz
President
Economic Strategies Institute

Bruce Roberts
Professor of Economics
University of Southern Maine

J. Barkley Rosser
Professor of Economics
James Madison University

Harley Shaiken
Class of 1930 Professor
Graduate School of Education and Department of Geography
University of California, Berkeley

Nina Shapiro
Professor and Chair
Department of Economics and Finance,
Saint Peter's College

Edward Wolff
Professor of Economics
New York University

Martin Wolfson
Professor of Economics and Policy Studies
University of Notre Dame

L. Randall Wray
Research Director
Center for Full Employment and Price Stability
Department of Economics
University of Missouri-Kansas City, and
Senior Scholar, Levy Economics Institute

Serious reading on Islam and the democratic left

The magazine/website Reset: Dialogues on Civilization has a most interesting exchange of views between Nadia Urbinati and Michael Walzer on what approach the democratic left should take toward Islam. Four letter essays by Urbinati urging dialogue and three by Walzer saying there are limits to dialogue. Read them here. Warning these are not the easiest reading, but well worthwhile.

Here's a paragraph by Walzer that I like (from this essay.)

So, where does this leave us in the 21st century? What should Western leftists be doing with regard to Islam today? We should be strong critics of jihadist radicalism—and since we are, most of us, infidels and secularists, we are bound to be disconnected critics, focused on issues like life and liberty, which have universal resonance. We should befriend Muslim critics of religious zealotry, both inside Muslim countries and in exile, and try to understand the reasons for their critique and the experience out of which it comes. We should be happy to talk to Islamic intellectuals and academics—though we are not bound to “dialogue” with people whose public position is that we should be killed (or who make apologies for the zealots who hold that position). We should be tolerant of Islam in exactly the same way that we are tolerant of Christianity and Judaism—even as we maintain a general critique of, or skepticism about, religious belief. We should be connected critics of Western intellectuals who make excuses for religious zealotry and crusading fervor (Paul Berman provides an excellent model of how to engage in this critique). And we should defend leftist principles of democracy and equality on every possible occasion. Of course, we should also try to understand the material conditions of democratic politics, as Nadia urges, but we should not neglect the importance of polemical engagements with the defenders of oligarchy and clericalism. Democracy in Europe depended on engagements of that sort, and so does democracy in the world today. I don’t see anything intolerant or Manichean in this political position.

I have two reservations about the dialogue. First, it is a dialogue about a dialogue between Islam and the left. Urbinati, in particular, seems more concerned with the attitude that the left should have towards Islam, rather than actually beginning a dialogue. An example of one side of a real dialogue between liberal, Western values is Andrew F. March's, "Reading Tariq Ramadan: Political Liberalism, Islam, and 'Overlapping Consensus'".

A second reservation is that both Walzer and Urbinati draw a line between jihadi terrorists and the rest of Islam without confronting the pervasive and deeply-rooted opposition in Islamic theology and society to elementary rights of free citizens. The International Humanist and Ethical Union recounts the latest attacks on human rights by the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN.

Iowa reports

A few interesting reports from or about Iowa

Marc Cooper on the Edwards surge.

has toughened his tone, making him sound more like a Latin American populist than a genteel Southern Democrat. His speeches have become emotional incitements to "rise up" against the "small band of profiteers" who have clamped down an "iron grip" on American life. He has qualified any notion of politically investing in the Clinton campaign as an agent of change as "insanity" and has said that, unlike Obama, he would "never, ever" sit down to negotiate with powerful special interests like the health care lobby. "They will never give up power voluntarily," Edwards told a cheering crowd Saturday. "The only way they will ever give up power is when it is taken away from them." After listening to just such an Edwards speech this weekend, one veteran campaign observer quipped: "No Democrat has run a campaign like this since Fred Harris." In 1976 the former Oklahoma senator unsuccessfully challenged Jimmy Carter for the nomination from the left by running on an unabashedly populist platform

Thomas Edsall on will Edwards win?

As the race comes to a close on January 3, it has become increasingly apparent that Edwards and Obama are competing for the same constituency of anti-Clinton Democrats. Most importantly, Edwards has escalated his aggressive anti-corporate attacks, which are producing small, but potentially crucial, defections from the Obama camp of men who favor a bellicose response to their weakening economic position and to their lack of traction in the job market.

John Nichols in The Nation on Edwards having the right message at the right time.

Shiraz Socialist, a UK leftist, argues that US (as well as British) socialists should back Edwards.

Ron Paul is a racist, reactionary

Jeff Weintraub has a good take-down of Paul's view that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a bad idea American civil war was a "senseless war" here.

Orcinus has the low-down on Paul's links to white racists.

Best of 2007 II-Books

The best books I read in 2007, most were published this year or last.

1. Michael Honey, Going Down Jericho Road. a history of the 1968 Memphis sanitation worker's strike and Martin Luther King's Jr. radical politics. A must for understanding US.

2. Sam Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered.

2. Jim Green, Death in the Haymarket.

4. Darren Cushman Wood, Blue Collar Jesus.

5. Joe Bagenant, Deer Hunting with Jesus

6. Taner Edis, An Illusion of Harmony

7. Robert Irwin, Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents

8. Walter Dean Micahels, The Trouble with Diversity

9. Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival

10. Big Red Songbook. collects the lyrics of every song from the IWW's Little Red Songbooks through the mid-1970s, plus some interesting essays.

Best of 2007 I--CDs

The best CDs I purchased in 2007, not the best released in 2007, not the best I listened to.*

1. Vince Gill, These Days. a marvelous 4-cd set, each devoted to a specific style.
2. Joe Glazer, My Darling Party Line, a brilliant collection of anti-Stalinist parodies recorded in the early 1950s, but timeless and available from Smithsonian Folkways. Also recommended Glazer's Songs of the IWW.
   
3. Joshua Redman, Back East, a tribute of sorts to the classic Sonny Rollins Way Back West.
   
4. Betty Lavette, The Scene of the Crime
5. Joss Stone, The Soul Sessions, I'm still not sure how to evaluate the whole neo-soul trend--Madeline Peryoux sounds too much like Billie Holiday, but I really liked Stone.
6. Dwight Yoakum, Blame the Vain
7. Dave Douglass, Meaning and Mystery
8. Merle Haggard, Blue Grass Sessions
9. Dexter Gordon Getting Around DG was one of the first tenor sax players I got into, right after Rollins and Coltrane. very under-rated player.
   
10. Various artists, Song of America, a 3 CD tour of American history in song. One could question some of the selections (I could have done without "Little Boxes") but it is enthralling to hear contemporary artists do these historic songs.
    

BOX SETS: I bought and listened to far more Rolling Stones than Byrds back in high schools, but the new Byrds There is a Season set opened my ears far than the older London Singles box set. The Stones set had a better, because larger, booklet.

LOCAL MUSICIAN CDs: I enjoyed the alternative rock of Snapback's Purgatory and the celtic music of Rowan's Tolls Through Time.

I transferred a bunch of LPs and tapes to CDs, but didn't keep a running list, which I probably should.

Bloody Dawn: Lawrence Massacre Debuts

Put one of these on your 2008 resolutions.

Bloody Dawn is a documentary about Quantrill's raid on Lawrence, Kansas. In this event, over 150 unarmed civilian males were killed in cold blood.

The film produced by Lone Chimney films uses the "direct cinema" tradition of documentary films, but will also dedicate a portion of the film to docudrama, where the raid will be played out in cinematic detail.

The folks behind this project did the excellent 2005 documentary Touched by Fire: Bleeding Kansas about the Kansas oriignsrelude to the civil war.

Premiere of Bloody Dawn: The Lawrence Massacre
January 11, 2008 The Orpheum - Wichita, KS

*Premiere of Bloody Dawn: The Lawrence Massacre
January 12, 2008 Liberty Hall - Lawrence, KS


*Premiere of Bloody Dawn: The Lawrence Massacre
January 18, 2008 The Brown Grand Theater - Concordia, KS


*Premiere of Bloody Dawn: The Lawrence Massacre
January 19, 2008 The Columbia Theatre - Wamego, KS

Sign a letter supporting Iranian Students

I've added my name to the Campaign for Peace and Democracy letter supporting Iranian students imprisoned for speaking up.

Here's the text of the letter

RELEASE IRANIAN STUDENTS FROM PRISON NOW!


OPEN LETTER TO:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President
Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejeie, Minister of Intelligence
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, Head of the Judiciary
Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Republic
Gholamali Haddad Adel, Speaker of Parliament

Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran

We are writing to strongly condemn the arrests in early December of students in Tehran involved in courageous protests against repression; a key target of their protest was the arrest in May of three student leaders: Ehsan Mansouri, Ahmad Ghassaban and Majid Tavakkoli.

We call for the immediate release of the imprisoned students, as well as all others in Iran who have been unjustly imprisoned. A partial list of the students we understand to be still in prison is: Nader Ahsani, Roozbehan Amiri, Said Aqam, Anousheh Azadfar, Keyvan Amiri Eliyasi, Rosa 'Essa'ie, Mehdi Geraylou, Mohsen Ghamin, Ahmad Ghassaban, Mehdi Grabloo, Yaser Pir Hayati, Younes Mir Hosseini, Ilnaz Jamshidi, Ali Kalani, Ali Khalili, Ehsan Mansouri, Amir Mehrzad, Hamed Mohamadi, Milad Moini, Arash Pakzad, Rouzbeh Safshekan, Ali Salem, Nasim Soltan-Beigi, Majid Tavakkoli, Behruz Karimi Zadeh, and Behrang Zandi.

We wish to state that we are unalterably opposed to a military attack on Iran by the United States or any other nation. An attack would be devastating to the people of Iran. We reject too the hypocrisy of the U.S. government when it protests repression in Iran while turning a blind eye to or actively abetting comparable or worse repression in countries with which it is allied like Saudi Arabia, as well as undermining civil liberties at home and torturing prisoners. But that in no way deters us from protesting in the strongest terms the denial of basic democratic rights to the people of Iran. We protest because we believe in these rights, and also because we see social justice activists in Iran and all countries as our natural allies in building a peaceful, democratic world.

To add your name, go to www.cpdweb.org

I signed the CPD statement on Iraq in 2002 and the CPD statement of antiwar, social justice, and human rights activists protesting repression in Cuba.

Three Musical Restorations

Three important musical restoration projects have come to my attention in the last week or so.

The lattest was Friday's NPR report on Moby Grape

All Things Considered, December 21, 2007 - Mention the name Moby Grape to a roomful of rock critics, and you'll hear nothing but praise for the 1960s San Francisco rock band. But aside from fans and critics, few people today have ever heard of Moby Grape. Why? Bad advice, bad breaks and bad behavior are three short reasons. Now that a label is trying to right these wrongs by reissuing the group's first five records, old problems still stand in the way.
The name Moby Grape comes from an absurdist punch line: What's big, purple and swims in the ocean? But the band that influenced groups ranging from Led Zeppelin to The Pretenders was no joke. Neither was its 1967 debut, according to Rolling Stone senior editor David Fricke.
"It's one of the few rock 'n' roll albums of any era that you can say, 'That is a perfect debut album.

I was a big Moby Grape fan. I once owned most of their LPs, but at some point they vanished from my collection. Did I sell them at a second hand record store, possibly, but more likely I loaned them to someone who forgot to return them. My brothers, however, deny this. The NPR story made me want to hear them again.

Since the reissue of the classic Grape LP's has been sabotaged by the band's ex-manager, I;ll have to choose between the two CD compilations. I'll add one to my collection in 2008.

While doing some holiday shopping Friday night, I decided to buy a CD for myself. I considered Dwight Yoakum's tribute to Buck Owens Dwight Sings Buck, but chose Betty Lavette The Scene of the Crime.

Who is Bettye Lavette, you ask? Short answer: the best soul singer you've never heard of. Longer answer, listen to Terry Gross interview Lavette on NPR's Fresh Aire.

In 1972, Atlantic shelved an LP Lavette recorded at Muscle Shoals. If it had been released, chances are she might have been as well-known as Aretha Franklin. Finally,thirty years later a French company leased the masters for a Euro release. Rhino put it out in the US a little later with a few additions as "Child of the Seventies." That revived her career. For The Scene of the Crime, Lavette returned to Muscle Shoals and recorded with some of the same musicians and members of the Drive By Truckers. Truckers leader Patterson Hood is the son of Muscle Shoals bassist David Hood, who plays on the new Lavette CD.

The third restoration project is the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. I learned about this when I heard Robert Darden, former gospel editor for Billboard, and author of People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music, interviewed on NPR's "Fresh Air" this week.

The goal of the project is to preserve as much as possible of the thousands of black gospel 78s, 45s, and LPs recorded between 1945 and 1970. These were mostly done by small labels which have disappeared. Hence, the importance of the project. The records are being gathered not only from collectors, but from flea markets, estate sales, and so forth. They are also interested in publicity photos, posters, and the like.

Information on how you can loan or donate materials is here. I hope that KMUW's Gospel Reminiscences, The Community Voice, and the black churches will get the word out about this valuable project.

Sunflower activists acquitted

I commented (here, here, and here) on the travesty of leaders of Sunflower Community Action being prosecuted for leaving a few signs at the home of Wichita City Manager George Kolb in a protest about the city's failure over years to clean up a lot in Wichita.

This week, a jury acquitted them of the charges.

After the group protested at his house, Kolb asked the city to charge Perry Fisher and Sunflower leaders J.J. Selmon and Louis Goseland with trespassing and illegal dumping, accusing the group of more than a dozen of leaving protest signs scattered across his lawn on Dec. 9, 2006.

After testimony on Monday and closing arguments Tuesday morning, the Sedgwick County jury of three men and three women found them not guilty.

"We can all sleep tonight, finally," Perry Fisher said after the verdict. "I am happy, happy, happy.

Meanwhile, Kolb resigned in a mutual agreement with the City Council, which gave him an extremely generous severance package. Eagle columnist Randy Schofield had some germane comments

Council members cited "philosophical differences."

Philosophical differences?

What's that supposed to mean? Did they argue about Kant's categorical imperative? Bicker about the symbolism of Plato's cave?

Schofield rightly points to problems with Wichita's city manager form of government. It seems that the city manager view themselves as being the real boss of the city. The mayor and council members like corporate board of directors are to do what the manager wants. And the citizens are just an awkward encumbrance. When Kolb resigned he wished the "organization" well in the future. The ORGANIZATION? As if the city of Wichita were a corporation or a non-profit.

Ike Turner

From all accounts, Ike Turner was a sob in his private life, but he was one of the great figures in rock and rhythm and blues. He passed away on December 12.

His 1951 recording of "Rocket 88" has a very strong claim to be the first rock record. (There are least 50 other candidates, but I agree with those who think this song peformed by Jackie Berenson and his Delta Cats--actually Ike's Kings of Rhythm band from St. Louis has the best claim.)

Strangely, the first NPR obit, didn't even mention Rocket 88. It also didn't mention "River Deep, Mountain High" the legendary 1965 Ike and Tina Turner single. This tune is #33 in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest rock songs. This omission is understandable, since the song was produced by Phil Spector on the condition that Ike stay out of the studio.

Here's a very nice video "Huck" put together in a visual tribute to this great rock song.




I discovered Ike and Tina about the time they were discovered by the rock world. I bought and wore out "Outta Season" and "The Hunter" two late '60s LPs on Blue Thumb, but I suspect that the really great Ike and Tina Turner was a little bit earlier. This clip shows why.

Tiahrt aide resigns to take post as...

...manager of the Holiday Inn Express in Andover. Chuck Knabb, communication director for Rep. Todd Tiahrt is resigning to take that lofty position here.

The Hill quotes one staffer as saying

"I knew times were tough for Republicans on the Hill but looks like things might be sinking to a whole new level if these are the only options we have left...”

Daily Kos observes

the freak out amongst GOP staffers is still hilarious.

And since Republicans will have far fewer seats in Congress and will lose the White House, their job prospects will certainly look bleak. There's only so many staffers that can be picked up by wingnut welfare (the think tanks), so the rest will probably be left taking "real" jobs -- but against their will.

US LEAP: a valuable anti-sweatshop group

US LEAP (U.S. Labor Education in the Americas Project), one of the more effective anti-sweatshop, anti-"free trade" groups celebrated in 20th anniversary recently.

Among the speakers at the event was, Gabriela Lemus, executive director of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (LCLAA).

The AFL-CIO Blog ran a report on her speech which contained a good round-up of the failures of NAFTA. You can find it here.

Here are some highlights

Globalization, immigration and trade policies are intertwined—and you can’t solve one without addressing the other two...

Lemus says the global economy is not working because “there is a huge disconnect between the multinational corporations and consumers, and it is threatening our democracy.”

“Corporations are no longer loyal to one market, and as a result they have no sense of national identity. They are actually becoming so big they are competing with nation states. They don’t respect boundaries, but they expect us to.”

If we really cared about the people of Mexico, we would create jobs there that would allow them to make a decent living. We’re scapegoating immigrants for a problem they didn’t create. We’re attacking the symptom, but not getting at the root causes.

Check out the attractive and informative US LEAP website.