October 23, 2013

Goin down this road feelin bad

October 23, 2013

Joe McCarthy's Band

October 21, 2013

I posted a factual article, from the Dallas Morning News, about the ugly rightwing environment

in 1963 Dallas. The article notes that some people at the time attributed some of that ugliness to the Dallas Morning News itself: back then, it had a far-right editorial line

The ugliness was real and pervasive

A month before the Kennedy assassination, UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson gave a talk in Dallas, and he was repeated spat upon, as well as being smacked in the face by a sign on a post, by a woman who later claimed it was an "accident" -- the photos, however, show her smirking as she hit him and there's TV footage that shows her attempting to flee immediately afterwards

Here's a nice example of the climate there on 22 November 1963: it's a newspaper ad that appeared on the day of Kennedy's visit

And this was circulated in the streets the day before the visit:

It wasn't a handful of rightwing wackos: it was a whole city full of rightwing wackos

In 'Dallas 1963,' A City Of Rage, Seized By 'Civic Hysteria'
by NPR Staff
October 09, 2013 4:32 PM
... People were lured to Dallas, they were marching to Dallas. There was just this rising sense of anger and distrust toward Kennedy, toward perceived socialism, religion. People feared him as a Catholic ... For some reason out in the heartland in the middle of Texas, really powerful people coalesced around this notion that Kennedy was a traitor and in fact was guilty of treason. And these weren't just folks who were idly thinking these thoughts; they were acting on them and forming organizations and movements to essentially overthrow Kennedy ... These were the city fathers from every perspective, the leading preachers in town, the leading businessmen, the leading elected officials — the people who held the microphones, in a sense, on broadcast and in print media ...LBJ and Ladybird Johnson were attacked by a mob of Dallas' leading citizens during a campaign stop in downtown Dallas. In the lobbies of the two finest hotels in Dallas, it was a melee: people swinging signs at them, they were spitting at them, people were pulling hat pins out of their hats and trying to stab people ... Dallas had just simply become, in an almost initially unlikely way, the headquarters of the anti-Kennedy, 'Let's overthrow Kennedy' movement. He was perceived to be a traitor. He was a socialist, he was on bended knee to so many different entities — communism, socialism and even the pope ...

These are historical facts, whether or not you approve, and whether or not you think that mentioning them, or even remembering them, is somehow equivalent to pushing a conspiracy theory. For a long time, they were very good down in Dixieland at looking away



Should we continue to look away? Our problem today is that the Texas rightwing wacko coalitions still exist, still organize around the same issues, and still disrupting the American political body. The rightwing coalitions that brought Dallas to the point of rabid frothiness in 1963 took Bush II to the White House in 2000 and gave Ted Cruz the platform by which he recently took the US to the brink of default. That's not conspiracy theory:that's modern America; and it has a history that we forget at our own peril

I don't know who or what motivated Oswald; and I don't expect that after fifty years we'll ever have any more coherent account of the Kennedy assassination than the Warren Commission provided, despite all its warts. But Dallas in 1963 oozed and bubbled vile hatred. I can't prove that Oswald was motivated by that, so I haven't made that claim. It could be just a coincidence that the town, where LBJ and Lady Bird were attacked and spat upon during the 1960 campaign, and where Adlai Stevenson was attacked and spat upon in October 1963, was the same town where JFK was shot down. What matters to me, fifty years later, is to notice that the same enraged and dishonest rightwing movements that encouraged such activities then has continued to organize and continues to disrupt our democracy today

October 21, 2013

John Birch Society Song (Chad Mitchell Trio 1962)

October 14, 2013

Against th'law

... it's against th'law to gamble
it's against th'law to roam
it's against th'law to organize
or try to build a home
it's against th'law to sing
it's against th'law to dance
it's against th'law to tell you
th'trouble on my hands

everthing in winston-salem is against th'law
I'm a low pay daddy singin th'high price blues

October 14, 2013

First Arkansas Marching Song

... we have done with hoeing cotton
we have done with hoeing corn
we are colored yankee soliders now
as sure as you are born;
when the masters hear us yelling
they'll think it's Gabriel's horn
as we go marching on ...

October 14, 2013

Faded Coat of Blue

My brave lad sleeps in his faded coat of blue
In a lonely grave unknown lies the heart that beat so true
He sank faint and hungry among the famished brave
and they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave ...

October 10, 2013

Hokoyo!

Thomas Tafirenyika Mapfumo ... called his new style of music Chimurenga. In Shona it means "struggle", and was the name of a previous revolutionary movement in the late 19th century. His songs openly called for the violent overthrow of the government, with lyrics like "Mothers, send your sons to war." But since the white government did not understand Shona, they did not realize how radical it was. Eventually they caught on, though. The climax came with a song called "Hokoyo!", which means "Watch out!" The government banned the record from the state-controlled radio and threw him into a prison camp without charges in 1979 ...

October 10, 2013

Chelsea's Guardian Statement (David Coombs)

09 October 2013

... a story was published ... regarding Chelsea Manning's reaction to receiving the 2013 Sean MacBride Peace Award. In this letter, Chelsea stated that she was not informed that she had received the award or that Col. Ann Wright was accepting the award on her behalf ...

I had a phone call with Chelsea ... We discussed the letter that she sent to the Guardian. I reminded her that we spoke about the Sean MacBride Peace Award on three separate occasions: once when she received the award; once prior to Col. Wright accepting the award on her behalf; and once when the award was delivered into my physical possession and I informed her that the medal was made out of disarmed and recycled nuclear weapons systems. After being reminded of these conversations, Chelsea indicated that she did, in fact, remember the award and our discussions about it. She told me that she got confused ...

Chelsea stated in her letter that any "official" statements would come from her through a signed letter or release. I discussed with Chelsea the logistical difficulties of her decision given that it is often necessary to respond to an issue in a timely manner. Chelsea understood my concern and is reconsidering her position on this issue. For now, I will continue to provide updates and statements by Chelsea on the issues that impact her ...

http://www.armycourtmartialdefense.info/2013/10/chelseas-guardian-statement.html

October 9, 2013

Manning: I’m Not a Pacifist

... “I accept that there may be ‘peaceful’ or ‘anti-war’ implications to my actions—but this is purely based on your subjective interpretation of the primary source documents released in 2010-11” ...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2013/10/09/manning-i-m-not-a-pacifist.html

... Manning’s concerns relate to the 2013 Sean MacBride peace award which was granted to the former army private last month by the International Peace Bureau in recognition of her “outstanding work for peace” in “revealing information about US war crimes”. The award was accepted on Manning’s behalf by Ann Wright, a retired US army colonel ... Manning says she had no idea she had been given the award, let alone accepted it. The first she heard about it was when people wrote to her in prison quoting from Wright’s acceptance speech ... Wright suggested that Manning was “overwhelmed” that the Sean MacBride award had recognized “her actions as actions for peace.” Yet the former soldier insists that she has never perceived her actions in transmitting more than 700,000 classified US classified documents to WikiLeaks in 2010-11 as an act for peace ...
Chelsea Manning rejects 'pacifist' label in first statement since sentencing
Read Chelsea Manning's full statement
Exclusive: In first public remarks since guilty verdict, WikiLeaks source expresses intense upset at public presentation of her
Ed Pilkington in New York
theguardian.com, Wednesday 9 October 2013 12.45 EDT