In The Beginning There Was……Jug- Songstress Maria Muldaur Goes Back Home

In Honor Of The 50^th Anniversary Of The Formation Of The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, A Band That Maria Was A Central Part Of Back In The Day, Celebrated At Club Passim (Club 47 back then), Cambridge On August 29 & 30 2013

CD Review

Maria Muldaur And Her Garden Of Joy, Maria Muldaur and the Garden of Joy Jug Band, Stony Plain, 2009

The last time that I featured the femme fatale blues torch singer reincarnate Maria Muldaur (at least that is the way that she, successfully, projected herself in her recent blues revival projects) was in a review of her 2007 CD tribute to the great singers of the 1920s and 1930s, Bessie Smith, Memphis Minnie, Sippy Wallace and the like. I might add that I raved on and on about the value of her project, the worthiness of the singers honored and her own place in the blues pantheon. Of course, for those in the know about the roots of the folk revival of the 1960s at least, the name Maria Muldaur is forever associated with another closely-related branch of roots music-the jug band. Maria was the very fetching female vocalist for the old time revivalist Jim Kweskin Jug Band (and an earlier effort in her home town, New York City, by John Sebastian of The Lovin’ Spoonful fame, The Even Dozen Jug Band).

Well, hold the presses please, because the red hot blues mama has come back home in her latest project, the CD under review, “Maria Muldaur And Her Garden Of Joy”. And if Maria was kind of thrown in the background somewhat in those days by the strong presence of Jim Kweskin and that of her ex-husband Geoff Muldaur she is front and center on this effort. One of the virtues of jug music back in the day was that it was basically zany, funny, send-off kind of music and full of, usually, high-spirited if coded sexual innuendos. This, on occasion, was a welcome break from the heavy political message songs that were de rigueur or the traditional ballads filled with tales of thwarted love, duplicity and murder and mayhem. In this CD Maria brings back the energy and just plain wistfulness of that type of music. And she does it on her terms.

As fate would have it, or rather by a conscious act, I happened to see Maria and her very fine new jug band made up of younger, well, Jim Kweskin jug band-types (along with guest performer, now blues/ragtime guitar virtuoso John Sebastian) in Cambridge (one of her old stomping rounds and an important secondary center of the folk revival in the 1960s). And, like the last time I saw her a couple of years ago when she was that femme fatale blues singer, she did not disappoint. The woman carried the show with the energy of the old days (that you can get an idea of by going on "YouTube" in a click from 1966).

The line between jug music and flat out torch blues sometimes is not that wide and the switch over thus is not that dramatic. At least in Maria's hands. Witness her version of Mississippi John Hurt’s “Richland Woman” which she did jug-style at the concert (she did a more lowdown bluesy version on her “Richland Woman” album). The example on this album that comes to mind is the little known but, currently, very relevant 1929 song “Bank Failure Blues”. Also the classic jug tune “Garden Of Joy” and another one “Sweet Lovin’ Ol’ Soul” (also done blues-style on a previous album of the same name). This is good stuff but begs the question. Jim Kweskin is still performing. Geoff Muldaur is still performing. Geoff and Jim occasionally perform together. Wouldn’t it be a treat if...?

Blues Lyrics - Mississippi John Hurt Richland's Woman Blues

All rights to lyrics included on these pages belong to the artists and authors of the works. All lyrics, photographs, soundclips and other material on this website may only be used for private study, scholarship or research. by Mississippi John Hurt recording of 19 from

Gimme red lipstick and a bright purple rouge
A shingle bob haircut and a shot of good boo'
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' your horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Come along young man, everything settin' right
My husbands goin' away till next Saturday night
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
Now, I'm raring to go, got red shoes on my feet
My mind is sittin' right for a Tin Lizzie seat
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
The red rooster said, "Cockle-doodle-do-do"
The Richard's' woman said, "Any dude will do"
Hurry down, sweet daddy, come blowin' you horn
If you come too late, sweet mama will be gone
With rosy red garters, pink hose on my feet
Turkey red bloomer, with a rumble seat

*Eveybody's Going Back Home To Their Roots- Mississippi Sheiks Move On Over- Geoff Muldaur And The Texas Sheiks Are In Town

In Honor Of The 50^th Anniversary Of The Formation Of The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, A Band That Maria Was A Central Part Of Back In The Day, Celebrated At Club Passim (Club 47 back then), Cambridge On August 29 & 30 2013

CD Review

The Texas Sheiks, Geoff Muldaur and company, Tradition and Moderne, 2009

Recently in reviewing Maria Mulduar's latest CD, "Garden Of Joy", in which she goes back to the old Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band tradition I noted that the tide seemed to be drifting that way. And ex-husband and jug band member Geoff must have heard the siren call because this little treat that goes back to old time, old time music hits the spot. This thing is like a part recreation of the famous "Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music", including some from that series, like "Poor Boy".

Boy and girls, hear this thing if you want to know what music was like when you were left to your own devices and didn't have "MTV" or "YouTube" to make your selections from. The only question left, and one that I posed in reviewing Maria's album. Jim Kweskin is still performing. Geoff Muldaur is still performing. Maria Muldaur is still performing. Everybody's got a ton of great musicians to back them up. So I will let you guess what my next question was.

Below are some remarks that I made in reviewing some of Geoff Muldaur's earlier works.
CD Review

Over the past year or so I have been asking a recurring question concerning the wherewithal of various male folk performers from the 1960’s who are still performing today in the “folk concert” world of small coffeehouses, Universalist-Unitarian church basements and the like. I have mentioned names like Jesse Winchester, Chris Smither and Tom Paxton, among others. I have not, previously mentioned the performer under review, Geoff Muldaur, who is probably best known for his work in the 1960’s, not as solo artist, but as part of the famous Jim Kweskin Jug Band and later the equally famous Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Thus, in a way, I had no reason to place him in the pantheon of the solo performers from that period. But things sure are different now.

The following is a review of Geoff Muldaur's "Password" CD, Hightone Records, 2000, by way of an introduction:

“Since my youth I have had an ear for roots music, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. The origin of that interest first centered on the blues, then early rock and roll and later, with the folk revival of the early 1960's, folk music. I have often wondered about the source of this interest. I am, and have always been a city boy, and an Eastern city boy at that. Nevertheless, over time I have come to appreciate many more forms of roots music than in my youth. The subject of the following review is an example.

Geoff Muldaur took almost two decades off from the hurly-burly of traveling the old folk circuit. When I saw him at a coffeehouse upon his return to the scene I asked him what the folk revival of the 1960's was all about. He said it was about being able to play three chords to get the girls to hang around you. Fair enough. I KNOW I took my dates at the time to coffeehouses for somewhat the same reason. I guess it always comes down to that. Kudos to Freud.

Seriously though, Geoff Muldaur was and is about lots more than three chords. He has developed a style that reflects the maturation of his voice and of his interests. And beside that he has always, even in the crazy days of the 1960's, taken a serious attitude to the way that he interprets a song. And furthermore has a very deep knowledge of all sorts of music. Every time I think I know most of the artists in the blues genre he, at a concert, will throw out one more name that I have 'missed'. Example, "At The Christmas Ball" is an old Bessie Smith novelty tune. Geoff gives it his own twist. He likewise does that on "Drop Down Mama" the old Sleepy John Estes version of the tune (I think) and on fellow old time folkie Eric Von Schmidt's "Light Rain". Enough said. Listen.”

The above review was written sometime in 2006 several years after he had begun touring again and I had begun to attend his concerts again (Yes, in those small coffeehouses and church basements mentioned above). Recently I picked up at one of his concerts this following historically interesting CD, “Geoff Muldaur, Rare And Unissued-Collectors’ Items 1963-2008 (self-produced for a Japanese CD market of jug music aficionados)”. In this CD one gets all the sense of musical history, guitar virtuosity and wry humor that was mentioned in the above quoted review. There are many cuts from the Kweskin days like "Borneo" and Ukulele Lady", some later Butterfield work (especially a long cover of the blues classic “Boogie Chillin’”) and some dud stuff from the early 1980’s. A few others defy categorization like "Sweet Sue" and "Guabi Guabi". All in all well was worth the purchase.

*In The Beginning Was...The Jug- The Music of Jim Kweskin And The Jug Band- An Encore

CD Review

“Garden Of Joy” (1967), “America”(1971), Jim Kweskin and various musicians, two CD set, Warner Brothers, 2006

There is something of a joke on the folk rock circuit that Bob Dylan is on a never-ending tour. (Probably fairly close to the truth these days.) Apparently, in my reviews of the folk figures of the 1960s, I too am on never-ending tour. So be it. Today I go back to the now familiar question of why various male folk artists didn’t rise to Dylan’s iconic status. Except here on the subject of this review, Jim Kweskin of Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band fame (that also included two performers, ex-marrieds Geoff and Maria Muldaur, that I have spilled plenty of ink on in this space as well), I will not belabor the point for he simply made a choice to stay with his day job.

Except now some forty plus years later one Jim Kweskin has been making something of a revival in the Boston area,sometimes along with the afore-mentioned Geoff Muldaur. I recently attended a performance by the pair at a locally famous folk club (aka coffee house, for the nostalgically-inclined). Do these guys still have it? Oh, yes. Jim is still finger-picking with the best of them. Geoff (off a recent CD done with the Texas Sheiks) still is in good voice. Plus, a big plus, they are working the dust off the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music in their sets. Wow! Thus, I felt duty-bound to pick up the two CD set under review.

The set includes one old Jug Band album, including the classic Clifford Hayes jug number, “Garden Of Joy”, a nice monologue by the late Jug Band member (and jug aficionado) Fritz Richmond, and Maria on Lead Belly’s “When I Was A Cowboy.” This, my friends, is history. The second CD is a little later after the original Jug Band members went their separate ways. Here we have covers of Mance Lipscomb’s classic “Sugar Babe”, The Memphis Jug Band’s “Stealin’”, and Merle Travis’ “Dark As A Dungeon” to feast on. The question still remains open though, one that I have posed before-Jim, Geoff and Maria are still performing, and performing well in their respective venues. Therefore…well, you know the question, right?

Tell Pres. Obama: PVT Manning deserves clemency! Tell President Obama: Private Manning deserves clemency! Please sign the White House petition now (Having trouble? See below!) Announcing the Private Manning Support Network! August 26, 2013, By attorney David Coombs and the Private Manning Support Network (formerly the Bradley Manning Support Network). Clarification on PVT Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning's request regarding her gender and name. With your continued support, our network will continue its advocacy efforts in support our heroic WikiLeaks whistle-blower. Note: The image above is PVT Manning's current favorite photo of herself. Read more... Last week American democracy took a tragic step back, when a military court was allowed to sentence heroic Army whistleblower PVT Manning to 35 years in prison. As we wrote in our joint statement with Amnesty International, “The prosecution of Bradley Manning starkly contrasts to the US government’s repeated failure to deliver justice for serious human rights violations committed during counter-terror operations of the past decade.” As PVT Manning files a formal request for pardon, now is the time for supporters to call on President Obama to improve his record by granting PVT Manning's request. Only a massive outpouring of public support will convince the Administration that PVT Manning deserves clemency. Please follow the directions below to sign our petition now, and tell President Obama: “To reduce this blight on the US human rights record… grant Manning clemency for time served, protect whistleblowers, and provide accountability for crimes like those Manning exposed.” This is the first of many actions our Support Network will organize to promote clemency for PVT Manning. It is also the most important action you can take right now. So please sign and share widely! Instructions to sign the White House Petition: Visit : http://wh.gov/lgG58 If you have a whitehouse.gov account, you can go ahead and click on “Sign in” then click on “Sign Petition.” If you don’t have a whithouse.gov account, you will need to create one first. This only takes a couple of minutes. Why do you need to create an account to sign the petition? Verifying your email address ensures that your email account is valid and prevents having duplicate signatures by the same person. To create an account to sign our petition, follow these steps: Go to https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/user/register and enter your account information. You will receive an email within a few minutes asking you to click on a link to verify your email address. Click on the link in the email (or cut and paste it into your web browser). Once you have verified your email address, you’re logged into the system. (Note, some people receive an ‘error’ message when they click the link, even though the verification process actually worked). Click this link to return to the petition and sign: http://wh.gov/lgG58 Help us continue to cover 100% of PVT Manning's legal fees! Donate today.

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend unsubscribe from this list| view email in browser

The Last Chance to Stop the NDAA
Sep 2nd 2013, 08:33, by editor@truthdig.com The Last Chance to Stop the NDAAhttp://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_last_chance_to_stop_the_ndaa_20130902/
Posted on Sep 2, 2013By Chris Hedges

I and my fellow plaintiffs have begun the third and final round of our battle to get the courts to strike down a section of the National Defense Authorization Act(NDAA) that permits the military to seize U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in military facilities. Carl Mayer and Bruce Afran, the lawyers who with me in January 2012 brought a lawsuit against President Barack Obama (Hedges v. Obama), are about to file papers asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear our appeal of a 2013 ruling on the act’s Section 1021.

“First the terrorism-industrial complex assured Americans that they were only spying on foreigners, not U.S. citizens,” Mayer said to me recently. “Then they assured us that they were only spying on phone calls, not electronic communications. Then they assured us that they were not spying on American journalists. And now both [major political] parties and the Obama administration have assured us that they will not detain journalists, citizens and activists. Well, they detained journalist Chris Hedges without a lawyer, they detained journalist Laura Poitraswithout due process and if allowed to stand this law will permit the military to target activists, journalists and citizens in an unprecedented assault on freedom in America.”

Last year we won round one: U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York declared Section 1021 unconstitutional. The Obama administration immediately appealed her ruling and asked a higher court to put the law back into effect until Obama’s petition was heard. The appellate court agreed. The law went back on the books. I suspect it went back on the books because the administration is already using it, most likely holding U.S. citizens who are dual nationals in black sites in Afghanistan and the Middle East. If Judge Forrest’s ruling were allowed to stand, the administration, if it is indeed holding U.S. citizens in military detention centers, would be in contempt of court.

In July 2013 the appellate court, in round two, overturned Forrest’s ruling. All we have left is the Supreme Court, which may not take the case. If the Supreme Court does not take our case, the law will remain in place unless Congress strikes it down, something that federal legislators have so far refused to consider. The three branches of government may want to retain the ability to use the military to maintain control if widespread civil unrest should occur in the United States. I suspect the corporate state knows that amid the mounting effects of climate change and economic decline the military may be all that is left between the elite and an enraged population. And I suspect the corporate masters do not trust the police to protect them.

If Section 1021 stands it will mean that more than 150 years of case law in which the Supreme Court repeatedly held the military has no jurisdiction over civilians will be abolished. It will mean citizens who are charged by the government with “substantially supporting” al-Qaida, the Taliban or the nebulous category of “associated forces” will be lawfully subject to extraordinary rendition. It will mean citizens seized by the military will languish in military jails indefinitely, or in the language of Section 1021 until “the end of hostilities”—in an age of permanent war, for the rest of their lives. It will mean, in short, obliteration of our last remaining legal protections, especially now that we have lost the right to privacy, and the ascent of a crude, militarized state that serves the leviathan of corporate totalitarianism. It will mean, as Forrest pointed out in her 112-page opinion, that whole categories of Americans—and here you can assume dissidents and activists—will be subject to seizure by the military and indefinite and secret detention.

“As Justice [Robert] Jackson said in his dissent in the Korematsu case, involving the indiscriminate detention of Japanese-American citizens during World War II, once an unconstitutional military power is sanctioned by the courts it ‘lies about like a loaded weapon, ready for the hand of any authority,’ ” Mayer said.

In our lawsuit the appellate court never directly addressed the issue of using the military to hold citizens and strip them of due process—something that is clearly unconstitutional. Instead, the court held that I and the other plaintiffs did not have standing to bring the case. It said that because none of us had been imminently threatened with arrest we had no credible fear. This was an odd argument. When I was a New York Times reporter I was, as stated in court, arrested and held by the U.S. military in violation of my First Amendment rights as I was covering conflicts in the Middle East. In addition I was briefly detained, without explanation, in the Newark, N.J., airport by Homeland Security as I returned from Italy, the court was told.

During the five years I covered the war in El Salvador the Reagan administration regularly denounced reporters who exposed atrocities by the Salvadoran military as “fifth columnists”for the rebel movement, a charge that made us in the eyes of Reagan officials at the very least accomplices to terrorism. This, too, was raised in court, as was the fact that during my seven years as a reporter in the Middle East I met regularly with individuals and groups, including al-Qaida, that were considered terrorists by the U.S. government. There were times in my 20-year career as a foreign correspondent, especially when I reported events or opinions that challenged the official narrative, that the U.S. government made little distinction between me and groups that were antagonistic to the United States. In those days there was no law that could be used to seize and detain me. Now there is.

Journalist Alexa O’Brien, who joined the lawsuit as a plaintiff along with Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg and others, was incorrectly linked by the security and surveillance state to terrorist groups in the Middle East. O’Brien, who doggedly covered the trial of Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, co-founded US Day of Rage, an organization dedicated to electoral reform. When WikiLeaks in February 2012 released 5 million emails from Stratfor, a private security firm that does work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency, it was revealed that the company was attempting to tie O’Brien and her organization to Islamic radicals and websites as well as jihadist ideology. Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security and a former deputy director of the counterterrorism division of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, and Thomas Kopecky, director of operations at Investigative Research Consultants Inc. and Fortis Protective Services LLC, had an email exchange over this issue. Kopecky wrote: “I was looking into that US Day of Rage movement and specifically asked to connect it to any Saudi or other fundamentalist Islamic movements. Thus far, I have only hear[d] rumors but not gotten any substantial connection. Do you guys know much about this other than its US Domestic fiscal ideals?” Burton replied: “No, we’re not aware of any concrete connections between fundamentalist Islamist movements and the Day of Rage, or the October 2011 movementat this point.” But that soon changed. Stratfor, through others working in conjunction with the FBI, falsely linked US Day of Rage to al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Homeland Security later placed her group on a terrorism watch list.

This will be the standard tactic. Laws passed in the so-called war on terror will be used to turn all dissidents and activists into terrorism suspects, subjecting them to draconian forms of state repression and control. The same tactic was used during the anti-communist hysteria of the 20th century to destroy union leaders, writers, civil rights activists, intellectuals, artists, teachers, politicians and organizations that challenged entrenched corporate power.
“After 12 years of an undeclared permanent war against an undefined enemy and multiple revelations about massive unconstitutional spying by the government, we certainly hope that the Supreme Court will strike down a law that replaces our civilian system of justice with a military one,” said Mayer. “Unless this happens there will be little left of judicial review during wartime.”

Afran, a law professor at Rutgers University, asked last week during a conversation with me: “Does the Army have to be knocking on your door saying, ‘Come with me,’ before there will be the ability to challenge such a law?” He said the appellate court’s ruling “means you have to be incarcerated before you can challenge the law under which you’re incarcerated.”

“There’s nothing that’s built into this NDAA [the National Defense Authorization Act] that even gives a detained person the right to get to an attorney,” Afran said. “In fact, the whole notion is that it’s secret. It’s outside of any judicial process. You’re not even subject to a military trial. You can be moved to other jurisdictions under the law. It’s the antithesis of due process.”

The judges on the appellate court admitted that we as plaintiffs had raised “difficult questions.”
“This is a way of acknowledging they’re troubled by the apparent lack of constitutionality of the law,” Afran said during our conversation. “But they were not willing to face the question head on. So, in effect, they said, ‘Well, when someone’s threatened with arrest, then we have a concrete injury.’ But no one’s going to be threatened with arrest. They’ll simply be arrested. They’re not going to send a letter saying, ‘By the way, on Thursday next we’re going to place you in military custody.’ … The whole point of the law is that they’re going to come in and take you [in secrecy].”

The appellate court stated that the law does not apply to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In reading the law this way the justices were saying, in effect, that I and the other plaintiffs had nothing to fear. Afran called this a “circular argument.” The court, in essence, said that because it did not construe the law as applying to U.S. citizens and lawful residents we could not bring the case to court.

“They seem to accept a lot of what we said, namely that the whole history of the jurisprudence, of the court decisions, is that American civilians cannot be placed in military custody,” Afran said. “And they accept the idea that Section E of the statute says, ‘Nothing herein shall be construed to affect existing authorities as to the detention of U.S. citizens.’ So on the basis of that they say this is not meant to add any new powers to the government and since the government doesn’t have power over civilians in this way the law can’t be extended to civilians. The problem is by saying there’s no standing, they deprive the district court of entering an order, saying and declaring that the statue does not apply to U.S. citizens or permanent residents, lawful residents in the U.S.”

The court, in essence, accepted the principle that citizens cannot be taken into military custody but refused to issue a direct order saying so that would be enforceable.
“We have the absurdity of the court of appeals, one of the highest courts in the country, saying this law cannot touch citizens and lawful residents, but depriving the trial court of the ability to enter an order blocking it from being used in that way,” Afran said. “The lack of an order enables future [military] detentions. A person may have to languish for months, maybe years, before getting a court hearing. The [appellate] court correctly stated what the law is, but it deprived the trial court of the ability to enter an order stopping this [new] law from being used.”

“A law is not constitutional just because habeas corpus says you have a right to go to court to try to get out,” Afran said in speaking about the legal mechanism by which someone might challenge custody. “The citizen is entitled not to be detained in the first place absent probable cause. Habeas corpus is a remedy of last resort. It’s not there to justify the use of unconstitutional detention laws.”

The Supreme Court takes between 80 and 100 cases a year from about 8,000 requests. There is no guarantee our appeal will ever be heard. If we fail, if this law stands, if in the years ahead the military starts to randomly seize and disappear people, if dissidents and activists become subject to indefinite and secret detention in military gulags, we will at least be able to look back on this moment and know we fought back.

--

View this message in your browser.

While protesting in Times Square Saturday, we listened amid the noise to Obama’s speech of mostly stick, and a little carrot. Some of the protesters took his “largesse” at offering Congress the chance to endorse his plan to attack Syria (the carrot) as a concession by Obama. They say we should seize the moment and “let Congress know” how many people are against this strike and potential regional war. Congress knows, as they read the public opinion polls too, and there could be an actual political fight in Congress over Obama’s plan, leading to a political damage for his agenda. But, as John Kerry, the former anti-war veteran turned Secretary of ruling class warmongering said, “We don’t contemplate that the Congress is going to vote no,” Kerry said, but he stressed the president had the right to take action “no matter what Congress does.” That was the stick of Obama’s message, backed up by his assertion that as Commander in Chief, his military is ready today, tomorrow, or in the near future to strike. Read more... With Speaker Boehner backing the attack, and more right-wing Republicans, and "liberal" Democrats like Keith Ellison supporting Obama's proposed war crime, we call on everyone to join in mass protest. Many protests are set for around the U.S. in the next week. September 7: Washington, DC September 4San Francisco Seattle September 5Chicago September 6Chicago Tucson September 7Rochester Seattle NYC September 8Washington, DC Los Angeles September 12Washington, DC Also, check iacenter.org, answercoalition.org and interoccupy.net for other lists of emergency protests to stop an attack on Syria. Flier for distribution: Determined Political Protest Needed NOW (In Spanish) World Can’t Wait is posting key articles on the U.S. intervention against Syria. Also see: Dennis Loo: O-bomb-a Syria Larry Everest Lies to Justify an Immoral War Share this message: Join the World Can't Wait Discussion Call Thursday September 5th 10pm EDT/7 pm PDT We will be talking about Syria, Obama, Congress, and the protests against a likely U.S. strike. REGISTER for Dial-In Info. OBOMBA: In 2009 this image was really controversial. We've been sold out for awhile. The message referred to targeted killing in Pakistan. Now we could add Yemen, Somalia, Libya... and Syria? Two Prisoners Finally Released from Guantanamo Two Algerian men, who have waited six years after being "cleared" to leave, are finally home in Algeria. Reprieve reported last week: “Guantanamo detainee and Reprieve client Nabil Hadjarab, who was cleared for release in 2007, was last night released and transferred to Algeria along with a second man. “Reprieve hopes that this positive step marks the beginning of further releases from the prison. 164 men remain in Guantanamo, over half of whom have been cleared for release. According to official figures, 36 men are still on hunger strike and 32 are being force-fed, a practice denounced by the World Medical Association as amounting to torture.” Read more... GTMO Clock: 100 Days Since Obama Promised to Release Prisoners from Guantanamo, Just Two Men Freed. Andy Worthington reports. Hemisphere Project: It's not only the NSA. The New York Times reported Monday: “For at least six years, law enforcement officials working on a counternarcotics program have had routine access, using subpoenas, to an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls — parallel to but covering a far longer time than the National Security Agency’s hotly disputed collection of phone call logs. ” Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait

If you were forwarded this message and would like to subscribe directly, sign up here. World Can't Wait | (866) 973-4463 | 305 West Broadway #185 NY, NY 10013 Make a donation online | Make a tax-deductible donation online Send checks or money orders, payable to "World Can't Wait": World Can't Wait 305 W. Broadway #185 New York, NY 10013 To make a tax-deductible donation of $100 or more in support of World Can't Wait's educational activities, please make checks out to "World Can't Wait/Alliance for Global Justice," a 501(3)(c) organization. You are receiving this email because alfredjohnson34@comcast.net is subscribed to this email announcement list. If you would like to unsubscribe click here.

U.S. Hands Off Syria! – No War!

All Out Saturday, Sept. 7, Boston!

Rally at Park St. Station (Tremont & Park Sts.), 1:00 PM

Dear Antiwar and Social Justice Activists,

A U.S. attack on Syria is imminent as the Obama administration presses Congress to approve a war that the American people and the whole world rejects. They say it is a limited punitive “surgical strike” against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons. Make no mistake, any military intervention will be a war against the Syrian people.

To date, neither the U.S. or anyone else has presented credible proof of the use of Sarin gas by the Syrian government, the current pretext for yet another war. We certainly know the U.S. government is capable of manufacturing “evidence”, as they did with WMD’s in Iraq, so we should remain skeptical.

More importantly, the U.S. has no political, legal or moral standing to use force against any nation. The warmaking would-be cop of the world has an unbroken record of military interventions that have murdered millions to advance the interests of the ONE PERCENT. In fact, the U.S. has used and/or supported the use of biological and chemical warfare all over the world, and uses and manufactures these and many other weapons, equally horrific.

With yet another war imminent, all antiwar and social justice activists must assume a mobilization footing and challenge the warmakers in the administration and in Congress on a daily basis. Protests and campaigns to demand that Congress votes against war are planned across the country and indeed, around the world.

All out to oppose any U.S. attack on Syria! We stand for peace!

(Organizations supporting the rally on Saturday – list in formation.)

United for Justice with Peace, Committee for Peace & Human Rights, United National Antiwar Coalition, International Action Center, Mass. Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee, American Iranian Friendship Committee, Mass. Liberty Movement (Liberty Clubhouse), ANSWER Coalition, Mass. Global Action/encuentro 5, Green-Rainbow Party, Women’s Int’l League for Peace & Freedom-Boston, Community Church of Boston, Mass. Pirate Party, #MassOps, Revolution is Evolution, Jewish Voice for Peace, Syrian American Forum, ComeHomeAmerica-Boston Chapter, Veterans For Peace-Smedley Butler Brigade, South Asia Center, South Asians for Social Justice, Arlington United for Justice with Peace, Chelsea Uniting Against the War

To add your organization and designate a speaker for the rally, contact Marilyn Levin, marilynl@alumni.neu.edu.

To unsubscribe from this list please send an email to BostonUNAC@gmail.com

Lawyer David Coombs files application for Presidential Pardon. Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Support PVT Manning's application for presidential pardon! Click here to read the application for a presidential pardon we filed, and to sign the White House petition in support of it. By the Pvt. Manning Support Network. September 5, 2013. Two days ago, David Coombs, chief attorney for WikiLeaks whistle-blower PVT Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, filed an application for a presidential pardon on Manning’s behalf. That application has been made public and can be viewed at pardon.bradleymanning.org, along with a link to a White House petition in which tens of thousands of supporters have signed to support PVT Manning's request. In a letter addressed to President Obama, PVT Manning states of the decision to release hundreds of thousands of U.S. military and diplomatic documents to the public: “The decisions that I made in 2010 were made out of a concern for my country and the world that we live in.” Manning was sentenced last month to 35 years in military confinement. After being acquitted of 'Aiding the Enemy,' she was convicted of espionage, computer fraud, and federal theft for releasing documents to transparency organization WikiLeaks. Manning’s letter to Obama continues, We consciously elected to devalue human life both in Iraq and Afghanistan. When we engaged those that we perceived were the enemy, we sometimes killed innocent civilians. Whenever we killed innocent civilians, instead of accepting responsibility for our conduct, we elected to hide behind the veil of national security and classified information in order to avoid any public accountability. In a cover letter supporting the application, Coombs writes, If we get 100k signatures on the White House petition to pardon PVT Manning by Sep 20, President Obama promises to respond. Private Manning is a military whistleblower. He disclosed documents that were vital for a healthy public debate about our conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, our detention policies at Guantanamo, and out diplomatic activities around the world. The sentence given to him by the military judge grossly exaggerates the seriousness of his conduct... It will undoubtedly have a chilling effect on future whistleblowers and damage the public's perception of military justice. He quotes Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, who said, [A] legal system that doesn't distinguish between leaks to the press in the public interest and treason against the nation will not only produce unjust results, but will deprive the public of critical information that is necessary for democratic accountability. Amnesty International also submitted a letter in support of Manning’s freedom, noting that some of the documents Manning released to WikiLeaks “pointed to potential human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law.” Amnesty concludes, Manning should be shown clemency in recognition of his motives for acting as he did, the treatment he endured in his early pre-trial detention, and the due process shortcomings during his trial. Public figures as wide-ranging as Cornel West, Lady Gaga, the NYT Editorial Board and former congressman Ron Paul condemned the severity of the 35-year sentence given to Manning on August 21. In response to a question from an AP reporter later that day, White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated that President Obama would consider a request for a pardon from Pvt. Manning if filed. President Obama has already granted 39 pardons, and a strong showing of public support can give whistleblowing hero PVT Manning a real chance at freedom. Visit the Pardon Pvt. Manning site for more information. Amnesty International and the Pvt. Manning Support Network have launched a White House petition calling for Bradley Manning’s sentence to be commuted to time served. We must accumulate 100,000 signatures in the next month. Please share this petition widely! Sign the White House petition. Help us continue to cover 100% of Bradley's legal fees! Donate today.

follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend

***Out In The Be-bop 1950s Night- A Good Old Boy Tries To Keep It Together- For Prescott Breslin Wherever He Is

A YouTube film clip of The Carter Family performing Will The Circle Be Unbroken to set the mood for this piece.
Keep On The Sunny Side: June Carter Cash-Her Life In Song, June Carter Cash and others, Two CD Set, Sony Records, 1999
Scene: Brought to mind by the song Will The Circle Be Unbroken performed by June Carter Cash on the compilation, Keep On The Sunny Side: June Carter Cash-Her Life In Song.

“Jesus, it’s been three months since the mill closed on the first day of our lord, January 1954, as the huge black and red sign in front of the dead-ass silent mill keeps screaming at us (and also to not trespass under penalty of arrest, christ,) and I still haven’t been able to get steady work, steady work anywhere, what with every other guy looking for work too, and I don’t even have a high school diploma to do anything but some logging work up North when they need extra crews,” Prescott Breslin half-muttered to Jack Amber, a fellow out-of-worker sitting on the counter-stool next to his from the same MacAdams Mill that had been in Olde Saco since, well, since forever. This conversation and ones like it in previous weeks between the two, and by many previous parties on those self-same stools, took place, of course, at Millie’s Diner right across the street from the closed, dead-ass mill the place where every guy (and an occasion wife, or girlfriend waiting to pick up her guy) who worked there went for his coffee and, and whatever else got him through another mill week.

Just then Prescott (no Pres, or PB, or any such thing, not if you don’t want an argument on one of his few vanities) fell silent, a silence that had been recurring more frequently lately as he thought of the reality of dead-end Maine prospects and rekindled a thought that came creeping through his brain when Jack MacAdams, the owner’s son, first told him the plant was shutting down and moving south to North Carolina not far, not far at all, from his eastern Kentucky roots. Then it was just a second of self-doubt but now the thoughts started ringing incessantly in his brain.

Why the hell had he fallen for, and married, a Northern mill-town girl (the sweet, reliable Delores, nee LeBlanc, met at the Starlight Ballroom over in Old Orchard Beach when he had been Marine Corps short-time stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Base down in New Hampshire just before heading back to the Pacific Japan death battles), stayed up North after the war when he knew the mills were only a shade bit better that the mines that he had worked in his youth, faced every kind of insult for being southern from the insular Mainiacs (they actually call themselves that with pride, the hicks, and it wasn’t really because he was from the south although that made him an easy target but because he was not born in Maine and could never be a Mainiac even if he lived there one hundred years), and had had three growing, incredibly fast growing, boys with Delores. Then he was able to shrug it off but not now.

The only thing that could break the cursed thoughts was some old home music that Millie, good mother Millie, the diner’s owner (and a third generation Millie and Mainiac) made sure the jukebox man inserted for “her” country boys while they had their coffee and. He reached, suddenly, into his pocket, found a stray nickel, put it in the counter-side jukebox, and playedWill The Circle Be Unbroken, a song that his late, long-gone mother sang to him on her knee when he was just a tow-headed young boy. That got him to thinking about home, the Harlan hell home of worked-out mines, of labor struggles that were just this side of fighting the Japanese in their intensity and possibilities of getting killed, or worst grievously injured and a burden on some woe-begotten family, of barren land eroded by the deforested hills and hollows that looked, in places, like the face of the moon on a bad night. And of not enough to eat when eight kids, a mostly absence father and a fading, fading mother needed vast quantities of food that were not on table and turnips and watery broth had to do, of not enough heat when cruel winter ran down the ravines and struck at your very bones, and of not enough dough, never enough dough to have anything but hand-me-down, and then again hand-me-downs clothes, sometimes sister girls stuff just to keep from being bare-assed.

Then he thought about the Saturday night barn dances where he cut quite a figure with the girls when he was in his teens and had gleefully graduated to only having to wear hand-me-downs. He was particularly lively (and amorous) after swilling (there is no other way to put it) some of Uncle Eddie’s just-brewed “white lightening.” And he heard, just like now on the jukebox, the long, lonesome fiddle playing behind some fresh-faced country girl in her best dress swaying through Will The Circle Be Unbroken that closed most Saturday barn dances. As Millie asked him for the third time, “More coffee” he came out of his trance. After saying no to Millie, he said no to himself with that same kind of December resolve. A peep-break Saturday night dance didn’t mean squat against that other stuff. And once again he let out his breathe and said to himself one more time- Yes, times are tough, times will still be tough, jesus, but Delores, the three boys, and he would eke it out somehow. There was no going back, no way.

Just then through the door Jack Amber yelled, “Hey, Prescott, the Great Northern Lumber Company just called and they want to know if you want two months work clearing some land up North for them. I’m going, that’s for sure.” And, hell, he was going too.

***Out in the Be-Bop Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

A YouTube film clip of Bo Diddley performing his rock classic Bo Diddley.

CD Review

Bo Diddley: Two On One, Bo Diddley, Chess Records, 1986

Well, there is no need to pussy foot around on this one. The question before the house is who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And here in this Chess Records double CD, Bo Diddley unabashedly stakes his claim that was featured in a song by the same name, except, except it starts out with the answer. Yes, Bo Diddley put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll. And off his performance here as part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the tidal wave of rock that swept through the post-World War II teenage population in 1955 he has some “street cred” for that proposition.

Certainly there is no question that black music, in the early 1950s at least, previously confined to mainly black audiences down on the southern farms and small segregated towns and in the northern urban ghettos along with a ragtag coterie of “hip” whites is central to the mix that became classic 1950s rock ‘n’ roll. That is not to deny the other important thread commonly called rockabilly (although if you had scratched a rockabilly artist and asked him or her for a list of influences black gospel and rhythm and blues would be right at the top of their list, including Elvis’). But here let’s just go with the black influences. No question Ike Turner’s Rocket 88, Joe Turner’s Shake , Rattle and Roll and, I would add, Elmore James’ Look Yonder Wall are nothing but examples of R&B starting to break to a faster, more nuanced rock beat.

Enter one Bo Diddley. No only does he have the old country blues songbook down, and the post- World War II urbanization and electrification of those blues down, but he reaches back to the oldest traditions of black music, back before the American slavery plantations days, back to the Carib influences and even further back to earth mother African shores. In short, that “jungle music,” that “devil’s music” that every white mother and father (and not a few black ones as well), north and south was worried, no, frantically worried, would carry away their kids. Well, it did and we are none the worst for it.

Here is a little story from back in the 1950s days though that places old Bo’s claim in perspective and addresses the impact (and parental horror) that Bo and rock had on teenage (and late pre-teenage) kids, even all white “projects” kids like me and my boys. In years like 1955, ’56, ’57 every self-respecting teenage boy (or almost teenage boy), under the influence of television, tried, one way or another, to imitate Elvis. From dress, to sideburns, to swiveling hips, to sneer. Hell, I even bought a doo-wop comb to wear my hair like his. I should qualify that statement a little and say every self-respecting boy who was aware of girls. And, additionally, aware that if you wanted to get any place with them, any place at all, you had better be something like the second coming of Elvis.

Enter now, one eleven year old William James Bradley, “Billie”, my bosom buddy in old elementary school days. Billie was wild for girls way before I acknowledged their existence, or at least their charms. Billie decided, and rightly so I think, to try a different tack. Instead of forming the end of the line in the Elvis imitation department he decided to imitate Bo Diddley. At this time we are playing the song Bo Diddley and, I think, Who Do You Love? like crazy. Elvis bopped, no question. But Bo’s beat spoke to something more primordial, something connected, unconsciously to our way back ancestry. Even an old clumsy white boy like me could sway to the beat.

Of course that last sentence is nothing but a now time explanation for what drove us to the music. Then we didn’t know the roots of rock, or probably care, except our parents didn’t like it, and were sometimes willing to put the stop to our listening. Praise be for transistor radios (younger readers look that up on Wikipedia) to get around their madness.

But see, Billie also, at that time, did not know what Bo looked like. Nor did I. So his idea of imitating Bo was to set himself up as a sort of Buddy Holly look alike, complete with glasses and that single curled hair strand.

Billie, naturally, like I say, was nothing but a top-dog dancer, and wired into girl-dom like crazy. And they were starting to like him too. One night he showed up at a local church catholic, chaste, virginal priest-chaperoned dance with this faux Buddy Holly look. Some older guy meaning maybe sixteen or seventeen, wise to the rock scene well beyond our experiences, asked Billy what he was trying to do. Billie said, innocently, that he was something like the seventh son of the seventh son of Bo Diddley. This older guy laughed, laughed a big laugh and drew everyone’s attention to himself and Billie. Then he yelled out, yelled out for all the girls to hear “Billie boy here wants to be Bo Diddley, he wants to be nothing but a jungle bunny music N----r boy”. All goes quiet. Billie runs out, and I run after, out the back door. I couldn’t find him that night.

See, Billie and I were clueless about Bo’s race. We just thought it was all rock (read: white music) then and didn’t know much about the black part of it, or the south part, or the segregated part either. We did know though what the n----r part meant in our all-white housing project and here was the kicker. Next day Billie strutted into school looking like the seventh son of the seventh son of Elvis. But as he got to the end of that line I could see, and can see very clearly even now, that the steam has gone out of him. So when somebody asks you who put the rock in rock ‘n’ roll know that old Bo’s claim was right on track, and he had to clear some very high racial and social hurdles to make that claim. Just ask Billie.