When Old Pete Ruled The House-With Banjo Man Pete Seeger In Mind

When Old Pete Ruled The House-With Banjo Man Pete Seeger In Mind  

CD Review

By Zack James

Pete Seeger: headlines, footnotes and-a collection of topical songs, Pete Seeger, Smithsonian/Folkways, 1999

“You know you are wrong Seth about that first time we heard folk music, Woody Guthrie folk music in Mr. Lawrence’s music class back in seventh grade at old Jeramiah Holton Junior High,” Phil Larkin told one Seth Garth former old time music critic for the now long gone The Eye. Paid music critic a not unimportant point back in the day when alternative newspapers like The Eye survived and flopped on the sweat of unpaid unrequited volunteer labor and today too when the social media are flooded with citizen critics by the barrelful and everybody claims some expertise. Paid or not though Seth had called up Phil to verify what his fellow folk aficionado back in the early 1960s folk minute as he called it Jack Callahan and more recently drinking partner at the Erie Grille had told him when he had called upon Jack to refresh his memory about the first time he/they had heard a Woody Guthrie song. Jack had told Seth about the time that Mr. Lawrence had tried to unsuccessfully ween the class away from their undying devotion to the jail-break rock and roll music that was sweeping up youth nation just then. Seth had accepted what Jack said because he was after all a fellow aficionado, even if Seth had had to shoehorn him into the genre at the beginning and because he knew that Jack would not spread word around that Seth was not totally on top of every bit of arcane folk music lore around. Had had a senior moment if the truth were known.

So it was a reputation thing Seth was worried about even these many years later. He had mentioned Jack and his conversation at the Eire to Phil in passing one afternoon and Phil had said he would think about any possible earlier listening. This was important since Seth had become very cautious about using any information not fully verified ever since early on in his journalistic career he had made the cardinal error of not checking out hearsay and rumor fully when somebody told him that Dave Von Ronk had been the one who had actually written Bob Dylan’s classic folk song Blowin’ In The Wind. He had heard about that even years later at even folk music or journalistic convention he attended as an example of what not to do in the profession. So he was using his double check method on this question since he had been asked to write an unpaid article about the old folk days for the prestigious American Folk Song Review.     

Phil continued the conversation by telling Seth, “Tell that jackass Jack Callahan didn’t he remember that in fourth grade Miss (now Ms.) Winot had played This Land Is Your Land  on that old cranky record player of hers in order to teach us some kind of  civics lesson, taught us that we were part of a great continental experiment. Remember that she had played the Weavers’ cover of that song with Pete Seeger doing that big bass voice thing and some other guy whose name I don’t remember was booming out the baritone and Ronnie Gilbert who just passed away was doing a big time soprano thing.” Jesus, Seth thought to himself Phil was right, right as rain. The two spoke of a few other non-music issues and then they both hung up.            

That was not the end of it for Seth though, not for his article anyway. See Phil’s mentioning of the name Pete Seeger had sent a chill down his spine. Pete Seeger, and only Pete Seeger had been another reason that he had been ever cautious about sources. Back in 1965 he (and Jack and Jack’s then girlfriend now wife, Kathy, and he thought Mary Shea had been his own date) had attended the Newport Folk Festival that summer. That was the summer that Bob Dylan exploded the traditional folk universe by introducing the electric guitar into some of his songs. Did so on the stage the final night of the festival to boos and applause. Seth had been working his very first job as a free-lancer for the East Coast Other, another of the million small publications starting up and falling trying to find a niche in the print universe (free-lancer by the way since the usually cash-stripped publication had nobody else going to the concert so Seth got the assignment).    

Here is where Seth had gotten into trouble though. He had a friend, a sound man friend who worked at the Club 47 in Cambridge who was doing duty at that job for the festival. A couple of days later he had run into the guy in Harvard Square and had asked Seth if he knew what had happened on the stage the night Dylan went electric. The guy swore that Pete Seeger had at some point pulled the plug on Dylan in disgust at taking folk music out into the common trough of rock and roll. Seth could hardly believe his ears-this was the hook that he would run his story on. In the event he put this hearsay into his article. No big deal, right. Just something to spice up the piece. The article was published with that information in it. No problem for a while. About a month later he was called into Larry Jeffers office, the editor of the East Coast Other then and shown a personal letter to the publication from Pete Seeger disclaiming the whole story about pulling the plug on Dylan and was looking for a retraction. Seth immediately went to the Club 47 to check with the sound man. It turned out that the sound man had not actually seen Pete pull the plug but had heard about the story from one of Dylan’s sidemen. The newspaper issued a retraction and Seth had egg all over his face. Needless to say if the Dave Von Ronk thing hadn’t been the thing that would follow Seth for years then the Seeger thing would. They probably were using Seth’s naiveté and wrongheadedness at the Columbia School of Journalism even now to wean the kids off the hearsay problem-and fast.           

The whole story of whether Pete Seeger pulled the plug or not on Dylan became part of the urban legend of the folk scene and still has devotees on both sides of the dispute long after Pete is dead and Dylan in out on another leg of his never-ending tour. But you can bet six two and even that one Seth Garth will be checking sources to see if Miss (now Ms.) Winot was the original proponent of Woody Guthrie’s music back in the fourth grade. Enough said.     

Texas-Tall-Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson And James Dean’s “Giant” (1956)-A Film Review

Texas-Tall-Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson And James Dean’s “Giant” (1956)-A Film Review

DVD Review

By Film Critic Emeritus Sam Lowell 

[Please note that this is the first film review in this space with long time film critic Sam Lowell using the honorific emeritus- in short putting himself out to pasture. He will still provide his reviews but will no longer be the primary, or as in earlier times, the sole film critic here. Good luck with whatever else you decide to do in the future-Sam. Peter Paul Markin]    

Giant, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean in his last major film, and an all-star cast including a young and very proper Dennis Hopper as a doctor son in the days before Easy Rider, produced and directed by George Stevens based on the novel of the same name by Edna Ferber, 1956        

I am on something of a Modern West tear, make that a modern Texas tear, these days since a few of the last film reviews I have penned had dealt with the period of transition from the shoot first and ask questions later values of the Old West to the get rich quick and live fast values of the New West. I have dealt with variations on that theme in the change in ethos without getting chopped up and spit out in the film adaptations of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show and Cormac Mc Carthy’s All The Pretty Horses and now here with the film adaptation of Edna Ferber’s Giant. All I can say is that going through the transition maybe best personified by the character Jett Rink in Giant is was not for the faint –hearted any more than coming West was for those pioneers a few generations before them.                     

There are plenty of themes running through this very long film which was needed to do justice to Ms. Ferber’s novel. (At three and one half hours if I recall correctly when I first watched it as a kid at the Saturday afternoon matinee it was split into two parts with an intermission to stock up on that popcorn which at a certain age was the real treat about going to the matinee. On the DVD it is split into Sides A and B). There is of course the mainstay legacy of old Texas cattle barons represented by the Benedicts who pioneered the migration West represented here by Bick, played by Rock Hudson, joined in marriage by headstrong Leslie, she of the Maryland horsy set smitten by the handsome Bick to head to cattle country, played by Elizabeth Taylor. There are stories running through three generations of this family from the Bick-Leslie marriage to the children who don’t give a damn about the so-called legacies that agitated Bick’s generation to the grandchildren some pretty, some not so pretty. Of course not all Texas legacies were about the gentile folk but also the left- behind, the modern strivers of the coming oil boom and bust represented by Benedict thorn in the side Jett Rink (great name), played by the legendary James Dean in his last film. In the end Bick and his cattle baron boys are lured into the very lucrative oil depletion allowance operations which good old boy Jett pulls together (an interesting visual was all the oil derricks working away while cattle are passing through on their way to forage or the market).           

Other themes include the at times stormy love affair between Bick and Leslie, especially when she enters the rich good old boy networks, the man’s world of Bick and his friends, and speaks for herself without remorse or fear in a bid for social equality. They will last though no question despite the ups and downs and at the end they do. Most importantly there is a serious airing of the tradition separation of the Anglos and Mexicans as in Ferber’s book and the racial animosity if that is the right way to put by the Anglos treating the “wetbacks,” well just like the blacks. There is an interesting turn around by Bick who early on had all the social animosity of old Texas against the Mexicans (remembering the Alamo, etc.) and slowly changes under the combined onslaught Leslie’s more progressive views and their son’s marriage to a pretty Mexican woman. Bick almost became apoplectic when while he and Leslie were dancing around each other she mentioned that Texas after all had been “stolen” from the Mexicans-bright woman. (Bick in one of the final scenes “gets religion” when a redneck cook at a roadside diner makes racial remarks against his grandson and his daughter-in-law and another family who wanted to, well, eat at the diner and he goes Old West mano y mano with the cracker). If you want to see a classic example of the big screen epics of the 1950s this is your stop. That and watching James Dean eating up the camera with his moves and his sullen “not moves”.      

In Honor Of The 98th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Five- A Worker’s Dread

In Honor Of The 98^th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The Communist International-Take Five- A Worker’s Dread    

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

They, the murky union leadership, the dockers’ leadership, if that was what you could call it, wanted to call the whole thing off, call all hands back to work just when they, the rank and file, had shut everything on the waterfront down, and shut it down tight. Just because Lloyd George, that bloody Liberal Party Welshman, called their bluff, called their number and they came up short, the leadership so-called came up short. They didn’t have the guts to take things into their own hands and so they were parlaying what to do next. Hell, not a damn ship was moving, not a damn ship was being unloaded, nothing. Tom Jackson could see as he looked out on the Thames that in the year of our lord 1919 that there were more ships, ships from every port of call, than he had ever seen filling up each and every estuary. And with a certain pride he looked out just then because he had been the delegate in his area that had responsible for closing most of the port down, and having those beautiful ships, ships from each port of call as he liked to say to the boys over a pint at the Black Swan after a hard day of unloading those damn cargoes, sitting idle, sitting idle upon a workingman’s decision that they stay idle. And now the damn leadership wanted to give up the game.    

Tom Jackson had been a union man, a dockers’ union man, for all of his twenty –seven years, or at least since he knew what a union was, and his father before him (that was how he got the job as a casual that started his career) and the Jackson clan had been working men since, since he reckoned Chartist times when old Ben Jackson led his clan out of Scotland to raise hell about the working man’s right to vote, something like that, Tom wasn’t always clear on the particulars of that history although he knew for certain that it involved the Chartists of blessed memory.

Most of the time he had been content to be a union man, pay his dues, and support any actions that the leadership proposed. And have a pint or two with the boys at his beloved Black Swan and then go home to Anne and the two little ones. But the damn war of unblessed memory had changed things. He had been lucky enough to be exempt since the government desperately needed men to unload the massive loads of materials to be eaten up by the war. They had worked twelve, fourteen, sixteen hour shifts to whittle down the backlog. At the same pay. And no one, no one least of all Tom Jackson, complained while the war was on. They, he, saw the work as their patriotic duty. But now, now that war was over the dock owners, the shipping companies, and their agents wanted to keep all the dough for themselves and keep the steady dockers working at that same damn rate. And hence the strike.

Tom Jackson was also a Labor Party man, although unlike in the union he held not office nor was he active in his local branch. He just voted Labor, like his father before him (and before that Liberal when Gladstone of father’s blessed memory was alive). The party was also ready to call it quits, call all hands back. Tom Jackson was in a quandary. His assistant steward (and pint or two companion in sunnier times), Bill Armstrong, was a headstrong younger man who had been a member of the Social-Democratic Federation before the war and since had been tinkering with the small groups of communists that were running around London of late. Bill had told him that the Labor Party would sell them out, the union leaders would sell them out but that a new group, a group headed by the Bolsheviks over in Russia, the same ones they, the dockers, had previously helped by not loading military equipment the government wanted to send the White Guards that were fighting a civil war against those same Bolsheviks, a grouping called the Communist International would not sell them out.

Tom listened to what Bill had to say but dismissed it out of hand. He was not going to get involved, get Anne and the two kids involved in international intrigue. No, something would happen and things would work out. Something did happen a couple of days later. The strike was officially called off with nothing won. Tom was angry for a time but then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he said he could not abandon his union, his Labor Party or his Black Swan for some new adventure…    

In Honor Of Women’s History Month- From The Archives-The Anniversary Of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique-In The Time Of Not Her Time

In Honor Of  Women’s History Month- From The Archives-The Anniversary Of Betty Freidan’s The Feminine Mystique-In The Time Of Not Her Time

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Delores Reilly had to laugh, chuckle really, with a little sourness around the edges, as she listened to her daily kids at school show on the radio The Sammy Williams Show, the two hour morning talk on the Boston station WMXY. This morning Sammy had a panel, a panel of women, mostly from the sound of it, professional women, who were discussing this latest bombshell book by a woman named Betty Freidman, a book entitled The Feminine Mystique. What Betty had written about was the vast number of women, women from her generation or a little younger, who were now fed up with their little suburban white picket fence manicured lawn ranch house- all spic and span modern appliances- have a martini ready for hubby at five, maybe a roll in the hay later after the kids went to bed, missionary-style- five days a week house-bound routine and weekends not much better, hubby tired after gouging somebody all week-over-educated under-loved, under-appreciated and under-utilized lives. After listening in some disbelief, and in some hidden sorrow, for a while Delores Reilly (nee Kelly) got a little wistful when she thought about her own life, her own not suburban Valhalla life.    

Funny she had been somewhat educated herself, her father the distant old Daniel who nevertheless was practical and insisted that she get more education after high school, to learn a skill, although maybe not like those panel women, not like Betty’s complaining suburbanite women from Wellesley, Sarah Lawrence or Barnard, having gone to Fisher Secretarial School over in Boston and having worked down at the North Adamsville Shipyard before she got married, married to her love, Kenneth Reilly. But that is where the breaks kind of stopped, that marriage point. She had met Kenneth at a USO dance down at the Hingham Naval Depot toward the end of World War II when many soldiers and sailors were being processed for demobilization. Kenneth had been a Marine, had seen some tough battles in the Pacific, including Guadalcanal (although he like many men of his generation did not talk about it, about the hellish war, all that much) and had been stationed at the Depot. He sure looked devilishly handsome in his Marine dress uniform and that was that. They were married shortly after that, moved to the other side of North Adamsville in an apartment her father found for them, and then in quick succession within a little over three years they had produced three sons, three hungry sons, as it turned out.

Not an unusual start, certainly not for the generation who had withstood the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought the devils in World War II. However, Kenneth, dear sweet Kenneth, might have been a great Marine, and might too have been a great coalminer down where he came from in Prestonsburg down in coal country Harlan and Hazard, Kentucky before he joined up to fight but he had no skills, no serious money skills that could be used around Boston. So they had lived in that run- down apartment for many years even after the three boys had outgrown the place. Kenny’s work history, last hired usually, first fired always meant too that Delores had to work, not work in her skilled profession but mother’s hours (really any hours she could get, including nights) at Mister Dee’s Donut Shop filling jelly donuts and other assorted menial tasks. And that was that for a number of years.      

For a while in the late 1950s Kenny had a steady job, with good pay, and with her filling donuts (the poor kids had many a snack, too many, of day-old left over donuts she would bring home), they were able to purchase a small shack of a house on the wrong side of the tracks, though at least a house of their own. Not a ranch house with a manicured lawn like Betty’s women were complaining of, but a bungalow with a postage stamp- sized lawn filled when they arrived with the flotsam and jetsam of a million years’ worth of junk left by the previous owners. Something out of a Walker Evans photograph like ones she would see in Life magazine now that Jack Kennedy was doing something for her husband’s kindred down in Appalachia.  A place with no hook-up for a washing machine and dryer so she had to every week or so trudge down to the local Laundromat to do the family washing. A place with just enough room to fit a table in the kitchen if the kids ate in shifts. A place where, well why go on she thought, those were the breaks and while things had been tough, money tight, other kids making fun of her kids when they were younger and having fights over it, those three boy starting to get old enough to get in some trouble, or close to it, she had her man, she had her stalwart Kenny who never complained about his lack of breaks. Still, still Delores dreamed, wistful dreamed that she had had a few things those women were getting all hot and bothered about being stuck with…

And hence this Women’s History Month commemoration.

  

Build The Resistance- NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

NEW WARS / OLD WARS – What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A VERY PERSONAL CALL FOR PEACE IN SYRIA

I’m talking to Tima Kurdi [Alan Kurdi’s aunt] around the same time as the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, releases a new report on the battle for Aleppo. The Atlantic Council has long called for regime change in Syria. This report comes out just when new ceasefires have been negotiated and when parts of the armed rebels have decided to hold talks with the Syrian government. The only real fighting groups amongst the rebels that remain of consequence are ISIS and the al-Qaeda portmanteau group Tahrir al-Sham, as I reported a few weeks ago. None of this mattered to the Atlantic Council.  The Council calls for three strategies to undercut the peace initiatives afoot in Syria. First, to provide ‘robust support for local allies on the ground’, namely the elusive ‘moderate opposition.’ As Tima Kurdi said to me, ‘there are no moderate rebels in Syria.’ Those days are long gone. Second, for ‘direct kinetic action’ which is military jargon for armed action by the United States. Third, for the creation of safe zones within Syria, which is precisely what a ceasefire initiative and peace process would create. Point one and two are anathema to Tima Kurdi, who urges support for the peace process to ‘stop the war in Syria.’   More

Alan Kurdi lies dead on a beach inTurkey

SIGN PETITION SUPPORTING

'Stop Arming Terrorists Act' H.R. 608

United for Peace and Justice has joined with the U.S. Peace Council, Veterans for Peace and several other national peace organizations to initiate a public campaign in support of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s (D-Hawaii) STOP ARMING TERRORISTS ACT (H.R. 608), which she originally introduced to the Congress on December 8, 2016.

Please sign the petition urging support for the Stop Arming Terrorists Act.

H.R. 608 is a bipartisan bill, which has been co-sponsored by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-California), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vermont), Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-North Carolina), and Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Florida).

The Stop Arming Terrorists Act (H.R.6504) has only 5 co-sponsors, none from Massachusetts

PATRICK COCKBURN: 'Donald Trump will spark a war with Iran'

Given the high decibel level of the Trump administrations threats and warnings, it is impossible to distinguish bellicose rhetoric from real operational planning. A confrontation with Iran will probably not come soon; but in a year or two, when previous policies conceived under Obama have run their course, Trump may well feel that he has to show how much tougher and more effective he is than his predecessor, whom he has denounced as weak and incompetent.  This administration is so heavily loaded with crackpots, fanatics and amateurs, that it would be optimistic to imagine that they will pass safely through the political swamplands of the Middle East without detonating a crisis with which they cannot cope.   More

Yemen: In the Shadow of Death -- George Capaccio

Some critics are calling the January 30 raid in Yemen a botched affair. Insufficient or incorrect intelligence and poor planning, they argue, are responsible for the chaos that erupted when the Navy Seals launched their raid and ended up causing excessive “collateral damage.” Sean Spicer, Trump’s adversarial press secretary, lashed out at anyone — including Arizona Senator John McCain — who calls the raid a failure. In Spicer’s view, such malcontents and naysayers owe an apology to Ryan Owens, the soldier who was killed in the raid: “It's absolutely a success, and I think anyone that would suggest [the raid is] not a success does a disservice to the life of Chief Ryan Owens."  What about the life of Nawar al-Awlaki and the lives of the other women and children whom the soldiers ended up killing? Don’t they deserve an apology? Better than an apology, don’t their families deserve some form of compensation for the loss of their loved ones?  More

Lessons and Propaganda From the Botched Raid on Yemen

The Trump administration’s first “kinetic” military action, last weekend’s raid on Yemen that killed a Navy SEAL as well as fifteen women and children, was an operational failure. Aggravating that failure has been the aggressive propaganda spin applied by the White House. According to White House spokesman Sean Spicer, the operation was a major success… Nearly everything went wrong in the Yemen raid. Surprise wasn’t achieved. US troops were killed and wounded. Far too many non-combatants (innocent civilians) were killed, including an eight-year-old girl. A $75 million Osprey malfunctioned and had to be destroyed. To hazard a guess, this raid probably cost the US in the neighborhood of $250 million while failing to achieve its main objective. Meanwhile, the enemy put up fierce resistance with weaponry, mainly small arms and explosives, that probably cost less than $100,000. In brief, the US raid on Yemen was prodigal in cost, profligate in resources, and unproductive in results.  More

On The American Political Beat-Build The Resistance- WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME

With all the manufactured hyperventilating over alleged “Russian interference” in our elections, Israel, the country that has actually intervened in our politics on a regular basis remains unmentioned in our media.

Israel interferes in our politics all the time, and it’s never a scandal

Israel tried to interfere in that 2012 election, as Chris Matthews sensibly reminded his audience recently: Benjamin Netanyahu tried to help Mitt Romney beat Obama. Sheldon Adelson held a fundraiser in Jerusalem for Romney.  Netanyahu didn’t stop there. After Romney lost, Netanyahu came to Congress to tell the Congress to reject President Obama’s nuclear deal. That was an unprecedented interference of a foreign leader in our policy-making, enabled by the Israel lobby; but there were never any investigations about that. Subsequently Chuck Schumer said he was torn between a Jewish interest and the American interest, before voting against the president, and he paid no political/reputational price for it; while President Obama said that it would be an “abrogation” of his constitutional duty if he considered Israel’s interest ahead of the U.S.; for which Obama was called an anti-semite… The Israeli interference in our politics is the conspiracy in plain sight that no one in the media talks about because they’re too implicated themselves.  More

A DEVIL WE KNOW

Donald Trump’s victory has become an occasion for soul-searching and fierce debate among liberals, leftists, and their allies. But lost in the mix of all the recriminations and arguments is a clear-eyed attempt to imagine what life for Americans will actually look like under Trump—and then, what we want it to be after he is out of office. If we are to look beyond the next four years, we must create a movement that is not simply anti-Trump, but that presents left politics as a compelling alternative. In preparing to fight the anti-labor, anti-immigrant, racist, and misogynist policies of a Trump administration, history can help us understand how activists and radicals in previous eras of social turmoil fought for a better future…  Today, as terrifying as it is to confront, the left needs to consider that white nationalism, misogyny, and xenophobia always lurks underneath the veneer of modern politics. Donald Trump has simply revealed to us the nation that, in more pessimistic moments, many of us knew existed. But rather than succumb to the despair of “this is not the America I know,” we must instead say, “I will fight for the America I want.”  More

Resisting Trump: The Great American Awakening

“As the nightmare reality of Donald Trump sinks in, we need to put our resistance in a larger perspective,” Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman wrote recently, describing Trump as “our imperial vulture come home to roost.”  The context in which most Trumpnews is delivered is miniscule: more or less beginning and ending with the man himself — his campaign, his businesses, his appointees, his ego, his endless scandals (“what did he know and when did he know it?”) — which maintains the news at the level of entertainment, and surrounds it with the fantasy context of a United States that used to be an open, fair and peace-loving democracy, respectful of all humanity. In other words, Trump is the problem, and if he goes away, we can get back to what we used to be… But the time has come to face the totality of who we are and reach for real change.  I believe this is what we are seeing in the streets right now. Americans — indeed, people across the planet — are ceasing to be spectators in the creation of the future. The protests we’re witnessing aren’t so much anti-Trump as pro-humanity and pro-Planet Earth.  More

Flynn’s Departure is a Win for Peace

Flynn was dangerous not because he was a political flake but because he combined his troubling worldview with serious military credentials that earned him Trump’s respect. He wrote what is practically a guide book on fighting a global religious war, titled The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. Flynn has also tweeted that “fear of Muslims is RATIONAL” (his emphasis) and has said that “Islam is a political ideology” and “a cancer” that “hides behind being a religion.” And he was a purveyor of the ridiculous notion that “Shariah law” is spreading in the United States…  If you had to bet where Flynn might have helped take Trump into war, your best bet would be Iran. Flynn has argued that Iran is the “linchpin” in the war against “radical Islam.” In a recent White House press briefing, heasserted that Iran’s ballistic missile test violated the Iran nuclear agreement, which it did not. Flynn went on to say, “as of today, we are officially putting Iran on notice,” hinting that another missile test from Iran could lead the United States to take military action.   More

America's spies anonymously took down Michael Flynn. That is deeply worrying.

The United States is much better off without Michael Flynn serving as national security adviser. But no one should be cheering the way he was brought down.  The whole episode is evidence of the precipitous and ongoing collapse of America's democratic institutions — not a sign of their resiliency. Flynn's ouster was a soft coup (or political assassination) engineered by anonymous intelligence community bureaucrats. The results might be salutary, but this isn't the way a liberal democracy is supposed to function…  Members of the unelected, unaccountable intelligence community are not the right someone, especially when they target a senior aide to the president by leaking anonymously to newspapers the content of classified phone intercepts, where the unverified, unsubstantiated information can inflict politically fatal damage almost instantaneously.    More

STEPHEN WALT: Five Ways Donald Trump Is Wrong About Islam

Donald Trump took up so bandwidth during the 2016 election cycle that we all paid insufficient attention to the people lurking within his campaign operation who have now moved into key policymaking positions…  What unites these people — and seems to drive Bannon in particular — is a belief that the United States, and, indeed, the entire Judeo-Christian West, is under siege from an insidious and powerful foe: “radical Islam.” See this article here, or this one. For the most extreme of them (that is, Gaffney), there’s no real distinction between jihadi terrorists and the entire Muslim religion. In this view, a hardened Islamic State killer is no different from that nice Muslim family who lives downstairs, next door, or across the street…  There’s only one thing wrong with this view as a template for U.S. foreign policy: It’s completely at odds with reality. Specifically, it ignores the true balance of power, overlooks the deep divisions within Islam itself, exaggerates the danger of terrorism and relies on assorted myths Islamophobes have been ceaselessly spouting for decades.   More

DPP STANDING ROCK/ DAPL EVENT FOLLOW-UP -Stand In Solidarity With Standing Rock-Now More Than Ever

DPP STANDING ROCK/ DAPL EVENT FOLLOW-UP

Emmy writes: 

The situation as of now, is that there has been a military occupation of the main camp at Standing Rock and other camps have been forced to evacuate by heavily armed government personnel.  The water protectors have dispersed. Some have returned home, some are looking for new homes, some are heading to other protest sights where pipelines are being challenged.  We raised over a thousand dollars which helped people with funds to relocate and get their things out of camp before they were confiscated.  

The media continues to ignore or misrepresent the events.  What we do know is that what happened at Standing Rock remains an inspiration for climate activists all over the world.  

Indigenous People’s March in Washington DC, March 10

http://theindigenouspeoples.com/2017/02/05/biggest-march-planned-in-washington-d-c-for-standing-rock-on-march-10th/

               Also a Boston Rise with Standing Rock event with march at the State House Friday, March 10, 12-3.         https://www.facebook.com/events/1835323000013620/

 

Greetings to Participants at Dorchester People for Peace Standing Rock Solidarity Event February 16, 2017

We want to thank you for being one of 126 people present at our report back from the Standing Rock Resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). This past week has been very difficult and we know you share our concern and deep distress about the assault against peaceful Water Protectors. We are writing with an update and ideas for action.

Brief Recap of Event: Thank you for your great feedback about our event. People left feeling enriched and uplifted by the speakers, most of whom had just returned from Standing Rock. Wyze Love, urban Native activist, reminding us that protecting water is a gift to all humanity; Jude Glaubman, member of Water Protector Legal Collective who explained the various legal needs they fulfilled; The Reverend Mariama White-Hammond who spoke about the spiritual foundation of the Standing Rock movement and our moral, human responsibility to look after the earth; Dan Luker who related the truth that Veterans for have made an oath to protect Americans, and cannot accept gunning down people and hosing down women and children; Emmy Rainwalker, DPP member, who was a stalwart support system for her husband Dan, and others at Standing Rock, providing listening, counseling and resources.

We raised $1,000 at the event and contributions are still coming in.  Thanks to all of you for your wonderful response to the immediate and urgent needs at Standing Rock. Your support was used for the evacuation of two of the camps (Oceti and Rosebud) and helped us to purchase equipment to expand the capacity of the kitchen to feed Water Protectors at Sacred Stone Camp. Funds are still welcome.

Present Situation: Conditions at Standing Rock continue in a state of crisis. On February 23, we watched with great sadness, the invasion of Oceti and Rosebud Camps as militarized local and federal law enforcement personnel established territorial control of these two camps, violating treaty rights. They arrested people, prevented journalists from reporting, interfered with social media streaming of the news, and bulldozed the camps. The governor of North Dakota held a long press conference where he characterized the Water protectors as eco-terrorists, among other misrepresentations of the situation.

This Republican administration is determined to carry on the construction of the DAPL by allowing Energy Transfer Partners to dig beneath the Missouri River, without a prior environmental impact assessment. Reports are that the pipeline is completed and oil will be flowing within two weeks.  Furthermore, the entire territory is on ancestral land that belongs to the Sioux by an 1851 Treaty. It is clear that local, federal and private security forces in North Dakota are in the service of Energy Transfer Partners, and not the public interest.

The Movement, however, is far from over and will now move to the Courts and other pipeline protests around the country. Native people have vowed to fight on, because much is at stake. Linda Black Elk, head of the Healer Council at Standing Rock, says this necessary fight is about protecting water, but also more than that. It is also about treaty rights, protection of the spiritual and sacred heritage of the Native people, about edible plants, about medicinal plants. It is about preventing cultural genocide.

Taking Action together

Because we agree that there is a better way to live on this earth, in harmony and in fairness, together with you, we will continue to be allies in this fight. We are writing to share some ideas for what we can all accomplish together to support the resistance by the Native Communities.

First, we are sending you the electronic version of our program. In it there are some excellent links to useful resources. They will give you your own opportunity to research how you can support the brave people of Standing Rock. In addition, we invite you to join us in three kinds of actions we can take together.

a) Actions with others 

b) Actions we can do on our own

c) Supporting the resistance by raising money for the movement

a) Defunding DAPL: 17 Banks are the funding source for the pipeline in North Dakota.  Bank Exits are actions where individuals, groups, universities, even city councils withdraw funds from these institutions as a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline. These actions are happening all over the world, sending a message that funding fossil fuels is no longer a good or attractive thing to be doing!

Following the guidance of Native American leaders, we are forming a “#NoDAPL Support Team” to do Bank Exits. WE INVITE YOU TO JOIN US!   Some of us will be trained by the Bank Exit core team to organize the Bank Exits. If you would like to be trained as an organizer/or if you can take part in the actions, please contact Dorchester People for Peace member, Emmy, who will be coordinating. Please contact us at: emmyrain@gmail.com

  

b) Supporting Prisoners of Conscience

There are presently 4 Water Protectors from Standing Rock in federal custody for pretrial detention. Some more information can be found at: http://www.nodaplarchive.com/court-cases.html

They need letters of encouragement and support. It would be wonderful if you would write to them regularly, using the contact information below.

Red Fawn Fallis

A beautiful video about Red Fawn at http://indi.com/FreeRedFawn

Burleigh County Detention Center , PO BOX 1416,  Bismarck, ND 58502-1416, ️ 701-223-8388

Rattler, (aka Michael Marcus)

Rattler is Lakota Oglala and a US Marine veteran 

Burleigh County Detention Center, PO BOX 1416, Bismarck, ND 58502-1416

Scorch Jordan (aka Charles Jordan)

Scorch has been held for 2 months, for support for divesting from Wells Fargo.

Burleigh County Detention Center, PO BOX 1416, Bismarck, ND 58502-1416

Krow (aka Katie Kloth)

An activist, artist, forager, sustainable farmer, biologist, and amazing person loved by many, she was arrested at Standing Rock. For more see http://supportkrow.org/

Morton County Correctional Center
205 1st Ave. NW,  Mandan, ND 58554

c) Raising Money for the Lakota Law Project Legal Fund

This movement depends on our support. As the fight moves to the Courts, substantial funds will be required for legal defense. It’s time for us to step up to the plate by sacrificing a little on behalf of the Native people, putting lives on the line.

We propose that we create: “100 for Water Protectors!”

There were over 100 people at our event! We invite 100 of us to commit $10 a month for 1 year towards the Lakota People’s Law Project. That adds up to $1000 a month, or $12,000 a year, for defending the legal and treaty rights of our Native brothers and sisters.

How to do this:

Google: Lakotalaw.org/ ; Click on Be a protector, donate today

Tick box: Make it monthly; Choose amount: $10.00

Share: your payment information

VERY IMPORTANT STEP: Let us know you have joined: “100 for Water Protectors!”

Other Ideas!

1. Call Governor Burgum of ND; ask him to respect the water protectors; shame on him for calling them eco-terrorists: 701-328-2200. Tell Army Corps of Engineers to honor the treaties: 202.761.8700.

2. In Massachusetts, work for Indigenous Day instead of Columbus Day.  Change the Massachusetts racist State Seal too!

3.  Call your news sources and tell them to report accurately on the military occupation in our own country.

Emmy, Kelley, Hayat, Jane, for DPP      emmyrain@gmail.com

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How Will Native Tribes Fight the Dakota Access Pipeline in Court?

On Feb. 8 the US Army Corps of Engineers reversed course and issued an easement allowing the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe in North Dakota. That decision followed a presidential memorandum indicating that construction and operation of the pipeline would be in the "national interest," and set the stage for a final showdown over the pipeline's fate. In response, two Indian tribes, the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux, filed new motions to halt the pipeline's construction and operation. After an initial hearing on those motions, the federal judge on the case allowed construction to proceed but will be considering the tribes' claims before oil will pass through the pipeline under Lake Oahe. That means, unlike the voices of thousands who joined the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in protest against the pipeline, the next chapter of this fight will be argued by a few lawyers in the pin drop silence of a federal courtroom.