Honor Native American Heritage Month- *The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- The Native American Struggle- “Broken Rainbow”

Click on title to link to "The New York Times Review" Of "Broken Rainbow".

DVD Review

Broken Rainbow, various commentators and Native American interviewees, Docurama Productions, 1985

Frankly, I have, other than a tribute to Native American folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and many, many entries calling for the freedom of unjustly imprisoned long time Native American activist Leonard Peltier, not had occasion in this space to deal with the centuries long question of the injustices and horrors done to the Native Americans on this continent. This review of the film documentary, “Broken Rainbow”, acts as one attempt to spend more time on this issue. And in a sense this film fits neatly in with the other aims of the entries in this space; here to try and draw together the threads of the struggle for Native American rights with the other struggles of the labor movement.

In that sense this film is tailor-made for that connection. Why? Well, among other things, one of the key points made in this film is the trampling of Native American rights (and destruction of their cultural traditions) by the American government in the interests of the energy companies who exploit the minerals and other treasure on Native American lands in the West, focusing here on the ravishing of the Hopi and Navajo lands in the Southwest. And the prime example of acting in those interests as noted in the film was the relation between the Reagan Administration in the 1980s and the Peabody Coal Company. For those who know about the ‘exploits’ of this company in the eastern U.S. coal fields this connection is self-explanatory. For those who don’t viewing this footage will give a rather graphic picture of what the Kentucky and West Virginia miners workers went though in an earlier, more militant time.

That footage is the main political message to be taken from the film, at least that is how I took it. There are also other points made concerning the historic abuses of the rights and cultural expressions of the Hopi and Navajo tribes in the Southwest that are also in the center of the controversy here(destruction of burial and ceremonial sites, forced assimilation, etc.). Some time is also spent on the sorry history of attempts by whites, then (particularly in the 19th century) and now to, there is no lesser word to be used, decimate, the traditions and to “assimilate”, forcibly or not, the remaining Native American population. Or worst. The main importance of this film, however, and the reason that it was worthy of a film documentary Oscar back in the 1980s, is that it provides in capsule form and in a little over an hour all of the historic issues that are still unresolved if we are ever to make headway in order to bring some measure of justice to the original inhabitants of this continent. Oh, and by the way, just not lose sight of an important task still before us. Free Native American leader Leonard Peltier. That is always on the agenda. He must not die in jail.



To show, musically at least, the connection between the Native American struggle against the coal companies, , notably the Peabody Coal Company, here are the lyrics to John Prine's "Paradise". Sound familiar?

John Prine, Paradise Lyrics


When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat Chorus:

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat Chorus:

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Repeat Chorus:

Honor Native American Heritage Month- The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- Buffy Sainte- Marie's Native American "National" Anthem- "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying"

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Buffy Sainte-Marie performing "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest".

MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING (BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE) (early 1960s)

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s)


"My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" is Buffy Sainte-Marie's statement-in-song about Indian affairs.
"My point in the song is that the American people haven't been given a fair share at learning the true history of the American Indian. They know neither the state of poverty that the Indians are in now nor how it got to be that way. I try to tell the side of the story that's left out of the history books, that can only be found in the documents, the archives and in the memories of the Indians themselves."
Nat Hentoff, liner notes for Buffy Sainte-Marie, Little Wheel Spin And Spin, 1966


Lyrics transcribed by Manfred Helfert
© 1966, Gypsy Music, Inc.


Now that your big eyes have finally opened,
Now that you're wondering how must they feel,
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens.
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor?
You've asked for my comment I simply will render:
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud,
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Hear how the bargain was made for the West:
With her shivering children in zero degrees,
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest,
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed,
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day.
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored,
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way.
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived,
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled.
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale.
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean;
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens;
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks.
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us,
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us --
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity,
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws,
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage,"
Now that even the graves have been robbed,
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty --
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory,
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows,
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story;
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows.
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye --
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Honor Native American Heritage Month ***Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Two- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Buffy Sainte-Marie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Buffy Sainte-Marie performing her classic tribute to her Native American culture, "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001

Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.

Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine”. One of the female folk singers that I did have in mind when I thought about doing a series on ‘not Joan Baez’ and their fates was very definitely Buffy Sainte-Marie. Her moth harp on “Cripple Creek” blew me away. Her “Until It’s Time For You To Go” was, at one point, something of a personal anthem in the stormy waters of young love. Of course the classic anti-war song, covered by Donovan and many other folk performers, is “Universal Soldier”. While I would disagree with some aspects of the song’s lyrics now since there are some fights, class war fights, left before we can leave fighting behind this song drove a lot of my young pacifist inclinations. As for Buffy’s fate, I gain have no clue except the liner notes in the booklet refer to the personal nature of this song as part of her own personal struggle against drugs. Sing on.

Note: Since this comment was originally written I have found out that Buffy is alive and well and has just produced a CD after many years. The "sing on" part stlill goes, though.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
Buffy Sainte-Marie
© Caleb Music-ASCAP

I wrote "Universal Soldier" in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. Donovan had a hit with it in 1965.

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon

By Seth Garth

I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7^th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.

Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles  I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)

In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.         

The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.

I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.

For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.  

So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.         

*Honor Native American Heritage Month- Those Who Fight For Native American Leader Leonard Peltier's Freedom Are Kindred Spirits- From The Pen Of Peter Matheissen

Click on title to link to a "The New York Review Of Books" article by writer Peter Matheisssen, "The Tragedy Of Leonard Peltier vs. The United States", detailing his long personal struggle to gain freedom for Native American leader Leonard Peltier. Hats off. Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Prison!

Honor Native American History Month- Bob Feldman 68: 'Free Leonard Peltier!'-A Guest Commentary- He Must Not Die In Jail

Click on the title to link to the "Bob Feldman 68" blog for a commentary on Leonard Peltier.

Markin comment:

This space had as one of its original intents,and continues to do so today, of propagandizing the plight of class war prisoners. Native American leader Leonard Peltier's story, without question, is a prime example of vagaries of the American 'justice' system. Those, like Bob Feldman, who publicize his case are kindred spirits. Again, Leonard Peltier must not die in jail!

Honor Native American Heritage Month- Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story, Leonard Peltier, various leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, witnesses and by-standers, directed by Michael Apted, 1991

Let’s start this review of this documentary of the incidents surrounding the case of Leonard Peltier at the end. Or at least the end of this documentary, 1991. Leonard Peltier, a well-known leader of the Native American movement, convicted of the 1975 murder, execution-style, of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota after he had been extradited from Canada in the wake of the acquittal of two other Pine Ridge residents. In an interview from federal prison in that period the then still relatively young Peltier related that after receiving his life sentences and being told by prison officials that that meant his release date would be in 2035 he stated that he hoped not, for he would then be an old, old man. Here is what should make everyone interested in the case, and everyone interested in the least sense of justice, even just bourgeois justice, blood boil, he is now an old sick man and he is still in jail for a crime that he did not commit, and certainly one that was not proven beyond that cherished “reasonable doubt”

This documentary, narrated by Robert Redford in his younger days as well, goes step by step through the case from the pre-murder period when Native Americans, catching the political consciousness crest begun in the 1960s by the black civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, started organizing, mainly through the American Indian Movement (AIM), on the Indian reservations of the West, some of the most impoverished areas in all the Americas. The focal point of this militant organizing effort came in the war zone-showdown, the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. The tension that hovered in the air in the aftermath of that war between the American government and its Indian agent supporters on one side, and the AIM-led “warrior nation” on the other is the setting for this incident at Ogala.

Through reenactment of the crime scene; eye witnesses, interested and disinterested, voluntary or coerced; defense strategies at both trials from self-defense to lack of physical evidence, and on appeal; the prosecution's case, its insufficient evidence, and it various maneuvers to inflame white juries against unpopular or misunderstood Native Americans in order to get someone convicted for the murders of one of their own; the devastating, but expected effect of the trials on the political organizing by AIM; and the stalwart and defiant demeanor of one Leonard Peltier all come though in this presentation. As a long time supporter of organizations that defend class-war prisoners, like Leonard Peltier, this film only makes that commitment even firmer. With that in mind- Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Jail!

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-ONCE AGAIN-WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT NOW!- The Music Of Jim Morrison And The Doors

The 50th Anniversary Of The Summer Of Love-ONCE AGAIN-WE WANT THE WORLD, AND WE WANT IT NOW!- The Music Of Jim Morrison And The Doors

Zack James comment: My oldest brother, Alex, who was in the thick of the Summer of Love along with his corner boys from North Adamsville above all the later Peter Paul Markin who led them out to the Wild West said that the few times that he/they saw The Doors either in Golden Gate Park at free, I repeat, free outdoor concerts or at the Avalon or Fillmore which were a great deal more expensive, say two or three dollars, I repeat two or three dollars that The Doors when they were on, meaning when Jim Morrison was in high dungeon, was in a drug-induced trance and acted the shaman for the audience nobody was better. Having been about a decade behind and having never seen Morrison in high dungeon or as a drug-induced shaman but having listened to various Doors compilations I think for once old Alex was onto something. Listen up.         

CD Review

Strange Days, Jim Morrison and the Doors, Rhino, 2007

Since my youth I have had an ear for American (and other 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.

The Doors are roots music? Yes, in the sense that one of the branches of rock and roll derives from early rhythm and blues and in the special case of Jim Morrison, leader of the Doors, the attempt to musically explore the shamanic elements in the Western American Native American culture. Some of that influence is apparent here.

More than one rock critic has argued that at their best the Doors were the best rock and roll band ever created. Those critics will get no argument here. What a reviewer with that opinion has to do is determine whether any particular CD captures the Doors at their best. This reviewer advises that if you want to buy only one Doors CD that would be The Best of the Doors. If you want to trace their evolution other CD’s, like this “Strange Days” album do an adequate job. Stick outs here include: the title track “Strange Days,” “People Are Strange,” and “When The Music’s Over”.

A note on Jim Morrison as an icon of the 1960’s. He was part of the trinity – Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix who lived fast and died young. The slogan- Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. And we liked that idea. Then. Their deaths were part of the price we felt we had to pay if we were going to be free. And creative. Even the most political, including this writer, among us felt those cultural winds and counted those who espoused this vision as part of the chosen. Those who believed that we could have a far-reaching positive cultural change without a political change proved to be wrong long ago. But, these were still our people.

MARK THIS WELL. Whatever excesses were committed by the generation of ’68, and there were many, were mainly made out of ignorance and foolishness. Our opponents at the time , exemplified by one Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States and common criminal, spent every day of their lives as a matter of conscious, deliberate policy raining hell down on the peoples of the world, minorities in this country, and anyone else who got in their way. 40 years of ‘cultural wars’ by his proteges in revenge is a heavy price to pay for our youthful errors. Enough.

Strange Days Lyrics

Strange days have found us
Strange days have tracked us down
They're going to destroy
Our casual joys
We shall go on playing or find a new town
Yeah!

Strange eyes fill strange rooms
Voices will signal their tired end
The hostess is grinning,
Her guests sleep from sinning
Hear me talk of sin and you know this is it
Yeah!

Strange days have found us
And through their strange hours we linger alone
Bodies confused
Memories misused
As we run from the day to a strange night of stone

A Jeff Bridges Retrospective-The Taming of the Old American West-“Bad Company”- A Film Review

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Bad Company 

DVD Review

Bad Company, Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, directed by Robert Benton, Universal, 1972

No, I am not going to start off this piece by going on and on about how Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-winning performance in Crazy Hearts as down-and-out country singer/songwriter Bad Blake was merely an extension of him as a modern young Texas dude, Duane Jackson, in Peter Bogdanovitch’s film adaptation of Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show. Although, now that I think about it, I could. Rather, though I want to use my time to look at this film, Bad Company, as an example of that then (1972) fairly new look at the old American West through other than rose-colored glasses.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller and The Wild Bunch are probably better known, and rightly so, for breaking down the black and white view of the old wild West that those of us who came of age in the dawn of the television era (black and white television, to boot) of the early 1950s and formed our view of the “cowboys and Indians” from the seemingly endless Westerns that ran on Saturday morning (and Saturday afternoon at the movie house, alternating with scary horror or monster movies). The good guys wore white, the bad guys black and the Indians, well, it was kind of left unsaid but the only good one was a dead one. The above mentioned films, this film, and writers like McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy helped to bring some realism, some naturalism to the layers of myth and mis-history.

Take the plot of Bad Company. A young man (Barry Brown), the hero of the film or rather better the anti-hero, of good Ohio family, aided and abetted by that family, is furnished with the means to avoid being conscripted into the Union Army during the later stages of the American Civil War. Said naïve young man learns the lessons of survival in the rough and tumble West before he even gets past Missouri. From there, aided by roustabout and ne’er-do-well Jeff Bridges (being, well, prankster Jeff Bridges), and his gang, he pushes on trying, trying against all odds to keep on the right side of the law (read: frontier justice, not necessarily the same thing). In the end, he does what he has to do to survive. Old Gene Autry, old Hop-along Cassidy, old Roy Rogers might not have been able to fathom that, but you and I can.

*President Obama Talks To The Tribal Nations- Question: Where Is Leonard Peltier's Place At The Table?

Click on title to link to "The Washington Post" article about President Obama's meetings with various Native American tribal leaders. My question in the headline stands.

The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- The Native American Struggle-Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Website.

*The Latest On Native American Leader Leonard Peltier- Free Leonard Peltier- He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense web site. The information below is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee.

Outrage

Leonard Peltier Denied Parole

On August 21, the U.S. Parole Commission again turned down the parole request of Leonard Peltier, a prominent member of the American Indian Movement who was framed up on charges of killing two FBI agents during the federal assault on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. The commission coldbloodedly declared Peltier would not be considered for parole for another 15 years! For the 64-year-old Peltier, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, partial blindness and a heart condition, this is a declaration by the racist rulers that this courageous man will die in prison.

Grotesquely, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley gloated, “Leonard Peltier is exactly where he belongs—federal prison, serving two life sentences.” Wrigley added the claim that Peltier “has neither accepted responsibility for the murders nor shown any remorse,” a standard ruse for denying parole to those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. As the PDC pointed out in a June 29 letter to the Parole Commission demanding freedom for Peltier (see WV No. 940, 31 July):

“One court proceeding after another has laid bare the evidence of his innocence and of massive prosecutorial misconduct. In a 1985 appeals hearing, the government’s lead attorney admitted, ‘We can’t prove who shot those agents.’

“In 1986, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the trial jury could have acquitted Mr. Peltier if records improperly withheld from the defense had been made available.

“In November 2003, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated, ‘Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.’

“In 2001, in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits, the U.S. government admitted it had withheld a staggering 142,579 pages of evidence of its secret COINTELPRO efforts to persecute and convict Mr. Peltier.”

Yet again, the depraved capitalist rulers have demonstrated there is no justice for fighters for the oppressed like Peltier. We join with millions worldwide in demanding: Free Leonard Peltier now!

***Not Joan Baez- The Roots Music Of Native American Singer Buffy Sainte Marie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Native American activist and folk singer performing "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying". My friends, this is powerful stuff even forty years later.


MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING


Buffy Sainte-Marie
1966

Now that your big eyes have finally opened,
Now that you're wondering how must they feel,
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens.
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor?
You've asked for my comment I simply will render:


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud,
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Hear how the bargain was made for the West:
With her shivering children in zero degrees,
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest,
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed,
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
>From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day.
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored,
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way.
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived,
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled.
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale.
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean;
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens;
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks.
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us,
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us --
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Now that the pride of the sires receives charity,
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws,
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage,"
Now that even the graves have been robbed,
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty --
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory,
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows,
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story;
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows.
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye --
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

***The Not Joan Baez Female Folkies-The Music Of Buffy Sainte Marie

Click on title to link to "Boston Sunday Globe", August 16, 2009, article about the current whereabouts of Buffy Sainte Marie.

DVD Review

Buffy Sainte Marie: Up Where We Belong, Buffy Sainte Marie, CBC Production, 1996

Okay, okay I have had enough. Recently I received a spate of e-mails from aging 1960's folkies asking why, other than one review of Carolyn Hester's work late in 2008, I have not done more reviews of the female folkies of the 1960's. To balance things out I begin to make amends here. To set the framework for my future reviews I repost the germane part of the Carolyn Hester review:

"Earlier this year I posed a question concerning the fates of a group of talented male folk singers like Tom Rush, Tom Paxton and Jesse Colin Young, who, although some of them are still performing or otherwise still on the musical scene have generally fallen off the radar in today's mainstream musical consciousness, except, of course, the acknowledged "king of the hill", Bob Dylan. I want to pose that same question in this entry concerning the talented female folk performers of the 1960's, except, of course, the "queen of the hill" Joan Baez. I will start out by merely rephrasing the first paragraph from the reviews of those male performers.

"If I were to ask someone, in the year 2008, to name a female folk singer from the 1960's I would assume that if I were to get an answer to that question that the name would be Joan Baez (or, maybe, Judy Collins but you get my point). And that would be a good and appropriate choice. One can endlessly dispute whether or not Baez was (or wanted to be) the female voice of the Generation of '68 but in terms of longevity and productivity she fits the bill as a known quality. However, there were a slew of other female folk singers who tried to find their niche in the folk milieu and who, like Baez, may today still quietly continue to produce work and to perform. The artist under review, Carolyn Hester, certainly had the talent to challenge Baez to be "queen of the hill."

Well, as the short DVD concert performance under review, tastefully produced and interspersed with conversations with Buffy, will testify to, the Native American singer /songwriter and activist was also in contention, back in the days. I am not familiar with the current status of Ms. Sainte Marie (although see link above for recent "Boston Sunday Globe" article about her) as a performer. Nevertheless I can remember the first time I heard her in a coffeehouse in Cambridge doing her famous song, done here as well, "Until It's Time For You To Go" I got through many a traumatic romantic experience listening to that one, especially the "I was an oak now I am a willow, now I can bend" line.

That theme and, in addition, several more inward searching tracks, make this a very representative Sainte Marie effort. Needless to say here the stick outs are ant- war “Universal Soldier" made famous by Donovan , the eerie Native American-flavored "Cripple Creek" and "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" and the title track "Up Where We Belong".

"Until Its Time For You To Go" -Buffy Sainte Marie

You're not a dream
You're not an angel
You're a man

I'm not a queen
I'm a woman
Take my hand

We'll make a space
in the lives
that we'd planned

And here we'll stay
Until it's time
for you to go

Yes we're different
Worlds apart
We're not the same

We laughed and played
at the start
like in a game

You could've stayed
outside my heart
but in you came

And here you'll stay
until it's time
for you to go

Don't ask why
Don't ask how
Don't ask forever
Love me now

This love of mine
had no beginning
It has no end

I was an oak
Now I'm a willow
Now I can bend

And though I'll never
in my life
see you again

Still I'll stay
until it's time
for you to go

Don't ask why
Don't ask how
Don't ask forever
Love me now

You're not a dream
You're not an angel
You're a man

I'm not a queen
I'm a woman
Take my hand

We'll make a space
in the lives
that we'd planned

And here we'll stay
Until it's time
for you to go.

Universal Soldier Lyrics

He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years.

He'a a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew.
And he knows he shouldn't kill,
And he knows he always will,
Kill you for me my friend and me for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
He's fighting for France,
He's fighting for the USA,
And he's fighting for the Russians,
And he's fighting for Japan,
And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for Democracy,
He's fighting for the Reds,
He says it's for the peace of all.
He's the one who must decide,
Who's to live and who's to die,
And he never sees the writing on the wall.

But without him,
How would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?
Without him Caesar would have stood alone,
He's the one who gives his body
As a weapon of the war,
And without him all this killing can't go on.

He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame,
His orders come from far away no more,
They come from here and there and you and me,
And brothers can't you see,
This is not the way we put the end to war.

*Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

*American Roots Music- From Soup To Nuts-The PBS Documentary

Click on title to link to PBS's website for the "American Roots Music" documentary.

DVD Review

American Roots Music, narrated by Kris Kristofferson, various artists, 2 CD set, PBS Productions, 2001

From soup to nuts, indeed. I have over the past couple of years gone through the back pages of the American songbook to look at old style country music-eastern and western varieties, the blues both country and electric and all the regional variations like the Delta and Texas sounds to name a couple and the quintessential American music –jazz. I have gone back, way back, to the pre-radio, pre-recording days to get the lyrics for songs that dealt with hard times, soft times, soft loving, hard loving and no loving. I have taken musical trips through the bayous of Louisiana to get that Acadian/Cajun sound. I have gone to the hills and hollows of Kentucky to get that old time mountain music. I have goe to the Western caverns to hear the sounds that inspired the Native American traditions. I have looked at the roots of rock and roll backward, forward and sideways from rhythm and blues and gospel to rockabilly.

Frankly, I had wanted to do the project for a long time and I was glad to do it. For those who have just come to an appreciation of roots music or who want the long view though this Public Broadcasting System (PBS) production will give you all you need to know in capsule form, complete with the informative “talking head” commentary with well-known musicians in each genre covered, in a 2 CD four hour series that goes though all the genres mentioned above and some that I have not spend much time on yet, especially Tejano and Carib-derived music.

The producers of this effort have gone back to the old days of barn dances, local radio shows and vaudeville to bring out the various regional musics that form the roots of today’ musical expression. They trace the divergent black and white trends that converge in the post World War II period with the arrival of blacks in great numbers in the urban setting and whites, especially white teenagers hungry for new musical expression- as long as it was not something that their parents liked. Some time is also spent on the importance of the urban folk revival movement of the early 1960s as a central element in helping a whole generation search for those lost roots- all the way from gospel (in the church and in the streets), mountain music (especially the use of the old time musical instruments), Cajun (the whole Acadian exile experience when the bloody British took over in Canada) and the country blues, especially the work of those Mississippi Delta artists who influenced the post-World War II Chicago-based electric blues explosion. The best parts for me though were the Tejano and Carib-derived music sections that I had not previously been as familiar with. But I will get familiar fast. ‘Til then, the roots is the toots

***Damn It- Free Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click below to link to Leonard Peltier Defense Committee site.

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/

Commentary

This entry is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I need add little except to say that this man, a natural leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), should never have spent a day in jail. Free him now.


Savagely Beaten in Prison

Free Leonard Peltier!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

In January, Leonard Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement who has been in prison for 33 years for a crime he did not commit, was outrageously put in solitary confinement after having been savagely attacked when he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania. In a January 20 statement, Betty Peltier-Solano, Peltier’s sister, stated: “We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about his safety.” We print below a January 22 protest letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to USP Canaan warden Ronnie R. Holt. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League.

It has come to our attention that soon after his transfer to your prison, political prisoner Leonard Peltier was placed in solitary confinement and allowed only one meal a day. This is an outrage. Given this courageous man’s medical conditions, your actions put his life at risk.

Mr. Peltier had asked that he be transferred to a facility near his family and home in the Dakotas. Instead he was vindictively sent far away to USP Canaan. Shortly after his arrival he was set upon and brutally beaten, reportedly by prisoners he did not know. He sustained numerous bruises, a large lump on his head, discoloration and swelling to his hands as well as pain in his chest and ribcage. This incident is the supposed pretext for his being thrown into solitary.

Mr. Peltier is an innocent man who has been unjustly incarcerated for nearly 33 years because of his activism in defense of the rights of Native Americans. During that period his health has seriously deteriorated. He suffers from high blood pressure, a heart condition, failing eyesight and diabetes. As he is at risk for kidney failure, blindness and/or amputation, it is critical that Mr. Peltier be released from solitary confinement immediately and afforded all necessary medical treatment.

We, along with millions of others, do not believe that Leonard Peltier should have been incarcerated at all. We demand his unconditional release from prison.

*GEORGE BUSH-NOW THAT SCOOTER HAS GOTTEN HIS COMMUTATION HOW ABOUT LEONARD PELTIER?

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee web site.

COMMENTARY

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

By now everyone in the civilized world knows that President George W. Bush has commuted the 30 month federal sentence of his Vice President’s man, Scooter Libby. Apparently the thought that one of the boys who helped pull off the disinformation debacle in the lead up to the Iraq war would actually serve time was too much for Bush to bear. That has led me to think that while the man is in one of his thoughtful moods that this would be an excellent time to bring up the case of Leonard Peltier the Native American leader wrongly convicted almost thirty years ago for his part in the action at the infamous Pine Ridge Reservation. If there is a crying case of injustice that needs correction it is Peltier’s case. However, we being realistic know what El Presidente would say to a pardon request for brother Peltier. After all his name is not Scooter or Biff or Muffy or Buffy or any one of THEIR tribal names but only the righteous symbol of the fate of the Native American in this unjust capitalist system.

For those unfamiliar with the current (or at least my knowledge of it) status of Leonard Peltier’s case check my April 2006 archives. Or Google the Partisan Defense Committee or Free Leonard Peltier Committee. FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

*Labor's Untold Story- Honor The Labor Organizer And Women's Rights Fighter Lucy Parsons

Click on title to link to The Lucy Parsons Project.

Every Month Is Labor History Month

This Commentary is part of a series under the following general title: Labor’s Untold Story- Reclaiming Our Labor History In Order To Fight Another Day-And Win!

As a first run through, and in some cases until I can get enough other sources in order to make a decent presentation, I will start with short entries on each topic that I will eventually go into greater detail about. Or, better yet, take my suggested topic and run with it yourself.

*FREE LEONARD PELTIER!!-He Must Not Die In Prison!

Click on the title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Web site.

THIS ARTICLE FROM PARTISAN DEFENSE NOTES WAS PASSED ON TO THE WRITER BY THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTTEE, P.O. BOX 99 CANAL STREET STATION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10013. 

THERE IS NOTHING THAT I NEED TO ADD EXCEPT THAT HISTORIANS OVER THE LAST GENERATION HAVE STEPPED OVER ALL OVER THEMSELVES TO CORRECT THE PREVIOUS FALSE ROLE ASSIGNED TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. THAT IS TO THE GOOD. BUT THE WRITER HAS ONE QUESTION –WHY IS THIS NATIVE AMERICAN LEADER STILL IN JAIL? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Thirty years ago, on 6 February 1976, American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in western Canada. Peltier had fled there after a massive U.S. government attack the previous June—by FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents, SWAT cops and white vigilantes—on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation during which two FBI agents were killed. After Canadian authorities held Peltier for ten months in solitary confinement in Oakalla Prison, he was extradited to the U.S. on the basis of fabricated FBI testimony. In 1977, Peltier, a member of the Anishinabe and Lakota Nations, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on frame-up murder charges stemming from the shooting of the two FBI agents.

While Peltier had sought refuge in Canada, two others charged in the agents' killings were acquitted in a federal court in Iowa. Jurors stated that they did not believe the government witnesses and that it seemed "pretty much a clear-cut case of self-defense" against the FBI invasion. In Peltier's trial the prosecution concealed ballistics tests showing that his gun could not have been used in the shooting, while the trial judge ruled out any chance of another acquittal on self-defense grounds by barring any evidence of government terror against the Pine Ridge activists. At a 1985 appeal hearing, a government attorney admitted, "We can't prove who shot those agents."

AIM had been in the Feds' gun sights because of its efforts to fight the enforced poverty of Native Americans and the continued theft of their lands by the government and energy companies, which were intent on grabbing rich uranium deposits under Sioux land in South Dakota. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee stated in 2004: "Virtually every known AIM leader in the United States was incarcerated in either state or federal prisons since (or even before) the organization's formal emergence in 1968, some repeatedly." Between 1973 and 1976, thugs of the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON), armed and trained by the hated BIA and FBI, carried out more than 300 attacks in and around Pine Ridge, killing at least 69 people.
As we wrote during the fight against Peltier's threatened deportation, "The U.S. case against Peltier is political persecution, part of a broader attempt by the FBI to smash AIM through piling up criminal charges against its leaders, just as was done against the Black Panthers" (PTFNo. 112, 4 June 1976). AIM and Peltier were targeted by the FBI's deadly Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of disruption, frame-up and murder of the left, black militants and others. Under COINTELPRO, 38 Black Panthers were killed by the FBI and local cops. Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) spent 27 years in prison for a crime the FBI knew he could not have committed before finally winning release in 1997. Mumia Abu-Jamal—also an innocent man— remains on Pennsylvania's death row today.

In November 2003, a federal appeals court ruled, "Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed." But the court still refused to open the prison doors for Peltier. Last year, U.S. District Court judge William Skretny turned down Peltier's request for documents suppressed by the government, even while acknowledging that he could have been acquitted had the government not improperly withheld them. Peltier attorney Michael Kuzma stated that the evidence withheld by the government amounts to a staggering 142,579 pages!

On February 24, Skretny again ruled that the FBI can keep part of its records secret in the name of "national security." Peltier noted in a message to the March 18 protests against the Iraq occupation, "Our government uses the words 'national security' and fighting the war on transnational terrorism as a smoke screen to cover up further crimes and misconduct by the FBI." Also this February, defense attorney Barry Bachrach argued in St. Louis federal court that the federal government had no jurisdiction in Peltier's case, since the shootings occurred on a reservation.

Millions of people have signed petitions for Peltier over the years, including by 1986 some 17 million people in the former Soviet Union. His frame-up, like that of Geronimo ji Jaga and Mumia Abu-Jamal, demonstrates that there is no justice in the capitalist courts of America. While supporting all possible legal proceedings on behalf of the class-war prisoners, we place no faith whatever in the "justice" of the courts and rely solely on the power of mass protest centered on the integrated labor movement.

After Peltier's third appeal for a new trial was denied in 1993, thousands of prominent liberals, celebrities and others—ranging from Willie Nelson to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa—called for a presidential pardon. In a recent column titled "Free Leonard Peltier!" (5 February), Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote: "Many Peltier supporters put their trust in a politician named Bill Clinton, who told them that when he got elected he 'wouldn't forget' about the popular Native American leader. Their trust (like that of so many others) was betrayed once Clinton gained his office, and the FBI protested. In the waning days of his presidency, he issued pardons to folks like Marc Rich, and other wealthy campaign contributors. Leonard Peltier was left in his chains!"

Peltier is one of 16 class-war prisoners to whom the Partisan Defense Committee sends monthly stipends. For more information on his case, or to contribute to Peltier's legal defense, write to: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, 2626 North Mesa #132, El Paso, TX 79902. Free Leonard Peltier and all class-war prisoners!