AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

In Boston-Sunday Sept 24- United Nations International Day of Peace

9:58 AM

VFP Smedley

To smedleyvfp@googlegroups.com, VFP Smedley and 4 others

United Nations International Day of Peace

Sunday, September 24, 2017

1-3 PM

Boston Common

near the Park Street MBTA Station

Music, Dance, Song, Poetry,

Artwork, & Peace Education

Face-painting and Activities for Children

Followed by Workshops at

Beacon Hill Friends House

6 Chestnut Street, Boston

and

Church on the Hill (Swedenborgian)

140 Bowdoin Street, Boston

starting at 3:30 PM

United Nations Theme for 2017 International Day of Peace:

"Together for Peace: Respect, Safety and Dignity for All"

This year's program includes the following:

Wompimeequin Wampatuck

Toussaint the Liberator

Raymond Street Klezmer Band

Brian Quirk

Zenaida Peterson

Rodney Petersen

National Liturgical Dance Network - Massachusetts Chapter

Robert Lewis

Miranda Henne

Cole Harrison

John Gross

Kaeza Fearn

Ghanda DiFiglia

Workshops include:

Premiere of "Peace and the Planet:

War, the Environment, and Your Taxes"

Check out our Facebook Events Page

Thanks to our 2017 Sponsors

(would your organization like to join the list?)

American Friends Service Committee

Be Our Guest

Cooperative Metropolitan Ministries

Friends Meeting at Cambridge

Louis D. Brown Peace Institute

Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery

Massachusetts Peace Action

Merrimack Valley People for Peace

Safe and Sound Recovery Center

St. Paul AME Church

Veterans for Peace

(click on sponsor name to reach their website)

View a video of the 2016 Boston celebration

View the 2016 Boston Celebration program

View the United Nations International Day of Peace site

View the 2015 Boston Celebration Program

contact us at InternationalDayofPeaceBoston@gmail.com

International Day of Peace Boston

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VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privatization Effort Now!

WASHINGON, DC – A new ad blitz launching today aims to stop efforts aimed at privatizing the Department of Veterans Affairs, in their tracks. The ads, sponsored by VoteVets Action Fund, will be airing nationally and on the internet, with particular attention paid to areas with lawmakers who will be influential in deciding the future of veterans health care. The total buy for the ads is $390,000, with $320,000 on television and $70,000 on the internet. The ads will run, beginning today, for one week.

While the ad is airing nationally, particular attention will be paid to people living in Alaska, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.

The first ad, airing on television, features Patrick Cleveland, a Vietnam Veteran.

In the ad, Cleveland explains, “In Vietnam, I counted on my fellow soldiers to help me make it out alive. Here at home, the VA has done the same. They caught my lung cancer early. At another hospital, they would have never known that was connected to Agent Orange. But some folks in DC want to privatize my VA. The VA is better prepared to serve veterans because they know what we veterans have been through. The VA saved my life. Now it’s up to us to save the VA.”

That ad can be viewed, here: https://youtu.be/idKVyrTEuSQ

The second ad, which will appear online, to target a younger audience, features Victor Phillipi, an Iraq War Veteran.

In the ad, Victor says, “When I was a Platoon Leader in Iraq, we had to lean on one another to get through. My PTSD really got worse around some anniversary dates of combat operations I was involved in. That’s when I first went to the VA for treatment. They helped me tremendously through a little bit of some medication and being around other veterans and talking. But some folks in Washington DC are talking about privatizing my VA… And I’m not sure I’d get health care I trust. The way I see it: the VA saved my life. Now it’s up to us to save the VA.”

That ad can be viewed, here: https://youtu.be/_JPi0oDW_mo

Both ads end with the same call to action: “Tell Congress, don’t let Trump privatize my VA. 202-225-3121.”

The Trump administration is making good on the Trump campaign’s word to consider moving veterans health care to “some form of privatization,” as campaign advisor Sam Clovis put it, in May, 2016.

In testimony to the Senate, VA Secretary David Shulkin outlined a plan that, if implemented, would begin the creation of a VA insurance plan which would be divorced from VA care, and take funds away from care. Under that plan, the VA could begin sending veterans directly to the private, for-profit sector, and close VA centers as they become underutilized. The result would be a fast track to privatization of the VA.

Polling shows that veterans strongly oppose privatization and voucher schemes. One bi-partisan poll, for the Vet Voice Foundation, found that veterans opposed privatization and voucher schemes for the VA by 64-29 percent. And 57 percent of veterans said that they would be less likely to vote for a politician that supported such schemes. That poll can be found here: http://www.vetvoicefoundation.org/press/new-bi-partisan-poll-of-veterans-shows-they-oppose-privatization-or-voucherization-of-va-care

VoteVets Director of Government Relations, and Iraq War Veteran Will Fischer explained the purpose of the ads by saying, “The Koch Brothers are using everything they’ve got to try to push through privatization of veterans health care, which would toss veterans into the for-profit, private system. We’re here to say that veterans are going to fight it, all the way. Our ads make clear that the VA does incredible work, and deserves more support, so it can properly serve all veterans. For those public servants standing up against privatization, we want this to serve as encouragement to keep up the fight. To those who find themselves leaning towards supporting the Trump privatization scheme, we want them to know we’re going to let their constituents know what is happening, so they can hold those politicians accountable.”

VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privitazation Effort Now!

The first ad, airing on television, features Patrick Cleveland, a Vietnam Veteran.

That ad can be viewed, here: https://youtu.be/idKVyrTEuSQ

The second ad, which will appear online, to target a younger audience, features Victor Phillipi, an Iraq War Veteran.

That ad can be viewed, here: https://youtu.be/_JPi0oDW_mo

Both ads end with the same call to action: “Tell Congress, don’t let Trump privatize my VA. 202-225-3121.”

Monday, September 18, 2017

She Came Out Of The Karoo-The Music Of Tony Bird-A Review

CD Review

By Zack James

Sorry Africa, Tony Bird, 1986

During the 1980s Seth Garth had been taking on more and more purely political assignments for the New Times Gazette, a successor newspaper to the old alternative The Eye for which he had gotten his first jumps in journalism as the film and music critic. It wasn’t that he had lost interest in covering the happenings in the world of independent cinema and the edges of popular music but that in that period there were political trends around the struggles for liberation in Central and South America and Southern Africa that for the first time since the slowdown of the Vietnam War back in the early 1970s required attention. And so Benny Gold, his editor from back in The Eye days who had moved on with the Gazette assigned him more and more of those political assignments with the idea that he would weave those in with some off-beat cultural pieces.

One night he had been in the Open Space, a new music club in the Village [Greenwich Village]that had previous been a coffeehouse, a popular one, the Unicorn, to hear a new guy out of Africa who Seth was told had an interesting beat, had combined the sounds of Mother Africa with more popular Western music. This was the kind of off-beat combination that he was sure Benny Gold would go for. As the MC for the evening announced the performer, Tony Bird, he was surprised that out came on the stage a young white man backed up by an all black group of sidemen. Seth had known that there were some, not enough, white youth who were supporting the various black liberation struggles in Southern Africa, particularly in South Africa but he was not prepared for a white musician to surface who supported those struggles although he should have known that fact going in.

Tony Bird let everybody in the place know where he was coming from when he started singing a very heartfelt and upbeat song, Sorry Africa, taking on the burden on his shoulders of expressing sorrow at the way the white man, the way his people had treated the ones they had conquered one way or another. Very moving.

What had gotten to Seth that night though and he was as surprised at this as he was that Tony Bird was a white African man was a song that he finished up with, She Came From The Karoo. The Karoo being the outback in the country he came from. What was strange about the song was that except that the locale was Africa it could have been a song of love and lost in America. More to the point was the vision that Seth had of the woman Tony was speaking of, a woman who came out of the mist with a red sundress on and effected all around her with her bright Botticelli smile and demeanor. Seth thought that little idea, the idea that a woman could spark such imagination out in the bush was the hook that he would use in his article. That and that Tony Bird, a black liberation struggle fighter in his own right had no apology to give to Africa.

Riding With The King-The Music Of B.B. King

CD Review

By Zack James

Riding With The King, B.B. King, Eric Clapton

“You never know where music, the muse of music if that is the right way to say it, if it is not redundant” Seth Garth said to his old friend Bartlett Webber one night when they were discussing various musical trends and commitments over a few drinks at Friday’s in downtown Boston. Seth had just been commenting on the hard fact that the guys and gals who were holding up the blues traditions of that quintessentially black musical form were mostly then younger whites who had gotten their baptisms of fire back in the early 1960s maybe the 1970s when as part of the British invasion of rock groups (the Beatles and Stones mostly) who worshiped at the feet of the old bluesmen and as part of the folk revival of the early 1960s when the young were looking for roots music and hit upon some old time country blues singers they got hooked on this genre.(That worship at the feet was no mere expression since as august a group as the Rolling Stones made their way to Chicago, made their way to legendary blues label Chess Records, made their way to meet Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.)

Seth went on, “You know with very few exceptions, maybe in the old days guys like Taj Majal and more recently Keb ‘Mo young blacks were running away from their “blues is dues” contributions, except the hip-hop artists who were savoring those blues as backdrop to their new language experiences.” Bart nodded his head not so much because he was as knowledgeable as Seth about musical trends, he wasn’t, but because ever since Seth had turned him on to various non-rock and roll forms of music such as these blues and folk music he had deferred to him on such subjects.

That deference to Seth had not been happenstance since for early in his journalistic career starting with the American Folk Gazette when he was still in college he had been a music critic most frequently and profitably before it folded long ago when the ebb tide of the 1960s faded the prestigious The Eye. Moreover although Bart was a true aficionado Seth would be the one to lead the way forward musically ever since the old days back in Riverdale when Seth had been the guy who turned the crowd they hung around with to that folk music that was coming over the horizon. He would take the lead here as well ever since both men had attended a concert at the Garden by Big Bill Bloom, the legendary folksinger from the 1960s. Both men had agreed to walk out of the performance before the encore as a protest to the hard fact that Big Bill could no longer sing, was practically talking the lyrics through. That experience got Seth onto the trail of an idea. He wanted to check out all the singers still standing from back in the day who were still performing and rate them on the question of whether they still had “it.” As it turned out some did like David Bromberg and his band who burned up the joint one night downtown. The late Etta James didn’t, didn’t have it. And so the quest.

That quest was now centered more particularly on the fading fast few blues masters still around. That is where Seth began to see that break in the black blues tradition as two generations or more removed from Southern country life or hard inner city industrial madness which had brought a couple of generations north in search of a better life and the music needed to pick up the pace as well bringing forth the whole electric blues scene that hummed cities like Chicago and Detroit in the early 1950s. That brought them to this-B.B. King and Eric Clapton CD. Clapton, one of those British invasion guys who was crazy for the blues (and classic rock, now classic rock, with the likes of Chuck Berry who Clapton to this day swears he does not know how Berry did what he did with a guitar as hard as he looked to find out what the master was doing) and the King were going to perform together at the Garden in a week or so.

At the concert Seth and Bart had been apprehensive when they saw ancient B.B. and his latest version of Lucille being escorted to a seat on center stage with Eric Clapton to the side. Not to worry though the work they did was a great success. Seth mentioned to Bart though that he was not sure where the new generation would get their blues from since they would never go away, the blues, the causes for the blues, whiskey. Women, work, and a wad of dough just like rock and roll once guys like Eric passed away. This CD was their work to insure the future whatever may come-okay.

Keep Space for Peace Week - October 13-21

12:49 PM

Global Network

To GN List Serve

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Please let us know ASAP if you plan to hold an event in your community during Keep Space for Peace Week. Also share this email if you can.

Many thanks.

* Also being co-sponsored by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom

Films To While The Class Struggle By- With Serge Eisenstein’s "Strike" (1925) In Mind

DVD Review

By Frank Jackman

Strike, starring a cast of hundreds of working people and others, directed by Serge Eisenstein, 1925

No question, no question at all that some political films whether they were intended as propaganda for a certain viewpoint as with the film under review, Russian mad man filmmaker Serge Eisenstein’s 1925 Strike, or because as the story line developed everybody was compelled to think through the implications of the cover-up and preclude to figure out the coup in a film like Costa-Garvas’ Z. Here is the beauty of Eisenstein’s work whether with Strike or an effort like Potemkin, the one with the famous baby carriage scene on the Odessa Steps. The medium is the message to steal a phrase from an old-time social media commentator (okay, okay I will give the attribution-Marshall McLuhan). The whole thing is done, powerfully done, with nothing but absolutely stunning cinematography, a few signboards (in Russian with English subtitles), and some very interesting and varied mood music which if I am not mistaken included some jazz theme stuff from Duke Ellington, and if not him then definitely some jazz riffs along with that inevitable classic music that one would have expected from a Russian filmmaker who grabbed what he could from the Russian Five.

Now the question of who a film is directed at is usually pretty much just to lure in general audiences, maybe if it is cartoonish then kids but usually general audiences. Eisenstein in this film though is directing his efforts to working people in order for them to draw some important lessons about the class struggle. Of course Eisenstein was working shortly after the October Revolution of 1917 in his own country and so he probably was more or less committed to this type of film in the interests of the Soviet government and of the world revolution that was still formally what the Bolsheviks and their international allies, through the Communist International, were all about. (I might add though that a later film about Ivan the Terrible had the same fine cinematic qualities and that was not particularly directed at the world’s working classes but to ancient Russian patriotic fervor.) That drawing of lessons about what happened during the strike is what drives the force of the film.

Here is how this one played out in all its glory and infamy. The workers at a Russian factory of unknown location and for that matter of unknown production had been beaten down by the greedy capitalists and stockholders, had had no say in what they made and how much dough they made. (The scenes with the greedy capitalists are a treasure, something out of any leftist’s caricature of the old time robber barons complete with fat bellies, cigars and top hats). Like any situation where tensions are strung out to the limit it did not take a lot to produce a reason for a strike for a better shake in this wicked old world. Here it was an honest workman’s being accused of a theft which he couldn’t defend himself against and so in shame he committed suicide. After have previously spent several weeks talking about taking an action to better their conditions the leaders of the underground “strike committee” decided to have everybody “down tools.” (The scene of this action with a rolling shutdown as section after section left their benches was breathtaking.)

Of course in turn of the century (20^th century) Russia (and elsewhere) the capitalists were as vicious as one would expect of a new class of exploiters dealing here with people, men and women, just off the farm and so in no mood to grant such things as an eight-hour day (a struggle that we in America are very familiar with from the Haymarket Martyrs whose chief demand a few decades before the time of this film was for that same eight hour day) and a big wage increase. So the committee of capitalists and their hangers-on gave a blanket “no.” Said the hell with you to the strikers.

The aftermath of this refusal is where the real lessons of this film are to drawn. Needless to say the capitalists were willing, more than willing to starve the workers into submission (the scenes of some workers pawning off their worldly possession for food for the kids, for themselves are quite moving).But not only were they willing to starve the mass of workers back to the factory but did everything in their power to break the strike by other means. First and foremost to send spies out to stir up trouble in order to get the class unity broken, then tried to get some weak-links to betray the movement from within, and if that didn’t work then try might and main to round up by any way possible the leaders of the strike in order to behead the movement. In the end though they were not above using their “Pharaohs,” their mounted cops and troops to suppress the whole thing. In the final scene after the cops and troops have done their murderous assaults on unarmed strikers the corpses spread out widely on the massacre field tell anybody who wasn’t sure about the role of the cops and troops all they need to know about the way the strike was defeated.

From what I could gather from the last signboard (one which mentioned the Lena gold strike which was I believe was suppressed in 1912) the time period of this strike was between the 1905 revolution that went down in flames and the victorious revolution in 1917. The implications of the failure of the strike, of the need to take the state power, were thus through Eisenstein’s big lenses there for all to see. Hey, even if you don’t draw any political conclusions from this film just watch to see what they mean when they say a picture sometimes is worth a thousand words. Eisenstein has a thousand such pictures that will fascinate and repel you.

The Hour Of The Wolf-With Mad Monk Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James

Howlin’ Wolf, The Hour Of The Wolf,

Jack Callahan made his old high school corner boy from in front of Jimmy Jack’s Diner in growing up town Riverdale west of Boston Seth Garth laugh one night when they were tossing down a couple of high shelf scotches, with water chasers after having just seen one James Montgomery, the famous blues harmonica player who had learned his trade at the feet of Little Walter and Junior Dean, perform at the Shell and prove once and for all that he still had “it.” That “it” not just some far-fetched idea that Seth had as an old-time music critic when he had first started out in journalism, started first when he was still in college throwing small pieces into the American Folk Gazette before he got his big break with The Eye in the days when guys like Trick Stearn and Bones Bennett made names for themselves and dragged the newspaper along with them before the big ebb tide of the 1970s washed away the glad tidings of the 1960s that everybody had pinned their hopes on.

No this “it” had some spunk, some substance to its core and Jack had gone along with Seth on this one. See one night Jack and Seth had gone to a Big Bill Bloom concert at the Garden and had come away angry, angry that they had spent their good money on expensive tickets when Big Bill could no longer carry a tune, Back in the day that had not mattered as much because the power of his lyrics carried the day. But that night he was not producing new lyrics, hadn’t done so in ages and was living off old time nostalgia from the AARP-worthy demographic that still followed him essentially uncritically. And the fools had clapped their hands off giving him yet another false life. Jesus. Seth had written a scathing article in the prestigious American Folk Review about the event and had hell rain down on him from the editor. (Old biddy editors he had called them. After that blast Seth resolved to check out as many of the old time folk and blues singers who were still standing to see if they still had “it” and let people know what was what (he did not bother to check out the old time rock and rollers that had started the great jail break-out of the 1950s since all that were left except Jerry Lee were one hit wonders who didn’t make the cut).

So James Montgomery got his thumbs up. Funny some guys, guys like David Bromberg still had it, Jim Kweskin too but before he passed away Utah Phillips was doddering and the late Etta James was in different planet. Sad.

Now that you know the score, know what the old corner boys were up to we can get back to what Jack said that made Seth laugh. Simple. He just said, “You know as good as James is Howlin’ Wolf would have had him for lunch and had time for a nap.” And of course Seth had to agree. Agree for no other reason that he and Jack had been present in a little side room in Newport, at the big Folk Festival back in 1965 when the Wolf practically blew the walls of Jericho down when he played How Many More Years practically devouring the harmonica. Now the Wolf always claimed that he was not a drinking man (had taken the legendary country blues guys, guys like Son House, his “father,” to task for showing up drunk and giving the race a bad name) and wasn’t a dope fiend (his term one time when Seth interviewed him after he had come back from London after playing on an album with the Stones and Seth had joked that he probably had been stoned all the time and the Wolf looked at him with evil eyes like don’t go there sonny boy). But Seth was convinced that that whiff he smelled was not from some other workshop, the one with the white kids as Howlin’ Wolf put it. (Jim Kweskin and his jug band as it turned out which was entirely possible as well). But no way that a living breathing man, a big burly hunk of a man could put that much energy, that much air, that much bloody sweat (wringing out his handkerchief drawing torrents when he was done) without some “help.”

So while Seth and Jack would never know for sure whether the Wolf man was high that famous Newport afternoon they knew one thing, one laugh making thing, the Wolf would have had James Montgomery for lunch. And James still had “it.” So you can bet six two and even the Wolf had it at the end too. If you don’t believe Seth then listen to this CD and weep for your not having been there back in the day when the Wolf mopped up the blues floor, made his bones.

On The Wild Side Of Life Minute-With Mister Jerry Jeff Walker’s Music In Mind

CD Review

By Zack James

Great Gonzos, Mister Jerry Jeff Walker,

The 1980s, the early 1980s, were a tough time to try and weather the financial doldrums of the alternative newspaper industry (much like today, in 2017, the whole print press and journal industry is going down with the ship in the digital age). That was the age of Ronald Reagan, a time when the night-takers took their revenge in big gobs, those bastards who almost got kicked in the ass for good back in the 1960s except we forget the first rule of a power struggle whether down on the corner boy block or in order to take state power-if you are going to take on the big guys you had better be ready to go all the way down and dirty or just back off. The blow-back for the past forty some years is graphic testament to that failure, to our defeat.

As if to put paid to that night-taker “victory” those who would in earlier times have come through and supported such ventures as truth-teller alternative media took a dive, waved the white flag and fell into line (a straight and narrow line that even the latest polls have shown they never have backed away from, have passed on that “keeping their heads down” to their kids, hell, their grandkids, Jesus) the money dried up and the publication that Seth Garth had been the film critic for in good times and bad for over a decade The Eye had put him on short rations, had almost reduced him to the free-lancer status he had started out in the business doing. To alleviate their dilemma, maybe to draw one last breathe would have been a better way to put it Benny Gold the long time editor had begged Seth to take a long swig at the then emerging outlaw country music scene that was starting to bust out of Nashville, started getting up a head of steam in Texas, Austin, really and places like Colorado, Iowa and the like.

Seth Garth, for those who don’t remember the name from when what he had to say about some song, album (tapes in those days really), or a performer carried weight via the distribution of The Eye on the coasts and with some strongholds in the center of the country too or were too young to know who he was could give, to use and expression from his corner boy days which he had really never given up, a rat’s ass about country music, the Nashville Grand Ole Opry stuff. Held his nose whenever anybody mentioned that George Jones had not shown up at a concert for the millionth time since he was in a drunken stupor out in Wyoming when he was supposed to be right there in Georgia or that Loretta Lynn, a coalminer’s daughter had the vapors or something and was a “no show” at one of her performances. Yeah Seth could give a rat’s ass about this incestuous country scene no question.

Moreover having just started the process of divorcing his third wife (three wives and a brood of kids, all young fueling up alimony, child support and future earnings college tuitions) he was in a sullen funk about starting all over like some rookie chasing ambulances and cop cars for a fucking story. Was trying, seriously trying, to decide whether he might link up with his old corner boy Johnny Blade who was now out of stir after doing a nickel for his last armed robbery and start pulling a few quick haul bank robberies. That larcenous heart of his that he had held in check for a number of years now was beginning to come to the fore. He after all was the guy back in the day who had perfected the “clip,” had designed the neighborhood midnight creep into Mayfair swell houses that kept the boys in clover through high school.

In the end though, at least for the public prints, Seth decided that he would give the outlaw country scene a quick run through to see if circulation would rise and The Eye would stop bleeding away financially. So he held his nose and headed to Austin (he refused to go to Nashville where some of the guys he was supposed to check out still had connections enough to draw work if the “outlaw” thing was running a little to the lean side). He first ran into a guy named Townes Van Zandt who was a true outlaw, could have given a fuck about Nashville and just wanted to write his lonesome life road lyrics, drown his sorrows in liquor and chase young honeys, the younger the better. But Townes with his downer lyrics, his lusts and his short-handed way of talking when he was not singing was not going to help Seth out of his miseries never mind a left-leaning newspaper in need of a big circulation jump.

So he pushed on, had a nice interview with Willie Nelson but the guy was almost too big by then, hell, he was playing Northern venues to sell-out crowds, radio stations were ready to switch formats if they could get a hook from him. Same with Kris Kristofferson who was getting acting jobs as well as drinking the state of California dry. Then Big Bill Bloom who had made a career out of big bang folk lyrics that everybody in the 1960s was chewing on (or chewing on partially because while everybody knew maybe three verses of his stuff they could not go the distance on the whole song, half the time Seth couldn’t either and he wrote about the whole scene) called Seth to tell him that he had heard that The Eye was on the ropes (The Eye always gave Big Bill great build-up reviews although a couple of times Seth had nixed his work but Benny had nixed his nix) and that he was working the outlaw country racket. Did Seth know about a guy, Jerry Jeff Walker, who just then was out of jail but who was a great performer, wrote great lyrics and had a pal, a guy named Guy Clark, who wrote stuff for him too?

Seth told Big Bill that he had never heard of the guy, was moreover worried about that “just out of jail” bit even if he was an outlaw but when Big Bill said he could make the connections Seth in desperation said he would go for it. And strangely enough they connected, connected when Seth was able to see that Jerry Jeff was just another larcenous corner boy except down Texas way and out West they called them good old boys instead of up North in growing up Riverdale. Seth was the guy who gave Jerry Jeff’s first concert out of jail a big play. Got him a connection to a big record producer and even got him his first gig north of the Mason-Dixon line. Got him into Harvard Square for crying out loud. The crowd almost all old folkies and raw college kids with dates went crazy for a real outlaw country singer. For a while, maybe a year, The Eye got by but the Reagan era was in deep throttle by then and once Jerry Jeff became old news everybody went back to keeping their heads down as the newspaper sank into its dreams. And Seth became once again a freaking free-lancer with no place to go but down.

AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

In Boston-Sunday Sept 24- United Nations International Day of Peace

In Boston-Sunday Sept 24- United Nations International Day of Peace

VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privatization Effort Now!

VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privatization Effort Now!

VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privitazation Effort Now!

VoteVets Launches Nearly $400,000 Ad Blitz Against Privatization of the VA-Stop Back Door Privitazation Effort Now!

Monday, September 18, 2017

She Came Out Of The Karoo-The Music Of Tony Bird-A Review

Riding With The King-The Music Of B.B. King

Keep Space for Peace Week - October 13-21

Keep Space for Peace Week - October 13-21

Films To While The Class Struggle By- With Serge Eisenstein’s "Strike" (1925) In Mind

The Hour Of The Wolf-With Mad Monk Bluesman Howlin’ Wolf In Mind

On The Wild Side Of Life Minute-With Mister Jerry Jeff Walker’s Music In Mind

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