***The Never-Ending Bob Dylan Bootleg Series-Another Self- Portrait (1969-1971)-Volume Ten

 

 

CD Review

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

 

 Bob-Dylan -Another Self- Portrait (1969-1971)-Bootleg Series-Volume Ten, 2 CD set, Bob Dylan, Columbia Records, 2013

 

 

Several years ago I started reviewing many of Bob Dylan’s early records (vinyl, for those who remember that ancient art of recording a performer in the Stone Age of music technology) and in the process drew a contrast between his staying power, or sheer willfulness, in continuing to perform many concert dates each year in every place that would take him from giant urban arenas to small town theaters, as against the many male folk/folk rock performers from his time who have either hung up the guitar or only perform occasionally. (I will not even mention the now piling up list of those who have passed away.) I, at that time, made something of a joke about some never-ending tour he seemed to have committed himself to. Apparently we are to be treated, if the CD compilation under review, Another Self-Portrait) the tenth in the series, is any indication to a never-ending bootleg CD tour as well.

Frankly I was impressed with first bootleg production (Volumes 1-3 in one set) since the set had been filled with many songs that did not make early albums, interesting alterative renditions of familiar songs and some outtakes which were of some historical interest. However by the time one gets to a volume ten of anything, especially some bootleg material put out by the hardly unknown Columbia Records empire it is hard to see how any but the dwindling cohort of Dylan aficionados could savor such endless repetition of material.   (I will not even speak of the 2013 adventure of putting out yet another “complete” Dylan anthology at a price tag of some two hundred dollars).

There are however, as one would expect, some hidden gems on this 2 CD 35 track set, especially renditions of old time traditional tunes like Bring Me Little Water, Railroad Bill and House Carpenter. Add a couple of alternate songs from the New Morning and that about does it from a period when he still had enough of a voice to make fans sit up and listen without wincing. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely when one thinks about it, the most ear-catching track on the whole compilation is Wigwam which he hums from start to finish. So yes, this one is for aficionados and archivists mostly-for the real deal go get those very early records (remember: vinyl then) and learn why Bob Dylan led the folk revival minute in the early 1960s and why every other male vocalist/songwriter was left in his wake.               

 

***Out in the Be-Bop 1950s Night- Bo Diddley- Who Put The Rock In Rock 'n’ Roll?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven

 

 

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1964, comment and question:
How much did it cost for a gallon of gasoline in 1964? In the interest of "speaking" to the wider North Adamsville Graduate audience that might pick this comment up on Facebook just pick your year of graduation and guess from there.

Oil at $100 a barrel. Gasoline over three dollars per gallon at the pump (remember this is being written in September, 2011 in case you pick this up later). No, do not worry, this is not intended to be the start of a political screed about the need to bring the “Seven Sisters” oil monopolists to heel or to break up the international oil cartels, although those are very good ideas. At the beginning of this series of commentaries about the old days in North Adamsville I promised that I would not be political, at least not overtly so. So that is political aspect is no help here. All I want to ask today is whether, through the mist of time, you remember how much gasoline cost when you went to "fill 'er up" in high school.

Now this question requires some honesty on your part. Please, no Googling the Quincy Patriot Ledger or The Boston Globe to search their archives of the time. Nor should you use a graphic calculator to factor back the effect of the rate of inflation on oil since 1964 to come up with an answer. Dear readers, this is not some torturous calculus problem. What you basically need to do is to remember some numbers from when you were daydreaming out the window in study hall at old North Adamsville High. Maybe in between thinking away the hours about that certain she (or he) a couple of rows over and how, well, how you would like to get acquainted with her (or him) or what was up for Saturday when your true corner boy “boss man,” Sid Hemmings, came by to pick you up in his “boss” (hence the Boss Man nickname) ’57 Chevy and you went “cruising” into the great teenage Adamsville Beach night. Or maybe you spotted those numbers when you went out the door, assuming you survived opening that fortress-like door while still thinking about that certain she (or he) whom you almost had enough courage to talk to after class today but only got to a meaningful look, onto Hancock Street after school.

What is this guy talking about with all these study hall and looking out the window references? Just this. Unless you were a total grind and always had your nose in a book then the answer merely requires that you had looked out the window. Directly across the street, Hancock Street, from the school were two gas stations (I believe somewhere near the mass transportation depot parking lot and the MacDonald's are now if you have been in the old town recently) that were always in competition with each other. They, and I am not making this up for I do not have such a vivid imagination, actually were having very public price wars to bring in customers by REDUCING the price of their gas. But enough hints. Your answers, please?

No comment on the 1964 North Adamsville gas wars night would be complete without reference to the manner in which we got the dough to pay for said gas. A lot of kids then got it from mom or pop reflecting the more affluence post-World War II times when the old parents has enough dough to spare for a kid to own his or her own car, and have a gas money allowance to boot. Even in working class North Adamsville. Others, like me and most of my corner boys, my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor night corner boys, walked, hitchhiked or borrowed the “old man’s” car (or that of an older brother) for a be-bop Saturday night romp. That is until I met up with the “Boss Man” mentioned above. Sid Hemming’s, who lived just down the end of my dead-end street, had a ’57 Chevy that he was always working on (and when he wasn’t working on it was riding around, usually with a bevy of girls before the night was over, down that now famous Adamsville Beach night).

For a couple of years he took me in tow. The price, well the price was that I was “in charge” of filling up his tank when it was empty. In short, paying for gas to be “cool.” Since I was poorer than a church mouse and never heard of such a thing as an allowance until somebody told me about them that meant taking my hard-earned money from caddying up at the local private golf course to fill the damn thing. And those golfer guys whether they had dough or not, and they usually did, were cheap when it came caddie pay-off time. A primer in capitalist economics, I guess. So you know, roughly, that gas could not have cost too much. Still, you are duty-bound to guess.

Of course, buying the gas got me nothing when it came to the girls the filled the other seats of Sid’s souped-up car. Well usually got me nothing, that is. See they, most of them prime A-one foxes, only had eyes for Sid, or more correctly Sid’s ’57 Chevy. Hell they were one in the same. Now Sid, whatever his mechanical wizard abilities with an automobile motor were, and I will be kind here, had nothing for looks. Even “cute” was a stretch. And even more of a stretch was that “cute” when Sid was seriously into his auto repair work and smelled of oils, cigarettes and whiskey. Still the girls (read: young women) actually came up to him looking for a ride and, well, just leave it as and. The way it worked is that once the car filled up with girls I was out the door. No problem, well no problem on those few occasions when he left me down at the beach (Adamsville Beach, if you didn’t know), with one of his “cast-offs”. A cast-off being something like some older girl’s sister whom she was kind stuck baby-sitting for and wanted to ditch to have a minute’s passion with Sid, or so that is what I heard they were doing. All I know is that I could hear that old Chevy roaring down the end of the street with Sid at the wheel and one last “pick of the evening” sitting tight next to him. Ya, that was Sid’s way, always Sid’s way.

P.S. For later, post-North Adamsville MBTA station graduates, you are left to your own resources about finding the gas prices.

 

We Are Coming Father Abraham 300,000 Strong- In Honor Of

Old Abe Lincoln On His Birthday

…he, Father Abraham he, pug-ugly he that no monument chiseled stone could render beautiful (damn, that age of photography, that Mathew Brady and his merry band, that damn warts and all pre-digital photography, when a painterly touch, say Winslow Homer’s, might have made him, well, just plain). Yes, warts and all, sitting arched in stone in judgment, eternity self-judgment (did he do this or that right to further furrow his brow first of all, overall, preliminary assessment right on union and abolition). He, furrowed and pug-ugly, thus no catch for gentile Kentucky bourbon belle daughters, or so it seemed, all Kentuck born and Illini-bred (where the best they could do was say nigra when talking about the slave problem. And later, much later the sons and grandsons of poor as dirt Kentuck hills and hollows mountain boys, Harlan County roughs, picked that up nigra expression too, and went to their graves with that on their lips, jesus.). He all keep the races split, let them, the blacks, (nigras, remember) go back to Canaan land, go back to Africa, go to some not union place but keep them out of Chi town (sounds familiar) had a conversion, maybe not a conversion so much as a lining up of his beliefs with his walk the walk talk.

So he ran for president, President of the United States, not as a son of William Lloyd Garrison, all Newburyport prissy and hell- bent on damning the Constitution, his Abe well-thumbed, well-read constitution , or some reformed wild boy Liberty man barely contained in the Fremont Republican dust but a busted out Whig when whiggery went to ground, (hell, no, on that tack, otherwise he would still be stuck in Springfield or maybe practicing law in bell-weather podunk Peoria, although he would note what that burg had to say and move slowly). Nor was he some righteous son, Thoreau or Emerson-etched son, of fiery-maned Calvinist sword-in-hand black avenging angel Captain John Brown, late of Kansas blood wars and Harpers Ferry liberation fight (he had no desire to share the Captain’s blood-soaked fate, mocked his bloody efforts in fact, as if only immense bloods would render the national hurts harmless when later the hills, hollows and blue-green valleys reeked of blood and other stenches).

His goal, simple goal (in the abstract), was to hold the union together, and to curb that damn land hunger slavery, that national abyss. And since they ran politics differently in those days (no women, latinos, nigras to fuss over) and were able to touch up a picture or two (and stretch his biographic facts a bit when the “wide awakes” awoke) he won, barely won but won. And then all hell broke loose, and from day one, from some stormy March day one, he had to bend that big long boney pug-ugly body to the winds, his winds.

And he did, not unequivocally, not John Brown prophet proud, fearlessly facing his gallows and his maker, to erase the dripping blood and canker sore from his homeland, but in a revolutionary way nevertheless, broke down slavery’s house divided, broke it down, no quarter given when the deal went down. So more like some latter day Oliver Cromwell (another warts and all man) pushing providence forward with a little kick. More like old Robespierre flaming the masses with the new dispensation, the new word slave freedom. Kept freeing slaves as he went along, kept pushing that freedom envelope, kept pushing his generals south and west and east and tightening , anaconda tightening, the noose on the old ways until Johnny Reb cried uncle, cried his fill when righteous Sherman and his cutthroat bummers got to work too. Yes, old Father Abraham, the last of the revolutionary democrats, the last of the serious ones, who couldn’t say black better that nigra, and never could, but knew the old enlightenment freedom word, knew it good.

…and now he belongs to the ages, and rightfully so, warts and all.

***Poet’s Corner- Langston Hughes 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

February is Black History Month

Lincoln Memorial: Washington

Lincoln Memorial: Washington

Let's go see Old Abe
Sitting in the marble and the moonlight,
Sitting lonely in the marble and the moonlight,
Quiet for ten thousand centuries, old Abe.
Quiet for a million, million years.

Quiet-

And yet a voice forever
Against the
Timeless walls
Of time-
Old Abe.

…he, Father Abraham he, pug-ugly he that no monument chiseled stone could render beautiful (damn, that age of photography, that Mathew Brady and his merry band, that damn warts and all pre-digital photography, when a painterly touch, say Winslow Homer’s, might have made him, well, just plain). Yes, warts and all, sitting arched in stone in judgment, eternity self-judgment (did he do this or that right to further furrow his brow first of all, overall, preliminary assessment right on union and abolition). He, furrowed and pug-ugly, thus no catch for gentile Kentucky bourbon belle daughters, or so it seemed, all Kentuck born and Illini-bred (where the best they could do was say nigra when talking about the slave problem. And later, much later the sons and grandsons of poor as dirt Kentuck hills and hollows mountain boys, Harlan County roughs, picked that up nigra expression too, and went to their graves with that on their lips, jesus.). He all keep the races split, let them, the blacks, (nigras, remember) go back to Canaan land, go back to Africa, go to some not union place but keep them out of Chi town (sounds familiar) had a conversion, maybe not a conversion so much as a lining up of his beliefs with his walk the walk talk.

So he ran for president, President of the United States, not as a son of William Lloyd Garrison, all Newburyport prissy and hell- bent on damning the Constitution, his Abe well-thumbed, well-read constitution , or some reformed wild boy Liberty man barely contained in the Fremont Republican dust but a busted out Whig when whiggery went to ground, (hell, no, on that track, otherwise he would still be stuck in Springfield or maybe practicing law in bell-weather podunk Peoria, although he would note what that burg had to say and move slowly). Nor was he some righteous son, Thoreau or Emerson-etched son, of fiery-maned Calvinist sword-in-hand black avenging angel Captain John Brown, late of Kansas blood wars and Harpers Ferry liberation fight (he had no desire to share the Captain’s blood-soaked fate, mocked his bloody efforts in fact, as if only immense bloods would render the national hurts harmless when later the hills, hollows and blue-green valleys reeked of blood and other stenches).

His goal, simple goal (in the abstract), was to hold the union together, and to curb that damn land hunger slavery, that national abyss. And since they ran politics differently in those days (no women, latinos, nigras to fuss over) and were able to touch up a picture or two (and stretch his biographic facts a bit when the “wide awakes” awoke) he won, barely won but won. And then all hell broke loose, and from day one, from some stormy March day one, he had to bend that big long boney pug-ugly body to the winds, his winds.

And he did, not unequivocally, not John Brown prophet proud, fearlessly facing his gallows and his maker, to erase the dripping blood and canker sore from his homeland, but in a revolutionary way nevertheless, broke down slavery’s house divided, broke it down, no quarter given when the deal went down. So more like some latter day Oliver Cromwell (another "warts and all" man) pushing providence forward with a little kick. More like old Robespierre flaming the masses with the new dispensation, the new word slave freedom. Kept freeing slaves as he went along, kept pushing that freedom envelope, kept pushing his generals south and west and east and tightening , anaconda tightening, the noose on the old ways until Johnny Reb cried uncle, cried his fill when righteous Sherman and his cutthroat bummers got to work too. Yes, old Father Abraham, the last of the revolutionary democrats, the last of the serious ones, who couldn’t say black better that nigra, and never could, but knew the old enlightenment freedom word, knew it good.

…and now he belongs to the ages, and rightfully so, warts and all.

 

 

Socialist Victory in Seattle! Build the campaign for 15 Now Socialist Alternative captured the attention of thousands of working class people across the country by running Kshama Sawant for City Council in Seattle and winning with over 90,000 votes. We ran an openly socialist and working class campaign without a dime of funding from big business or the political establishment. This victory is a warning shot to big business that working people are fed up with poverty wages, budget cuts, student debt, tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, and endless recession with no recovery in sight. But now that we've won this victory, many people are asking what does this mean for working people in New England, and how to we carry this momentum forward? In Seattle, Kshama Sawant and Socialist Alternative have used this victory to launch the 15 Now campaign, calling for a $15/hr minimum wage for all workers. This campaign won't be build by cutting deals in the halls of power, we are going to build this campaign at the grassroots level in the communities that need it most. Socialist Alternative is having a sweep of meetings across New England to discuss the victory in Seattle, the 15 Now campaign, and how people can plug in to this historic movement. Join us at a public meeting in your area! Northeastern University, Boston MA Thursday, January 30th 7p, Curry Building, Room 340 (near the Ruggles Station on the Orange Line) Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams MA Wednesday, February 5th 7p, Room TBA University of Southern Maine, Portland ME Thursday, February 6th Time and room TBA Middlesex Community College, Lowell MA Friday, February 7th 1p, Room TBA New Cafe, Worchester MA Satuday, February 8th 4p, New Cafe Conference Room U Mass, Boston MA Wednesday, February 19th 1p, Room 2545, 3rd Floor Campus Center If you want more info about these meetings, or if you have questions about the 15 Now campaign or joining Socialist Alternative, please email us at boston@socialistalternative.org, and an organizer will get back to you right away.

 

(please forward widely) Please see the call for Spring Days of Action to End Drone Killing, Surveillance and Global Militarization.  As you can see, the call is initiated by leading anti-war activists and groups including UNAC.  Please start your plans today for actions during the months of April and May.  Add your name and your organization to the growing list of supporters by clicking on the link below.  There will be a page set up to let people know of activity in their area.  For now, please send any information on planned actions to UNACpeace@gmail.com and they will appear on the national list.  We want to make this campaign international.  For any groups outside of the US who are interested in endorsing this campaign and/or building actions in your own country, please let us know.                       CALL FOR SPRING DAYS OF ACTION – 2014 Today we issue an international call for Spring Days of Action – 2014, a coordinated campaign in April and May to:             End Drone Killing, Drone Surveillance and Global Militarization   The campaign will focus on drone bases, drone research facilities and test sites and drone manufacturers.   The campaign will provide information on:   1. The suffering of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Gaza who are under drone attack, documenting the killing, the wounding and the devastating impact of constant drone surveillance on community life.   2. How attack and surveillance drones have become a key element in a massive wave of surveillance, clandestine military attacks and militarization generated by the United States to protect a global system of manufacture and oil and mineral exploitation that is creating unemployment and poverty, accelerating the waste of nonrenewable resources and contributing to environmental destruction and global warming.   In addition to cases in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, we will examine President Obama's "pivot" into the Asia-Pacific, where the United States has already sold and deployed drones in the vanguard of a shift of 60% of its military forces to try to control China and to enforce the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership.  We will show, among other things, how this surge of "pivot" forces, greatly enabled by drones, and supported by the US military-industrial complex, will hit every American community with even deeper cuts in the already fragile social programs on which people rely for survival.  In short, we will connect drones and militarization with "austerity" in America.   3. How drone attacks have effectively destroyed international and domestic legal protection of the rights to life, privacy, freedom of assembly and free speech and have opened the way for new levels of surveillance and repression around the world, and how, in the United States, increasing drone surveillance, added to surveillance by the National Security Agency and police, provides a new weapon to repress black, Hispanic, immigrant and low-income communities and to intimidate Americans who are increasingly unsettled by lack of jobs, economic inequality, corporate control of politics and the prospect of endless war.   We will discuss how the United States government and corporations conspire secretly to monitor US citizens and particularly how the Administration is accelerating drone surveillance operations and surveillance inside the United States with the same disregard for transparency and law that it applies to other countries, all with the cooperation of the Congress.   The campaign will encourage activists around the world to win passage of local laws that prohibit weaponized drones and drone surveillance from being used in their communities as well as seeking national laws to bar the use of weaponized drones and drone surveillance.   The campaign will draw attention to the call for a ban on weaponized drones by RootsAction.org that has generated a petition with over 80,000 signers http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=6180 and to efforts by the Granny Peace Brigade (New York City), KnowDrones.org and others to achieve an international ban on both weaponized drones and drone surveillance.   The campaign will also urge participation in the World Beyond War movement.   The following individuals and organizations endorse this Call:   Lyn Adamson – Co-chair, Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Dennis Apel – Guadalupe Catholic Worker, California Judy Bello – Upstate NY Coalition to Ground the Drones & End the Wars Medea Benjamin – Code Pink Leah Bolger – Former National President, Veterans for Peace Canadian Voice of Women for Peace Sung-Hee Choi – Gangjeong Village International Team, Jeju, Korea Chelsea C. Faria – Graduate student, Yale  Divinity School; Promoting Enduring Peace Sandy Fessler – Rochester (NY) Against War Joy First Bruce K. Gagnon - Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space Holly Gwinn Graham – Singer/songwriter, Olympia, WA. Regina Hagen - Darmstaedter Friedensforum, Germany Kathy Kelly – Voices for Creative Nonviolence Malachy Kilbride Marilyn Levin and Joe Lombardo – Co-Coordinators, United National Antiwar Coalition Tamara Lorincz – Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada Nick Mottern – KnowDrones.org Agneta Norberg – Swedish Peace Council Pepperwolf – Director, Women Against Military Madness Lindis Percy, Coordinator, Campaign for the Accountability of American   Bases  CAAB UK Mathias Quackenbush – San Francisco, CA Lisa Savage – Code Pink, State of Maine Janice Sevre-Duszynska Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck- Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany Cindy Sheehan Lucia Wilkes Smith – Convener, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) – Ground    Military Drones Committee David Soumis – Veterans for Peace; No Drones Wisconsin Debra Sweet – World Can’t Wait David Swanson - WarisACrime.org Brian Terrell – Voices for Creative Nonviolence United National Antiwar Coalition Veterans for Peace  Dave Webb – Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (UK) Curt Wechsler – Fire John Yoo! (a project of World Can’t Wait) – San Francisco, CA Paki Wieland, Northampton (MA) Committee to Stop War(s) Loring Wirbel – Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs, CO) Women Against Military Madness Ann Wright – Retired US Army colonel and former diplomat Leila Zand - Fellowship of Reconciliation click here to donate to UNAC Click here for the Facebook UNAC group. To add yourself to the UNAC listserv, please send an email to: UNAC-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

 

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Kshama Sawant Donate Share Tweet Forward to Friend Facebook Twitter SA Website Dear Supporter,  With your help, 2014 will go down in history as the year socialism was revived in America. Over 80,000 have viewed our socialist response to the State of the Union Address. The 93,000 voters who elected me to Seattle City Council sparked a nationwide debate on socialist ideas and building a left alternative to the two corporate parties.  The backbone of my campaign was my organization, Socialist Alternative, which provided leadership, strategy, and some of the most dedicated activists.  As a next step, Socialist Alternative and I are launching a mass campaign in Seattle, called 15 Now, for a $15/hour minimum wage. A victory in Seattle will inspire workers across the country to rise up against poverty wages and will attract thousands to join the struggle for socialist change.  None of this will be possible without the resources to fully seize the moment. Your financial support is crucial to Socialist Alternative. We need to urgently raise $75,000 in one-time donations and pledges for monthly contributions. These resources are needed to hire new organizers, build new branches across the country, develop our website, print campaign materials, and more. My election victory proves that when we organize, when everyone pitches in, we can take on corporate power and win. But it requires sacrifice and sustained effort. Do your part by digging deep and giving what you can today! In Solidarity, Kshama Sawant Seattle City Councilmember & Member of Socialist Alternative

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