Friday, January 31, 2014

President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning

Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.

We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.

We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.

As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.

Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.

“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”

Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”

Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:

• Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.

• Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.

• Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.

• Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.

For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.

Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.

Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.

Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.

She has been:

• Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.

• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.

• Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.

• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.

Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.

We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.

FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________

STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________

CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________

EMAIL& PHONE _____________________________________________________________

Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org

Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610

Six Ways To Support Freedom For Chelsea Manning- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

The Struggle Continues …

Six Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning

*Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/chelseamanning “President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning,” and make copies to share with friends and family!

You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) to demand that President Obama use his constitutional power under Article II, Section II to pardon Private Manning now.

*Start a stand -out, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, in your town square to publicize the pardon and clemency campaigns. Contact the Private Manning SupportNetwork for help with materials and organizing tips http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Contribute to the Private Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has finished funds are urgently needed for pardon campaign and for future military and civilian court appeals. The hard fact of the American legal system, military of civilian, is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Private Manning’s. The government had unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Private Manning at trial. And used them as it will on any future legal proceedings. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/

*Write letters of solidarity to Private Manning while she is serving her sentence. She wishes to be addressed as Chelsea and have feminine pronouns used when referring to her. Private Manning’s mailing address: Bradley E. Manning, 89289, 1300 N. Warehouse Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304. You must use Bradley on the address envelope.

Private Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum.

*Call: (913) 758-3600-Write to:Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander U.S. Detention Barracks 1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027-Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).” (for more details-http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html#!/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html

*******

Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning

To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500

The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me.
Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reasons for my request include:

*that Private Manning was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, which the UN rapporteur in his findings has called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”

*that the media had been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.

*that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable and unconstitutional to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.

*that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.

*that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when she revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.

I urge you to use your authority under the Constitution to right the wrongs done to Private Manning – Enough is enough!

Signature ___________________________________________________________

Print Name __________________________________________________________

Address_____________________________________________________________

City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________

Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.

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.

Rally against the TPP & Corporate Globalization

When: Friday, January 31, 2014, 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm

Where: Massachusetts State House • Park Street • Boston Common • Boston

What is the TPP? Trans Pacific Partnership is the worst trade deal you may not have ever heard of. And that is exactly what the corporations want. The TPP is going to exploit you. Nothing is secure, not your job, not your environment, not your health, not your internet.Under TPP, corporations can undermine your city and state laws legally, for their own profit.
Only corporations will benefit from TPP. These corporations want Fast Track. Fast Track is when Congress passes legislation that allows little debate, no amendments, and no final say about the Trans Pacific Partnership.
If you want to avoid this disaster, come to the rally on January 31st.
Sponsored by MoveOn

Upcoming Events:


FILM: "Unmanned: America’s Drone Wars"	Thu Jan 30	7:00pm	Robbins Library - Arlington	Arlington

Smedleys & Friends

"My Old Brown Earth", sent around by Paul Winter - the jazz version of Pete Seeger.

Pete Seeger wrote this song for a friend who had passed away and sang it at his funeral.

How fitting to send this around in honor of Pete. Click on the link below, words are at the bottom.

Pat

Having trouble reading this email? View it on your browser. Find us on Facebook.

Dear James,

Our long-time friend and mentor, Pete Seeger, passed away on Monday. I was privileged to meet Pete at the Newport Folk Festival in 1966, and he then gave me encouragement as I was creating a new ensemble that became the Paul Winter Consort.

In the early 90s, sensing that Pete's recordings were not being heard by younger generations, I suggested to him that he record an album of his Earth songs. He said, "My voice is shot, but if we can have a chorus to carry the melodies, I could sing along." My Living Music colleagues and I produced the album Pete in 1996. It won a Grammy, Pete's first. The final song, "To My Old Brown Earth" (lyrics below), is one Pete had written for a friend's funeral. It's the most moving "goodbye song" I've ever heard.

We'd like to offer it as a free download for anyone who would like to hear it. And please feel free to pass it along to your friends.

To My Old Brown Earth

To my old brown earth
And to my old blue sky
I'll now give these last few molecules
of "I"

And you who sing
And you who stand nearby
I do charge you not to cry

Guard well our human chain
Watch well you keep it strong
As long as sun will shine

And this our home
Keep pure and sweet and green
For now I'm yours
And you are also
Mine

— Words and music by Pete Seeger, 1958

About the song, Pete wrote: "In 1958 I sang at the funeral of John McManus, co-editor of the radical newsweekly, The Guardian, and regretted that I had no song worthy of the occasion. So this got written."

With gratitude,
For living music,
Paul

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

Add your name by emailing it to: nickmottern@earthlink.net and watch for updates at http://KnowDrones.org

End All War

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Asylum in Brazil for courageous Edward Snowden!

Asilo no Brasil para o corajoso Edward Snowden!

More than 1 million people have already signed!

Dear friends

Please sign these petitions requesting asylum in Brazil for whistleblower Edward Snowden, exiled in Russia for revealing massive spying by US and UK governments agencies NSA & GCHQ. His disclosures were widely covered by The Guardian – its readers voted him Person of the Year 2013.

Sign David Miranda*'s petition : here

The petition says: [translated from Portuguese]

Edward Snowden gave up everything to bring to light the operation of mega espionage by the U.S. against Brazil and the rest of the world. His passport was revoked by his own country and now he's stuck in a legal limbo in Moscow, with a visa for just one year. Brazil, one of the main targets of espionage, should provide shelter to someone who opened our eyes to the indiscriminate U.S. surveillance globally. It's time to offer Edward Snowden immediate asylum in Brazil!

To sign, go here, enter your email/details and press on

(If asked for your name and country: EUA (USA), Reino Unido (UK) etc)

("sign")

	* David Miranda is a Brazilian gay man, who was detained on 18 August 2013 for nine hours under Section 7 of Terrorism Act because he was carrying Snowden’s files from Berlin to Rio de Janeiro for his partner, investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald. He is taking the UK Home Office to court.
Sign petition from Avaaz (in English) here Circulated by: *Payday men’s network* payday@paydaynet.org US: 215 848 1120 / UK: 020 7267 8698 *Queer Strike* queerstrike@queerstrike.net US: 415-626 4114 / 020 7482 2496

***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Elmore James’ Look On Yonder Wall

…who knows when he first began to notice the difference, notice that the music, his parents’ music, the stuff, as they constantly told him, that got them through the “Depression and the war,” grated on his ears. Noticed that he had had enough of Nat King Cole, the Inkpots, Bing Crosby and the like. Had become tired unto death of the cutesy Andrews Sisters and their antics bugle boy, rum and coca-cola, under the apple tree music, tired of Frank, Frankie and Den, tired of Benny, Tony, and very tired of swing, the big band sound and even blessed be-bop, be-bop jazz. Maybe it was because he was showing serious signs of growing pains, of juts being a pain his parents called him, and just wanted to be by himself up in his room and let the world pass by until his growing pains passed by.

To placate him (or, heaven forbid, to keep him out of sign and therefore out of mind) they, his usually clueless parents, had gone to the local Radio Shack store and bought him a transistor radio to listen to music up in his room rather than lie around the living room all night changing the dials looking for some other stations on the old family Emerson radio which had formed the center piece of the room before the television had displaced it. This transistor radio was a new gizmo, small and battery-powered, which allowed the average teenager to put the thing up to his or her ear and listen to whatever he or she wanted to listen to away from prying eyes. Hail, hail.

And that little technological feat saved his life, or at least help save it. The saving part was his finding out of the blue on one late Saturday night Buster Brim’s Blues Bonanza out of WRKO in Chicago. Apparently, although he was ignorant of the scientific aspects of the procedure, the late night air combined with the closing down of certain dawn to dusk radio stations left the airwaves clear at times to let him receive that long distance infusion. He immediately sensed that the music emanating from that show had a totally different beat from his parents’ music, a beat he would later find came out of some old-time primordial place when we all were born, out of some Africa cradle of civilization. Then though all he knew was that the beat spoke to his angst, spoke to his alienation from about twelve different things, spoke to that growing pains thing. Made him, well happy, when he snapped his fingers to some such beat. What he was unsure of, and what he also did not found out about until later, was whether this would last or was just a passing fancy life those Andrews Sisters his parents were always yakking about. What he didn’t know really was that he was present at the birth of rock and roll. Geez, and all he was doing was snapping his fingers until they were sore to Elmore James’ Look On Yonder Wall…

Songwriters: ELMORE ELMO JAMES, MARSHALL SEHORN

Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
I got me another woman, baby, yon' come your man

Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
I got me another woman and, uhh, baby, yon' come your man

You hurried up and went to the wall,
and you know it was tough, uhh
I don't know how many men you's killed,
but, I know you done killed enough for two

Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
Look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
I got me another woman, now baby, yon' come your man
Ooh yeah

I love you baby, but you just can't treat me right,
spend all my money and walk the streets all night
But, look on yonder wall and hand me down my walkin' cane
I got me another woman, and baby, yon' come your man

Thursday, January 30, 2014

***The Roots Is The Toots-The Music That Got The Generation Of ’68 Through The 1950s Red Scare Cold War Night-Ike Turner’s Rocket 88

…she hadn’t thought about the upcoming date all that much, hadn’t thought about how Art was going to squire her to the first dance of the school year, the decisive Fall Frolic. Decisive in that one’s date, one’s successful date, at that event usually foretold who one would be going to the senior prom with. It wasn’t that she was crazy for Art, not in the way best friend, Jenny, was crazy over Sal, Sal with the wavy black hair and athletic build, crazy to let him do what he wanted with her, but she did see him a one part of her “item” for the senior year if only he showed a little spark her way. Damn, she almost had to force the issue and invite him to the dance herself after they had spent some time together in school talking and then he walking her home after school, talking. So they had spent their time together before the dance in that way. And here it was the big night and she was now preening herself, fluffing her hair, tightening that damn girdle to make her more slender than she already was, applying yet another touch-up on the make-up, as expected of any girl going to the Frolics with a guy that might form part of an “item” for senior year.

She wasn’t sure when she heard the rumble of the engine coming up the street, maybe just before the car stopped in front of her house, but she definitely heard it before Art knocked on the door downstairs as her mother welcomed him in while she was finishing her last preparations. As she came down she noticed that he looked especially handsome in his suit and with his hair parted just so. Things already looked up for the evening. She did not know the half of it though until he opened the front door for her as they were leaving and she spied that big old Cadillac sitting in front of her sidewalk. Seems that old Art, once he got the message from the time around the dance invitation, started his own version of the courting ritual and convinced his friend, Spider Mack, to let him borrow his souped-up Caddy. And off they went, she proud to be seem in the company of a man who knew how to bring a girl to the dance in style.

But that was only the half of it since once they got to the school gym when the Frolics were held annually Art seemed a man transformed as the cover band hired for the evening by the Fall Frolic senior committee (it was always a senior-sponsored affair, a kind of last gift to their fellow schoolmate), the Ready Riders, kissed off the old classics, you know Patti Page, Frank, Dean, those guys, that had guided previous dances and kicked out the jams. She noticed that Art had become almost a whirling dervish as he rocked to some older rhythm and blues stuff and then laid out the program when the band tore into a big riffing dose of Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 that everybody at Doc’s Drugstore over on Main was dropping endless nickels and dimes in the juke-box to hear over and over. As the dance ended she, they ran into Jenny and Sal, and she, she who had secretly scorned the stuff Jenny told her that she and Sal did down at Adamsville Beach, suggested that the foursome go down to that very beach to, well, she said “cool off” after the dance. But you know what she meant. So, yes, if anybody was interested she and Art were an “item” that year …

*********

Rocket 88

You woman have heard of jalopies
You heard the noise they make
Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88
Yes, it's great, just won't wait
Everybody likes my Rocket '88
Baby, we'll will ride in style movin' all along

V-8 motor and this modern design
Black convertible top and the girls don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy
Blow your horn, rocket, blow your horn

Step in my rocket and don't be late
We're pullin' out about a half past eight
Goin' on the corner and havin' some fun
Takin' my rocket on a long, hot run
Ooh, goin' out, oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun

Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88
I'll be around every night about eight
You know it's great, don't be late
Everybody likes my Rocket '88
Girls will ride in style movin' all along

In The Time Before The Rock ‘n’ Roll Jailbreak –They Shoot CD Players Don’t They

Some people ask, although I am not one of them, if there was music before 1950s classic rock ‘n’ roll. Of course there was and I have taken some pains to establish the roots of rock back to Mississippi country blues, electric blues as they traveled north to the heartland industrial cities, jazz as it got be-bopped and took to swing, certainly rhythm and blues, north and south and rockabilly as it came out of the white small town South. What it owes little to, or at least I hope that it owes little to is that Tin Pan Alley/ Broadway show tune axis part of the American songbook. That seems to me a different trend and one that is reflected in this CD under review, The 1950s: 16 Most Requested Songs, which is really about the 16 most requested song before the rock jailbreak of the mid-1950s. Let’s be clear about that.

I have along the way, in championing classic rock as the key musical form that drove the tastes of my generation, the generation of ’68, contrasted that guitar-driven, drum/bass line driven sound to that of my parents’ generation, the ones who survived the Great Depression of the 1930s and fought World War II, and listened to swing, jitter-buggery things and swooned over big bands, swings bands, Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters and The Mills Brothers, among others. In other words the music that, we of the generation of ’68, heard as background music around the house as we were growing up. Buddha Swings, Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree, Rum and Coca-Cola, Paper Dolls, Tangerine, and the like. Stuff that today sounds pretty good, if still not quite something that “speaks” to me. That is not the music that is reflected in this compilation and which, I think rightly, I was ready to shoot my CD player over once I heard it as I announced in the headline.

No, this is music that reflects, okay, let’s join the cultural critics’ chorus here, the attempted vanilla-zation (if such a word can exist) of the Cold War Eisenhower (“I Like Ike”) period when people were just trying to figure out whether the Earth would survive from one day to the next. Not a time to be rocking the boat, for sure. Once things stabilized a bit though then the mad geniuses of rock could hold sway, and while parents and authorities crabbed to high heaven about it, let that rock breakout occur and not have everything wind up going to hell in a hand basket. But this music, these 16 most requested songs were what we were stuck with before then. Sure, I listened like everyone else, everyone connected to a radio, but this stuff, little as I knew then, did not “speak” to me. And unlike some of that 1940s stuff still does not “speak” to me.

Oh, you want proof. Here is one example. On this compilation Harbor Lights is done by Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra. This was cause one for wanting to get a pistol out and start aiming. Not for the song but for the presentation. Why? Well, early in his career Elvis, while he was doing his thing for Sam Phillips’ Memphis Sun Records operation, covered this song. There are a myriad of Elvis recordings during the Sun period, including compilations with outtakes and alternative recordings of this song. The worst, the absolute worst of these covers by Elvis has more life, more jump, dare I say it, more sex than the Kaye recording could ever have. And it only gets worse from there with incipient things like Frankie Lane’s I Believe, Johnny Mathis’ It’s Not For Me To Say, and Marty Robbins’ (who did some better stuff later) on A White Sports Coat (And A Pink Carnation). And you wonder why I ask whether they shoot CD players. Enough said.

*******

Harbor Lights Lyrics
(words & music by H. Williams - J. Kennedy)

I saw the harbor lights

They only told me we were parting

Those same old harbor lights

That once brought you to me.

I watched the harbor lights

How could I help it?

Tears were starting.

Good-bye to golden nights

Beside the silvery seas.

I long to hold you dear,

And kiss you just once more.

But you were on the ship,

And I was on the shore.

Now I know lonely nights

For all the while my heart keeps praying

That someday harbor lights

Will bring you back to me.


United for Justice with Peace is a coalition of peace and justice organizations and community peace groups in the Greater Boston region. The UJP Coalition, formed after September 11th, seeks global peace through social and economic justice. Help us continue to do this critical work! Make a donation to UJP today.
info@justicewithpeace.org	617-383-4857	www.justicewithpeace.org