People Before Profit blog

Apocalypse Five and Dime: stomping sound for workers' cause

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:02:00 +0000

NEW YORK - Apocalypse Five and Dime, a band with self-proclaimed musical roots in bluegrass, Balkan brass, punk, hardcore, '50s rock, doo-wop, and New Orleans second line, performed after a return of the Super Fun Variety Show here Feb. 24, at the Living Theatre on Manhattan's Lower East Side (LES). Their unique and quirky sound induced the audience to clear away the theater's seats and begin stomping and dancing to the music.

Apocalypse Five and Dime combines vocals, percussion, a saxophone, and both string and brass instruments to produce a sound that New York Music Daily once called: "twisted intense bluegrass/Balkan." The band is well known to followers of New York City's brass and roots music scenes, which might be characterized as belonging to a broad "hipster" trend, popular among many of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and LES young people.

The band has performed at numerous venues in addition to the Living Theatre, including Pete's Candy Store, the Jalopy Theatre, and the Henry Winston Memorial Hall. They combine their stomping sound with radical, pro-labor politics.

Singer and banjo player Phil Andrews, who cofounded the band with percussionist Rebecca Heinegg, says although their lyrics "aren't always explicitly political, we do like to think that we are part of a radical subculture that can inspire and sustain a radical community of organizers."

He encourages aspiring musicians to "just find your instrument and do it."

"We are living proof that anyone can play music," he says.

Andrews created a one-act musical entitled, "We Shall Not B e Moved," and twice performed at the Stagger Back Brass Band's May Day Show, an annual event in New York City, celebrating labor history from around the world. The musical tells the story of a 1937 sit-down strike in New York and Detroit by retail workers (mostly women) to protest discrimination and working conditions at Woolworth's stores. Basing a musical on workers' protests during the Great Depression is not accidental as Andrews considers folk icon Woody Guthrie a big influence.

Another musical may be in the making with the theme of how music is used in the workers' movement. Andrews said, "Organizing is hard work, and sometimes you just gotta dance it out!"

Here is list of upcoming performances and recordings of their music.

Not to be overlooked, musical act Cobra Gold and the dance/choreography act Good to Go Girls were among the performers in the Super Fun Variety Show here at the Living Theater. A sister-brother team, Ellia and Josh Bisker, hosted the show, exchanging witty banter and generating seamless transition between each performance. The audience was thoroughly entertained throughout the show.

Photo: Apocalypse Five and Dime at Pete's Candy Store (Tod Seelie)

Review: "A Slave in the White House, Paul Jennings and the Madisons"

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:28:00 +0000

On Aug. 24, 2009, Paul Jennings' descendants arrived at the White House for a private tour. Entering the White House, where their ancestor -- a former slave -- served President James Madison, must have been a surreal moment for them all. Add to that, the fact that the first African-American president was now in office; these descendants could easily have felt an overwhelming sense of the foreign and indescribable.

Paul Jennings, author of the first White House memoir, "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison," in 1865, could not have foreseen the feelings his grandchildren and great-grandchildren would experience.

Paul Jennings was born a slave on President Madison's estate in Montpelier, Virginia, in 1799. His father is believed to have been an English trader. His mother was one of Madison's slaves, and the granddaughter of a Native American.

In her book, "A Slave in the White House," Taylor attempts to give the reader the sense of what it might have been like for Paul Jennings, who at the age of ten became James Madison's footman.

Jennings was selected to be Madison's footman at the White House during both of Madison's terms. Taylor points out the possibilities of Mr. Jennings being exposed to other ideas, a different way of life, and also to free blacks. She notes that this showed Mr. Jennings that his freedom, too, was possible.

Although the author takes us on an extended journey of the Madisons' home life and family dynamics - some of no importance to the life of Paul Jennings - she does introduce us to a man who not only knew how to read and write, but may have helped slaves to escape, either through forging documents or by assisting them to leave in other ways.

In "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison," Paul Jennings recalls his life with the Madisons. Taylor paints a picture in which James Madison was more even-tempered and his wife, Dolley Madison, less sensitive to the slaves in their possession.

For example, James Madison left instructions in his will that Dolley Madison was not to sell any of the slaves without their agreeing, and should not split up families - Mrs. Madison, however, did just the opposite.

Paul Jennings was expecting to be freed on James Madison's death, but he continued to be a slave, tending to Mrs. Madison, until he secured his freedom with the aid of Senator Daniel Webster.

In her book Taylor suggests that being well connected in Washington, Paul Jennings was able to secure a job and began to buy the freedom of his children who were enslaved on another plantation. He was also able to buy a house. Though he may have in some obscure way achieved the American dream of freedom, one could hardly imagine a black man feeling such an achievement, when many around him were still enslaved and his earnings were not equal to his white counterparts. He and his family still suffered many other forms of discrimination.

In a twist of fate, once freed, Paul Jennings would be sent by Daniel Webster to the now impoverished Dolley Madison "with a market-basket full of provisions, and (he) told me whenever I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of, to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her small sums from my own pocket," Jennings writes in "A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison."

This reviewer was attracted to "A Slave in the White House," because of its title and its coincidence with the current moment in history, as this country's first African-American president, begins his second term. Expecting to find more about Jennings' life and less about the Madisons was somewhat disappointing especially because the author had met with his descendants. Still the book was an interesting and informative read.

Book review:

A Slave in the White House, Paul Jennings and the Madisons

By Elizabeth Dowling Taylor,

Palgrave Macmillan, January 2012,

Hardcover $28.00, also in paperback, audio CD and Kindle editions

Cleveland Laborfest & Forum, and labor exhibition

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 11:41:00 +0000

The Main branch of the Cleveland Public Library has been hosting a display of labor and New Deal (visual) art from January 18 - March 24, and on February 23 was host to Laborfest: a multimedia celebration from videos and powerpoint presentations to live drama and music.

We were warmly welcomed by Leonard DiCosimo (President, Cleveland Federation of Musicians), who introduce Harriet AppleGate, (Executive Secretary of the North Shore Federation of Labor), who also welcomed us and introduced Patrick Gallagher (USW).

They were followed by three speakers: Prof. Ahmed White, Colorado School of Law; Prof. Patricia Hills, Boston University; and Dr. M. Melissa Wolfe, Curator of American Art at the Columbus Museum of Art. All were very well qualified to speak in their areas.

Mr. White covered the infamous 'little steel' strike of 1937, ranging from the Chicago Massacre, in which ten strikers were killed, through actions in Ohio, to the eventual, inadequate settlements, concluded in 1942. (I might add that he used the phrases 'class struggle' and 'class consciousness' positively and freely, and observed openly contributions made by Communists and 'fellow travelers'). Those unfamiliar with the strike might click here, for example.

Ms. Hills spoke on Art and Politics in the Popular Front: The Union Work and Social Realism of Philip Evergood. She displayed works and covered the life of several other labor/New Deal artists, including William Gropper, Louis Lozowick, and Hugo Gellert. Many artists of the period gravitated to the CPUSA, and to the John Reed Clubs.

Her talk emphasized the Popular Front era of the Party in the late 1930's, which focused on stopping fascism and expanding union organizing. (The works of these and others were on display in the main library building.)

Ms. Wolfe presented the life and works of Joe Jones - a worker/artist. Joe - who started out as a house painter - said he wanted to make art that would knock holes in walls, rather than merely make them pretty. Ms. Wolfe: "What did it mean to be a Communist artist, as Jones clearly decided he would be?...To be a Communist artist during the Third Period of the Communist Party - between 1928 and 1935 - meant that you were a class-conscious worker whose production - art - acted as a weapon to incite a revolution that would end Fascist structures of power and give workers control of their production..."

We then had a brief break: noshing on snacks, and networking with friends, and then we were treated to live theater, and live music. The former was a reading of "Capitalization", by Marc Norwalk, presented by three members of Cleveland Public Theater; the latter music from the New Deal Era by Todd Smith, and the New Deal All-Stars.

Enlightenment and entertainment: for what else could one ask? Senator Sherrod Brown? He and his wife - the well-known progressive writer Connie Schultz - were there as well.

Photo: Charles Pervo

Jon Fromer: A political life in song

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:05:00 +0000

"Gonna take us all to make a change

Take us all to win the peace

Gonna take us all in the streets

Gonna take us all ... Gonna take us all

- Jon Fromer

SAN FRANCISCO - The Great Hall at the Unitarian Church was packed to the rafters Feb. 16 as hundreds gathered to pay tribute to singer-songwriter, soccer champ, and all-around progressive artist Jon Fromer, who died of stomach cancer Jan. 2 at his home in Mill Valley.

From opening remarks by Belva Davis - longtime host of KQED's This Week in Northern California, now retired - to a moving thank-you to the audience from Jon's wife of 42 years, Mary Fromer, the program was a testament to Fromer's rich contributions to people's struggles.

As audience members often sang along, Holly Near, Francisco Herrera, and the Vukani Mawethu choir performed songs by Fromer and others, and Fromer's brother and nephew, David and Reed Fromer, sang Fromer's last song, Harvest of My Soul.

Author and songwriter Bernard Gilbert's reading of a chapter from Fromer's as-yet unpublished novel - its existence a surprise to many in the audience - enthralled the room with vivid storytelling in a very different medium.

In a letter read by Herrera, Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of School of the Americas Watch, told how Fromer revived the spirits of fasting members of the group.

"Years ago, when the School of the Americas Watch movement was just getting started," Bourgeois wrote, "a group of us were on a 40-day fast on the steps of the Capitol at Washington DC. Two weeks into the fast, our bodies grew weak, and our morale was down. And then out of nowhere this guy showed up with his guitar and he started singing!

"I will never forget that moment. Everyone perked up and came to life. Jon was like an angel who appeared and uplifted our spirits ... And that he did every year, and uplifted the spirits of thousands with love and hope.

"This November when we gather at the gates of Ft. Benning, we will call out his name: Jon Fromer, presente!"

California Labor Federation head Art Pulaski called Fromer "labor's superhero ... Like a one-man cavalry, he would fly in when we were down, when we felt this battle, this strike, was almost defeated ... and lift us up on his shoulders and carry us forward on the battlefield for justice. Eight minutes with Jon was better than two dozen speaking heads."

As a TV producer, including several kids' shows, Fromer won 13 Northern California Emmys, one national Emmy and two Iris awards from the National Association of Television Program Executives.

A facet of Fromer's life that wasn't as well known as his singing and songwriting was his athletic prowess. He was on the U.S. National Soccer Team and was an alternate on the 1976 U.S. Men's Olympic Soccer Team.

Born in Chicago in 1946, Fromer grew up in San Francisco. In 1965, he marched from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. with civil rights marchers, kick-starting his life-long devotion to fighting for justice through song.

Besides his musical and athletic activities, he also performed with improv comedy groups - an aspect of his life highlighted at the memorial by improv artists Diane Amos and Chris Pray.

In 2011, he received the Joe Hill Award from the Labor Heritage Foundation and the Labor Arts Award from the Western Workers Labor Heritage Festival.

Besides his wife and brother, Fromer is survived by his son, Mark Mackbee, grandson Shay Macbee, and a sister, Ann Fromer-Spake.

Photo: Laborheritage.org

Kurt Cobain fans celebrate rocker's birthday

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 18:03:00 +0000

If iconic musician Kurt Cobain were alive today, he would be 47. The Nirvana frontman was born this day in 1967, and went on to become the voice of a generation and pave the way for heavy music's entry into the mainstream, despite his aversion to such popularity. He took his life on April 5, 1994, but has since been remembered as a powerful cultural figure and inspiration to new hard rock, grunge, and heavy metal artists.

Nirvana found breakthrough success in 1991 with their single "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and helped other bands in the grunge genre (also referred to as "the Seattle sound") gain prominence, including Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog, and Soundgarden. But Cobain did not enjoy the media spotlight that was cast upon him during his career, instead maintaining his appreciation of his band's underground origins.

Cobain coped with a chronic stomach condition and became addicted to heroin in order to deal with the pain. He subsequently fell into depression, which eventually led to his suicide via shotgun wound to the head, which shocked and devastated the music world.

In some ways, it can be said that Nirvana encompassed certain aspects of Cobain's feelings and personality, as it succeeded in capturing the angst and cynicism that would come to define the grunge genre. Nirvana, like many grunge bands, toed the line between two opposite feelings: the aggression of the 80's thrash metal scene that preceded it, and the pronounced apathy of the nu metal scene that followed. This dichotomy was also represented within Nirvana's stop-start/heavy-mellow song structure.

Cobain also led a surprisingly progressive life during his music career, being a vocal LGBT rights advocate before it was "cool." Nirvana played at a gay rights benefit show in Portland, Oregon in 1992, opposing Ballot Measure Nine, which was, at that time, a measure that would have prohibited schools from publicly acknowledging LGBT rights. He was also a supporter of the pro-choice movement, an opponent of racism, and a critic of the commercialization of music and MTV.

Today, Nirvana fans honored Cobain on social networks, many of them tweeting some of his quotes, such as "Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are," and "I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I'm not." But the quote that perhaps sums up Cobain the best is a simple one by musician Bob Dylan: "The kid has heart."

Photo: Michel Linssen/Redferns/Flickr

Love and revolution: Marx family biography has lessons

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 12:26:00 +0000

A frequently heard quote from Argentine-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara is: "Let me say, at the risk of seeming ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love."

A biography of the Marx family by journalist Mary Gabriel, published in 2011 and now available in paperback, should make all progressive activists reflect on Che's saying. For this story of Karl Marx and his wife, friend, lifelong lover and chief follower, Jenny von Westphalen, and their family and circle is both a love story and a historical-political account.

The book is "Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution." It is, by the way, exceedingly well written.

Many books about the personal lives of people like Marx are annoying, because while they tell us interesting stuff about their illustrious subjects, the authors do not really understand their politics. Gabriel, however, "gets" Marx and Marxism. Though Marx's theories are not her main subject, she shows the reader why it was that Karl and Jenny Marx were willing to put up with persecution, poverty, sickness and the death in infancy or childhood of three of their six children, for the working class cause. At each step, she cleverly interweaves the political with the personal, and shows us how the Marx family and close friends functioned as a unit to lay the theoretical and practical foundation for the socialist and communist movements worldwide.

Marx and his wife were anything but cold-hearted ideologues, callous about the fate of those around them because of their fanatical adherence to an abstract doctrine.

First of all they loved each other deeply for all of their lives. They shared many things besides politics; their lively senses of humor were so attuned that sometimes they dared not make eye contact in a room for fear of getting the giggles. They loved their children tremendously and got endless delight from them. Gabriel reveals that when Marx was writing "The 18^th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" he was harnessed to a chair because his children were playing horse and carriage and he was the horsey.

The deaths of their children, especially of little "Colonel Musch" at age 8, were exceedingly cruel blows. When Jenny died of cancer at age 68 in 1881, Marx was nearly destroyed. When his eldest daughter, also named Jenny, died (also of cancer) a year later, Marx became a shell of his former self, and died shortly thereafter, in 1883.

Unlike many who have written on Marx's family, Gabriel gives a sympathetic picture of Marx's father, as well as of Jenny's family, the Prussian aristocratic von Westphalens. Heinrich Marx, was worried by his son's political radicalism and bohemian lifestyle not only because he thought Karl would come to grief, but also because he feared for the future of Jenny, whom he had come to love as a daughter. Jenny's father, Baron Ludwig von Westphalen, actually introduced the young Karl Marx to radical politics.

The Marx family circle included, also, Marx's closest male friend and political collaborator, Friedrich Engels, Engels' common law wife Mary Burns (who introduced Marx's daughters to the Irish freedom struggle), and long-time Marx family "housekeeper" Helena "Lenchen" Demuth, with whom Marx probably fathered a son. These were more like family than mere friends. Having no children of his own, Engels treated the Marx children as such. Occasionally Engels expressed exasperation with Marx's perfectionism which led him to repeatedly miss publishers' deadlines, but he was always amazingly supportive both financially and emotionally.

Marx's three daughters (Jenny Jr. or Jennychen, Laura and Eleanor or "Tussy") were, like their mother, substantial figures in the socialist movement in their own right. They all were chief disciples and hard-working assistants of their father, but also developed their own political activities, including involvement with the Irish freedom movement, the Paris Commune and the British and European labor movements.

But the fate of all three was unbearably tragic. First, they all married losers. Jenny's husband, Charles Longuet, was a minor figure in French socialist politics who neglected his wife's needs. Laura married Franco-Cuban Paul Lafargue, who subsequently became so doctrinaire that he provoked Marx's famous quip, "If anything is certain it is that I am not a Marxist". Both the Lafargues died in what we hope was a joint suicide in Draveil, France in 1910 (there are doubts).

But Eleanor's fate was the worst: She fell in with a truly sinister character, the British dilettante socialist Edward Aveling, whose financial dishonesty stained her reputation, and who finally betrayed her by secretly marrying a young actress. Within a day of being informed of this, Eleanor Marx committed suicide, on March 31, 1897.

What is the lesson? Back to Che: A true revolutionary must be motivated by love. It is impossible to love the working class or "the people" in the abstract, without having strong love for those closest to you. But the lives of activists, let alone revolutionaries, often puts this love under terrific strain.

We must make sure that we are working in a way that reflects our love not only for humanity, but also for those closest to us. And that is a collective task for the movement, not something which families should struggle with alone.

Book information:

"Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution"

By Mary Gilbert

Back Bay Books, 2012, paperback, 784 pages, $19.99

Anti-gay Superman writer sparks outrage

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 16:21:00 +0000

American comics are changing to accommodate recent social progress. The X-Men are a diverse, multi-ethnic team. Batwoman is a lesbian. Gay marriage has taken place between two heroes. But writer Orson Scott Card, who has been chosen to write DC Comics' Adventures of Superman, is outspokenly anti-gay, and that's generating outrage among comic fans - especially for stories about a hero who is supposed to stand for "truth, justice, and the American way."

Such is the controversy, in fact, that 13,725 people have signed a petition on LGBT equality site All Out, to let DC Comics know that readers won't accept Card or his work, and that giving a new platform to someone who is so anti-gay is very troubling.

"Americans take their superheroes seriously," said Andre Banks, All Out's co-founder and executive director. "They are a reflection of our values and they deeply influence our shared ideals."

"Young Americans look to Superman as a champion of justice. Anti-gay extremists should be a serous concern to these Americans. It is peculiar that DC Comics would decide to bring [the two] together."

Card isn't merely a writer who doesn't care for the LGBT community. This is a man who has made extreme homophobic remarks, calling gay rights a "collective delusion," and dismissing gay marriage as "ridiculous. I do not believe homosexuals should be given a whole raft of rights." Card, by the way, is a member of the National Organization for Marriage, which seeks to prevent marriage between two people of the same gender. Other remarks of his include calling same-sex attraction a "reproductive dysfunction" and his statement that marriage equality would lead to the "end of civilization."

Perhaps most flabbergastingly offensive was his assertion that there is a "dark secret of homosexual society - how many homosexuals first entered into 'that world' through disturbing seduction, rape, molestation, or abuse."

Many consider DC's selection of Orson Scott Card as a writer to be head-scratching, given that the comics company has historically been progressive and pro-LGBT. Those displeased with the Superman situation, however, can look to alternatives that prove that, for the most part, DC Comics seems to be staying on the right side of history. Its Batwoman title, for example, follows the story of lesbian Kathy Kane, a very popular character and the first high profile, openly gay superheroine to have her own ongoing series.

As for Card taking the reins of Superman, many comic book store owners say they will not be distributing the title, due to its writer's views. Richard Neal, gay owner of Dallas's Zeus Comics, is among them.

Neal wrote on his Facebook page:

"Zeus Comics will not be carrying the print edition of Orson Scott Card's Superman. Card's essays advocate the destruction of my relationship [and suggest that] I am born of rape or abuse and that I am equated with pedophilia. These themes appear in his fiction, as well. It is shocking that DC Comics would hire him to write Superman, a character whose ideals represent all of us. If you replaced the word 'homosexuals' in his essays with the words 'women,' or 'Jews,' he would not be hired. But I'm not sure why it is still okay to 'have an opinion' about gays? This is about equality."

Photo: Superman, about a figure who has traditionally stood for "the American way," ought not to be written by someone who is vehemently homophobic, comic fans say, as they feel it would directly contradict the values of the beloved character. Pictured is a Superman statue in Metropolis, Illinois. Joseph Lee Novak/Flickr

U.S. shootings: Rockers, metal artists decry gun violence

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 10:20:00 +0000

Part 2 of a 2-part article. Read Part 1 HERE.

Jason Statts, an artist and heavy metal fan, was robbed and shot five years ago while leaving his band's first show. The attack left him confined to a wheelchair, and coping with daily pain. But if one were to ask him whether he believed such shootings were inspired by art and entertainment, it's doubtful he would say yes. Rather, his love for heavy metal music has kept him hopeful and positive. Statts is a survivor - one of the many victims of gun violence in America.

Misunderstood forms of music have too often been cited for inspiring violent behavior. Lately, artists who themselves have been victims are deciding to set the record straight.

"Music has always been a part of my life," said Statts. "My parents were both hippies, so there were always classic rock albums around the house. As I got older I started listening to heavy music. ... Fast forward to the summer of 2008. I was in a band with two of my best friends. We played our first and only show on June 28. Just hours after we unplugged, we were attacked. I'd never walk again; at least, that's what they say.

"The only thought of music at this point was the thought that I'd never play it again. I was devastated."

When people suggest that aggressive music turns people into killers, said musician Henry Rollins, "I think that's wrong. I go to a festival with 80,000 metalheads called Wacken. It's a huge festival in Germany. These people are some of the friendliest, most intellectual, help-you-out-of-a-ditch types."

He believed that part of the problem is "we Americans are not treating each other as well as we should." He suggested that the gun violence argument has dissolved into finger-pointing and squabbling, rather then concentrating on the important issues. "You can't sweep [issues] under the rug, not in a country that goes to the rest of the world and claims to be an exceptional example." Instead of vilifying, he said, "you need to look at more than just music and Call of Duty.

"People who blame heavy metal and video games are half-informed. Sandy Hook" and other cases of recent mass shootings simply exacerbate that condition amongst those critics, he noted. "This is when you really wish Abraham Lincoln was around; someone who could say, 'everyone stop shouting, let's sit down and'" take a closer look at the problems.

Today, Jason Statts said, "I'm doing well. Aside from agonizing pain 24/7, things are great. I'm considered a quadriplegic, but have a nice range of movement in my arms. I still use my hands. [But] I'll probably not walk again and I will have ongoing medical costs." But music, he said, was not the enemy. The bands and albums he loved helped him overcome the tragedy, and continue to make him happy.

The answer to stopping gun violence lies in holding the National Rifle Association accountable for its profiteering and refusal to address the concerns over usage of assault weapons. It lies in setting standards for the gun industry and introducing the concepts of "responsible gun sales and ownership." It does not lie in the condemnation of music that brings people together, because within those communities, there are also victims of mass shootings. And if those shooters sought to maim or kill those musicians, then another question must be asked: what inspired them?

Photo: Fans place flowers at a makeshift memorial for guitarist Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott outside the Alrosa Villa concert venue where the musician was shot and killed. Paul Vernon/AP

U.S. shootings: Musicians, too, have been the victims

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:04:00 +0000

Part 1 of a 2-part article

"Twenty-four years to the day when John Lennon was shot and killed in front of his New York City apartment building, Nathan Gale, a former U.S. marine, emerged from behind a seven-foot-high stack of amplifiers" at a heavy metal show on December 8, 2004. "Gale didn't stop until he reached Darrell Abbott," who "coaxed one final noise out of his guitar" before he was murdered onstage. Zac Crain wrote this in Black Tooth Grin, his biography of "Dimebag" Darrell, who was the celebrated guitarist of metal bands Pantera and Damageplan.

Today, many mass shootings in America are blamed on violent music, films, and video games. Artists, however, are not the perpetrators of such acts. In fact, on January 29 this year, another young musician with her whole future ahead of her was shot and killed. Fifteen year-old Hadiya Pendleton, who performed with her school's marching band at President Obama's inauguration, was hit days later by gunfire in Chicago.

The shooting occurred in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park, and Pendleton, police said, was probably not the intended target. She was an innocent bystander in an upscale neighborhood; just one more victim in bullet-scarred America.

For Abbott's part, he was shot three times in the head by Gale's handgun; the final shot killed him instantly. Gale continued shooting, killing three others and wounding seven more. One audience member was killed while trying to perform CPR on Abbott. A police officer arrived on the scene, and shot and killed Gale before the gunman could take any further lives.

Abbott's death was one of the most tragic events in the history of metal music. He is survived by his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, and metal artists worldwide continue to pay tribute to his music and his memory.

The supposed link between aggressive, countercultural music and violence was forged as far back as 1999, when the Columbine high school shooting triggered a moral panic, one in which concerned parents and activists pointed fingers at gothic culture and heavy metal. Controversial rocker Marilyn Manson was vilified in particular during this period. In response, Manson, a former journalist, wrote an emotionally charged, analytical article in Rolling Stone on mass shootings in America. He suggested that it was easy for conservative politicians to shift the blame to media and entertainment, rather than focus on the weapons themselves.

Manson remarked, "I think that the National Rifle Association is too powerful to take on, so most people choose" music or films as their scapegoat. "America loves to find an icon to hang its guilt on. The positive messages of my songs are the ones that sensationalists misinterpret as promoting the very things I am decrying." He cited, as an example, his song Get Your Gunn, which noted the hypocrisy of the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn at the hands of pro-life activists. Several critics misunderstood the song, deeming it a pro-violence piece.

The blame was placed on music yet again after the August 2012 Sikh temple shooting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. News outlet CNN cited Hatebreed as having had an influence on shooter Wade Page, incorrectly labeling the musicians a "white power band." Page, as it happened, did not even listen to Hatebreed. The band's vocalist, Jamey Jasta, called the news outlet out on their slander, and his fans even contacted the Chicago Anti-Defamation League to rectify the error. CNN subsequently corrected their mistake, but the damage was done. "Our music brings people of all races together all over the world," said Jasta. "CNN [needs] to get their facts straight."

Today, more artists are defending music as something that puts things into the world, rather than something that urges people to engage in violence. And in the wake of tragedies their own communities have faced, they are standing up and speaking out.

This article will continue in Part 2.

Photo: Eddie Van Halen is comforted by guitarist Zakk Wylde after speaking at a public memorial service for Darrell "Dimebag" Abbott in Arlington, Texas. Matt Slocum/Fort-Worth Star-Telegram and AP

New book details U.S. war crimes in Vietnam

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 14:52:00 +0000

Remember My Lai? That was the incident on March 16, 1968, when U.S. troops commanded by Lt. William Calley and Cpt. Ernest Medina massacred at least 500 unarmed women, children and elderly people in the South Vietnamese hamlet of that name. Many of us were told that My Lai was an aberration, not the result of policy.

But in his new book "Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War In Vietnam," Nick Turse aims to sear into our brains the message that the way the United States waged the Vietnam War involved massive war crimes carried out against the civilian population of South Vietnam, and that the My Lai incident was only the tip of the iceberg.

Further, he wants us to understand that the killing, torture and massive destruction wreaked by U.S. forces and their South Vietnamese and South Korean allies did not merely stem from the angry behavior of rough soldiers under the stress of battle, but were the direct and knowing result of policy decisions taken at every level of the military and political structures.

Many readers will recall that we were told that besides fighting the "Viet Cong" (National Liberation Front) and North Vietnamese units, the U.S. war effort involved "winning the hearts and minds" of the people in cities and countryside. But Turse's book shows that what determined action on the ground had nothing to do with this idealistic-sounding phraseology. More relevant was what Turse calls "the mere-gook rule," "gook" being the racist term U.S. forces used for any and all Vietnamese people.

This "enabled soldiers to abuse children for amusement; it allowed officers sitting in judgment at courts-martial to let off murderers with little or no punishment; and it paved the way for commanders to willfully ignore rampant abuses by their troops by racking up 'kills' to win favor at the Pentagon" (p 50).

And rack up kills is what they did. During the war, some conscientious soldiers noticed a discrepancy between the "body counts" which the command gave out and the number of weapons captured. Very frequently, after an engagement, only a few weapons would be listed as recovered from dead supposed Viet Cong fighters. Turse argues convincingly that in many cases, the "kills" were actually of innocent civilians. Since the body count became all important for career advancement for officers in Vietnam, many did nothing to prevent civilians from being simply murdered and then called in as enemy battle fatalities.

Some overachievers stand out. One was Major Gen. Julian Ewell, who, from February 1968 on, set for his troops in the Mekong Delta an initial goal of killing at least 4,000 "of these little bastards" every month. Ewell constantly pressured his subordinate officers to report higher and higher "body counts." In December 1969, under the rubric of "Operation Speedy Express," Ewell and his commanders upped the kill ratio even more, and on paper seemed to be having great success in killing far more of the enemy than the casualties his own forces were taking. In reality, says Turse, this seeming triumph was caused by the fact that large numbers of civilians were being massacred.

Turse's accounts of specific incidents are often very difficult to stomach. In one incident, as U.S. troops shot up some unarmed villagers, they managed to wound a 5-year-old girl. Instead of getting her medical care, one of the soldiers "simplified" the situation by repeatedly clubbing her with the butt of his rifle until she was dead.

Platoon and company commanders gave specific orders for the murder of noncombatants and the destruction of villages, fishing boats, water buffalos, pigs and everything else that the Vietnamese peasants needed to make a living. From the sky rained unbelievable amounts of bombs and napalm. Artillery joined in, and spraying of defoliants such as Agent Orange destroyed the environment over wide regions of the country. As many as 2 million civilians were killed, and some are still dying from chemical exposure.

When soldiers were brought up on charges for killing civilians, as some were, they seldom got more than a light slap on the wrist.

This might seem exaggerated, but Turse based his book on years of meticulous research: I\interviewing former U.S. soldiers and Marines who witnessed atrocities, going from village to village in Vietnam to interview survivors of the genocidal rampages of Ewell and his ilk, and going through U.S. military and government records whose very existence others writing on this subject were unaware of.

The villains are top U.S. civilian and military leaders including Presidents Johnson and Nixon, Gen. William Westmoreland and other commanders. The role of the media was inglorious; Turse suggests that the My Lai incident motivated them to hide the full scale of the horror rather than expose it further.

The heroes are above all the Vietnamese people, but also a number of courageous U.S. soldiers who did not turn a blind eye to these horrors but tried as hard as they could to expose them and get the perpetrators punished.

To prevent this from ever happening again, everybody should read this book.

Book information:
"Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War In Vietnam"
by Nick Turse
2013, Metropolitan Books, 384 pages, $30.00

Lincoln: principles and politics

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 11:06:00 +0000

In this 150th anniversary year of the Emancipation Proclamation, we are fortunate to have Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals to help us understand Abraham Lincoln and the abolition of slavery. It goes together with Stephen Spielberg's film Lincoln that has been nominated for several Oscars.

Goodwin brings the 16th President of the United States to life, a plainspoken frontiersman who seemed to come out of nowhere. Lincoln was a rawboned circuit lawyer from Illinois, born in a Kentucky log cabin, with one year of formal education - the "rail splitter."

Goodwin portrays him as a generous, outgoing man, fond of telling jokes. He was a brilliant political strategist and tactician who defeated rivals far wealthier and better connected than he. Having won the presidency, Lincoln turned around and named his rivals to his cabinet.

Lincoln held his cabinet together against all odds. Yet on a grander scale, Lincoln held the Union itself together, spearheading a coalition that ranged from abolitionists like Frederick Douglass to border state politicians like Maryland's Montgomery Blair.

Goodwin paints on a broad canvas, depicting the nation's capital during the Civil War. Her book reminds me of Margaret Leech's Reveille in Washington, likewise a Pulitzer Prize winner. Yet Goodwin delves far deeper into the political and ideological roots of the struggle.

I found especially moving her portrayal of women in the struggle. She quotes letters Frances Seward wrote to her husband, Secretary of State William Henry Seward, chastising him for retreating from his abolitionist principles and even criticizing Lincoln for concessions to the slave power. Goodwin stresses the enormous loss suffered by virtually every family from illness, a tragedy multiplied a thousand-fold by death and maiming on the battlefield.

The dramatic highpoint of Goodwin's book - and of Lincoln's presidency - is the Emancipation Proclamation that freed "henceforth and forever" three-and-a-half million enslaved African Americans.

Lincoln was facing one battlefield defeat after another. The death toll climbed above half a million. He had reached the conclusion that the only strategy to save the union was to free the slaves. They then enlisted in the war to defeat the slave power, something long advocated by the great abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass.

Lincoln decided in the summer of 1862 the time had come. He drafted the Emancipation Proclamation and read it to his cabinet July 22. Seward warned that if Lincoln issued the Proclamation immediately, it would be seen as an act of desperation. Lincoln agreed to wait for a Union victory on the battlefield.

Gen. Robert E. Lee crossed the Potomoc into Maryland with his army and engaged the Union army in combat at Antietam on September 7, 1862. By the end of the day, 6,000 soldiers on both sides were dead and 17,000 wounded. Yet Lee, defeated by the Union army, was forced to retreat.

It was the victory Lincoln was waiting for. On Sept. 22, the White House announced that Lincoln would sign the Proclamation January 1. Goodwin writes that the announcement was greeted with joy in the streets. Mass rallies were organized hailing the Proclamation.

Yet the "copperheads," so-called "Peace Democrats," campaigned during the 1862 midterm elections against Lincoln's decision to free the slaves. They called for a "peace" that would preserve the slave power and extend slavery. The "copperheads" won big gains in that election, whittling the Republican majority to a razor thin margin in the U.S. House of Representatives. Lincoln was deeply depressed by the election results. But he stood his ground. The Proclamation was signed and sealed.

Goodwin quotes Douglass's reaction that New Year's Day: "We shout for joy and we live to record this righteous decree ... Will it lead the President to reconsider and retract? No, Abraham Lincoln will take no step backward."

Goodwin alludes to a letter of congratulation Lincoln received from the "workingmen of London" (page 504) for signing the Proclamation. Lincoln replied, "The resources, advantages, and powers of the American people are very great.... It seems to have devolved upon them whether a government, established on the principles of human freedom, can be maintained."

Goodwin, referring to exchanges between Lincoln and the International Workingmen's Association in London, was talking about an organization founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. This was the labor-led movement that blocked England from recognizing the Confederacy, a crucial victory in the isolation and ultimate defeat of the slave owners.

Many of the IWA messages were drafted by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, co-authors of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, recruited Marx and Engels to write a series of columns on the Civil War.

Lincoln had working relations with German socialists who had fled Germany after the Prussian defeat of the 1848 democratic revolution in Germany. Some ended up in the United States, Joseph Weydemeyer, for example, a close associate of Karl Marx, was commissioned by Lincoln as a Brigadier General in command of Union troops defending St. Louis.

Lincoln was not a communist or even a socialist, of course. Yet he stated clearly in his first State of the Union speech, Dec. 3, 1861, that "labor is prior to and independent of capital." Goodwin's book dramatizes that, above everything else, Lincoln understood the imperative of unity. He was a pioneer in helping build a new kind of coalition that abolished slavery and saved the union.

Book Review
Team of Rivals
By Doris Kearns Goodwin
915 pages, Simon and Schuster, $21.00k

Al Gore takes on “The Future”

Thu, 07 Feb 2013 15:22:00 +0000

In his new book, "The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change," Al Gore tries to expand his public role to issues that relate to but go beyond climate change. Gore addresses what he sees as the six major challenges for the future of the world.

Readers contribute as much to what they get out of books as the authors do. This may be even more true than usual for readers of Gore's book. What you get from this book strongly depends on the reasons you read the book in the first place. Right-wingers will be infuriated. Those looking for a broad view of the challenges facing the world from a science-based but fairly mainstream perspective will find exactly what they are looking for. Those looking for an explanation of the fundamental causes of those challenges will find the book less than adequate.

The breadth of issues discussed by Gore is impressive. He has access to leading researchers and academics in many fields, and seems to have a voracious mind, eager to discuss and connect cutting edge developments in many fields. From robotics to gene therapy, from agriculture to income inequality, from climate change to brain research, from campaign finance reform to bioethics, he reports and links many developments into a relatively coherent whole. This is quite an accomplishment considering the range of issues, developments, and problems he writes about.

One of the paradoxes of U.S. politics is that someone as uncharismatic as Al Gore can become such a polarizing public figure. His role in popularizing explanations of climate change to the general public makes him a lightning rod for criticism from climate change deniers, fossil fuel company flacks, and fossil fuel company owners and major shareholders who will have their pocketbooks diminished if Gore's message about climate change is heard and acted on by tens of millions of people in our country.

Because of who he is and the role he has played in U.S. politics, Gore's book is receiving mainstream attention including major reviews and appearances on talk shows (and Jon Stewart's "Daily Show"). And that is mostly a good thing. Gore's identification of problems and explanation of the primary and secondary causes of those problems is a real contribution to public debate. His indictments of U.S. economics and politics will drive right-wingers to fury. His reporting of masses of facts will make it harder for opponents to dismiss his claims out-of-hand.

Conversely, those who read expecting a thoroughgoing expose of the major problems facing the world are more likely to find themselves buried under a mountain of facts, statistics, and "profound" statements which often correctly identify many problems but gloss over their key underlying causes.

If what you want is a wide-ranging, erudite discussion of all the main challenges facing humanity, from climate change to the role of corporations and the super-rich to economic transformations due to globalization and automating of production processes, then this book is a treasure trove of details that are important to understanding those challenges.

Nonetheless, those seeking an understanding of why we are in the position we are, and of the fundamental necessary transformations in world politics, economics, and production, will run up against Gore's ideological advocacy of what he (and many others) term "sustainable capitalism."

Gore's strengths and weaknesses are on full display in "The Future." Recognizing Gore's limitations, it is worthwhile to plow through this long and detailed book to get an important perspective on profound challenges facing us, and their "drivers."

Book information:
"The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change"
By Al Gore
2013, Random House, 592 pages, $30.00

Super Bowl offers beauty and disgrace

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:30:00 +0000

Super Bowl 47 offered football fans an incredibly dramatic game that saw the Baltimore Ravens edge the San Francisco 49ers, 34-31. But there was a multitude of drama even before the first snap commenced.

Baltimore Ravens linebacker and longtime LGBT equality activist Brendon Ayanbadejo made the news for his public willingness to use the Super Bowl media frenzy to forward the causes of combatting anti-LGBT bullying and supporting marriage equality. However, when the issue of homophobia was addressed at the Super Bowl, it wasn't Ayanbadejo at the center of the debate.

There was relatively little discussion about the NFL-affiliated gospel celebration that starred a number of anti-gay-equality performers and preachers, because the media zeroed in on something else. During an interview, San Francisco 49ers defensive end Chris Culliver stated his intolerance for gay people and his animosity to even having possible gay teammates, saying, "No, we don't got no gay people on the team. They gotta get up out of here if they do."

These comments were compounded when two teammates - Ahmad Brooks and Isaac Sopoaga - denied participating in the team's "It Gets Better" video. The It Gets Better campaign - which seeks to empower the victims of anti-gay bullying through video statements of solidarity by celebrities - took down the Niners' video, marking the first time the campaign has ever pulled a video.

These Super Bowl happenings certainly highlight the very real limitations of victories for inclusiveness in the NFL. They also become a teachable moment. Pressure from the public, the 49ers, Coach Harbaugh and his loved ones caused Culliver to issue an unequivocal apology. He also announced that he will undergo sensitivity training and volunteer with groups like The Trevor Project to become better educated and raise awareness. So, while there are still problems with homophobia in sport, it is safe to say that it is getting better.

Meanwhile, on Sunday morning, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appeared on "Face the Nation." Unsurprisingly, Goodell dodged questions about the link between football, concussions and long-term brain injuries like chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a trauma-induced brain disorder.

This is the same sport that is being sued by over 3,000 former players and their families for not giving the players the information needed to give informed consent to play - either through not investigating the possible long-term health risks or keeping the extent of those risks from the players.

It is the same sport that, until 2009 when Congress threatened their anti-trust exemption, had their head neurologist denying links between being hit in the head and long-term brain injuries despite lots of new research showing the damning effects of football on the human brain.

This is also the same sport that has seen over 90% of players polled say that they do not trust their team doctors to meaningfully care for a player's long-term health.

And this is the same commissioner who has tried to publicize his desire to care for player health and safety while asking for more regular season games.

The game itself had an embarrassingly problematic moment when the Superdome saw the power go out in part of the stadium. By Sunday evening, there were already questions about whether or not the Superdome would be able to host any more games unless they get an influx of public cash or, as Forbes noted, a brand new stadium.

Since 2005, the New Orleans stadium has received $471 million in public subsidies. As a recent Bloomberg article noted: "Talks headed by then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue led to a plan to fix and renovate the Superdome with $121 million from the state, $44 million from the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District, which oversees the facility, $156 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and $15 million from the league. ...Ultimately, the financing cost the district more than three times its $44 million commitment."

"In April 2009, Louisiana negotiated a new lease to ... keep the team in New Orleans through 2025. The state made $85 million in fresh Superdome improvements, adding luxury seating and moving the press box."

Of course, this is representative of the vast majority of major sporting activities in the United States: We socialize the costs while privatizing the profit of major ventures like the Super Bowl and use the brief power outage as an excuse to shill for millions more to be spent on another stadium while social services and programs are underfunded.

But at least the commercials couldn't be political, right? Wrong. SodaStream attempted to highlight its environmental friendliness as well as opposing the major soda corporations. But SodaStream is the subject of its own boycott by peace activists and Israeli boycott/divestment/sanctions (BDS) activists since the factory that produces SodaStream's devices is in an illegal Israeli settlement in the heart of the occupied West Bank.

Super Bowl 47 brought us some beautiful football highlights- Kaepernick's tremendous play, Flacco's MVP performance, etc. - and some embarrassing lowlights (including, quite literally, the blackout).

The excesses of corporate capitalism and homophobia have the opportunity to be countered by some gorgeous social justice resistance. Instead of denunciations of sport, we can celebrate the beauty while using it as a vehicle to discuss social justice issues. Let's not punt this away.

Photo: Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis (52) celebrates after defeating the San Francisco 49ers 34-31in the NFL Super Bowl XLVII football game, Feb. 3, in New Orleans. Dave Martin/AP

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" is a powerful indictment of capitalism

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 16:27:00 +0000

The rise of the current phase of globalization has been accompanied by an endless stream of articles and books on this phenomenon. The dominant narrative is that the extension and deepening of economic relations across the globe is both inevitable and a nearly unalloyed blessing.

Yes, the argument goes, a few people have been left behind. But on the whole, the advocates of this new phase of capitalism argue, incomes and job opportunities have grown, new industries, new technologies and a new global division of labor have arisen, and formerly poor countries - China, India, Brazil, etc. - have embarked on an upward growth trajectory.

But there is a different narrative that contradicts this idyllic picture. Indeed, this other narrative reveals the negative impacts of this new stage of capitalist globalization on peoples and countries.

Charts, graphs, and statistics make the case that globalization has not been a process of broad economic uplift in either the advanced industrial countries or the newly industrializing countries.

They show that the panorama of capitalist globalization is one of displaced workers, deindustrialization, declining wages, hollowed out communities, land dispossessions, forced migration within and between countries, unsafe working conditions, unspeakable poverty, hunger, and disease, racial and gender inequality, and an explosion of slums.

But scholarly analyses don't capture the lived experience of actual human beings caught on the wrong side of the global economy.

Now we have a book that does - Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity." It isn't the first book of this kind but, in revealing the tragedy of capitalist globalization in incredibly intimate and moving detail much like a good novel does, it has to rank as one of the best.

Boo has been writing on poverty in the United States for many years - first as a journalist with the Washington Post and now at the New Yorker. But in this new book she turns her perceptive eye to a slum neighborhood named Annawadi, in Mumbai, India.

Over a three-year period, Boo chronicles the lives of a few families in their struggle for survival in the shadows of the other India - a new modern airport complete with lavish hotels, upscale offices, and nouveau riche capitalists.

The residents of Annawadi, Boo tells us, are "housed" in ramshackle huts which are visited on cold nights by rats that bite the human inhabitants. Most are forced into precarious and unwaged jobs on the edges of India's growing economy. Much of their work revolves around trash - its collection, sorting, and selling - plus occasional theft from nearby construction sites. Here we see the informal economy, as it is called, writ large.

One of two threads of the book is the travails of the Husain family and their son Abdul Hakim, who finds himself, through no fault of his own, in the clutches of the criminal justice system - a system that is filled, according to Boo, with rampant corruption and extortion.

The other thread is the lives of Asha and her daughter. Asha is an activist in the Hindu extremist Shen Siva party, who hopes to become the slum overlord and "then ride the city's inevitable corruption into the middle class."

Annawadi's other residents have similar aspirations, but most of them, writes Boo have even less chance than Asha and her daughter of transcending their crushing circumstances. In Annawadi even bootstraps are scarce.

As you might expect, the neighborhood isn't stable. Its inhabitants come and go. Not finding work, they move on to another neighborhood or city or back to the countryside in hopes of improving their lives. Understandably, some resort to criminality.

However, what is striking in Boo's account is the near absence of social solidarity in this community. Indeed, what stands out is the highly individualized struggles of people to eke out a life - sometimes at the expense of their neighbor. I don't doubt that what Boo writes is true, but for the reader to generalize this particular experience would be problematic. In other parts of India and the global South, mass mobilizations of slum dwellers have left their imprint on the political landscape.

At the same time, to suggest - as some do - that the poorest in society are the singular and leading force for social change strikes me as problematic. In my view, only in close alliance with organized wageworkers and other social groupings and movements can the most impoverished find economic security, equality, and freedom.

If the book has a fault it lies in its narrow frame. While its close-up lens gives the reader a picture of the horror of neoliberal globalization in the lives of a few real human beings, this approach comes at a price - the wider political and economic context, shaped by capitalist restructuring, crisis, and stagnation, is hidden from view.

That said, "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" is still a powerful indictment of 21^st century capitalism. It is well worth reading.

Book details:

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

By Katherine Boo

2012, Random House, 288 pages, $27.00 hardcover

Also available in paperback, Kindle, and audio editions