Sunday, March 29, 2009
News From Asheville Global Report
Mar. 16- The senior diplomat who withdrew as one of Barack Obama's top intelligence officials in a row over Israel has stepped up his attack on those he says are stifling debate in the United States, adding that he was "deeply insulted" to be accused of antisemitism for criticising what he described as "the Israel lobby".
Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told CNN that organisations representing the right wing of Israeli politics had "a hammer lock on both public discussion and policy", and that their campaign to force his withdrawal as the chair of Obama's national intelligence council had been intended to "reinforce the taboo against any critical discussion of Israeli policies".
Freeman also reiterated his view that American policy on Israel had contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, part of a litany that prompted several members of Congress to speak out against his appointment. The US was "paying a price" for its Middle Eastern policies, he said, "because our actions have catalysed - perhaps not caused, but catalysed - a radicalisation of Arab and Muslim politics that facilitates the activities of terrorists with global reach, like those who struck us on 9/11."
His opponents "should probably be called the Likud lobby" rather than the Israel lobby, he added. "The atmosphere is such in this country now that, whereas Israelis in Israel routinely criticise Israeli policies that they think may prove to be suicidal for their country, those who criticise the same policies here, for the same reasons, are subject to political reprisal."
Freeman's Washington critics, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Zionist Organisation of America, have pointed to the fact that he served as president of a thinktank part-funded by the Saudi government, and on the advisory board of a Chinese-owned oil firm.
"If you're going to be an intelligence man, you can't have a financial conflict of interest with countries that are critical to your evaluation of intelligence data," Morton Klein, president of the ZOA, said.
Klein rejected the notion that American debate on Arab-Israeli policy was artificially narrow. "Many people are talking about the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Obama just increased aid to the Palestinian Authority from $700m under Bush to $900m now. What's narrow is that nobody talks about how the PA obligated themselves at Oslo to get rid of incitement to hatred and murder."
Freeman has also been attacked for his alleged support of China in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In his CNN interview, he insisted that a much-quoted email list posting had been edited to obscure the fact that he was characterising "the dominant view of the Chinese leadership", not his own.
Answering charges of antisemitism, Freeman said: "There's a very large number of American Jews who have written to me to express their gratitude for me raising the issues I have... The last thing on earth I am is antisemitic."
Chas Freeman, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told CNN that organisations representing the right wing of Israeli politics had "a hammer lock on both public discussion and policy", and that their campaign to force his withdrawal as the chair of Obama's national intelligence council had been intended to "reinforce the taboo against any critical discussion of Israeli policies".
Freeman also reiterated his view that American policy on Israel had contributed to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, part of a litany that prompted several members of Congress to speak out against his appointment. The US was "paying a price" for its Middle Eastern policies, he said, "because our actions have catalysed - perhaps not caused, but catalysed - a radicalisation of Arab and Muslim politics that facilitates the activities of terrorists with global reach, like those who struck us on 9/11."
His opponents "should probably be called the Likud lobby" rather than the Israel lobby, he added. "The atmosphere is such in this country now that, whereas Israelis in Israel routinely criticise Israeli policies that they think may prove to be suicidal for their country, those who criticise the same policies here, for the same reasons, are subject to political reprisal."
Freeman's Washington critics, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Zionist Organisation of America, have pointed to the fact that he served as president of a thinktank part-funded by the Saudi government, and on the advisory board of a Chinese-owned oil firm.
"If you're going to be an intelligence man, you can't have a financial conflict of interest with countries that are critical to your evaluation of intelligence data," Morton Klein, president of the ZOA, said.
Klein rejected the notion that American debate on Arab-Israeli policy was artificially narrow. "Many people are talking about the establishment of a Palestinian state, and Obama just increased aid to the Palestinian Authority from $700m under Bush to $900m now. What's narrow is that nobody talks about how the PA obligated themselves at Oslo to get rid of incitement to hatred and murder."
Freeman has also been attacked for his alleged support of China in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In his CNN interview, he insisted that a much-quoted email list posting had been edited to obscure the fact that he was characterising "the dominant view of the Chinese leadership", not his own.
Answering charges of antisemitism, Freeman said: "There's a very large number of American Jews who have written to me to express their gratitude for me raising the issues I have... The last thing on earth I am is antisemitic."
For College Journalists, Direct Action Can Get The Goods
There is a natural tension between college administrations and campus newspapers. The students who write and edit the sheets believe they are journalists who have First Amendment rights. The college administrators believe the newspapers are part of the university, and being such, are subject to the decisions of the administrators. Being as close to a First Amendment activist as I can be, I have to side with the student journalists. They are closest to what is happening on the campuses, and are often the only ones reporting about what is happening with what are major institutions in their own communities.
There are too many incidents happening in which college journalists have to fight for their rights, and they need a program of activism. The activism has to be on several fronts, but it should never stray far from the dictum of the I-W-W: Direct Action Gets The Goods!
Here are the steps I believe student journalists should take when confronting college administrators.
First: Lobby for state laws that protect student newspapers. Following the case of Hosty v. Carter, student journalists are lobbying for, and in some cases, getting protective laws passed. The laws have to extend the doctrine of bonafide news organization to the papers. This is effective for state college campuses.
Second: If you feel your rights are being infringed, file a lawsuit. Yes, it takes time, effort, and money to do this. But, at the very least, the presence of a lawsuit is news and may embarrass the administrators in question.
Third: Strike, Sit-In, and Protest. This is one part of the direct action program. This is what students at the University of Oregon did when the administration attempted to put another layer of oversight onto an independent student newspaper. Again, it is newsworthy and will get coverage in some venue. It may embarrass the administration.
Fourth: This is the final part of the direct action program. I simply cannot believe it is not being done in cases that I hear about. Publish the offending material anyway. Usually administration actions are brought on by stories that have the potentiality to embarrass the administration and school. The students of today are supposed to be technology savvy. Find some way to publish the offending material online. This is direct action at its finest. It takes the power completely away from the authorities. The material gets out there and there is nothing they can do about it.
The fight has to be on many fronts, but remember: Direct Action Gets the Goods!!
There are too many incidents happening in which college journalists have to fight for their rights, and they need a program of activism. The activism has to be on several fronts, but it should never stray far from the dictum of the I-W-W: Direct Action Gets The Goods!
Here are the steps I believe student journalists should take when confronting college administrators.
First: Lobby for state laws that protect student newspapers. Following the case of Hosty v. Carter, student journalists are lobbying for, and in some cases, getting protective laws passed. The laws have to extend the doctrine of bonafide news organization to the papers. This is effective for state college campuses.
Second: If you feel your rights are being infringed, file a lawsuit. Yes, it takes time, effort, and money to do this. But, at the very least, the presence of a lawsuit is news and may embarrass the administrators in question.
Third: Strike, Sit-In, and Protest. This is one part of the direct action program. This is what students at the University of Oregon did when the administration attempted to put another layer of oversight onto an independent student newspaper. Again, it is newsworthy and will get coverage in some venue. It may embarrass the administration.
Fourth: This is the final part of the direct action program. I simply cannot believe it is not being done in cases that I hear about. Publish the offending material anyway. Usually administration actions are brought on by stories that have the potentiality to embarrass the administration and school. The students of today are supposed to be technology savvy. Find some way to publish the offending material online. This is direct action at its finest. It takes the power completely away from the authorities. The material gets out there and there is nothing they can do about it.
The fight has to be on many fronts, but remember: Direct Action Gets the Goods!!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
News From Green Left Weekly
6 March 2009
Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured and hundreds of thousands are in danger from hunger and disease, as the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) continues its brutal offensive against the Tamil people in the island’s north-east.
The Sri Lankan government is declaring an imminent victory in its 26-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for the independence for the Tamil Eelam homeland in Sri Lanka’s north and east.
“The Sri Lankan government has pursued a brutal military campaign in which it has shelled its own people, including in government-designated ‘safe zones’, displacing, injuring and killing many thousands of innocent civilians”, according to a letter signed by 11 British members of parliament.
The letter, published in the March 4 British Guardian, stated: “In the past two months alone 2,000 lives have been lost and as many as 5,000 have been injured. In the areas it has secured there have been reports of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations.
“Dissent is treated as treason, criticism is violently suppressed and Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.”
The MPs called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, and for the army to allow access for aid agencies to the areas under attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned of “an impending humanitarian catastrophe”, according to a March 4 BBC report. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported on March 3 that 200,000 civilians were “living under desperate conditions”.
“Patients tell MSF how people are being shelled for days on end, with the dead and wounded surrounding them. There is a severe lack of medical care and not enough food and drinking water”, the NGO stated.
Sri Lankan defence affairs minister Keheliya Rambukwella dismissed calls for a ceasefire by the LTTE as “hilarious” as “the LTTE is on the verge of defeat militarily”, according to the March 3 Hindustan Times.
During a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire between 2002 and 2008, much of Tamil Eelam was under the de facto administration of the LTTE. In January 2008, the army unilaterally ended the ceasefire and embarked on the reconquest of the LTTE-held areas.
Since December, government and military spokespeople have announced the final defeat of the Tamil rebels several times.
While attacks by the LTTE against police and military targets have continued, it is clear that the army has succeeded in bringing most of the island under its territorial control. This has been achieved at the cost of the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The civilian death toll from army’s assault is greater even than that during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza. According to Tamil sources, 2018 civilians were killed by the army in January and February, including 728 children. US-based Human Rights Watch has corroborated these figures.
Like their Israeli counterparts, Sri Lankan military authorities have kept media and aid agencies away from the conflict.
A high proportion of the civilian casualties have been in the areas which the military itself designated as “safe zones”. Hospitals have been targeted and columns of fleeing civilians have been carpet bombed by Israeli-supplied Kfir jets.
Illegal weapons such as cluster munitions and white phosphorus have been used.
The latest “safe zone” is a narrow 12-kilometre strip between a lagoon and the sea north of the town of Mullaiththeevu. More than 200,000 civilians have been herded into this barren land that lacks potable water and shade.
Food and medicine cannot be brought in. Health workers have reported deaths from starvation and from people eating poisonous Adampan leaves — one of the few plants that grow in the area.
According to S. Kanagratnam, member of parliament for Vanni (which covers the “safe zone”): “Scores of Tamil civilians are being killed every day. But the civilian victims are not on or near the frontline, as some international media is reporting.
“These people, inside safety zone, away from the frontline and they are being deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military … International actors and media who suggest that the civilians are somehow caught between the combatants or caught in crossfire and so on are deliberately misrepresenting the situation.
“This misrepresentation serves to absolve the Sri Lankan state of any blame for the killing and maiming of hundreds of Tamil people every week.
“It also serves to conceal, deliberately or unintentionally, the genocidal logic of firing thousands of shells at civilian areas — especially after arbitrarily designating these places as a so-called safe area so as to draw civilians into it.”
Western politicians and media have called for the LTTE to allow civilians to be evacuated to government-controlled areas, echoing Sri Lankan propaganda claiming that the LTTE are keeping civilians as human shields. This ignores the routine abuse of Tamil civilians in government-controlled areas.
According to a March 4 report on the TamilSydney website, the abandoned Kilinochchi hospital is being used by the army to hold young men, who are subjected to forced labour, and young women, who are held as sex slaves.
The March 2 Hindustan Times reported that the US Pacific Command (Pacom) was planning to evacuate 200,000 Tamil civilians from the conflict zone to government-controlled areas, where the government “would then imprison them in concentration-style internment camps”.
“PACOM evacuating these Tamil civilians is equivalent to signing their death warrants. These people have been bombed for months by this genocidal government; evacuating them from Vanni and delivering them to the Sri Lankan government is equivalent to being an accomplice to genocide”, Rosha Hebsur from the NGO People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka told the Hindustan Times.
The anti-Tamil war has been accompanied by a crackdown against the media that has resulted in journalists being arrested, assaulted, kidnapped and assassinated. During the past five years, 23 journalists have been killed by government-linked death squads and the BBC has suspended operations in the country.
The past-quarter century of civil war in Sri Lanka was preceded by a quarter-century of discrimination and escalating anti-Tamil violence. Backed by the Buddhist clergy, the major Sri Lankan political parties have promoted a chauvinistic nationalism that promotes the Singhalese people (who comprise 74% of the population) as the only true Sri Lankans.
In fact Singhalese and Tamils have coexisted on the island for millenia.
Despite discrimination in education and employment, when the LTTE was founded in the 1970s, the majority of Tamils did not support their program of independence to be won through armed struggle.
However, the success of the Singhalese elite in diverting discontent amongst the Singhalese poor into regular outbreaks of anti-Tamil violence convinced Tamils that there was no place for them in the Singhalese-dominated Sri Lankan state.
Following the 1983 “Black July” anti-Tamil pogrom, in which 3000 people were killed, a majority of Tamils switched their allegiance to the LTTE.
Attracted by the prize of the strategically important deep-water port of Trincomolee, global and regional powers have competed with each other to provide military assistance to Sri Lanka.
The US, Israel, China, India and Pakistan have all equipped the Sri Lankan army with high technology weapons, including illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions.
The Sri Lankan army has only been used against internal enemies — the Tamils and uprisings by Singhalese rural poor youth in the ’70s and ’80s.
Since 2001, Western support for Sri Lanka has been justified by viewing the conflict through Washington’s “war on terror” prism, with the LTTE being listed by the US and the European Union as a terrorist organisation.
The LTTE are not listed as a prohibited terrorist organisation in Australia. This did not stop the Australian Federal Police from attempting to assist the Sri Lankan state by using anti-terror laws to prosecute three Tamil men in Melbourne for allegedly providing assistance to the LTTE.
However, nine terrorism-related charges were dropped on March 6 against the men. In 2007, Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno had raised doubts as to whether the prosecution could succeed in convincing a jury the LTTE were a terrorist organisation, according the March 6 Australian.
The men still face charges of assisting an organisation prohibited by the United Nations, which carries a five-year maximum sentence, down from the 25 years attached to the dropped charges.
History repeatedly shows that oppression creates resistance. Even if the SLA’s current offensive succeeds in militarily destroying the LTTE, as long as the Tamil people are denied justice and the right to self-determination, there will be no lasting peace.
Thousands of civilians have been killed or injured and hundreds of thousands are in danger from hunger and disease, as the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) continues its brutal offensive against the Tamil people in the island’s north-east.
The Sri Lankan government is declaring an imminent victory in its 26-year war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), an armed group fighting for the independence for the Tamil Eelam homeland in Sri Lanka’s north and east.
“The Sri Lankan government has pursued a brutal military campaign in which it has shelled its own people, including in government-designated ‘safe zones’, displacing, injuring and killing many thousands of innocent civilians”, according to a letter signed by 11 British members of parliament.
The letter, published in the March 4 British Guardian, stated: “In the past two months alone 2,000 lives have been lost and as many as 5,000 have been injured. In the areas it has secured there have been reports of unlawful killings, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations.
“Dissent is treated as treason, criticism is violently suppressed and Sri Lanka is one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.”
The MPs called for a ceasefire and peace negotiations, and for the army to allow access for aid agencies to the areas under attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has warned of “an impending humanitarian catastrophe”, according to a March 4 BBC report. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported on March 3 that 200,000 civilians were “living under desperate conditions”.
“Patients tell MSF how people are being shelled for days on end, with the dead and wounded surrounding them. There is a severe lack of medical care and not enough food and drinking water”, the NGO stated.
Sri Lankan defence affairs minister Keheliya Rambukwella dismissed calls for a ceasefire by the LTTE as “hilarious” as “the LTTE is on the verge of defeat militarily”, according to the March 3 Hindustan Times.
During a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire between 2002 and 2008, much of Tamil Eelam was under the de facto administration of the LTTE. In January 2008, the army unilaterally ended the ceasefire and embarked on the reconquest of the LTTE-held areas.
Since December, government and military spokespeople have announced the final defeat of the Tamil rebels several times.
While attacks by the LTTE against police and military targets have continued, it is clear that the army has succeeded in bringing most of the island under its territorial control. This has been achieved at the cost of the displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The civilian death toll from army’s assault is greater even than that during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza. According to Tamil sources, 2018 civilians were killed by the army in January and February, including 728 children. US-based Human Rights Watch has corroborated these figures.
Like their Israeli counterparts, Sri Lankan military authorities have kept media and aid agencies away from the conflict.
A high proportion of the civilian casualties have been in the areas which the military itself designated as “safe zones”. Hospitals have been targeted and columns of fleeing civilians have been carpet bombed by Israeli-supplied Kfir jets.
Illegal weapons such as cluster munitions and white phosphorus have been used.
The latest “safe zone” is a narrow 12-kilometre strip between a lagoon and the sea north of the town of Mullaiththeevu. More than 200,000 civilians have been herded into this barren land that lacks potable water and shade.
Food and medicine cannot be brought in. Health workers have reported deaths from starvation and from people eating poisonous Adampan leaves — one of the few plants that grow in the area.
According to S. Kanagratnam, member of parliament for Vanni (which covers the “safe zone”): “Scores of Tamil civilians are being killed every day. But the civilian victims are not on or near the frontline, as some international media is reporting.
“These people, inside safety zone, away from the frontline and they are being deliberately targeted by the Sri Lankan military … International actors and media who suggest that the civilians are somehow caught between the combatants or caught in crossfire and so on are deliberately misrepresenting the situation.
“This misrepresentation serves to absolve the Sri Lankan state of any blame for the killing and maiming of hundreds of Tamil people every week.
“It also serves to conceal, deliberately or unintentionally, the genocidal logic of firing thousands of shells at civilian areas — especially after arbitrarily designating these places as a so-called safe area so as to draw civilians into it.”
Western politicians and media have called for the LTTE to allow civilians to be evacuated to government-controlled areas, echoing Sri Lankan propaganda claiming that the LTTE are keeping civilians as human shields. This ignores the routine abuse of Tamil civilians in government-controlled areas.
According to a March 4 report on the TamilSydney website, the abandoned Kilinochchi hospital is being used by the army to hold young men, who are subjected to forced labour, and young women, who are held as sex slaves.
The March 2 Hindustan Times reported that the US Pacific Command (Pacom) was planning to evacuate 200,000 Tamil civilians from the conflict zone to government-controlled areas, where the government “would then imprison them in concentration-style internment camps”.
“PACOM evacuating these Tamil civilians is equivalent to signing their death warrants. These people have been bombed for months by this genocidal government; evacuating them from Vanni and delivering them to the Sri Lankan government is equivalent to being an accomplice to genocide”, Rosha Hebsur from the NGO People for Equality and Relief in Sri Lanka told the Hindustan Times.
The anti-Tamil war has been accompanied by a crackdown against the media that has resulted in journalists being arrested, assaulted, kidnapped and assassinated. During the past five years, 23 journalists have been killed by government-linked death squads and the BBC has suspended operations in the country.
The past-quarter century of civil war in Sri Lanka was preceded by a quarter-century of discrimination and escalating anti-Tamil violence. Backed by the Buddhist clergy, the major Sri Lankan political parties have promoted a chauvinistic nationalism that promotes the Singhalese people (who comprise 74% of the population) as the only true Sri Lankans.
In fact Singhalese and Tamils have coexisted on the island for millenia.
Despite discrimination in education and employment, when the LTTE was founded in the 1970s, the majority of Tamils did not support their program of independence to be won through armed struggle.
However, the success of the Singhalese elite in diverting discontent amongst the Singhalese poor into regular outbreaks of anti-Tamil violence convinced Tamils that there was no place for them in the Singhalese-dominated Sri Lankan state.
Following the 1983 “Black July” anti-Tamil pogrom, in which 3000 people were killed, a majority of Tamils switched their allegiance to the LTTE.
Attracted by the prize of the strategically important deep-water port of Trincomolee, global and regional powers have competed with each other to provide military assistance to Sri Lanka.
The US, Israel, China, India and Pakistan have all equipped the Sri Lankan army with high technology weapons, including illegal chemical weapons and cluster munitions.
The Sri Lankan army has only been used against internal enemies — the Tamils and uprisings by Singhalese rural poor youth in the ’70s and ’80s.
Since 2001, Western support for Sri Lanka has been justified by viewing the conflict through Washington’s “war on terror” prism, with the LTTE being listed by the US and the European Union as a terrorist organisation.
The LTTE are not listed as a prohibited terrorist organisation in Australia. This did not stop the Australian Federal Police from attempting to assist the Sri Lankan state by using anti-terror laws to prosecute three Tamil men in Melbourne for allegedly providing assistance to the LTTE.
However, nine terrorism-related charges were dropped on March 6 against the men. In 2007, Supreme Court judge Bernard Bongiorno had raised doubts as to whether the prosecution could succeed in convincing a jury the LTTE were a terrorist organisation, according the March 6 Australian.
The men still face charges of assisting an organisation prohibited by the United Nations, which carries a five-year maximum sentence, down from the 25 years attached to the dropped charges.
History repeatedly shows that oppression creates resistance. Even if the SLA’s current offensive succeeds in militarily destroying the LTTE, as long as the Tamil people are denied justice and the right to self-determination, there will be no lasting peace.
My Kind Of Town
I have had the opportunity recently to reflect on the incredible music scene that was the city of Chicago in the mid-to-late 1960s. On the rock and pop front, you had a stunning array of bands that included: The Buckinghams, The New Colony Six, The American Breed, The Ides of March, The Cryan Shames, The Shadows of Knight, just to name a few. These are just the ones who notched mentions on the Billboard Hot 100 and Bubbling Under charts. I am not even mentioning the ones who were just a local phenomenon and only scored local plays and sales, like the Yardbirdsy Del-Vetts.
Certainly one of the reasons the above-mentioned groups went beyond the purely local scene and into some national recognition was because of a fairly locally-oriented playlist philosophy from former Top-40 monster, WLS. This station could get the above-named bands, and others recognition in about 38 states with its night-time signal. A lot of these bands got followed throughout their entire careers. WLS was playing new records by the New Colony Six in the twilight of their career around 1972. You will probably find old-timers in Chicago who would swear that I Confess, circa 1965, was a major hit record.
Leave us not forget that, of course, Chicago was home city to the electric blues and the sounds of Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, and Willie Dixon wafted mightily out of the Chess studio on Michigan Avenue, hung briefly over Lake Michigan and then hopped the pond where hundreds of young limey lads were inspired to take up the guitar.
But, Chess was always an eclectic outfit, and its many subsidiary labels spun out slick rockabilly, R N B, and soul sides.
Let us linger a bit on the Chicago soul scene. The names of Gene Chandler, Major Lance, and Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions cause the hearts of many latter-day soul men to flutter. I am not even mentioning such marginal, sales-and-play-wise outfits like the Accents, who were probably a major force on the local Chicago nightclub circuit and local airwaves.
An Interesting compilation project would be a two-CD set of Chicago Rock and Soul from the mid-to-late 60s. Many of the marginal singles and acts would be a good presentation of the Second City from this era. An Armload of WLS Silver-Dollar Surveys from the era would provide the raw data.
I am sure many teen-dance venues were stocked with locals only talent.
So, a toast to you, City of the Broad Shoulders and the local talent you gave us in the first full decade of the Rock and Roll Era.
Certainly one of the reasons the above-mentioned groups went beyond the purely local scene and into some national recognition was because of a fairly locally-oriented playlist philosophy from former Top-40 monster, WLS. This station could get the above-named bands, and others recognition in about 38 states with its night-time signal. A lot of these bands got followed throughout their entire careers. WLS was playing new records by the New Colony Six in the twilight of their career around 1972. You will probably find old-timers in Chicago who would swear that I Confess, circa 1965, was a major hit record.
Leave us not forget that, of course, Chicago was home city to the electric blues and the sounds of Koko Taylor, Muddy Waters, and Willie Dixon wafted mightily out of the Chess studio on Michigan Avenue, hung briefly over Lake Michigan and then hopped the pond where hundreds of young limey lads were inspired to take up the guitar.
But, Chess was always an eclectic outfit, and its many subsidiary labels spun out slick rockabilly, R N B, and soul sides.
Let us linger a bit on the Chicago soul scene. The names of Gene Chandler, Major Lance, and Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions cause the hearts of many latter-day soul men to flutter. I am not even mentioning such marginal, sales-and-play-wise outfits like the Accents, who were probably a major force on the local Chicago nightclub circuit and local airwaves.
An Interesting compilation project would be a two-CD set of Chicago Rock and Soul from the mid-to-late 60s. Many of the marginal singles and acts would be a good presentation of the Second City from this era. An Armload of WLS Silver-Dollar Surveys from the era would provide the raw data.
I am sure many teen-dance venues were stocked with locals only talent.
So, a toast to you, City of the Broad Shoulders and the local talent you gave us in the first full decade of the Rock and Roll Era.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
New From Indymedia
February 11-2009--This Monday, Kent Police arrested a man in Sheffield under the Serious Crime Act 2007 in relation to the recent Indymedia server seizure. His home was raided, all computer equipment and related papers taken. He was released after eight hours. The person had neither technical, administrative nor editorial access to the Indymedia UK website. He was only associated to the project by hosting its server.
The arrest took place under Section 44-46 of the Serious Crime Act, which was passed into law on 1st October 2008 to combat serious international crime like drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering and armed robbery. Sections 44-46 refer to “encouraging or assisting offences”.
Kent police claim that they are after the IP address of the poster of two anonymous comments to a report about a recent animal liberation court case, which included personal details of the Judge. The IP address of the poster is not stored as Indymedia does not log IP addresses. This was acknowledged by British Transport Police in 2005, after the Bristol IMC server seizure.
For the police to arrest the person who happened to sign the contract for server hosting, is sheer intimidation, in light of Indymedia’s openly stated policy of no IP logging.
With the implementation of the EU Data Retention Directive in March 2009, the UK government attempts to turn every internet service provider in the country into part of the law enforcement apparatus. This legislation will provide a legal basis to track, intimidate, harass, and arrest people who are doing valuable and necessary work for social change, for example as peace activists, campaigners for economic and social justice or against police brutality.
The present intimidation of the open publishing alternative news platform Indymedia will have serious implications for anyone running a server in the UK which allows user contributions – blogs, social networking sites, wikis. This is an attempt to close down sites that respect the privacy of their contributors, pure and simple.
The arrest took place under Section 44-46 of the Serious Crime Act, which was passed into law on 1st October 2008 to combat serious international crime like drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering and armed robbery. Sections 44-46 refer to “encouraging or assisting offences”.
Kent police claim that they are after the IP address of the poster of two anonymous comments to a report about a recent animal liberation court case, which included personal details of the Judge. The IP address of the poster is not stored as Indymedia does not log IP addresses. This was acknowledged by British Transport Police in 2005, after the Bristol IMC server seizure.
For the police to arrest the person who happened to sign the contract for server hosting, is sheer intimidation, in light of Indymedia’s openly stated policy of no IP logging.
With the implementation of the EU Data Retention Directive in March 2009, the UK government attempts to turn every internet service provider in the country into part of the law enforcement apparatus. This legislation will provide a legal basis to track, intimidate, harass, and arrest people who are doing valuable and necessary work for social change, for example as peace activists, campaigners for economic and social justice or against police brutality.
The present intimidation of the open publishing alternative news platform Indymedia will have serious implications for anyone running a server in the UK which allows user contributions – blogs, social networking sites, wikis. This is an attempt to close down sites that respect the privacy of their contributors, pure and simple.
The Real Gangs York-Can You Dig It!?
I have had the opportunity to recently to re-visit two movies which subjects are Gangs and New York. Two things struck me from my re-visit to these two movies. The first is that it is possible to make amazing movies these days on large budgets. The second is that I was rather lucky to have grown up when I did, as it was still possible to see low-budget trash in theaters. The exploitation era of cinema ran roughly from the beginning of the 1960s to the death of the drive-in in the early 1980s.
The first movie I am talking about is of course, the magnum opus of Scorsese, which is undeniably capital A Art. But for my money, the great Gang and New York movie is from 1979, and entitled the Warriors. This film is firmly in the canon of cult film and has even had a video game made from it. I do not play video games, so I cannot attest to its value. But, I saw this movie before it was a cult film and can attest to its grandeur.
I remember seeing it by myself at Rogers Cinema in the town of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. My parents gave me a fairly long leash and let me see pretty much any movie I wanted to. My dad even drove me to the film in question.
Let me tell you why this movie is so great, and was even more so from the perspective of an adolescent:
It may feature the greatest cinematic speech in history from the gang leader Cyrus: Can You Dig It!?
The scene with clown-make-upped and bat-wielding Baseball Furies scared the bejesus out of me.
The sex and violence inherent in the fight scene between the Lizzies and the Warriors about made my adolescent head explode.
The plot prominently featured radio.
Something I know now: only one scene, the bathroom fight with The Punks was filmed on a set, meaning this movie was shot on location in the mean streets of New York.
It extols the virtues of public transportation.
It features a future sit-com star: Deborah Van Valkeburgh, soon to be featured on Too Close For Comfort.
You really cannot say that anybody in this movie is well-intentioned. Of course, you want to root for the Warriors, but they are criminals. The character, Ajax, has a marked propensity for rape.
From the perspective of the now-adult me, the close to penultimate scene in which Swan picks up a discarded corsage and bestows it upon Mercy, is surprisingly tender.
There are a lot of vests in this movie.
Shortly after seeing this movie for the first time, I saw the paperback novel by Sol Yurick in K-Mart. Why I never bought it is still a mystery to me.
It has a classical source: The Anabasis, by Xenophon, so um….that is cool.
Hollywood has been remaking a lot of cult favorites lately. The remakes of good-ol-fashioned slasher pics are just torture-porn. The remakes of Rollerball and Death Race 2000 were largely crap. I am hoping they leave this one alone. The kids need to see good low-budget crap cinema.
The first movie I am talking about is of course, the magnum opus of Scorsese, which is undeniably capital A Art. But for my money, the great Gang and New York movie is from 1979, and entitled the Warriors. This film is firmly in the canon of cult film and has even had a video game made from it. I do not play video games, so I cannot attest to its value. But, I saw this movie before it was a cult film and can attest to its grandeur.
I remember seeing it by myself at Rogers Cinema in the town of Stevens Point, Wisconsin. My parents gave me a fairly long leash and let me see pretty much any movie I wanted to. My dad even drove me to the film in question.
Let me tell you why this movie is so great, and was even more so from the perspective of an adolescent:
It may feature the greatest cinematic speech in history from the gang leader Cyrus: Can You Dig It!?
The scene with clown-make-upped and bat-wielding Baseball Furies scared the bejesus out of me.
The sex and violence inherent in the fight scene between the Lizzies and the Warriors about made my adolescent head explode.
The plot prominently featured radio.
Something I know now: only one scene, the bathroom fight with The Punks was filmed on a set, meaning this movie was shot on location in the mean streets of New York.
It extols the virtues of public transportation.
It features a future sit-com star: Deborah Van Valkeburgh, soon to be featured on Too Close For Comfort.
You really cannot say that anybody in this movie is well-intentioned. Of course, you want to root for the Warriors, but they are criminals. The character, Ajax, has a marked propensity for rape.
From the perspective of the now-adult me, the close to penultimate scene in which Swan picks up a discarded corsage and bestows it upon Mercy, is surprisingly tender.
There are a lot of vests in this movie.
Shortly after seeing this movie for the first time, I saw the paperback novel by Sol Yurick in K-Mart. Why I never bought it is still a mystery to me.
It has a classical source: The Anabasis, by Xenophon, so um….that is cool.
Hollywood has been remaking a lot of cult favorites lately. The remakes of good-ol-fashioned slasher pics are just torture-porn. The remakes of Rollerball and Death Race 2000 were largely crap. I am hoping they leave this one alone. The kids need to see good low-budget crap cinema.
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