Protest Music Protest and topical music including comedy. We're interested in the history of protest music, for instance labor songs, civil rights songs, anti war songs. We also feature contemporary protest music and we particularly want to hear your protest songs. This is an open group. Please join and post your diaries. If you want to help manage the group message me and I'll make you a BlogEditor. Of course Protest Music is on topic. But it doesn't have to be both. Protest or Music. Protest is on topic. Music is on topic.

Theme Song for a New Vision

Yesterday, OPOL posted a diary calling for a fundamental change in our society, and our way of thinking.  I would like to propose a theme song.  It is from an Old Time/Bluegrass band called Old Crow Medicine Show, but like OPOL, commonly known by an acronym, OCMS. http://youtu.be/... That's all I've got...short and (I hope) sweet.  Gotta go adjust the valves on my bus now, while it is still cool.

[Update 5/14/-11pm] Jersey City NJ Mayoral Race Turns Mean-Innuendo/Lies Directed At Mayor Healy!

Mayor Healy lost the Jersey City Mayoral election. By around 6,000 votes. Only one City Council Seat was decided and there will be a runoff election to decide the winners of the other eight Wards. Opponents of Mayor Healy waged the meanest campaign ever. And it worked. Psychological pressure is big in NJ. It's true there are crooks (although why I cannot figure out, they all already make great salaries), but where are there not crooked politicians? Mayor Healy is not one of them. He was a Jersey City Prosecutor and a Judge. That's all I have to say; except, I'm watching and will expect Mayor Elect Fulop to fulfill all his campaign boasts. Old NJ saying; "Be Careful What You Wish For, You Just Might Get It". [Updated 5/14/13] Today's the big day, Jersey City's Mayoral Election. Meanwhile, the opposition's political shenanigans directed at Mayor Healy continue right up to the minute. ♥ Solidarity For Jersey City Polling Place Locations And Other Voting Info Call The Office of the City Clerk 280 Grove Street Jersey City, NJ 07302 Telephone: (201) 547-5150 Or Call The Hudson County Board of Elections (201) 369-7745, 7746, 7747, 7748 or 7749. Online Voter Information Verify Your Voter Registration Status Incumbent Mayor Healy's rival for the Office of Jersey City Mayor; is Councilman, Steven Fulop. The Fulop Campaign has tried every gambit, in the battle to win the vote. Word out; is, that Fulop is a big fan, of public school privatization and vouchers (and I'm not talking about the worthwhile small local community run charter schools we often see, that are good). I'm talking about the large corporate owned charter schools. There's no place for corporations in our public school system, except in a textbook. Statistically; over all, charter schools have proven to be failures. It's said, that Fulop and his business associates want to close Snyder High School and School 41 immediately. Snyder High is a good school. It's the kids who need help. They need better educational materials. Like new text books for starters, drug, alcohol and anti-violence programs, and extra curricular activities keep them off the streets.   How many more and what schools would be next? Jersey City doesn't need a bunch of charter schools. A few are more than enough. And there are probably quite a few already. No Way! Jersey City Schools need better federal and state funding, not being bought up by big business. Then they'll stick all the Snyder Kids in Lincoln HS. Ir's a nightmare scenario, the overcrowding there would be in whatever public schools that still existed. With the same amount of Federal funding as we have now.   Not to forget to mention, all the employees that would lose their jobs, being displaced by these corporations being able to hire anyone they want, at less wages too probably. And I'm not even going to go into Councilman Fulop's rather clueless,  unrealistic ideas concerning reorganizing Jersey City's Police Force. ie Hiring auxiliary rent-a-cops and more. On that note, ♪I republish this one more time. Jersey City; Be Smart, Vote for you own best interests. Vote Team Healy. First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. Gandhi Talk is cheap, on the part of people like Mayoral Candidate Fulop.  Old NJ saying, put up or shut up. I haven't heard of any real plans or ideas to improve Jersey City from Fulop, so guess he doesn't have any. This is why he just knocks Healy. Incumbent Jersey City Mayor Healy is The Best. Totally, And He Has A Lot Of Patience. Healy's; honest, tough, smart, kind, conscientious and what Jersey City, New Jersey needs. Editors Note The only reason I am even continuing to repeat this unsubstantiated supposed "politics as usual in NJ" story, is because it's plastered all over the NJ news anyway. I find the accusations and derogatory slurs against Mayor Healy's good name, to be an atrocious act of political chicanery. It's a form of Psychological manipulation (a type of social influence that aims to change the perception or behavior of others through underhanded, deceptive, or even abusive tactics). IMO, It borders on extortion. Jersey City's Mayor Healy, is a very nice man and I believe that someone should support him and set the story straight once and for all.   Alternate Title-It's Getting Low Down And Dirty In Jersey City, New Jersey. Is this bid rig nonsense, all Fulop has? Nobody believes Mayor Healy would be a crook. Or involved in corruption, like the bid rig, Dweck affair.   Healy was (Appointed Chief Judge of the Jersey City Municipal Court in 1991 and reappointed to second term in 1995 And Assistant Prosecutor for the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office from 1977-1981). Meanwhile; everyone accusing him, is a teatotaler and a virgin.   Being from Bayonne, one town away from Jersey City, I keep track. I was born in Jersey City, Margaret Hague Hospital. My Mother was born and raised in Jersey City 100 years ago. These kind of tactics will really destroy the public's opinion of Fulop. It has mine. The Argument Clinic Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life. Define yourself. Harvey Fierstein The Revolution Is Still On! Words for the day hearsay superimposition ♥♥♥ga*

♫Jammin♪ Back To The 80's And Right Through To Summer♫ Music♥ Got A Song?

Never Swim When There's No Life Guard! The Greater Newark/New York Fresh Air Fund Sends Children To Summer Camp Sign Up Your Child Jango Social Radio/Videos Free music-internet radio that plays what you want! Hi Joe♥ Natural Insect Repellent Plants And Pesticides For ♥All My Friends In New Jersey, New York And Everywhere♥ Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Your children are so hungry that they don’t know how to smile

40 50 years ago Bob Dylan recorded the Ballad of Hollis Brown (August 7, 1963), the story of a South Dakota farmer out of work and desperate. It is a story as contemporary today as it was then, with 25% (or more) of children in this country in poverty and going hungry This interpretation of the conditions of the working class by a 22 year old kid from the North country is unmatched in its simplicity, two chords and the setup of each verse by repeating the first line. When I was much younger I learned this song from my Bob Dylan Songbook (which I still have), and as I recently got a banjo and was flailing around on it learning chords and scales, the tune emerged out of my muscle memory. So I am relearning it. Below are the verses with my own tidbits of commentary.

The Daily Music Break: Paul Robeson

Cross-Posted at THE DAILY MUSIC BREAK, the site that features good music regardless of era or genre. Please visit. Here is the beginning of Encyclopedia.com’s profile of the multi-talented Paul Robeson, one of the most important figures — musical and otherwise — of the twentieth century: Paul Robeson—singer, actor, civil rights activist, law school graduate, athlete, scholar, author— was perhaps the best known and most widely respected black American of the 1930s and 1940s. Robeson was also a staunch supporter of the Soviet Union, and a man, later in his life, widely vilified and censored for his frankness and unyielding views on issues to which public opinion ran contrary. As a young man, Robeson was virile, charismatic, eloquent, and powerful. He learned to speak more than 20 languages in order to break down the barriers of race and ignorance throughout the world, and yet, as Sterling Stuckey pointed out in the New York Times Book Review, for the last 25 years of his life his was “a great whisper and a greater silence in black America.”Born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898, Robeson was spared most of the daily brutalities suffered by African Americans around the turn of the century. But his family was not totally free from hardship. Robeson’s mother died from a stove-fire accident when he was six. His father, a runaway slave who became a pastor, was removed from an early ministerial position. Nonetheless, from his father Robeson learned diligence and an “unshakable dignity and courage in spite of the press of racism and poverty.” These characteristics, Stuckey noted, defined Robeson’s approach in his beliefs and actions throughout his life. (Continue Reading...) The above video of of Robeson singing Ol' Man River in Showboat -- which was written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II -- is the best known clip of Robeson.  Below, Robeson sings Vi Azoy Lebt der Kayser? (How Does the Czar Drink Tea?). The song, sung in Yiddish, satirizes Czarist Russia. More information, including a translation, is provided here and here.

We Have a Dream: Farmworkers Organize for Justice

Picking tomatoes in Immokalee, Florida, home of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW). Photo: Courtesy of CIW.                                          By Tory Field and Beverly Bell                                     Part 13 of the Harvesting Justice series For decades, farmworkers – the more than one million men and women who work in fields and orchards around the country – have been leading a struggle for justice in our food system. They have been building awareness and mobilizing the public, successfully securing some rights, higher wages, and better working conditions. Today, a recent string of victories by the farmworker group Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), together with the steadfast work of other groups, have taken the movement to a whole new level. The United Farm Workers (UFW), founded in 1966 by Dolores Huerta, César Chávez, and others, launched the modern-day farmworker movement. They brought their struggles to national attention by leading boycotts against grape and lettuce growers. Consumers around the country banished grapes and lettuce from their grocery lists, forcing growers to raise wages and to improve labor conditions. Since then, farmworkers have used work stoppages, hunger strikes, marches, union negotiations, and boycotts to win substantial improvements. No longer is it commonplace for crew leaders – those who round up workers and manage the crew – to beat workers, for example, or for farms to aerially spray pesticides in fields while people are working in them.

We should celebrate today - a great American turns 94

I will let him speak - or rather sing -  for himself: there is more below

Happy Birthday Pete

Pete Seeger is 94 years young and still singing. Pete Seeger - Guantanamera Pete Seeger/ Where Have All The Flowers Gone How Can I Keep From Singing? Appleseed Recordings present Pete Seeger Music Pete Seeger Appreciation Page At 93, Pete Seeger Keeps The Fire Burning Low Pete Seeger on YouTube Thanks Pete, Hairy Larry

The Evening Blues - 5-2-13

Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.   Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here.  This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.   Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.

Hellraisers Journal: "Shall Americanism or Unionism Rule?"

You..ought to be out raising hell. This is the fighting age. Put on your fighting clothes.                                                       -Mother Jones Saturday May 2, 1903 National Association of Manufacturers: "Shall Americanism or Unionism rule?" This and more from John M. Kirby Jr. of the Dayton Employers' Association: Shall we then, as Americans, sacrifice all that is American by sitting idly by and permitting agitators to hold their jobs through such dastardly methods, or shall we organize into a solid, coherent mass, which cannot be penetrated by these destroyers of peace and prosperity and thus discharge a solemn duty which we owe to our country. "All that is American" refers to the open shop. The "dastardly methods" refer to the recent boycotts on goods sold without the union label, and also to the eight-hour boycotts. The "agitators" are, of course, the leadership of the American Federation of Labor. Now, as to the great "peace and prosperity," that would be their peace and prosperity once unionism is destroyed. Our "peace and prosperity" is not on the agenda of the National Association of Manufacturers. SOURCE History of the Labor Movement in the United States The Policies and Practices of the American Federation of Labor 1900-1909 -by Philip S Foner International Pub, 1981 Friday May 2, 1913 From the Military Bastille in Pratt, West Virginia: Mother Jones to Terence V. Powderly (As written, without correction except for punctuation, as needed, for clarity.) ...And of all the brutal gang you ever saw, it is down here. No where in the country could you find more brutality than you do here. Men have been shot down in cold blood. The children have been starved to death, some of them. About four weeks ago they took 11 of the boys away from here. You should have heard the wails of their children and their wives. But it did not pierce the heart of the cold blooded pirates of the ruling class. The martial law is taken off here now and they are getting ready to move the militia. I don't know just exactly when they will get out but I suppose when they get out they will turn me loose...                                                                                Sincerely,                                                                                Mother Jones SOURCE The Correspondence of Mother Jones -ed by Edward M Steel U of Pittsburgh Press, 1985

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