Steve Russell :
Is gun violence our manifest destiny?

Posted on December 11, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

The last war on U.S. soil ended in 1848, unless you count the NRA v. common sense.

William Huddle’s 1886 painting shows Mexican Gen. Santa Anna surrendering to the wounded Sam Houston after the Battle of San Jacinto. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | December 11, 2017

Steve Russell wrote the following article for The Rag Blog as a companion piece to his December 15, 2017 Newsweek cover story which is now posted online: “America and Guns: To Understand that Deadly Obsession, Come to Texas.” Steve, a retired Texas trial judge who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was a staff writer for Austin’s pioneering underground newspaper, The Rag, and now for its digital age rebirth.

Seth Thornton probably expected a cakewalk on April 24, 1846. He was to reconnoiter upriver while Croghan Ker took a similar patrol downriver from the site where their commander, Zachary Taylor, had planted the American flag on the north bank of the Rio Grande.

Ker found nothing.
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Alan Waldman :
TELEVISION | ‘Flashpoint’ is an engaging Toronto SWAT-type thriller

Posted on December 9, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

CBS aired 75 edge-of-your-seat episodes of this emotional, well-written Canadian series.

By Alan Waldman | The Rag Blog | December 9, 2017

[In his Rag Blog column, Alan Waldman reviews some of his favorite films and TV series that readers may have missed, including TV dramas, mysteries, and comedies from Canada, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Scotland. Most are available on DVD, Netflix and/or Netflix Instant Streaming, and some episodes are on YouTube.]

Flashpoint has been nominated for 86 Canadian and international awards and has brought home 22 of the suckers. It is a very well-written TV program. CBS aired five seasons and 75 episodes from 2008-2012, and Netflix discs offers a season of 13 of them.

The series focuses on a fictional elite tactical unit, the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), within a Canadian metropolitan police force (styled on Toronto’s Emergency Task Force). The SRU is tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals, etc.
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Steve Russell :
Donald Trump and the great
transgender menace

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

This president picks on the least powerful because all that matters for him is winning.

Danica Roem, newly-elected transgender member of the Virginia House of Delegates, at protest against Trump’s trans military ban at the White House, July 26, 2017. Photo by Ted Eytan / Flickr / Creative Commons.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | November 15, 2017

Why attack the powerless, beyond the exhilaration of winning? I don’t even get the exhilaration of playing poker with a stacked deck. I enjoy trading stocks because I know that on the other side of every trade I make is a person who has at least as much information as I have, is probably at least as smart as me, and is willing to bet real money that I’m wrong.

The stereotype says Indians are not competitive. To buy that, you must have never seen an informal horse race on the rez or attended a stickball game. We play to win, but that does not mean we play to run over people who have no chance.

The talking heads on the tube are speculating that there must have been some precipitating incident that led President Trump to change the military policy on allowing transgender persons to serve. The idea is that a sudden policy change by Twitter without consulting the people affected must mean there was some incident in training or in operations that created an anecdotal argument for changing the policy.
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Jay D. Jurie :
Workers’ demonstrations at Magic Kingdom just opening salvo

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

Jay Jurie reports from the front lines of the labor movement.

By Jay D. Jurie | The Rag Blog | November 15, 2017

ORLANDO, Florida — While representing over a third of workers in the middle of the 20th Century, unions today represent only a little over 10 percent of the total workforce. According to numerous sources, reasons for this decline include the shift from manufacturing and heavy industry to a high technology knowledge industry and an expanded service sector. Workplaces have become more dispersed and decentralized and employers have become increasingly centralized and reliant on cheap labor.

Growth of the public sector undercut unions by providing job security and relatively good benefits while simultaneously restricting union activity. Anti-union legislation such as the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, accompanied by state “right to work” laws, further weakened organized labor. A variety of comparatively less recognized factors have contributed to the decline of unions.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Interviews with Katya Sabaroff Taylor, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez & Gregg Barrios, Veterans for Peace, Terry DuBose & Alan Pogue, Tom Cleaver & Alice Embree, Guy Forsyth, Jonathan Lerner, Jim Hightower, Kerry Awn & the Uranium Savages, Bruce Melton, Glenn Smith, Steve Early & Nick Licata

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

This all-star array of guests includes a populist icon, Vietnam vets reflecting on the war, a climate change scholar, a founder of the Weather Underground, and legendary Austin musicians performing live.

Kerry Awn, center in Astros cap, and the historic Austin band, the Uranium Savages, in the KOOP studios, Sept. 1, 2017. Host Dreyer hovers at the right. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | November 14, 2017

The following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows with host Thorne Dreyer. The syndicated Rag Radio program, produced in the studios of Austin’s cooperatively-run KOOP-FM, has an international audience and has become an influential platform for interviews with leading figures in politics, current events, literature, and cutting-edge culture.

The show first airs Fridays, 2-3 p.m. (CT) on KOOP, 91.7-FM in Austin, and streams here: http://www.koop.org/listen-now, and here: http://www.radiofreeamerica.com/show/rag-radio-koop-radio.
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Alice Embree :
METRO | Rev. Bob Breihan (1925-2017) was a courageous fighter for social justice

Posted on November 13, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

He opened the Methodist Student Center to an alternative view of the world during a period of tremendous upheaval.

Rev. Bob Breihan on Rag Radio in the studios of KOOP-FM in Austin, Nov. 29, 2013. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | November 13, 2017

Listen to Thorne Dreyer‘s hour-long Nov. 29, 2013 Rag Radio interview with Rev. Bob Breihan, here.

AUSTIN — Rev. Bob Breihan passed on, surrounded by loved ones, in his home in Austin, Texas, on November 4, 2017. He was 92.

A celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m., Saturday, November 18, 2017, at University United Methodist Church in Austin.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made in Bob Breihan’s name to University United Methodist Church, 2409 Guadalupe, Austin, Texas 78705; to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104; or to a charity of your choice.
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Glenn W. Smith :
SPORT | World Series moment: A national anthem in mime

Posted on November 7, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

The Yuli Gurriel-Yu Darvish story made this World Series even more glorious.

Future Astros celebrate at World Series Victory Parade in Houston,
Nov. 3, 2017. Photo by whittlz / Flickr / Creative Commons.

By Glenn W. Smith | The Rag Blog | November 7, 2017

There was an inspiring American moment in the first inning of the seventh game of the 2017 World Series. Well, to this fan there were many. But, one stands out.

Before stepping to the plate for his first at bat, Astro Yuli Gurriel paused, and with a look of contrition in his eyes, tipped his helmet to Dodger pitcher Yu Darvish. Darvish then stepped to the front of the mound and nodded in recognition of Gurriel’s gesture.

After hitting a home run off Darvish in game three of the series, Gurriel, who defected from Cuba in 2016, returned to the Astro dugout and made a racist gesture mocking Darvish. It was caught on camera. Gurriel has been suspended for the first five games of the 2018 season.
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Steve Rossignol :
METRO | ‘Dam’ scary: The ghosts of LCRA

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

According to reliable if shady sources, Austin’s Depression-era dams are haunted as hell.

Austin’s Mansfield Dam. Nov. 8, 2008. Photo by Ferrous Büller / Flickr.

By Steve Rossignol | The Rag Blog | October 31, 2017

AUSTIN — There is a grand history to Austin’s lakes which traces back to the late 1930’s, when a nation and state struggling to pull itself out of the Great Depression enacted public infrastructure construction programs to build dams and extend electricity to rural areas. In 1936, the U.S. Department of the Interior authorized the establishment of the Lower Colorado River Authority.

On that shiny necklace called the Colorado River, several dams were built by the LCRA, which in addition to providing flood control from those periodic and devastating Hill Country flash floods, also provided hydroelectric power to a burgeoning Austin. And the crown jewel on that necklace is Mansfield Dam, named for then Austin Congressman J. J. Mansfield.
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Jonah Raskin :
BOOKS | Katya Sabaroff Taylor: ‘Prison Wisdom: Writing with Inmates’

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

This jam-packed volume features several hundred poems, stories, sketches, and drawings by prisoners.

By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | October 23, 2017

In April 1968, shortly before the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nina Sabaroff, a young radical journalist, joined Liberation News Service (LNS), and, for the next three years, belonged to the LNS collective.
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Henry Mecredy :
BOOKS | ‘The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America’

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

Rick Wartzman reviews the socioeconomic history of the U.S. since World War II with empathy for the employee class.

By Henry Mecredy | The Rag Blog | October 18, 2017

[The End of Loyalty: The Rise and Fall of Good Jobs in America by Rick Wartzman (May 30, 2017: PublicAffairs); Hardcover; 432 pp; $30.00.]

In this readable though longish book, Wartzman reviews the socioeconomic history of the U.S. over the decades since World War II, using four major corporations as his examples. Along the way he introduces several corporate heads with idiosyncracies ranging from charming to alarming.

It’s not a very nice picture since, as is well known, this period brought prosperity followed by decline to the average American. In more than a coincidence it brought prominence followed ultimately by powerlessness to the U.S. labor establishment.
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Steve Russell :
Truth in an age of post-factual politics

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

Since the arrival of The Donald, U.S. politics is a fact-free zone. The truth simply no longer matters.

Steve Bannon, back at Breitbart News, is backing convicted felon Michael Grimm for Congress. Caricature by DonkeyHotey / Flickr.

By Steve Russell | The Rag Blog | October 16, 2017

Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY) was not happy being questioned by a TV reporter for NY1, Michael Scotto, about a pending investigation into Grimm’s campaign fundraising. Grimm walked away and Scotto had signed off… but the camera was still running when Grimm returned, and told Scotto, “Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again and I’ll throw you off this fucking balcony.”

He was speaking of the balcony in the United States Capitol and threatening the reporter with a 48-foot fall ending with a sudden stop on a marble floor. Survival would be chancy.

The video became confused with both men talking until Grimm ended the conversation, “No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.” Apparently noticing the camera was rolling, Grimm hurried away.
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Murray Polner :
The Vietnam War: An American crime

Posted on October 12, 2017 by Thorne Dreyer

Vietnam was ‘the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

North Vietnamese prisoner awaits interrogation, 1967. Photo by PFC / David Epstein / Wikimedia Commons.

By Murray Polner | The Rag Blog | October 12, 2017

Our government has no right to send American boys to their death in any battlefield in the absence of a declaration of war… and no war has been declared in Southeast Asia, and until a war is declared, it is unconstitutional to send American boys to their death in South Vietnam or anywhere else in Southeast Asia. I don’t know why we think, just because we’re mighty, that we have the right to substitute might for right. And that’s the American policy in Southeast Asia.

—Senator Wayne Morse, who with Senator Ernest Gruening, was one of only two senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which gave the U.S. and President Lyndon B. Johnson a free hand to wage war.

More than half a million U.S. troops were sent to serve in what was in reality a civil war. B-52s dropped as many or more bombs on rural North Vietnam than they did on Nazi Germany. 58,209 American servicemen and women were killed, a disproportionate number of them conscripts, and 153,303 were wounded, many forever damaged in body and mind. Millions of Southeast Asians died or suffered grievous wounds.
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