The Rag Blog | The Latest in News and Views from the Progressive Front

Michael Klonsky :
An insurgent movement wins in Chicago

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

An alliance of union activists, teachers, and community-based organizations took Rahm and his machine candidates to the woodshed.

Jesus “Chuy” Garcia: A big smile. Photo from the Chicago Tribune.

By Michael Klonsky | Special to The Rag Blog | March 2, 2015

“We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
— Chuy Garcia quotes Fanny Lou Hamer in his election-night speech

CHICAGO — We used to have party primaries in Chicago. But after Harold Washington defeated Jane Byrne and Rich Daley in the 1983 Democratic primary, and went on to become the city’s first black mayor, they changed the rules. No longer would it be possible for a black or Latino candidate to split the white vote in a primary and win a three-way primary with less than 50% of the vote.

As a result, Chicago’s Democratic Party machine candidates have dominated the electoral scene with mayors like Rich Daley and Rahm Emanuel, with millions in their pockets, locking up City Hall and bringing in with them a gaggle of eager yes-men into the City Council. But change is in the air and it’s coming fast.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Chicago Elections 2015, Chicago Politics, Chuy Garcia, Mike Klonsky, Rag Bloggers, Rahm Emanuel | 1 Comment

Jeff Shero Nightbyrd :
My heart attack and some lessons I learned

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

My recent experience with triple bypass open heart surgery taught me a lot about how to stay healthy.

jeff post-op photo laura rose tannous nichols

Post-op Jeff in May 2014. Photo by Laura Rose Tannous Nichols.

By Jeff Shero Nightbyrd | The Rag Blog | February 25, 2015

Jeff Nightbyrd will be Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, Feb. 27, 2015, 2-3 p.m. (CST), on KOOP 91.7-FM in Austin and streamed live. Jeff will discuss issues related to this article.

UPDATE: Listen to or download the podcast of our Rag Radio interview with Jeff Nightbyrd here:

Last year I had open heart, triple bypass surgery. Kind of takes the wind out of your sails. But I am recovering remarkably well so the prognosis is another 20 years of normal energetic life instead of sudden death. Because this surgery is becoming common — there will be more than 150,000 such procedures in the U.S. this year — some of you or your loved ones will be facing this scary reality. So I thought I would share some helpful lessons I learned the hard way.

Your heart

Your heart will beat about 42 million times this year. That’s a stunning amount of work. An average person can fill up 12 swimming pools with blood in a year. OK, I just made up that statistic but you get the idea. In the time you took to read this far your heart has pumped about a gallon of blood.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Depression, Heart Health, Heart Surgery, Holistic Health, Jeffrey Nightbyrd, Medical Diagnostics, Medicine, Nutrition, Prescription Medication, Rag Bloggers | 25 Comments

Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCAST | Bob McChesney on our media crisis – and on ‘post-capitalist democracy’

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

In his important new book, the influential media critic is ‘Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century.’

Bob McChesney was Thorne Dreyer’s guest on Rag Radio, Friday, February 20, 2015.

Interview by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | January 24, 2015

Our guest on Rag Radio is Robert W. McChesney, one of the most widely read and honored communication scholars in the world today. On the show we discuss issues related to McChesney’s important new book, Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy.

Download the podcast of our hour-long January 20, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Bob McChesney here — or listen to it here:

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. The show is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, and is first broadcast and streamed live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CDT).

Among topics discussed on the show are the significance and likely fate of net neutrality, the commercialization of the Internet, and the future of our endangered print media and, for that matter, of serious journalism itself; the crippling effect of income inequality and the importance of grassroots activism in countering organized wealth in our society; the continuing encroachment of for-profit corporations into the public sector; and what a “post-capitalist democracy” might look like.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Authors, Blowing the Lid Off the Twenty-First Century, Corporate Journalism, Interview, Media Criticism, Net Neutrality, Podcast, Political Economy, Post-Capitalist Democracy, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Robert McChesney, Thorne Dreyer | Leave a comment

The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Second chance to see landmark film about the American media monopoly

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Shadows of Liberty’ asks why we have let a handful of powerful corporations write and manipulate the news.

Panel at the 2013 U.S. premiere of Shadows of Liberty: from left, Jean-Philippe Tremblay, Amy Goodman, Norman Solomon, and recent Rag Radio guest Robert McChesney.

Event: Screening of ‘Shadows of Liberty’
What: Documentary film about failures of corporate journalism
When: Thursday, March 5, 2015, 6-7:45 p.m.
Presented by: Texas State Employees Union
Where: TSEU Hall
Address: 1700 South First, Austin
Price: Free & open to the public

AUSTIN — A second free screening of Jean-Philippe Tremblay’s internationally acclaimed documentary film, Shadows of Liberty, is being presented by the Texas State Employees Union at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 5, 2015, at the TSEU Hall in Austin.

(In an earlier story, The Rag Blog announced a January 27 screening that took place January 27 on the UT-Austin campus.)
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Corporate Media, Documentary Film, Journalism, Media Criticism, Metro, Shadows of liberty | Leave a comment

Alice Embree :
METRO EVENT | ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry’ screens in Austin

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The film is a powerful testament to a movement that changed the course of history.

She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry can be seen at a special Austin screening March 4.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | February 23, 2015

Event: Screening of ‘She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry‘
What: Feature documentary on the early women’s movement
When: Wednesday, March 4, 2015, 8:10 p.m.
Where: Violet Crown Cinema
Address: 434 West 2nd Street, Austin
Price: $11

[UPDATE: As of Tuesday afternoon, two Wednesday screenings, including the one listed above at 8:10 p.m., have sold out. But the Violet Crown is in the process of adding another showing at 7 p.m., Thursday, March 5. The Violet Crown takes advance reservations at its website.]

AUSTIN — Three years ago filmmakers, Mary Dore and Nancy Kennedy came to Austin’s BookWoman where they showed a portion of the film they had in progress: She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.

Financed in part by a Kickstarter campaign, the movie was released in 2014. It is finally in an Austin theater, the Violet Crown, for a limited March 4 screening. An earlier showing, scheduled for 7:45 p.m. the same evening, has already sold out, but the second showing, at 8:10, has remaining seats. The theater may respond to unmet demand by booking yet another screening if the 8:10 one sells out.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Alice Embree, Documentary Film, Feminism, Metro, Rag Bloggers, She's Beautiful When She's Angry, Women's Liberation, Women's Movement | Leave a comment

The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Step up on the Day of
the Fallen

Posted on February 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Join the Workers Defense Project in support of the construction workers who build Texas.

Workers Defense Project demonstration in Austin, February 15, 2014. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

Event: ‘Day of the Fallen’ March and Rally
What: Support the construction workers who build Texas
When: Wednesday, February 25, 2015, 3:45 p.m.
Where: J.J. Pickle Federal Building Plaza
Address: 903 San Jacinto, Austin

AUSTIN — Did you know more construction workers die in Texas than in any other state? The Workers Defense Project (WDP) wants you and the State Legislature to know that fact.

Join WDP and construction workers in a rally in Austin that begins at the J.J. Pickle Federal Building Plaza, 903 San Jacinto, at 3:45 p.m., Wednesday, February 25. A march will take place to the State Capitol after the rally.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Day of the Fallen, Metro, Workers Defense Project | Leave a comment

Alice Embree :
METRO | Feminism is alive and well in Austin

Posted on February 19, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The Women’s Community Center of Central Texas builds on work that the women’s movement in Austin has done over the decades.

Executive Director Carrie Tilton-Jones at the Women’s Community Center of Central Texas. Photo by Alice Embree / The Rag Blog.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | January 19, 2015

AUSTIN — Feminism is alive and well in Austin: Just check out the Women’s Community Center of Central Texas, which opened its doors at 1704 San Antonio Street in October 2014.

I made my way to the Center for a Second Saturday movie screening of American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs. The subject of the film is Detroit icon Boggs, a Chinese American whose remarkable life of political activism began in the 1940s. With her African-American spouse, James Boggs, she was part of Detroit’s black liberation struggle in the 60s. She will be a century old in June of this year.
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Posted in Metro, RagBlog | Tagged Alice Embree, Austin Activists, Austin History, Austin Women's Center, Carrie Tilton-Jones, Metro, Rag Bloggers, Women's Liberation, Women's Movement | 3 Comments

Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Recent shows include lively, timely interviews and musical performance

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Listen to podcasts of shows with Dale Watson & Rosie Flores; Jonah Raskin; Victor Pickard; Paul Krassner, David Hamilton & Steve Weissman; Gus Speth; Powell St. John & Spencer Perskin; Jesse Dayton; Philip Russell & Johnny Hazard; Erika Wurth & Tim Kuhner; Raj Patel & Tom Philpott; Tom Hayden & Carl Davidson; Ed Ward; and Mike Davis!

dale watson & rosie flores rag radio 2015 sm

Honky-tonk legend Dale Watson and ‘Rockabilly Filly’ Rosie Flores in the KOOP studios in Austin, Friday, Feb. 13, 2015. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | February 18, 2014

Rag Radio 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 following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows that have not previously been posted to The Rag Blog.

Rag Radio is a weekly hour-long syndicated radio program produced and hosted by Rag Blog editor Thorne Dreyer. Rag Radio is produced in the studios of KOOP 91.7-FM, a cooperatively-run all-volunteer community radio station in Austin, Texas, and is first broadcast live on KOOP every Friday from 2-3 p.m. (CST) and streamed live on the web. All Rag Radio shows are posted as podcasts at the Internet Archive. Find out more about Rag Radio here.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Carl Davidson, Dale Watson, David P. Hamilton, Ed Ward, Erika Wurth, Gus Speth, Interviews, Jesse Dayton, Johnny Hazard, Jonah Raskin, KOOP Radio, Mike Davis, Paul Krassner, Philip L. Russell, Podcasts, Powell St. John, Rag Bloggers, Rag Radio, Raj Patel, Rosie Flores, Spencer Perskin, Steve Weissman, Thorne Dreyer, Timothy Kuhner, Tom Hayden, Tom Philpott, Tracey Schulz, Victor Pickard | Leave a comment

Harry Targ :
Should we make more war? Where? How?

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Obama’s foreign policy reflects the contradictory approaches of U.S. leadership since the country’s emergence as a superpower.

How to play it: A fan dressed as Captain America at the 2014 World Cup. Image from New Statesman / Getty.

By Harry Targ | The Rag Blog | February 17, 2015

Both unity and contradiction are reflected in the history of United States foreign policy from the industrial revolution to the present. The unity of policy in time and space is reflected in the drive to maximize the opportunities for U.S. capital to expand; to acquire more and more wealth, and to seize land, extract resources, and accumulate profits derived from cheaper and cheaper labor.

An example of a significant historical moment reflecting this unity can be seen in the 1890s as the United States seized former Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and the Philippine Islands. Over the next 30 years the U.S. military invaded and occupied Caribbean, Central American, and Latin American countries at least 30 times.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged American Hegemony, American History, Harry Targ, Obama Foreign Policy, Peace Movement, Rag Bloggers, U.S. Foreign Policy, U.S. Imperialism, U.S. Military | 1 Comment

Chellis Glendinning :
The third inauguration: Evo Morales and nine years of paradox in Bolivia

Posted on February 16, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Evo is a loaf of bread fresh from the oven,’ he said. ‘We’ll find out how it tastes.’

Shhhh! Don’t tell them how it turns out. Image from LibertadDigital.

By Chellis Glendinning | The Rag Blog | February 16, 2014

La Paz, 22 January 2006. Evo Morales Ayma was born Aymara and poor in the department of Oruro. For lunch he and his father would scrounge the thin meat from orange peels cast from the windows of passing autobuses, and his most ambitious childhood dream was to ride in a bus.

During his life he worked as a baker, bricklayer, farmer, trumpet player, and soldier; then rose up through the ranks of coca farmer unions to become a leader of El Comité de Coordinación de las Seis Federaciones and finally of the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS).

It is for such humble beginnings that his election to the presidency of the poorest country in South America was of so much interest to Tom Hayden that he convinced me to travel to the transmit del mando in 2006. The truth is I didn’t want to go, although I admit that I was impressed: between the election and the inauguration Evo was already traveling the globe lining up potential allies — and doing so garbed in the ratty old red-and-blue pullover that he became known for. His vice president had been a guerrillero in the Tupak Katari Guerrilla Army, and his First Lady would be his sister, a vegetable vendor.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Bolivia, Bolivian Politics, Chellis Glendinning, Evo Morales, Indigenous People, Latin America, Morales Inauguration, Rag Bloggers, South America | 2 Comments

Jonah Raskin :
NBC’s Brian Williams and the causalities of war

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Brian Williams helped to further wound the already wounded U.S. news media. Healing those wounds will take a long time.

Brian Williams fudged the facts. Image from ET Canada.

By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | February 10, 2015

Most of us exaggerate and embellish at some time or another. We say that we run faster and further than we have actually run. We claim to be better, richer, wiser, and more experienced than we are.

It seems to be part of the human DNA, though news anchors and reporters aren’t supposed to magnify their roles in the making and unmaking of contemporary history. They’re supposed to hew to the facts and tell the truth.

So it came as something of a shock recently when it was revealed that Brian Williams, NBC’s anchor and the managing editor of the nightly news, had fudged the facts about his experiences in war-torn Iraq. He did it again and again for more than a decade as though no one would catch him, as though he was invincible.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Brian Williams, Broadcast Media, Independent Media, Jonah Raskin, NBC News. Journalism, Rag Bloggers, War Reporting | 1 Comment

James McEnteer :
The Tardy Boys and the Secret of the
Haunted Castle

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

After a while the castle lifted off from the planet
and we shot into the galaxy.

Gillette Castle during a bad trip! Tricked up image from Pinterest.

By James McEnteer | The Rag Blog | February 9, 2015

The spring of 1967 was gorgeous in Connecticut. We’d been going crazy the entire school year. The college was buzzed, high on drugs and youth and the ’60s. Now we could finally get back into nature, busting out lush and verdant around us, bright flowers here and there among the trees coming back to life. Connecticut’s back roads wind around villages, woods and water. Ian and I got in the car and took off into it all. It was way too nice to go to class.

In wooded hills above the Connecticut River we came to the gate of Gillette Castle State Park. A locked chain hanging across the road had a sign that said: “Closed for the Season.” The road disappeared ahead into the green woods. We parked the car and followed it. Intense smells of the forest waking up woke us up.
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Posted in RagBlog | Tagged Acid Trip, Gillette Castle, James McEnteer, Memoir, Rag Bloggers | 1 Comment