The psychedelic rock and roll scene began in Austin, Texas and moved to San Francisco, not the reverse, as very well documented in the video A Head of His Times, focusing on Spencer Perskins and Shivas Head Band.
The whole show is available at this link, one way or another.
[maybe i should save this for a day for further consideration, given all the other comment on the conference call, but it is written, so i’ll push the “send. ” forward ever, backward never. ]
In our October 11, 2006 conference call of the “movement for a democratic society, incorporated,” officers, with others listening, among the many things discussed was the question of “an exclusionary principle.” like “no authoritarians need apply” The question was postponed for further discussion, and I was delegated the task of composing some words, short of the port huron statement, to convey a positive expression of membership commitment and address the exclusion question. I had written a paper on “non-exclusionism in the new left” back in 1965. As i considered, I realized this is a larger task than simple. “mds, inc” has a “boiler plate legal structure,” for which i was selected as president, intended to serve the larger movement for a democratic society and the students for a democratic society, and to spawn a “movement for democratic society foundation,” and maybe an “institute” and whatever is needed. But as was pointed out, there was no actual statement of principles, and so actually nothing to join, except our association.
The following is a DRAFT, perhaps a poem, making the political personal, inviting you, and all, to be part of the movement for a democratic society, addressing the question of exclusion, expressing a beginning of the vision.
anyone who can relate to this is welcome, and can pass it on, and invite more. It’s like a 1000 word membership card. i think agents and vanguardists and egoists will keep away.
**************************************************************************
“movement for a democratic society” is an association of activists, forever young, students of life, for a democratic society, international, intergenerational, inter racial, interesting: students, seniors, survivors, seekers, strugglers, sisters, singers, speakers, scholars, sociologists, socialists, scientists, saints, savants, satirists, soldiers, sailors, slackers, scriveners, scribblers, smiths, semites, whoever you are, from wherever, for a democratic society,
all who would like to join, please do, respond to this invitation.
we are a union
an unarmed army embracing all humanity
to affirm and represent the rights of the common people, the oppressed, the multitude,
all who have been voiceless, and in the struggle to find our own voices.
challenging the old order and building the new
joining the global movements,
of popular democracy, liberation theology, peace education,
non-violence, direct action, civil disobedience, insistence,
for justice, where ever we are and everywhere,
for a transforming of patriarchal power to a true sharing of authority
in partnership and cooperation
between women and men
and all the genders and races and workers
a new social contract
a world labor contract
to affirm human responsibility
to turn around the impending climatic disaster of global warming
and the consequences of the oil and fossil fuel based industrialization of the past age,
and to do what we can to stop the bloody wars,
and putting down the guns
and making peace
and creating a culture of peace
and non-violence
for the children of the world,
that the next generations, to the seventh generation,
should not have to live through the wars and oppressions that we, and our fore-bearers have seen and suffered.
we, of course, serve to overturn the old order of power and war and greed,
and are completely subversive to fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, top down centralization of power
and most of what passes for government these days
we are inclusive, non exclusive,
there is room at the table for everyone with an open heart
agents and vanguardists and recruiters and opportunists enter at their own peril.
our task is to turn your heart
that you become an agent of the movement,
in whatever organization you serve,
to undermine hierarchy and totalitarian purpose
to transform itself and themselves
to serve instead
the grass roots, bottom up, horizontal, work democracy
insurgent movement and movements in every institution of the old order
joining the union for global partnership, the big we
we take on the nsa, cia fbi, rcp, iso, plp, dlc, ,
and any other initialed new-speak contraction of complex reality into simplistic ideology obedient to some old authority
our message is:
give up the old order, the old politics, the old wars
join the new order of the ages
our undertakings are favored.
democracy is what it is about
for everyone
even the minority of one
for justice
for respect
for freedom
for healing from the wars and traumas of past time which we have inherited, and our mis-leaders perpetuated.
and which we must do all what we can to stop now,
in iraq, afghanistan, columbia, darfur, all of them,
and the heart of the war, longest bleeding, in palestine and israel.
the entire war system must be transformed
no more war
economic conversion of the war economy is our common cause
we are workers in building a peace economy
our task is to work together in an artistic harmony
blending our strengths,
meeting our needs also in mutual aid
using the knowledges we have
teaching peace
doing
revolutionary evolutionary actions changing history integrating national groups
r e a c h i n g
for quality public education available for everyone
for quality public health available to everyone
for redirecting resources for ending hunger and poverty
for creating new work
for reclaiming the public commons from the privatizers and usurpers
for putting more minds to curing aids and alzheimers and malaria and all the other dread diseases
for restorative justice, rebalancing what is out of harmony
for cultural survival
for the abolition of nuclear weapons totally
for mother love and apple pie and better days to come
there are many principles of organization in this association
we are a center-less circle with its circumference everywhere
we are an underground army of nurturers, arising
we are a network of affinity groups
we are a chorus of caucuses
we are a solidarity deeper than differences
we are veterans of past struggles, intent to affirm our continuity
we are your best friend and your worst nightmare
we are keepers of the dream
we are intent on change, and changing ourselves as well
we are each of us, you, a center of power
each with unique capacities to reach out
to family and friends, lovers, partners, teachers, coworkers, neighbors, acquaintances
compatriots from by-gone barricades and student days
all who know us.
we are encouragers of one another to mobilize our power
you are a center of power, send the call out,
put it in your own words, to all who know you, try again.
we are discovering what we can do together.
we combine many ideologies and analyses,
we are promoting human solidarity and effort for authentic relationship.
like students for a democratic society
we seek to create a sustained community of educational and political concern
maintaining a vision of democratic society where at all levels people have control of the decisions which affect them and the resources on which they are dependent, increasing democracy in all phases of our common life, promoting participation
we seek relevance through continual focus on realities and on the programs necessary to affect change at the most basic levels of economic, political and social organization.
our urgency is to put forth a radical, to the roots, democratic program whose methods embody the democratic vision
this is an initial statement of mds/movement for a democratic society
if you would like to join,
to acknowledge your membership
which is in your heart
please respond
alan haber, president
(i will sign your membership card, if you like)
answer please, 2 questions:
the beginning of dues
what do you need?
what do you have to offer?
Crusted Salmon with Red Wine Sauce (17 May 2004)
Thanks to Sally James, Sara Moulton, and a little inspiration.
A note about the cooking technique – the original recipe from Sally James fried the fish in olive oil. Near-broiling avoids one of the disadvantages of frying since the oil content is minimal; also, it goes a little faster, still toasts the crust slightly, but does not overcook the fish if you’re attentive. They also used neither basil nor mint, which add a great deal to the flavours.
1/2 cup pinot noir, red zinfandel or shiraz wine(a fruity red !)
In a small saucepan, slowly bring the wine to a very low simmer. For purposes of timing the meal, the objective is to reduce the wine by 1/3 to 1/2, evaporate the alcohol, and produce a flavourful sauce. It will take about 15 to 20 minutes to bring the wine to a simmer and reduce it sufficiently.
1/2 tablespoon freshly-ground pepper
3/4 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds (keep ‘em whole, eh?)
1-1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried mint leaves
Mix the above ingredients thoroughly in a bowl large enough to accommodate the salmon filets.
Two 5 to 6 ounce salmon filets
Olive oil
Preheat the oven to 475° F. Be sure to keep the oven rack in the middle of the oven.
Lightly coat the salmon filets with oil, then press into the spice and herb mixture, coating the fish on all sides. Place the filets onto a baking dish covered with a wire rack. Bake for about 3-4 minutes per side (depending on thickness of filets), turning once.
1/2 pound fresh asparagus, “snapped” and cleaned*
Chicken stock for cooking
Pepper to taste
A pinch of cayenne
Simmer the asparagus in the stock with spices until just tender, about 4-5 minutes.
Serve with rice, sharing sauce between fish and rice. Garnish with fresh basil leaves (if you like to eat them – I do !!) and serve with the wine you used to prepare the sauce.
*Note: My terminology about “snapping” asparagus refers to a technique of bending the asparagus stems at the bottom until the tough part at the bottom snaps off, leaving the tender upper vegetable. The bottoms can be used to make stock or they can be peeled and used in the dish.
FF = Foodie Friday
Canada troops battle 10-foot Afghan marijuana plants
POSTED: 5:12 p.m. EDT, October 12, 2006
OTTAWA, Canada (Reuters) — Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
“The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It’s very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. … And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don’t dodge in and out of those marijuana forests,” he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.
Read the rest of this article here.
Vermont Congressman Leads Run for Senate
By ROSS SNEYD
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; 5:40 PM
BURLINGTON, Vt. — For three decades, Rep. Bernie Sanders has been a party of one, an avowed socialist who rails against corporate America, Republicans, Democrats and all those he believes fail the poor and working families. Now 65, the Brooklyn-born independent and his crusade could end up in the Senate.
Polls put Sanders comfortably ahead of Republican Richard Tarrant, a wealthy businessman who has spent more than $5 million of his own money trying to buy the name recognition Sanders enjoys after eight years as mayor of Vermont’s largest city and 16 years in the House. Sanders would succeed Sen. James Jeffords, a Republican turned independent who is retiring.
Now 65, after 16 years in the House of Representatives and eight years as mayor of Vermont’s largest city, the Brooklyn-born independent is running for the seat left open by Sen. James Jeffords, and polls put Sanders comfortably ahead of his opponent, Republican Richard Tarrant.
Sanders has forged a unique coalition during his political career, gaining the backing of Republicans, Democrats and those who believe that they’ve been ignored by the people in power.
“In my heart and soul, based on where I grew up and what my life was like as a kid, the economic issues to me are the most important,” the eight-term lawmaker said.
Sanders remains committed to the ideals of the democratic socialists of northern Europe, believing that government spending _ combined with market forces _ is the best way to achieve social justice and social equity.
The rest is here.
Laura, over at Arcol-o-gist, is starting a series of essays on environmentalism. It looks as though it’s going to be interesting and worth following. Here’s a snip:
Chained to a Tree: the Powerless Environmentalist
Environmentalists have been sounding alarms in global terms since at least the 1960s. One might wonder how such an apocalyptic outcry can be sustained over nearly half a century. Is it only noise? If the dire predictions are true, where are the terrible effects? On the other hand, if this is all false scare-mongering, what keeps the environmentalists going at it?
If you take a more sympathetic view of environmentalism, this half century of alarms still presents a glaring question. If these are truly serious problems, and we know so much about them, why aren’t they fixed yet?
Iraq’s missing dead
In Baghdad, thousands of bodies have been pulled from the Tigris, but the deaths aren’t reported. How bad is the violence?
ADNAN R. KHAN
Ali is a collector of the dead. That’s his job, or at least one of them. He is also a cook at a kebab house in Baghdad and a member of the Mahdi Army, a Shia militia loyal to the militant cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. As a collector, his morbid duty is to sweep up the carnage of a sectarian war spiralling out of control — one that Iraqi officials and their American overseers are trying desperately to downplay — and quietly transport it to Iraq’s main morgue, located in the heavily fortified Medical City in Baghdad’s Bab al-Muatham neighbourhood, where all suspicious deaths are taken.
Every three days, Ali says, he and other al-Sadr militiamen go to the Tigris river to pick up bodies. At a spot on the bank just downstream from the Aima bridge in central Baghdad, a series of eddies gently gather in the dead. “More and more are coming there,” Ali says, “from north of Baghdad, from villages like Taji and Balad. Many have their hands tied, most are blindfolded.” The method of execution varies, Ali adds, from the basic bullet to the head to more macabre and viciously novel techniques involving power tools, electric cords and other such domestic instruments. “These are all Shia brothers and sisters murdered by Sunnis,” says Ali, a Shia militant himself who has carried out his own revenge attacks on Sunnis. When pressed, he admits there “may be” some Sunnis floating down the Tigris as well. “But they were killed in defence of our Shia brothers and sisters,” he claims. “They are not innocent victims.”
Sectarian hostility aside, there is another aspect to Ali’s work that is troubling: the deaths of the people whose bodies he pulls out of the river often go unreported, leading to questions about the real scale of the violence in Iraq. Even the wildly fluctuating official death counts are a stark reminder that Iraqi, and by association U.S. officials, are attempting to minimize a problem getting worse by the day. Earlier this year, the figures released by the government following the Feb. 22 bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a Shia holy site, which has been cited as the spark that started the current round of killings, were suspiciously lower than numbers provided by morgue officials. But as for the overall picture, a September report published by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq paints a grim picture: civilian deaths reached a record high for July and August with 6,600 civilians killed.
Read all of it here.
Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims
Scott Shane
New York Times
Oct 11, 2006
Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.
“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.
Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.
About 2.6 million veterans were receiving disability compensation as of 2005, according to testimony to Congress by the V.A. The largest group of recipients is from the Vietnam era. Of the 1.1 million who served in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, 291,740 have been granted disability compensation.
This is the source.
Iraqi cop academy to shut despite surge in violence
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration plans to shut down a highly successful Iraqi police academy in Jordan even as security in Iraq worsens, the Daily News has learned.
The Jordan International Police Training Center near Amman will stop training Iraqi police recruits this year, having already graduated 40,000 cops from its eight-week course since 2004, U.S. officials confirmed.
“The word we have is that JIPTC completes its mission on Dec. 31, and we are proceeding on that basis,” said academy spokesman Iver Peterson.
President Bush has said American troops can come home from Iraq when Iraqi forces can secure their own country.
The $120 million Jordan academy is safe and has police trainers from 15 nations. It graduates a staggering 1,800 Iraqi cops and border guards each month. Fewer than 4% have washed out.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) expressed shock when told by The News that the facility will soon close.
“It is mystifying and maddening that they would shut this down while violence in Iraq is spiraling out of control and in the face of an urgent shortage of trained police officers,” said Leahy, ranking Democrat on the Senate subcommittee overseeing Iraq reconstruction funding.
FInish reading it here.
Study: War blamed for 655,000 Iraqi deaths
Story Highlights
BALTIMORE, Maryland (CNN) — War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis or more than 500 people a day since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports.
Violence including gunfire and bombs caused the majority of deaths but thousands of people died from worsening health and environmental conditions directly related to the conflict that began in 2003, U.S. and Iraqi public health researchers said.
“Since March 2003, an additional 2.5 percent of Iraq’s population have died above what would have occurred without conflict,” according to the survey of Iraqi households, titled “The Human Cost of the War in Iraq.”
The survey, being published online by British medical journal The Lancet, gives a far higher number of deaths in Iraq than other organizations.
President Bush slammed the report Wednesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden. “I don’t consider it a credible report. Neither does Gen. (George) Casey,” he said, referring to the top ranking U.S. military official in Iraq, “and neither do Iraqi officials.”
“The methodology is pretty well discredited,” he added.
Ali Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement that the report “gives exaggerated figures that contradict the simplest rules of accuracy and investigation.”
Last December, Bush said that he estimated about 30,000 people had died since the war began.
When pressed whether he stood by that figure Wednesday, he said, “I stand by the figure a lot of innocent people have lost their life. Six hundred thousand — whatever they guessed at — is just not credible.”
Researchers randomly selected 1,849 households across Iraq and asked questions about births and deaths and migration for the study led by Gilbert Burnham of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.
They extrapolated the figures to reflect the national picture, saying Iraq’s death rate had more than doubled since the invasion.
Iraqis “bear the consequence of warfare,” the report said, comparing the situation with other wars: “In the Vietnam War, 3 million civilians died; in the Congo, armed conflict has been responsible for 3.8 million deaths; in East Timor, an estimated 200,000 out of a population of 800,000 died in conflict.
“Recent estimates are that 200,000 have died in Darfur [Sudan] over the past 31 months. Our data, which estimate that 654,965 or 2.5 percent of the Iraqi population has died in this, the largest major international conflict of the 21st century, should be of grave concern to everyone.”
The researchers estimated that an additional 654,965 people have died in Iraq since the invasion above what would have been expected from the pre-war mortality rate. They did not ask families whether their dead were civilians or fighters.
Violence claimed about 601,000 people, the survey estimated — the majority killed by gunfire, “though deaths from car bombing have increased from 2005,” the study says.
The additional 53,000 people who are believed to have been killed by the effects of the war mostly died in recent months, “suggesting a worsening of health status and access to health care,” the study said. It noted, however, that the number of nonviolent deaths “is too small to reach definitive conclusions.”
Other key points in the survey:
Although the “proportion of deaths ascribed to coalition forces has diminished in 2006 … the actual numbers have increased each year.” The authors said their method of sampling the population is a “standard tool of epidemiology and is used by the U.S. government and many other agencies.”
Professionals familiar with such research told CNN that the survey’s methodology is sound.
Information for the survey was collected by Iraqi doctors, and analysis was performed by the faculty of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in cooperation with the Center for International Studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Death certificates confirmed families’ accounts in 92 percent of cases, the researchers said.
It has been very difficult to pin down fatality numbers during the Iraq conflict.
The private British-based Iraq Body Count research group puts the number of civilian deaths at between 43,850 and 48,693. Those figures are based on online media counts and eyewitness accounts.
“The count includes civilian deaths caused by coalition military action and by military or paramilitary responses to the coalition presence (e.g. insurgent and terrorist attacks),” the group’s Web site says. “It also includes excess civilian deaths caused by criminal action resulting from the breakdown in law and order which followed the coalition invasion.”
The latest estimates were released less than a month ahead of U.S. midterm elections that could change the balance of power in the House and Senate, now controlled by Republicans.
CNN’s Jomana Karadsheh contributed to this report.
You can acquire the full report in PDF (Adobe Acrobat) format here.
HAVE A SIR! NO SIR! VETERANS DAY-DVD AND BOOK SALE !!!
“In Iraq, we are fighting an immoral war, much the same as Vietnam was 40 years ago. Today’s soldiers, armed with the knowledge gained from watching Sir! No Sir! have the potential to rise up and stop another war that should have never started. Get this into the hands of our troops in Iraq and just wait for the movement to erupt.”
–Tim Goodrich, Co-Founder of Iraq Veterans Against the War
Ehren Watada, Katherine Jashinski, Agustin Aguayo, Mark Wilkerson–The past few months have seen a sharp rise in GI resistance, spearheaded by these and other courageous individuals who are publicly refusing deployment to Iraq and speaking out against the war.
In honor of the growing resistance in the military and as Veterans Day approaches, WE HAVE SLASHED THE PRICE OF THE LIMITED EDITION DVD of Sir! No Sir! from $19.95 to $14.95. If you haven’t yet bought the DVD, now is the time to do so. Buy the film, show it to friends, and organize house and public screenings to support GI and veteran resisters from Vietnam to Iraq.
And let us be the first to announce that the Holidays are just around the corner! Pick up extras for friends and loved ones–especially those serving in the military today. Buy them now at www.sirnosir.com.
The GI Movement Trilogy
We are also now offering new books that are essential reading for those who want to support GI resisters–what we call the GI Movement Trilogy:
–Soldiers in Revolt by David Cortright
The first and most thorough portrayal of the Vietnam GI Movement.
–The Spitting Image by Jerry Lembcke
The book that exposes the myth of spat-upon Vietnam Vet.
–Mission Rejected: U.S. Soldiers Who Say No to Iraq by Peter Laufer
The first book describing the experiences of current military resisters.
These books are now available at http://www.sirnosir.com/.
We also want to take this opportunity to urge you to buy, watch and spread The Ground Truth, Patricia Folkroud’s incredible film that reveals the brutality of American military tactics in Iraq through the eyes of the soldiers themselves, and chronicles the burgeoning resistance among today’s “War on Terror” veterans. http://www.thegroundtruth.net/
Act Now
Go to http://www.sirnosir.com/ to purchase these crucial materials, or go to one of our many affiliate sites.
As North Korea becomes the eighth confirmed nuclear power (Israel is not confirmed but considered the ninth) some of the blame has to go to the original five nuclear powers. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect in 1970, the five countries who had nuclear bombs – the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the USSR – agreed to work to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenals.
Now, 36 years later, no disarmament talks are taking place between those countries. North Korea has been a “threshold” country since the late 80s. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated shared security arrangements and prompted North Korea to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapon.
The Clinton administration, recognizing the threat, entered into an agreement with North Korea to provide reactors for peaceful use in exchange for an end to the weapons program. In 2003, North Korea announced they were leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reconstituting its weapons program, citing US failure to deliver the reactors.
North Korea’s joining the list of nations with nuclear weapons is a sad day for our world. As was the day that the United States became the first nuclear power, and the Soviet Union the second, etc.… As long as one country possesses the ability to annihilate another it is only natural for those without that power to seek it.
In the early 90s, during the lead-up to the extension of the treaty, the US and other nuclear powers agreed to stop testing nuclear weapons. It was widely believed that without that step many other “threshold” nations would not have remained in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has been a long time since the original five nuclear powers have made any progress in negotiating a reduction in their arsenals; in fact the Bush administration is building new lower-yield nukes with conventional uses that could spur a new arms race.
If all of the nuclear powers that are condemning North Korea are serious about stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, perhaps they should read and come into compliance with the following section of the treaty they first signed in 1970 and extended in 1995:
“Article VI – Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”
Thorne Webb Dreyer, Editor
