rabble rouser of the month, august 2014...

runner up...

Ferguson Protestors

making the ferguson people the rabble rousers of the month should be a no-brainer decision. they should get that award and there is no love lost to them because they did not.

because people that only watch mainstream news would never have any idea why ferguson happened, they shouldn't be qualified to talk about what is happening.  the secret that people in st. louis (and most other places in the US) understand well is that cops shoot (black) people (or whoever they don't like) on a regular basis, to varying degrees of acceptability. it goes on all over the country every single day, for decades at least, if not since 1776 or long before that.  people learned how to treat people they didn't like by reading columbus' diary.  a few weeks of tear gas and related shootings, people are sick of hearing about ferguson and want it stop. but when it happens day after day for all time, the people that have to keep dealing with it get sick of it and want it to stop.

believe whatever particular version of the news surrounding the shooting makes sense to you. in the end, that doesn't have hardly anything to do with the situation. listen to the direct words of people living on the streets in ferguson, over some major news agency from a satellite studio that only intervened on the situation reluctantly for their own credibility after others entered ferguson. funny how different stories emerged after the major news went into ferguson nearly a week after the protests started as opposed to what was being reported by citizen journalists on the street at the time.

no matter the circumstances of the  trigger event, what happened since?  1. people decided to protest police brutality.  that is not a rare occurence, such protests happen in cities across america many times per year.  when people get sick of bullshit, they protest.  2. when ferguson protesters assembled, police moved in with force to turn back protests.  3. response of (2) on (1) resulted in numerous violent exchanges.  people were unreasonably assaulted and that pissed them off.  they reacted.  and the police continued to harrass them, albeit a bit less so once the tv cameras showed their gestapo-like mentality and showed the world who was who in ferguson, missouri.  if the police and other "authorities" have no credibility in the aftermath, why should i have any reason to suspect that they were credible in the first place?

cheers to people willing to stand up for their rights and beliefs in the face of certain annihilation. all the black men and women in the streets cannot defeat the same military that blows every other nation off the map.  such people have to be really desperate to try those odds.  they have to have nothing left to lose.  the essence of the rabble rouser award is for people penalized for doing what is right and for people willing to demand justice even amid the repercussions.

and for all the awesomeness ferguson has bestowed upon us, we go a different direction with this month's award.  ferguson will be a rallying cry, but at the same time not the entire focus of attention. for to focus too much on one thing creates injustice unseen otherwise. last month's award was given to eric garner for the exact reason that ferguson should get it this month. almost as if a precursor to the people in ferguson. being a rabble rouser is not to be a prophet, but funny how coincidence works. we keep watching, but we make sure more injustices don't occur.

natomas slimm also made the statement.  he produced the operation ferguson video which can be seen to the right.  slimm also called in to KEOL to discuss the matter, which can be streamed or downloaded here.











now, for the august rabble rouser of the month...


Luke O'Donovan 

luke o'donovan is not news. it was a year and a half ago that he was beaten by five other men that yelled homophobic slurs while observers did nothing to help.  luke was news this past august however, when he was found guilty of using a knife to repel the attack and save himself. a ten-year sentence, with the possibility of discussing the matter in two and half years. in other words, going to prison for a good spell because he was hated and beaten.

gay rights are obviously at a watershed time in 2014 USA, but luke's case is more basic than even that.  if we just forget for a moment that this was a hate crime, something simpler is a huge problem.  if someone is being attacked by an angry mob (for any reason, good or bad) and observers are standing on the sideline not assisting that person who is at an obvious disadvantage, how is that person supposed to survive other than protecting themself?

they say missouri police were attacked and used force to protect themselves.  this is in no uncertain terms, exactly what luke ferguson did.  why should only some people be afforded this basic human right of self-defense?  but for some it is a crime, apparently. if you said, one day in prison, or one dollar in fine for luke, i'd say "fuck!" but ten years??  the (in)justice system can eat a dick!

someone attacks you, you defend yourself.  that is all.

anything else?
for other commentary, please do not ask me to talk about the football season. yes, it has started.  take this, and do not ask questions: for once, the NFL is actually supreme to the NCAA.  one makes no attempt to hide their corruptness and BS.  the other feasts off the bad image of the other.  forget them both.

july 2014 rabble rouser of the month ... and more ...

eric garner, staten island

photo: New York Daily News

east coast, big city cops don’t exactly have the best reputations when it comes to human rights. in the late 1990s particularly, NYPD was on a roll with the broom handle torture of abner louima, the 41-bullet death of unarmed amadou diallo, or the abuses of women in central park while the cops watched.  if you wonder how NYPD could ever top those horrific acts, consider that it may be because they keep trying. 
      eric garner was wanted for selling single, untaxed cigarettes. the guy was 43-years-old, with four kids. his neighbors in staten island refer to him as a big happy teddy bear. and given his reaction at the beginning of the melee, the cops had numerous previous experiences with him.  it seemed, however, that the cops were intimidated by eric becoming upet that they were harrassing him again. so, they strangled him to death on the sidewalk. 
      unless someone is trying to kill the cops, cops don’t need to come with rediculous force.  unless the guy is jack the ripper, they really don’t need to take such a dangerous person off the streets. while it may be wrong to sell cigarettes illegally, it is not a capital crime. and if it were an executable offense, the undercover cops in the video are not the judge, jury, and executioner.  how much worse do problems like gang activity and anti-american sentiment exacerbate over generations when four kids grow up without a dad because he did the horrific crime of selling cigarettes?  those kids should rightly grow up pissed off and want to seek vengeance, in the same way that police actions overseas create “terrorists”.  you can only lead by example and as long as the NYPD puts on the aggressive monster costume, they will only be creating aggressive monsters and opposition to them.
     also, ramsey orta, the man who took the video of the incident, is facing all kinds of trouble as a backlash and should get some credit for his own rabble rousing duty of filming police in action, which in and of itself is illegal for some reason. when will people learn to stop trying to control other people?  humans have proven throughout all history that they do not wish to be controlled. but throughout all history, people also show a propensity to let power go to their heads. people are not allowed to feel irritated or harrassed by that? they also are not allowed to record videos of it happening?  the incident was ruled a homicide after all.  why shouldn't people be able to have evidence to prove that?

runners up

flags of brooklyn.

in brooklyn, some mystery person performed a daredevil feat of pretty legendary proportions. in the middle of the night, they climbed the brooklyn bridge and then climbed various flagpoles to paint the flags to white. this harkens me back a couple months, when a teenager had a runner-up status for getting past four layers of security to climb to the top of the world trade center in the middle of the night.

obviously, there are many conservatives who want to teach a stern lesson to various bad boys for comitting these vandal acts. however, something much greater needs to be considered. if a teenage boy or other unknown miscreant can get past the world-class security to ascend to the tops of some of the most hallowed landmarks of modern christianity, then how safe are we as americans on the whole? even after knowing from years of experience that people were trying to blow up the world trade centers in the first place, it still ultimately happened anyway.

in time, we are fairly defenseless. how competent is the united states at stopping an aggressor? only time will tell, but based on these minor actions of relative hilarity, i would suppose that time is not too far away. the evidence here suggests we have very poor security forces for these new towers of babel. if we can’t protect these pillars of the american psyche, what can we protect? i am going to go just a short step out on a limb to suggest the main thing protecting us from foreign invaders is our military technology. however, our access to that technology is dependent on our ability to pay the corporations that produce the bigger and better weapons of mass destruction. and the united states is not exactly doing well currently in the world’s marketplace.


what happens when the money finally runs out? our government is going to have a hard time keeping these obscene military contracts and the corporations will move on to the next highest bidder. then how much will we be able to defend the nation? these actions by random miscreants just trying to prove something have proved something. when we run out of money, we’re fucked because we can’t even protect ourselves with money.


anon_0x03

deface page of the British National Party (BNP) website

a computer hacker has never won a rabble rouser award, though their actions are pretty audacious, take some knowledge and skill and can certainly be used for a greater good. the kenyan government has often been victim of cyber grafiti. it’s just that very few westerners have even known because by and large westerners don’t know or care what goes on in africa. anon_0x03 hacked into various government websites and banking websites to expose the massive amounts of corruption going on in the country. conservatives still have to villanize the hacker (because they always need a bad guy). but there are three relatively easy ways to stop such a villianous action from occurring. 1. the kenyan government can invest in a modern network that can’t be hacked into so easily. 2. they can do a better job of rumor control or 3. perhaps the most basic and simplest way, they can stop the corruption. they can stop ripping off the country to stuff money into accounts of the richest military leaders.

when you piss off the people with relatively little means to do anything about it, who also have nothing much less to lose, you set yourself up to victimized. when you piss off the majority of the people by stealing all the resources, you set yourself up for a war in which you are heavily outnumbered by desperate people. your chances to succeed in such a scenario are not great. one would think that someone smart enough to have control of a state would have been smart enough to have figured that out long ago. as with the last nominee, quit letting miscreants underscore your vulnerabilty. and don’t make them out to look like the bad guy when they are only defending themselves against your bad actions.


threaten, la grande

from Threaten's facebook page 

i really love to go for the local guys, i love to support rock and rollers, and especially love the feeling of revival in the metal world. all those things combined would have made threaten an automatic winner in most other months. but the story of eric garner was too upetting. the fate of our livelihoods is too concerneing. there were simply too many injustices to keep up with this month of july. but for the person that wants a more light-hearted story, try checking out the union county fair’s talent show and the lack of an appearance by threaten.

the fair didn’t want threaten to perform, so they apparently referenced an alleged obscure state rule that disallows drums. could the band have played without their drummer? perhaps they would have met the rule and been allowed to perform, though my feeling is that another convenient rule would have been found to stop the proceedings. realistically, though, threaten could not play without their drummer.

the first thing to consider is how integral the drummer is to metal. in most genres of music the drummer is a dispensible position. indie rockers strangled darlings have never had a drummer. idaho’s longest running act, hillfolk noir replaced their drummer with a suitcase years ago. most any country band has the drums so low in the mix that the drummer is basically only used for show. in metal, and often in punk, the scenario is completely different. the timing patterns are faster and take a rare breed of specimen. there would have been no metallica without lars ulrich, just like slayer is a joke without dave lombardo. very similarly, threaten’s drummer is the heart of the band. so, no, they can’t go on stage without their drummer.

but the more important thing to consider, why the hell can’t you have a drummer in a talent show? playing drums doesn’t take talent? drums are too loud? tey take too much to set up? if this were winter time, does that mean a little kid couldn’t play “little drummer boy”? whatever the answers, i expect only an evasion of the fact that threaten kicks too much ass and scares the fair committee. if the talent show would’ve given that answer, maybe threaten would have won this month’s award in the same way that sun blood stories won february’s award.

what threaten will win is a blue ribbon. since my oregano won a blue ribbon at the same fair, i am going to pass that award on to threaten for their exclusion from the fair. besides, i have so much oregano that i can’t use, they can come piss on it if they want.


rabble rouser hall of fame


sharpeville massacre (march 21, 1960)

Photo: Peter Magubane 

south africa’s apartheid years rivaled any nation’s discrimination practices. for at least a couple hundred years, internal passports were required for black people to move about the country. white people were the only who were allowed to be employers, white people were the only who were allowed to live in urban areas. discrimination extended to pretty much any non-white person. legislation from the 1920’s and 1940’s furthered the use of pass laws, until the frequent and deadly anti-pass campaigns of the african national congress and pan african congress were openly and actively defiant in the 1950s. on march 21, 1960, 5000-7000 black protesters went to the police station to offer themselves up for arrest without their passes. with only about 20 police on duty, reinforcement officers came, but so did more protestors. some say the crowd turned hostile. the police were armed with rifles and machine guns, the crowd with rocks and fists. the scenario favored the police, as they were able to kill 69 people in total.

huge protests resulted and south africa sustained a pretty damaged reputation in the human rights world. by the next year, south africa departed the commonwealth of nations, as it would be the beginning of a long end of discrimination practices in south africa. the entire pass system was finally repealed in 1986 and apartheid offically ended in 1994. in 1996, president mandela chose sharpeville as the site for signing the constitution of south africa. today, march 21 today is a public holiday in honor of human rights, as well as unesco’s international day to end racial discrimination.











r.i.p :: johnny winter






jimi & johnny at thescene club, 1969





Johnny winter was an abino twin of edgar winters. the two grew up in middle class america with the normal clean country music for white people, until johnny heard the radio that the family maid listened to. with his albino condition, johnny found himself on similar margins of society as black people. he found more to relate to with black culture and black music. he played a crazy fast fiery blues guitar, which transfixed so many people that johnny became the first white person inducted into the blues hall of fame. he got into rolling stone magazine, and then onto stage at woodstock. producing albums for muddy waters, johnny winters was a walking legend at a young age and lived out many of the problems associated with success. crafty as ever at the end, johnny winter has a new album that was scheduled to be relased in early september, “step back”

june rabble rousers

rabble rouser of the month

photo: gracewell healthcare / mirror (left) <br>
universal news & sport (right)

bernard jordan, resident at the pines nursing home in hove, east sussex, requested to leave the home to attend the d-day 70th anniversary ceremonies on june 6. though the home has been reporting to have not denied his request, bernard escaped during a routine walk time with his medals pinned under his jacket.  he got onto a ferry to attend the ceremony in normandy. 
originally it was reported by gracewell healthcare that he had not submitted the request in the proper amount of time, nonetheless administrative procedures need not preclude the living of life.  if people can't be free to do the things most important to them, why should they continue living?  had there been health and safety consequences for bernard, he surely proved risking that was worth being in normandy for maybe the last time. ...even though he wasn't able to join the official trip with his other war buddies, for official reason unclear or not well-supported.  bernard is a lifelong resident, and also a former mayor, of hove.  he turned 90 in june and recieved over 2500 birthday cards.  indeed, it was a celebration with the ladies all month long.  

photos: craig hibbert (left, top right, bottom middle) <br>
david mchugh (bottom right)

i hope to not regret choosing the albuquerque 13 as rabble rousers of the month, but what bernard jordan did was just so spunky and an experience well-deserved.  however, his was a cause supported by free men worldwide.  americans particularly eat up stories like that as approvingly as a salad instead of a hamburger at mcdonald's.  what is never cared about in this country is the plight of poor and disenfranchised people vs. the state.  in the albuquerque case, this involves the additional not cool thing of making police out to be the bad guy. 

on june 2, as many as 24 people, featuring mostly family members of victims, staged a sit-in at the albuquerque mayor's office before being detained and creating a lockdown of city hall.  the sit-in occured a few days after an autopsy report showed that james boyd, a mentally ill homeless man, was shot in the back by police.  nora anaya chained herself to a display case. mary jobe said, "we're tired of the mayor hiding from us," since her fiancee was killed by police.  barbara grothus of fire dog lake, noted there was no need to for protestors to force their way in because the door wasn't even locked.  david correia, an assistant professor at the university of new mexico and community activist, has often lectured against police brutality and compiled much of the injustice over the past few years.  he also has a TEDx talk on the history of albuquerque police violence.  david was arrested, to some controversy, for battery in a pushing incident with a security guard.  at least the families struggling for justice have a competent voice speaking on their behalf.  certainly, no other official people seem to want to hear their greivances, as most difficult stories get pushed under the rug by a disconcerted public.


rabble rouser hall of fame :: new members!

thomas paine (1737-1809)

before education was compulsory, paine was an essex school teacher, corsetmaker, tobaccoist and excise officer. he was twice dismissed from the office of excise, due to his opposition to the monarchy. facing debtor’s prison, he immigrated to colonial america in 1774 and barely survived the voyage, taking six weeks to recover. paine quickly found work as a magazine editor and pamphleteer. in 1776, common sense, an attack on king george III and the monarchy, gave paine the nickname “father of the american revolution.”  the american crisispamphlets fueled the revolutionary war, featuring the infamous quote, “these are the times that try men’s souls.” paine’s ability to appeal to common classes helped spread his messages far and wide, which made clear the need for national independence and aided the recruitment of the continental army.
          legendary though paine may have been, his supporters were few.  loyalists could not support him because he was too democratic to pay tribute to the crown. similarly, revolutionaries could not suport the radical notion that men who did not own property could vote and hold office. to do so would give too much power to ordinary people. but that was just the tip of iceberg. paine was anti-slavery and a world peace advocate. he appealed for the need of social security and pensions for poor and elderly. he supported free markets, utopian ideals and introduced the idea of a guaranteed minimum income. by the time paine espoused deist views in age of reason he had become so controversial as to be completely ostracised. only a few people attended paine’s funeral. his bones were unearthered and taken back to england before they were lost. no one today really knows where the body of thomas paine is.

---

michael hastings (1980-2013)

photo: blue rider press

one can only presume that thomas paine would be a proud supporter of michael hastings.  the journalist and war correspondent in iraq and afghanistan published i lost my love in baghdad: a modern love story after his finacee was killed in a roadside ambush. in 2010, rolling stonepublished hastings’ story runaway general, which resulted in the resignation of stanley mcchrystal, the commander in afghanistan.  hastings also wrote a book about his time with mcchrystal in 2012.  hastings became highly critical of the surveillance state and the american government’s war on journalism.  why democrats love to spy on americans was pulished on buzzfeed less than two weeks before hastings’ suspicious death.  hastings felt he was being investigated by the FBI while he was finishing a story on CIA director john brennan. numerous stories have surfaced relating to hastings’ mental stability, addictions and possible foul play of his car being hacked and remotely controlled in the high speed crash that killed him on june 18, 2013. 

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mario savio (1942-1996)

photo: tommy mcdonough

berkeley was a mecca for civil and political rights and free speech activists in the 1960’s. savio was a well-educated philosophy major and an eloquent speaker. he was first arrested for protesting black's exclusion from non-menial labor jobs in san francisco hotels.  while in jail, he learned about the freedom summer movement and soon went to mississippi to teach and help black people register to vote. he brought the fight back to berkeley, where student rights groups were gaining prominence. when jack weinberg was removed from a congress of racial equalitydemostration table at a sit-in and placed in a police car, savio stood on top of the police car to motivate the crowd. by december 1964, savio was fed up with disregard from university president clark kerr and gave the infamous operation of the machine speech, which he followed a week later by being dragged off stage interupting a speech by kerr. his fervor kick-started the berkely movement, though savio led a quiet life post-university and ultimately became a professor. savio died in 1996, while supporting students against university fee increases. 

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sam horrell (1930-2014)

photo: spokesman review

sammy came to oregon with his family in 1938, leaving a texas band of outlaws with a legacy dating back to the 1870s.  sammy grew up near elgin, oregon, in a log shack without electricity until 1953, or a telephone until 1958. his town hosted various social misfits, and was infamously known as a town no one dared to go.  on the flipside, “sammyville” gave poor, unemployed and ex-cons somewhere to go. sammy walked the streets in overalls, with a six-shooter on his side, proclaiming to be sheriff, mayor and hanger.  sammy received only a third grade education, but built a town with centralized water, indoor plumbing, fire truck and snow plows. he shrewdly stored money in cans buried around the property in a sort of slush fund to help with things like the elgin food bank, the elgin historical society and building a church.

      sammyville was the name of a 1999 film, which paints the town as lawless.  the film is currently listed as missing from the elgin public library.   


album of the month :: willie nelson - band of brothers

      willie is not like most musicians in their 80s making a comeback record.  most do it for extra retirement, or a favor.  sometimes, it’s for a chance to get out one more idea or story while there’s still time.  then, there’s willie time.  willie has always kept his own time. he’s always been able to write any song and make it decent. he still can, obviously.  he is more subtle than cash’s later years, but then again willie isn’t exactly re-inventing himself.  and though the album is the first in quite some time, willie isn’t exactly making a comeback and he isn’t exactly in his late career.  he’s been out there consistently these past 10 or 15 years especially. he is still singing like he’s got a lot yet to find, while having an old fart’s look back on life.  at 81, willie still travels more than entertainers at 21.  he is still as relevant, while also being timeless, as entertainers at 21. there is a lot to come. i expect willie to release a record at 101. 
      wives and girlfriends is typical tongue-in-cheek willie, but he really shows off his signature talent in used to her, crazy like me, and songwriters.  but like every album of the month selection (though i still don’t like the award), all the winners are complete top to bottom show stopping tunes.  metacritic gave band of brothers 72, though i feel that score should be 73.  then again, i don’t believe half of what mainstream critics think, so props to allmusic.com. they seem to have gotten this one right.
                    “We’re a band of brothers and sisters and whatever
                              On a mission to break all the rules
                         And I know you love me ’cause I love you too
                                 But you can’t tell me what to do”

rabble rousers for may 2014

rabble rouser hall of fame

dan price (joseph, or)

Photo: John Brecher, NBC News

dan left behind stressful corporate life in the early 1990s and now lives on the grand total of $5000 per year, which is made in various ways, such as maintaining cemetery lawns and selling his visions of the world. “i used to work as a photojournalist with regular crazy hours. the problem is, people have their lives so organized they are slaves. basically, the average person spends a ton of their time working for very little money, just to survive. i spend very little time working for enough money to not just survive, but do what i love – draw and travel.”

after his attempt at commercial society with a high-interest mortgage rate, dan now spends his life in oregon living in a “human scale” hobbit hole in the wallowas that he built for for $75.  it contains a room, a sauna and a garage for his bike.  “i like being able to do what i want to do. i don’t believe in houses or mortgages. who in their right mind would spend their lifetime paying for a building they never get to spend time in because they are always working?” so, dan leases two acres for $100 per year.  his genius book radical simplicity describes it all and his discontinued moonlight chronicles are, ironically, now being sold online for twice what price charged. so, buy directly from dan. p.o. box 109, joseph, or.

check more, starting with: 

galfromdownunder.com, nydailynews.com, path less pedaled

moonlight chronicles.com is chock full of the art he has created, his comic books, films made about him and his unique way of aof life that a lot of people can learn from as a how to for not caving into advertisers demands of the latest greatest junk to wind up cluttering your spare bedroom. 

rabble rousers of the month

sherpa of mount everest (eastern nepal)

the historically nomadic sherpa of eastern nepal are expert mountaineers who have been invaluable guides to the summit of mount everest. inexperienced climbers particularly need help ascending the tallest mountain in the world. according to the sherpa, hikers have placed unreasonable demands of sherpa.  the april 18 avalanche on everest killed fifty people, mostly sherpa who were assisting in an early morning transport of gear.  since that time, the sherpa have been on strike, not aiding climbers.  many hikers have resided at basecamp until ultimately going home without reaching the summit.  two important lessons for westerners to learn…

1. money can’t buy everything.  westerners may be used to buying their way into or out of any situation, but for the sherpa no amount of money is worth compromising health and safety. 

2. mount everest is not a vacation to disneyland.  families don’t just hike to the summit for a picnic.  the major world peaks, like everest, are for serious well experienced climbers.  obviously even a well trained climber would need some assistance, but  for the novice that needs a yellow brick road to the top, maybe the best idea is to be satisfied with a day hike to mount emily.  it’s been 51 years since jim whitaker became the first american to scale mount everest, and 61 years since sir edmund hillary became the first person known to have reached the summit.  both of these famous moutain men also needed sherpa and their skills to survive the treacherous ascent.   while those were fantastic achievements to aspire to, it is not as if every westerner must duplicate the feat.  and certainly not as if it should be as simple as buying a ticket to the top.

Jim Whitaker, with Sherpa guide Nawang Gombu in 1963.

amanda keon (dowagiac, michigan)

dowagiac union h.s. junior dominic gant didn’t have enough funds in his school lunch account (he was about $4 in the red), so his lunch was taken away and thrown into the trash. his mother, amanda, contacted the schooland was told that they follow the policy no matter who the student is or how much the student owes.  the school told her that there has to be some cut off. amanda said there doesn’t have to be sucha  policy at all and proceeded to pay off the outstanding lunch balances for every student at the school. to pay off all 19 students in the red accounts, cost amanda just under $100.  then, as per most draconian measures which come to light, the prinicipal gave a politically correct response, saying that dominic should have been able to ask permission to charge another day and should not have been sent home hungry.  i’d like to hear from the next dowagiac student that gets denied but doesn’t have a mother able to do what amanda did.

album of the month

clarke & the himselfs II (curly cassettes)

another reason why music is meant to be experienced live rather than on recording. of itself, the latest release from clarke howell isn’t the best thing ever recorded, but certainly not bad either. it’s got a little too psychedelic drony feel, but that matches the introspective messages from a soul trying to catch up with the fast world.  the music is almost like if daniel johnston and elliot smith had started a jesus and mary chain cover band. whether or not such a prospect sounds appealing, anyone would be mesmerized by the live version of clarke and the himselfs, like he put on at ranchfest over memorial day.  as one-man bands have continued to propogate at least since urban junior made it a fad four or five years ago, and probably even since ray davies and the rest of human history, clarke, as himself, pulls off a flawless live act.  he plays a kick drum with a snare and a cymbal, while strumming guitar with a drumstick and singing some compelling lyrics. it’s not even some gimmicky type of thing where watching one or two songs is entertaining enough.  every song keeps you hanging around for one more.  his cassettes only have about 7 or 8 songs, when you want to keep hearing more. here’s a side note for commercial viability.  if you’re planning an event with a shoestring budget and having a tough time coming up with anything to interest people, maybe try hiring clarke and the himselfs.  since he’s only one guy, i would bet he costs a little less than a full band.  plus, when people are bored with your under-planned event, they will be blown away by the mystique hiding behind the songs and the showmanship.  people will always remember what a hit your event was.

rabble rousers for april!

rabble rouser of the month

patrick farves :: york, pennsylvania

patrick farves still from the today show (left); 
nina davuluri photo by desiree navarro (right)

there have been rabble rouser of the month winners for self-promotion activities, though most have been pretty genuine. i can admit that some of the impetus for the stunt that patrick farves pulled this april had somewhat of a selfish motive, but i still cannot support what susan milligan wrote for u.s. news.  what patrick did was a pretty natural thing for a spunky teenager. if he doesn’t deserve attention for it, then she shouldn’t give it to him.  regardless of how one feels about his motive, he is still the best rabble rouser this month for his champion move...
        patrick asked miss america to his high school prom. central york high school administrators knew of his plan and warned him not to ask before the assembly at which miss america was speaking.  patrick asked her to prom anyway because his mind was “already set.”  (and i wholeheartedly applaud that ability to stick to a decision.)  she said no and he got suspended for asking! double whammy!  khloe kardashian offered to go with him, but he shrugged that off. kardashian is no miss america, obviously, but mostly it seems that patrick was saving some cool because she was probably kidding.  miss america turned patrick down “due to [her] travel schedule,” but she did request that the school not suspend him. they did anyway. 
         patrick has mentioned that he has some regret, which is understandable. usually when people are punished, they do have some regret. and, yes, she had a message that was overshadowed a bit, but not through his fault. besides, miss america's message was heard and is now amplified.
        obviously, popping the question is not the main part of patrick winning this month's award. defying the stuffy attitudes of school officials is a bigger reason, but still not the biggest. 
        the school had “to set expectations for student behavior, to communicate those expectations and rules to students and families and to ensure those rules are followed within our schools.” well, no, they didn’t have to, they wanted to have the upper hand, to prove a point, albeit a ridiculous point. maybe if this were something that mattered, such as bringing a gun to school, then it would be worth making much ado.  who cares if someone wants to ask miss america to the prom?  why did the admin have the need to control an innocuous teenager's little crush on a celebrity?  
        the biggest reason patrick wins the award is barely of his own doing. the school could have let him have his ten seconds of fun and not made it into a big deal. if the school hadn’t cared, only some people at york high school would have ever known about it.  and if hundreds of news outlets hadn’t covered the story, then even more people wouldn’t have known. but they did!  thanks to susan milligan and all the others that gave him the attention that he apparently didn’t deserve. maybe if the media would have jumped on the story of michelle obama greeting miss america by saying, "so i hear you got some kid suspended" then miss america would be the rabble rouser!  people shouldn't blame patrick for the attention they gave him.
       as always, kids rule!

mother jones (1830-1930)

mary harris, aka “mother” jones, was labor and community organizer, strike coordinator, and co-founder of the IWW.  at over sixty years of age, jones was referred to as the “most dangerous woman in america” by west virginia attorney general reese blizzard. on the senate floor, jones was referred to as “the grandmother of all agitators,” to which she replied, “i hope to live long enough to be the great-grandmother of all agitators.”
        mother jones immigrated from cork county, ireland in the wake of the potato famine.  she was a teacher in michigan and a seamstress in chicago before moving to memphis to marry george jones, an organizer for the national union of iron moulders.  in memphis, jones opened a dress shop – on the eve of the civil war.  in 1867, her husband and all four children were killed in a yellow fever outbreak.  mother jones wore only black for the rest of her life.
         jones returned to chicago and opened a dress shop, where she did work for some of the wealthiest women, while seeing up-close the plight of the desperate poor in the city streets.  in 1871, jones lost everything in the great chicago fire.  from the tragedy, she immediately hit the road in support of union causes.  she joined the knights of labor (a precursor to the IWW) and was a staunch advocate for women and children. in 1903, jones led a march of children from philadelphia to the home of president theodore roosevelt.  he declined to meet them, but major news was made and attention drawn to the cause of child worker abuse.
         though jones fought for women and children, she was not quite a feminist. she opposed abortion and female suffrage. her feeling was that “you don’t need a vote to raise hell.”  this was seen as a short-sighted view, but she defended it by saying that suffragists were unwitting agents of class warfare. in 1925, she stated that “the plutocrats have organized their women. they keep them busy with suffrage and prohibition and charity.”  jones supported union causes because she thought men should be able to make a family wage so that women could stay home. as such a promoter of women as non-workers, jones was sorely absent from some of the major incidents as the lawrence textile mill “bread and roses” strike in 1912.
         jones hero status in american folklore was cemented in “she’ll be coming around the mountain,” a song about mother jones fights for appalachian coal strikers. indeed, mother jones life story follows all the early significant events in labor history. she was present at the pittsburgh rail strike of 1877, the haymarket incident in 1886, the pullman strike of 1894, the founding of the IWW in 1905.  she was arrested in west virginia at the paint creek-cabin creek strike of 1913, forced out of colorado at the time of the 1914 ludlow massacre and arrested at homestead in 1919.  mother jones had a tribute written by eugene v debs in 1907. 

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harry bridges (1901-1990)

harry bridges (photo: life magazine)

harry bridges’ first job as a teenager was a rent collector for his father, a realtor in melbourne, in which harry often collected from desperately poor people. he became a merchant seaman and sailed around the world to deplorable slums in east asia, india, and london. “the more i saw, the more i knew there was something wrong with the system.”
       bridges first met wobblie militants in tasmania, and briefly joined the IWW when migrating to san francisco, where he became a longshoreman.  the dock workers “shape-ups” functioned “more or less like a slave market in the old world” by which workers would show up at the docks and be hand-picked for the day.  in a time when worker’s activity was recorded in “blue books” for retaliation measures, bridges joined the international longshoremen’s association (ILA) and was soon blacklisted for participating in a 1924 labor day parade. by 1933, bridges was an executive in the ILA, encouraging strikes and slowdowns, rather than reliance on government promised assistance in the national industrial recovery act.  when four longshoremen were fired for wearing ILA buttons, bridges led a five-day strike to have the workers re-instated.
        bridges’ biggest role came as committee chairman in the 1934 west coast longshore strike. franklin roosevelt offered mediation, but neither side compromised. as the strike drug on throughout the year, bridges could not encourage strikers to continue, particularly after the july 5 “bloody thursday” incident with police aiding waterfront employers in raids on strikers, resulting in two deaths. the strike did result in coast wide bargaining rights as well as joint employer/union hiring rights.
        bridges became the ILA pacific coast district president in 1936, and oversaw the chapter evolution into the international longshoremen and warehouse union (ILWU).  his work and influence spread to hawaii, where the working class was breaking from a long history of white elite power hold.
         bridges graced the cover of time magazine in 1937 and by 1939 the government became addicted to figuring out how to deport the australian.  they could not prove allegiance to any group advocating the overthrow of the government, so congress passed the smith act in 1940, named for a virginia democrat and anti-labor leader with an express bias to have bridges deported.  the u.s. dredged up some sort of purported communist affiliation in bridges’ past, but by then roosevelt turned attention toward the war and a new soviet-american alliance was fostered.  various fights with the federal government ensued over the years, with bridges briefly convicted to prison with revoked citizenship.  yet, he continued to fight for more worker’s rights and managed to outsmart every government effort to ban him.
         later in life, bridges marriage to noriko sawada resulted in the state of nevada repealing anti-miscegenation laws in 1959.  the almanac singers and woody guthrie wrote songs for harry bridges.  the university of washington has a department called the harry bridges center for labor studies. according to UW, bridges “demonstrated the ability of rank and file members to organize, take control of unions, win progressive gains, despite overwhelming odds.” 

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haymarket affair (may 4, 1886)

image: library of congress

the 1880s were a particularly tough decade for american labor. the industrial revolution made great use of under paid workers. work hours were long, sixty hours per week was normal. most strikes at the time requested work weeks be reduced from 60 to 55 hours.
       mining was arguably the most important profession, as coal was the primary fuel source for trains and electricity. labor jobs paid at the rate of $8 per week in 1880, though children and immigrants made far less than the average worker while comprising the largest part of the workforce. in 1880, there were 1,118,000 children under age 16 in the workforce. chinese immigrants particularly cut into the workforce and as a result became hated and were targeted in frequent attacks. strikers and militia clashed in deadly battles frequently and survivors were usually put into prison by a judicial system that aided the wealthy in a time of extreme social darwinism. in 1885, the knights of labor finally gained enough strength to stand up to railroad baron jay gould.  an anarchist congress wrote up a manifesto in chicago in 1886. common laborers and families were desperate for any concession they could get.
         by spring of 1886, the movement for an eight-hour work day was blooming. on may 1, the american federation of labor (AFL) called for nationwide strikes for any place that refused to honor an eight-hour work day.  350,000 workers went on strike nationwide. every railway and stockyard in chicago closed, paralyzing industry. authorities were paid by employers to break strikes and as such needed to watch for subversives, sympathizers and scapegoats to make examples of. that was one way to control the workforce, to “keep them in view…make an example of them if trouble occurs.”
         on may 3, chicago police fired into a crowd of strikers, wounded many and killed four.  on may 4, some 3000 people met at haymarket square in a peaceful demonstration even attended by the mayor.  as the evening wore on and the crowd dwindled to a few hundred, 180 policemen arrived to end the meeting. a bomb exploded, wounding sixty-six policemen, seven of which later died.  police fired into the crowd, wounding over 200 and killing several more.
        some evidence came out that an “anarchist” responsible for the bombing was actually a police agent provocateur, planted to enable arrest of hundreds. eight “anarchists” were arrested, though only one of them had been present at haymarket square that day and he was giving a speech at the time the bomb exploded. the eight were convicted, sentenced to death and had appeals denied by the supreme court.  four were hanged, one killed himself in prison and the three others were later exonerated. the incident brought international excitement. george bernard shaw said that “if the world must lose eight of its people, it can better afford to lose the eight members of the illinois supreme court.”
            what came from the incident was a short-term crack down on the radical movement. the long-term effect grew a revolutionary movement year by year as may day demonstrations worldwide remembered the struggle for an eight-hour work day. the excitement of haymarket square spawned an unknown number of revolutionaries such as emma goldman and alexander berkman. labor candidates became more common in elections and the year of 1886 became known nationwide as the “year of the great uprising of labor.”

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ludlow massacre (april 20, 1914) 

ludlow tent colony prior to the fires.
photo: library of congress

in spring of 1914, the southern colorado mining region had been embroiled in strikes since the previous september.  at ludlow, many strikers were evicted from their mining shacks and moved into tent colonies. colorado fuel and iron company owner john d. rockefeller jr. hired the baldwin-felts detective agency to raid the tent colonies. several were killed in battles, but the miners held out the strike and the mines stayed closed …until rockefeller talked/paid the governor into employing the national guard.
       on april 20, strike leader lou tikas was lured into the hills under pretext of a truce, only to be executed by national guardsmen.  there was a machine gun attack and the miners fired back.  women and children dug pits to hide from gunfire, in which at least thirteen men were killed.  gunmen also set fire to tents and, the next morning, under a single tent the charred remains of two women and eleven children were found.
       five thousand people protested at the denver capital to have the national guardsmen tried for murder and the governor tried as an accessory. the united mine workers issued a call to arms and strikers arrived from all over colorado to assist.  sixty-six men, women and children died in the colorado mining strikes.  zero militamen or mine guards were ever indicted. 
        always a nation to use external conflict to quell internal conflict, the u.s. invaded vera cruz the morning after ludlow and killed over a hundred mexicans for the sake of retribution and pride.  rockefeller eventually met with mother jones about the conditions and visited the mines himself, resulting in some improvement of working conditions.  

lucy (1853-1942) and albert parsons (1858-1887)

one of the champion fighters for the plight of the poor and disenfranchised, lucy parsons was born in texas with african, native american and mexican ancestry. she was raised in the oppressive industrial revolution economy and often challenged racist and sexist injustices. lucy married alfred parsons in 1870, though the marriage was illegal due to miscegenation laws and dangerous due to the various threats of lynching and gunshots her husband albert took for helping register black voters.  they were quickly forced out of texas under the new jim crow laws.  albert got a job at the chicago times in the most depressed of economic times. with millions unemployed and the labor class indoctrinated in socialist and anarchist idealogy, there was support for a cause the parsons’ could fight for. albert was also an active protester, or at least had that sort of famous image. albert was fired by the times and blacklisted from the printing trade for speaking to crowds of 25,000 while promoting peaceful means of negotiation during the great rail strike of 1877. lucy opened a dress shop to support the family and found a conduit hosting meetings for the international ladies garment workers union (ILGWU).

in the fantastic haymarket square incident in 1886, albert and seven other assumed anarchists were tried and sentenced. lucy was a suspect, and actually present at haymarket square, but was never arrested or tried. no one believed there was any chance a death sentence could be passed down to a woman, so it was not worth the pursuit.  women were not in the public eye as being capable of extreme violence.

instead of mourning her husband’s imprisonment, lucy started a campaign for clemency. she toured the country distributing information and gathering funds. everywhere she went, police barred her entry to the meeting halls. she became quite popular and the case had attention, but nothing to persuade the governor to grant a stay. albert eventually was hanged in 1887. when lucy and the children attempted to visit him on execution day, she was arrested, stripped and jailed with the children in a cold cell until after the hanging.  (do you wonder what causes people to beome militant extremists?)

of the couple, lucy may have been the more intimidating. she was outspoken in her refusal to assume the role of a homemaker and with her feelings for violent direct action.  she wrote for radical papers, like “the socialist” and “the alarm.”  she was editor of “the liberator” and “freedom: a revolutionary anarchist-communist monthly.” she was frequently fined, arrested and forcibly removed from places for handing out her “anarchism” pamphlets. not only did she face pressure from the authorities, there was also pressure from the ranks of the labor movement. the knights of labor had a decidedly negative stance toward the haymarket activists and focused on non-strike oriented approaches to labor management. by the 1890 elections, labor organizers had latched on to the democratic party. lucy shunned the association. she supported syndicalism for voluntary association of workers. she scoffed at any goverance system that would allow rich to lord over the poor. she was unwavering in her opposition to any type of class segregation. 

her career was hampered due to the decline of craft unions and the rise of industrial unionism in the technological advances of scale of operations of the new era.  but her fervor in establishing a well-organized working class never died.  for many years, lucy promoted the cause of hunger and unemployment through strikes and marches.  in 1915, she participated in a demostration over 10,000 people strong with american federation of labor, hull house and the socialist party.  within weeks, the government began planning for hunger and unemployment policies.

later in life, lucy worked periodically with the communist party and pushed for international labor defense causes. she spent her entire life active in the fight against judicial fascism and the plight of economic oppression. even into the 1940s, lucy was individualistic and uncompromising in class consciesness.  the establishment tried for many decades to silence her and when she died in an accidental fire at age 89, her library of books and personal papers were confiscated by the FBI.