Tidbits - January 9, 2014

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Reader Comments - Pardon for Snowden; BDS and Israel; Turkey; NAFTA; North Carolina; Bill de Blasio; John Handcox; Philadelphia schools; Art Spiegelman; Obamacare; Announcements - Memorial for Steve Kindred -NYC -Feb.8; Pete Seeger gets first Woody Guthrie Award -NYC - Feb.22; Student activists scholarships available; Preserve Mother Jones monument in Illinois; Save the Village photo exhibit -NYC; This week in history - largest slave revolt in U.S. history

Woody Guthrie's Jesus Christ

Woody Guthrie's Jesus is a working man ('a carpenter by hand'), an itinerant, and a radical ('sell all of your jewelry and give it to the poor'). For more Alt-Xmas music, go here and here.

Friday Nite Videos -- November 22, 2013

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Stephen Colbert: Nuclear Option in the Senate. Woody -- All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose. Siats - A New Mega Dinosaur. Every Nuclear Test. Music Love Army: We Are Not for Sale.

All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose

Woody Guthrie's guitar famously bore the legend, This Machine Kills Fascists. Here are the Woody lyrics (probably dating to the 1940s) that most directly spell out this message, with appropriate pictures of contemporary bad guys. Woody's confidence in the victory over fascism was the flip side of his confidence in the victory of the common people who, he sang, were Bound for Glory.

Friday Nite Videos -- Songs of Immigration -- July 12, 2013

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Who defines the Dream, as the Dreamers movement implicitly asserts, matters a great deal. In fact, it defines the nation. Here are 10 songs of immigration and identity: Crash at Los Gatos (Deportee). Ice El Hielo. Jamaica Farewell. Across the Borderline. Follow the Drinking Gourd. No Irish Need Apply. Rumania, Rumania. America (West Side Story). Where Is the Love? Ballad for Americans.

Johnny Cash -- Deportee

Lyrics by folk trailblazer Woody Guthrie, and set to music by Martin Hoffman, in honor of 28 Mexican nationals who died in a plane crash while being flown back to Mexico. They were buried in an unmarked grave, their names unknown until 65 years later, when a remarkable piece of detective work brought them to light. This performance is by The Highwaymen -- Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson. For more Songs of Immigration, Deportation and Identity, go here.
 

Tidbits - July 11, 2013

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Reader Comments: Citizens United; Zimmerman Trial; Egypt; Plane Wreck at Los Gatos("Deportee"); Elizabeth Warren; Capitalism & Austerity; Voting Rights Act; American Left; Progressive Patriotism & July 4th Songs; Fracking and Greens; Announcements - Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions - New York - Jul 24 - Jewish Voice for Peace; Left Labor Project - New York - Aug 1; Call for articles on building international labor solidarity - Working USA; Paid Internship Opportunity

Celebrating Progressive Patriotism; Top Ten July 4th Songs

Peter Drier, Richard Flacks and Peter Rothberg
To some, patriotism means "my country -- right or wrong." To others, it means loyalty to a set of principles, and thus requires dissent and criticism when those in power violate those standards. Not enough Americans are aware that much of what we consider our patriotic culture, especially our iconic music, was created by artists and writers of decidedly left-wing sympathies.

Tidbits - March 28, 2013

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Reader Comments on: Lean In and One Percent Feminism; Marx's Revenge: How Class Struggle Is Shaping the World; BRICS; Dues Check-Off; Obama's Cyber-War; Internet Privacy; Social Security; Independent Worker Unions; Minimum Wage; Detroit; NCAA; Announcements - Fair Elections Rally in NYC - Apr 3; Delegation to Venezuela - Witness the Elections; NYC People's Jazz; Paul Robeson, Woody Guthrie, Peter Seeger - Lessons from the Cultural Front
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