Thursday, January 30, 2014

Remembering Folk Legend & Activist Pete Seeger Bruce Springsteen "We Shall Overcome"


Bruce Springsteen sings "We Shall Overcome" as a tribute to Pete Seeger

By Diane Vadino
January 29, 2014 11:25 AM ET
"I lost a great friend and a great hero last night," Bruce Springsteen told a sold-out crowd at the Bellville Velodrome in South Africa yesterday, dedicating a reverent rendition of "We Shall Overcome" to his friend and fellow activist Pete Seeger. "Once you heard this song, you were prepared to march into hell's fire," Springsteen said.





(Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bruce-springsteen-honors-pete-seeger-with-stirring-we-shall-overcome-20140129#ixzz2rqulxIcO
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+Real News Network : Remembering Folk Legend & Activist Pete Seeger


John Nichols: 94 year-old Pete Seeger's music was stronger than the forces that sought to silence him - January 29, 14


More at The Real News also check out +Bill Moyers & Co. Remembering Activist and Folk Singer Pete Seeger January 28, 2014 by Karin Kamp
Pete Seeger, who has died at age 94, will be remembered as a musician and activist who over a career spanning seven decades used his spirited voice to inspire political and social change. As recently as 2011, Seeger, a veteran of the labor, peace and civil rights movements, led an Occupy Wall Street protest through Manhattan. “Be wary of great leaders,” he said two days after the march. “Hope that there are many, many small leaders.”
Seeger played a key role in the folk music revival that began in the 1950s and helped create songs that served as the backdrop for the tumultuous events of the 1960s, including “We Shall Overcome,” “Where Have All the Flowers Gone,” “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “If I had a Hammer.”
During the Great Depression, Pete Seeger and his friend Woody Guthrie traveled together from town to town, Seeger with his banjo and Guthrie with his guitar, singing songs in exchange for meals. Later, Seeger came to New York where he played in support of unions and against fascism. Throughout his life, and especially during the McCarthy era, Seeger’s folk songs and affiliations with the left, attracted the attention of those in power who branded Seeger a dangerous radical.
In this clip from a 1994 interview, Seeger tells Bill that music has a power that, even after decades of playing it, he still doesn’t fully understand. “All I know,” he says, “is that throughout history, the leaders of countries have been very particular about what songs they want sung, so some people, beside me, must think songs do something.”

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Robert Burns "Such a Parcel Of Rogues" & "A Man's A Man For All That"


So here's a couple of Robert Burns' poems which are as relevant as ever. (They are adapted into English from the Scottish dialect )
Robert Burns Scottish Poet, The Bard born January 25, 1759
Died july 25, 1796.
For more see the rather large website Burns Country: Official Robert Burns site

Anyway this poem " Such a parcel of rogues " by Robert Burns is about the Sottish Lords who betrayed their nation to the English for property , power & gold. It is an apt & even today a relevant theme about those who are willing to sell out their own countrymen for the right price.

Such a parcel of rogues

Farewell to(all)our Scottish fame,
Farewell our ancient glory;
Farewell even to the Scottish name,
So famed in martial story.
Now Sark flows over Solway sands,
And Tweed flows to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

What force or guile could not subdue,
Through many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few,
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English ( still) we could disdain,
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

O would, (before) I had seen the day
That Treason thus could sell us,
My old grey head had lain in clay,
with Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But without pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll (make) this declaration;
We're bought and sold for English gold-
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation!

The second poem is one of hope & a vision for a better world.

A Man's A Man For All That

1795


Is there for honest Poverty
That hangs his head, and all that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for all that!
For all that, and all that.
Our toils obscure and all that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp, (pennies copper)
The Man's the gold for all that.

What though on humble fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey ( like a sage), an' a that;
Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for all that:
For all that, and all that,
Their tinsel show, and all that;
The honest man, though ever so poor,
Is king of men for all that.

Ye see (yonder) birkie, called a lord,
Who struts, and stares, and all that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof (fool ) for all that:
For all that, and all that,
His ribband, star, and all that:
The man of independent mind
He looks and laughs at all that.

A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and all that;
But an honest man is beyond his might,
Good faith, he musn't forget for all that!
For all that, and all that,
Their dignities and all that;
The pit of sense, and pride of worth,
Are higher rank than all that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for all that,
That Sense and Worth, over all the earth,
Shall ( spread ), and all that.
For all that, and all that,
It's coming yet for all that,
That Man to Man, the world over ,
Shall brothers be for all that.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Martin Luther King Jr. "The Bell Tolls For" ... Kevin O'Leary and the One Percenters ??? Vietnam V Iraq?


Canadian 1 percenter +Kevin O'Leary believes economic inequality abject poverty is just a great motivator. The poor he thinks are just a bunch of losers and bums. +TYT The Young Turks take him to task.




The Bell Tolls for Kevin O'Leary and the one percenters.

+Martin Luther King - For whom the bell tolls




More words from Martin Luther King JR. as he criticizes the +Vietnam War as immoral and so too the Military Draft of the USA during that period.

Non-cooperation with Evil is a moral necessity.

+MLK Where Do We Go From Here?
"I aint going to study war no more"

There can be no peace without justice and no justice without peace.
America with its mighty military as we know the lost the war in Vietnam and was forced to leave the country.
The war ended and the Draft was ex-punched .
Later America began another immoral and unnecessary war in Iraq.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

MLK Speech for President Obama " When Silence Is Betrayal" & "When Dissent is Labeled Disloyalty"


President Obama and other so-called Liberals love Martin Luther King til he questions the status quo of America's foreign wars and expansionism .
President Obama condemns any such as Julian Assange, Bradley Manning or Snowden who dare question the expanding of the security and intelligence state.
President Obama has made the speakers of truth to power the enemy of the state and the people.
President Obama is all in favor of free speech til the masses organize and fill the streets ala Occupy Movement then he just gives carte blanche and a wink and a nod to the local police to do as they please and tosses social and economic justice under the bus in favor of the rich and powerful.

Martin Luther King, "Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam"