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My letter to Nancy Pelosi

91% of Americans do not want the US to engage in any military action in Syria. Over and over again, Americans have  shown the way to their elected represented representatives and those representatives have been deaf to their voices.

What unimaginable hubris is driving members of Congress like yourself, to commit an even more serious war crime than the one that the president alleges (he has no proof) is beyond understanding. Violence is the wrong response.

According to the Geneva Conventions (also domestic statute) anyone who is aware of a war crime and has the power to stop it, who fails to do so, is guilty of a crime equal to the one she failed to prevent. These are capital crimes Nancy, for which Germans paid with their lives after WW2.

Where is money coming from? Congress is telling us we must tighten our belts, not educate our children or help those punished by the crimes of others in the economic collapse or provide for those who jobs have been exported or provide medical care for those who cannot afford it because of the deficit. That’s your deficit Nancy. Half of it is from opportunistic wars and the other half is from failure to tax the profits from these wars.

This is your war crime.

Stop now and back away from another bloody, unjustifiable, illegal war.

Carol Davidek-Waller

Comments on the PBS documentary "Coal"

(The documentary “Coal” aired on PBS last week and is available now online here.)

I was extremely disappointed in the content of this program. I did a television show on this subject with a Congressional candidate (the only one to oppose it) late last year so I know enough about it to see that PBS pulled a lot of punches in aide of their corporate donors. Sadly, it reminded me of what FOX calls ‘fair and balanced”.

Just from the few minutes I could stand to watch, I could see you failed to address many important issues. The fact is: the surfactant applied to the coal that the RR employee (in fear of ending his 19 year career?) was so enthusiastic about is toxic and is only required to be applied to the coal when it enters an urban area. With our rainy climate it doesn’t take much imagination to understand where those toxins (in addition to those in the coal) will end up; on our streets in our waterways and ultimately in our heavily polluted Puget Sound. When the amount of dust blowing off each car was mentioned, you conveniently forget to tell listeners that these are no ordinary trains but will be super trains, 130 cars long and will be running 2-3 an hour. 600 pounds of coal dust per car, 400 cars and hour. You didn’t do the math. Property values will be degraded, traffic snarled and local businesses will be severely impeded. For these reasons and more, the City of Seattle has voted against it.

Not being able to ski at Snoqualmie Pass is probably the least important fall out from global warming. Global warming means extreme weather with loss of life and property, massive dislocations, starvation, untold human and economic costs.

When showing the models of the new “cleaner ports; you forgot to mention that some will be built adjacent pristine land and sensitive fisheries. The loading facility was covered but that won’t keep toxins from seeping into the soil and water. Uncovered stock piles are part of any facility.

The alleged jobs it will create are mostly transient and may or may not be local hires. Only several hundred permanent jobs will be created in these highly automated facilities.

The program forget to point out that much of the coal are on public lands and Peabody will be paying us a fraction of what they will sell the coal for. One of the other jackpot winners in this dubious project is Goldman Sachs who are investors in the port facilities but will only be required to provide 10% of the capital. The rest of the financial burden will fall on taxpayers who will pocket none of the profits and will have the burden of added healthcare costs and traffic revisions. Privatize the profits and publicize the risk.

Warren Buffet’s railroad is another winner. The infrastructure is inadequate for even the 2 or three shorter coal trains a day that use it, let alone the 2-3 megatrains an hour that are planned. Derailments are common. There were three in a month just before we went on air, spilling coal dust, and twisted metal all along the tracks. He’ll have to upgrade his rail lines before this project can begin. That burden will be borne by the public.

The alleged Asian demand for coal is a myth. China doesn’t want the coal. They have surplus piled on their docks and their own coal deposits. They are transitioning to clean energy and renewables as we should be.

When the stakes are whether or not the planet will be able to continue to support life, finding new markets for the products that contribute to its decline is madness. With CO2 indicators at record levels and climbing much faster than anticipated, clearly this coal should stay in the ground. It’s complete nonsense to allow a statement like ‘we need to burn carbon while we are making the transition to renewables” stand without a disclaimer. It’s because of the privileged profiteers like Peabody, Buffet and GS who line the pockets of politicians that we are still lagging in clean energy production.

Corruption hits closer to home than you might think. SSA Marine, the container and shipping company who will be managing the ports has been strong financial supporters of Senator Patty Murray’s political career, starting with her school board days and continuing to the present. Patty’s husband has spent his entire career working for SSA Marine.

This issue is far too important to settle for a tepid ‘he said, she said’ format. There are important facts, life and death facts, that this documentary failed to make clear. It’s not a matter of opinion that this is a bad idea. When all the information is reported accurately, it’s clear that this project should not go forward. It was a disservice to your viewers to do less.

 

Moral Politics video about 1st CD candidates

Wonder why Micosoft doesn’t pay state taxes and why Governor Gregoire and Suzan Del Bene are holding hands? If you missed last week’s discussion of the CD1 Candidates you can watch it again this evening on Channel 77 at 8:30 PM or online anytime here:
Candidates Vying for Congress in Washington’s New First District.

Bury My Heart In Electoral Politics

The ballot box just isn’t working for the 99%. 12 years of electoral politics have done nothing to stop the alarming erosion of the very foundations of our nation. Time and again our choices are narrowed by big money and back room deals. Time and again the least deserving claim victory.

Scott Walker’s recent triumph in Wisconsin is less about the failure of the Madison uprising/ progressive movement and more about the ability of the 1% to dominate the political process and sell us unverified elections.

Governor Scott Walker hit a nerve when he emptied the state treasury into the pockets of his friends and handed the tab to hard working state employees .

Unlike many other states, Wisconsin had no budget deficit pre Walker. Walker’s ‘Budget Repair Bill” was only needed to fix the budget he broke. Buried in its pages was a nasty poison pill in that stripped state workers of their constitutional rights to organize and collective bargaining.

The response was electric and the Madison Revolt was born. In spite of the freezing weather, crowds grew to 100,000 or more and the movement sustained itself for months All across the nation people rallied in support. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse for Walker, a clever journalist exposed him as the fawning servant of corporate bad actor Charles Koch.

The Madison rebellion like it’s cousin Occupy was ‘come-one- come-all’.

Was channeling the broad based energy of such a movement into the narrow confines of a recall election the next logical step or their first big mistake?

Something Doesn’t Quite Add Up

Stand With Wisconsin

Less than an hour after the polls closed on June 4th, the mainstream media sounded the trumpets for Walker victory. They were quick to credit Walker’s lavish spending (upward of 10-1: mostly from out of state billionaires) and even more eager to pronounce the Wisconsin rebellion DOA.

The the same media that lied us into war, soothed our consciences as we became a nation of torturers and assassins, called Florida for Bush before time and sold us the loser was now telling us that the man that looked like public enemy number one had just been crowned king, again. What proof do we have that they are telling us the truth about this or any election? The fact is, very little.

Exit polls were showing Walker and Barrett neck and neck right up to closing time. Within an hour, Walker miraculously, overtook Barrett by a healthy and strangely familiar 7%, ( nearly the same margin that put Walker in office pre revolt). Absentee ballots (12%of the vote) had not even been counted.

“It’s Not the people who vote that count….”

Within hours Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com raised a red flag. Wisconsin voters use paper ballot but they are not hand counted. In fact no human eye ever sees them nor will they without the unlikely event of a court order.

Votes are scanned and tabulated by the machines built by the usual suspects; Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S. Their scanners are just as flawed and unreliable as their big brothers, electronic voting machines. They regularly malfunction, can easily be hacked, finagled and have awarded elections to losers. The manufacturers of these machines are openly partisan (GOP) and highly secretive about their technology.

Diebold scanners were hacked as early as 2005. They use a memory card that can be penetrated without discovery and ‘dangerous programming technology’.

ES&S was told by US Election Assistance Commission that their scanners do not meet federal standards in December of last year. These same scanners caused problems in a recent election in Montana when it miscounted ballots that used a different ink; an error which could easily have been exploited. The ease in which ES&S scanners can be hacked was a subject of documentary film. In Florida optical scanners declared two losers, winners.

While overly eager to announce a winner, the media were more reluctant to report on the thousands of homebound college students (100,000 in the top 5 schools alone) who were disenfranchised by GOP revisions to the voting laws and a strategically timed election.

It appears to have slipped their minds that both the 2010 and 2012 elections suffered the effects of serious vote purging by a Walker friendly SOS and misleading robo calls from Walker supporters in various right wing groups.

Democrats Take a Dive

When the decision was made to channel the energy of the Walker revolt into a recall election, the Democrats took over the driver’s seat. It didn’t take them long to drive the movement into the ditch.

Progressives and unions had their candidate in Dane County executive Kathleen Falk until late March when the Party threw in a spoiler; the 2010 loser Tom Barrett. What followed was a lengthy primary process that created many internal divisions and left their candidate only one month to make his case.

Barrett’s poor record on worker’s rights and public education lost him union support and rankled many front line protestors. He was never able to unify and inspire the people he was meant to serve.

Walker and his minions had a full six months to obfuscate and obscure the issue. They took full advantage of the obscene amount of corporate cash to air a range of bizarre ads.

Right wing radio did its bit (often the only radio in rural areas) and gave Walker 25 x more air time than his opponent, in violation of FCC rules. Not a peep from the Democrat’s FCC or the Party itself.

The Democratic Party’s response to a full frontal assault aimed at damaging their credibility was just as baffling as their decision to trot out the same lackluster candidate. They kept Obama safe at home with his mouth firmly shut (in spite of his campaign promise “to put on a pair of comfortable shoes….and walk the picket line’) and slammed the purse strings shut.

Journalist David Lindorff believes that progressives and workers were deliberately sold out by Obama and the Democratic Party. He thinks they made a decision in advance that it was a losing battle and didn’t want to be associated with it. David makes a convincing case for his argument. He warns unions to stop giving kneejerk endorsements to Democrats and put their hard earned dollars elsewhere.

Democratic tolerance for GOP owned and operated voting machinery, targeted purges and advantageous election dates, secret source codes, custody issues, corrupt SOS’s; problems that only disenfranchise Democratic voters, is positively saintly.

No Democratic strategist loses their job after misreading public sentiment and losing one election after another. The bland, uninspiring candidates they field, fail to motivate voters. 60% of us stayed home in 2010, voting ‘none of the above’.

Genuine populists who try to run with the Donkeys meet stiff resistance, are bought off, abandoned or are eliminated by gerrymandering. Even if Barrett had won, the people of Wisconsin would not have gained a champion according to Mother Jones reporter Andy Kroll. “After a few days of celebration and self-congratulation, those in the Madison movement would have found themselves in the same box, in the same broken system, with little sense of what to do and, in a Barrett governorship, little hope.

We Are About To Find Out What Happens Next.

In his thoughtful article “Rolled in Wisconsin” Kroll goes on to say that the ‘energy of the Madison Revolt was never electoral. It cut across political boundaries and interest groups. He goes on to say that it’s a system that ‘stifles…and silences the kind of voices and energies’ the movement embodied. It’s “their game, their rules”.

The Madison revolt spread around the nation in heartbeat and enabled substantive change in other states. Six months of Occupy changed the conversation and built a global movement for justice.

The energy that drove Wisconsin to say ‘enough!’ didn’t die at the polls. It is still smoldering just beneath the surface, waiting for another Colin Millard to stand up and say ‘this far and no farther’. It’s the energy that is created whereever the few oppress the many. It will continues to build no matter how much politicians lie and no matter how many times the corporate media turn reality on its head….until justice is served.

In the past civil unrest has exploded into violence and destruction. Unfortunately, it is often the oppressed who suffer the most when the lid finally blows. I don’t think this is what any of us want.

We must create new ways of channeling this energy. We have to dig deep, use all our creativity, talent and make full use of the wonderful technology that is at our fingertips. Once more we have to learn to set aside petty differences and pull together. It’s time for a paradigm shift and it’s happening on our watch.

 

 

 

 

Candidates Vying for Congress in Washington's New First District

Moral Politics‘ show “Candidates Vying for Congress in Washington’s New First District” is queued for cablecast this Friday and next Friday at 8:30 PM – prime time.

Alert friends and others – in King County – to view the political punditry. Again, July 13 at 8:30 PM and July 20 at 8:30 PM on Comcast channel 77.  The show will stream same time from www.seattlecommunitymedia.org for all to see no matter their location.
See the website of Moral Politics for a listing of other shows you can watch.

Rocky for President

“It should be no surprise that when rich men take control of the government, they pass laws that are favorable to themselves. The surprise is that those who are not rich vote for such people, even though they should know from bitter experience that the rich will continue to rip off the rest of us .” Andrew Greeley (Chicago Sun-Times, February 18, 2001)

Rocky Anderson

I first met Rocky Anderson when came to Washington State to testify in the Legislature in support of a Joint Memorial to investigate  President Bush and Vice President Cheney for war crimes; crimes that they had publicly confessed to. As the Democratic Mayor of Salt Lake City, he was the only US Mayor to speak out against the illegal invasion of Iraq, torture, and the betrayal of the American people.

Named one of  the top lawyers in the US and an award winning civil rights activist, he was eminently qualified to speak.

Later we shared with Rocky our deep disappointment in the Democratic Party. Their lack of response to Constitutional crises was incomprehensible. Two Democratic members of Congress rushed home to try and shut down the day’s hearings. Other party loyalists attempted to undermine popular support for accountability. Rocky’s response was simple and to the point. ‘We need a new Democratic Party’.

Never one to stand silent, Rocky publicly criticized the Democratic Party. Finally he broke with them. “The Constitution has been eviscerated while the Democrats have stood by with nary a whimper. It is a gutless, unprincipled party, bought and paid for by the same interest that buy and pay for the Republican Party.”

Believing voters needed was a real choice Rocky helped found the Justice Party.  A party that seeks economic justice, social and civic justice and environmental  justice.

No need to ask what Rocky stands for. It’s in his record.

  •  Led a fully fledged affirmative action program as Mayor, significantly increasing minority hiring and promotions.
  •  Instituted Restorative Justice; a program that focuses on the needs of the victims and the community with an emphasis on reparations rather than punishment.
  •  Replaced DARE with effective drug prevention programs and created after school and youth programs.
  •  Named one of the top 10 straight advocates for LGBT rights.
  • Dramatically reduced air pollution, doubled recycling capacity, expanded light rail and open spaces and became a global voice for climate change awareness.
  • Led a nationwide fight to increase airport security by screening luggage.
  • Voted one of the top 20 environmental advocates worldwide.
  •  Promoted sustainable business practices through his e2Business program.
  •  Organized the Sundance Summit for Mayors with Robert Redford to share best practices and discuss climate challenges.

In January of this year Anderson accepted the nomination of Justice Party for President. Believing that big money is poisoning politics, his campaign accepts only contributions up to $100. The Justice Party will accept donations up to $2500. The extra funds are needed to gain ballot access.

Rocky believes that change is a bottom up process; that our leaders must be made to govern wisely. A political party is a powerful organizing tool that will persist long after election day, providing  a structure for continued activism and community. Running for president is only the beginning.

Frightened of voting for a third party candidate? Afraid the it will hand the White House to the GOP? Last election 60% of eligible voters stayed home. More than enough firepower to elect anyone we want.

Nader didn’t cost the Democrats the White House in 2000, Gore and party strategists did. In the end it was Al Gore, silencing dissent from Democrat Senators whose constituents were disenfranchised, handing off to the loser. Nader voters were new voters, the young and disaffected.

Democrats lose elections because they betray their base, are addicted to incumbency, because of illegal voter purges, privately owned partisan machinery, dirty tricks etc. They don’t complain and they don’t act. Under a Democratic administration, the FEC still languishes, toothless and ineffective.

We are not the divided nation the media claim. By issue, 70% of us are populist. Yet both parties govern far to the right shredding the social safety net, rewarding the privileged and fighting imperial wars.

Surely we have walked through the looking glass when voting ones conscience is a ‘wasted vote’ or when we are warned against voting for the best candidate. If you honestly believe that ‘the lesser of two evils’ is an acceptable choice, you have all ready lost more than you can imagine.

Courageous and fiercely determined, Rocky is far from naive about what it will take to regain control of our nation. He understands the powerful forces who stand in our way. He has made a start and means to continue. We need to help him and help each other. Contribute what you can . Volunteer. It’s very important we call on the media to cover his candidacy.

All around us are the rumblings of dissent and cries for reform. Rocky has given us a path that we might follow. What we discover on that path depends upon what we are willing to risk.

 

 

 

What financial crisis?

The collapse of the world financial system is still in full swing.  Good information is thin on the ground because those most culpable are doing their best to hide the full implications of their crimes. No one really knows how many trillions of worthless derivatives were created.  New crisis arise almost daily like mushrooms after fall rain. Cover ups are uncovered almost as frequently.  It’s almost impossible for anyone to grasp the whole picture but we know its really bad.

I’m very far from being an economist and I don’t pretend to understand all the complexities of the greatest of all white collar crimes. What I would like to share are some comments based on what I think I do understand, as a starting point for discussion, some links to articles you may not be aware of and suggest that we look beyond the failures of the current system into a better, more equitable and sustainable model.

David Spring, a tireless advocate for state banks has written a piece suggesting that the recent bailout of European banks in reality an extension of TARP. That many American banks are waiting in the wings with their hands out, the greedy and insolvent Bank of America being first in line.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29474.htm

 

In fact money from the Federal Reserve and US taxpayers has been whizzing back and forth across the Atlantic since 2008 when ‘banksters’ bamboozled Bush/Obama into believing that the self inflicted failure of the private banking system was the end of the civilized world. Many recipients of the first infusions of TARP were European banks, many of whom had liar loan subsidiaries just like American banks. I question whether this is this a legal or even appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?

There is an incestuous relationship between the international banking community that should be addressed. The system is unstable, prone to abuse and dangerous to civil society. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29463.htm

The European Crisis is the stepchild of US financial meltdown. Governments all over the world and obscure public institutions such as school districts in Norway bought US mortgage based securities (ranked AAA by Moodys and S&P who are now busily downgrading US and other nation’s debts; a direct contradiction of the own ratings). Greece has been struggling prior to the crisis but with the help of folks such as Goldman Sachs, they were able to conceal it until the mortgage bubble burst. http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html Many of Greece’s problems are the direct result of Wall Street fraud. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jun/25/greece-debt-default-crisis

 

In the case of Greece, ECB, because of its structure was forced to slam the door in its face just when it was critical to lend support.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/6942680/Euro-brinkmanship-escalates-as-ECB-shuts-door-on-Greek-bail-out.html

Silly and irresponsible from a fiscal standpoint (poisoning their own well) but as a way to begin imposing European wide austerity, a good start.  It’s not a ‘European Debt Crisis” it’s international banking industry fraud and no one with power is willing to call the cops.

The goal of austerity and bailouts are to funnel even more money into the same pockets that  are known to have engaged in criminal activity and are now mugging the governments of so many nations. Most of these institutions are private banks.

‘Occupy’ can play a critical role here.

Germany is a special case. They rebuilt their country after WWII with a public banking system. The ‘privateers’ have been have been chipping away but there is still a strong public system in place. Ellen Brown in her latest article suggests the German model as a way out of cycle of crises and debt slavery. http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/10/16/the-public-option-in-banking-another-look-at-the-german-model/

Bank of America has its own particular set of problems. No one can figure out B of A’s books. They are deliberately and unnecessarily complex.
B of A is probably insolvent even after sucking up trillions in TARP and Federal Reserve money. (They repaid TARP with low cost taxpayer backed loans. We’re still on the hook but without the pesky regulations such as not using TARP money for political donations).
B of A, like all the other banks, have been beefing up their bottom line by keeping non performing loans on their books at precrash prices. The foreclosure conveyer belt helped free up some cash but with all the ‘irregularities’ (fraud) they have had to slow that process way down. Hiding non-performing loans has also had the effect of propping up the real estate market and increasing the value of the assets on their books.

 

However this may be about to end. Michael Whitney predicts that within a year the banks will be forced to release this shadow real estate market (more than 3 million homes; at least double the current housing inventory) and housing prices will plummet again. Needless to say Whitney advises against buying a home in the next year unless you have a couple of hundred grand you don’t mind losing.


B of A has an additional burden of having purchased Countrywide right after the crash (the subprime loan diva who had Peter Pelosi on their board and gave sweetheart loans to members of Congress while guiding qualified people of color into exploding loans). There are law suits galore looming on the horizon and B of A doesn’t have the dosh, even with shaking down their customers for another 5 bucks a month to access their own money.

Soros is predicting that the Greeks will detach themselves from the Euro or at least believes that is a logical step for them to take. Attempts at austerity have all ready produced wide spread civil unrest. Soros made his billions on currency ploys and has some credibility in this area.  Whether the latest ‘new deal’ will hold remains to be seen.

 

One of the basic tenets of Ellen Brown’s writing her fabulous book ‘Web of Debt” is that nations should take back their sovereign right to create and control their own currency. Cutting the private banking industry that charges us to use our own money and call all the shots out of the picture is the best way out of the debt slavery that is built into our current monetary systems and gi-normous tranfers of wealth upward that are the manufactured product of their policies.

Here is an important analysis by a Swiss group that looked at more than 43,000 multinational corporations and how they are connected with each other (check out the graphic). The incestuous web of ownership and corporate boards narrows to a mere 146 mega corporations controlling everything. Most of them are financial institutions.  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29463.htm

Such a concentrated system of wealth and power is not only inherently unstable but neo fascism, deep economic instability, revolutionary levels of wealth disparity with widespread civil unrest follow in its wake.

 

Pull Up Some Dust and Sit down

Every social movement has its music.  From the union movement  in the early part of the 20th Century to the 60’s revolution to Africa’s apartheid;  everywhere voices were raised together against the forces of injustice and misrule.  There are important reasons why music belongs in every revolution.

Music  penetrates to deeper levels of consciousness than mere language. The discipline forces simplicity upon  the creator and there is nothing more powerful or difficult.  Voices raised together makes despots tremble.  There is nothing more empowering than ‘owning the air’.

Here’s Cooder’s How can a poor man stand such times and live on Youtube.

The favorite tool of the current populist movement is the online petition.  Music doesn’t seem to have taken its rightful place in the massive organization effort to beat back the right wing devolution.  We have no anthems that stir us and unite us.

After the walloping the Dixie Chicks took for a casual remark on stage, a mere tweak at the monolithic power structure that drags us into war after war, top tier artists have kept their heads down.  The industry is more consolidated there are fewer places for independent artists to gain a foot hold.

But things are about to change. A real star has stepped up to the plate and it just couldn’t get any better.

I have admired Ry Cooder’s work for as long as I could name the strings of a guitar. He’s played with bands but he’s not a pop star.   He is a guitar player’s guitarist, a real artist.Rolling Stone voted him number 8 of the top 100 guitarist worldwide.  His impeccable guitar playing and husky voice are not his only gifts.  No other musician that I know of has his ability to encompass so many different genres of music and to do it so well.  From session work to solo albums to playing with some of the world’s best musicians,  from rock and roll to jazz to Tex Mex,  from John Lee Hooker’s  hard edged blues to the undulating sounds of Hawaii’s Gabby Pahanui, he’s done it all.

Cooder has always marched to his own drum. His choices reveal an inherent integrity. Cooder’s  greatest commercial success  was the Buena Vista Social Club, a film/album collaboration with some of Cuba’s best musicians from Havana’s golden age.  It was so well received that the US State Department saw fit to fine him a $100,000 for violating the US embargo against Cuba and prevented some of the artists Cooder  championed from coming to the US to receive richly deserved awards.

In the last few years there have a been a series of solo albums including I, Flathead, part of his California trilogy that was released with a novella about a fictional musician. To date, none of them has provoked a response from the political establishment.

Last fall Cooder dropped a bombshell. He released a single on iTunes called Quicksand.  He wrote in response to Arizona’s  draconian immigration laws and assigned all the proceeds to MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.  It is the simple and much told story of hardships and death Mexican’s face trying to enter the US through the back door.  ( Keeping  in mind that there is no front door for those driven off their land by agribusiness and NAFTA trade policies. No social safety net in their own country.

Cooder’s next inspiration came from a column written by Truthdig editor, Robert Scheer entitled “Leave No Banker Behind”,  describing the one sided response of our government to the economic collapse.  Cooder takes it one step farther and puts all the bankers  on a train that is taking them to the White House for a feast  while the rest of us are left empty handed on the platform.

Cooder didn’t stop there.   All this and more (what John Lee Hooker would do if he were President) became an album called “Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down” that will be released late this summer. Each song  embraces a different social issue with a different musical style that best serves the material.

Cooder admits he’s angry about what is happening in our country,  a feeling he shares with a majority of Americans. Many Americans have talent and the access to make their anger count for more than  most of us.  Very few have the courage to use it.

But courage, like measles, is contagious. Once it’s in the air, not even fear can inoculate us against it.. Cooder has thrown down the gauntlet and I believe others will pick it up.

Even if the first response is silence. There’s nothing  like a good song  to push away the clouds of gloom and despair, the favorite weapons of despots everywhere.  We know the silence can’t last.

Here are some more Cooder videos:

When Johnny Comes Marchin Home http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDdcdzqJ1A
Collateral Damage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiNyhm38UVg
Walkin thru your city in the snow http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAz7NBwdr-Y
Head full of pictures (ptsd) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOnRbRGrt4U
There has to be a Reason http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyLuM17QviM
Rachel – Jim Page- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esCDnAEl4GA
Why Do They Hate Us – Jim Page – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5VCwPO3Sg
Palestine- Jim Page- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9L03–rNoM