Complicated guy. He’ll be missed.

This is my favorite tune:

(originally posted at MWC News)

Today, we at long last have finally come to the reductio ad absurdum of war as no longer an important strategy in the struggle against tyranny but now wholly the exclusive, savage instrument of Imperialism.

War has reduced man below the level of an unnatural beast and has made our country forever disgraced in the history of humanity.  We must now come again, with renewed recognition and humility, to the words of Julia Ward Howe who, at the end of the carnage of the Civil War, issued this Mothers’ Day Proclamation.

The controversy of her words might have been debated in her day and indeed at the end of WWII.  Today, its message can no longer brook any challenge or contradiction.

Mothers’ Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Mother’s Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their
sons.Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: “We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says “Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.”

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston, 1870

Robert Boldt an editor of MWC News, is a freelance film/video producer living in Jefferson City, Missouri. He is active in local politics, worked on the Howard Dean and John Kerry campaigns and is a cofounder of The White Rose Collective. Articles by Bob Boldt at MWC News http://mwcnews.net/bob-boldt

At a concert in Rome on the first of May 2007 the Italian comedian Andrea Rivera declared “The Pope doesn’t believe in evolution and he is right, the church has never evolved”. I was reminded of these words today whilst reading about the reaffirmation of the Vatican’s opposition to condom use by Pope Benedict. The only defence for this position that his spokesman, Federico Lombardi, could offer today was that he was “maintaining the position of his predecessors”.

Unfortunately there was no better argument made by the Vatican as this position is indefensible. Condom use has been proven in numerous studies and in practice to reduce the rate of HIV infection. Today there are over 22 million people in Sub Saharan Africa with HIV and every weapon available is needed to fight this disease that his destroyed lives and communities across the continent.

The Pope’s words are not insignificant, in many villages in impoverished regions across the world, the priest may be one of few literate residents and is therefore a source of authority. The church’s position has affected the policies of health institutions around the world, and is itself a major provider of care for AIDS victims. This continued policy of refusing to accept condoms as an important method of fighting the disease means that surely more people will die. The Vatican has blood on its hands.

The Church’s position is not only wrong in terms of science, we know that for them this is of no concern to them. The Church’s position is also wrong in their judgment of their own laws and scriptures. The biblical texts are often criticized as being contradictory, but they are necessarily so. The scriptures were intended as a guide to life and in our lives we so often have to make choices between two morally difficult propositions. In this case the Church has chosen a disrespect for human life over the sin of Onan. It is a choice that is beyond comprehension.

A bit off topic for The Seminal, but…

I just finished recording an album for the RPM Challenge. The rules of the Challenge were simple: Record an entire album (10 songs or 35 minutes) of original music entirely in the month of February.

Well, it’s March, and I’m done with the album! I wrote all the music and lyrics; played, sang, and recorded everything in my apartment; and mixed and mastered the album in 28 days. (Except for the track “Rita,” which had vocals contributed by the talented Alex Thurston.)

I’m releasing the album, call “The Rise,” as a free download (because I believe in that kind of thing). So, head over to the album’s website, give it a download, and then leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

It’s a bit late for an obit but its never too late for an homage; to John Updike, whose life and work represented America in all its fault and glory.

His poem Minority Report:

My beloved land,

here I sit in London

overlooking Regent’s Park

overlooking my new Citroen } both green

exiled by success of sorts.

I listen to Mozart

in my English suit and weep,

remembering a Swedish film.

But it is you,

really you I think of:

your nothing streetcorners

your ugly eateries

your dear barbarities

and vacant lots

(Br’er Rabbit demonstrated:

freedom is made of brambles).

They say over here you are choking

to death on your cities and slaves,

but they have never smelled dry grass,

smoked Kools in a drugstore,

or pronounced a flat ‘a’ or an honest ‘r’.

Don’t read your reviews,

A * M * E * R * I * C * A:

you are the only land.

Following up on the skepticism of Alex and Josh on Obama’s pick for Surgeon General, Counterpunch ran an article in 2007 questioning Gupta’s disingenuous promotion of Gardasil, a drug that he touted as a vaccine for cervical cancer:

Now there is a way to prevent the virus from ever taking hold in the first place. It’s a vaccine. Typically, you think of vaccines for the measles or chicken pox. But Gardasil protects you against cancer. Trials showed the vaccine could lower cervical cancer rates by 70 percent.

The article continues…

The clinical trials for Gardasil showed no such thing. Even Merck is not making this wild and unsupported claim.

Perhaps Gupta’s ties to Merck, the drug’s manufacturer, explain this overstatement:

The overarching issue in all of this is the dangerous and growing tentacles of a corporate agenda that seeks to control every message pertaining to its corporate brands in every venue visited or medium viewed by a consumer. That includes TV and cable news. Increasingly, corporations demand ”integration” for their advertising dollars. Dr. Gupta is part of this new wave of “integration” as co-host of a program called AccentHealth.

Given the incestuous nature of “integration,” should Dr. Sanjay Gupta have revealed to his CNN viewers during his extolling of the virtues of Gardasil that its manufacturer, Merck, was a financial sponsor of this integrated marketing scheme he co-hosts at AccentHealth?

If Merck did get at Gupta, he wasn’t the first. Another influential proponent of the drug, Texas Governor Rick Perry, ordered all schoolgirls in his state receive the vaccine, without disclosing his numerous ties to the company:

Perry has several ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, his former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass laws in state legislatures across the country mandating its Gardasil vaccine for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country…Perry also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.

I’m not saying it’s a fact that Gupta played the shill for Gardasil, but I am saying our Surgeon General should not roll over for corporations who throw some coin his/her way. He or she should also get the facts straight before spouting off, something that does not seem to be Gupta’s strong point. Let’s hope the man’s got more integrity and horse sense than the 6 incidents laid out here suggest.

Alex has a great point:

I don’t even know that people inherently object to taxes - I think they object to taxes most when they feel they’re getting a bum deal.

…

But that doesn’t mean people always favor cutting taxes. If the government can create good jobs, provide decent healthcare, offer dependable pensions, and maintain high standards in infrastructure (trains, internet access, etc), people won’t demand tax cuts.

A couldn’t agree more. The anti-tax movement is a basic obstacle most progressive reforms must climb over to become reality. But, as Alex points out, most people, when shown the value of good government working for them, are more inclined to pay taxes.

So, how do we kill the anti-tax movement? I’d put forward that we do it by pushing Obama but not to the point of purity. More importantly, we do it by passing our reforms and letting the results speak for themselves (well, not for themselves, with a generous helping of PR).

I’ve seen some message testing Americans United For Change put out, and the results show public opinion is pretty split on the message of taxes. Specifically, when you ask people whether they’d rather “focus on public investment” or “reduce taxes,” 51% would rather reduce taxes. If you change up the messaging a bit and say “focus on public investment to create jobs” or “reduce taxes,” 61% are for job creation.

Either way, a majority or a large minority of the country wants to simply reduce taxes to fix our economic crisis. It’s a testament to how powerful and well-funded the broad anti-tax coalition is in this country.

Pushing Obama to do more investment and less tax cutting is a good message, especially when tied to job creation. But, coming into the battle over Obama’s economic recovery plan, I’m not going to howl if the eventual package includes some tax cuts, especially if they are the more progressive kind, like the Earned Income Tax Credit. The important thing is for Obama’s plan to pass, and for it to center on massive public investment focused on creating jobs.

Then, we can destroy the anti-tax movement after the plan does what it’s designed to do, create jobs and long term economic growth.

I no longer remember how to dance the Pata Pata; in fact, I am not sure I ever learned. I have strong memories of the song, however. My mother, a fan of African drumming and dance, almost certainly had the album and played it often, but it might have been a single of Pata Pata that my sister used to rehearse an elementary school routine that permanently carved the tune (whose words I still don’t really know) into my brain.

Hearing Pata Pata always takes me back—way back.

The woman who gave voice to this musical madeleine, Miriam Makeba, passed away this morning, apparently of a heart attack after giving a benefit concert in Italy. She was 76.

That Makeba used some of her final breaths to help another—in this case, investigative journalist Roberto Saviano, whose life has been threatened by the Camorra—is as fitting as it is predictable. Barred from her native South Africa after participating in the anti-apartheid documentary Come Back, Africa in 1959, Makeba used her music and the notoriety that came with it to keep her people and their oppression in the spotlight: “I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa, and the people, without even realizing.”

Makeba, who earned the nickname “Mama Afrika” (or “Africa”—I’ve seen it both ways), testified against apartheid at the United Nations as a private citizen on multiple occasions. And, after her marriage to civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture) caused US bookings to dry up and the couple moved to Guinea, Makeba would eventually return to the UN as that country’s delegate.

Makeba’s marriage to Carmichael ended in divorce, as did three other marriages, one of which was to South African trumpeter Hugh Masekela. She also survived an abusive first marriage, cervical cancer, and the deaths of her only daughter and grandson. Throughout all of this, Mama Afrika kept singing out and speaking out.

Makeba performed for President John F. Kennedy at his famous 1962 birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. She won a Grammy in 1966 for an album she recorded with Harry Belafonte.

My mama’s also got a great Harry Belafonte story, but that’s her memory—you’ll have to wait till she gets her own blog.

——-
(cross-posted on guy2k)