Midnight Special

We don't have this anymore. It's not the same. Somehow, society changed from progressive racial acceptance and tolerance to apathetic ambivalence.

I think it was disco. I liked the Bee Gees, hell were they talented. But shit, they went too far. We all went too far and now look.

Maybe we'll have another chance.

This is what I liked, this is what I believed. This is what I still believe. It never left me. It never left many of us. It's waiting to be reborn.

[video:https://youtu.be/Dj0drevGOgA]

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Big Al's picture

I had a number of Native American friends, living close to a reservation. I traversed the world in my early adulthood, meeting and making friends from many different countries, cultures, and races.
We're all humans, that's all. That's what we were moving toward in the sixties but too many today didn't get the memo. They can't let go.
It's true. We have a problem. We shouldn't but we do.

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mimi's picture

@Big Al
that's all there is. I think all Americans are still angry with all Europeans, because we made them
flee the continent. People never forget the history or what they believe the history was all about.

I have given up on folks being able to forgive and forget.

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Meteor Man's picture

You reminded me of The King Biscuit Flower Hour:

The program was broadcast on Sunday nights from 1973 until 2007, although new programming ceased in 1993 and previous shows were repeated from that point. During its prime, the program was carried by more than 300 radio stations throughout the United States. The show's name was derived from the influential blues radio show "King Biscuit Time", which was sponsored by the King Biscuit Flour Co., combined with the hippie phrase "flower power".

The first show was broadcast on February 18, 1973 and featured Blood, Sweat & Tears, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and Bruce Springsteen. The long-time host of the show until the mid-1990s was Bill Minkin, whose voice has been described as "the perfect blend of hipster enthusiasm and stoner casualness."[1]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Biscuit_Flower_Hour

Best radio show ever!

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"They'll say we're disturbing the peace, but there is no peace. What really bothers them is that we are disturbing the war." Howard Zinn

Wink's picture

@Meteor Man
Listened to it many a night in Rottenchester while going to school there. They played stuff one rarely heard on "regular (am /fm) radio."

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Cassiodorus's picture

Not in terms of the real racial bugaboo, involving the descendants of slaves on American turf.

200 years of slavery, maybe a little Reconstruction, 90 years of Jim Crow, and then a couple of civil rights acts, a little bit of affirmative action, and America told the descendants of slaves that they were good to go. The result?

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2016/06/27/1-demographic-trends-and-econo...

Households headed by a black person earn on average little more than half of what the average white households earns. And in terms of their median net worth, white households are about 13 times as wealthy as black households – a gap that has grown wider since the Great Recession.

That's how the theft of legacy works, when it's multiplied and magnified over time.

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"The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide" -- Moon of Alabama

@Cassiodorus thanks and sorry to shout but that is the message from pols, there is no looking back and fixing shit it's all, "go forward, move ahead." Try to detect it, it's not too late? Oops, slipped in some Devo there. devolution There is a constant loud signal from all directions to keep "moving forward". Don't say lemmings.

Try a web search for "move forward [any politician]" fill in your fave between the brackets. One thing the Rs do, at least they try all the time, REPEAL. Where are the D repealers? Bernie? NOPE Incrementally too late, but thanks anyway.

Passing laws for the 1%, priceless! Haha I wish. I wish they all didn't have some price that cancels my VOTE every time, thanks Citizens United.

good luck

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@eyo

MOVE FORWARD thanks and sorry to shout but that is the message from pols, there is no looking back and fixing shit it's all, "go forward, move ahead." Try to detect it, it's not too late? Oops, slipped in some Devo there. devolution There is a constant loud signal from all directions to keep "moving forward". Don't say lemmings.

Did you say lemmings Democrats?

lemmings2.png

"Lemmings" copyright 1991 Psygnosis (DOS version)

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Lookout's picture

I live near two old forts where the Cherokee were rounded up and sent to Oklahoma. The rich plantation owning Cherokee typically took the steamboat. They were all sold down the river, and this rich woodland that was once the realm of the Cherokee has been severely degraded.

Our country was established by genocide of native peoples and enslavement of Africans. We still can't face our great sins, and first nation people and people of color are still oppressed in the United Snakes of America.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

or it might have been cocaine. When did coke become the drug of choice for upwardly mobile hipsters? Where coke prevailed, the Revolution failed.

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native

thanatokephaloides's picture

@native

Where coke prevailed, the Revolution failed.

And the saying of The Anarchist Cookbook remains true as well: the Bolsheviks of the Revolution are long-haired pot smokers!

Maybe not so much with the long hair these days; pattern baldness takes its toll.... Wink

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

A wonderfully detailed (and long) essay about Beats, Folkies, Dylan... where it all came from & where it went.

Penetrating Aether: The Beat Generation and Allen Ginsberg’s America
by Sean Wilentz

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bob-dylan-the-beat-generation-a...

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native

TheOtherMaven's picture

@native
I had to copypaste into Word to get a smooth flow and read it all. Don't know what's up with it, but the formatting got strung out in several places.

Interesting, though.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven
I'll try again...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bob-dylan-the-beat-generation

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native