What Works?

Like I mentioned last week while writing about Frank Church, I've been reading a book called Battlefield America: The War on the American People, by John W. Whitehead, published in 2015. It's well worth a read, although it's very, very depressing. I can't say it takes a right or a left wing slant; it gets angry at both sides. Towards the end of the book, Whitehead lists 10 basic principles that 'We, the People' can, understand, agree with, insist upon and support in our attempt to stop our country's almost finished progression to a police state, an empire. I found the principles interesting, so I thought I'd list them here.

1. 'We must come to grips with the reality that the present system does not foster freedom.'
2. 'Voting is practically worthless.'
3. 'Question everything.'
4. 'Materialism is a death knell to freedom.'
5. 'There is little hope for true resistance if you are mindlessly connected to the electronic concentration camp.'
6. 'An armed revolt will not work.'
7. 'Be wise and realize there is power in numbers.'
8. 'Act locally but think nationally'.
9. 'Local towns, cities and states can nullify or say 'No' to federal laws that violate the rights and freedoms of the citizenry'.
10. 'Understand what freedom is all about.'

I think we agree that we already know all these things; maybe most Americans do, whether they acknowledge it or not. So, where do we go from here?

1932: Bonus Army shacks on fire after the attack on their 'Hooverville' in the Anacostia flats (the Capitol is in the background) by the regular army under MacArthur, from Wikipedia. Bye, Bye, Hoover!

Back in the 50s, when I was a kid, there was a popular series called "The Millionaire".
IIRC.
It involved a very rich philanthropist that I assumed to be a multimillionaire (not sure there were any billionaires back then) who picked random people to gift a million dollars to anonymously.

For the Birds

Today, let's once again minimize the news this week and focus on our bird banding trip last week. There is a bit of news at the end of the column if you have no interest in the Eastern bird migration. Birds are important for a number of reasons. For one thing they are the canary in the coal mine. Bird populations are down 30% since 1970. Insect populations have decreased by 70% in the same period. We drove all the way to SW Alabama for the banding with hardly a bug on our windshield. Bird banding is a way to track and assess the decline.

Afternoon folks!

It's a good week to listen to the blues, and we're starting off with Albert King's classic Stax album Born Under A Bad Sign, an album that grabbed a lot of folks by the ears and wouldn't let go. Following that is an album of Cousin Joe (Pleasant) from New Orleans' early recordings, there's some really great stuff in there. After that we move on to blues rock with some late 60's Lonnie Mack and Creedence Clearwater Revival after which is an assortment of recordings of Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Nicky Hopkins and others. We finish up with some prog rock from Be Bop Deluxe.

Enjoy the tunes and have a great weekend!