[col. writ. 5/2/09] (c} '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal

As the economy tumbles like weeds in an old western, companies are getting bailouts in the double digit billions, while workers are being asked to "sacrifice."

Those at the top of the corporate wheel have not only lost little, they've not been asked to give anything back. Indeed, they've not even been asked what they're done with over $300 billion bucks!

The only thing certain is they've not done what they promised to do when they first began to beg for public monies!

But when automotive industries tried to get the kind of help that their brothers in banking got, they were kicked in the pills, and the political elites demanded that they use this economic crisis to whip up on the auto unions -- to fire more workers, cut pay, and rifle the pension envelopes of retirees!

And what of Pres. Barack Obama, who received the votes of millions of labor families?

If you listened instead of looked you might've thought Bush was back, judging by the rhetoric: "It will require unions and workers who have already made extraordinarily painful concessions to make even more.*

The UAW (United Automotive, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers Union, Intl.) has given up so much in the last few years that it ain't funny. Several years ago, management pushed for, and got, a two - tiered pay system, where new workers received about 1/2 the pay of other workers -- and temporary worker status.

How is it remotely fair that those who have less are being asked to give up more?

For decades, people have believed that Democrats were more beholden to labor, given their years of voting for that party. But can one still believe this after the debacle of NAFTA?

Is this what labor voted for?

Way back in 1990, a key Republican analyst, Kevin Phillips, described the Democrats as "history's second-most enthusiastic capitalist party." *

If you look at the top pay at the boards of American companies, you'll find dudes like GM's Lyle Wagoner, who pulled down a cool $23 million dollars when he split -- not to mention a $69 thousand annual pension.

If this is what people are voting for -- more betrayal -- why bother?

--(c) '09 maj

[Source: *Zinn, Howard, A People's History of the United States: 1492 - Present

(N.Y.: Harpers Perennial [2003 ed. {orig. 1980} ], p. 579.)

ona move, Mars.
www.ReverbNation.com/MarsCaulton

A Folk Singer Changed My Life
Monday night, 5/4/09


Two weeks into being a full-fledged new initiate of the local folk/indie hero named Joe Pug, I found myself last night downloading the entire recording of his Friday night sold out Schuba's show. I'd tried several last-ditch schemes on Saturday to get tickets for the Saturday night set, but alas, sold out again. So lots of the weekend, as the previous one, was spent web-searching out every youtube video of him at folk fests and coffeehouses and loft parties and SXSW as well as interviews on Chicago Public Radio and Billboard magazine. And I excitedly downloaded the Friday night set at Schuba's.

Turns out to have been a harbinger of something big.



The immersion into something acoustic, something simple, something folk made me question why it has taken me 3 years to get even a few songs ready to release recording, mixing, trip hop beat writing, getting musicians to come play: it has been living with me more than the music itself has. Reading the stories of Joe Pug's ascent fascinated me: recorded his first CD during a couple evenings when other bands canceled their studio time, came in with just guitar and self and a few beers, and nailed it every time; decisions of creative ways to get the work out to new places including a standing offer to send anyone as many free 2-song CDs as they'd request to be handed out to friends. And now within a couple of years, he's on Lollapalooza this summer. (You really have to check him out!)
[[5/10/09 update -- and now he's gonna tour with Steve Earle!!!]]

Made me rethink my music genre of choice, to say the least. Throw in my current afterschool program residency, which I landed as the only hip hop artist on the Shanti Foundation For Peace's roster, working with an all-male group of school-age guys who are curious about staying away from gangs, yet have the limited experiences and world outlook that leads so many to think a gang might be the way to stardom. And despite the consistent content about Abu-Ghraib, domestic violence or political prisoners in my own art/work, last week when listening to my song "His Words", those boys couldn't find anything different between it and Alicia Keyes.

I fell asleep last night daydreaming of being on the road on tour with just a handful of comrades, bare essentials, my son, and a guitar. If I could play one... It felt like the sweetest next chapter to a life of all things struggle. And all the better if an older-single-mom-trip-hopper-turned-folkie could jump genres without losing her political newstream and commentary.

I had tried last night to email Joe Pug not only a thank you for the inspiration, but an mp3 of one of my newest tracks, so far shared only with a few special and appreciated supporters who paid advance money to help the eventual full-length CD hit the street. Which was due a year ago. Well, plus about 7 months... The song I wanted to send the young phenom Pug was still in wav. file (the original complete sound wave form -- far too big to email anyone ever!) So I tried opening it in the batch converter to mp3 it, while waiting for the Schuba's recording to finish downloading. Don't know why this would do anything other than slow things down a bit. But my converter kept reading "Failed." It was 2AM, so I gave up. Tried again this morning.

My external hard drive -- where all my studio recording, mixing, archiving, all home-made beat tracks, every sound file I've ever created basically -- appeared to be totally gone, except that I was looking right at it. Somewhere something flashed across the monitor that said, all data has been lost and then it disappeared. I'm like, "Oh that sounds overly dramatic! Better try to weed through this mess after work tonight."

I just did. Its official.

Literally every beat, sound, utterance, song, drum hit, guitar riff, burp, every vocal I ever recorded either here or at Boocoo studio, every recording from the amazing 3 guitarists who played for my CD (which is aging without being heard yet,) every single bit of it is gone. Folder is empty. Why wasn't this stuff backed up? The external hard drive WAS my back-up to my main computer. Then at some point I was messing up my work by saving it in one but not both hard drives, and the redundancy got so crazy I just chose the safer one to store it all: the external. Didn't know those could crash. It has no programs, no web access, its just a big box of circuitry, full of my stuff, with one cord that feeds data to my computer. When there WAS data.

What remains is what's up on myspace, soundclick, youtube or artistunderground. And the dozen or so of 4-song EPs I burned and sold. I don't even have any of those left, but even if I did, that's 4 songs out of the full dozen that were just waiting for my ridiculously cumbersome existence to allow mixing/mastering/pressing and distribution.

The Universe appears to be telling me to shed old things and old ways. I've recently had my heart majorly broken for the second time in a year. My New England girl Protestant Work Ethic has landed me a job worse than scrubbing toilets all day. And the harder I try to improve my art form, the farther I get from any music I can be proud of AND happy about. I gave a passionate acapella performance in March which was totally drowned out by an audience who didn't seem to realize I even existed, let alone the tales of stolen lives and anti-war heroes that I was singing about. Clearly it's time for a change.

Years ago Chuck D. of Public Enemy put forth the challenge that mp3 technology and all things digital posed to musicians: now that it is so easy for anyone to take bits of your work, steal it for free, do anything with your music, your only move is to continually make more and more better art. Stay ahead of them. Set the trends that others will merely sample or steal.

Thank you, my brothers Chuck D. and Joe Pug. You are my Mind and Spirit, both pushing me to move past the failures of my hands and my heart. Something new will surely take those empty spots -- and its okay that I have no idea what that will be. All my love to my circles of fellow poets and vocalists and jazz folk and world beat drummers and guitarists who've worked beside me over the years. And all my appreciation, with mad love, to you guys who supported my art and performance for years. I hope I can still, soon, make you and my ancestors proud.

Mars.

Joe Pug - Hymn 101

Oh, just watch and breathe it in. Keeps ya sane in a world where it seems you can't trust ANYbody.

WORLD TO COME
[col. writ. 4/9/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal


I'm always intrigued when talking heads rush to comfort their viewers with news that the economy is bouncing back because, for that day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average may be performing well.

The Dow is an average of the stock gains and losses of 30 major companies -- 30. Do you know some of those companies?

Well, you may not know you know, but here are a few that you may recognize: American International Group (otherwise known as AIG). General Motors (GM), and Citigroup, Inc. These companies are now trading at almost historic lows. AIG's shares sold at a price of $49.24 per share about a year ago - by midweek it sold for $1.08 per share; GM shares cost $24.24 several months ago, but it's around $1.93 now; and Citigroup's highest stock price in 2009 was $27.35, it's price-per-share on Thurs., April 9, 2009 was $2.70.

(Boy, I bet that made you feel a whole lot more secure, huh?)

The Dow Jones is a snapshot of a tiny fraction of the national economy, but even so, its rises and falls don't speak of the larger economic state.

By an reliable measure, the U.S. economy is not growing, but contracting. The jobless rate has recently climbed to the highest levels since 1983, and already this recession is expected to be the longest in 70 years!

If one looks around the world for countries with positive growth rates, two emerge (and neither one are in the West): China, and India.

Now, this is not to say they're not facing serious economic, social and political challenges. China's economy, driven largely by exports to the U.S., has dropped by 50%. Yet, internal economic activity, and other export production, may boost growth to 6% in 2009.

Most of Europe (like its American cousin) is looking at contraction -- not growth.

Before the most recent G-20 (group of 20 developed or growing economies) economic summit, when a subdued group met in Davos, Switzerland (2009), Russia's Premier Vladimir Putin lectured those present, and more ominously, called for an end to the present reserve currency system (the U.S. dollar).

Putin said, "Excessive dependence on a single reserve currency is dangerous for the global economy. Consequently, it would be sensible to encourage the objective process creating several strong reserve currencies in the future." *

The world's reserve currency (the U.S. dollar) is used both as a tool to trade in commodities, such as crude oil, and as an investment in itself, such as in Treasury notes (called 'T-bills')

Both uses send hundreds of billions into American treasuries.

To cut that off could spell an unprecedented fall in the value of the U.S. dollar, and send the American economy spiraling downward.

Today, as one of the world's biggest buyers of US Treasury notes, China is in a powerful position.

--(c) '09 maj

{Source: * Labour & Trade Union Review, Mar. 2009, p.4.}