Dancing Socialist Infiltration of Texas!

Album notes for my new CD:
TEXAS SOCIALIST INFILTRATION DANCE SONGS INSTIGATED AND AGITATED BY BURL DUNN

I titled this album with tongue slightly in cheek. But, I do not believe that “In the beginning God created heaven and the earth” so that T. Boone Pickens could own and control the water. I do not believe that “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good” so that Monsanto could co-opt the sacred process and become the god of seeds.

I do believe in the Public Library, Public Health Departments, and Community Fire Departments. You see, much of what Socialism does is to provide a democratic control of things that, by logic and By God belong to the People and for the People. The early basis for laws governing broadcast radio and later TV, was that the “airwaves” belong to the People. I see no difference now that we have cable and the internet. The electromagnetic spectrum was always in the “airwaves.”

Many grandparents and great-grandparents of today’s Texans were farmers and they knew exactly who their enemies were: national banks, corporate and private monopolies topped the list. Lampasas and Parker Counties were hotbeds of activity for populist causes like cooperatives and water rights. And, Texas was the only southern state whose Farmer’s Alliance was open to black farmers!

Remember, before George W. and Rick Perry the Governor of Texas was Ann Richards. Jim Hightower was the Commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture. Mr. Hightower (who, by the way, has great taste in hats as well as quips) managed the presidential campaign of the great Oklahoma Senator Fred Roy Harris. In one of Senator Harris’ novels an Okie grandmother expresses Biblically based disgust at the practice of making money from loans instead of work.

So just put it out of your heads that Texas is nothing but a bunch of gun-nut, racist yahoos. It’s half progressive and overdue for a progressive comeback. So keep on coming to Austin in the springtime. Keep on being the freak you are and don’t let the current national insanity overwhelm you. Don’t blame Texas.

If you take out the tragedy of the Viet Nam War from the legacy of LBJ he was one fine president. I am no more a party-line Socialist than I am a party-line Democrat. As to the title, I'll quote an old Seattle friend named Robert Smith, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!"

Search the iTunes Store for "Burl Dunn," It's also here on CD Baby. It will be available on Amazon, eMusic, and at all the usual downloading suspects.

MLK named it correctly, it is the un-cashed check written by our founders

I spent more than a decade encouraging students to memorize this (and I type totally from memory:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

I think right now about my religious relatives and other countrymen who believe in Jesus. They praise Jesus. They believe they are saved through that belief. The same goes for Americans and the the Declaration of Independence. We believe it. We believe we are free. We believe we are the light of the world, the City on the Hill.
In either case, "salvation by Jesus" and "God Bless America" I believe there is something missing. What's missing is action. If you believe in Jesus then obey his commandments. Stop the war machine that is killing innocent people. Stop the sanctions that starve innocent children. Free the Guantanamo martyrs  and close the illegal prisons. Stop torturing Jesus.
If you believe that all are created equal, then let them run their countries free of CIA interference - leave Bolivia alone, leave Venezuela alone, Cuba Libre! 

Democrats must learn from Republicans

The postponement of one of the Obamacare requirements (employer coverage) is further proof that, in America, there is only one party capable of long-term political planning and follow-through. It is the Republicans. They have not hidden their agenda. They have proclaimed since F. D. Roosevelt that they would roll back his policies and they are. The robbery of Social Security funds technically is "borrowing," but you never hear any politician talk about paying it back. The fight to declare money as speech has been an open fight for decades. Hell, a Republican even gave a speech (pre- 9/11) about how beneficial an attack against America in America would be to the spread of Republican values. The Democratic Party as it exists today will not roll back the Republican Reagan revolution. Dems, when you get a man like Obama in the White House, you need to back him up. I don't think the strides made in gay rights balance the continuing wrongs.
I think all Democrats believe that unless they personally get re-elected disaster will strike their party.  I only thought this truth held about the President. I felt like President Obama NEEDED to play certain issues the way he has. Like continuing the Afghan War. Like leaving Iraq in much the same manner Bush would have. Even like Guantanamo. Since Congress would not cooperate, his hands have been tied. I thought Obama had to play the middle-of-the-road game until he got a Congress who would play ball with him.
But now, I am ready for some tigers. I want candidates who stand right up and say this is what I will fight for and I will accept nothing less. I want men and women who take the stands they promise to take even if it leads to being a one term Congressman or President. Democrats have compromised all the way from the old New Deal to today's Corporate Fascism. Martin Luther King did indeed have a dream, but Democrats failed it. Republicans have a dream (nightmare) and they work together until they get it!

Monkey "see no evil"

I had a lovely validation today watching this episode of  “Empire” on al Jazeera online. They were discussing Edward Snowden and the American secrecy complex. So refreshing to hear other people, including young Americans, discuss the larger mess. I agree that no one is “watching the watchers” and suggest that there are elements within the U.S. government that have been out of civilian control for decades. No one president can fix it. Congress doesn't try much. The majority of U.S. citizens are playing the monkey role "see no evil."

about the tragedy of Obama

If the U.S. had been hit by a terrorist attack perpetrated by Al Qaeda or another outside group we probably wouldn't have another Democratic president for a generation. He HAS kept America safe. The tragedy of Obama, to me, is that we couldn't give him a Democratic Congress to work with. The tragedy of the United States is that we focus too much on one office, one person - the President. Its like we are begging for a dictator and the Republicans will be glad to give us one. Maybe Jeb Bush. America's Secrecy industry was out of control for sure by 1963 when they aided the murder of the president who wanted to "splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds." JFK
Now we have for-profit private secrecy agencies. We don't even know the names of all of them. So I'm not jumping on the bandwagon of assuming Obama ordered or even knew that the NSA was spying on our closest allies. And if he did, you will never convince me that GW Bush or any other Republican wouldn't do worse. After all, they lied us into a war of aggression in Iraq and if the killing and maiming of innocent Iraqis AND innocent American soldiers doesn't rank as outright treason and, yes, American terrorism then whoop-de-do about about bugging Brussels.
It's not Obama who is out of control. It's the American Empire. That's us, folks. You and me. I think the CIA and the idea of perpetual world control is unsustainable. The American Secrecy Empire CREATES most of the very crises that our excellent military then goes out to fight against.
The American citizenry is full of contemptuous people who vilify EVERY other country, even our WWII allies. France pops to mind. The main sin of the French is that they insist on remaining French. The main sin of Russia in its actions towards America is the same thing. Don't tell me that Russia is more of an evil empire than is Communist China and WE finance that bunch just so corporations can have access to a huge pool of slave labor.
I'm glad this news is coming out and relieved that the covert action was taken against countries who we can't even pretend are terrorists. We're not going to go bomb Europe. Are we? Or they us? No, but they might not aid us in our on-going military efforts without more careful consideration of their own interests. The more these allies realize that the U.S. Secrecy Complex is not on their side the better. It's time for Americans to get off their high horse. Matthew 7:3 - "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
We say we do these things because of "American interests" in the world. Yeah, the oil and other corporate interests. Why can't we take an interest in the problems within our own borders, our own hearts and minds?
George Carlin had a vulgar mouth, but a brilliant mind. He said something like, "If you're pre-born you are precious. If you're pre-school - fuck you." Got no "interest." Sequestered.
I wrote an American murder ballad, ostensibly about a poker game, but I very much had Quantanamo, secret prisons, rendition, and innocent people being punished on my mind. I'd be honored if you'd go here to this free website and hear "Fear the Man."

Tissue samples - universal health care

I just read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. What a wonderful book about the woman whose cells were the first to reproduce robustly outside the body. The afterward will now need updating after the ASSOCIATION FOR MOLECULAR PATHOLOGY ET AL. 
v. MYRIAD GENETICS, INC., ET AL Supreme court case. You can read about it here. Although the Court held that a company cannot patent human DNA and privacy laws will prevent releasing names of patients whose genetic material is used, doctors and hospitals can still keep and use materials excised from human beings. If new drugs and treatments are made from that mole the doctor cut off your body ... well, you'll likely never know nor will the profits be shared with you. Your cells become, in essence, part of the scientific commons, shared for the good of scientific research.
Well, what are you going to do when you need medical care? Deny the treatment to prevent your cells from being used?
I think it makes no sense that parts and pieces of us become the property of researchers if we can't benefit in some direct way - like having our tax dollars and drug profits be used to provide universal health care. Henrietta Lacks' cells (HeLa) have made billions of dollars for corporations, but her descendents couldn't afford to pay for health care.

Japan lost WWII - but Militarism won

I have always believed the statement, "My country, right or wrong" to be silly. Did it apply to Nazi Germany? To post-Pearl Harbor Japan? Of course not. So why does it apply to the United States of America? After WWII the U.S. really set an impossibly high standard requiring soldiers ..."with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something about it is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent commission of the crimes." Okay, so Bradley Manning should be given a medal - by that standard. Obviously, no country allows its soldiers to share its secrets. Yet, this high standard really was influential to young Americans ... it smelled like American Spirit.

Here are some quotes I took from  http://www.omjp.org/ArtLarryDisobey.html

"In 1953, the Department of Defense adopted the principles of the Nuremberg Code as official policy" of the United States. (Hasting Center Report, March-April 1991) 

We are all bound by what U.S. Chief Prosecutor Robert K. Jackson declared in 1948: [T]he very essence of the [Nuremberg] Charter is that individuals have intentional duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual state." At the Tokyo War Crimes trial, it was further declared "[A]nyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something about it is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent commission of the crimes." 

Hippies (and Yippies and the Students for a Democratic Society) grew up in this post-war world and took to heart the notion that these words were the true statement of American policy. When Viet Nam War protestors stood in front of draftees and urged them not to go to war they were more in tune with America than was Richard Nixon! The ire they aroused was what was unAmerican, not their protests. But Nixon took what could be argued is a more real emotion - that citizens must fight whenever their government orderes them - and began the so-called "hardhat" and "silent majority" tactic. He added draconian drug laws and racist agendas to the mix and achieved the political equivalent of the CIA's 60's assassination program. He scared the shit out of us. It's no accident that the massive Viet Nam anti-war movement has not been repeated - it was murdered just like JFK, Martin, and RFK.

Americans believe that they are the city on the hill and that the rest of the world is mired in the muck. I am grateful to Barack Obama. I support him, but I shuddered and was shamed when he ordered a repeat of the election process in Afghanistan where people's index fingers were stained with indelible ink to show they had voted. The Taliban cut off some of these purple fingers and then Obama ordered Afghanis to vote again because Republicans claimed the election was tainted. The horror, the horror. As if the USA is ANY kind of role model for fair elections! I don't believe George W. Bush was ever ELECTED President and I believe he, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld are war criminals. American soldiers face the prospect of torture because of their open endorsement of torture.
I hate the distortion of language in the U.S. where someone like me who is criticizing the power structure is accused of "not supporting the troops." The way to support our powerful and brave troops is to oppose their casual deployment. As Pete Seeger sang, "If you love your Uncle Sam (bring them home, bring them home), Support our troops in Viet Nam - bring them home, bring them home. Both the Viet Nam War and the last Iraq War were horrible abuses of our brave soldiers. The conduct of the war in Afghanistan was begun with high-altitude carpet bombing when our stated objective was to get a small group of people. And, for God's sake, I am not unpatriotic to say we have wreaked immoral havoc on these nations.

The world does not hate Americans. They do hate us fucking with them all the time. Most of the world emulates parts of our culture and many countries appreciate what our aid and troops have done for them. That so many Americans have contempt for rest of the world is a product of propaganda and lies. Propaganda and lies that have actually been spread and inflamed by so-called Christian leaders. I'll never forget when during the Republican Presidential debates in North Carolina Ron Paul suggested that American government "do unto others as they would have others do unto us." And the audience in the heart of the Bible Belt laughed. 
The USA regularly makes fun of the French, a major WWII ally. The USA NEVER gives Russia its due for literally dying for us in WWII. And the financing of Communist China gives lie to the statement that we still oppose Russia for being dictatorial Communists. Hell, we PAID for Communist China's rise! Mitt Romney was so out of touch that he made fun of the Brits during his campaign. Great Britain, home of those dandy doppelgangers Thatcher (Reagan) and Blair (W. Bush).
Those of us who pay the high percentage of our income to support the Military/Industrial/Secrecy/Prison Complex (the 99%) can no longer afford the eternal wars for oil and corporate power.