Memorial Day Special Series, Day 8

I once wanted to be a protest folksinger, going throughout the country to rally the people for social justice, but two things kept me from that. I couldn’t sing and there wasn’t much call for a protest clarinetist.

But there was journalism—which, I sometimes point out, became my profession because I wasn’t good at anything else. Nevertheless, many of the people at the forefront of social change have been journalists; the revolution of the 1960s, with journalists of an alternative media at the forefront, was built upon the base of a revolution two centuries earlier. Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, Tom Paine, and dozens of newspaper editors and writers helped unify a minority of colonists to rise up and create a new nation, founded in liberty and justice. Journalism seemed like a good place to learn more about people, government, and different cultures, while also fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. After all, wasn’t Superman a journalist?

Memorial Day Special Series, Day 5

A couple of months ago, a San Francisco newspaper asked my opinion about the differences between the protests during the 1960s and the protests of Occupy Wall Street.

I discussed many difference and similarities, but noted that there are two major differences. First, the protestors of the ’60s seemed to be more joyous, more sprite-like. Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krasner, and others knew the power of humor and satire, and how to use it to make the media and the people actually believe that the Yuppies might lace the Chicago fountains with LSD or, through mental willpower of thousands, levitate the Pentagon.

The other major difference was protest music, something that is missing from much of the current protests. At one time, music was an integral part of the Movement. At one time, writers and journalists, blocked by the walls of the mainstream media, could turn to an alternative press, one that sometimes was published on ditto masters, and to music as a powerful medium to help unite the people.

Memorial Day Special Series, Day 4

On this, the fourth day of Memorial Day Week, we pay tribute to Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Peter, Paul and Mary—as well as to every person killed in war and to their families.

On April 24, 1971, more than 500,000 people marched onto the Capitol Mall to unite in opposition to the Viet Nam war. There had been several Peace Marches in the years prior to 1971; there would be dozens more in the next four decades, as the U.S. continued to enter into wars. But this one would be the most remembered.

Memorial Day Special Series, Day 2

Today, the second day of the Memorial Day series, let’s take a look at Pete Seeger (1919- ), and then watch one of his lesser known, but more important songs. In addition to literally hundreds of songs, Pete wrote and first performed the anti-war/social justice songs “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” and If I Had a Hammer” (with Lee Hayes).