Goodnight Irene

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The song "Goodnight Irene" was written and first recorded by Huddy Ledbetter (aka Leadbelly) in around 1932, during the height of that other depression. The song was derived from an old folk song, but Leadbelly wrote his own verses and made the song his own.

While Leadbelly was in prison in the Lousiana State Pentitentiary (aka Angola) John and Alan Lomax learned about his music, and soon began recording Leadbelly's songs to preserve them as a part of America's culture for the Library of Congress. As was common at that time, the song never gained national recognition or particular popularity when recorded by a black artist. White America still mostly listened only to white performers. Long after his death, the Grammys awarded Lead Belly's 1936 Library of Congress recording of the song a "Grammy Hall of Fame" award.

The Weavers was the name of a folk music group in Greenwich Village, New York, consisting of Ronnie Gilbert, Lee Hays, Fred Hellerman, and Pete Seeger. In their early days, they performed mostly at the Village Vanguard. Soon after Leadbelly's death, in 1950, the Weavers recorded Goodnight Irene, and it became an enormous hit for them.

Immediately after gaining their first success, the Weavers became victims of the McCarthy era anti-communist witch-hunts, and were blacklisted. Their label dropped them, radio and TV refused to play their songs, and if they appeared in person they were hounded and harassed by the FBI and the right-wing. The group disbanded in 1952 because they could not find work, but in 1955 they held a reunion concert at Carnegie Hall, which sold out.

The song Goodnight Irene eventually became a classic, a standard in the American songbook.

Among other famous performers who have recorded Huddy Ledbetter's song "Goodnight Irene" are Frank Sinatra, Willie Nelson, the Pogues, Johnny Cash, Mississippi John Hurt, Little Richard, Jimi Hendrix, The Kingston Trio, Ry Cooder, Tom Waits, and John Sebastian.

Different performers have altered the original lyrics of Leadbelly which, when written, were both dark and somewhat controversial, talking about the misery of disappointment in love, possible suicide. "sometimes I take a great notion to jump in the river and drown," which was the inspiration for the 1964 novel "Sometimes A Great Notion," by Ken Kesey.

Amber Collins and No Speed Limit

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Happy Birthday Malcolm X ( May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965)

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Happy Birthday Malcolm X (May 19, 1925 - February 21, 1965)

Excerpts from a famous speech by Malcolm X:  The Ballot Or The Bullet.

"Feminism" is the radical concept that women are human beings.

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Feminists are female humans who understand the institutional existence and effect of sexism on their lives and on the lives of all other women. All women, for example, are prey, potential victims of domestic violence from some man who claims to own our bodies, potential rape victims from strangers or invading armies. We are generally despised, disregarded, demeaned, humiliated, overworked and underpaid in all nations. There is no place to which we can escape, because the oppression is international. We are not brutalized because of something we did. It is not our fault. It is institutional sexism.

Not all men are hateful or cruel, but they are all raised in societies which teach men that women are inferior, stupid, dishonest, untrustworthy, useless past the age of 40. It takes a lot of insight for men to overcome that conditioning, but those who at least struggle can be good companions.

Women are raised in sexist societies and also incorporate the same basic disdain for themselves and for other women. We not only berate ourselves, isolate because we consider ourselves inferior and inadequate, but we also join in ridiculing other women because when we do that, we get credit from the boys.

Women turn over complete control of their bodies to men. We allow men to dictate that the only attractive woman is one who is skeletel, with plastic ballons full of chemicals surgically inserted under their chest walls, and paralyzing agents injected into our faces to freeze the muscles and disguise the wrinkles. This is now normal, not bizarre. It is admired, not condemned. Magazines routinely show photos of women then discuss how fat they are, at a size 4 or 6, because today a size 0 or 2 is expected. During World War II, sizes 10 and 12 were the standard for movie stars.

The people who run the world, steal the money, condemn people to die from illness and children to live in hunger, those who start wars and murder and rape, who destroy homes, are mostly men. Anybody wants to pick apart the legacy of teachings of a person, choose a man. No need to pick on the few feminists who have a name. It helps the bad guys to do that.

Rush Limbaugh, the deaf morbidly obese impotent drug addict on the radio, calls women who speak up for their own rights "feminazis." Many men think this is clever, so they use the term too. Luckily women are used to being ridiculed and demeaned, criticized, excluded from opportunity, and paid only 79% of what men are paid for the same job. I say luckily, because we need thick skins to continue to speak up and stand up for our rights, and against men who humiliate and demean other women.

Always remember: men were the rough draft.  Women are the masterpiece.

When will this country finally give women equal rights under our laws?

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The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in Congress in 1923.  It has still never been passed.  That's because the mostly-male Congress believes women are inferior, and not entitled to legal rights.  Here is the "radical" language of that amendment:  "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."

Social Realism

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Social realism is an artistic movement which first started in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It was seen in art, books and film. Social realism rejects the romanticized view of life and instead truthfully shows poverty, discrimination, and the difficult life of the working class. Social realism discards superstition and mysticism, both of which are often featured in other films to distract people from the hopelessness of their situation.

Social Realism often focuses on critical issues in a society which tend to be denied, ignored, or covered up by mainstream media and politicians. By showing a truthful portrait, it also suggests a political message, that the money hoarded by the rich should be redistributed, and that no person should be forced to live in poverty.

Among the artists whose styles represented social realism were Edward Hopper and Walker Evans.


Most of the Social Realism work became popular before the anti-communist movement of the late 1940s and 1950s. The fact is that the Social Realism movement reflected the horrendous burdens placed onto most working people in this country, living in severe poverty without any hope, being watched over by the ultra-rich living in penthouses and spending their lives being self-indulgent.

By the late 1940s, any book or movie, any politician or social movement which called attention to poverty, injustice and discrimination, was attacked as being communistic, and people who spoke of such things would be hounded by the FBI, thrown out of work, exiled in their communities. The Social Realism movement was ended by the nationalistic patriotism of World War II, but the final nail was put in the coffin by the post-war anti-communist hysteria. Best not to speak of things like poverty, injustice, prejudice, inequality, and corruption.

In film, many of the movies of the 1930s reflect this style including Grand Hotel and Dinner at Eight. The Grapes of Wrath, both the book and the film, are typical of Social Realism of the time.

One of the best of the Social Realism movies was Dead End.  It starred Humphrey Bogart, Joel McCrea, Silvia Sidney, Claire Trevor, Marjorie Main, and the Dead End Kids. This movie takes place on the east side of Manhattan where the ultra-wealthy live in mansions, and the poor survive in the streets below, turning to crime, prostitution and despair. No hope, no opportunity, nowhere to go. 

Mitt Romney Has $7-32 Million "Offshore." What are "Offshore" funds?

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Why do people hide their money in offshore accounts? What is an offshore account? Is there really some tiny little bank on a tiny little island, and all the rich people open accounts there? Of course not. The offshore accounts, often called hedge funds, private equity funds, capital funds, are simply secret accounts set up by Wall Street for their criminal friends to use to hide enormous amounts of money from the federal government.

Why do people want to hide enormous amounts of money from the federal government? The first and most obvious reason is to avoid taxes. As long as the money is hidden, no tax.

They open an account in someplace like the Cayman islands, but the money doesn't stay there. There are more important reasons people use offshore secret private accounts to hide their money. People like Romney, and all the other rich people, many of the politicians -- can send millions offshore, hide their money from troubling citizens who might ask where they got the money, turn it over to a trusted Wall Street insider to manage.

Their millions are then combined with millions from other people who want to hide their money, such as the major drug dealing cartels, sex traffickers, the child porn industry, businesses like Halliburton who do illegal dealings with countries like Iran and want to keep it secret, of course bribes and kick-backs paid to politicians, and the money most politicians in the world loot from their own countries such as the millions stolen by the leaders we installed in Afghanistan who now reportedly are head of the biggest drug cartel in the middle east. Remember the Carlysle Group, a private equity fund in which the Bushes and the bin Ladens both invested millions? You get the idea.

The "clean" upper class white men of the world deposit their money, pretend not to know anything, but in fact their money is combined with drug money and child sex trafficking money to create a huge fund. A powerful huge fund.Then what happens?

The fund collects a lot of money. They use the money to swoop into some country. Let's say Bulgaria. They secretly begin buying up homes, while at the same time encouraging the local banks to lend money to citizens because the citizens now want to buy a home. Why not? There's a shortage, prices keep going up, buy now, you can't lose in real estate. The prices for a home go up, maybe double, and when it hits the top the secret fund sells everything, the housing market collapses, the local banks collapse because people cannot repay the mortgage, the nation is bankrupt, people lose their jobs.

In many countries, if a person has a mortgage for $500,000, but the house is now worth $300,000, that person will be required to pay off the difference -- the $200,000. It will follow them to their grave. Even after they've been thrown out of the house and have nowhere to live, they will still owe the bank more than they will ever be able to repay.

Then guess what happens? Either the IMF or World Bank moves in and takes over the country, "loans" the government money, orders them to fire most of the state workers, shut down the schools, eliminate pensions, so they can pay back the IMF or World Bank. In some cases, the private funds go to the government and offer to loan them money directly. At a steep interest rate. And to ensure it will be repaid, they often demand that the government lay off half the state workers, shut down the schools, end healthcare. In either case, these nations become permanent debtor nations, never able to get out of debt. Just like most of Africa, which was forced into that position of permanent poverty by the Europeans.

Of course this is the same method that has been used in many countries around the world, as well as here in the U.S. On a global level, these funds will buy up wheat, for example, take it off the market, suddenly there is a shortgage, the price goes through the roof, they begin to sell at twice what they paid for it. Of course millions go hungry, many die of starvation. But the private equity funds make more money for scum like Romney, who hide that money in offshore accounts.

Any questions?