Correction

A quick note:  The series "Perception" is on TNT at 10 Eastern, not CBS, so you need cable as well as a television.  Sorry for the error.

Occupy Hegemony

OCCUPY HEGEMONY

          Syria is a big topic right now, so we have an informative interview on that.  A few observations on other matters first.

         

There is a lot of fuss over whether Romney should disclose his tax returns for more than a year or two.  After all, he released 23 years of them to John McCain.  Of course, right after that, McCain chose Sarah Palin as his VP candidate.  Sheer coincidence, of course.

          The “International community”, as we define it, voted in the United Nations to invade Syria for Humanitarian reasons.  Except China and Russia vetoed the resolution because it contained reference to Chapter Seven.  Kinda like the humanitarian vote on Lybia.  You have to remember that when getting news from corporate outlets.

          Election year and super pacs amok.  That’s about it.  A progressive who thinks it is his duty to vote needs a bumper-sticker and I have one.  “OBAMA, I SUPPOSE.” 

          Romney’s VP choice will probably be Portman.  Who?

          So far, “Perception” has been an interesting show at 10, EDT, on CBS – for those of you who have television sets.  It must have a technical advisor who knows quite a bit about cognitive science and abnormal psychology – so far.  And yes, the drugs for Schizophrenia do dull the mind considerably – that’s why they work.  Paranoid Schizophrenics have the most organized brains of all schizophrenics – that’s why they can think.  Ted Kazinski (AKA the Unibomber”) was one who was ratted out by his sister-in-law for the money.  Being told that they can loose 30 IQ points as a result of the disease means little to someone like him who started with a 180.  He was still in the upper .5% of the population, or higher (don’t have the tables handy).  That is why they did not want him representing himself.  The trial would still be going on.  Anyway, it is better than that now defunct one that featured an academic statistician, especially as it lacked an advisor, at least at first.

          Why cares?  Just saying, that’s all.

          OK, now onto the American quest to run the Middle East for big oil.  If you watch the new footage on corporate television, you will see some clips left over from Lybia (I know, seen both) and all supplied by Al-Jazeera (which has lost credibility over the last 2 or 3 years) and some by the Saudi News agency, the one that Obama chose for his interview.   You should also know that Iraq now supports Syria.  They have also released the Seven of Spades (remember the hokey deck of cards someone in the Bush administration thought up)? 

          Oh yes, the bus bombing in Bulgaria, which Israel blamed on Iran:  the footage of the main suspect, who died in the bombing, does not reveal an Iranian looking man.  It is a “hippie” looking, American looking, backpacking tourist type who is definitely not military or athletic – judging from his gait and hunch.  He appears in his 20s.  He supposedly had a fake Michigan driver’s license, and no other teenager in Michigan would ever do anything like that.  QED, an Iranian terrorist. 

          Well, it occurs to me that I’ve been a bit unfair as I have stooped to using facts and reason, so I’ll just move on to the interview before we get into more trouble:

        Transcript

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A suicide bomber has struck a meeting of top Syrian officials in Damascus, killing Syria’s defense minister and the brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad and dealing a major blow to the Assad regime. Syria’s defense minister, General Daoud Rajha, was killed along with his deputy, Assad’s brother-in-law Assef Shawkat. Syria’s interior minister and the head of the country’s national security office have also been reported critically wounded. General Rajha is the most senior government official to be killed since the Syrian uprising began 17 months ago.

Reuters said the suicide bomber worked as a bodyguard in Assad’s inner circle. Al Jazeera is reporting the Free Syrian Army and Liwa al-Islam, an Islamist rebel group, have claimed responsibility for the blast.

AMY GOODMAN: Today’s attack followed days of clashes between government forces and rebels around Damascus. The bombing comes as the United Nations Security Council is set to vote today on a new measure responding to the crisis in Syria. Talks with Russia have faltered over whether to include a reference to Chapter VII of the U.N. Charter, which could ultimately pave the way for military force.

Patrick Seale joins us now, leading British writer on the Middle East, author of Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East, most recently, The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East.

Patrick Seale, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the significance of this attack in Damascus?

PATRICK SEALE: Well, as you said, it’s obviously very significant. The top brass of the security services and the army has been eliminated. You mentioned three or four names; there may well be others, either seriously wounded or dead. Now, of course, as the United States itself discovered in Iraq, in Afghanistan, it’s very difficult to protect yourself against suicide bombers, against people prepared to sacrifice their lives. So, the result is likely, in my view, that the regime will now respond with even greater ruthlessness than before. I’m not sure that an attack of this sort will benefit the opposition. Public opinion might be outrage, might be terrified, might feel that this is not really what they wanted.

And, of course, suicide bombers of this sort bear all the hallmark of jihadis—that is to say, of these armed Islamic extremists coming in from neighboring countries, from Iraq, from Lebanon and elsewhere. And so, of course, this poses a fundamental difficulty, dilemma, for the Western powers, also for Saudi Arabia. Their weapons and intelligence and money, which they’re sending to the rebels, may well find themselves into jihadi hands. I don’t think the United States would like to find itself on the same side as al-Qaeda, for example.

So, the situation is grim. It’s a serious blow to the regime. The regime will fight back, I think, with greater brutality. And, of course, poor Kofi Annan’s peace plan is going down the drain. The Russians still support it. The Chinese still support it. They believe the only way to resolve this crisis is if the international community unites in putting pressure on both sides—not just on the regime, but on both sides—to honor a ceasefire and come to the table.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Patrick Seale, is there any sense of what might follow the collapse of the Assad regime in the event that that’s what occurs?

PATRICK SEALE: Well, first of all, I don’t think it is going to collapse. Secondly, the opposition remains profoundly divided. And this, of course, is the main problem. They’re unlikely, in my view, to achieve their goals, so long as they fail to unite behind a political program or a leader. Now, the most important element in the opposition are the Muslim Brothers. The Muslim Brothers want revenge, revenge for 30 years, they would say, of oppression by the Assads, father and son. They don’t want to negotiate, and the regime doesn’t want to negotiate with them. And this is the trouble. And, of course, the allies of the Muslim Brothers are these external Islamists, who are flowing into the country carrying out suicide bombings and other terrorist acts. So the situation is difficult. It’s hard to imagine a negotiation taking place, but that is what Kofi Annan, supported by the Russians, still thinks that it’s possible to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Seale, can you talk about who the defense minister, Daoud Rajha, was? Also, the significance of his death and the death of Assad’s brother-in-law, his deputy?

PATRICK SEALE: Well, it’s not just two. It’s also the minister of the interior, Mohammad Shaar. So you have General Rajha, you have Assef Shawkat, you have, as I said, General Shaar, and perhaps quite a few others. There must have been others in the room, must have been their deputies, possibly, their aides. It’s something like a massacre of the top brass. Now, of course, this will give opportunities for younger men to come up. I, myself, don’t think this is a fatal, terminal blow, but it’s a very serious one. And—

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Patrick Seale, earlier this week—

PATRICK SEALE: We have to see—

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Earlier this week, British Foreign Secretary William Hague visited the Syrian-Jordan border, and he talked about some of the alleged atrocities he saw the regime committing and concluded—and this is a quote from William Hague, British foreign secretary: "It left me [in] no doubt that the U.N. Security Council must pass an urgent Chapter VII resolution." Can you talk about the significance of ChapterVII, what that would mean, in the event that it’s invoked?

PATRICK SEALE: Well, Chapter VII opens the door for a resort to force by foreign powers. Of course, the Russians are totally against this and have said so many times, as are the Chinese. They believe in the independence of sovereign states. Sovereign states should not be attacked from outside. And they felt betrayed by the attack on Libya. And so, they are also declaring, really, by their vetoes, that they will not accept American hegemony in that part of the world any longer. They want to play their role. They say, "We, too, have interests. We, too, have clients. We, too, have commercial deals." The Chinese are major importers of Iranian oil, for example.

And we have to remember that this assault on Syria, this crisis in Syria, is intimately linked to the assault on Iran. I mean, the United States, egged on by Israel and supported by some of its European allies, wants to bring down the Iranian and the Syrian regime. Indeed, they would like to bring down the whole so-called Damascus—Tehran-Damascus-Hezbollah axis, which has made a dent in Israel’s regional supremacy. So the Israelis are very keen that this axis be brought down. The United States, on their own account, think this is a good idea. And so, it’s—we are facing not only an internal Syrian crisis but a major geopolitical, regional contest between the United States and its allies, on one hand, and Russia and China, Iran, perhaps Iraq, on the other.

AMY GOODMAN: You say that this could be the hallmark of a jihadi attack, but why? Even if the opposition is divided, there is an opposition that is not jihadi. Many of the Syrian people are a part of that. Why don’t you see it being an attack of the opposition in Damascus?

PATRICK SEALE: Well, because they haven’t used suicide bombings so far. Suicide bombings were really the hallmark of what we saw in Iraq and from which the United States suffered very greatly. But not in Damascus. The only suicide attacks in Damascus appear to have been, the United States has confirmed, the work of jihadis coming in from outside. In May, for example, two big bombs went off in central Damascus and killed a great many people. Now, that was thought to have been the work of jihadis. I don’t think, quite frankly, that the young men fighting in the Free Syrian Army would do a thing of this sort and sacrifice their lives. I mean, it’s one thing sacrificing your life on the battlefield; it’s another blowing yourself up in order to kill somebody else. That demands a very particular, I think, frame of mind, which—

Now, the opposition unfortunately is divided. It’s divided in many different ways, between those who say, "We must take up arms," and those who say that’s a mistake; between those who are pleading for a foreign military intervention and those who say, "No, we don’t want that; between those who are allied to the Islamists, and particularly the Muslim Brothers, and the others, the liberals, who say, "No, we don’t want that sort of regime in Syria, because Syria is a mosaic of communities." There are 10 percent Christians, 12 percent Alawis, 4 or 5 percent Druze, Ismailis and others. So these minorities feel they what protection, and the secular regime of the Ba’ath gave them protection over the last half-century.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you very much, Patrick Seale, for joining us. We do have this late breaking news from Reuters: five explosions heard in the Syrian capital close to the military base of division led by Assad’s brother. That’s the latest news we have out of Damascus right now. British writer Patrick Seale with us, author ofAsad: The Struggle for the Middle East, most recently, The Struggle for Arab Independence. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

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OCCUPY HEGEMONIE

OCCUPY HEGEMONIE



Syrien ist ein großes Thema gerade jetzt, so haben wir ein informatives Interview, dass. Ein paar Beobachtungen auf andere Dinge zuerst.
Es gibt viel Aufhebens darüber, ob Romney sollte seine Steuererklärungen für mehr als ein oder zwei Jahre offen zu legen. Schließlich veröffentlichte er 23 Jahre von ihnen zu John McCain. Natürlich, gleich danach, entschied sich McCain Sarah Palin als seine VP Kandidaten. Ein Zufall, natürlich.
Die "internationale Gemeinschaft", wie wir sie definieren, stimmten in den Vereinten Nationen zu Syrien aus humanitären Gründen zu überfallen. Mit Ausnahme von China und Russland sein Veto gegen die Resolution, weil sie Bezug auf Kapitel Sieben enthalten. Irgendwie wie der humanitären Abstimmung über Libyen. Man muss bedenken, dass, wenn immer Nachrichten aus Corporate Outlets.
Super-Wahljahr und PACS Amok. Das war es. Ein progressiver, der es denkt, ist seine Pflicht zu wählen braucht ein Bumper-Sticker und ich habe eins. "Obama, nehme ich an."
Romneys VP Wahl wird wahrscheinlich Portman sein. Wer?
So weit, "Perception" war eine interessante Show mit 10, EDT, auf CBS - für diejenigen unter Ihnen, Fernsehgeräte haben. Es muss einen technischen Berater, der einiges über Kognitionswissenschaft und Abnormal Psychology weiß - so weit. Und ja, die Medikamente für Schizophrenie dumpf der Geist wesentlich - das ist, warum sie funktionieren. Paranoiden Schizophrenen haben die meisten organisierten Gehirnen aller Schizophrenen - das ist, warum sie denken kann. Ted Kazinski (AKA der Unibomber ") war einer, der sich von seiner Schwester-in-law für das Geld wurde verpfiffen. Wird gesagt, dass sie 30 IQ-Punkte als Folge der Erkrankung verlieren bedeutet wenig, jemanden wie ihn, der mit einer 180 gestartet. Er war noch in der oberen 0,5% der Bevölkerung, oder höher (nicht über die Tabellen zur Hand). Deshalb werden sie nicht wollte, dass ihn selbst darstellt. Der Prozess würde noch im Gange. Jedenfalls ist es besser als die inzwischen aufgelösten eine, die eine akademische vorgestellten Statistiker, zumal es einen Berater fehlte, zumindest auf den ersten.
Warum interessiert das? Nur zu sagen, das ist alles.
OK, jetzt auf die Suche nach dem amerikanischen Mittleren Osten für große Öl laufen lassen. Wenn Sie das neue Material auf Unternehmens-fernsehen, sehen Sie einige Clips über Libyen aus nach links (ich weiß, beides gesehen) und alle von Al-Jazeera (welche Glaubwürdigkeit hat in den letzten 2 oder 3 Jahren verloren) und einige durch das zugeführte Saudi-Nachrichtenagentur, die ein, dass Obama für sein Interview entschieden. Sie sollten auch wissen, dass der Irak unterstützt nun auch Syrien. Sie haben auch die Seven of Spades (erinnern Sie sich die Hokey Kartenspiel jemand in der Bush-Administration ausgedacht) veröffentlicht?
Ach ja, der Bus Bombenanschlag in Bulgarien, die Israel auf den Iran verantwortlich gemacht: die Aufnahmen des Hauptverdächtigen, die bei der Bombardierung starben, nicht deutlich macht, eine iranische aussehenden Mann. Es ist ein "hippie" suchen, suchen amerikanische, Backpacking touristischen Typ, der ist definitiv nicht militärisch oder sportlich - wie aus seiner Gang und Ahnung. Er scheint in seinen 20ern. Er hatte angeblich eine gefälschte Michigan Führerschein, und keine andere Teenager in Michigan würde jemals so etwas tun. QED, ein iranischer Terrorist.
Na ja, fällt mir ein, dass ich war ein bisschen unfair, da ich mit Fakten und Vernunft gebeugt haben, also werde ich einfach weiter zum Interview, bevor wir in mehr Ärger bekommen:

AbschriftNermeen Shaikh: Ein Selbstmordattentäter hat ein Treffen von Top-syrischen Führung in Damaskus getroffen, die Tötung Syriens Verteidigungsminister und den Bruder-in-law von Präsident Bashar al-Assad und der Umgang ein schwerer Schlag für die Assad-Regime. Syriens Verteidigungsminister, General Daoud Rajha, wurde zusammen mit seinem Stellvertreter, Assads Bruder-in-law Assef Shawkat getötet. Syriens Innenminister und der Chef des Landes die nationale Sicherheit Büro wurden ebenfalls berichtet lebensgefährlich verletzt. Allgemeine Rajha ist der ranghöchste Regierungsbeamte, getötet, da die syrische Aufstand begann vor 17 Monaten sein.Reuters sagte der Selbstmordattentäter als Bodyguard in inneren Kreis Assads gearbeitet. Al Jazeera berichtet, die Freie syrischen Armee und Liwa al-Islam, eine islamistische Rebellengruppe, haben die Verantwortung für die Explosion beansprucht.Amy Goodman: Der heutige Angriff folgten Tage von Zusammenstößen zwischen Regierungstruppen und Rebellen der Gegend von Damaskus. Die Bombardierung kommt als der Sicherheitsrat der Vereinten Nationen gesetzt, um zu stimmen heute über eine neue Maßnahme zur Bewältigung der Krise in Syrien. Gespräche mit Russland sind gescheitert darüber, ob ein Verweis auf Kapitel VII der UN-Charta, die letztlich zu ebnen könnte den Weg für militärische Gewalt beinhalten.Patrick Seale jetzt gesellt sich zu uns, führende britische Schriftsteller über den Nahen Osten, der Autor von Asad: Der Kampf um den Nahen Osten, zuletzt Der Kampf um arabische Unabhängigkeit: Riad el-Solh und die Macher des modernen Nahen Ostens.Patrick Seale, bei Democracy Now begrüßen zu dürfen! Können Sie etwas über die Bedeutung dieser Anschlag in Damaskus sprechen?Patrick Seale: Nun, wie Sie gesagt haben, ist es offensichtlich sehr bedeutsam. Die obere Messing der Sicherheitsdienste und der Armee wurde beseitigt. Sie haben erwähnt, drei oder vier Namen, es kann durchaus andere, entweder ernsthaft verwundet oder tot sein. Nun, natürlich, als die Vereinigten Staaten selbst im Irak entdeckt, in Afghanistan, ist es sehr schwierig, sich gegen Selbstmordattentäter zu schützen, gegen die Menschen bereit, ihr Leben zu opfern. Also, ist das Ergebnis wahrscheinlich aus meiner Sicht, dass das Regime nun mit noch größerer Rücksichtslosigkeit als bisher zu reagieren. Ich bin nicht sicher, dass ein Angriff dieser Art wird die Opposition profitieren. Die öffentliche Meinung könnte Empörung sein, werden vielleicht erschrecken, vielleicht das Gefühl, dass dies nicht wirklich, was sie wollten.Und natürlich tragen Selbstmordattentäter dieser Art all das Markenzeichen der Dschihadisten, das heißt zu sagen, dieser bewaffneten islamischen Extremisten kommen in aus den Nachbarländern, aus dem Irak, aus dem Libanon und anderswo. Und ja, natürlich, stellt dies eine grundsätzliche Schwierigkeit, Dilemma, für die Westmächte, auch für Saudi-Arabien. Ihre Waffen und Geld und Intelligenz, die sie zu den Rebellen schicken wollen, können auch sie sich in einer Dschihad-Händen. Ich glaube nicht, dass die Vereinigten Staaten möchte sich auf der gleichen Seite wie al-Qaida, zum Beispiel zu finden.So ist die Situation düster. Es ist ein schwerer Schlag für das Regime. Das Regime wird sich wehren, denke ich, mit größerer Brutalität. Und, natürlich, ist arm Kofi Annans Friedensplan den Bach runter. Die Russen immer noch unterstützt wird. Die Chinesen immer noch unterstützt wird. Sie glauben, der einzige Weg, um diese Krise zu lösen ist, wenn die internationale Gemeinschaft vereint in Druck auf beiden Seiten und nicht nur auf das Regime, aber auf beiden Seiten zu einer Waffenruhe zu ehren und kommen auf den Tisch.Nermeen Shaikh: Patrick Seale, gibt es irgendeinen Sinn dessen, was man den Zusammenbruch des Assad-Regime für den Fall, dass das ist, was geschieht, zu folgen?Patrick Seale: Nun, zunächst einmal, glaube ich nicht, es wird einstürzen. Zweitens bleibt die Opposition zutiefst gespalten. Und dies natürlich, ist das Hauptproblem. Sie sind unwahrscheinlich, meiner Ansicht nach, um ihre Ziele zu erreichen, so lange sie sich hinter einem politischen Programm oder einem Führer vereinen scheitern. Nun sind das wichtigste Element in der Opposition die Muslimbrüder. Die Muslimbrüder wollen Rache, Rache für 30 Jahre, würden sie sagen, von der Unterdrückung durch die Assads, Vater und Sohn. Sie wollen nicht verhandeln, und das Regime will sich nicht mit ihnen zu verhandeln. Und das ist das Problem. Und natürlich sind die Verbündeten der Muslimbrüder diese externen Islamisten, die in das Land der Durchführung Selbstmordanschlägen und anderen Terrorakten fließen. Die Situation ist also schwierig. Es ist schwer, eine Verhandlung stattfindet, vorstellen, aber das ist, was Kofi Annan, von den Russen unterstützt, glaubt immer noch, dass es möglich ist, das zu tun.Amy Goodman: Patrick Seale, können Sie darüber, wer der Verteidigungsminister, Daoud Rajha, war die Rede? Auch die Bedeutung seines Todes und der Tod von Assads Bruder-in-law, sein Stellvertreter?Patrick Seale: Nun, es ist nicht nur zwei. Es ist auch der Innenminister, Mohammad Shaar. So haben Sie Allgemeine Rajha, haben Sie Assef Shawkat, die Sie haben, wie ich schon sagte, General Shaar, und vielleicht etliche andere. Es muss andere im Raum haben, müssen schon ihre Stellvertreter haben, möglicherweise, ihre Erfüllungsgehilfen. Es ist so etwas wie ein Massaker an der Spitze Messing. Nun, natürlich, gibt dies Chancen für jüngere Männer zu kommen. Ich selbst glaube nicht, das ist ein fataler, Terminal Schlag, aber es ist eine sehr ernste Angelegenheit. Und-Nermeen Shaikh: Patrick Seale, zu Beginn dieser Woche-Patrick Seale: Wir haben, um zu sehen-Nermeen Shaikh: Anfang dieser Woche besuchte der britische Außenminister William Hague die syrisch-jordanischen Grenze, und er sprach über einige der angeblichen Gräueltaten sah er das Regime begangen und festgestellt, und dies ist ein Zitat aus William Hague, britischer Außenminister: " Es ließ mich [in] keinen Zweifel, dass der UN-Sicherheitsrat muss dringend eine Kapitel VII Beschluss zu fassen. " Können Sie sich über die Bedeutung der ChapterVII, was das bedeuten würde, zu sprechen, für den Fall, dass es aufgerufen wird?Patrick Seale: Nun, öffnet Kapitel VII die Tür für einen Rückgriff auf durch ausländische Mächte zu zwingen. Natürlich sind die Russen völlig dagegen und haben gesagt, so viele Male, wie die Chinesen. Sie glauben an die Unabhängigkeit der souveränen Staaten. Souveräne Staaten sollten nicht von außen angegriffen werden. Und sie fühlte sich verraten von dem Angriff auf Libyen. Und so werden sie auch erklärt, wirklich, von ihrem Veto, dass sie nicht akzeptieren, die amerikanische Hegemonie in diesem Teil der Welt nicht mehr. Sie wollen ihre Rolle zu spielen. Sie sagen: "Auch wir haben Interesse. Auch wir haben Kunden. Wir haben auch kommerzielle Angebote." Die Chinesen sind wichtige Importeure von Öl aus dem Iran, zum Beispiel.Und wir müssen uns daran erinnern, dass dieser Angriff auf Syrien, diese Krise in Syrien, eng mit dem Angriff auf den Iran verknüpft. Ich meine, wollen die USA, auf die von Israel aufgehetzt und unterstützt von einigen ihrer europäischen Verbündeten, zum Sturz der iranischen und der syrischen Regimes. Tatsächlich würde sie gerne stürzen die ganze so genannte Damaskus-Teheran-Damaskus-Hisbollah-Achse, die eine Delle in die regionale Vorherrschaft Israels gemacht hat. Also die Israelis sind sehr daran interessiert, dass diese Achse nach unten gebracht werden. Die Vereinigten Staaten, auf eigene Rechnung, denke, das ist eine gute Idee. Und ja, es-wir konfrontiert sind nicht nur eine interne syrische Krise aber einen wichtigen geopolitischen, regionalen Wettbewerb zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten und ihre Verbündeten auf der einen Seite und Russland und China, Iran, Irak vielleicht, auf der anderen.Amy Goodman: Sie sagen, dass dies das Markenzeichen eines Dschihad-Angriff sein, aber warum? Auch wenn die Opposition geteilt wird, gibt es eine Opposition, die nicht Dschihad. Viele der syrischen Menschen sind ein Teil davon. Warum gehst du nicht sehen, dass es ein Angriff der Opposition in Damaskus?Patrick Seale: Na ja, weil sie noch nicht Selbstmordanschläge bisher verwendeten. Selbstmordattentate waren wirklich das Markenzeichen von dem, was wir sahen, im Irak und aus denen die Vereinigten Staaten sehr stark gelitten. Aber nicht in Damaskus. Die einzigen Selbstmord-Anschläge in Damaskus gewesen zu sein scheinen, haben die Vereinigten Staaten bestätigt, die Arbeit der Dschihadisten von draußen hereinkommt. Im Mai, zum Beispiel, gingen zwei große Bomben im Zentrum von Damaskus und töteten sehr viele Menschen. Nun, das war gedacht, um das Werk von Dschihadisten haben. Ich glaube nicht, ehrlich gesagt, dass die jungen Männer kämpfen im Freistaat syrische Armee werde eine Sache dieser Art zu tun und ihr Leben opfern. Ich meine, es ist eine Sache opfern, Ihr Leben auf dem Schlachtfeld, es ist ein anderer bläst sich auf, um jemand anderen zu töten. Das verlangt eine ganz besondere, denke ich, Gemütsverfassung, die-Nun, die Opposition leider geteilt wird. Es wird auf viele verschiedene Arten unterteilt, zwischen denen, die sagen: "Wir müssen den Waffen zu greifen", und denen, die das ist ein Irrtum zu sagen, zwischen denen, die für eine ausländische militärische Intervention plädiert werden und denen, die sagen: "Nein, tun wir nicht wollen, dass, zwischen denen, die den Islamisten verbündet sind, und vor allem die Muslimbrüder, und die anderen, die Liberalen, die sagen: "Nein, wir wollen nicht diese Art von Regime in Syrien, denn Syrien ist ein Mosaik von Gemeinschaften . "Es sind 10 Prozent Christen, 12 Prozent Alawiten, 4 oder 5 Prozent Drusen, Ismailiten und anderen. Also diese Minderheiten, was sie Schutz, und das säkulare Regime der Baath gab ihnen Schutz während des letzten halben Jahrhunderts zu spüren.Amy Goodman: Wir wollen dich sehr, danken Patrick Seale, bei uns waren. Wir haben diese Late Breaking News von Reuters: fünf Explosionen in der syrischen Hauptstadt in der Nähe der Militärbasis von Division durch Assads Bruder führte zu hören. Das ist die neuesten Nachrichten haben wir von Damaskus im Moment. Britische Schriftsteller Patrick Seale mit uns, Autor ofAsad: Der Kampf um den Nahen Osten, zuletzt Der Kampf um die arabische Unabhängigkeit. Dies ist Democracy Now!, Democracynow.org, Der Krieg und Frieden Bericht. Ich bin Amy Goodman.

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Woody--Archetype Protest

WOODy—ARCHETYPE PROTEST

          We could not let Woody Guthrie’s 100^th anniversary pass without reflecting on it and wondering how he would react today.   The problem is that times have changed so much since his time that newer surrogates are needed, and a few are mentioned in the program transcript below.

          During his time, he had FDR to reflect on as a President as well as a depression.  FDR had the brains an insight to hire him and he turned out songs about government public works projects such as the Grand Coulee Dam.

          He wrote his own alternative to the National Anthem called This Land is Your Land, and it is dutifully taught in public schools with the offending (socialist) verses censored.

          I have no idea how he’d react to seeing Hillary Clinton in Alexandrea, Egypt being attacked with thrown shoes and rotten eggs to shouts of “MONICA,” but I am pretty certain he would not have liked so many trees being cut down for newsprint about Bill and his escapades.

          I doubt if he would like the treatment of the Palestinians today.

          All of the collapse of 2008 would have seemed as more of the same to him.

          He would have found the funniest unintentionally funny President of all time, George W. Bush a farce.

          He might have campaigned for Obama and then been very disappointed by him.

          At any rate, here is the transcript, and it contains some valuable links for those of you with broadband:

THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2012

On Woody Guthrie’s Centennial, Celebrating the Life, Politics & Music of the "Dust Bowl Troubadour"

Today a Democracy Now! special on the life, politics and music of Woody Guthrie, the "Dust Bowl Troubadour." Born a hundred years ago on July 14, 1912, in Oklahoma, Guthrie wrote hundreds of folk songs and became a major influence on countless musicians, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs. While Guthrie is best remembered as a musician, he also had a deeply political side, speaking out for labor and civil rights at the height of McCarthyism.

Amidst commemorations across the country marking Woody Guthrie’s centennial, we’re joined by Guthrie’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, author of the book "My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town"; his granddaughter Anna Canoni; and musician Steve Earle. We hear stories from Woody Guthrie’s family life and his time in New York City, where he lived from 1940 until his death in 1967 after a long battle with Huntington’s disease. Guthrie’s wife Marjorie later dedicated her life to finding a cure for the disease, inspiring young doctors to pursue genetic research and founding what became the Huntington’s Disease Society of America. Earle, a three-time Grammy winner, performs two of Guthrie’s songs and discusses how the singer inspired him as a musician and activist. "I never separated music and politics, which kept bringing me back to Woody, over and over and over again," Earle says. "I still don’t consider myself to be a political artist; I’m just an artist that — I think like Woody was — that lives in really politically charged times." [includes rush transcript]

FILED UNDER  Art & Politics, Author Interviews, Nora Guthrie, Anna Canoni, Steve Earle

GUESTS:

Nora Guthrie, Woody Guthrie’s daughter. She’s president of both the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, and Woody Guthrie Publications. She’s also the author of the new book, My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town.

Anna Canoni, Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter. She works for Woody Guthrie Publications.

Steve Earle, musician, actor, author and activist. He is a three-time Grammy Award winner. He’s performing in New York at WoodyFest, a three-day concert in celebration of Woody Guthrie’s birthday. His recent novel and album share the same name: I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

Related

·                         Tune in Thurs: Woody Guthrie’s Daughter & Granddaughter Join Steve Earle to Mark 100th BirthdayJul 11, 2012 | WEB EXCLUSIVE

·                         Woody Guthrie at 100: Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, Will Kaufman Honor the "Dust Bowl Troubadour"Jul 04, 2012 | STORY

·                         Black History Special: Jazz Legend Randy Weston on His Life and Celebration of "African Rhythms"Feb 20, 2012 | STORY

·                         “All There Is”: Love Stories from the StoryCorps Oral History Project with Founder Dave IsayFeb 14, 2012 | STORY

·                         "A Moment in the Sun": An Extended Interview with Independent Filmmaker, Author John SaylesNov 24, 2011 | STORY

Links

·                         Woody Guthrie Archives

·                         "My Name is New York: Ramblin' Around Woody Guthrie's Town." By Nora Guthrie (Powerhouse Books, 2012)

·                         Listen to Woody Guthrie on Leadbelly’s WNYC radio show in 1940 (Courtesy of Down Home Radio Show)

·                         Woody Guthrie Interviewed by the Musicologist Alan Lomax. (Courtesy Alan Lomax Archive)

·                         Woody Guthrie 100 (Website Marking All Centennial Celebration Events)

·                         Woody Guthrie at 100: Pete Seeger, Billy Bragg, Will Kaufman Honor the "Dust Bowl Troubadour" (Democracy Now! Special)

·                         Steve Earle’s Official Website

·                         WoodyFest at City Winery in New York City

·                         Huntington's Disease Society of America

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

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Transcript

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Commemorations are being held across the country this year to mark the hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the country’s greatest songwriters, Woody Guthrie. Born on July 14th, 1912, in Okemah, Oklahoma, Guthrie wrote hundreds of folk songs, including "This Land Is Your Land," "Pastures of Plenty," "Pretty Boy Floyd," "Do Re Mi" and this song, "The Ranger’s Command."

WOODY GUTHRIE: [singing] But the rustlers broke on us in the dead hours of night;
She ’rose from her blanket, a battle to fight.
She ’rose from her blanket with a gun in each hand,
Said: Come all of you cowboys, fight for your land.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: A rare 1945 video recording of Woody Guthrie. Known as the "Dust Bowl Troubadour," Guthrie became a major influence on countless musicians, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs. While Woody Guthrie is best remembered as a musician, he also had a deeply political side. At the height of the McCarthy era, Guthrie spoke out for labor and civil rights and against fascism. He died in 1967 after a long battle with Huntington’s disease. But his music lives on.

AMY GOODMAN: Over this next hour, we speak with Woody Guthrie’s daughter and granddaughter, and we’ll be joined in studio by the Grammy Award-winning musician Steve Earle. But first, Woody Guthrie, in his own words, being interviewed by the musicologist Alan Lomax.

ALAN LOMAX: What did your family do? What kind of people were they, and where did they come from?

WOODY GUTHRIE: Well, they come in there from Texas in the early day. My dad got to Oklahoma right after statehood. He was the first clerk of the county court in Okemah, Oklahoma, after statehood, as he is known as one of them old, hard-hitting, fist-fighting Democrats, you know, that run for office down there, and they used to miscount the votes all the time. So every time that my dad went to town, it was common the first question that I ask him when he come riding in on a horse that evening, I’d say, "Well, how many fights did you have today?" And then he’d take me up on his knee, and he’d proceed to tell me who he is fighting and why and all about it. "Put her there, boy. We’ll show these fascists what a couple hillbillies can do."

ALAN LOMAX: Where did you live? On a farm?

WOODY GUTHRIE: Well, no, I was born there in that little town. My dad built a six-room house. Cost him about $7,000 or $8,000. And the day after he got the house built, it burned down.

ALAN LOMAX: What kind of a place was Okemah? How big was it, when you remember it, when you were a kid?

WOODY GUTHRIE: Well, in them days, it was a little town, about 1,500, and then 2,000. A few years later, it got up to about 5,000. They struck some pretty rich oil pools all around there—Grayson City and Slick City and Cromwell and Seminole and Bowlegs and Sand Springs and Springhill. And all up and down the whole country there, they got oil. Got some pretty nice old fields ’round Okemah there.

ALAN LOMAX: Did any of the oil come in your family?

WOODY GUTHRIE: No, no, we got the grease.

AMY GOODMAN: Woody Guthrie being interviewed by the musicologist Alan Lomax.

Well, as we mark Woody Guthrie’s centennial—his birthday is this Saturday—we’re joined here in our New York studio by three very special guests. Nora Guthrie is Woody Guthrie’s daughter. She’s president of both the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives and Woody Guthrie Publications. She’s also author of the brand new book, My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town. It’s published by powerHouse Books.

And we’re joined by Anna Canoni. She’s Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter.

And Steve Earle is with us, the musician, actor, author, activist, three-time Grammy Award-winner, performing here in New York at WoodyFest, a three-day concert in celebration of Woody Guthrie’s birthday at the City Winery. His recent novel and album share the same name: I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Nora, you’re the daughter. Tell us about Woody’s early years and the significance of your father, Woody Guthrie.

NORA GUTHRIE: Well, he grew up in Oklahoma, in a little, small town, in Okemah, 1912. And he actually came from a relatively middle-class family. They were in the real spirit of kind of what we’d call entrepreneurs now. His dad was kind of raring to go, make a success of himself. And his mother was of Scotch Irish descent. And it’s really from his mom that he learned how to write ballads. She sang all the long ballads from the old country to him. And spent a couple of years there. Their life quickly began to fall apart. The house burned down. They lost all their money. Illness and fires kind of followed him around. He lost his sister in a fire, etc.

By the time he was about 14, he was kind of on his own, living in a gang house with a bunch of other kids on their own. And that’s when really he began to kind of, I want to say, become conscious of the world around him and all the troubles he was seeing. And he moved up to Pampa, Texas, after a couple of years of living with the kids in the gang house, right at the time when the great Dust Bowls were at their worst. And he was living in Pampa when the great dust storm of 1935 took place.

And again, I bring these up only because they’re wake-up calls. And sometimes it seems that, as human beings, we need these kind of catastrophic wake-up calls to realize and to begin asking who we are, why we’re alive, and what we can do about it. That was the beginning of his journey. He migrated to California with a couple of hundred thousand other people, the largest migration in the history of the United States. And what he discovered when he left his small circle of life in Oklahoma and Texas was that the world was not what he thought it was. And when they tried to cross over to the California border for jobs, they were all stopped by state troopers and vigilante groups who didn’t want the influx of all of these people who had lost their farms where they had lived for generations. So, again, it was like, one step after the next, a series of wake-up calls.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I want to turn to an excerpt of an interview with Woody Guthrie in 1949 at the Newark, New Jersey, YMCA. In this clip, he describes making early childhood political speeches.

WOODY GUTHRIE: At the time that I was born, the year 1912, my father was a sort of a hard, fist-fighting, Woodrow Wilson Democrat. So Woodrow Wilson was nominated that same year. And at the age of about four or five years old, long time before I went to school, I remember my dad used to teach me little political speeches and rhymes. And I’d climb up in the hay wagon around all the political meetings and rallies they had on the streets, and I’d make my little speeches. And it might be that I turned out now that where I don’t believe the speeches anymore and make speeches just the opposite.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: When did he first begin singing and songwriting?

NORA GUTHRIE: He started early on, actually, in Pampa, Texas. He had his first little band, the Corn Cob Trio, and then later the Pampa Junior Chamber of Commerce Band. But in those days, he was mostly influenced by the music he had heard on the radio, actually. And I have to giggle, because he did what every 19-year-old kid does: he forms a band to get a girlfriend. And that was just the impetus behind the whole thing. The early songs that he was writing were kind of dance band music. He played for socials, church socials, you know, local happenings, for the fun of it, actually. And it didn’t occur to him that music could be expanded from then—from that perspective until he got to Los Angeles.

AMY GOODMAN: And what happened in Los Angeles?

NORA GUTHRIE: He was introduced to the labor movement, actually, to the political movement, which was pretty active in Los Angeles that time in the late '30s. Now, I have to go back. All along the way, he had already played with the idea of songwriting, like I said, but more kind of silly songs about—that any 17- or 18-year-old would do. But as he was traveling along, particularly when he had those issues at the border trying to go into California and a couple of other things, the vigilante groups that he ran into that were trying to keep the Okies and Arkies out of the state of California, a couple of other incidents inspired him to start writing a couple of verses on his own. But again, he's only 20-something years old—pretty young kid. So he’s writing in a notebook, and he keeps track of things, the stories of the vigilantes, the stories of crossing the border, and songs like "California is a Garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see / But believe it or not, you won’t find it so hot / If you ain’t got that do re mi," "Vigilante Man," things like that, "Pretty Boy Floyd." So he brings some of these verses and tunes to California, when he gets his first radio show.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Earle, I’m wondering if you could talk about the significance of Woody Guthrie in your life.

STEVE EARLE: Well, I’m—he kind of invented my job. I found out about Woody Guthrie the same way a lot of people my age did: you know, through Bob Dylan. And, you know, I mean, like I’m only—I’m 57, so my first Bob Dylan records were actually relatively late ones, and I backtracked through—I had a drama teacher in high school who gave me a couple of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the second Dylan record. So that was the first time I ever heard what—I mean, I had heard Woody Guthrie by that time, and I had heard, you know, the Bob Dylan records I knew, the ones that I had bought as they came out, but that was the first time I made the connection between just how much, in the early going, you know, Bob Dylan was Woody Guthrie and how important Woody had been to Bob. I understood that connection when I started—when I heard those early records for the first time.

So, you know, it’s 1969. I’m 14 years old. The Vietnam War is going on. I’m not a candidate for a student deferment. As I got older, my friends started getting drafted. And I started out playing in coffeehouses because I wasn’t old enough to play in places that served liquor. And the one coffeehouse in San Antonio, Texas, was a pretty politicized environment. So I heard of—you know, these people quoted Woody Guthrie chapter and verse. They were the—the local underground newspaper was published upstairs. So I never separated music and politics, which kept bringing me back to Woody, over and over and over again, over, you know, writing songs. And I finally went to Nashville when I was 19. And I was trying to make a living playing music. I still don’t consider myself to be a political artist; I’m just an artist that—I think like Woody was—that lives in really politically charged times. And when I started playing, the war was going on. And now, I think these songs become, I think, you know, more relevant every second in the times that we’re living in right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve, I was there last night at the City Winery when you played Woody’s song "Deportees."

STEVE EARLE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: I was wondering if you could do our break live by playing that song.

STEVE EARLE: Yeah, yeah. This song’s like—I don’t know. This song, it becomes more important to me all the time, just because I come from occupied Mexico, so...

[singing] Crops are all in, the peaches are rotting,
The oranges are all packed in their creosote dumps;
They’re flying us back to the Mexican border
To take all our money to wade back again.

Goodbye to my Juan, farewell, Roselita,
Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María;
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees."

Now, my father’s own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money that he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters worked in the fruit trees,
They rode the trucks ’til they took down and died.

Goodbye to my Juan, farewell Roselita,
Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María;
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees."

Well, the sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They were just deportees."

Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on the topsoil
And be known by no name except "deportees"?

Goodbye to my Juan, farewell, Roselita,
Adiós mis amigos, Jesús y María;
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees."

AMY GOODMAN: Wow! What a break! Here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. Steve Earle, live in our studio, the three-time Grammy Award-winning artist, Guthrie-inspired musician. As well, we’re joined by Woody Guthrie’s daughter, Nora Guthrie, who runs the Nora Guthrie—the Woody Guthrie Archives, and Anna Canoni, who is his granddaughter, who works at the Archives, as well.

When you listen to "Deportees," about this crash, Anna, in—when was it?—1948, near Los Gatos Canyon, 20 miles west of Coalinga in Fresno County, where the people being deported were killed, your thoughts about your grandfather?

ANNA CANONI: Well, I play that song for my kids—I sing it, I don’t play. But I sing it for my kids every night as they go to sleep, which is an interesting way to put your children to sleep, I would like to say. There’s children’s songs that Woody does, but I put my kids to sleep to "Deportee," "My Peace," some of the other materials.

But I’m constantly learning about Woody. I feel like he’s still evolving, because we’re still learning more and more about him. So, I was raised knowing who my grandfather was in terms of being a songwriter. Back then, in the early '80s in Howard Beach, Queens, not a lot of my friends knew, so it's not like he was a superstar. It was more that he had something to say that was very important, and I was raised on all of his music. Then I started working for my mom at the Woody Guthrie Publications office about 10 years ago. And I’m just learning more and more, and I’m loving more and more about who my grandfather really was, by reading journals and putting out books and learning, researching in the Woody Guthrie Archives.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, you mentioned Howard Beach. I’d like to ask Nora about this, because Woody Guthrie is the quintessential poet of the American heartland, yet he spent a considerable amount of his life in New York City, and not just in Manhattan, but Sea Gate and Coney Island, Howard Beach. Talk—and you’ve actually put out an entire book on Woody in New York City. Could you talk about how he got here and some of the places that he called home while he was here?

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah. He came to New York in 1940. He hitchhiked across and arrived here on February 16th, 1940. And he came at the invite of Will Geer, who was an actor, a friend that he had met in Los Angeles. A lot of people know him as Grandpa Walton. And he was starring in a show in New York, and he liked Woody’s music, and he said, "You ought to come to New York. They might like you here." And so, that’s what he did. He hitchhiked across, and he came to New York. And as a matter of fact, he stayed at a little boarding house on 43rd Street and Sixth Avenue. That’s where he hooked up.

And the first three songs he wrote, the first week he was in New York—he had traveled across the country, and he was looking out this window at the little hotel room, and he was remembering his journey. And he sat down and wrote "This Land Is Your Land" that first week in New York. And a lot of people don’t know that he wrote "This Land" — they assume that he wrote it out in the Midwest someplace, but it’s really a New York song. It’s about the result, the culmination of that journey, and how he puts it together, and the lyric, in this boarding house—which, I have to say, right now, you know what stands on that corner? New York Trivial Pursuit question: 43rd and Sixth, southwest corner? Bank of America headquarters.

AMY GOODMAN: Woah! Wow! Let’s stay in 1940, Woody Guthrie appearing on a New York radio program featuring the folk singer Leadbelly.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Good afternoon. Your municipal station presents another in the series, "Folks Songs of America," featuring that great Negro folk singer of Louisiana, Huddie Ledbetter, better known to you as Leadbelly. And Leadbelly has as his guest today the dustiest Dust Bowler of them all, Woody Guthrie of Oklahoma.

WOODY GUTHRIE: Well, I think now we’re going to sing you one. Here’s a song here that has to do with a book and a motion picture that come out here a while back by the name of The Grapes of Wrath, wrote down by a man, John Steinbeck, who threw the pack on his back and went right out amongst the people to see just what is going on in the United States. And it just so happened that he hit a jackpot, because he knew what—where he was going and knew what he was writing about. So, I didn’t read the book, but then I seen the picture three times. And I come home, and I sat down. I wrote up a little piece about it. The name of this is "The Ballad of Tom Joad."

[singing] Tom Joad got out of that old McAlester Pen
There he got his parole
After four long years on a man killing charge
Tom Joad come a walking down the road, poor boy
Tom Joad come a walking down the road

It was there he found him a truck driving man
There he got him a ride
Said: "I just got a-loose from the old penitentiary
Charge called Homicide, poor boy, it was a charge called Homicide.

AMY GOODMAN: That clip of Woody Guthrie from 1940 comes courtesy of the Down Home Radio Show. Now, "Tom Joad," in your book, My Name Is New York: Ramblin’ Around Woody Guthrie’s Town, 57 East Fourth Street, sixth floor, wrote this. Pete Seeger brought him over to write this song. Describe the situation and then the quote of John Steinbeck when he heard this remarkable song.

NORA GUTHRIE: Well, Woody needed a typewriter to write this particular song, and Pete had a typewriter. And they—he was living on Fourth Street in the East Village at the time. And he spent all night at the typewriter. And Pete was hanging around with him. Pete finally said, "I got so tired." Woody had a jug of wine. Pete went to bed, and he woke up the next morning, and there was the 16-verse "Ballad of Tom Joad" in the typewriter, and Woody was asleep under the table.

And it was a wonderful consolidation of Steinbeck’s book, The Grapes of Wrath. And Woody was very, very moved by the character of Tom Joad and closely identified with him personally as a young man. He felt that—he wished he could have said, "That’s where I’m going to be, Ma," which is really out of the book, when Tom Joad ends and he says, "Wherever people are fighting for their rights, wherever people ain’t free, that’s where I’m going to be, Ma." And that became kind of Woody’s mission in life, as well. Of course, when John Steinbeck heard about the song, he cussed him out and said, "God, that son of a B—-! He put down in 17 verses what it took me two years to write."

AMY GOODMAN: The power of music. Well, let’s talk about the musicians who worked with Woody. We interviewed Pete Seeger onDemocracy Now! a couple years ago, who talked about Alan Lomax and Woody Guthrie.

PETE SEEGER: Well, Alan got me started, and many others. He’s the man who told Woody Guthrie, he says, "Woody Guthrie, your mission in life is to write songs. Don’t let anything distract you. You’re like the people who wrote the ballads of Robin Hood and the ballad of Jesse James. You keep writing ballads as long as you can." And Woody took it to heart. He wasn’t a good husband. He was always running off, but he wrote songs, as you know.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you remember when you first met Woody Guthrie?

PETE SEEGER: Oh, yeah, I’ll never forget it. It was a benefit concert for California agricultural workers on Broadway at midnight. Burl Ives was there, the Golden Gate Quartet, Josh White, Leadbelly, Margo Mayo Square Dance Group, with my wife dancing in it. I sang one song very amateurishly and retired in confusion to a smattering of polite applause.

But Woody took over and for 20 minutes entranced everybody, not just with singing, but storytelling. "I come from Oklahoma, you know? It’s a rich state. You want some oil? Go down in the ground. Get you some hole. Get you more oil. If you want lead, we got lead in Oklahoma. Go down a hole and get you some lead. If you want coal, we got coal in Oklahoma. Go down a hole, get you some coal. If you want food, clothes or groceries, just go in the hole and stay there." Then he’d sing a song.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Pete Seeger describing Woody Guthrie. Talk about when they tried out, Nora, at the Rainbow Room.

NORA GUTHRIE: Well, he hooked up early on with Pete Seeger and a couple of other musicians. They were living and working together as the Almanac Singers. And historically, it’s very important because it was the first communal group to form a folk music band, so to speak, that evolved into everything we know, from the Kingston Trio to Weavers, etc., Peter, Paul and Mary—all grew out of that little seed core idea.

But they were kind of getting kind of popular in New York. Their folk music was kind of new. It was a little bit of a buzz happening around town. And they got a chance to audition, even at the Rainbow Room. And people loved them. Bess Hawes laughs and says, "Every time we sang a song that put them down, the rich people loved it, because there’s nothing more they love than having a sense of humor about themselves, unless then you get to the next step—you get serious—and then they stop laughing."

Anyway, they did this audition at the Rainbow Room, and they were very popular. And the people said, "Oh, you guys are great." And they wanted to dress them up as hillbillies, with little bonnets, and "You, wear a thing and sit on a pile of hay, and we’ll do hillbilly music, and New York City elite will just love it." And Woody kind of freaked out and said, "I’m not going to do this." And the rest of the Almanacs were going, "Why not? This is a great-paying gig." And Woody says, "I’m not going to make fun of my people." And they said, "But they’re going to pay a lot of money. We’re going to be a star in New York." He said, "I’m not going to make fun of my people. And that’s what they want us to do. They want us to be up here so that they can laugh at us, instead of listen to us."

And he started writing songs on the spot. He was a very good improviser. And he says, "At the Rainbow Room, the soup’s on the boil. They stir their salad with Standard Oil, in New York City." And he totally blew the situation. And they escaped down the elevator 60-something floors. And—

STEVE EARLE: My hero.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah, well, you know, people don’t understand how hard it is to do things like that, especially when you need money, you’re hungry. They were a very poor little group. And I think Woody kind of taught a lot of people, Steve, how to say no.

STEVE EARLE: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Steve, precisely about that, his ability—his importance, in terms of merging politics and music. On his guitar, he had "This Machine Kills Fascists."

STEVE EARLE: Several guitars, including some that didn’t belong to him. It was—there were a few.

AMY GOODMAN: It was written right over the guitar?

STEVE EARLE: Well, yeah, it was actually—it’s several. Sometimes it was written on the surface of the guitar. There’s several signs that he had made that were put on other guitars, you know. There’s a whole thing of like—I’m kind of a guitar collector, and I’ve spent a lot of time trying to track down the history of various guitars that Woody Guthrie was photographed with, because there’s about five or six of them that he was photographed with. And some of them consistently—one guitar is one Gibson that belonged to him. There’s—I know one of them, there’s a Martin that he’s photographed over and over again, and he even has artist’s model based on it, but it was not his guitar. It was Will Geer’s wife’s guitar that he borrowed and kept for a very long time.

So, it’s—you know, the whole thing about—a lot of it has to do with just who Woody was and how Woody was. I mean, I don’t think—you know, he was a professional entertainer. He had a radio show that was extremely successful. Now, he had bosses that allowed certain—you know, him to get away with a certain amount because of their own political convictions, and there was a lot going on. He got—his audiences, at that point, were—you know, were—it was the labor movement. So that sort of—he’s becoming Woody Guthrie at that point. So by the time he arrives in New York City, he’s Woody Guthrie, and he knows he is. And it’s one of those things. I think he made decisions that—you know, you could make a different decision and make more money, but I think there’s a point in which you realize, OK, I’ve got this audience, and I’m going to keep this audience, and I’m going to be able to look at myself in the mirror, if there are certain lines that I draw for myself as I go along and identify who I am as an artist that I don’t cross. And that can change. It’s not necessarily a static thing. Times change. What’s important to you changes. But I think—I think just, you know, money isn’t—he wasn’t doing this for money. He wasn’t—he was doing it because it happened. He became who he was as a performer as organically, I think, as anybody can, you know, come up with a career plan. It sort of happened, and, you know, a lot of it’s who he was, who he was born in. And most of it, I think, is—as artists, is who we become as whatever, you know, the world presents to us and that we travel through, the paths that we travel.

AMY GOODMAN: Our next break, Steve, it’s your choice.

STEVE EARLE: Oh, I think the one—I don’t think I have any doubt about that, for this.

[singing] I was standing down in New York town one day,
I was standing down in New York town one day,
I was standing down in New York town one day,
Singing hey, hey, hey, hey.

Yeah, I was down on luck and didn’t have a dime,
I was down on luck, didn’t have a dime,
I was down on luck, didn’t have a dime,
Singing hey, hey, hey, hey.

Every good man gets a little hard luck sometimes,
Every good man gets a little hard luck sometimes,
Every good man gets a little hard luck sometimes,
Singing hey, hey, hey, hey.

Yeah, now, I’m gonna ride that new morning railroad,
I’m gonna ride that new morning train,
I’m gonna ride that new morning railroad,
Singing hey, hey, hey, hey.

Down and out and he ain’t got a dime,
Down and out and he ain’t got a dime,
Down and out and he ain’t got a dime,
Singing hey, hey, hey, hey.

Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Hey, hey, hey, hey.

AMY GOODMAN: Steve Earle playing Guthrie, "New York Town." This isDemocracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we continue our special today marking the hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the most important folk singers of our time. Celebrations are being held around the world. Born on July [14th], 1912, from California to the New York island, including here in New York City, where Steve Earle, among many musicians, including Billy Bragg, is performing at WoodyFest at the City Winery. A Woody Guthrie Folk Festival is also taking place in Woody’s home town of Okemah, Oklahoma.

Our guests are Steve Earle, the three-time Grammy Award-winning musician, and Woody Guthrie’s daughter Nora Guthrie, president of both the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archives, and his granddaughter, Anna Canoni, who works at the Archives, as they preserve Woody Guthrie’s memory.

That song, "New York Town," what does it mean to you, Nora? When did he write it?

NORA GUTHRIE: How to catch a cab. "Hey! Hey! Hey!" Well, Woody wrote a ton of stuff. He wrote over 600 songs. He was in New York City from 1940 until he passed away, 1967. And a lot of people don’t think of him as a New Yorker, but that was really his home town for most of his life, actually. He was 27 when he came to New York. That’s when he wrote "This Land Is Your Land." Can you imagine? Twenty-seven.

AMY GOODMAN: Twenty-seven.

NORA GUTHRIE: Steve, what were you doing when you’re 27?

STEVE EARLE: I wasn’t writing "This Land Is Your Land." I was writing songs, though.

AMY GOODMAN: And was that the name of it? Was that the name of the song?

NORA GUTHRIE: Originally—

AMY GOODMAN: And what about the forbidden verses?

NORA GUTHRIE: Originally—originally, it was titled "God Blessed America" because originally it was a kind of quasi-parody of Irving Berlin’s song "God Bless America," that was popular that year. Kate Smith had a hit song with it. And I never considered it anti-Berlin, and I refuse to consider it anti-Berlin. I know a lot of people have made a big thing of that. But I think it’s an extension of "God Bless America," because one is the voice of an immigrant who’s coming from a really hard time in Russia, and he’s really glad to be here, and the other is when you’re born here, and it’s the next extension. It’s chapter two of a song about America. So that’s—anyway, nobody asked, but that’s my thoughts about it. But—so he wrote a ton of stuff here in New York City. That was one of the—he used to busk along the bars on 10th Avenue, Ninth Avenue and 10th Avenue on the West Side there. And—

STEVE EARLE: When the docks were still there. Those were—

NORA GUTHRIE: The docks—

STEVE EARLE: Those were sailor bars down there in those days.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah, they were all sailors and guys who worked on ships, etc. The Cunard Lines were coming in from Liverpool in those days also, which is—that’s another story, the connection of rock 'n' roll and the Beatles and Lonnie Donegan, because that’s how the Beatles heard about Woody. They used to go to Lonnie Donegan shows in Liverpool, and he was singing Woody and Leadbelly tunes.

STEVE EARLE: "Rock Island Line" was his biggest hit, which was a Leadbelly tune.

NORA GUTHRIE: Right, and he did "Roll On Columbia."

STEVE EARLE: Yeah, he did.

NORA GUTHRIE: "Big Grand Coulee Dam," he did. And the little Beatles—they were all like 14, 15, 16—they were in the audience listening to Lonnie Donegan. So there’s this incredible musical history lineage between Woody, the Upper West Side and the docks, where he’s singing songs like "Hey, Hey, Hey" for a nickel in a bar to get—to get a drink, basically. So, that’s another story.

AMY GOODMAN: Woody, in the last 15 years of his life, got very sick.

NORA GUTHRIE: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about his struggle with Huntington’s disease?

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And it’s also a disease that claimed his mother’s life, as well.

NORA GUTHRIE: Right, his mother was institutionalized when he was about 12 years old. She had an unknown disease, and she was falling apart, basically. And they figured it was all the troubles that the family was having with losing their money and the Depression, dust. She was put in an insane asylum, actually. They didn’t know what to do with her. And she passed away there. Woody never saw her again.

And in the late 1940s, Woody suspected that something was wrong with him, as well. And his behavior started changing. He was having trouble walking, things like that. And at the time, nobody really knew what it was. His friends thought he was drinking a lot, and they kind of started staying clear of him, because they thought he was a bad influence. And a lot of the anecdotal history that you still hear around town is what a drunk he was, he was a womanizer, da-da-la-da-da-la-da. But all this is really related to Huntington’s disease, including hypersexual behavior, things like that. Now they know. Anyway, long story short, he was finally diagnosed around 1952. All they could do was diagnose you. They said, "Well, you have Huntington’s, but we don’t have any clue what to do about it."

AMY GOODMAN: It makes you lose control.

NORA GUTHRIE: It’s a neurological disease, and it affects body, mind, everything. Like I just said, emotionally, psychologically, he started changing. He really started falling apart, actually, and caused a lot of problems in the family, obviously. Nobody knew. He was just crazy. Anyway, so he was diagnosed. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Institutionalized?

NORA GUTHRIE: He self—he put himself in a hospital, after he—he wandered around the country. He tried to hold on to whatever life he had. He was kind of running away from it, probably, hitchhiking around the country, dropping in on old friends in Oklahoma and California. And finally, he got a grip on himself and realized he would be hospitalized. And he did live for 15 years in different New York City hospitals.

AMY GOODMAN: Like Greystone out in New Jersey.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah, and ironically, it was also a psychiatric ward. Greystone was the largest psychiatric ward on the East Coast. It had like hundreds of thousands of people or something in it.

AMY GOODMAN: Just outside Morristown.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah. And he was in a—just like his mom. They didn’t know what to do with him, and he was put in a psychiatric ward with 50 other patients. One of the symptoms of Huntington’s, like you can’t—you lose control of your arms, etc. And, you know, in these institutions, they would walk around and drop a plate of food in front of your bed. It was like kind of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest here. And he couldn’t get the fork to his mouth. My mother had to pay other patients to feed him.

AMY GOODMAN: Your mother was?

NORA GUTHRIE: Marjorie Mazia Guthrie, who—a lot of people in your audience might know her from the Martha Graham Company. She was quite well known in the dance world in New York City in those years. She was Merce Cunningham’s teacher. She was Erick Hawkins’ teacher. Anyway, our house was Leadbelly to the left and Martha Graham to the right, and other people in front and back.

AMY GOODMAN: Where was—wait, John Gotti, too?

NORA GUTHRIE: John Gotti lived right over there.

AMY GOODMAN: He was your next-door neighbor?

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: That was in Howard Beach.

NORA GUTHRIE: In Howard Beach, right.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Absolutely.

NORA GUTHRIE: Right, yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: And who was your Hebrew teacher?

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah, my grandmother was a Yiddish poetess. This is another story, Amy, but she was like a well-known Yiddish poetess. And she had written her story of her life in Hebrew, and my mother wanted us to be able to read her story. So she thought—and, by the way, we’re not religious. On my birth certificate, under religion, it says, "All or none." Anyway, but one of the cultural aspects was that we should learn Hebrew to read my grandmother’s stuff. And so, my mom hired a local rabbi, who was from the synagogue a couple blocks away. He was a young guy in his twenties or something, seemed kind of sweet and quiet, actually. And she hired him for a couple of months to teach us Hebrew. I actually have home footage of him in the house. We’re sitting around the table like this. Anyway, it was a disaster, and we were not very good. And he got really upset and said to my mother, "The Guthrie kids are not taking Hebrew seriously." And he was right.

AMY GOODMAN: And he was?

NORA GUTHRIE: And he left. He quit. Evidently, he quit America, as well, and ended up in Israel. And his name was Meir Kahane.

AMY GOODMAN: And Meir Kahane ended up being assassinated in Times Square.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, yes.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah. But he was a tough guy.

AMY GOODMAN: So, John—John Gotti—

NORA GUTHRIE: He was like passive-aggressive.

AMY GOODMAN: Rabbi Kahane. Then you went on to live in Chappaqua. Your neighbors are the Clintons.

NORA GUTHRIE: Yeah, I moved up to Westchester like really 20-something years ago, after living in around all the boroughs, went to Elisabeth Irwin High School, where a lot of your friends from last night went—Johnny Hammond and a lot of—

STEVE EARLE: Yeah, it was a—there is a big Elisabeth Irwin reunion last night there at this, yeah.

NORA GUTHRIE: Well, it’s right across the street from City Winery.

STEVE EARLE: I played—friends of mine that have a child at E.I. now asked me to do—they were—the kids put together a coffeehouse as a fundraiser for—at E.I., and I played in that little auditorium at E.I. And it was pretty—you know, I knew you by that time, so—you know, by the time I did that. And I just talked to people that I knew that had gone to school there. And, you know, that stage—you know, like Leadbelly was definitely on that stage. I know that for a fact.

NORA GUTHRIE: My dad played there.

STEVE EARLE: Yeah, and I wondered whether Woody actually played there or not.

NORA GUTHRIE: My father played at Elisabeth Irwin in 1949. But it’s an historically very important school, actually, because it was—a lot of blacklisted teachers worked there, people who couldn’t get work anyplace else in the '50s. And so, like my music teacher was Victor Fink, who's Janis Ian’s father. People that went to the school—Angela Davis went there. The Rosenbergs’ kids were there. Arthur Miller’s kids were there. Norman Mailer’s kids were there. Woody Guthrie’s kids were there. So it was a very interesting school to go to. But, anyway, I did move up to Westchester.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the impact on the family of your father’s battle with Huntington’s. Eventually your mother began an effort to eradicate Huntington’s.

NORA GUTHRIE: Right. When my dad died, they held a concert at Carnegie Hall. And actually, that was the concert that Dylan came out of retirement. He had been in the motorcycle accident and came out of retirement and says, "I got to do this." And that was a wonderful—the band was there and Dylan and a whole bunch of other people. My brother was just starting out. He must have been like 20 or something at the time.

But at that point, my mother was an—she was an incredible woman. She really deserves a network television show just to talk about her or something. I don’t know. But she kind of put her foot down and gathered us all around the table. I was 21. And the day after I turned 21, she said to us, "Are you all OK? You’re 21 now. Can you take care of yourselves? You’re OK?" And we all went, "Yeah, Mom. What’s up?" And she said, "I have to go find a cure for Huntington’s disease." And we went, "Oh, OK. It’s OK with us." And that’s when she put an ad in theNew York Times the next day and said, "If anyone knows anything about Huntington’s disease, call Virginia-80249." And one person called. And they met for tea. They put the ad in again. Three people called. They met for tea.

Long story short, she founded all the organizations that began Huntington’s disease research, which is now at the forefront. All the doctors and researchers that are at the forefront of genetic research right now were my mother’s babies. She—not literally. But she would go around to all the medical schools and talk to the students and say, "Why go into plastic surgery, when you can go into genetic research?" Again, why do you have to make money when you can do something for humanity? So, she is really the godmother of so much of the research that’s happening now.

One funny story, since Anna’s here. When I was pregnant with Anna—

AMY GOODMAN: We have 20 seconds.

NORA GUTHRIE: Oh.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell it quickly.

NORA GUTHRIE: I said, "Mom, I’m going to have a baby." She said, "I have to go to Australia to find out about Huntington’s disease." I said, "But I’m going to have a baby!" She goes, "It’ll be fine. Don’t worry." You know, so—

ANNA CANONI: Everyone does it.

NORA GUTHRIE: —she wasn’t there for it. I said, "Everyone’s there for the birth of their first grandchild." And she had to go to Australia to make a speech that night. But it was that kind of life, you know, where you really, as children and everything, you kind of learn to give it up for humanity.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note, I want to thank you both very much for being with us. We’re going to continue our post-show just after this break, and you can go to democracynow.org. Thank you to Steve Earle and to Anna Canoni and to Nora Guthrie, president of both the Woody Guthrie Foundation and Archive. If you want to get a copy of today’s show, as well as our July 4th show, marking this hundredth anniversary of the birth of one of the country’s greatest songwriters, Woody Guthrie, born on July 14, 1912, you can go to democracynow.org.

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