How many of those condemning the shooting of the police in Dallas and equating Micah Johnson with the cops in Baton Rouge, St. Paul and elsewhere who routinely kill people for being black mean what they say, and how many are just saying it because they think they are supposed to? (I am referring to […]
Archives for 2016
Some Bullshit
In late December, 2014 the New York Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association coordinated a work slowdown that effectively brought street-level policing to a halt in New York City.For the previous month, diffuse direct actions that would come to be called “Black Lives Matter” had proliferated like the mythical “many-headed hydra”: no sooner had the police pushed an […]
A Ballad About the Free State of Jones
“Mississippi Missive, A Ballad about the Free State of Jones” is now available from Amazon, iTunes and many other digital download sites. Here’s the lyrics and liner note text: Mississippi Missive, A Ballad About the Free State of Jones County lyrics by Edward Voci, copyright 1996 Jones County voted ‘gainst a rich man’s war Kind […]
20 Years in the Making
Received the following letter from my old friend and comrade, Ed Voci: “’Mississippi Missive, A Ballad About the Free State of Jones’” has occupied me off and on for 20 years. The song will be available very soon from Amazon, iTunes, eMusic and other on-line music vendors as well as from Woodstock Records. Play it LOUD! […]
Forever champ
I was working at US Steel in Gary when the so-called authorities had the arrogance to think they could take away Muhammad Ali’s title. One of my co-workers, a young white fellow with long hair, said, “He’ll always be the champ. He whipped the U.S. government.”
HARD CRACKERS
American society is a time-bomb where the big explosion, whatever its form might be, is endlessly hinted at by the more or less horrifying “little” degradations of daily rape, murder, stupid violence of different varieties (perhaps most notably urban gang violence), episodic mass killings (with or without apparent motive), drug and alcohol-induced stupors, drug overdoses, […]