From NOEBIE.net
This has long been one of my favorite Jefferson Airplane songs, and I love this demo version from Paul Kantner. It’s amazing that all of the harmonic and rhythmic elements of the song were there right from the start.
I wasn’t able to find proper guitar tabs for this online, but as nearly as I can tell, he’s dropped both E strings on the guitar to D, so I’m experimenting with that tuning this week.
Chicago’s streets were a sea of union red last Friday for a day of action to protest the austerity policies of Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner.
I’m proud to have joined twenty thousand souls at the Thompson Center that day. What struck me, once again, was the broad support and solidarity in this movement. It wasn’t just teachers, or students, or parents, or union folks. We were joined by activists from Fight for 15, Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ community, immigrant rights groups, neighborhood and community organizations and so many more. It’s always an inspiration to see.
Here are some great photos of the day from Bob Simpson.
You can also read this report from Gala M. Pierce: Striking for the city we deserve | SocialistWorker.org
Where all your rights have become only an accumulated wrong, where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land, to think their own thoughts, to sing their own songs, to gather the fruits of their own labours, and, even while they beg, to see things inexorably withdrawn from them – then, surely, it is a braver, a saner and truer thing to be a rebel, in act and in deed, against such circumstances as these, than to tamely accept it, as the natural lot of men.
– Sir Roger Casement
William Rivers Pitt writes at Truthout about foolishness of “raw and ponderous weight” in Syria.
The Knights of Righteousness (yeah, that really is what they call themselves) have been armed and funded by — wait for it — the Central Intelligence Agency. Their opponents, the Syrian Democratic Forces, have been armed and funded by the Pentagon. Ergo, based upon the most recent battle in Marea, the Defense Department went to war with the CIA half a world away.
Read the full piece: The CIA and the Pentagon Are Shooting at Each Other | Truthout
Lee Sustar looks at the dynamics of the one-day Chicago teachers strike on April 1 while Chicago teachers, unionists and community members explain why they’re taking part in the day of action.
Read the article: What we’re fighting for on April 1 | Socialist Worker
Chris Hedges, journalist and senior fellow at The Nation Institute, discusses the Brussels Attacks for The Real News.
Dylan Matthews spent some time with Bhaskar Sunkara and Neal Meyer of Jacobin Magazine recently, and produced a marvelous profile piece for Vox. He points out that although the magazine is currently riding a wave of interest sparked by the Sanders campaign, it’s relevance will continue beyond the elections of 2016.
Jacobin has in the past five years become the leading intellectual voice of the American left, the most vibrant and relevant socialist publication in a very long time.
Sunkara started publishing copies of the magazine in his George Washington University dorm room back in 2011, when he was all of 21. The financial crisis appeared to have given socialism and Marxism another inning, and Sunkara wanted an outlet that took socialist theory more seriously than existing outlets like the Nation. Jacobin took off; it now boasts a print circulation of about 20,000 and has gained about 400 more subscribers a week since Bernie started his ascent in November. Jacobin’s success is a sign that even if Bernie fades, there’s still a constituency for socialist ideas — a fact that could turn out to be much more important than the Sanders campaign itself.
I think of Jacobin as a way to feed my mind each day, via their website as well as the print issues, and it’s a great pleasure to be involved with the magazine via our Southland Reading Group.
Read the entire profile: Inside Jacobin: how a socialist magazine is winning the left’s war of ideas – Vox
On April 1, 2016, the Chicago Teacher’s Union is asking all concerned Chicago citizens to unite in a day of action.