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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> <FONT COLOR="#000099">Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar. Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free! </FONT><A HREF="http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/zgSolB/TM";><B>Click Here!</B></A> --------------------------------------------------------------------~->Please send as far and wide as possible. Thanks, Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com http://www.konformist.com/50reasons/50reasons.htm 50 Reasons Not to Vote for Bush Order at Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932595023/thekonformist A Pillar of Soul Mark Anthony Neal, Africana.com June 16, 2004 >From the vantage point of 50 years into the future, it is perhaps incomprehensible for folk to truly understand the revolution that was Ray Charles Robinson. In a black world defined by talented-tenths and black-belt denizens, Ray Charles cut through the divide -- his third eye intact -- intuitively understanding that the Saturday night sinner was all too often the Sunday morning saved. Indeed the very foundations of Soul -- and every form of American music that has sprung from it -- were laid the moment Charles opened his mouth to sing the first note of "I Got a Woman" (1954). What Charles did was not unprecedented -- a fellow named Georgia Tom worked the reverse route, bringing those melodies that he so lovingly played behind Ma Rainey to church with him, in the process becoming Thomas A. Dorsey, the father of Gospel music. And the cats who were up in the juke- joint the night before would coyly smile, all the while praising the "lawd." But when Uncle Ray flowed the opposite way, using those same melodies and rhythms to "church" the secular world, no doubt more than a few upstanding Negroes thought it was blasphemy. That first breakthrough, "I Got a Woman," was in fact based on "Let's Talk About Jesus," a 1951 hit for the Bells of Joy, so imagine the surprise when folks turned on their radio to find out their "Sweet Jesus" was now sweet Sally. A year later Charles took it a step further with "Hallelujah, I Love Her So" (1955). Both recordings were major hits among black audiences and very quickly made Charles the best known Rhythm and Blues artists of his era (there really wasn't even the language to call this Soul music yet). For Charles the idea of "church" had nothing to do with organized religion, per se, but everything to do with tapping into the well of black spirituality. Charles understood that black spirituality had real-world connotations, even as it was being informed by other-worldly desires. When Charles finally broke through to white audiences in 1959 with "What I'd Say" he had proved that mainstream America was ready to be "churched" and folk like Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Johnnie Taylor, Lou Rawls and so many others who came up "church" took notice. American music has not been the same since -- a fact that was acknowledged when Charles was included among the inaugural inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And just as so many others would come to benefit from the foundation he laid -- most notably Ms. Aretha -- Charles switched up mid-stride, changing record labels (from Atlantic to ABC-Paramount) and venturing into undiscovered Country (literally) and ultimately conquering the terrain, then known as C&W (Country and Western music). And of course some would say that Brother Ray had sold out, but you have to sit down and hear those songs. First it was Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind" (1960) -- a song that sentimentally aches for the "Old South" just as Civil Rights marchers were trying to rip the South a new one, and damn if it's not like listening to the Soul of black folk. Twenty years later, the state of Georgia named Charles' version the official state song. Two years later Charles is singing songs like "I Can't Stop Loving You" (his first song to top the pop and R&B charts) and "You Don't Know Me" (both from an album called Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music), making it apparent that Brother Ray wasn't selling out, but selling Soul -- humanizing a nation that had for so long dehumanized black folk. By the time Charles records his version of the Southern favorite "You Are My Sunshine" (for volume two of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music) it is clear that this is a black musical artist who had crossed-over in a way that was unprecedented. But Charles remained rooted to the music that birthed him throughout his career. It's a sound heard clearly on tracks like "Let's Go Get Stoned" (one of the first writing credits for Ashford and Simpson), "In the Heat of the Night" (from the movie soundtrack produced by his old running partner Quincy Jones) or the funky "Booty Butt" (1970). A perfect example is his surprise appearance on stage with Aretha Franklin during her career-defining recording Live at the Filmore West. Midway through their rendition of "Spirit in the Dark" Franklin turns to Charles and offers her seat at the piano -- "Why don't you sit right here and take this from me"-- and as Charles does his thing on the electric piano, Ms. Aretha chimes "It's funky up in here" as the crowd pushes towards frenzy. It is one of those singular moments in the history of black music -- like when Coltrane and Duke went to the studio to record "In a Sentimental Mood" (1963) or when Marley and Stevie stood on stage together at Madison Square Garden in 1979 or when James Brown and Fela Kuti broke down Diasporic Funk when JB was in Nigeria in 1973 or every-time Albertina Walker, Inez Andrews and Shirley Caesar walked on-stage as the Caravans. When you realize that Franklin and Charles had a bunch of Haight-Ashbury hippies doing the soul clap, indeed it was a metaphor for the Soul that saved a nation. And it was in singing about this nation -- "America the Beautiful" -- that Charles perhaps made his most important artistic and political statement. Charles' version of "America the Beautiful," like Marvin's "Star Spangled Banner," was never about simply celebrating the opportunities afforded to the progeny of the formerly enslaved, but about taking ownership of the ideals of American Democracy -- "Heroes proved in liberating strife" as Charles sings in that first verse -- and consistently striving to be the moral conscience of this nation (please take a bow, Rep. Barbara Lee). Ray Charles' "America the Beautiful" represents a symbolic moment for African Americans -- a moment when African Americans took control of this nation's spirit, much the same way Charles himself took ownership of our most beautiful patriotic anthem. ***** "Fahrenheit 9/11" is Fox-ier than expected Posted by Evan on June 15, 2004 Quick. Take a guess where the following quote comes from: "As much as some might try to marginalize this film as a screed against President George Bush, 'F9/11'... is a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty -- and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice." The Nation? Al Franken? Ron Reagan Jr.? Not quite. This reaction to last night's official, star-studded preview screening of 'F9/11' (trailer), was from FoxNews's Roger Friedman. He also called it, "A really brilliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail." With enemies like this, who needs friends? But friends were, of course, in attendance. Like Tom Tomorrow for example, who commented: "You're going to hear a lot of nonsense about Michael Moore over the next few weeks...a lot of truly ignorant bloviation about how much Michael 'hates America.' My advice is, ignore it all. Go see the movie, decide for yourself. And on the way out, be sure to tell the usher, or the manager if he or she is around, that you appreciate the theatre giving you the opportunity to do so." The first part is, of course, the standard warning coming from the left which will undoubtedly come to pass. The last bit about thanking the theater manager, however, may prove to be the more interesting comment. This week, a San Francisco PR firm disguised as a non-profit action called "MoveAmericaForward.org," launched a campaign to pressure theater-owners who've committed to showing the film to drop it from their lineup. Some theater owners are reportedly receiving death threats. DailyKos, commenting on Bill O'Reilly's Nazi-rant after walking out on the film, writes: "This movie will be big. The Right is afraid. And when they are afraid, they bring out the big artillery." ***** Posted by Evan on June 11, 2004 Getting Stern with Bush It's hard to not see cosmic justice in the possibility that Howard Stern may prove to be Bush's undoing. If you haven't heard already, the decidedly anti-family values shock jock has launched what he calls a "jihad" against the president. But whatever your feelings for the man (likened alternately to Lenny Bruce and Charles Manson), he does pack a punch with a large and devoted following -- a following that could provide the difference in November. While he's not as popular as Limbaugh or Sean Hannity (at 14 and 12 million respectively), he does have over 8 million listeners. Moreover, while the Limbaugh/Hannity crowd (wanna bet there's some crossover?) is already political and reliably conservative, Stern's listeners don't tend to be political and thus constitute, for lack of a better term, "swing voters." Or, according to the editor of Talkers, a talk radio trade magazine, "The Hannity/Limbaugh audience already knows where it's going...The Stern audience is fertile ground." And that's good news for Kerry considering that 17% of the nation's "likely voters" are Stern listeners. These devotees favor Kerry by 53% to 43% nationwide. In battleground states Kerry's lead swells to 22 points at 59% to 37%. The poll went on to say that "Of the likely voters who listen to Stern, 1 out of 4 is a swing voter who hasn't decided how to vote in November. That means that about 4 percent of the national swing vote up for grabs this fall listens to Stern." With all the talk of Kerry's stiff demeanor and dull delivery maybe all he needs are some fart jokes and a porn star guest? ***** The Grand Larceny of Pinstripe Thieves By Jim Hightower, AlterNet. June 15, 2004 If a thief broke into your home and stole a couple of thousand dollars that you'd carefully saved from your paychecks and stashed away over the last three years, you could call the cops and try to get your money back. But whom do you call when that thief is the CEO of your company? CEOs have been routinely stealing hundreds and even thousands of dollars from the deserved paychecks of each and every worker in America, pocketing much of this loot themselves and converting the rest to corporate profits. The grand larceny of the CEOs is that they've been filching every workers' share of the enormous productivity gains that America has racked up since the recession officially ended in November of 2001. Productivity is the increase in products or services that each worker churns out -- and Americans have been phenomenal at this, fueling an explosion of new economic growth. The theory and promise of free enterprise is that if our workforce of millions of people becomes more productive, the workers will enjoy the bulk of economic gains generated by their improved output. Yet, in this current three-year burst of productivity, America has lost jobs, and wages have either stagnated or fallen. In other words, America's working families are being fleeced by the pinstripe thieves sitting high atop corporate headquarters. Workers' share of the new income they've generated in this recovery is the lowest ever recorded, while the fat cats have hauled off the most on record. An in-depth analysis by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University finds that while the work force usually is rewarded with 65 percent of the increase in national income, this time they've received only 38 percent. Profits, which go overwhelmingly to a few investor elites, usually get under 18 percent of the productivity increase, but now they're getting more than double that. This is a massive, historic level of theft, and the pinstriped dandies pulling it off ought to be wearing prison stripes. ***** The Teresa Factor By Liz Cox Barrett, AlterNet June 16, 2004 Outspoken. Wealthy. Powerful. These are the adjectives de rigeur in any news profile of the 65-year- old wife of Senator John Kerry, as one press outlet after another this spring weighs in on the momentous question: Teresa Heinz Kerry, burden or asset? Heinz Kerry is hardly the first recipient of this kind of attention. Virtually every auditioning First Lady in recent decades has been the focus of this media-manufactured debate. During the 1992 presidential campaign, the media made hay over the so-called "Hillary Factor," as opponents of Bill Clinton waxed eloquent about the perils of admitting an independent, successful woman with an activist bent into the White House's East Wing. This year, it is Heinz Kerry's turn. As a prominent and successful woman, she's the kind of political wife that draws heightened scrutiny during a political campaign. "It happened to Geraldine Ferraro's husband, to Hillary Clinton, to Arnold Schwarzenegger's wife," says Cliff Shannon, the former chief- of-staff for Senator John Heinz. It may explain why Laura Bush got off relatively easy. She recently told USA Today, "I don't think I got as much attention when we ran last time as [Heinz Kerry] has." And she's right. The last two women to vie for first spouse, Bush and Tipper Gore, had both long since left their careers -- as a librarian and a photojournalist, respectively -- by the time they hit the campaign trail in 2000. No current career, one less stone for political opponents to unturn. Hillary Clinton's liberal activism was the focus of Republican attacks in 1992; this year, it is Heinz Kerry's philanthropic work. She is the chair of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, and a board member of the Vira I. Heinz Endowment, reportedly overseeing assets of over one billion dollars. Leading the attempts to give her the "Hillary treatment" thus far is the Capital Research Center (CRC), a conservative, Washington-based organization that studies the spending of nonprofits. Grant Oliphant, who served as Senator John Heinz's press secretary and is now executive director of the Heinz Endowments, says that the CRC has "aggressively tried to drum up interest in the notion it would be a conflict of interest to be an active philanthropist and also be First Lady." In April, CRC published a report titled "The Heinz Foundations and The Kerry Campaign" which concluded ominously: The United States has never had a wealthy spouse overshadow its president. But Teresa Heinz Kerry leads and funds philanthropic foundations and she sits on the board of directors of highly political nonprofit groups that receive her foundations' support and that can advance or frustrate the policies of her husband, should he become president. That's unprecedented political power. More public scrutiny of Heinz Kerry's public role is in order. While there is still time. The reality is that people on both ends of the political spectrum have publicly lauded Heinz Kerry for her philanthropic activities in western Pennsylvania. According to the Boston Globe, her foundations have poured nearly $200 million into an array of environmental causes, including large sums for cleanup projects in western Pennsylvania and a riverfront park in Pittsburgh -- all of which have helped turn that region into an environmental model for the rest of the nation. Oliphant, who served as Heinz Kerry's speechwriter and spokesman, is confident that attempts to paint her as an out-of-control liberal will fail, if only because of her Republican background. "Teresa comes out of a Republican past, she believes strongly in fiscal responsibility and sort of a more open approach to social issues which was consistent with moderate Republicanism for a long, long time," he says. Contrary to what the CRC may claim, Heinz Kerry's strong support for the environment is not part of her liberal agenda but dates back to her days as a Republican senator's wife, when she reportedly helped persuade John Heinz to support the 1990 Clean Air Act. In fact, Heinz Kerry was a registered Republican until January 2003. And when her first husband died in a plane crash in 1991, she considered making a run to fill his seat. Myra Gutin, a professor of communications at Rider University in New Jersey and the author of a book on first ladies, says, "I found it fascinating that [Heinz Kerry] seemed to be a rather popular Republican wife when she was married to John Heinz. And now she's being painted as somebody ... a little bit out there, somehow untrustworthy." Republicans have at times gone to ludicrous lengths to distort the image of an opponent's wife in the past. During the 1992 presidential campaign, conservatives "found an old article [Hillary had] written for a law journal years before in which she said in certain cases children should be emancipated. They translated that into [saying] she was anti-marriage, anti-children." Gutin has no doubt that Heinz Kerry's words and actions will be the target of such creative interpretation. Apart from attacks by her husband's political adversaries, every potential First Lady also has to grapple with the caricatured persona the media creates for every major player in an election cycle. With Heinz Kerry, journalists seem to have zeroed in on her tendency to be "candid" -- or alternatively blunt, outspoken, or impolitic. "[Teresa] is forthright in sharing her opinions. She really doesn't believe in beating around the bush," says Oliphant. "In our culture which purports to want all of those things for public figures it's supremely ironic to me that whenever someone like that comes along they get the daylights beat out of them for just those attributes." According to conventional press wisdom, her candor combined with her seeming foreign-ness (she was born in Mozambique and speaks Portuguese-accented English) makes her seem a little, well, different, which could be a thorn in her husband's side. Take, for example, Newsweek's title of its May 3rd cover story: "Is John Kerry's Heiress Wife a Loose Cannon or Crazy Like a Fox?" Heinz Kerry has tackled the criticism head-on, often pointing out to reporters that being outspoken is seldom viewed as a disadvantage in men. She also told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette that as an immigrant she relishes her freedom to be open in her adopted country: If you say 'speaking your mind,' it can sound like I'm coming out to make a point. But if you say 'enjoying your freedom.' it means I can say something without going to jail or losing a job. I think that's something that the press misses when they say, 'She's too frank, or she's too honest.' I'm enjoying that. I'm enjoying the freedom. Oliphant sees three factors at play in the negative attention received by women in politics, particularly potential first ladies, today. "The first thing that's changed -- and I'd say Hillary was the first to really be the victim of it -- there are no limits anymore in terms of political attacks," he says. Next is the Internet, according to Oliphant, which makes it easy to launch disinformation campaigns against political foes. Finally, there is our culture's ambivalent relationship with powerful women. Much like Hillary Clinton, Oliphant says, Heinz Kerry "is willing to stand up for things she believes in, speak out for things she believes in and she has strong credentials as a professional and wants to be taken seriously even if she's the president's wife." An expert on women in politics who did not want to be quoted by name, agrees: "Women who are strong leaders and a little out of the mold or role, it's like: target. [Teresa's] in a very contentious environment, so it's going to be no-holds-barred." However, while the CRC will undoubtedly continue to call for "more public scrutiny" of Teresa Heinz Kerry, any attempt to give her the "Hillary treatment" will be that much more difficult, if only because her admirers include conservatives like Shannon. As he puts it, "She's smart, complex, has a lot of resources, and to her credit has spent the larger part of her life either raising three good children or devoting herself to causes she believes in. If that's a signal of evil, well, then I say may we have more of it." The Konformist must make a request for donations via Paypal, at Paypal.com. If you can and desire, please feel free to send money to help The Konformist through the following email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit: http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/konformist Or, e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the subject: "I NEED 2 KONFORM!!!" (Okay, you can use something else, but it's a kool catch phrase.) 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