Dialogue & Initiative 2012 The new annual edition of our journal of discussion and analysis is now out. More than 130 pages, it includes 13 articles related to the Occupy! movement, as well as seven others vital to study in this election year. Cost is $10 plus shipping. Or get one by becoming a sustainer. Click the title to buy it directly.
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Blog of the Week:
The AFL-CIO Site for Dealing with the 'Lame Duck' Congress
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Lost Writings of SDS..
Revolutionary Youth the the New Working Class: The Praxis Papers, the Port Authority Statement, the RYM Documents and other Lost Writings of SDS
Edited by Carl Davidson 
Changemaker, 273pp, $22.50
For the full contents, click the link and view 'Preview' under the cover graphic.
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By Randy Shannon, CCDS
"Everyone has the right to work, to free of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."
- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948
I. Introduction
The "Great Recession" that began in 2007 has caused the greatest percent of job losses since the Great Depression of 1929. This crisis is the end of an era of unrestrained 'neo-liberal' capitalism that became public policy during the Reagan administration. The crisis marks a new level of instability with the growth of a global financial elite that targeted US workers and our trade unions after World War II.
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...In a new and updated 2nd Edition
Capitalism may well collapse under its own excesses, but what would one propose to replace it? Margaret Thatcher's mantra was TINA...There Is No Alternative. David Schweickart's vision of "Economic Democracy" proposes a serious alternative. Even more fundamentally, it opens the door to thinking about alternatives. His may or may not turn out to be the definitive "successor system," but he is a leader in breaking out of the box. |
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Quick Links...
CCDS Discussion |
Sex and the Automobile in the Jazz Age
By Peter Ling in History Today: 'Brothels on wheels' thundered the moralists but Peter Ling argues the advent of mass motoring in the 1920s was only one of the changes in social and group relationships that made easier the pursuit of carnal desire.
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 A Memoir of the 1960s by Paul KrehbielAutumn Leaf Press, $25.64 | | Shades of Justice Video: Bringing Down a President, Ending a War |
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Carl Davidson's Latest Book:
New Paths to Socialism
Essays on Mondragon, Marx, Gramsci and the Green and Solidarity Economies |
Solidarity Economy:What It's All About
Edited by Jenna Allard, Carl Davidson and Julie Matthaei
Buy it here...
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Voices from the Underground Press of the 1960s, Part 2- Foreword by Susan Brownmiller
- Preface by Ken Wachsberger
$37.50 + $6 shipping
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Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement
By Don Hamerquist
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An Invitation to CCDSers and Friends...
 'Rainbow Coalition' of Voters Win It for Obama
We're the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism...Do you have friends who should see this? Pass it on...Do you have a blog of your own? Others you love to read every day? Well, this is a place where you can share access to them with the rest of your comrades. Just pick your greatest hits for the week and send them to us at carld717@gmail.com!
Most of all, it's urgent that you defend voter rights, plan for 2014 races now, oppose austerity, make solidarity with the Occupy! movement and end the wars! We're doing more than ever, and have big plans. So pay your dues, make a donation and become a sustainer. Do it Now! Check the link at the bottom...
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A Memo to the White House on 'Grand Bargains'
By Lynn Stuart Parramore
Alternet.org
November 7, 2012 - Voting patterns told a story yesterday, Nov 6.. And here is the story they told: working people want a president who works for them.
Political scientist Thomas Ferguson looked at the exit poll in today's New York Times and found that something significant had changed since '08. The split between Democrats and Republicans along income lines has grown. In a statement released by the Institute for Public Accuracy [3], Ferguson wrote:
"Obama's vote percentage declines in straight line fashion as income rises. He got 63 percent of the votes of Americans making less than $30,000 and 57 percent of those making between $30,000 and $50,000. Above $50,000, the Other America kicks in. Romney won 53 percent of the votes of Americans making between $50,000 and $100,000 and 54 percent of the votes of Americans making above $100,000."
By contrast, in 2008, the Democrats ran essentially even with the Republicans among Americans making over not only more than $50,000, but more than $100,000. Among Americans making less than $50,000, the Democratic percentages of the vote were high in 2008, but not as lopsided as they were this year.
What does it mean? For starters, it means that struggling people have seen right through the faux populism of the GOP, and they know that between the two parties, the Democrats are slightly more likely to stand up against the dangerous income inequality, wage depression and shredding of social safety nets the Republican Party has embraced. And it means that the Occupy Wall Street movement has enhanced awareness of a system that redistributes income toward the top -- the 99 percent know it, and so do the rich.
Remember, it was the phony debt ceiling debate that set the stage for the Occupy protests to take off. Americans saw plainly that those who protect the interests of the rich were willing to reach into the pockets of ordinary people suffering miserably in a downturn. The dishonest story about how the economy must be "saved" by pinching nickels and dimes from future retirees, sick people, children, and other vulnerable Americans clearly has not fooled everyone. Yesterday's vote means that ordinary folks trying to get by have chosen the leader they think is most likely to protect their interests - and they are very, very interested in Social Security and Medicare.
The president should heed the message voters sent as negotiations for a so-called "Grand Bargain" (what white-collar criminologist Bill Black has more properly called a "Grand Betrayal") heat up in the face of another phony crisis meant to give the fatcats a new shot at redistributing income upward....(Click title for more)
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By Peter Drier
Huffington Post
The names at the top of the ballot yesterday were Obama and Romney, but the real winners and losers are the constituents and causes who did battle on the ground and on the airwaves, and whose lives and livelihoods will be influenced by what happens over the next four years and beyond.
The winners include:
The Labor Movement: Unions mobilized their members and money in key swing states on behalf of liberal Democrats, including Obama and Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin, and many others. In California, labor helped bring out more than 40,000 volunteers and scored two major victories in California -- the defeat of the deceptive anti-union corporate power grab, Proposition 32, and the win for progressive tax ballot measure, Proposition 30. Although unions now represent only 12 percent of American workers, they still remain the most powerful and effective force for liberal issues and Democratic candidates. Union members and their family members turned out in high numbers and voted overwhelmingly for Democrats. Union loyalists also knocked on doors and staffed phone-banks on behalf of candidates and causes that support working families. Thanks to unions and their allies among community groups and faith-based organizations, the lowest-paid workers in Albuquerque, San Jose, and Long Beach will receive pay increases after voters approved ballot proposals Tuesday that will raise the minimum wage for workers in each city. Citywide minimum wage increases were passed in Albuquerque and San Jose, while Long Beach voters approved an ordinance establishing a higher minimum wage for hotel workers in the city.
Women: Women voters favored Obama over Romney by a 55 percent to 43 percent margin, according to preliminary exit polls. Liberal and progressive women candidates made an incredibly strong showing in the swing Senate and House races, notably Warren in Massachusetts and Baldwin in Wisconsin. Other women Dems -- Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Mazie Hirono in Hawaii -- replaced males who decided to retire. All Democratic incumbent female senators up for re-election this year won, including Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Dianne Feinstein of California and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Currently, 17 women -- a record -- serve in the Senate. Even with two them retiring (Republicans Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas), the overall number will increase when the new Senate takes office in January. Another milestone: In New Hampshire, women now hold every key office: Senators Kelly Ayotte (a Republican) and Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat), newly-elected Gov. Maggie Hassan (a Dem), and Dems Carol Shea-Porter and Ann Kuster, who wrested New Hampshire's two House seats from incumbent Republicans. Obama's victory guarantees that Romney won't have an opportunity to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who would have overturned Roe v. Wade. So, congrats to Emily's List, Planned Parenthood, and (again) the labor movement for helping make this happen.
Gays and Lesbians: Voters in Maine, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington approved ballot measures supporting same-sex marriage. Cong. Tammy Baldwin -- who beat former Gov. Tommy Thompson yesterday -- will be the first open lesbian in the Senate. The era in which conservatives can use anti-gay ballot measures and rhetoric as "wedge" issues to mobilize conservative voters is almost over. Voters under 40 are now overwhelmingly in favor of gay rights and many voters over 40 are shifting their views and their voting behavior. Preliminary exit polls reveal that nearly six-in-ten Latino voters (59 percent) said their state should legally recognize same-sex marriage. All this is a remarkable change in public opinion and voting behavior in less than a decade -- a real tribute to the gay rights movement and to the American people.
Latinos: Strong support from Latino votes helped Obama win in key swing states. About 69 percent of Latinos voted for Obama, roughly the same margin as voted for him four years ago. (This helped compensate for the decline in support for Obama among white men from 41 percent in 2008 to 36 percent this year). Obama made a big effort to win the estimated 24 million eligible Hispanic voters. Immigrant rights and Latino political groups worked hard for Obama's election. In Nevada, for example, the Culinary Workers union and Latino groups joined forces to target Latino voters for Obama, who won that key swing state. Even in states that Obama lost, particularly in the South, the growing Latino vote will make a difference in the future. In Texas, for example, Obama won just 40 percent of the total votes but won 57 percent of Latinos, the fastest-growing demographic group in the state. All this makes it likely that comprehensive immigration reform and passage of the federal DREAM Act will gain momentum, and that even some Republicans in Congress might feel sufficient pressure to support these initiatives.
Enviros: Environmental groups like the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters played a role in forging Democratic victories. Obama's victory and the increase in liberal Dems in the House and Senate means that enviros will have a voice in shaping issues over the next few years.
Occupy Wall Street: Let's give Occupy Wall Street a high-five. In September 2011, a handful of activists took over Zuccotti Park in New York, then the movement spread to every city in the country. Although OWS was forced after a few months to disperse physically, its ideas have continued to resonate with the American public. It changed the nation's conversation at dinner tables, workplaces, and newsrooms. It helped frame the political debate in both the Republican and Democratic primaries by focusing public and media attention on the widening disparities of income, wealth, and power. Even in the GOP primaries, Romney's opponents focused on his Bain Capital experience as a job-killing out-sourcing plutocrat. Democrats took advantage of the changing mood to focus attention on corporate power and the billionaires behind the Tea Party and the new right-wing Super PACs. There's no guarantee that this will lead to a new wave of much-needed government regulation of Wall Street and big business, but it sets the table for activists to push that progressive agenda.
African Americans and Jews: Ho-hum. Americans elected a Black president for the second time. Let's not forget what an historic milestone that is! African American voters, who comprise 13 percent of the electorate, showed their loyalty to Obama, giving him 93 percent of their votes. Jews, who comprise only about 2 percent of all voters nationwide, were the next most loyal demographic group for Obama. They gave 70 percent of their votes to the young president. This was a slight decline from four years ago, but Republicans' predictions that Jews would abandon Obama proved to be little more than a fantasy. In key swing states like Ohio and (likely but still-counting) Florida, African Americans and Jews' support for Obama helped lift him over the victory threshold, and also helped Dems and liberals win victories for Congress, State Houses, and city offices around the country.
Who were the big losers?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce:. Money can buy TV ads, but it can't you love. The Chamber and its allies in other big business lobby groups poured or directed outrageous sums of money to help Romney and other Republican candidates. For sure, corporate-backed campaign cash helped some GOP candidates prevail, but overall the Big Business lobby took it on the chin on Tuesday....(Click title for more)
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By Bill Ayers
Good.IS
Dear President Obama: Congratulations!
I'm sure this is a moment you want to savor, a time to take a deep breath, get some rest, hydrate, regain your balance, and take a long walk in the sunshine. It might be as well a good time to reflect, rethink, recharge, and perhaps reignite. I sincerely hope that it is, and I urge you to put education on your reflective agenda.
 The landscape of "educational reform" is currently littered with rubble and ruin and wreckage on all sides. Sadly, your administration has contributed significantly to the mounting catastrophe. You're not alone: The toxic materials have been assembled as a bipartisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a merry band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad.
Whether inept or clueless or malevolent-who's to say?-these titans have worked relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their particular brand of school change as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan-endorsed in your efforts by Newt Gingrich, Paul Ryan, and a host of reactionary politicians and pundits-now bear a major responsibility for that agenda.
The three most trumpeted and simultaneously most destructive aspects of the united "school reform" agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person through a test score. While there's absolutely no substantive proof that this approach improves schooling for children, it chugs along unfazed-fact-free, faith-based reform at its core, resting firmly on rank ideology rather than any evidence whatsoever.
The three pillars of this agenda are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: Education is a commodity like any other-a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver-that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads.
It's rather easy to begin to think that "downsizing" the least productive units, "outsourcing" and "privatizing" a space that was once public, is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measure and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the "outcomes" (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; "zero tolerance" for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools-but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials (they call it "accountability")-is logical and level-headed.
I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral.
Education is a fundamental human right, not a product. In a free society education is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it's constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all. Further, while schooling in every totalitarian society on earth foregrounds obedience and conformity, education in a democracy emphasizes initiative, courage, imagination, and entrepreneurship in order to encourage students to develop minds of their own.
When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It's no wonder that cheating scandals are rampant in our country and fraudulent claims are commonplace.
Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education as the Secretary of Education begins to look and act like a program officer for some charity rather than the leading educator for all children: It's one state against another, this school against that one, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across the hall.
You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you've supported-in effect-putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up student loans is but one cautionary tale.
You've said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to consider that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can't have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and school tourists.
You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.
You should certainly pause and reconsider. What's done is done, but you can demonstrate wisdom and true leadership if you pull back now and correct these dreadful mistakes.
In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores).
Good enough for you, good enough for the privileged, then it must be good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere-a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, "is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy."
Sincerely,
William Ayers
Want to make sure this letter gets heard-and acted upon-send it to Secretary Duncan.
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Michio Kaku: Can Nanotechnology Create Utopia?
 | | Six Minutes on Technology Creating Utopia |
Dr. Kaku addresses the question of the possibility of utopia, the perfect society that people have tried to create throughout history. These dreams have not been realized because we have scarcity. However, now we have nanotechnology, and with nanotechnology, perhaps, says Dr. Michio Kaku, maybe in 100 years, we'll have something called the replicator, which will create enormous abundance.
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By Emily Heffter
Seattle Times
A Socialist candidate and Occupy Seattle activist who had more than a quarter of the vote in her race against state House Speaker Frank Chopp has set her sights on next year's city elections. Kshama Sawant says she is recruiting a slate of Socialist candidates to run for Seattle City Council and mayor next year.
Though Sawant, a Central Seattle Community College lecturer, lost to Chopp by a lot, she did better than past contenders. Kim Verde, a Republican, lost to the longtime Speaker of the House in 2008 and 2010, each time with about 13 percent of the vote. Tuesday night, Sawant had 27 percent of the vote.
 Sawant first filed to run for the Position 1 seat in the 43rd, against state Rep. Jamie Pedersen. She came in second, qualifying for the general. But she ended up coming in second as a write-in candidate for Position 2, aided by The Stranger when it endorsed her as a write-in alternative to Chopp, and then wrote stories about her.
She decided to run against Chopp, and sued successfully to have her party preference, Socialist Alternative, on the ballot.
Sawant will kick off her next political project at City Hall at a post-election forum Thursday night entitled "Where do Progressives Go From Here?" She is a panelist, along with Chopp and Tim Harris, the director of Real Change. The event is at 7 p.m. at the University Temple Methodist Church, 1415-43rd Street NE.
In a statement, Sawant said: "We achieved this election result as an openly Socialist campaign that was largely ignored by the corporate media, with no corporate donations, on a shoe string budget. Occupy gave a voice to working people's rage at Wall Street, and our campaign gave voice to mass anger at the corporate politicians. It shows the potential to build a powerful left electoral challenge to the two corporate parties."
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By Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
India's Economic and Political Weekly
Nov 10, 2012 - Three Marxist political parties in Pakistan are coming together to merge into one party of the left. In retreat for many decades, this is an important fi rst step for the revival of left-wing politics in Pakistan and strengthening the democratic politics of the country.A participant in this unity move explains the context and the challenges for the new united party of the left in Pakistan.
 It is rare for Pakistan to be in the news for something other than suicide bombs, Hindu and Jew-hating mullahs and a very peculiar (and vulnerable) type of postcolonial democracy. A plethora of institutions, classes, ethnic groups and prominent individuals animates narratives of Pakistani modernity, most notably the omnipresent military and those who would challenge the men in khaki, including ethno-nationalists like those presently leading an insurgency in Balochistan.
Conspicuous by its absence in almost all such accounts is the Pakistani left. Even informed observers of Pakistan might have little or no knowledge of leftist forces in the country, at least in the contemporary period. Students of history will know that the Pakistani ruling class visited a great deal of repression upon leftists during the cold war when the country was the frontline against the Soviet bloc. Despite having to operate in extremely dire circumstances, the Pakistani left exercised not insignificant influence on the polity, and society more generally, until the 1980s.
Since the end of the cold war, however, the little space that the left previously garnered has, more or less, frittered away. Of course this has been the fate of the left in many countries. With the exception of the experiments in "21st century socialism" being effected in Latin America, the left continues to suffer from a crisis of identity in the face of changes in the global political economy associated with neo-liberalism.
The retreat of the Pakistani left has arguably been more damning and sustained than most, even if one limits the comparative frame to south Asia. It is, for instance, an uncomfortable truth that a majority of the more than 100 million Pakistanis below the age of 25 do not even know that there is a political left in its country, or indeed even that there is a competing ideology to the left of the dominant intellectual mainstream. The common sense notions that do exist are carry-overs from the cold war inasmuch as the term "communist" in Pakistan still connotes an irreligious world view.
Lighting the Lamp
There are, however, glimmers of hope amidst the relative gloom. On 11 November, three existing parties of the left - Labour Party Pakistan, Awami Party Pakistan and Workers Party Pakistan - will come together to form a new party with the goal of building a viable alternative to mainstream parties. This merger reflects recognition within leftist circles, both of the growing contradictions within the prevailing structure of power and the need for unity and maturity so as to take advantage of these contradictions....(Click title for more)
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 | Festival of Lights: Indo-Guyanese Culture and Conflict
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By Christine N. Ziemba
Paste Magazine
Oct 29, 2012 - Writer-director Shundell Prasad explores the little-known Indo-Guyanese culture in her first feature, Festival of Lights. Through the story of a troubled teenage girl and her journey to discover her family's history, Prasad tries to call attention to the larger socio-economic and political issues that displaced immigrants face in both the U.S. and other countries.
Those familiar with the South American country of Guyana, mostly associate it with cult leader Jim Jones and the People's Temple massacre in 1978. But Festival of Lights, set just a few years after Jonestown, refreshingly never touches the topic, instead keeping focus on the travails of Guyana's largest ethnic group.
The film opens with a joyous Hindu celebration of Diwali, the five-day festival of lights that commemorates the return of Lord Rama from exile and the vanquishing of the demon-king, Ravana. It's an important festival for the Indian community, who first arrived in Guyana in the 1800s as indentured servants on sugar cane plantations. Yet, despite their independence a century later, their descendants are still treated as second-class citizens, subject to poverty and ethnic conflicts with the Afro-Guyanese people.
Celebrating Diwali is a young family: Vishnu (Jimi Mistry), his wife Meena (Ritu Singh Pande) and their young daughter, Reshma. Their happiness is short-lived because of the violence that plagues their neighborhood. When trying to emigrate to the U.S. legally, an immigration officer discovers that Vishnu, an idealistic immigration crusader-a revolutionary-has failed to disclose a previous deportation from Canada. The officer offers the family a choice: With a sponsorship from Meena's brother, she and Reshma can leave for America now, or they can reapply as a family again in five years. To ensure a better life for their daughter, the parents choose the former option.
At first, Meena struggles in New York, starting a new life in a foreign country without her husband. Fast-forward a dozen years, and Meena's married her boss Adem (Aidan Quinn), raising their daughter, Sandy, in comfort and luxury. Unfortunately, teenage Reshma has not adjusted as well.
Played by Guyananese-Canadian actress Melinda Shankar (best known for a role on Desgrassi: The Next Generation), Reshma is a hellion-an obnoxious New York teen who parties too much with the wrong crowd. She despises her mother for betraying Vishnu (whom she hasn't seen him since leaving Guyana) and decides to go back to Guyana to find her father, unraveling secrets about his political background and her family's past.
Prasad's film is rife with symbolism: It's probably not a coincidence that Reshma's father is named after the Hindu god Vishnu, protector of the universe, and that the themes of Diwali mirror the family's own journey across countries and cultures.
Unfortunately, the exploration of politics and relationships aren't fully fleshed out under Prasad's unsure direction. The story is uneven, getting too caught up in Reshma's typical American teenage hijinks, while rushing through more interesting scenes set in Guyana. It seems much too easy for Reshma to locate her father, considering she's an 18-year-old girl navigating another country's political system. (This is the mid-'90s-Google wasn't around yet.) There are also a number of throwaway scenes that do nothing to reveal character motivation or move the action along.
Acting by some of the younger members of the supporting cast is amateurish at best, but there are flashes of brilliance among the lead performances that are brimming with emotion. In a key scene towards the ends of the film, Meena (with Adem nearby) sees Vishnu for the first time in years. There's very little dialogue, but the look of regret, longing and disappointment shared between the former couple is heartbreaking-if only there were more moments like it throughout the film.
Director: Shundell Prasad Writer: Shundell Prasad Starring: Melinda Shankar, Jimi Mistry, Aidan Quinn, Ritu Singh Pande and Stephen Hadeed Jr. Release Date: Nov. 2, 2012
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 | Neil Young-Psychedelic Pill
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Psychedelic Pill Reprise
By David Fricke
Rolling Stone
Oct 30, 2012 - For Neil Young, the Sixties never ended. The music, memories and changes haunt his best songs and records like bittersweet perfume: vital, endlessly renewing inspirations that are also constant, enraging reminders of promises broken and ideals betrayed.
 In "Twisted Road," one of eight new songs sprawled across this turbulent two-CD set, Young recalls, in a brilliantly mixed metaphor, the first time he heard Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone": "Poetry rolling offhis tongue/Like Hank Williams chewing bubble gum." And Young tells you what he did with the impact. "I felt that magic and took it home/Gave it a twist and made it mine," he sings over Crazy Horse's rough-country swagger, as if the marvel of that time and his dreams are still close enough to touch.
So are the mess and his dismay. Psychedelic Pill is Young's second album of 2012 with the Horse, his perfectly unpolished garage band of 43 years, and it has the roiling honesty and brutal exuberance of their best records together. This one opens with a special perversity: the thumping 27-minute fuzz-box trance of "Driftin' Back." Young, on lead guitar, spits feedback and throttles his whammy bar for long, mad stretches over rhythm guitarist Frank Sampedro's trusty two-chord support and the rock-infantry march of bassist Billy Talbot and drummer Ralph Molina. Every six or so minutes, Young's cracked yelp cuts through the tumult, spiking the flashback in the dreamy chorus with a contemporary disgust for tech-giant greed and the lousy sound of MP3s, whose shitty fidelity is "blockin' out my anger/Blockin' out my thoughts."
There is, in fact, no mistaking Young's mood. For most of its near-90 minutes, Psychedelic Pill is an infuriated trip: long tracks of barbed-guitar jamming and often surrealistic ire ("Gonna get me a hip-hop haircut," he sneers, to no apparent sense, in "Driftin' Back") interrupted by short bursts of warming bliss. It is a weirdly compelling seesaw. "Psychedelic Pill" is a Day-Glo-angel twist on "Cinnamon Girl" coated, in the first of two versions here, with jet-engine-like phasing. But then comes "Ramada Inn," 17 minutes of broiling guitars and stressed a ection in which Young examines a love that has somehow stayed alive long after the high times turned into routine and basic daily needs....(Click title for more)
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Become a CCDS member today!
 The
time is long past for 'Lone Rangers'. Being a socialist by your self is
no fun and doesn't help much. Join CCDS today--$36 regular, $48
household and $18 youth.
Better yet, beome a sustainer at $20 per month,
and we'll send you a copy of Jack O'Dell's new book, 'Climbing Jacobs
Ladder,' drawing on the lessons of the movement in the South in the
1950s and 1960s.
Solidarity, Carl Davidson, CCDS |
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