How to Murder a Major News Network

/ greenpete58 / 9 Comments

The United States has a document of ideas called the U.S. Constitution. Not many Americans might know about it. But it’s been around since 1789. It includes 27 appended amendments, the first ten of which are called the Bill of Rights.

Our Constitution outlines how our government is structured (currently, three independent branches: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial). It instructs how government will operate and specifies what it can and cannot do. The very first amendment to the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech. Constitutional scholars say it is our most important right, as it guarantees the right to express oneself, including protest; to freedom of worship or non-worship; and to free and independent reportage, including press that is critical of the government.

The U.S. Constitution – with its Bill of Rights – is very imperfect, as are all constitutions throughout the world. But for 237 years it has served America well.

America. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Last week, veteran news correspondent Scott Pelley was sacked from the legendary CBS news program 60 Minutes. He dared to challenge recent firings of other staffers. He had also objected to producers’ attempts to insert right-wing bias into broadcasts, and a proposed CBS policy to…read these next words closely…allow guests to select their own interviewers.

Journalist Scott Pelley

A timeline:

Fall 2024: Donald Dump (R) wimps out of pre-election interview with 60 Minutes, soon after wimping out on second debate with rival presidential candidate Kamala Harris (D)

October 2024: Dump files $10 billion lawsuit against CBS for 60 Minutes interview with Harris. Claims interview made Harris look “more presidential” than him (Ed: not a difficult thing to do)

October 2024: as he already did with ABC, NBC, and CNN, Dump suggests CBS should lose its license (Ed: he notably excuses conservative propaganda outlet FOX News from his wrath)

October 2024: in an all-caps post, Dump claims CBS is “THREAT TO DEMOCRACY” (Ed: either the insurrectionist and convicted felon feels he himself is actually good for democracy, or he confuses that word with “meritocracy”)

Nov 2024: Dump taps arch-conservative and Dump ally Brendan Carr to head Federal Communications Commission, hoping he will punish TV networks for negative coverage of him (Ed: since the FCC is an independent agency overseen by Congress, why is its chairman hand-picked by Dump? Just asking)

Dump enabler Brendan Carr

Feb 2025: CBS asks for Dump’s personal financial info after he increases lawsuit to $20 billion (Ed: guess the poor persecuted bully is hurting for money; and how can you sue someone because of a supposedly favorable interview of someone else? Just asking)

April 2025: Dump has meltdown after a 60 Minutes show related to Ukraine war and Dump’s bombastic threats to take over Greenland (Ed: perhaps Dump should stick to watching his favorite shitshow, FOX News?)

April 2025: 60 Minutes Executive Producer Bill Owens resigns over lack of journalistic independence following repeated attacks by Dump

July 2025: Skydance Media, headed by billionaire and Dump crony David Ellison – like Dump, a product of inherited wealth – acquires Paramount, CBS’s parent company

October 2025: Ellison/Paramount appoint newspaper op-ed columnist Bari Weiss, a major critic of mainstream media and liberal culture and formerly of right-leaning The Free Press, as editor-in-chief of CBS News (Ed: why appoint someone with absolutely no experience in broadcast news? Just asking. But see below)

Murderess-for-hire Bari Weiss

Dec 2025: Weiss erases CBS story on deportation of Venezuelan men to notorious El Salvador prison CECOT because story is critical of Dump administration

May 2026: award-winning journalist Anderson Cooper leaves 60 Minutes, supposedly to spend more time with his family, but while also stressing the importance of editorial independence

May 2026: Weiss fires correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi for her CECOT story that was critical of Dump

May 2026: Weiss fires award-winning journalist Cecilia Vega for her refusal to insert into her stories bias favorable to Dump and the political right

May 2026: Weiss fires 60 Minutes Executive Producer Tanya Simon and hires a flunkie, a young tech journalist named Nick Bilton, who has no experience in TV news

June 2026: 60 Minutes journalist Scott Pelley fired by Bilton after heated meeting where he accuses Bilton of having slim credentials, and Weiss (a no-show at the meeting) of “murdering” the program with indiscriminate firings in effort to curry favor with (certain) politicians

June 2026: former 60 Minutes producer Owens praises former correspondent Pelley, by saying “Scott can smell a fraud from a mile away. I couldn’t be prouder of him.”

Producer Bill Owens

Not that America’s current government cares much about legalistics, or for that matter truth, integrity, and basic human decency…but that’s where we are now: a government now able to control the information its citizens receive. And we all know – or should know – what that portends.

I already wrote about this frightening prospect here. In addition to the calculated emasculation of news on CBS, a perennially popular television comedian has had his show canceled for daring to ridicule the president and speak truth to power. Another has been under continual threat by that same president. And cable news station CNN, now owned by Ellison’s Paramount, is also on the chopping block.

I really doubt they are reading this essay – FOX News, after all, is easier and more fun than thinking – but anyone who voted for this train wreck of a government needs to know this is what they have wrought in their singleminded and simpleminded allegiance to ideology: a U.S. government that is no longer of, by, and for the People. 

It is a government of, by, and for one ignorant, disgustingly wealthy, unprincipled, and mentally unstable man and his extremist cult.

“The Librarians” (2025)

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Someone once said that if you can learn to play a musical instrument, you will have gained a friend for life.

I would posit that the same thing applies to books.

I’ve loved books since I was in pre-school and Mom read me picture stories like Peter Cottontail and Jack and the Beanstalk. After learning to read in first grade, she bought me Easy Reader-series books off the grocery store carousel. Then she drove me to local bookmobiles so I could sign out books like The Mouse and the Motorcycle and The Borrowers.

My favorite school day was Book Fair Day. Hundreds of shiny new books for purchase, spread out on multiple tables in the library. For this kid, it was every bit as heart-pumping as having a dollar to blow inside a candy store. We wrote our names on order forms near each book, and the goodies would be delivered weeks later. My anticipation reached Christmas Eve heights.

In high school, I’d have my study halls in the school library. Here, I read entire novels, ranging from Kenneth Grahame‘s phantasmic The Wind in the Willows to Truman Capote‘s harrowing In Cold Blood. Right now I’m reading a biography of Simón Bolívar, who liberated South America from Spain. Thomas Wolfe‘s classic, Look Homeward, Angel, is on the docket. (I just visited his childhood home in Asheville, North Carolina.)

It’s an understatement to say, reading books has enhanced my life by broadening my mind and horizons. They’ve done the same thing for millions of others lucky enough to discover their magic and even healing power.

As most everyone now knows, the United States is experiencing an existential crisis. In only a few decades, or maybe just a few years, America has undergone a sea change in its value system. Success over truth. Strength over compassion. Power over justice. Supernatural over science. Or maybe this corrupt value system was alteady there, and only now is there a spotlight on it. I’ve tried to document many of the disturbing developments in this blog. One thing I’ve yet to talk about, at least in detail, is our epidemic of censorship and book banning. But this is happening now, as I write, on a grand scale.

Recently – coincidentally, the same night as the final broadcast of The Stephen Colbert Show (another casualty of fascism and the assault on free speech) – I watched a very good documentary called The Librarians, directed by Kim A. Snyder.

The Librarians profiles five librarians whose libraries were targeted by far-right politicians, school boards, and private citizens. Their libraries carried books which the attackers deemed controversial. In some cases, the librarians themselves were attacked. One of them received death threats. Another was summarily fired for no apparent reason other than objecting to indiscriminate removal of certain books.

All the librarians profiled here chose their career paths because they love books and merely wanted to share that love. They never imagined they would have to fight fascism in vicious town hall meetings, have their tires slashed, and be referred to as “c- -t” in hate-filled emails.

One might think the books targeted were done so for being excessively violent – not that even violent books, like In Cold Blood and similar, should not be protected by the Constitution. But the culprit, oddly (though maybe not so oddly for America), is not violence. Most were targeted because they deal with sexuality and race. Not too surprisingly, most of the attackers are militant conservative Christians…proudly wearing America’s colors as they hypocritically try to repress freedom of speech and shatter the wall between state and church. Most live in the American South (the so-called “Bible Belt”). The school boards and politicians are assisted by oxymoronically-named Moms for Liberty, a group formed to fight COVID masking requirements and vaccination recommendations, but who shifted their right-wing activism once the virus was under control.

Most books in The Librarians were yanked from school libraries. Repeatedly, one hears the attackers using hot-button words like “pornographic” and “grooming.” Authors and librarians are, in the attackers’ opinions, “grooming” young people for sexual deviancy because certain books deal candidly with LGBTQ issues. They are evidently “pornographic” for that reason, and for – believe it or not – displays of nudity. A graphic version of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl has an illustration of classic-antiquity statues of naked people. Art Spiegelman’s Maus shows naked mice being herded toward execution.

(But is the issue here really nudity? Or is nudity merely one of many diversionary tactics, smokescreens for a deeper and more insidious campaign? Perhaps a campaign by the extreme right against knowledge and critical thinking, skills necessary to question and challenge authority?)

Several people in The Libraries are particularly memorable. A black pastor appears before a school board, eloquently expressing shock and outrage that black history books have been removed, while the racist, all-white board sits in dumb silence. A courageous gay man tearfully pleads that LGBTQ books not be banned, while his fanatical Christian mother, who has rejected him, hovers nearby, robotically aiming her cellphone to record everything he says. A Texas school board member has a change of heart after discovering her district is merely one part of a statewide, highly politicized, and heavily financed campaign of suppression. One librarian (spoiler alert) speaks while shrouded in shadow, but steps into the light at the end of the film because she’s tired of cowering in fear, and decides to face the demon, literally, head-on.

And there’s the sad, surreal spectacle of high school students pleading before rigid, puritannical adults against suppression of ideas.

With everything that by now has gone under the bridge, there is no longer any question that Donald Trump is the most despicable public figure America has ever seen, based on policy, behavior, and any other yardstick one might choose to measure him by. However, he has done one good thing: he’s given a green light to the darkest impulses that have roiled under the American myth for 250 years. He’s drawn out the pus underlying this country’s festering sores. Our infected wounds can do one of two things: kill us slowly by gangrene, or propel us toward some kind of long healing process.

One of the librarians in The Librarians remarked how the U.S. is now perched on a figurative cliff, and may have already toppled over it. She was interviewed way back in 2025. Maybe earlier.

It is now mid-2026. For me, the termination of our horrifying free fall just can’t come soon enough.

(R.I.P. Sen. Barney Frank, 1940-2026)

The Top 30 Living American Songwriters, Who Aren’t Dead or Non-American

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The New York Times boasts almost 12 million subscribers and has existed over 174 years. It has won 137 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any publication. It has the highest number of college-educated readers amongst daily newspapers, with 56 percent of its audience having at least a bachelor’s degree.

At one time, the paper employed knowledgable music writers. Robert Shelton, a Times writer in the 1960s, was the first major critic to praise a young folksinger named Bob Dylan, more or less jump-starting Dylan’s career. Robert Palmer was a musician, former critic at Rolling Stone, ethnomusicologist, and became the Times‘ first full-time rock critic, from 1976 to 1988. He also wrote the highly regarded blues study, Deep Blues.

Recently – and seemingly like every publication these days trying to generate clicks, comments, readership, and acrimony – the Times published what it considers the 30 greatest living American songwriters. (It’s a mystery why they limited their list to living and American. Obviously, the six critics curating this project don’t know music beyond these parameters. And they supposedly polled 250 industry insiders. That right there gives cause for serious pause.) Regardless, attempting to say this list is not eye-opening would be like calling Deep Throat a chick flick. Before I say anything more, click here for the list. But better take a big swallow first.

Who the fuck are these people?! I realize I’m a curmudgeon, but two-thirds of these supposed greatest have me scratching my bald spot. Most are my kids’ ages, and many appear to be R&B, and not the good kind. Or hip-hop (formerly called rap), which isn’t even music…and I’ve got Jerry Garcia in my corner to back me on that. And it’s true country music isn’t known for imaginative songs, but why are three country artists sandwiched into one slot? Why is this list almost all pop? Aren’t jazz composers also songwriters? How about folk and blues? And why, out of 30 songwriters, are there only five white males? (Don’t answer, I already know why there are only five white males.)

I’ve seen a lot of idiotic “greatest” lists, especially from Rolling Stoned, but this list sits at the bottom of any list of “greatest” lists.

Once again, I feel the need to set the record straight. Here are a few songwriters whom they might have considered including in a top 30 list: Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jackson Browne, John Fogerty, Randy Newman, Roger McGuinn, Chris Hillman, Robbie Krieger, Don Henley, Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, Tom Waits, Rickie Lee Jones, Danny O’Keefe, Lindsay Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Loudon Wainwright III, Jimmy Webb, Narada Michael Walden, Mike Stoller, Jeff Barry, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Donald Fagen, Felix Cavaliere. Missing in action, all.

…James Taylor, John Sebastian, Carly Simon, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Steve Earle, Billy Joel, Todd Rundgren, Paul Groueff, Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith, David Byrne…all in absentia.

…Gamble and Huff, Al Green, Boz Scaggs, Sonny Rollins, Ron Carter, Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Keb’ Mo’, Peter Rowan, Tom Rush, Eric Andersen, Rory Block, Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal…not good enough, I guess.

And maybe the greatest of all: Joni Mitchell. Like Neil Young, Canadian born but with dual citizenship, and she knows more about America – and songwriting – than most of the chipmunks in the Times list ever will.

The New York Times quite obviously is trying to be all things to all people, bending over backwards to be that most corrupted descriptor: “diverse.” But in the process of bending, it has lodged its head up its anal sphincter. We’ve gone from  Stephen Foster, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter to…wait for it…Young Thug. That’s what’s called de-evolution, folks.

I’m profoundly weary of a lot of things these days…U.S. fascism, Artificial Intelligence, non-artificial unintelligence, military flyovers, insurance commercials…but witless lists by smug critics with limited knowledge of both music history and music other than what has charted is right up there. And most shocking of all: brought to you by The New York Times, a legendary newspaper that knows a lot about a lot of things. Except, evidently, music.

Where is the intelligent life in this universe?

Ignobles and Nobel Prize Winners

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Today I’m keeping it shorter, to balance last week’s longer “banality of evil” post. Despite the waterfall of bad news (won’t even touch on U.S. and Virginia Supreme Court decisions), there are some sprinklings of good.

Indivisible.org, of which I’m a member, is putting up billboards alerting communities to the immigrant detention centers now being created across the dis-United States. (See header image.) Due to our many distractions, many Americans are probably still unaware of these abominable Dump/GOP maneuvers, so these billboards literally “drive home” the awful reality. It is beyond sad that private citizens now have to erect billboards to protest their government’s erecting concentration camps. But that is the depth to which we have fallen. If you’d like to help Indivisible with a donation toward their billboard campaign, click this link.

In my home state of Ohio, former three-term Senator Sherrod Brown, also from my hometown of Mansfield and who once assisted me with a health insurance issue, easily won the Democratic primary last week, and early polling shows him two points ahead of Republican Senator Jon Husted, a Dump puppet. Here’s hoping Brown can widen that margin by the time of the general election. Expect the usual smear tactics from the GOP. Brown isn’t afraid to label things what they are. He once called the Republican legislature in Ohio “lunatics” for introducing a bill that would allow people to carry guns into airplane terminals, police buildings, and child day-care facilities. Needless to say, we desperately need more rational and ethical politicians like Brown, if only to battle the toxic Republican mindset.

An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll reveals that Dump’s disapproval ratings recently hit 62 percent, a “record high over both presidential terms.” (One wonders if the other 38 percent might require Louisville Slugger therapy to their collective heads.) Also, ABC filed a formal First Amendment petition against the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on May 7, accusing the agency of targeting its news show The View in a way the filing calls “unprecedented” and “beyond the Commission’s authority.” This comes on the heels of Dump’s weaponizing of the FCC, through FCC chairman and Dump puppet Brendan Carr, in an attempt to stifle the free speech of Dump’s many critics.

Lastly…every so often I wonder what former President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama is making of this American cesspool. I consider him an example of how a leader should behave (hell, with what we’re seeing now, how a mature human should behave.) Like the gentleman he is, Obama expresses his concern – especially over Dump’s war games and his weaponizing of the Justice Department to go after “enemies” like former FBI Director James Comey – but he deliberately chooses not to react to the petulant child’s personal attacks (such as publishing racist AI-created images of Barack and Michelle resembling apes. You heard correctly.) Reason? He wants to keep the high ground and continue as a politician rather than what he politely calls “commentator.” He stresses he doesn’t mind attacks on him, but gets upset when his wife and kids become targets. (Who can blame him. And who would have ever thought our nation could stoop as low as it has.)

That’s it, readers. Thanks for your attention and support in this little corner of cyberspace. And if the fascist now in the White House happens to read this while crapping on his golden throne that was paid for by U.S. taxpayers…Hey Dump, I know how fragile you are, so have fun trying to get the WordPress geeks to shut me down. You won’t succeed, only ’cause WordPress can’t be reached!! (I’ve tried.) As the late, great folk-protest singer Phil Ochs once sang:

When I’ve got something to say, sir, I’m gonna say it now.

The Banality of Evil, A.D. 2026

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This Constitution…can only end in despotism…when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other – Benjamin Franklin

“Banality of evil.” It is a phrase frequently voiced today. What does it mean?

The phrase is from the subtitle of a book by a historian and political theorist named Hannah Arendt. The full title of her book is Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963). It deals with the trial of a major organizer of the Holocaust. Arendt herself had fled Nazi Germany in 1933, not long after being imprisoned by the Gestapo.

I haven’t read the book, though I’ve long known who Adolph Eichmann is. I’m certain Arendt’s book is an excellent study. Maybe I’ll read it, but I’m worried about disturbing details beyond what I already know.

But the book subtitle has new meaning today, when truth, justice, and human decency have become unfashionable for many in the United States. They are unfashionable with power-obsessed leaders who confuse cruelty with strength, a hallmark of fascism; and also, in a country struggling with its dying pseudo-democracy, with voters whose all-consuming ideologies now smother everything else.

We all know what evil looks like. We just saw it in effervescent glory in Minneapolis, postscripted by a chilling, cold-blooded response from Washington. Earlier, we saw it in a neo-Nazi-infested Charlottesville, with its horrifying response from the Oval Office (“There are good people on both sides,” he cackled. “My…God,” a very different president later exclaimed in response, in disgust.) We also see it in Supreme Court decisions that permit votes to be discarded that would otherwise sway a national election; that label unlimited corporate campaign donations a form of “free speech”; that obliterate voting rights to favor one political party; and that allow discrimination of employees for “religious” reasons.

We witness evil, on a daily basis now, spilling from the grotesque, mocking mouth of an intellectually vapid, morally vacant tyrant, the horrifying likes of which few societies have ever seen.

And, of course, with a Congress filled with spineless bobbleheads who will cling to power at all costs. Never mind how much suffering they inflict, or how many creative ways they can poison our few shreds of democracy.

So we all understand evil, even if most of us only view it from a distance. But why is evil “banal”?

When I hear that word, I always think of my university creative writing professor, Daniel Keyes (author of Flowers for Algernon). He often warned us against falling victim to banal passages in our stories. “Banal” means commonplace or clichéd. Unoriginal to the point of being trite or hackneyed. Banality is a common pitfall for writers. This essay probably has its share.

Hannah Arendt wanted to make the point that the evil of Eichmann and other Nazis – murdering millions of people based on their birth circumstances – wasn’t precipitated by madness, or even ideological fanaticism. She says it was the ghastly end point of average people whose minds had been conditioned to do what society expected of them. She says Eichmann, like many “average” people, suffered from a “lack of imagination” and an “inability to think.”

By the time of the death camps, National Socialist Germany had become saturated with anti-Semitism, and disappearing “the other” was acceptable as a method of (supposedly) cleansing society. Warped Third Reich principles had been scorched into people’s brains. Therefore, killing Jews (and other perceived threats to the prevailing society) was “no big deal.” Eichmann and others were merely carrying out their mundane duties…then clocking out after an exhausting day of fulfilling the expectations of their employer (i.e. Hitler, and ultimately, society).

The evil behind the violence and mass murder was commonplace. Normalized. Banal.

A while back I mentioned I’m a member of several volunteer organizations trying to fight what Trump and the Republican Party are doing to America. Every day I receive, at minimum, a half-dozen emails alerting me to some new awful legislation, or unfathomable Supreme Court decision, or some new nonsense His Royal Lowness just blurted:

President believes he knows more than scientists, calls climate crisis a “con job”; Supreme Court eviscerates last barrier to race-based electoral redistricting; Trump and GOP request yet more money for ICE and Border Patrol; more public broadcasting stations shut down due to government defunding; Trump weaponizes Department of Justice to indict Southern Poverty Law Center; Big Oil immunity legislation; Trump purges National Science Board; cancer research funding gutted by Trump Administration; Trump tells Pentagon to prepare for Cuba attack; Hegseth quoted as saying “no quarter, no mercy for (Iranian) enemies”; CBS caves in to Trump; late-night comedian faces firing over Trump joke; president indicts FBI director over Facebook photo; book banning in U.S. at all-time high; warrantless surveillance of Americans; Republicans discuss plans to slash Social Security; Trump spews obscenity, mocks Islam, shrugs shoulders over deaths; constitutionally protected birth citizenship now threatened; warehouses now being converted into inhumane “detention centers”; Trump builds another monument to himself; president compares himself to Jesus…

My wife doesn’t receive these email alerts. Legislation is tedious and news is, today, invariably depressing. I fully agree. So while I daily sign one petition after another, and write WordPress articles about how my nation has embraced fascism, and debate whether or not we should make yet another donation to a worthy cause, she laughs over funny animal videos on YouTube, and the low-IQ woman who was courted by a scammer who posed as fucking Elon Musk.

One or two outrages, once in a while, and people jolt upright and scream figurative or literal obscenities, then demand justice. But daily, over many years?

The blitzkrieg of fascism becomes commonplace. It becomes normalized. Truth, justice, and human decency fall out of fashion because people get weary and incessant evil is no longer quite as shocking. The evil – a dose here and a dollop there – has become banal. Just another clock punch at the goddamn office.

But all this raises a good question: if evil becomes so banal that it is tolerated by “We the People” – average people, with an inability to think (or unwillingness, including a news media that has lost its way and looks the other way) – are we complicit?

To echo Benjamin Franklin, I fear the U.S. has now become so corrupted that it is incapable of anything but despotic government.

John and Beverley Martyn – Repost

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NOTE: Today I’m taking a recess from my usual political “rants” (a popular word these days, but often misapplied). English folksinger Beverley Martyn just died, age 79, so I’m honouring her with this essay I originally published in February of last year. Not many know of her, but she was an excellent songwriter, and I strongly recommend the two albums she did with then-husband John. Suffice to say, her music is a calming antidote, for me, to the turbulence that is today’s America. And thanks to Graham at Aphoristic Album Reviews for alerting me to her death. R.I.P. Bev.

Just behind the yawning morning
Look and there’s a new day dawning

– John and Beverley Martin, “New Day”

Coventry, England singer Beverley Kutner was the first artist signed to the Deram label, had four U.K. singles to her credit, and was taught guitar by Scottish folk-guitar icon and then-boyfriend Bert Jansch. (She is pictured on sleeve of Jansch’s It Don’t Bother Me LP.) Through Paul Simon, she nabbed opening slot at seminal Monterey Pop Festival (1967), though she didn’t appear in the film. In 1969 she met and married rising guitar star, John Martyn (born Iain McGeachy), who had recorded two folk-based solo albums (London Conversation, The Tumbler) on Island Records, but was beginning to gravitate towards progressive jazz. First of the couple’s two albums was intended as solo affair for Beverley, John merely assisting. But Island marketing decision changed that…with no small input from ambitious husband, John.

Stormbringer! was recorded in vibrant arts community of Woodstock, New York. Nominally produced by Joe Boyd, with notable assistance from The Band producer John Simon and drummer Levon Helm, plus Paul Harris (“direction”), Harvey Brooks (bass) and Billy Mundi (drums), resulting sound was understandably reminiscent of The Band, who then seemed to be influencing everyone both sides of Atlantic. Tracks “John the Baptist”/“The Ocean” lifted as single from LP, with “Would You Believe Me” exhibiting first use of guitar Echoplex, which John would increasingly employ on subsequent solo albums. Song composition almost split down middle: six attributed to John, four to Beverley, the latter showing considerable growth from her earlier singles. Despite cozy sleeve photo of couple, music evinces general feeling of storm clouds rolling in.

Duo returned to England for acoustic follow-up, prophetically titled The Road to Ruin, a more solid and folk-oriented effort. Highlights include the Paul Wheeler-penned “Give Us a Ring,” supposedly about close friend Nick Drake, and the moody, psychedelic “Auntie Aviator,” with its haunting sound effects. “New Day,” “Say What You Can,” and Beverley’s “Primrose Hill” also standout tracks, all emanating a smoky, pot-pourri haze appropriate for the duo and times. Musical guests included Paul Harris (piano), Lyn Dobson (flute and sax), and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson, who would soon team with John as alter-ego on his solo records. Joe Boyd again produced, but conflicts with increasingly difficult John Martyn severed relationship during this album (Boyd desiring folk, Martyn pushing jazz).

In debatable wisdom, Island determined John as solo artist would prove more successful than with Beverley. He then rattled off string of jazz fusion solo albums suffused with semi-scat vocals. Significant was Solid Air, title song supposedly about doomed artist and friend Drake. He also slipped further into drugs, notably alcohol, and this, combined with appalling violence toward Beverley, effectively sundered their marriage.

(Copyright: Estate of Keith Morris)

Beverley meanwhile devoted her time to raising children, offering token support to husband’s solo songs until their 1980 divorce. She then virtually disappeared until 1998 album No Frills. In 2014, five years after death of John, Beverley issued The Phoenix and the Turtle, featuring the lilting “Potter’s Blues,” plus “Reckless Jane,” co-written with Drake just before his death but shelved for forty years. Both solo records were acclaimed by critics.

***

There is no denying John Martyn’s stature as a guitarist. He forms one of the “Big Six” of British folk guitarists, the others being Davy Graham, Jansch, John Renbourn, Richard Thompson, and Drake. His early 1970s solo albums are as idiosyncratic as they are atmospheric, though he’s probably better known in Great Britain than the states. Although the two 1970 records he made with Beverley may not be as intriguing instrumentally, or as mood pieces, the music soared higher as well-crafted, lyrical “tunes.” In my view, this is largely due to Beverley’s presence.

Beverley tempered John’s harder edges with her melancholic melodies and dusky singing voice. Certainly producer Boyd, who’d already worked with Sandy Denny while she was in Fairport Convention, noticed these qualities and burnished them. And perhaps – not so much with straight rock but with more restrained and introspective folk rock – intersex couples have capacity to bring a certain ambiance to the proceedings. Witness Ian and Sylvia, the Fariñas, the Muldauers, Richard and Linda Thompson, and the little known Jim and Jean. (And can’t forget legendary Mitch and Mickey of A Mighty Wind fame.)

Other than her two solo albums, a 1990s tour as support act for Loudon Wainwright III, and a spotlight gig at a 2013 birthday tribute to Jansch – where she sang a pounding version of Memphis Minnie’s “When the Levee Breaks” – Beverley kept a low musical profile. (One wonders if the psychological scars left by John have anything to do with it.) But as with what occurred posthumously with her friend and compatriot Nick Drake, she’s an artist deserving of serious reassessment.

Albums:
Stormbringer! (1970)
The Road to Ruin (1970)

The Frightening Slide Toward U.S. Media Control

/ greenpete58 / 17 Comments

On March 25, 1933, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels announced that the recently established Ministry of Propaganda would serve as a tool to encourage the “spiritual mobilization” of German citizens. Essentially, it would henceforth control content in both the press and arts.

What transpired was that anything critical of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, or that deviated from Nazi philosophy, would be silenced. Only news, books, articles, plays, paintings, and music that exalted Third Reich nationalism would be permitted. Some 200,000 books proceeded to spread anti-Semitism, eugenics, and German nationalism, and censored or altered any ideas that conflicted with Nazi principles. The propaganda extended to children’s books. Book burnings, bans, censorship, and complete control over the news became standard. And, of course, punishment and death awaited violators.

Now some parallels. According to Kasey Meehan, director of PEN America, which promotes freedom of literary expression in the U.S., “(A) disturbing ‘everyday banning’ and normalization of censorship has worsened and spread (in America since 2021). The result is unprecedented.” She said during the 2024-25 school year alone, there were 6,870 instances of book bans, with the states of Florida and Texas leading the onslaught.

Never before have so many states passed laws or regulations to facilitate the banning of books, including bans on specific titles statewide. Never before have so many politicians sought to bully school leaders into censoring according to their ideological preferences, even threatening public funding to exact compliance. Never before has access to so many stories been stolen from so many children – PEN America report, October 2025

People have the right to engage in vigorous discussions over the qualitative value of books being published today. But do they – school boards, libraries, politicians, crusading ideologues, and angry parents – have the right to deprive others of freedom of choice? And while usually associated with right-wing groups, censorship in the form of political correctness also occurs on the left.

Frightening enough, but that’s just literature. There’s also mass media. In 2013, Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos purchased the historic and respected newspaper, The Washington Post. (For younger readers, this is the newspaper that covered the Watergate break-in and subsequent scandal, which brought down President Richard Nixon.) Since then, Bezos – who cultivates personal and professional ties to Donald Dump – cut one-third of the Post‘s staff and shifted opinion editorials strongly rightward (e.g. paper op-eds have supported Dump’s government cutbacks yet also supported his hawkish military expenditures, and has defended tax cuts for filthy rich people like Dump and Bezos himself). Bezos also forbade the paper from endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024.

(Imagine if, instead of Katharine Graham, a White House yes-man like Bezos had owned the Post in 1972-74. But he was still sucking his mommy’s titty.)

Similarly, in 2018, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong bought another respected newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, and proceeded to force the staff to cancel its endorsement of Harris. Most of the paper’s editorial staff quit in disgust.

And just recently, this from MoveOn.org:

Trump and his allies have paved the way for Paramount’s $111 billion deal to take over Warner Brothers, which owns CNN. David Ellison, head of Paramount, told the Trump admin that he’ll bring “sweeping changes” to CNN, a frequent target of Trump’s anti-media vitriol. (U.S. Secretary of Endless War) Pete Hegseth sneered at CNN’s coverage of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran recently, calling it ‘fake news’ and saying, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

And there are many other less high-profile examples of news outlets capitulating to the Dump White House.

The educated and intelligent American choice: Kamala Harris

What’s happening here? It’s pretty obvious. In the obsessively capitalist United States, unlike in Nazi Germany, a wealthy, right-wing president doesn’t need a federal Ministry of Propaganda to censor news that might be critical of him, or to gag his political opponents, or to puff him up, or to determine which books are appropriate for people to read. In 2026 America, he has local and state governments and his sleazy billionaire chums to do that for him! (This in addition to enjoying the support of certain fascistic 24-hour cable news networks and similar conservative propaganda outlets, not to mention an idiocracy of voters.)

We’ve seen one nausea-inducing maneuver after another by an egomaniacal clown and his GOP cowards during their second gut-wrenching moment in history’s spotlight. In a healthy society (unlike 21st-century America), starting an unconscionable and unconstitutional war would alone be enough to destroy a presidency.

But mass media control (along with election malfeasance) may be even more sinister than presidents who start illegal wars. The effects are far-reaching and long-term. Government control of media, including by proxy, can permit illegal wars to happen, then be publicly whitewashed, then occur again, because the citizenry is essentially blinded…or forced to wear rose-colored glasses. I majored in journalism, so a free and independent “fourth estate” is very important to me. It was drilled into me by my professors. I’m not sure how many others recognize the importance. Sadly, I’m not sure how many in these unenlightened days are even able to distinguish real news from corrosive propaganda.

Democracy does, indeed, die in darkness, as the Washington Post‘s slogan reminds us. A free and independent press provides the illumination. Once extinguished, a country is like a ship without a rudder, drifting aimlessly like the Flying Dutchman. George Orwell and Ray Bradbury both warned about this. Once speech is curtailed and controlled – for political, ideological, or religious reasons – it could take generations for anything even resembling democracy to return.

And speaking of Orwell and Bradbury, I wonder how they’re faring down in red-states Florida and Texas. I’m almost afraid to find out.

The SAVE America Act and Exactly Whom it “Saves”

/ greenpete58 / 9 Comments

A few posts ago I listed 14 characteristics common to fascist nations, as identified by secular humanist Lawrence Britt in his oft-cited 2003 article, “Fascism, Anyone?” I suggested that Trump (whom I can’t resist calling “Dump”) and the Republicans have effectively ticked 13 of the 14 fascist checkboxes.

I placed question marks by the 14th characteristic…election malfeasance…because I felt there was no evidence of such misbehavior (by either party). However, voter suppression by Republicans, dating to a conservative not-so-Supreme Court’s immolation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder (2013), might be considered election malfeasance, might it not?

Well, the latest stunt being pulled by Dump and his GOP-MAGA fascists comes in the form of a bill called the SAVE America Act. (Such a comforting name; up there with the mocking “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” and the misleading and repressive “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets”). This act is on rush order to become operational prior to the 2026 midterm elections, which Republicans are (understandably) increasingly worried about. If the SAVE America Act is news to you, you’re excused. Dump’s chamber of horrors now turns its wheels on a daily basis and has become an integral part of the U.S. landscape, so it’s easy to lose track of one or two horrors. Anyway, one can easily discern what’s involved with this latest neo-Nazi tactic.

But for disclosure purposes: the SAVE America Act is – of course – Republican legislation. It started as the SAVE Act and passed the House, but was checked through filibuster by Senate Democrats. But Republicans haven’t surrendered.

Why the legislation? Republicans say it is an attempt to prevent voting in federal elections by non-U.S. citizens…a ridiculous notion, as election experts say there is little evidence of such practice. These same experts also say the time, energy, and cost of election officials’ implementing this act’s requirements would be astronomical.

What’s involved with this act? For one, voters would be required to present photo identification. Also, states would be required to use a Department of Homeland Security system to check citizenship status of people on their voter rolls. If a voter moves or changes their name (including a name change by a recently married woman), they would need to prove citizenship. Citizenship documents would need to be presented to election officials in person, even if voting is by mail.

Such documents would conceivably involve a passport or birth certificate, along with a driver’s ID. But the birth certificate must include “the full name of at least one parent, the signature of an authorized government official, and the seal of the state or local/tribal government that issued it,” information not all state birth certificates currently have. My original New Jersey certificate is certainly deficient.

In addition, Dump says – in his usual hyperbolic manner on social media – he hopes to entirely eliminate mail-in voting (with a few exceptions). Mystifyingly (but for him, maybe not so mystifying), he also wants to sneak in non-election legislation to ban “transgender women playing in women’s athletics and gender-affirming surgery for minors.” You heard right.

If this wasn’t 2026 America, one would think the above would be associated with some long-ago Banana Republic. Or maybe a Stanley Kubrick dystopia. Unfortunately, it’s occurring here in real time. Democracies usually try to involve more people in the voting process, not less. Key word: democracies.

The irony is, even many Democrats support the idea of a photo ID as a requirement for voting. (And good arguments can be made about certain identity-related rights crossing certain lines.) But because it is 2026 America, the extremist Republican Party and its cartoon leader would prefer to wield chainsaws over scalpels. They’ve done the same thing with immigration, foreign policy, taxation, regulation, environment, and everything else under America’s setting sun.

Make no mistake: the SAVE America Act, with its meanspirited and arbitrary requirements, is intended to shrink the pool of voters so the only people getting elected are white, Christian, conservative, preferably male, native-born Americans. Birthright citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, is also being threatened. (Stay tuned for this latest carve-up of the Constitution.) Dump and his hatchet-men aim for a single-party America. A permanent ruling party of conservative Republicans. That last checkbox on the Fascism Meter just can’t wait to be checked.

But, remember, the United States of Amnesia wanted all this. “We the People” voted for these Morlocks in 2024, and this time we can’t blame our gullibility on an antiquated Electoral College system or “Gee, we didn’t know.” Perhaps on our 250th birthday, we need to personally experience the horrors of fascism, only to witness it firsthand. We don’t appear to understand history well, so instead, perhaps we can create our own history lesson for the world: “The Perils of a Two-Party System,” or “Wealth of a Nation and How it Corrupts,” or “How to Kill a Democracy While the Populace Sleeps.”

America loves to entertain itself, and this would be “fresh entertainment,” as my history-loving Bengali friend Imtiaz used to say. Just to supplement the fireworks while drinking our wretched Miller Lite on July 4.

Source: FactCheck.org

Can We Sink Any Lower?

/ greenpete58 / 10 Comments

I usually don’t post so quickly after a previous post, but things are downgrading so alarmingly with this sick, fascist regime in Washington, I feel compelled to share Paul Krugman‘s recent article. Plus, I’m heading to the mountains for 10 days to try to wash some of this madness from my head.

(Note: Krugman is a former New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist.)

Trump’s Easter Sunday words (and, frankly, any words of his) are appalling enough. But there are real actions behind them, with real and appalling consequences. This is what happens when irresponsible voters choose irresponsible leaders.

See you in a few. If I have the stomach to return.

***

The Terrorist in Chief

It’s time for us to face up to the ugly reality

By Paul Krugman

06 April 2026

Terrorism, according to ICE — yes, that ICE — “involves violence or the threat of violence against people or property to further a particular ideology.” The official website goes on to declare that “Terrorists do not care who they hurt or kill to achieve their goals.”

If you haven’t read Donald Trump’s Truth Social post from Sunday, above, take a minute to do so. Don’t rely on sanewashed descriptions in the media. And then tell me that Trump doesn’t perfectly fit his own officials’ definition of a terrorist.

Don’t tell me that his cause is just, that the Iranian regime is evil. That’s what terrorists always say, and even if it’s sometimes true, terrorism is defined by its means rather than its ends — by its attempt to achieve political goals by violently attacking the innocent.

And that’s exactly what Trump is doing: he’s threatening to attack civilian infrastructure if he doesn’t get his way. And since Trump is talking about targeting essential services — power plants! — this is a threatened attack on people as well as property.

Later on Sunday Trump told Axios that the U.S. is in “deep negotiations” with Iran. Forgive me for doubting that anything like that is happening. But he went on to say that if there isn’t a deal by Tuesday, “I am blowing up everything over there.”

He has issued these threats without even a pretense that we will be attacking military targets, and if anything he seems to relish rather than regret the death and suffering his actions will cause.

On second thought, however, I shouldn’t say that Trump is making a threat of violence; he’s promising violence. That vile post isn’t part of a negotiating strategy, since there is, after all, zero chance that Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz by tomorrow evening. The Iranian regime almost certainly couldn’t open the strait on short notice if it tried: Military control in Iran has, by all accounts, been decentralized to local commanders to limit the effects of U.S. and Israeli decapitation strikes. So there’s no way people in Tehran could order the whole Iranian military to stand down at short notice even if they wanted to.

And of course they don’t want to, because they think Iran is winning. And so do Trump and the people around him, even though they will never admit it.

For terrorism is a strategy of the weak. It’s what extremists do when they lack the ability to achieve their goals through military action or other non-criminal means.

And that’s where Trump and his officials find themselves. They inherited a powerful military (which they are rapidly degrading), but for all its firepower this military lacks the wherewithal to open the Strait of Hormuz to normal traffic. So the Trumpists are gearing up to impose suffering and death on innocent civilians instead, even though this suffering and death will do nothing to achieve America’s objectives.

I don’t know what Trump will do when his deadline passes and the Strait is still closed. He probably doesn’t know either. But he is promising to commit war crimes on a massive scale. And the duty of everyone with any influence who isn’t part of Trump’s inner circle is to do all they can to stop him.

Most immediately, military officers should be aware that they have the right and the duty to disobey illegal orders. It’s incredible that we have gotten to this point, especially so quickly, but here we are. You may recall that Admiral Alvin Holsey resigned in December, reportedly because he refused to be a party to illegal attacks on supposed drug boats. What Trump is now saying he will do is infinitely worse. And a refusal by senior officers to participate in war crimes may be the only thing that could stop this evil in its tracks.

Now is when we find out how completely our once honorable military has been corrupted.

Beyond the military, every politician, dare I say every public figure, in America should make it clear that Trump is not acting in their name.

This is not a time for Republicans who know — and most of them do know — that Trump has gone completely off the rails to remain obsequious for fear that he might endorse their primary opponents. One hopes that there are still a few genuine patriots left on that side of the aisle.

It is also not a time for Democrats to listen to strategists who urge them to stay silent on foreign policy and talk only about grocery prices. As it happens, that’s even bad political advice: Public disdain for Congressional Democrats has a lot to do with perceptions that they are weak and ineffectual, and ignoring Trump’s criminal madness will only reinforce that perception. And there has been no rally-around-the-flag effect from this war, which is growing more unpopular by the day.

But in any case, political considerations should take a back seat to civic duty.

The horrible but undeniable fact right now is that America has a terrorist president. And the whole world knows it. But we still have a chance to show the world that he is an aberration, that we are not a terrorist nation. And we can do that by standing up for the values that have always defined us.

Who Are the Brain Police?

/ greenpete58 / 13 Comments

Sitting at home after the recent No Kings Day protests, I clicked on a local news website to review its story. (My degree was journalism, so I’m always curious about press coverage.)

The story seemed reasonable. An unbiased “just the facts, ma’am.” But at the bottom was an obligatory readers’ comments section. Of the three comments, one of them mocked us protesters and made an incredible and disturbing claim that “our president” is doing “an amazing job.”

He’s doing a “job,” alright. But the really upsetting thing was, this shockingly unenlightened comment received only six dislikes…and got 19 likes.

Once again, I asked myself, “Who are these people? Can they be for real?” 

Trump and his Republican shoeshiners didn’t land here on a spaceship. They were elected: by our friends, neighbors, relatives, coworkers. After all, back in 2016 and 2024, America was still a sort-of representative democracy. The people in power are us. That’s exactly what the Founding Fathers both intended, and feared.

So how could the population’s collective brain become so poisoned? There are many reasons, and folks on the left and in the middle aren’t blameless. But since 2016 it’s apparent to me that certain mentalities are more easily drawn to snake oil salesmen than others. And at the risk of emulating our elected schoolyard bully by being insulting, I’ve separated into three groups the fascism side of the ideological war that now consumes us.

If the economy completely collapses (and if our latest insane war goes on too long, it probably will), two of these three groups of lost souls could conceivably turn away from Trumpism and become un-lost. (The third group is permanently damaged and beyond hope.)

  1. Thugs. These are the racists, anti-Semites, homophobes, misogynists, and xenophobes. They’re the most physically dangerous. Alt-right territory, mainly male, whom Trump regularly courts, a few of whom I unfriended back when I still did Facebook. Sadly, they’ve always been with us. The good news is, some have actually been known to deep-six their bigotry and salvage their hearts, so there’s hope a few could, one day, vote Democrat or Libertarian or Whig. Or, at minimum, stay home on election day and polish their gun barrels.

  1. Wealth Worshippers. Monetary wealth determines the ever-fickle rules of the game, especially in America, which worships money and those able to amass lots of it. These are Trump’s billionaire, millionaire, and upper-middle-class followers who feel a 2nd-generation Wall Street billionaire will best protect their bank balances, businesses, tax loopholes, and stock investments. “Vote your wallet” people. They’ve been converted to the “pull up your bootstraps” philosophy, without considering that some poor slobs have no boots with straps to even pull up. But when the economy collapses – which usually happens after lengthy Republican rule – they often vote Democrat. Or they stay at home on election day and mull over Dow Jones.

  1. Conservative Christians. Jesus and partisan politics have always made for strange bedfellows, but in the U.S., evangelicals have tied poor Jesus to the bedpost. Christians come in all varieties, but this category means fanatics for whom the Holy Bible rules everything. Many of them would rejoice to see our elected war and sex criminal make Christianity an official national religion. In their world, homosexuality is either sinful or a social disease or a character flaw (one Christian-based family therapist I knew actually said being gay – being a persecuted minority – is a “lifestyle choice”); Charles Darwin was “an idiot” (actual words from someone I know); and most importantly, abortions are “murder” (although the Bible never discusses fetuses) and governments need to outlaw them, even as a last resort, even if the mother was the victim of rape or incest, even if her own health or life might be in jeopardy. They’ve gleefully donated their brains to the political church. Brain deposit? Ching. Returns? Forget it. When the economy collapses, I don’t foresee this group turning from Trumpism unless antichrist Trump appoints justices to reinstate Roe v. Wade, which can’t and won’t happen. (And, please, if any Christian tries to argue abortion, religion, or drop Bible verses on me, I’ll immediately delete your comment.)

For the record, I don’t hate the people in these groups. What I hate are their values (or lack thereof). It’s hard not to be struck by the sick humor of a moral reprobate like Trump courting the religious right, and those delusionals lining up to kiss his feet (and pray with him, while Trump, undoubtedly, inwardly laughs).

But the above is a generalization of my perception of the most egregious Trumpists. There are benign or non-political voters, both R and D, who cast ballots based only on what’s fashionable within their respective peer group. (My mom had scant understanding of the issues but voted R because it was family tradition.) And I’m sure similar demographics exist in societies outside the U.S. 

What might distinguish America, however, is that – ever since the FCC abolished the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 – the U.S. has had a powerful and vicious conservative media that has relentlessly stoked these three groups’ pre-existing fears, bigotries, greed, and fanaticism. Recalling a Frank Zappa song, this incessant media drone encourages people to “police” and handcuff their own brains. Group-think at the expense of individual-think. It was inevitable that a fringe demagogue would, sooner or later, recognize opportunities for power and exploit minds that have been stewing, on slow boil, in dangerous propaganda for decades.

These budding demagogues have always been with us, too.

It’s okay to change your mind
Show us your courage
Leave this behind
It’s okay to change your mind
And you can join us
Join us anytime

– Annie Schlaefer, Singing Resistance