....Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit Of Happiness.....
..... ....We The People are rising up all over the middle east...in protests largely devoid of the usual anti-American/anti-Israeli rhetoric...in a search for self-determination. They are tired of being ruled by tyrants, and tired of being browbeat by clergy. Tired of their chattel like status in their own lands. Tired of Kings & royal families...........tired of isolation. We may not like what emerges.......it may not fit our ideal..........but Freedom is a powerful battlecry.
...........There is so much we, as Americans, take for granted. We exhalt in our glut of information....we glory in our excesses........The average fast-food joint throws away more food in a day than many villages in the world see in a week. This is not a knock on us.....far from it........we, as a free people have built the most successful society the world has ever known...with longer, healthier lives, a middle-class that was non-existant for most of human history........
......And to those who would focus on our imperfections, on our long hard road to equality....on our inability to find common ground on a wide range of issues, I say this...
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................& I would ask this question.........We erected a government which serves to protect the rights of individuals. A government that cannot abridge the citizen's right to speak his mind. Great. So how did we get to 21st century America where the fricken feelings of certain designated groups trumps the individual's right to speak? Just asking. I'm willing to listen.........
..............but that was an unnecessarily provocative stray thought.
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Thank you...if you made it this far.....Tracks 1 & 2 are From a performance at The Town Hall.... Charles Mingus
Track # 3.............Alan Vega, Alex Chilton, & Ben Vaughn
Track 4.............James Carr
Track 5..............Ken Boothe
Track 6.............Little Richard
