Wal-Mart: Always Low Wages, Always! Mike Konopacki cartoon

Holiday wishes & end of the year reflections... website *postcard* excerpt from Anne Feeney
Pittsburgh, December 3
There are more people out on the streets for peace, for fair labor standards, for human rights. There are more people involved in direct action, in politics and general hellraising than any time that I can remember... more people seeking answers and educating themselves. The coming year brings great opportunities to us. As 2003 comes to a close, I hope each of you will stay out of Walmart and purchase only union-made goods and the work of independent artists and artisans.

Eddie Starr, Presente!


The very sad news of my friend and comrade Eddie Starr's passing came to me from dozens of friends who knew how much I loved and admired him. Only 47 years old, Eddie died of a massive heart attack at work. Like so many Steelworkers, his job increased in stress, with constant mandatory overtime. He was a great union brother and songwriter. I recorded his wonderful "Spoiled Brats of the Ruling Class" on "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" Check his obituary & read the many touching tributes in his guestbook. Eddie was a true working class hero.

Steelworkers Demand Investigation USWA Press Release
PITTSBURGH — The United Steelworkers of America (USWA) is calling for a Congressional investigation into "a massive police state," created in part with federal funds, to intimidate union members and others critical of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and limit their rights during FTAA meetings in Miami last week.
 
"Last week, the fundamental rights of thousands of Americans … were blatantly violated, sometimes violently, by the Miami police, who systematically repressed our Constitutional right to free assembly with massive force, riot gear and armaments," said Leo W. Gerard, USWA international president, in a letter to Congressional leaders.

Statement by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney on Miami Police Conduct During FTAA Ministerial Meeting Protests
The AFL-CIO is deeply disturbed by the unwarranted and unjustifiable use of intimidation and force by police against peaceful protesters during the FTAA ministerial meeting.

SCR archives: Issue 1, 1996- Anne Feeney Sounds Celebrating Resistance
An Interview with Labor Activist and Musican Anne Feeney
One of the folks who is indirectly responsible for this magazine idea ever coming to fruition is Anne Feeney. She may not even realize the role she played in its creation, but you can go ahead and pin the blame on her if you don't like what I'm doing.

The story goes something like this: I start this radio show called Sounds Celebrating Resistance. Some folks who find out about it via the wacky internet and send me stuff to play on the show. At this point the magazine was pretty much just a fuzzy 'wouldn't it be cool to do something like that' idea with no real substance behind it. But then a woman named Anne Feeney sent me a couple of her CD's and I was so impressed with her political artistry and so bothered that this woman was doing such great work and I had never heard about it before. I figured other folks who hadn't heard about her probably should so I decided I would go ahead and do this magazine as a way of helping to spread the word and recognize some great political music makers. And so I did.

AUD's 'Best Rank-and-File Website' Contest - Using the Internet to Organize for Democracy and Power
deadline for entry is 12/30/03
Overview: The theme of AUD's 'Best Rank-and-File Website' contest is using the internet to organize for democracy and power. There are now hundreds of independent rank-and-file websites in North America operated by individual union members or reform groups. By holding this contest we hope to accomplish three things: 1) to spotlight the great work that rank-and-file webstewards are doing and make their work known to a broader audience, 2) to promote the use of the internet as an organizing tool for union reformers, and 3) to encourage discussion among rank-and-file webstewards about what works and what doesn't -- both technically and in terms of organizing -- so we can all be more effective.

Seeger highlights rally singers By Brad Barnes
Legendary folk singer Pete Seeger's coming, and he's bringing some friends.

Some 10 musicians and bands are scheduled to perform Saturday during the six-hour rally held by the SOA Watch at the gates of Fort Benning.

Augmenting folk staples like Anne Feeney, David Rovics and the Prince Myshkins duo are hip-hop artists and performance dance groups.

Wage Peace & Justice
'Have You Been to Jail for Justice?' sound track snippet and photos

Singer, songwriter Anne Feeney

The Miami Herald Churchill's will host a three-day music oriented rally Nov. 18-20 to coincide with the World Trade Zone protests in Miami. Each night centers around a different genre. Nov. 18 promises hip-hop and electronica; Nov. 19 political punk and underground speakers, and Nov. 20 acoustic/spoken word featuring Flying Poetry Circus singer Anne Feeney and her poet partner Chris Chandler.

‘Free Speech’ fight draws on militant history By J.A. Thompson
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/22/03
HOMESTEAD, Pa. – With post-9/11 attacks on civil liberties running amok, nearly a hundred marchers poured out of the historic Carnegie Library here recently, heading off on a “Free Speech March” where they would stop along the way to honor three women who made a difference for worker rights and civil liberties in the early 20th century.

Led by folk singer and hell-raiser Anne Feeney, the marchers filled the cool, autumn air with defiant labor chants and songs. Several of the marchers noted the irony of having assembled in the library that the robber baron Andrew Carnegie donated to the community shortly after crushing a steelworkers strike in 1892.

After passing century-old ethnic churches that tower over nearly every street corner in this former steel town, the marchers stopped at the intersection of 9th and Amity, where two state historical markers were dedicated in honor of legendary labor organizer Mary Harris “Mother” Jones and Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet member and longest-serving U.S. Secretary of Labor.

The borough council had designated the intersection as “Free Speech Corner” last spring in recognition of the important struggles for labor and civil liberties that took place here, and in anticipation of the marker dedication ceremony.

The Muse and Whirled Retort November 2003
On Halloween I cynically remarked that tomorrow starts the Christmas shopping season, and I'll be damned if the next day we didn't startseeing Christmas decorations along the thin highways of fat America. Have you seen the battery-operated Nativity scene they have for sale in all the truck stops? Baby Jesus wiggles in the manger, while Mary and Joseph do the Watusi as the three wise men sing "Heard It Through the Grapevine?"

What would Jesus buy?

So with that in mind Christmas season is right around the corner and there is only one Whirled Retort between now and Christmas so.. here's a Christmas gift idea – how about a copy of "Live From the Wholly Stolen Empire"? It is a great gift idea for your teenaged children that think you listen to too much Pete Seeger. Or that annoying uncle that quotes Sean Hannity at holiday meal time. Or the newspaper boy who wrote the website to the New York Times in magic marker on the side of your mail box. You can have our latest CD rushed to your house by clicking: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/afcc

T H E M U S E A N D W H I R L E D R E O T R T
VOLUME 5 ISSUE 2
BY Chris Chandler
Washington, DC

Suggest a book! LabourStart is assembling an online bookshelf for trade unionists -- a list of the books that every trade unionist should own.

Coca Cola's Killers By Lucas Rivera
Should the bottling giant be held accountable for paramilitary assassinations in Colombia?

They’re armed and dangerous with pamphlets and flyers touting anti-military slogans. "Let’s close down the School of the Assassins," barks one supporter as he hands out a flyer, which resembles the cover a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.

The headline reads: "Colombian Coke Float" and shows three Colombian union workers floating in a giant, old-fashioned Coke glass. In bold letters: "Unthinkable! Undrinkable!"

AFL-CIO Union Shop We Just Come to Work, We Don't Come to Die: Safety button
Your Price: $1.00

Labor Notes - Conferences Troublemaking in Troubled Times: Organizing to Win!
Troublemakers gathered at Labor Notes 25th Anniversary Conference-and came away with a deeper understanding of these troubled times and a more complex view of what’s necessary to overcome them.

It teases you piquantly, hits you hard, and leaves your head spinning -
Reviewer: SingOut! Magazine- Fall 2003 Vol 47 #3
Review by Rich Warren (WFMT, Midnight Special)

Few in the folk community are unaware of the renegade, radical folk poet Chris Chandler. Since he is not a musician himself he traditionally popped up spewing poetry with a variety of musician accompanists or having their performance provide counterpoint. He finally met his match with the powerful, radical singer-songwriter Anne Feeney. Feeney traditionally focused on political music. To accent Chandler's poetry readings on this recording she frequently entwines pop and folk songs with his raves and rants. Together they fuse like sodium and chlorine into salty substance, and the recording goes down like a strong, salt-encrusted Margarita. It teases you piquantly, hits you hard, and leaves your head spinning. Chandler, who coauthored several of the poems with Phil Rockstroh, uses current events, advertising slogans and wonderful twists of pop phrases as the grist for his rhythmic revolution. As a duo, Chandler and Feeney are highly entertaining. If you agree with, or at least can swallow their politics, this CD is a blast. My favorite is "I Dreamed I Saw St Augustine (Florida)/Swimming to the Other Side" in which Feeney interweaves one line quotes from Pat Humphries' inspiring song and others with Chandler's and co-author Lisa Stolarski's poetry. Chandler possesses a remarkably fertile and inventive mind...Feeney's understanding of Chandler's psyche and skills contributes mightily to this recording. Since the entire CD was recorded live at various venues, sometimes it sounds studio-quality and sometimes it's off-mic. Chandler and Feeney provide a deliciously cynical skewed look at our American Empire, circa 2003.

Order Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire

Duo offers humor, politics and poetry
By NANCY REDWINE
sentinel staff writer
"I’ve seen Jack Kerouac in the back parking lot of a Stop and Go, pouring Wild Turkey into a Slurpee, sitting on the roof of a Yugo."
— from "The United States of Generica"
That’s a taste of the humor of raving performance artist and poet Chris Chandler, who now teams up with famed labor folk singer Anne Feeney.
Their high-energy antics, pyrotechnic poetry and theatrical musicianship will supercharge Henfling’s Monday night with the political and existential electricity just barely captured on their new CD, "Flying Poetry Circus."
Feeney sings political and labor tunes — new ("Have You Been to Jail for Justice?") and old ("Goin’ Down the Road"). Chandler rant-preaches poetry ("Fast Food Confederacy," "Let There Be Prozac") that he wrote with longtime collaborator Phil Rockstroh. Together, the duo deftly weaves lefty activism and literary surrealism.
Their first tour through the Midwest together followed the events of Sept. 11, and Feeney remembers being more than a little nervous about their strong anti-war stance as they pulled into parking lots filled with American flag-decorated cars.
"One piece we did talked about all the T-shirts celebrating the New York Fire Department being made in Bangladesh sweatshops by Muslim children," Feeney said.
"One or two people would walk out, but the other 398 stayed. I think that’s the demographic, but most people are afraid to say what they think."
Far from being afraid to say what he thinks, Chandler had been traveling around the United States for 14 years, performing his vaudevillian revolution with the likes of Pete Seeger, Ani DiFranco, Dan Bern and Allen Ginsberg.
In the chinks of space between his tightly packed touring schedule (265 days a year), Chandler has recorded such treasures as "Hell Toupee," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Abyss" and "Posthumously Live."
The son of a son of a son of a preacher man, Chandler was born with theatrics and histrionics in the blood.
"I was the guy in high school who wore all black and recited really bad poetry in an even worse English accent," said Chandler, who grew up in Strong Mountain, Ga.
At 16 he met Phil Rockstroh, who had returned to Georgia after writing comedy for television in Los Angeles.
"When I heard he was a writer, I went right out to my car and got the poetry I was writing," Chandler said.
"He was the first person to look at it, and he said it was terrible. He wadded the poems up and threw them on the floor. Then we became good buddies."
After Chandler graduated from the North Carolina School of the Performing Arts — where he wrote his first play, "Your Analysis" — they began collaborating on the high-wire poetic stuff of Chandler’s street, stage and coffee house performances.
While he still performs Rockstroh’s work, he now collaborates with Feeney, the granddaughter of a legendary mine worker union organizer and singer, William Patrick Feeney.
"He really wasn’t much of a singer," Feeney said. "He just learned tunes so that if there was a stool in the room, he could act like he was the evening’s entertainment until it was safe to talk union."
After raising two children and working as a lawyer for 12 years, Feeney recorded her first album in 1987. Her songs have been performed by many politically inclined folkies, including Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Feeney and Chandler met in 1988, when she was organizing a concert for Pete Seeger and invited Chandler to open for the legendary folk singer.
"I was knocked out by what he did then," she said. "Every time I’d seen him, I’d think he was at his peak — and then the next time he would be beyond that by at least two standard deviations."
In the past two years, the buzz about Feeney and Chandler has filled coffeehouses and festivals with people hungry for a dose of cynical optimism. "The audience changes from act to act," Chandler said. "These days it seems to be gray ponytails and 20-something Ani DeFranco fans. There’s this strange and wonderful alliance between aging hippies and people with a lot of face metal."
Santa Cruz Sentinel
January 16, 2003

Anne Feeney: Union Maid - A Clear Bold Call to the Sleeping Giant
by Gabriel Falsetta

Anne Feeney's deep conviction for the working class comes alive through her voice with a great band backing her up.

She breathes new life into some old standards in her unique way by blending reggae, country and folk into one enjoyable CD. Many of the songs are written by Feeney, who is also the lead vocal on all cuts.

This is a must for anyone who works or has ever worked for a living. Uplifting and driving, "We Just Come to Work Here, We Don't Come to Die," is one song that should be piped into executive offices around the world. Anyone who ever considered crossing a picket line sure would abandon the notion upon here Feeney's rendition of "Scabs."

Who ever thought that issues like eight hours of work and healthcare for all could sound so good?

Order Union Maid

People's Weekly World
June 21, 2003

Take Back The Media! Flash Animation "Triumph of the Wimp" Bush: The Missing Years

Troublemaking in Troubled Times: Organizing to Win!
Labor Notes Conference September 12-14, Detroit
When we fight for our rights... they call us 'troublemakers.'

Musicians
* Alejandro Alvarez * Ellis Boal * Chris Chandler * Jacob Estrada * Anne Feeney * Dawn Grattino * Tom Juravich * Vance Lelli * Susan Lewis * Julie McCall * Susan Newell * Jesse Ponce * Janet Stecher * Baldemar Velasquez * Rodney Ward * Ted Warmbrand

What follows is the transcript from NOW,the Bill Moyers PBS Show, where the subject is Walmart's exploitation of their work force ... UFCW has called it "Walmart's War on Workers" and to accentuate their point, they're using my song "War on the Workers" as the theme song for their campaign

ANDREA FLEISCHER, NEW YORK TIMES: It's 6 a.m. and the first shift is arriving at the nation's largest company, and largest private employer. Throughout the day nearly one million people will clock in and begin work at three thousand Wal-Marts and Sam's Clubs nationwide.

Part of the vast Wal-Mart network that will ring-up an estimated 220 billion dollars in sales this year. But some employees say profits have been made unfairly, and even illegally at the workers' expense....

Reviews and Articles: Vancouver Island MusicFest (Steve Harvey)
Union Songs songs articles recordings books song links union links

Vancouver Island MusicFest (2003)
Article by Steve Harvey (July 2003)

Reading Mark Gregory's article on "Laying Siege to Empire" and the National Folk Festival, made me think of the last Vancouver Island MusicFest here in Courtenay, British Columbia.

This festival has grown from a small, locally-oriented festival to a large, and financially successful, festival that can attract some pretty big names (this year, for example, Robert Cray, Richie Havens, Chris Hillman, Pablo Moses and the Revolutionary Dream Band) I should hasten to add that they still make room for the considerable local talent that exists here.

I've been volunteering at the festival for the last five years and I always have a good time. My only complaints would be the amount of commercial advertising and sponsorship, and what has been the lack of a political element. I suppose one could argue about what constitutes 'political' music, but, of course, I'm referring to music where the lyrics contain a pretty "up-front" political element.

This year things changed in a subtle way, I believe. Well, having Anne Feeney and Chris Chandler is hardly subtle, I suppose! They were very well received and represented really the first performers at the festival to have a mainly political focus. Some other performers, however, represented varying degrees of 'political' content.

War Party, a First Nations (Canadian Indian) hip-hop group from Edmonton, Alberta gave a perspective from the viewpoint of First Nations youth. It was great to see the enthusiastic response that they got from the young people present. Many local young activists could be seen dancing energetically, front and centre. Also, having Andy Everson from the Comox Band give a greeting and blessing from the Comox people ( meaning the First Nations who were here when the Europeans arrived) from the mainstage was well done. Even Dya Singh, whom I suppose many Australians are familiar with, mixed a spiritual message with an ecological one.

Of course, Richie Havens, whom I've never thought of as a particularly political performer,and Pablo Moses and the Revolutionary Dream Band certainly have that aspect to them. As well, local performers such as Gordon Carter, Norbury and Finch, Todd Butler, and Sue Pyper have songs with a political message amongst their repertoires.

So, while there wasn't quite as much of the Feeney/Chandler-type material as I might have liked, there seemed to be a subtle shift in the nature of the festival and a welcoming response from those attending the festival.

While it's a stretch to hail this as the political awakening of the Festival, I certainly could feel a subtle flavour of Arundhati Roy's dictum to lay siege to Empire in all our creative ways possible. It's often in these joyful ways that the seeds of our ability to resist are planted.

Notes
Many thanks to Steve Harvey for permission to use this article on the Union Song web site.

Check out the Vancouver Island MusicFest website: http://www.islandmusicfest.com/

In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime August 25, 2003
By DAVID BACON

Iraq's legal code may be in disarray. The streets of Baghdad may be filled with thieves and hijackers who seem to have little fear of being arrested. But US occupation authorities seem to have no trouble identifying one crime, at least. For the four million people out of work in Iraq, protest is against the law.

That’s the night the lights went out in Brooklyn.

By: Chris Chandler
Boston, MA
08 15 03

How `bout this: I’m in a Sheraton hotel. That is because I was flying from our nation’s capitol to Montreal for a well deserved vacation. But due to the power outage in the Northeast – from Cleveland to Ottawa to Augusta to New York City – my connecting flight didn’t meet and I wound up here – in a luxury hotel on Delta’s tab.

The hotel is packed – all sorts of international travelers, most notably a 747 full of folks coming in from Istanbul.

For nearly 24 hours, New Yorkers have been without power. I was thinking: Well, maybe now if their water was cut – and then you interrupted the food supply – and you added foreign, non-English-speaking troops walking up and down every block – perhaps from a completely different culture – maybe wearing a fez, wooden shoes and Liederhosen (an image as foreign to us as that get-up George W was wearing on the deck of that aircraft carrier)… maybe then New Yorkers would start to get a glimpse of what life is like in Baghdad.

It is hard for us to imagine.

USA Today posted a photo of pedestrian commuters crossing the Brooklyn Bridge – and comparing it to 9-11. Everything gets compared to 9-11. Isn’t that why we checked into Motel Iraq? 9-11? Even though it is widely accepted that there is no connection, because Osama knew better than George’s son that Saddam’s secular tendencies did not resonate with his people. The Iraqi population is less likely to embrace the American concept of free-market capitalism than Saddam himself. Saddam always kinda liked the idea – if he could just gas his people into accepting the notion of drive-through windows.

So when Iraqis see how quickly we can get the lights back on in New York City, does it not follow that they should wonder if we are not dragging our feet intentionally in Baghdad? Or did they give Enron a deregulated deal on Baghdad Power and Light? Does anyone remember the rolling blackouts in California?

The Northeast was just slower at accepting deregulation than California. But still… it makes me wonder…

“Give em a few more weeks – then we’ll turn the lights on and they’ll think we are heroes.”

One seems to forget that the lights and water worked just fine before we started bombing.

Is our occupation all part of a coercion tactic to force Iraqis to trade in their turbans for Washington Redskins caps?

Bush guaranteed us that the U.S. – oops, I mean coalition forces – would check out of Motel Iraq when the Iraqis were able to elect a new government. But as it turns out, you can check out any time you like – but you can never leave.

Perhaps, instead of Operation Show Off Our Hi-Tech Weaponry, they should have sent Arnold Schwartzenegger in to “Total Recall” Saddam Hussein – put 672 names on a ballot and let them decide. But maybe that would have been more expensive – and maybe they would have wound up with the Iraqi equivalent of Arnold Schwarztenegger. After all, as Greg Palast has written, “Unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double. Davis called Reliant Corp. of Houston a pack of ‘pirates’ – and now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.”

Actually, the original plan was to send in Arnold as a candidate – Operation Kindergarten Cop they called it. That is, until we discovered that the largely Shiite Iraqis were inclined to choose a theocracy – that did not include any judges from Alabama.

Can one coerce another to be free?

“You’ve now got freedom of speech – you can say anything you want.”

“What’s that?”

“Oh, $hit, he said he was going to kill me.”

BANG.

“That’ll teach him.”

Do we have an obligation to coerce Iraqis to live in a very expensive “free” society?

Seems to me, the last thing we really want in our latest colony is democracy.

If a slave does not want any of the things his “massa” keeps from him, does that mean he was never a slave?

But what if he is persuaded by his liberators – at the point of a gun – that he does not want to be a slave anymore – instead he would like to be a busboy in the Hard Rock Cafe? Does that make him free – or just a slave to his new owner?

America has always worn stripes, plaid, and polka dots simultaneously when sitting down at the table with a totalitarian dictator dressed in olive drab and wearing more medals than Michael Jackson.

I mean, we accept Salvadoran, Bangladeshi, or even Saudi exploitation of human rights while damning Cuban, North Korean, or Iranian abuses….

Usually, (as was the case with Saddam) the despots we support are more “like us” than the people over whom they reign.

When we colonize, we really want one of two things: a society with a gross national product large enough for us to expand our own marketplace so that they too should pay at the pump – or one so desperate they are willing to work for nothing to make sure we can keep our Washington Redskins caps on the rack at 7-Eleven for $3.49, and have no idea what “pay at the pump” is – for they have never seen a pump, let alone owned a car.

If elections were held in most Arab monarchies, the result would be a society that differs even further from our own than it did before the election – I mean, “Hey, they had an election! – How much different do you want them to be?”

Despots may want capitalism without democracy while their subjects may want democracy without capitalism. Hmmmm… Which scenario most resembles our own?

We have big business buying the “resignation” of California’s governor – or spending more than the gross national product of the entire Third World’s population to impeach a president for getting a blow job. (Won’t somebody give George a blow job – he needs one so.) We have Texas legislators crossing state lines to be out of reach of their own sergeant at arms to prevent the redrawing of political boundaries. Does anyone remember Florida?

Not to mention that over half the eligible population never votes – but you would be hard pressed to find a single American who has never been to a McDonald’s.

As Louis Menand points out in the New Yorker, those citizens living under Saddam Hussein were not “happy slaves” – it does not follow that the things he and his deck of cards prevented Joe Iraqi from having were Wal-Marts, Bob’s Big Boys, and the Colonel’s Original Recipe. But they’re gonna get em.

So as New Yorkers stumble in the dark for one night – trying to eat all the ice cream in Manhattan before it melts and swapping anecdotes about fish in aquariums that died when the pump was turned off – remember, the shortest route to power is to keep the power on – and not let a would-be leader – elected or not – say, “Look what they have done to our country.”

It worked wonders for Rudolph Giuliani. I wonder how it is working for Saddam Hussein.

MfD OpenForum : Anne Feeney, The Newest MFD Member But back to the point of this thread; Ann is a true real life working person's hero. She has traveled North America writing and singing songs about and for workers. She is the grandaughter of a Union organizer who worked in the steel mills of Pennsylvania. The struggles and values she learned early in life have stayed with her, and she has carried that message wherever she has performed.

I like to think of Ann as slightly irreverent. We were returning from the rally in Jefferson WI in April, and it was a long tiring drive. I had bought her CD Have You Been To Jail For Justice, and it was playing in the background din of a car full of people. I heard a tune that i absolutely love (the Woody Guthrie ballad Deportee), being played. Parodied is a better definition, given the change in lyrics. It was entitled CEO's (The Plane Wreck At Tuzla). In it, she lampoons the death of Ron Brown, and the fact the CEO's were over shopping for cheap labor. While it is sharp and controversial, it is also the kind of music Ann has the courage to sing.

The battle for worker justice is never easily fought, nor won. Singing songs, motivating and inspiring workers thru music is an old and proven meathod of creating activism. Ann is a master at it. If you doubt my word, take in one of Ann's performances, and you will quickly see why her appearance on MFD is such a breakthrough.

[ 08-07-2003, 07:43 AM: edited by: Bill Pearson ]

Fred Walser Photographs Anne Feeney and Chris Chandler - click *next* for more...

SEE THE AD THE DEMOCRATS SHOULD HAVE MADE!
180K Flash movie - Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

Union Maid Animated by Mike Konopacki
Song lyrics by Woody Guthrie - Music by Anne Feeney

Henfling's Firehouse Tavern - Ben Lomond - Home of Rockin' Blues, Burgers Chris Chandler & Anne Feeney Monday July 28 8pm $8 adv./ $10 door
Chris Chandler and Anne Feeney are thrilled to release their brand new long awaited Live CD called 'Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire.' It was recorded along the thin highways of fat America at venues including Henfling's. Now this summer the diabolical duo will make a victory lap to the venues where it was recorded. Their song 'Twenty-first Century Skid Row Man' was taped at Henfling's in January -- the response to their raucous set was so tremendous there was simply no way that a cut from this quirky biker bar in Ben Lomond would not make the cut. The whole CD is recorded in some of the coolest venues in North America and Chris and Anne are excited to be returning. '...the most creatively radical performers on the coffee house circuit.' - Boston Herald Anne: http://www.annefeeney.com Chris: http://www.primecd.com/chandler.htm Dinner starts at 6pm: FEATURING THE RAUCOUS VEGGIE PLATTER

Friday, July 18, 2003
A trio of troubadors
(full article) Peter, Paul & Mary to headline Summer Symphony 2003 by Robyn Israel

Yarrow, along with band mates Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers, will headline "Summer Symphony 2003," an annual benefit concert for the Children's Health Council, a Palo Alto-based nonprofit dedicated to assisting children with complex behavioral and developmental challenges. Peter Paul & Mary's appearance at this year's concert seems a perfect fit, given the trio's 40-year-old history of aligning their music with social causes and solutions.

A newer song in their repertoire, entitled "Don't Laugh At Me," should appeal to youngsters in attendance on Sunday at Frost Amphitheater. Penned by Bay Area songwriter Steve Seskin and Allen Shamblin, the tune laments the situations of disenfranchised individuals, such as "the little boy with glasses, the one they call a geek, who cries himself to sleep" to "the single teenage mother" to the "cripple on the corner."

"It relates very powerfully to the crisis in the nation," Yarrow said, breaking into song during the interview.

The recent turmoil in the world has spurred Peter, Paul & Mary to perform songs that relate to the current global situation, such as "Have You Been to Jail for Justice," by Anne Feeney, 30-year-old acquaintance of Yarrow's.

The Freight & Salvage Coffee House
Chris Chandler & Anne Feeney Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Advance tickets: $15.50 Door opens 7:30 PM Music 8:00 PM    

sharp, witty collage of folk, poetry & politics
The Flying Poetry Circus is coming to town! Renowned rabble-rouser and unionmaid Anne Feeney and acrobatic performance poet Chris Chandler roll up with their "metaphoric highwire act," a dynamic concoction of rousing music, "folken word" poetry, and humor that inspired the Boston Herald to call them "The most creatively radical performers on the coffee house circuit." Pittsburgh native Anne, who has spent decades putting her songs and body on the front line of the labor movement, possesses a seemingly limitless repertoire of activist songs that provides the musical counterpoint to Georgia-born Chris' vaudvillean presentation of beat poetry and road tales from his journeys. Celebrating the release of their new album, the aptly named Flying Poetry Circus, Anne and Chris present live their highly theatrical collage of songstress, southern preacher, and wandering minstrel show, all in the cause of working people's solidarity.

Vancouver Island Music Fest July 4, 5 and 6 Courtney BC
Chris Chandler and Anne Feeney: New Stage - Saturday - 2:00 PM; Roland Stage - Sunday - 11:45 AM; Woodland Stage - Sunday - 5:10 PM;
Chris Chandler is a veteran of the road. As a wandering poet and musician, he has been Traveling the thin Highways of fat America. Few performers can lay claim to on the roadisms the way Chandler can. Over the past seven years he has blazed a trail from Edmonton to Guadalajara, Halifax to Baja. Over a million miles in seven years - three vehicles - two Volkswagens and a Chevrolet. He has lived in a car and performed on the very streets that wrap around his universal joint. In addition to his wandering, ramblings, and writings, he has shared the stage with vanguard writers and performers such as Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Yarrow, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Ferron, Leo Kottke, T. Bone Burnett, Michael Smith and Earl Robinson. Also he has shared the stage with more contemporary acts such as Ani Difranco, Mojo Nixon, Vic Chestnut, Trout Fishing in America, Dan Bern, Jim Infantino, Don White, Ellis Paul, Pierce Pettis, David Wilcox, and Roger Manning.

Touring with Chris is minstrel Anne Feeney. Based in Pittsburgh, PA, Feeney is the granddaughter of an intrepid mineworkers' organizer, who also used music to carry the message of solidarity to working people. After two decades of community activism and regional performances at rallies, Anne took her message on the road. Since 1991 Anne has traveled to the frontlines in 40 states, Canada, Mexico, Ireland and Sweden. Her anthem "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" is being performed by Peter, Paul and Mary. Dubbed the 'minister of culture' to the movements for economic and social justice and human rights, Anne is 'the best labor singer in North America' according to Utah Phillips.

Utah Phillips performs Killing/Bum
Songs, poetry, Canada/US commentary - Media Viewer .ram @ Zed.cbc.ca

Love of Labor review: Satirical folkie Anne Feeney has been inside the machine.
"I was inspired by Mother Jones’ motto: ‘Mourn the dead and fight like hell for the living,’” says Anne Feeney, folk singer, labor activist, voice of the people and self-described hell-raiser. “I really believe that hell-raising is a noble occupation.” She is lighthearted in her social criticism, even borrowing a quote from Emma Goldman to title one of her recordings, “If I Can’t Dance, It’s Not My Revolution.”

Julius Margolin (and Friends)
Hail to the Thief! Songs for the Bush Years.
The CD that takes on Dubya, his stolen election, and his inadequacies; folk-style songs, parodies and serious work, from some of the country's most active labor singer/songwriters.

Produced by labor folksingers angry at the theft of our nation's top elected office, "Hail to the Thief! Songs for the Bush Years" has 15 songs about Dubya and his right-wing administration. It is folk music with a twist of satire, parody, and dead seriousness about this travesty. "Hail!" is full of hard-hitting songs of the stolen election and the coming struggle against Bush's agenda.

Review - Peoples Weekly World Singing the George Bush Blues

T h e M u s e a n d W h i r l e d R e t o r t
July 2003 Volume 4 issue 10

Hey everybody,
OK it's not quite that time of the month yet… but I wanted to get the newsletter out a little early this time… sorry – once again I gotta be brief…

Those of you sitting at home and waiting by the computer at the first of the month may have your schedules interrupted – but frankly – you *should* be interrupted if that applies to you. The only reason we make schedules in the first place is to break them. I mean, wasn't it Mickey Newbury who said that time was created so that everything wouldn't happen all at once?

If everything did happen at once it would be chaos all the time – and any order would interrupt the inflexible disorder of the universe. Apollo -- riding shotgun -- on the road with Jack Kerouac trying to subvert the authoritarian coyote trickster.

Hmmmm…. Sorta sounds like our foreign policy – now that I think about it…
How does the T shirt read?
War is peace
Slavery is freedom
Bush is President

Now, let's see... where did those weapons of mass destruction that we heard so much about end up?

Maybe Saddam zapped them with his super secret invisible ray gun and magically teleported them to the parking lot of some mom & pop hardware store in SE Nebraska where they will never be found, thanks to the brand new Walmart that opened up next door. Nah, people would never believe that... but then ... what the hell – they are buying everything else.
------
Coupla quick snap shots – central, PA
A caravan of Boy Scout vehicles – sporting the slogan "let's Roll"
Good thing they do not allow homosexuals in the scouts – it might say – "let's decorate"

and for all you Georgians out there... how about Herman Talmadge and Maynard Jackson dying with in 24 hours of each other? … I somehow picture Herman clinging on to that ax handle tighter than he was clinging on to life waiting for Maynard to get the hell out of here.

A billboard in Arkansas… Large picture of Christ in black and white – hanging from the cross – only the blood is in bright red. A caption reads: "This Blood's for you."

A black Billboard with white type in Oklahoma reads: "Stop using my name in vain – God" (really)

-----
Anyhow
I really gotta run…
I wanted to get this out early because I arrived here in Pittsburgh late last night and Anne and I are about to get on a plane to Seattle – where we are playing tommorow night – followed by 30 some odd dates on the west coast…

Then --- TIME OFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*****
Peter Paul and Mary are recording Anne's song "Have you been to Jail for Justice!!!! And we'll be in the audience when PP&M play Pittsburgh on July 31 (see www.peterpaulandmary.com for details)
*****
We are looking for dates in Wisconsin Minnesota Chicago Illinois and Indiana in late October
*****
We are planning a 10 day trip to Texas in November (by Texas We mean that triangle of land from Dallas/Ft Worth to Houston to Austin) can you help us? then on to SOA & the FTAA rally/riots in Florida
*****
I am sure there are other announcements but I feel so overwhelmed by the notion of getting to the airport on time that I just can't think – please feel free to zap me back if ya got any questions or anything else.
*****
Anne and I are still looking for the right fit on labor day – got any ideas?
******
Oh, had a great time with my old friend Wiktor – tooling around DC towing his fabulous statue "The evolution of the trickle down theory"
Check it out athttp://www.wsart.com/public/candidate.html

****
It has often been said that we are an act to be witnessed live so finally! The new Live CD is here!
Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire.
You can buy it by clicking: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/afcc

T H E M U S E A N D W H I R L E D R E T O R T
JUNE, 2003 Vol 4 issue 9
Kerrville, TX

Hey everybody,
It's that time of the month again! Only this month I really am going to be brief – Anne and I are at the Kerrville Folk Festival – with limited computer access. And even if that were not true – the last thing I would want to be doing is sitting in front of a computer at the Quiet Valley Ranch – do this is a brief one…

Yes, the rumors are true – we did play on the treadgill stage last Thursday – WOW! 5 standing ovations (but who is counting)

We are looking forward to a busy June and July.

Right now my life is in boxes – in a tent… just over there – at camp CALM… 15 years of living on the road – stacked in boxes of suitcases and glove compartments – on an endless thrift store pub crawl in pursuit of more boxes and things to put in them.

And even though my life is in a box that is not to say my thinking is in the box – there are those that would say MY thinking is Way outside the box – but they would be wrong – because if you think there is a box – then that is the very reason you are in a box – and you will be until you realize – there is no box.

There is no cutting edge…

…there are no lines to color inside of – outside of – only the thin yellow lines that dot the highways of fat America which carry us – and all of our boxes forever towards that inevitable pine box…

realizing all the while – that if the world we see in your rear view window is not better that the one you see in our front windshield – then we are not doing our job.

Chris Chandler and Anne Feeney FLYING POETRY CIRCUS
Chris Chandler is a fire breathing phenomenon, the jester prince supreme. Disturbing, hilarious, and always provocative. I have known some gypsies in my time, but few have hit the highways and especially the byways like this snake oil hipster. His current foil and partner in anti-corporate crime is the ever political Anne Feeney, touted even by Peter Yarrow and Utah Phillips as the most important labor singer in America.

Anne Feeney Review Have You Been To Jail For Justice?

SongRamp About chris chandler & anne feeney
Two distinguished forces have joined to form one tremendous act.
Chris Chandler, a traveling snake oil salesman and wandering troubadour from Stone Mountain, GA has rambled the thin highways of fat America to light in Pittsburgh, PA and has teamed up with the unrepentant rabble rouser for the Labor Movement Anne Feeney. Her guitar stylings - steeped in tradition - dovetail with the chaos of stories, poems and barbs.

Sabots - toss your shoes into the machine works * sabotage: During the Industrial Revolution, machines replaced workers at an alarming rate throughout Europe, and the once stable economy of Guild and craft shop members who had performed manual labor for generations found their very welfare threatened. To protest machine replacement of workers, the workers would toss their shoes into the machine works to make them stop - sabotage.
Anne Feeney, the 'Union Maid' shows this principal at work in a poster with a wrench tossed into the gears. And, of course, she sings Joe Hill's songs . . .

Voices At Work Anne Feeney & Chris Chandler In Concert
We have confirmed that we will have Anne Feeney, unionmaid, hellraiser, and the artist that sings "War On The Workers", and Chris Chandler in Houston for a concert on Sunday, June 8th, 2003 from 2pm until 4pm. Tickets will be $10 per adult.

The Militant - May 12, 2003 -- Meat packers on strike at Tyson spread their message through ‘Truth Squads’ Speakers at the rally included a representative of the United Auto Workers in Janesville, Wisconsin--a local in GM assembly and parts plants that has been active in building solidarity with the strike. Two representatives of a group of meat packers from Omaha also spoke, along with officials of the Green and Democratic parties. Participants enjoyed songs by Anne Feeney, and a hot dog meal provided by the organizers.

TrueMajority

Reject Nomination of Bush and Blair for Nobel Prize Petition

T h e M u s e a n d W h i r l e d R e t o r t
May 2003

that would be Volume IV issue viii
Milwaukee, WI
April 30, 2003

Hey Everybody,
It's that time of the month again! Happy Earth Day and Happy Mayday! Anne and I have been up here in the cheesehead state for an Earth Day to May Day festival ˆ doing things like performing for the striking Tyson workers in Jefferson. But I gotta make this brief because we gots to start counting mile markers, cows, and Tyson Chicken trucks lying like roadkill in truck-stop holding lots as we head to the Big Apple for May Day.

I know, I know ˆ many of you look to this newsletter for some sort of counterpoint to the endless inundation from Fox news - but not this month. I am sorry.

I know, I know ˆ there is a whole planet spinning out of round on its axis of evil.

SARS has not yet collateralled as many innocent civilians as the American Armed Forces.

The US Marines (with a little help from Iraqi children who happened to have mouths full of Skittles® at the time) pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein and then erected in its place a statue of Bob's Big Boy.

Dick Cheney now has a stone tablet copy of The Babylonian Beacon- Journal (first edition ˆ printed in cuneiform) sitting on his coffee table beneath the latest issues of Guns and Ammo, Men's Health, and the swimsuit edition of National Geographic.

BTW: I picture Dick Cheney digging so far into his secret bunker that he actually goes all the way through the earth and runs into Osama Bin Laden (remember him?) digging from the other end.

But before I get to the point of this month's missive ˆ I have to say: it makes me snicker when ˆ after Anne and I finish a set -- someone comes up and says, "Don't you think you should give some equal time in your set?"

Equal time? There is not enough time in the evening for us to do a set long enough to approach equal time. We could do the whole festival, the whole week - we could play the rest of the year ˆ non-stop ˆ hell we could play longer than an episode of Entertainment Tonight and time would not be equal.


If you want "equal time" flip on the TV. Turn on AM radio. Turn on FM Radio! Turn on Cable Radio! Read the "liberal press." Walk into a bar. Open a window. Read a bumper sticker, a T-Shirt, a ball cap, a dixie cup. Eavesdrop on a conversation at the Starvin' Marvin. There is your equal time ˆ yea that's it - equal time. As equal as the median income of those getting a tax break and those who are not. As equal as the Yankees and the Expos ˆ as equal as the Conquistadores and the Incas, Lee and Grant after the fall of Richmond, the Iraqi Army and the US Marines... as balanced as the budget... (I do want to interject here that the technological difference between the Iraqi army and the US was greater than that between the Spanish and the Incas.)

Equal Time.

So, with that in mind - this month I only want to tell you about this brand new CD. I know I know, I mentioned we were going to do it ˆ but we did. It is at the manufacturer right now!

So, Chandler, what's it called? Oh, I thought you would never ask:

"Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire."

It was recorded at a number of choice shows this year including Henfling's in Santa Cruz, The Cherry Tree in Philadelphia, The Norway House in Victoria and Reed College in Portland, OR.

Please understand ˆ I am only telling you about this because so many of you have been asking, "How do I get a copy of that one with the bit about the corporations that used to operate Ronald Reagan like a marionette now having their hand stuck so far up the tight rectal sphincter of George W Bush that the are now able to operate this guy like a hand puppet

"or the bit about how, from the space shuttle, Florida looks like a giant limp tallywhacker hanging flaccid from the beast now known as the United States ˆ yet, from that drooping Johnson ˆ mankind ejaculates into the cosmos ˆ shooting the seeds of the fountain of youth to swim the heavens in search of eternal creation...


"Or the one about ˆ how nothing makes me anymore fulfilled ˆ than I was ˆ when I received that brightly colored package ˆ with the picture of the Sea Monkeys waving to me as they swam by ˆ and I ripped open that package ˆ and emptied its contents into a large gold-fish bowl and watched breathlessly ˆ as ˆ as two pathetic brine- shrimp larvae floated ˆ in a most un-seamonkey-like descent to the bottom of that bowl!?"

Yes, folks it is all here. In one shrink-wrapped package.

BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE! If you order now-now-now (add echo) you will get a (slightly used) set of Ginsu Knives and an "Inside the Egg" Egg Scrambler®. (also slightly used. hey ˆ I fell for it once ˆ and ya gotta get rid of that stuff somehow.)

OK, not really. But there really is more ˆ MUCH MORE.

Anne has finally put together a CD of all of her Union Classics such as: Union Maid, and Solidarity Forever as well as some of her own inspired compositions -- War on the Workers, What Ever Happened to the Eight Hour Day? & 19 (yes, 19!) others...

So ˆ you ask How can I get a copy? And as you ask ˆ for a brief moment -- I would think, "What kind of swoosh-sticka® wearing capitalist do you take me for?"

Then I would take a big sip of my Latte Grande®, I crease the brim of my New Orleans Saints® ball cap (made in Macao but bought in a thrift store ˆ owned by GAP® ˆ but that is a different story) I take a drag off my Marlboro Medium® ˆ I realize THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS EQUAL TIME and then I tell you:

go to: http://www.cdstreet.com/cgi-bin/artisthome_db.cgi?1238384 and use a creditcard.

or (if you're like me) and do not have a credit card you can send $15 (+ $1 S&H) to Anne Feeney (she is the one responsible enough to have a checking account) 7206 Michigan Ave Pittsburgh, PA 15218 (Pennsylvania Residents add another $1.05 for sales tax)

There you have it. Till the long haul ends ˆ you will find Anne and me out on the road ˆ here's hoping we talk in person.

Everything,
chris chandler

*****
Kerrville is coming! Need I say more? We are Booked Booked Booked on May 29!
*****
Speaking of Kerrville ˆ Anne and I would like to express our deep sadness in the passing of Jim Ross. He was an anchor that stabilized camp CALM through the storm of songs that is Kerrville. His passing makes me acutely aware of how much harder we will all have to work to just keep pace in a world without Jim Ross. He was a friend of fifteen years, a music lover and a veteran. Though we often disagreed politically he taught me to disagree with grace. I will miss him ˆ and his insightful comments to this newsletter.
*****
We could sure use some help on both the trip down to Kerrville as well as the trip back up. Please see our tour dates below.
*****
Praise HA! A documentary about laughter that I have worked on (and off) for several years with my good friend Wendy Corn will be making its debut in NYC this weekend! Our screening will be taking place on Sunday, May 4, 2003 in New York City at the SCREENING ROOM, 54 Varick @ Canal at HIGH NOON (please try to shake your hangover and arrive by 11:30am) Followed by Mimosas and Bloody Marys at the cash bar. MAY FOURTH IS WORLD LAUGHTER DAY! check out: www.pythonaquarius.com/praiseha1.html
*****
This summer is starting to fill out nicely ˆ but we could sure use some help here and there. Please see tour dates ˆ and if you are on the west coast and have some ideas for July ˆ Zap us!
******
Anne's smoking update... not since November! That is over 5 months. She is like the energizer bunny ˆ only I feel like the energizer bunny's drum.
******
Past Whirled Retorts: http://www.balladtree.com/ or: http://www.antifolkonline.com/MuseAndWhirledRetort2003.html FINALLY!

See you in the road.
Anne Feeney
unionmaid@earthlink.net
www.annefeeney.com

7206 Michigan Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15218
412.241.SONG

18 April 2003
friday in pittsburgh

hi folks

so many people have written to tell me how immobilized and depressed they've felt since this war began. while i continue to write, fax, petition, sing and pray for peace i've found i need to do more to feel okay these days. i've started walking ... a *lot* ... trying to do 5 miles a day ...partly to get into better shape, but mostly to have some time to reflect and also to take in the splendor of the planet. the glories of spring are everywhere these days ... the crocuses, daffodils, tulips, lilacs, dogwoods, azaleas ... the trees in bloom ... enough to take your breath away, and constant reminders that life renews.

chris and i have been busy piling on the hours mastering and editing and getting the artwork ready for our new CDs. i've got all the very best labor songs i've ever recorded onto one 23 song CD called "Union Maid" ... the cover features the wonderful labor history mural of pittsburgh that my husband and i did for SEIU with students at Schenley High School ... my UPIU brother Randy McSorley dropped everything he was in the middle of to do the design (thanks!) ... it's got all the hits from 'united we bargain, divided we beg' onto CD for the first time -- 'are you now or have you ever been?', 'The US Steal Song', 'Schooldays End', "Solidarity Forever', "Which Side Are You On?" "Fannie Sellins" "Bread and Roses" "Are My Hands Clean?""Your Nursing Heart" "Punch It In" ... and then, from "Look to the Left" - "Scabs", "National Health Care Now!", "We Do the Work", "We Just Come to Work Here" ... from "Heartland" we picked "Union Maid", "After School", "the Sick Note" "Praise Boss" and "The Victim Gets the Blame" ...I went back to my 1987 cassette "If I Can't Dance It's Not My Revolution" to get "Do-Re-Mi" and "I'm Gonna Be an Engineer" and then, for good measure, I added "Whatever Happened to the Eight Hour Day?" and "War on the Workers" from "Have You Been to Jail for Justice?" It's almost 78 minutes of fabulous labor music!

It will be ready in time for Mayday, and I could really use some pre-orders, too. To reserve a copy, send a check for $15.99 (PA Residents add $1.05 Sales Tax) to Anne Feeney - 7206 Michigan Avenue - Pittsburgh, PA 15218

And before the Kerrville Folk Festival begins Chris and I will have 1000 copies of "LIVE FROM THE WHOLLY STOLEN EMPIRE" in our hands. Chris has outdone himself on the artwork this time, and he and i both agree it's a *wonderful* recording... Finally on one CD -- Carnivals #3, I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine, FL, 21st Century Skid Row Man, Cracker Jack Cure, Whoop, Top Banana, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Abyss, Chiapas, Freedom Is... and Martin Luther, Classic.

You can pre-order this CD too! Send a check for $15.99 (PA residents add $1.05 sales tax) to Chris Chandler, 7206 Michigan Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15218

We're off to Wisconsin for Earth Day to Mayday ... we're looking forward to our visit to the picket line of striking UFCW 538 workers at Tyson! Then on to New York City... please check the tour dates. See you on the road & in the streets!

In Solidarity
Anne

This is a special wartime edition of
T h e M u s e a n d W h i r l e d R e t o r t

Volume 4 issue 7

Meeeep maneeep neep neep...insert graphic graphics of an American
soldier running slow motion through the desert to rescue a crying
baby.

Chiron overlay: "Americans wipe out Iraqi propaganda machine."

The Iraqi Horror Picture Show!

3-31-03
Washington, D.C.

Hey everybody, it's that time of the month again...
It's crazy out there, folks. (As if you needed to be told that.)
This time last month Anne and I were hopeful that this might just be
the first peace movement to actually stop a war. Ha! Reality makes
it extremely hard to try to be funny.

Believe me, I would much rather be writing about the first day of
Baseball – and the fact that the Orioles played their opener in the
snow.

Here in the nation's capital the snow is falling and the cherry
blossoms are in bloom. Perhaps Mother Nature herself is responding
with her own set of ironies. Happy spring. Perhaps this is Mom's own
April Fool's joke. We could all use a good laugh about now.
I stand in Lafayette Park, in front of the White House, just as I did
12 years ago. I was 26 and had been living out of a car for four
years, playing guitar on the streets and in subway stations, in
picket lines and at political rallies. Oil War I® started on my
birthday. Phil Rockstroh and I had camped out in the park for the
weeks leading up to the war, singing "Bush Lite," "Talkin' Lafayette
Blues," "Leave Iraq and Roll," and "Emotional Dyslexia."

At any given time, there were around 100 people staying 24/7. Our job
was to entertain the "permanent" residents of the park. We thought of
ourselves as George's nearest neighbors - thought he might drop by
sometime for a cup of foreign policy.

As with this war, there were "events" when our numbers would grow.
But always the drums rang out. George the First told a reporter that
our drums were keeping him up at night. We all thought that was
nothing compared with the sound of Patriot missiles falling on
Baghdad. (George the 2nd was at a Texas Ranger's Baseball game at the
time.)

When Oil War I® started, thousands of people came out to the park in
defiance. A spontaneous "snake march" erupted. We circled throughout
the city, calling out for others to join us. And they did! Boy
did they! We grew from a thousand to ten thousand in a couple of
hours as we marched through the streets.

The thing about marching through the streets, though, is that we
abandoned Lafayette Park and it filled with about a hundred counter-
demonstrators. As we rounded the corner returning back onto
Pennsylvania Avenue, we were met by mounted police, who began to spin
their horses in a 360, pushing us back into the park among the pro-
war folks and their shouts of "USA! USA! USA!"

Rocks and bottles began to fly. Fights erupted everywhere. It was
mayhem. I was on the front line where, we were all linked arms. When
the police swung their horses around, our lines broke. I was linked
with an 18-year-old kid. He fell on top of me as a horse ran us
over. He accidentally became my shield - he got beaten with a billy
club. I never did get his name. A friend, Barry the Balladeer, saw
us lying in the street, and he pulled us to safety.

The fights between the protestors, counter-protestors, and police
lasted for hours. It was clear that the police had caused the
disruption by forcing our ranks right into the middle of a hundred
counter-demonstrators. The next day when I read the paper, the
banner headline read, "It's War," of course. However, under the fold
was a minor article that read, "A couple of dozen protestors hobbled
down the street pelting police with rocks and bottles." It taught me
a valuable lesson: I knew then the support for that war was not near
what the paper claimed. This is doubly true for George the Second's
Oil War II. I think about this these days as I stand out in Lafayette
Park.

Today the snow has dampened the number of folks, but there has been a
24-hour vigil in front of the White House since the war started. A
couple of days ago, there were 65 arrests, including three Nobel
laureates. The next day, 25 people linked themselves together with
PVC pipe and blocked traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue. People handed
leaflets to commuters apologizing for the "inconvenience," but
compared with the inconvenience of bombs falling in public markets,
it seems pretty small. There were more than 200 arrests in New York
City a couple of days ago. In all, there have been far more arrests
of people protesting this slaughter than coalition casualties.

(OK, it's time to cut the "coalition" crap. No one else is on our
side it is the Anglo/American forces. Let's be honest here.)

Still, folks, I feel safer (yes, safer) because of the protests. At
least on some level, we are telling the world which is so justifiably
outraged at American arrogance that we Americans are not all
warmongering, shortsighted global capitalists. Thank God there
is worldwide condemnation. And those of you out on the streets
around the world, I hope you hear us in the Streets of Washington DC,
New York City, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boise, and Peoria, Illinois
louder than you hear the Tomahawk® missiles.

Hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets across this great
country telling the world: We did not elect him and we are sorry for
what that mean-spirited child of privilege is doing. We support our
troops by trying to get them home.

You might be interested to know that while we "ANTI-AMERICAN RABBLE"
were out in the streets not supporting the troops by demanding their
immediate safe return, the patriots in Congress were busy actually
CUTTING veterans' benefits.... REALLY.

Though I did hear one congressman (I will let you guess which one)
say at a gathering I attended, "If you want to support our troops,
pay taxes on your dividends."

The awesome shock of the American military will take down a tiny,
impoverished country. Yet we have the audacity to say we will rebuild
that country with the profits from ITS oil! No, really: We say this
and no one bats an eye. Though it does make me realize that this is
not JUST about oil - it is about global capitalism. Those are not
refugees fleeing across the border - those are customers. Iraq has 24
million potential customers in it.

From that perspective, wouldn't we be making better customers if,
instead of spending $200 billion to destroy a county of 24 million,
we just bought it? The way we did Kuwait® and the United Arab
Emirates®? Or even better, we just gave the Iraqis $8,300 apiece?
That is what it works out to. Maybe we could open up a McDonald's in
Umm Qasr, the way we did in Kuwait City®. There, they just
introduced the McArabia Burger®. Really! Hell, with the exchange
rate that would be 20,000 McArabia burgers for each Iraqi. That is 4.8
TRILLION McArabia burgers.

How did that Biff Rose ditty go?
"Goin to McDonalds, Gonna stand in line.
Order a billion burgers and watch them change the sign."

Want an Apple Pie or Freedom fries® with that? (BTW, French's mustard
has released a new slogan: "The only thing French in French's is the
name.")

As we drive through our fast-food fairyland, we have Basra -a city
the size of this one - fully under siege, and a humanitarian crisis
of biblical proportions rages just outside of Babylon. We seem to
be having trouble getting humanitarian aid in yet our "smart bombs"
have no trouble whatsoever. Hmmm…. at $40 million apiece, doesn't it
seem as if our money would have been better spent with precision-
guided food bombs?

Now, why is it they hate us?

We complain that Iraqis in civilian clothes attack us. Yet look to
our own history: What were the battles of Lexington and Concord? If
it were not for civilians taking it upon themselves to attack an
"occupying" army the shot heard round the world would have been the
shot heard round the mulberry bush.

We complain about Iraqis flying a white flag and then attacking us.
Yet look to our own history: Crazy Horse was lured out of the
Canadian wilderness by the United States Army under a flag of
truce...and then murdered.

How can we claim that Iraq is violating the Geneva Convention in a
war that itself is a violation of the Geneva Convention?

We scratch our heads, befuddled, when the Iraqi people do not rise up
and join the invading army to rid themselves of Saddam's tyranny. Yet
look to our own history: Southern slaves and free blacks actually
joined the Confederacy en masse (larger numbers than joined
the North though it is not PC to say as much, nor does it make good
Hollywood movies) to stem the tide of an invading army even though it
meant the perpetuation of their own slavery.

Isn't the lesson obvious? Invasion trumps tyranny. You cannot
liberate a country that does not want to be liberated.
It is as if in 1959 Red China invaded Alabama to liberate African-
Americans from Jim Crow. Would you really expect American blacks
running through the streets of Birmingham waving Chinese flags and
shouting, "Long Live Chairman Mao?" Get real, folks.

An Iraqi taxi driver attacked American supply lines with a suicide
bomb and the U.S. media called it a terrorist attack. What I want to
know is, When do they get to be defenders and not terrorists?

Yes, I do have sympathy with the young men who lost their lives, and
their families. But they were soldiers in the line of duty who were
killed by the Iraqi militia -- not terrorists. And while we are on the
subject: As I sit here in Washington, D.C., under Homeland Security
Code Jolly Olly Orange® - my duct tape and plastic sheeting always
close at hand I wonder if, when an Iraqi national drives a gasoline
truck or chemical truck or worse into a military base (or, for that
matter, any target as loosely defined as we have defined "military"
targets in Baghdad) right here in Washington, D.C., will it be
called a terrorist attack?

I will not feel safer with Saddam Hussein "out of the way." I will
feel safer with George Bush® out of the way. My god, how can one
lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein? We will not have any
better luck carving up Iraq than Winston Churchill did at the end of
the First World War.

The only thing that makes me feel safer is the hundreds of thousands,
yes, millions of voices out there on American streets telling the
world loudly that WE DO NOT SUPPORT THIS WAR!
Yours,
Chris Chandler
*******
Our Live CD "Live From the Wholly Stolen Empire" is being finished!
Last chance – if any of you have a recording you thing might could
make it on the CD! We are aiming for a May release – in time for
Kerrville and the kick off of summer festival season.
*******
Anne is still not smoking! (and she never mentions it)
*******
Chris' Retrospective ("If I had any hits these would be the greatest")
is in the works. It will be interactive and contains two previously
unreleased music videos of "This is not a folk song" and "Evil (is
boring")
*****
My friend Jim Infantino has created this for your amusement – Ifing
ya gotta decent computer check out http://www.slabmedia.com/slab.html
then click "state of security"
*****

In general we are looking for work in the Washington DC area… if you can help!

HERE IS DA DATES!

April 9-11 Holed up in a studio mixing and mastering our new CD! "Live from the Wholly Stolen Empire."
if any one there knows of some stuff for us to get into please let us know!

Saturday, April 12 - Dogwood Festival - Atlanta, GA
http://www.dogwood.org/ Piedmont Park. 2:00 PM

Sunday, April 13 Atlanta, GA Java Monkey 9:00 PM (Downtown Decatur)

Fri. April 25th 8:00 pm UW-Madison Memorial Union
(TITU) Earth Day to May Day Concert with troubador
folksingers: Anne Feeney, Chris Chandler, and Vicki
Guzman. Part of the Madison Earth Day to May Day
Celebration. Info? #262-9036 or #255-1800.

Sat April 26th noon - Picnic & Rally for striking UFCW workers at Tyson Foods in Jefferson.

Sat. April 26th 6:30 - 11:00 pm James Reeb
Unitarian Universalist (2146 E. Johnson) Community
Commemoration of the Bombing of Guernica.
Refreshments, open mic, and Sing-a-Long with Anne
Feeney, Chris Chandler, Vicki Guzman, Dave Stoddard,
Kristine Pettersen, Ben Manski, and others. Part
of the Madison Earth Day to May Day Celebration.
Info? #262-9036 or #255-1800.

Monday, April 28 - Milwaukee, WI - WisCOSH & the Milwaukee Labor Council commemorate
Workers Memorial Day. Concert at Zeidler Park (5:00 pm to 6:00 pm) and marching over to
Postal Union Hall for a dinner (6:00 to 8:00 pm)

May 2003
Thursday, May 1 - Mayday at the American Labor Museum, Haledon, NJ - 7PM


Friday, May 2 - NY Pinewoods Folk Club; Adm: $13 (members, $10, Polytech students and staff free). At: Polytechnic University, Wunsch Student Center, just over the Brooklyn or Manhattan bridges in Brooklyn; Info: 1718-549-1344 (after 11 AM).

Saturday, May 3 - House Concert - New York, NY
Contact Mark Aaron James details TBA

Sunday, May 4 - Cherry Tree Folk w Jim Page!
3916 Locust Walk – U Penn 215 386 1640

May 9-11 (Anne solo) - Regina Polk Leadership Conference for Union
Women - Chicago, IL

May 11 - 12 North of Baltimore MD, Susquehanna Fest

Ramblewood Park near Havre de Grace 301 847 1523
Saturday, May 11 3:00 PM Pavilion Stage (Chris solo)
Sunday, May 12 12:00 PM Pavilion Stage (Chris and Anne in a workshop)
Sunday, May 12 3:00 PM Stage 3(Chris and Anne in a concert)

****
We are mapping our trip to and from Kerrville as I write this and are
looking for dates in Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, St Louis, MO,
Tulsa, OK, Lexington, KY, Little Rock, AR, Nashville, TN, Dallas, TX,
Houston, TX and not in that order! If you have some ideas and or
offers – PLEASE let us know asap!

*****
Thursday, May 29 - 8 PM - Kerrville Folk Festival - Kerrville, TX
Threadgill Theater with The Road Dog Divas!
Coming in July – The Oregon Country Fair, Music Fest (Courtenay, BC)
and a full west coast tour! If you have any ideas or offers here –
please let us know ASAP!

The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head There is an emerging second superpower, but it is not a nation. "Instead, it is a new form of international player, constituted by the "will of the people? in a global social movement. The beautiful but deeply agitated face of this second superpower is the worldwide peace campaign, but the body of the movement is made up of millions of people concerned with a broad agenda that includes social development, environmentalism, health, and human rights.

Anne Feeney: unionmaid, hellraiser and labor singer How is it that we persuade Iraq not to defy the UN by defying the UN ourselves?
How is it that we use our weapons of mass destruction on innocent civilians to convince Iraq that we condemn the use of weapons of mass destruction?
How dare we call for regime change in Iraq when our own leader is "an unelected" fundamentalist idealogue who claims a personal hotline to God?
George Orwell was clearly lacking in imagination.

chris_chandler_and_anne_feeney_news Hey everybody, it's that time of the month again...

It's crazy out there, folks. (As if you needed to be told that.) This time last month Anne and I were hopeful that this might just be the first peace movement to actually stop a war. Ha! Reality makes it extremely hard to try to be funny.

Believe me, I would much rather be writing about the first day of Baseball - and the fact that the Oriels played their opener in the snow.

once i saw you had signed in then i was able to click your admin priviledges, so you now have templates, team and settings visible

i had envisioned it as a place for the whirled muse retort to be posted and archived where several people can edit and update and fill in blanks as the month goes along augmented (and updated) by adding items of interest you collect, contribute or create between issues of Whirled Retort, but of course you can use this for all that you suggested as well: posts can be temporary or permanent, and older posts go into the archives after a week or so and any extraneous entries can be deleted and of course any post can be updated by clicking edit

ok, the templates are now visible to you anne, you would have seen them right away had you set up the blog, since you asked me to set it up i have to enable admin access for you, (done) and then either of us can enable chris when he replies to the invite email

hmmmmmmmmmmmm... i'm not finding the templates... but i seem to have figured out how to post... most convenient...

soooooooooo.... are you suggesting that we no longer have the tour dates section on the webpage, but instead a link to here? likewise with the postcards? or are you suggesting that we use this as the place where i put up stuff for you to put on the webpage?

i'm not sure i get the magic yet...
but it is cool to be able to just post like this...

as soon as you get to your dashboard try experimenting with templates (there are quite a few to choose from and this was just a whim) and putting some text here

in safe mode you can see how i code this

rawblogXport

and you insert an image with this code



just change the actual url and then jump over and between the > and you insert the text to be made into a live link

hi, got it this time, whirled_retort is yours, just reply to this invite, log in with user name and password and when i see you show up on the dashboard i will select administrator for each of you so you can choose templates and modify discription in settings, stay away from archives for a while until you get it all worked out and then we will republish archives

also we will hold off on customizations for a while til you get it sorted out as customizations (links in the columns etc) are lost when you change templates

you will just log in and then type or paste in the top box and hit post or post and publish, in settings look for a bookmarklet called *blog this* and drag the link to your favorites bar -- then when you are on a page and have some text highlighted and click *blogthis* then the page title (changeable) becomes the live link and the text is sent to your blog dashboard as post or direct to blogsite as entry. take a look at rawblogXport to see the system in action.

now, in the lower window is *edit* -- well when you *blog this* most quotes and dashes are converted to question marks ? and you have to hand edit them out and replace with correct symbol

happy blogging, once you have signed up from then on you go to http://www.blogger.com/ and sign in then to your dashboard, then when you publish you go to the whirled_retort page which should show up in about half an hour

Anne's earthlink archive-gpm

"The Anne Feeney web page for the Great Peace March and for her new CD If I Can't Dance"  

     

              

The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear                            Disarmament evolved from another peace effort, PRO-Peace. Formally organized on April 2, 1985, by David Mixner of Los Angeles,                            California, PRO-Peace envisioned raising $20,000,000 to send 5000 marchers 3000 miles eastward to Washington D.C. The march                            departed from Los Angeles on March 1, 1986, with only 1200 participants and a fraction of the needed monies in hand. The marchers                            soon began to realize that the collapse of PRO-Peace was imminent and some began to organize a new structure to take its place.                            On March 14, while camped near Barstow, California, they received word from David Mixner that PRO-Peace no longer existed.                            Many marchers departed but those who remained incorporated on March 19 into the Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament.                            A Statement of Purpose was approved with the following preamble "The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament                            is an abolitionist movement. We believe that great social change comes about when the will of the people becomes focused on                            a moral imperative. By marching for nine months across the United States, we will create a non-violent focus for positive                            change; the imperative being that nuclear weapons ar politically, socially, economically and morally unjustifiable, and that,                            in any number, they are unacceptable. It is the responsibility of a democratic government to implement the will of its people,                            and it is the will of the people of the United States and many other nations to end the nuclear arms race." The GPM,                            also known as Peace City and now numbering approximately 600, resumed its eastward walk on March 28. The marchers                            crossed the United States through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania,                            New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. On November 15, 1986, they marched into DC, despite the predictions of failure, almost                            1200 strong again. About 15,000 people were there to greet them--many of those had helped the march or were inspired by it.                            Concluding ceremonies were held the following day in Meridian Park, followed by speeches in front of the White House, and                            closing ceremonies at the Lincoln Memorial. Rev. Jesse Jackson was among the speakers at the Lincoln Memorial. The                            March itself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. What happened between leaving LA and arriving in DC is the real story,                            and it is different for each of the marchers who made that journey. Some of the transformation is palpable in this exciting                            recording. Producer Anne Feeney remembers: "Getting involved in the March was one of the best things that ever                            happened to me. I had two young children, and I was very concerned about the arms race. During the Reagan years it was pretty                            easy to drift into cynicism and helplessness. Enter Wild Wimmin for Peace. It was late September of 1986, and they were nearing                            the end of a journey that had begun almost six months before. I didn't have much in the way of expectations when I was asked                            to present this 20 womon ensemble of peace marchers. I figured they were activists, not artists, and that the show would be                            boring and preachy. NOT! I was so wrong! Their energy and optimism and tribalism and spiritualism and humor and talent just                            blew me away. I couldn't get their music out of my head. By October 2, I had gotten our local peace and justice center,                            the Thomas Merton Center, and East Hills NOW to co-sponsor the project. I raised enough money from individual donors to the                            Merton Center and NOW to finance the project. I convinced Don Bell, one of the very few professional sound engineers in Pittsburgh,                            to dismantle his studio and take it to the Great Peace March campsite, which by then was 80 miles out of town in Bedford,                            PA. The marchers, facilitated by Liz Marek and others, consensed and consensed about the details of how this recording would                            be used. In the end, everyone waived all rights to any of the proceeds from the sale of the recording as long as no one was                            going to benefit except for peace and feminist groups worldwide. The Merton Center and NOW were to make copies available at                            cost to any non-profit peace or feminist organization. Wild Wimmin for Peace wanted any marcher who agreed to the concept                            to be able to participate, so there are several additional songs on the recording. I knew nothing about licensing the                            work of other artists, so everyone agreed not to do any 'cover' tunes unless they were traditional songs. We had a fabulous                            recording session and I went home with the Beta 2 track master to figure out which takes would be used on the recording. I                            had it mastered and the liner notes nearly finished when I got a call from Liz. On the way into Harrisburg, PA, one of the                            marchers had told Liz that she was pretty sure that the song "Bridget Evans" was written by someone named Jill or Judy Small                            from England or New Zealand or Australia. Their performance of "Bridget Evans" was fantastic and I really wanted it on the                            recording. Ack! I was crazy. How would I ever find this composer? How would I convince her to waive her royalties? I opened                            my most recent copy of SingOut! magazine -- I thought perhaps someone at the magazine might recognize the song. To my amazement,                            the issue I had randomly pulled from the shelf contained a feature on Australian songwriter Judy Small. SingOut! gave                            me the phone number of Redwood Records, Judy's US label. Someone at Redwood told me Judy was touring in the US and gave me                            a phone number where I could reach her. I dialed the number and found myself talking to Ronnie Gilbert (of the Weavers)!!!                            Ronnie put Judy on the phone. I told her about our project. She was so enthusiastic that I played the tape to her over the                            phone. She arranged to have Wild Wimmin open for her in Philadelphia. (She also waived all royalties from the recording --                            thanks, Judy!) I had 500 copies ready by the time the marchers reached their campsite on Staten Island. We sold all                            500 copies that weekend in New York. I returned to Pittsburgh with enough money to give both co-sponsoring organizations $1000                            and also order another 1000 tapes. I took them to Washington, DC on November 15, and we sold all 1000 copies to the 15,000                            activists who had shown up to celebrate the end of the march at the Lincoln Memorial. Since its hasty production on                            October 2, 1986 this recording has made its way all over the world, raising tens of thousands of dollars for peace and feminist                            groups from the Nevada Test Site to Greenham Common. The marchers touched the lives of many people in profound ways that we                            may never completely document or understand. I cherish the great times I had with Liz Marek, one of the moving forces in Wild                            Wimmin for Peace (as well as in the production of this recording). Liz perished on Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. And                            it's with sadness that I report the passing of Ginny Dean, whose sweet voice is heard on most of these tracks. When this recording                            was first released the US and Soviet Union were poised in a nuclear standoff. Global thermonuclear destruction seemed almost                            inevitable. The dangers are different today, but our work is more necessary than ever. The original cassette liner notes said                            "Take the positive energy from this recording and use it to teach peace." Still good advice.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Announcing the release of "If I Can't Dance"                            -- 16 songs that are sure to get your toes tapping -- all in the joyous revolutionary spirit of Emma Goldman.  Starting                            with "Emma Goldman" - a wonderful tune by Paul Gailiunas and his wife Helen, and ending with Suzanne Buirgy's touching                            "Lullaby," this CD features some of the most-requested material from Anne's previous cassette releases as well as six songs                            recorded in June 2006 at Wilkin Audio in Pittsburgh.                                                        Longtime Anne Feeney fans will appreciate                            the inclusion of "Dr. Jazz," and "The Sheik of Araby," her two show-stopping duets with D.C. Fitzgerald.  And old pal                            and fiddling wizard Bob Banerjee returns to the current sessions for work on "Lullaby" and "Let Their Heads Roll," complementing                            his early work on "Phil the Fluter's Jam," "Amelia Earhart's Last Ride," and "Dr. Jazz."  Those early sessions of Bob's                            were his first studio work. Bob has gone on to work with Gaelic Storm, the Irish band featured in the film "Titanic."                            Once again, Anne has recorded a song by her friend and mentor, Jon Fromer.  This time it's Fromer's collaboration with                            Bernard Gilbert, "My Feet Are Tired," a very danceable tribute to Rosa Parks and the thousands of people whose sacrifices                            led to the success of the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955.                                                       Janis Coppola's fantastic clarinet work                            brings excitement to Roy Zimmerman's hilarious "Defenders of Marriage," and pathos to Ted Warmbrand's evocative, "Who's the                            Criminal?"                                                       Like the cover art, which is an updated                            reworking of Anne's trademark logo (with Andy Warhol's inspiration), this CD features some of Anne's best early work, which                            can be seen in new ways as it blends with some of the best in contemporary folk music.  Jack Erdie's "Let Their Heads                            Roll" is a consummate protest song in the spirit of Phil Ochs -- one of Anne's earliest inspirations.  Anne's searing                            "Shell Game," written in 1991 and appearing first on "Look to the Left," is prophetic in hindsight. And her beautiful Spanish                            translation of "I Married a Hero" - "Me Casé con un Heroe" - serves as the perfect lead-in to "Who's the Criminal?"                                                       Anne's rap reworking of the old Irish standard,                            "Phil the Fluter's Ball" is hilarious. Complete with scratches and hip-hop uilllean pipes, this rendition may prove once and                            for all that rap was invented by the Irish (or, it may prove that Anne doesn't get enough sleep.)                                                       Sample all sixteen tracks at CDBaby, and                            add this latest recording to your collection today!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Order NEW CD                                                                                                                                                                                                             Order the Great Peace March                                                                                                                                                                                                             Chandler's Web Site                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             This concert review by John Hayes ran in the Pittsburgh                                        Post-Gazette on October 29, 1999.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       unionmaid@annefeeney.com                                                                                              HOME | WMD | Great_Peace_March | Come_to_Ireland_with_Me!