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The Islamic Republic of Iran executed 10 prisoners earlier this week, once again underscoring both the brutal nature of the current regime and the need for continued international attention to the plight of scores of political prisoners who remain under threat of long-term incarceration and the imposition of death sentences. Farzad Kamangar is one of those political prisoners.
Please join with the thousands of trade unionists and human rights defenders around the world who are mobilising in defence of Farzad Kamangar, an Iranian Kurdish teacher and trade unionist who is at risk of execution.
Education International received information from reliable sources that on 26 November Kamangar was taken from his cell 121 in ward 209 of Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution by hanging. However, the latest information is that he is still alive and was able to meet with his lawyer on 27 November for the first time in over two months. His situation remains precarious nonetheless.
Kamangar, aged 33, was sentenced to death by the Iranian Revolutionary Court on 25 February 2008 after a trial which took place in secret, lasted only minutes, and failed to meet Iranian and international standards of fairness. His lawyer, Kahlil Bahramian, said: "Nothing in Kamangar's judicial files and records demonstrates any links to the charges brought against him." Indeed, Kamangar was initially cleared of all charges during the investigation process.
Education International, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Transport Workers Federation, Amnesty International and LabourStart are appealing to the Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence and ensure his case is reviewed fairly.
Click here to send a message of support for Farzad Kamangar.
The other night, I spent about an hour writing a blog article on my excitement over purchasing the W.A.S.P. CD Double Live Assassins. It probably doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but the story behind the purchase was almost a quarter-century in the making. Here's a bit from the original draft of my article:
Sometimes it takes me a really long time to get around to doing something. The other day – from what seemed like completely out of nowhere – it occurred to me that I have wanted the first W.A.S.P. album ever since it came out in 1984 but I have never gotten around to buying it. By '84, I had discovered Quiet Riot, Ratt, Mötley Crüe and the like. I read about W.A.S.P. in Circus and Hit Parader, but the band received absolutely no airplay on any of the radio stations in Lexington, including WKQQ which played more metal than the other local stations back then. Plus, we didn't have cable when I was a kid, so even if MTV ever did play any of their videos (and I doubt this happened very often), I wouldn't have seen them anyway. But I was pretty intrigued by W.A.S.P. based only on what I had read about them along with what probably amounted to several hours of staring at the record cover at the Record Bar shop in Turfland Mall. Tipper Gore and the PMRC were on the march around that time and it was getting more difficult for suburban kids to get their folks to spring for metal records. Besides, my folks had already been kind enough to buy Metal Health, Condition Critical and Out of the Cellar for me. I don't recall ever specifically asking either of my parents to buy the W.A.S.P. LP for me, but I would like to think that I knew better anyway.
So, several anecdotal paragraphs later, I was all set to post what had turned into a 750 word article on W.A.S.P. and the tremendous talent behind behind the band, frontman Blackie Lawless. I was just adding in some hyperlinks to some important references (including several Wikipedia articles) when I came upon a surprising line in the Wikipedia bio on Lawless:
In November 2008 he endorsed John McCain in the Presidential election saying, "I will vote for McCain, not because I believe in all he stands for, but as a mandate against Obama, to keep him from becoming President."
And I was like, "Oh, crap." But then again, I did say the same thing about voting against McCain. Then I read on...
"Yes, I will cling to my guns and my religion, and continue to believe in the Constitution, the Cornerstone of our society and trust that this is STILL a "Government of the People, By the People, For the People"
And I was like, "Um...Really?"
Really.
Blackie Lawless
The quotes were from Blackie's November 2008 open letter to KNAC.com entitled "Read in Case of National Emergency." Now, I knew that I probably needed re-tool my original draft after I read the excerpt in the Wikipedia piece. But then I pulled up the full text of Blackie's letter and I was completely blown away. I mean, it is just the most insane piece of insanity I've seen for the whole, entire election cycle (Apologies for the redundancy in that last sentence; I'm just trying to make a point here.) As a whole, Blackie's letter is something like a mixed bag of paranoid rants, McCain campaign talking points and Michael Savage-like blather. The piece is so broad in its scope that it essentially spirals into a muddled sinkhole of poorly-constructed nonsense. Hell, at one point in the letter, Blackie can't even seem to decide whether to call Obama a communist or a fascist. That's Political Science 101, folks. But then again, not every songwriter is as politically astute as, say, Phil Ochs or Tom Morello.
And by the way, I'm still waiting for a coherent, succinct, election-year critique of socialism that doesn't include the words "Marxist," "un-American" or "sucks." Still waiting.
So at the end of it all, despite some professions of a misgiving or two, Blackie decided to cozy up to the Republicans. Well, I'm sure the Repubs were really gunning for the old-school, aging headbanger vote, right? I mean, you can't win an election by limiting your appeals to moose hunters, secessionists and Glossolalists.
All kidding aside, if you don't know anything at all about W.A.S.P., then the irony of all this is probably lost on you. So, consider three things that I have known about W.A.S.P. and Blackie Lawless since I was about 12 or 13:
1. Their first album was called Animal (Fuck Like a Beast). 2. Blackie Lawless drinks blood from a skull during live W.A.S.P. shows. 3. The members of W.A.S.P. once asserted that the name of the band is actually an acronym for the phrase "We Are Sexual Perverts."
Call me crazy, but when John McCain whipped the wingnuts at the Republican National Convention into a jingoistic frenzy, I don't think there were many W.A.S.P. fans chanting the lyrics to "Killahead" in the crowd. And I doubt that Blackie's band would be welcome to play their song "The Headless Children" at the reception for Bristol Palin's upcoming shotgun wedding. After enduring years of harassment by the quasi-fascists of the PMRC, it's just unbelievable that Blackie would put all his faith into a political party that has embraced the likes of zealots like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan and David Duke. To paraphrase Sarah Palin, "Say it ain't so, Blackie!" Where the PMRC merely lobbied for legislation to overhaul the recording industry, McCain's running mate Palin actually contemplated the implementation of real, unilateral censorship when she was the mayor of Wasilla. And remember, her political career is just getting started. To me, the prospect of a Palin presidential administration is a hell of a lot scarier than any heavy metal lyrics I've ever heard. The idea that McCain and company might have somehow been friendlier to civil liberties than Obama is so backwards, I wouldn't know where to begin with that one. Let's just say that I'm pretty sure that the ultra-conservative, theocracy-craving "base" that McCain championed would be more than happy to throw some old-school metal albums on their book-burning bonfires.
With Blackie's open letter, he's pretty much joined the ranks of Alice Cooper, Dave Mustaine, and Lars Ulrich. See, all of these heavy metal heroes are all still enormously talented, but they've changed into completely different people as they've "grown up". They've forgotten the power of radical ideas and why it's important to shake things up now and again. Alice and Dave have been completely consumed by religion to the point that it has significantly changed their legendary acts – and not for the better, either. Mustaine won't even perform "Anarchy in the U.K." any more because it has the word "antichrist" in it. (Sorry Dave, but I liked you better when you were evil.) And Lars Ulrich, who launched his multi-platinum career through a heavily copied demo tape (one might even use the term "pirated" to accurately describe the tape), made it his personal business to lay waste to the Internet-based file sharing community when he realized that kids were sharing Metallica songs on a royalty-free basis. Lars killed Napster almost single-handedly, but the idea still lives on. In fact, the file-sharing community is still going strong on the 'net and it's even bigger and better than ever these days...And depite all that, Lars is still a freaking multi-millionaire. Go figure.
About year ago, I was struggling with some political differences that I had run into with a longtime friend and another friend of mine gave me some important advice: "Don't sacrifice a friendship at the altar of politics." I guess I need to consider that when it comes to music, too. Especially if it's music that I really like. After all, I haven't trashed my collection of Rush albums even though I have some serious political issues with Neal Peart's overt affinity for Randian objectivism. I really do think that W.A.S.P and Blackie Lawless have put together some great music over the years, so I'm not going to just give up and stop listening to their stuff just because Lawless has written some backward and inaccurate garbage that is completely devoid of political sense, facts and logic. At the end of the day, I think I'll just treat Blackie's letter like a bad concept album or a lame power ballad and just ignore it. I have read quite a few reactions to his tirade on other blogs and I think a lot of metal fans aren't taking it too seriously. My favorite reaction was on the blog Life in a Bungalo where the site's author wrote, "I think I prefer members of WASP drunk in swimming pools." Anyone who has seen the film The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years gets that joke. (Seriously, I laughed for about 20 minutes when I read that line.)
"I Wanna Be Somebody" by W.A.S.P. (1984)
In fact, I'm going to snag some more W.A.S.P. stuff just as soon as I can. I finally bid on an affordable copy of the first W.A.S.P. album on eBay early last week, but a day or so after I paid for it, I got a note from the seller stating that the disc is completely cracked and it won't play. I went down to the local used record store the other day to see if they had it in stock. They didn't have it, but to tide me over, I got a copy of W.A.S.P.'s 1998 CD Double Live Assassins. I've been listening to it for a couple days now and it's pretty tremendous. I have always loved live albums and I don't mind getting acquainted with a band by hearing a concert recording. After all, my first major exposure to Kiss was when I heard side 3 of Alive II and that was enough to turn me into a Kiss fan for life. With any luck, I'll still be listening to both Kiss and W.A.S.P. when I'm an old man.
By the way, here's yet another piece of evidence which supports my belief that headbanging is hereditary: The other night, I was checking out W.A.S.P videos on YouTube in hopes that would placate my "jonesing" for a full-length album of W.A.S.P. songs. I cranked up the video for "I Wanna be Somebody" on YouTube and after just a few choruses, I heard Baby Z. singing along as she played next to me: "I wanna be somebody/be somebody too!!" Awesome.
"I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people." -- Huey P. Newton
Folks who know me very well know that I don't have any love for the America's two-party political system. Moreover, to say that I'm not terribly fond of the Democratic Party is to put things rather lightly. I have never regretted my vote for Ralph Nader in the 2000 elections and I think the Democrats who still bear a grudge against Ralph and the Greens to this very day have obviously failed to see things in a much broader perspective for all too long. I have been an admirer of Cynthia McKinney for years and I was absolutely thrilled with her decision to run for President on the Green Party's ticket this year. I shared my enthusiasm for Cynthia with many others, including our 9 year-old daughter who watched the television coverage of the Green Party's convention with me a few months ago. But at the end of it all, I felt like I had to cast my vote for Barack Obama. And equally – if not more importantly – I knew that I had to vote against John McCain.
Huey P. Newton
The right-wing rhetoric of the campaign season reached a disturbing level very soon after the primaries wrapped up. The McCain camp and its cohorts leveled some of the most divisive attacks in the history of American politics. The bitter climate created by McCain's negative-ad blitz undoubtedly soured and disenchanted voters already weary from the infighting of the primary races. The word "socialism" returned to our political discourse, but solely as a pejorative and people were encouraged to fear and resist all forms of new ideas and reform.
I know I was just as frustrated as many others. But over the course of the last few weeks before the election, I noticed an amazing and unexpected change in what had been a long, depressing period of anger and indignation: On both television and radio, I started to notice that a few brave voices here and there were invoking names that don't often make it into today's mainstream media. I heard folks talking about Malcolm X, Huey P. Newton and Ida B. Wells – people who are real heroes to me – and along with these names followed all but forgotten terms like "working class," "movement" and "unity". These names and words came from the minds and mouths of people like Bernie Sanders, Michael Moore, Roland Martin, Cornell West and other important voices for change in America. And I started to feel...hope.
There is no question that the election of Barack Obama is a pivotal event in the history of America. But it is also not a cure in and of itself for the many problems facing the American people. Racism and all sorts of prejudices persist in today's America just as sure as they did in the days of Jim Crow and George Wallace. There's no doubt that certain elements will seek to exploit these antagonisms in an effort to preserve America's old and broken social order. As my friend Mitch observed last night as he looked at the election map, "Those states where people were killed 45 yrs ago so blacks could vote all went for McCain. Those people, those un-reconstructed Confederates, are still there." True enough. But some early praise goes to Barack Obama for making the effort to bridge the longstanding gaps perpetuated by prejudice and ignorance. He accepted the results of the election by expressing these sentiments:
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It is particularly telling that in just the third sentence of his speech last night – less than a minute into his historic address – Obama sought to address not only the political, racial and class-related tensions which have divided Americans for so long, but he also touched upon the sensitive matter of individual sexual orientation, implicitly and effectively welcoming the thousands and thousands of gay and lesbian Americans into the fold of the American political arena. It is a moment like this that suggests that Obama's respect for diversity and his committment to reform are genuine. The right-wing hate machine, which is already seething and chomping at the bit to pick apart the Obama presidency, would be well-served to have more than a bit of concern over what appears to be a new direction in American thinking. They will surely fight to keep a choke-hold on the imagination of working-class America. And their politics of division must be opposed and resisted at every turn.
It is improbable that any simple reform and optimism will serve to salvage an destitute economic system that was founded on class antagonism, elitism and privilege, but the short-term yields of a progressive Obama administration are certainly attractive. For one thing, it would be nice to get some "breathing room" back when it comes to civil liberties, debate and dissent. The very idea that we now have the potential for real health care reform is an exciting prospect which is long overdue. The fact that the current administration (with the support of Congress) has spent close to $1 trillion this year alone to fight an unnecessary war and to pay for Wall Street's worthless assets provides clear evidence that we can afford a national health care system which guarantees the best of care for every man, woman, and child in the nation, regardless of socioeconomic status. The notion that America will finally have a Commander-in-Chief who will seek to avoid unnecessary militarism and adventurism in favor of real and direct diplomacy presents the opportunity for America to regain some degree of integrity internationally, after years of relative indifference by our current leadership.
It is Barack Obama's moderate but palpable grass-roots collectivism which empowers Americans, providing the motivation to support these efforts and continue to struggle for change. And struggle we will.
The Islamic Republic of Iran executed 10 prisoners earlier this week, once again underscoring both the brutal nature of the current regime and the need for continued international attention to the plight of scores of political prisoners who remain under threat of long-term incarceration and the imposition of death sentences. Farzad Kamangar is one of those political prisoners.
Sometimes it takes me a really long time to get around to doing something. The other day – from what seemed like completely out of nowhere – it occurred to me that I have wanted the 
