A Militant and Inspiring Song from Len Chandler (with Pete Seeger)

Wow! What a militant and inspiring song this is from Len Chandler.

I had never heard of Len Chandler before I saw the film "FTA" (Free/Fuck the Army), about Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland and other entertainer's Vietnam era anti-war show for GIs. Its a good film, available on Netflix, released into theatres for a week in the early 1970s and then buried, and Louis Proyect reviews it here along with the classic documentary about Vietnam, "Hearts and Minds".

Anyway, within "FTA" is Len Chandler singing another great song, "My Ass is Mine" which I take to be a play on an army officer's phrase "your ass is mine". I have looked for a You Tube clip of that part of "FTA", and haven't found one. (FYI, the You Tube clip of Rita Martinson that I posted for Memorial Day also from the file "FTA".) Whatever happened to these great resistance artists?

Anyway, here are some of the lyrics from Len Chandler singing "Move on Over (John Brown's Body)" Enjoy the video below.

"Your jails are filled with black men, and your courts are white with hate,
And with every bid for freedom, someone whispers to us "wait".................,
Move on over, or we will move on over you............
It is you who are subversive, you are the killers of the dream......
In a savage world of bandits, it is you who are extreme........"

Chomsky and Herman On Ideology

This is a favorite quote of mine:


The beauty of the democratic systems of thought control, as contrasted with their clumsy totalitarian counterparts, is that they operate by subtly establishing on a voluntary basis--aided by the force of nationalism and media control by substantial interests--presuppositions that set the limits of debate, rather than by imposing beliefs with a bludgeon...... Those who do not accept the fundamental principles of state propaganda are simply excluded from the debate (or if noticed, dismissed as "emotional," "irresponsible," etc.)."

Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman

I suppose this quote by Chomsky and Herman also plays into the theme of this blog. Those who step outside of the limits of debate might also be termed "Left-Wing Wackos".