70th Birthday Folk Song for Columbia University Pulitzer Prize Winner Bob Dylan

"`The Poet of PBS'
Was just in it for himself
He took tunes from the Folk
Made money and then sold out. (chorus)

"His manager's got some footage for a commercial promo film
To justify him selling out and his silence while his government killed
So they hired a director and controlled how he did the edits
And the Corporate Rock house artist is now `The Poet of PBS.'

"He moved to his cousin's frat house near a campus in the Midwest
Then impersonated Woody Guthrie and added hip black lyrics
He hung out in the Village and Broadsides taught him to write protest
And the Times man composed the album notes for `The Poet of PBS.'

"With his corporate media backing and his crafty manager
He turned his back on the Folk community to become a millionaire
Then he hid in his country mansion, while Vietnam was wrecked
And cash or drugs destroyed the soul of `The Poet of PBS.'

"Forty years of artistic failure followed his creative moral youth
Forty years of defensiveness, forty years of obscuring truth
And when his tour has ended and they write his epitaph
They'll say: `The rebel poet became The Poet of PBS.'

Spanish Youth and Workers Protest On Streets of Madrid:

"The Lord Mountbatten" Folk Song From 1979

The Lord Mountbatten, he sailed the seven seas
And with his ships protected tyranny
The Lord Mountbatten was so close to the Crown
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he liked to play polo
And party at night and play with the nobles
He married a fortune which gave him many pounds
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he won many medals
By sending many troops to many early graves
He earned the hate of Canada and caused many to drown
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he fought the Japanese
To reconquer the land that Great Britain had seized
He carved up India to collect some new titles
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he lived on his estate
And with his royal family, he lived like a parasite
He visited the castles and loved the palace sound
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he planned a new machine
Composed of armored cars which came across the sea
He held in British Defense, the highest post around
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

The Lord Mountbatten, he lived just like a King
His blood was mixed all up with the crimes of royalty
He saw Britain knife Ireland and he was so very proud
But the I.R.A. brought Old Mountbatten down.

And all the Irish people who fight still to be free
They all gave one big cheer when told of this great deed
And people chained in Africa who heard the explosive sound
Were glad that the I.R.A. had brought Mountbatten down
Yes, they were glad that the I.R.A. had brought Mountbatten down.

"The Lord Mountbatten" folk song was written long ago, after the death of Lord Louis Mountbatten (a cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and mentor to Prince Charles) on August 27, 1979, when a radio-controlled bomb exploded on the 79-year-old Mountbatten’s 30-foot pleasure craft off the northwest coast of Ireland. According to a 2002 book by a former editor of the Irish Times (A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney, page 175) “Mountbatten ignored the security advice to think twice about spending time there” and “his stubbornness cost him his life.”

In their early 1990s book, Elizabeth and Philip: The Untold Story of the Queen of England and Her Prince, Charles Higham and Roy Morseley revealed the following about the British Royal Family’s surplus wealth in the late 20th-century:

“The Queen secretly owned a major shareholding in Courtaulds…Exactly how the Queen was able to obtain American properties through her major interest in Courtaulds, which also had immense holdings in South Africa…is unclear. The Crown Lands remained `Crown’ property…The Queen Mother [now deceased] was said to own a building on Broadway in New York City…;…also holdings on Eighth and Ninth avenues and the West Forties from Forty-first to Forty-eighth Streets. The firm of Baring Brothers and Rowe and Pitman handled the royal investments, which included heavyweight holdings in such firms as Rio Tinto-Zinc and General Electric. Her banker remained Coutts…The Queen did not touch her own investments to run her palaces and staff…She wanted to have her allowance doubled from the equivalent of $12 million to $24 million…”

Queen Elizabeth was also believed to own stock in British Petroleum [BP] and in the British company of Prudential Insurance. (Downtown 11/10/93)

According to The Rise and Fall of the House of Windsor by A.M. Wilson, Prince Charles' “income from the Duchy of Cornwall” made him “the 14th-richest man in Great Britain” in the early 1990s. The same book also observed the following about Prince Charles’ House of Windsor royal family spending habits:

“If the House of Windsor has aroused envy and rancour in the populace at large, one has to concede that it is partly because of their greed and their meanness…Every time the Queen or her husband travels abroad, a bill for traveling expenses is sent to the British Embassy of the country which she or he happens to be visiting…No ambassador ever questions the bills, which are often enormous. They are sent back to the Foreign Office in London, and paid by the taxpayer…

“…The Royal Family has not hesitated to flaunt its great personal wealth. The most glaring, and ugly, example of this is the ranch-style dwelling, built for a sum in excess of 5 million pounds ($7.5 million) on the edge of Windsor Great Park for Prince Andrew to live with his unfaithful wife…

“One could write a lengthy and tedious catalogue of the greed of the Windsors. The [now deceased] Queen Mother’s gambling addictions, and the high sums she has wasted on…wagers, would alone fill a book…”

Black Female Worker Jobless Rate Jumps To 13.4 Percent Under Obama & GOP House of Representatives

Between March and April 2011, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black female workers over 20 years-of-age in the United States jumped from 12.5 to 13.4 percent under the Democratic Obama Administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives; while the official unemployment rate for Black male workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 16.8 to 17 percent, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The number of unemployed African-American female workers over 20 years-of age increased by 90,000 (from 1,127,000 to 1,217,000) between March and April 2011; and the number of jobless African-American male workers over 20 years-of-age increased by 21,000 (from 1,361,0000 to 1,382,000) during this same period. In addition, between March and April 2011 the number of Black women workers over 20 years-of-age with jobs dropped by 87,000 (from 7.923,000 to 7,836,000); while the number of Black male workers over 20 years-of-age with jobs dropped by 27,000 (from 6,758,000 to 6,731,000). The official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Black youths between 16 and 19 years of age was still 41.6 percent in April 2011, while the official unemployment rate for all Black workers over 16 years-of-age (female, male and youth combined) increased from 15.5 to 16.1 percent between March and April 2011.

The official “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for white male workers over 20 years-of-age also increased from 7.7 to 7.9 percent between March and April 2011; while the official jobless rate for all U.S. female white workers over 20 years-of-age increased from 6.9 to 7 percent during the same period. The jobless rate for white youths between 16 and 19 years-of-age also increased from 21.6 to 22.3 between March and April 2011; while the total number of unemployed white workers in the United States increased by 207,000 (from 9,791,000 to 9,998,000) during this same period. In addition, the number of white workers with jobs dropped by 54,000 (from 114,706,000 to 114,652,000) between March and April 2011.

Between March and April 2011, the official “seasonally adjusted” jobless rate for Latino or Hispanic workers in the United States also increased from 11.3 to 11.8 percent; while the number of unemployed female Latina or Hispanic workers over 20 years-of-age increased from by 49,000 (from 963,000 to 1,012,000), according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data, during this same period. The official “not seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate for Latino or Hispanic youth between 16 and 19 years of age was still 23.4 percent in April 2011; while the number of Asian-American workers in the United States with jobs decreased by 49,000 (from 6,881,000 to 6,832,000) between March and April 2011, according to the “not seasonally adjusted” data.

For all U.S. workers (male and female) over 16 years-of-age, the official "seasonally adjusted" unemployment rate increased from 8.8 to 9 percent between March and April 2011; while the jobless rate for male workers over 16 years-of-age increased from 9.3 to 9.4 percent, the unemployment rate for female workers over 16 years-of-age increased from 8.3 to 8.4 percent, and the unemployment rate for all young workers between the ages of 16 and 19 years-of-age increased from 24.5 to 24.9 percent during this same period.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ May 6, 4 2011 press release:

“…The unemployment rate edged up to 9.0 percent…

“The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed over the month, at 8.6 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job…

“In April, 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force…These individuals…wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey…

“Among the marginally attached, there were 989,000 discouraged workers in April…Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them…

“Employment in both state government and local government continued to trend down, with April losses concentrated in the non-educational components…

“Construction employment was about unchanged in April. This industry has shown little net movement since 2010, after having fallen sharply during the prior 3 years…”

30th Anniversary of 1981 Irish Hunger Striker Bobby Sands' Death

Time for Big Media News Departments To Stop Promoting U.S. Government's Endless War In Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan?