LAMAR HANKINS | SPORTS AND RELIGION | Offering up prayers for Damar Hamlin

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Thorne Dreyer

When did God start taking sides in football games or bless the performances of various pious athletes?

Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin is removed from Paycor Stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio, in an ambulance. The Buffalo Bills, in white, kneel at the bottom left of the image. Photo by Schetm / Creative Commons.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | February 8, 2023

Prayer seems to me a cry of weakness, and an attempt to avoid, by trickery, the rules of the game as laid down. I do not choose to admit weakness. I accept the challenge of responsibility. Life, as it is, does not frighten me, since I have made my peace with the universe as I find it, and bow to its laws.” — Zora Neale Hurston autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)

I was one of those millions of viewers who watched Damar Hamlin go into cardiac arrest after what appeared to be a routine tackle during the first quarter of the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals football game on Monday night, January 2.  I think everyone watching the game was shocked by what happened.  We all know that football is a violent game, but we don’t expect the specter of death to attend a game; perhaps sprained ankles, broken body parts, torn ligaments, and traumatic brain injuries, but not the possibility of immediate death.

I watched for about 20 minutes as commentators and announcers struggled with what to say, as they frequently cut to commercials.  I watched as many players on the field offered up prayers for Hamlin’s recovery. From what I saw and from news reports since that night I have learned that people all over the country, on television and off, prayed for Hamlin’s recovery.

If you believe in a God who can cure whatever afflicted Damar Hamlin, you have to believe that same God could have prevented the cause of his affliction, but did not do so.  Why would such a God choose to intervene later?  The truth is that there is no force in the universe that controls what happens every second of every day to 3 billion humans.

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ALLEN YOUNG | DOCUMENTARY FILM | ‘Surviving the Silence’: An upbeat but convoluted story about three strong women

Posted on February 5, 2023 by Thorne Dreyer

The film compels the viewer to think about the injustice of anti-gay discrimination in the context of military service.

By Allen Young | The Rag Blog | February 5, 2023

The documentary film Surviving the Silence is the intriguing story of three strong women — Pat Thompson, Barbara Brass and Margarethe Cammermeyer. I think viewers will experience it as both entertaining and informative.

 The film compels the viewer to think about the injustice of anti-gay discrimination in the context of military service.

As stated on the film’s website, “Along the way, two of the women candidly revisit their life together and how they found love against a backdrop of impossible choices. By film’s end, they find something even more important and unexpected — their own voices as out and proud lesbians, later-in-life social activists, and dynamic role models for others.” 

Full disclosure: In 2019, when the movie was a work in progress, I had the pleasure of meeting these three women (and the movie’s energetic director, Cindy L. Abel), as we were all participants in a “Pride of the Ocean” cruise devoted to gay and lesbian cinema.

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THORNE DREYER | REMEMBRANCE | Daniel Jay Schacht, July 4, 1945 – December 22, 2022

Posted on January 24, 2023 by Thorne Dreyer

Danny was involved in a precedent-setting landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Danny Schacht, 2015. Photo by Tim Jones.

By Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | January 24, 2023

With tributes from friends John R. Herrera and Roger Baker

In September 2015, our mutual friend Roger Baker brought Danny Schacht to the KOOP-FM studio in Austin where we were preparing to broadcast a live Rag Radio interview with Austin-based progressive pundit and troublemaker Jim Hightower. Danny sat in the studio with us and then took a terrific photo of Jim and me afterwards. It’s on my wall. It was the first time in many years I had been with my old compatriot and family friend from the ‘60s.

Then I saw Danny again during launch events for Exploring Space City!: Houston’s Historic Underground Newspaper, a book that the New Journalism Project released in 2021. It  was a delight to see him; he was funny and smart and always had that twinkle in his eye!  But that would be the last time I would see him. Longtime Houston activist Daniel Jay Schacht, known to his many friends in the movement and local community as Danny, passed away on December 22, 2022, at the age of 77.

Danny was involved in a precedent-setting landmark case before the U.S. Supreme Court after being arrested in September 1969, when he wore a military uniform as part of a street theater action at the Houston draft board. He was convicted for impersonating a military officer, but the Supreme Court reversed the case. We’ll discuss that case – and its significance — in more depth below.
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BOOK TALK | With Thorne Dreyer and Don Carleton

Posted on January 18, 2023 by Thorne Dreyer

Please join us for a 45-minute visit with Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas, and Thorne Dreyer, author of Making Waves: The Rag Radio Interviews. Making Waves was a selection of the 2022 Texas Book Festival. Click on YouTube link below.

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Remembering Casey Hayden | in her own words

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Alice Embree

Casey Hayden wrote her own obituary and emailed it to a dear friend with instructions to share it with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).  Casey’s friend gave The Rag Blog permission to post it.

Casey Hayden, New York City, 1965. Photo by D Gorton.

Obituary, written by Casey:

Casey Hayden, one of the few white Southerners to join the anti-segregation movement of the ’60s in the South, and a widely recognized precursor of the women’s liberation movement, died on 1/4/23 with her children holding her hands.

Born Sandra Cason, a name she continued to use legally, she was the child of divorced Texas liberals, William Charles Cason and Eula Weisiger Cason Beams. Raised by her grandparents and her single mother in Victoria, Texas, she was fourth generation, her grandfather the county sheriff. She attended local public schools, Victoria Junior College, and the University of Texas, where she graduated with honors as a member of Mortarboard, the senior women’s honorary society. An activist and a student leader in the Campus YWCA locally and nationally, she was as well a scholar/resident of the radical Christian existentialist Christian Faith and Life Community.

She was swept up into the ’60’s by the student sit-in movement of black college students in the deep South, starting February 1, 1960, which she joined as a graduate student. Following a six-week summer residential training for Southern campus leaders sponsored by the Field Foundation and the United States National Student Association, she spoke for civil disobedience at the National Congress of USNSA, quoting Thoreau and swinging support to the new Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

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ALLEN YOUNG | BOOKS | The Activist’s Media Handbook

Posted on January 14, 2023 by Thorne Dreyer

David Fenton’s ‘Lessons From Fifty Years as a Progressive Agitator.’

By Allen Young | The Rag Blog | January 14, 2023

Listen to Thorne Dreyer interview David Fenton and Allen Young on Rag Radio Friday, Jan. 20, 2023, from 2-3 p.m. CST on KOOP 91.7-FM and streamed at KOOP.org.

For those of us devoted to peace, democracy, social justice, and the survival of our beautiful planet, this “Activist’s Media Handbook” can be very useful and informative.

It is also interesting and entertaining to read.

To me, the word “lessons” in the subtitle is crucial. With the U.S. House of Representatives being controlled by the Republican Party — a party largely overtaken by right-wing extremists — we have a big job to do if we want progress. Therefore, “lessons” — ideas and information and tactics — to help us succeed in that job are much needed.

David Fenton, who offers us these lessons in a large-size book (not really a “handbook”) recounts his evolution as an activist to educate us in the context of real life. Thus, the book is essentially a memoir, too. That might irritate some readers seeking something more universal or generic, but I found it enjoyable because he has a good story to tell.

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ALICE EMBREE | HISTORY | ‘Defending Dissidents: The Austin Law Commune’

Posted on November 29, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

They came to the aid of an ever-growing community of dissidents who needed to be defended in courts of law.

From left: Austin Law Commune partner Jim Simons (with radical filmmaker Dave Zeiger), and partners  Cam Cunningham, Brady Coleman, and Bobby Nelson. Photos on left and right by Alan Pogue / The Rag Blog.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | November 29, 2022

AUSTIN — In the midst of the national upheaval ignited by the civil rights and antiwar movements, Austin attorneys created a law practice devoted to the needs of the movement.  They defended movement leaders who were harassed on the streets or in their offices; they defended demonstrators when they were arrested, draft resisters facing charges,-and GIs at courts martial.  They came to the aid of an ever-growing community of dissidents who needed to be defended in courts of law.  They worked to create a statewide network with other like-minded attorneys, and they created a unique, collectively-run, model for practicing law.

Jim Simons operated as a sole practitioner taking on movement legal work in 1968.  He represented draft resister Enrique Madrid.  He represented 42 defendants arrested in May 1968 at Don Weedon’s Conoco station in Austin, as they protested a racist assault by the owner.  He also represented Austin SNCC organizer Larry Jackson, a founder of the Community United Front.  And he spent many hours giving legal advice and defending antiwar GIs and Oleo Strut staff in Killeen, Texas, home of the massive army base Fort Hood.  Jim Simons built the foundation for the Austin Law Commune with his movement practice as a sole practitioner.

On October 1, 1969, the Austin Law Commune was born.  First located in a small office on West 24th Street, they moved to an office at West 15th and then, in 1973, to an office on West 12th.  According to Time magazine, it was the third such commune in the country.  The Austin Law Commune closed shop in 1977.

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ALICE EMBREE | REMEMBRANCE | Scott Pittman: March 23, 1940 – July 31, 2022

Posted on November 28, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

A former UT-Austin activist, Scott settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he devoted himself to the teaching of Permaculture.

Scott Pittman in the later years. Photographer unknown.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | November 28, 2022

Many people knew Scott Pittman in Austin as a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and contributor to Austin’s underground newspaper, The Rag. We mourn his passing.

Scott grew up in Seminole, Texas, and served in the Air Force in Turkey before he moved to Austin, joining the antiwar and civil rights struggle. In October 1967, he went to the massive Pentagon demonstration in Washington, D.C., and was stabbed in the leg by a soldier with a bayonet on the steps of the Pentagon. In an article in the October 30, 1967 issue of The Rag, Sue Jankovsky reported that Scott “was beat up, bayoneted, and then charged with assaulting a federal officer.”

Scott was arrested after being bayoneted at the Pentagon in 1967. Photo from The Rag.

Scott built a communal life in Arkansas after leaving Austin. Then, settling in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he devoted himself to the teaching of Permaculture, traveling the world. (Permaculture is a movement involving the development of sustainable and self-sufficient agricultural ecosystems.)
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ELAINE COHEN : STORY | An Austin tale of memory, reflection, and healing

Posted on November 27, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

I felt it a place of camaraderie, of a Mediterranean aesthetic that was familiar.

Palestinian Tejano Wedding

Palestinian-Tejano wedding. Photo by Elaine Cohen / The Rag Blog.

By Elaine Cohen | The Rag Blog | November 27, 2022

AUSTIN — I moved to Austin in the spring of 1997.   South by Southwest was in full swing when I arrived.  Soon I attended what I believe to be my first demo at the Capitol.  As it ended, I turned to a new friend and asked, “Where do people go now?  Is there some café or place to meet?”  He immediately responded, “Absolutely… we’ll go to the Marrakesh, right here, on Congress.  The owner, Samir, is Palestinian.”

While neither an observant Jew nor an apologist for the many violent practices of the Israeli state against Palestinians, I felt a moment of trepidation; would these Palestinians automatically distrust/dislike me for being a Jew?  I remember when I walked in with friends (Zapatistas, Wobblies, and peace activists) I felt it a place of camaraderie, of a Mediterranean aesthetic that was familiar, like cafes I’d known in Crete or Andalucía.
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ANNE LEWIS | VERSE | Remembering Danny Fetonte

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer
Danny Fetonte and Barbaara Fetonte in Cuba, 2019. Photo by Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Danny Fetonte, lifelong activist, passed away peacefully on October 23, 2022, surrounded by his family.  Danny was born in 1950, in New York City.  He met and married Barbara Fetonte in Buffalo, New York.  A celebration of his life was held November 12th at the Texas AFL-CIO auditorium.  Stories of Danny’s skills as a union organizer, and his leadership and mentoring role within the Communication Workers of America (CWA) were shared with a standing-room-only crowd. Video interviews shed light on Danny’s family background, his immense devotion to family and friends, and his perseverance.  Until his final days, Danny could be found on picket lines protesting against Austin’s association with the Fayette County Coal plant and distributing yard signs for candidates. 

In 2015, Bernie Sanders said he would come to Austin if Danny could get a union hall and 200 people.  Danny got the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers’ union hall and over 500 people crammed into the hall to hear Bernie Sanders not long before Sanders announced that he would run for president.  Danny’s younger son, Tony, shared Danny’s unique approach to correcting bad behavior.  Rather than being grounded, Tony said, he might be required to read a book by Howard Fast and write a report.

Anne Lewis, a longtime friend of the Fetonte family and a union sister with the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU/CWA 6186) wrote this poem for the celebration of Danny’s life and read it on November 12, 2022.

For Barbara

Butterflies roost among the acorns
It’s too cold for them to fly
Mist lies heavy on flat ground
Weeds lit by dewdrops In a rising sun.
The dayshift men and women in work clothes,
swinging lunch buckets,
walk towards factory gates and mine portal.
On Saturdays, union halls fill.
The wages they pay us are a shame
Every war’s a rich man’s game.
We learned from the workers who sang
“I don’t want your millions mister,”
organized during a great depression
went on strike during a World War.
Joe believed revolution would happen in 1974.
He reached out a communist newspaper at the gate.
His fellow workers held him down
and broke his fingers.
Joe went on to become a hospital administrator.
Danny became a union organizer.
Nothing to lose but our chains and a world to gain.
The good ones were old when we were young.
They are as gone as peasants
who plowed with mules.
Country of consumption and hedge funds
Highways and development; capital flight.
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THE RAG BLOG | BOOKS | Honorees Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree to make presentation at Texas Book Festival Nov. 5 in Austin

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

By The Rag Blog | The Rag Blog | Oct. 28, 2022

Thorne Dreyer, author of Making Waves: The Rag Radio Interviews and Alice Embree, who wrote the feminist memoir, Voice Lessons, will give a presentation at the Texas Book Festival on Saturday, November 5, 2022, from 3-3:45 p.m. at the Texas Monthly tent on Colorado and 11th near the Texas Capitol Building.  [It was previously announced as 2-2:45 p.m.] The talk, titled “The Rag: Activism, Resistance, and the Underground in 1960s Austin,” will be moderated by Texas Monthly’s Emily McCullar and will be followed by an autograph session.

Making Waves and Voice Lessons are both selections of the 2022 Texas Book Festival which takes place November 4-5, 2022, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Capitol Building and immediate vicinity. The Texas Book Festival is one of the largest and most prestigious literary festivals in the country. Almost 300 national and Texas authors will be featured and an estimated 40,000 visitors will attend. Here is the full schedule for this year’s Texas Book Festival and here are the festival’s authors and speakers.

Thorne Dreyer is the host of Rag Radio at KOOP-FM in Austin and editor of The Rag Blog. He was a founding editor of The Rag, Austin’s legendary underground newspaper. Alice Embree, who is a frequent contributor to both Rag Radio and The Rag Blog, is an Austin-based activist and writer. Making Waves and Voice Lessons were both published by the Briscoe Center for American History and are distributed by the University of Texas Press.

Thorne Dreyer, Alice Embree.

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ALICE EMBREE | BOOKS | Ellen Cassedy’s ‘Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie’

Posted on September 27, 2022 by Thorne Dreyer

The 9 to 5 group in Boston used daring theatrical tactics and dogged leafleting and more, and helped to inspire the movie, ‘9 to 5’ which is also discussed in this book.

Listen to Alice Embree and Thorne Dreyer interview Ellen Cassedy  on Rag Radio, Friday, September 30, 2022, 2-3 p.m. (CT) on KOOP 91.7-FM or stream it at KOOP.org.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | September 26, 2022

Well, I tumble outta bed and stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition,
‘9 to 5’ lyrics by Dolly Parton

I expected Ellen Cassedy’s book, Working 9 to 5: A Women’s Movement, A Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie, to be a lively history of clerical workers mobilizing.  I knew that the 9 to 5 organization she helped organize inspired the movie 9 to 5, with the hilarious combo of Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton cast as disgruntled office workers.  The lively beat of Dolly Parton’s title song became an anthem for women workers scrambling out of bed in the 80s. 

What surprised me about this book is that it is an organizer’s manual for organizing. The book tells the story of an enormously effective group of women who intended to transform the world of working women and did. 

In 1973, the Boston 9 to 5 group scraped together funds to send Ellen Cassedy, the author, to an organizing school run by the Midwest Academy in Chicago.

Cassedy eagerly shared the skills she learned with her Boston compatriots as they worked out of a small office in Boston’s “Y.”  They kept records of contacts, they used a simple order (pie and coffee) for lunch meetings with prospective members, and they made sure their meetings resulted in action steps.  They’d compare notes after every major event.  They asked a lot of each other and became an extraordinary team.

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