SONG: Edwin Starrs War with images from Iraq
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- Written by Fran Lucientes
The biggest hit in the career of Edwin Starr (1942-2003) was his protest song War. -- Written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for the Motown label, it was originally sung by The Temptations, but they declined to release it as a single. -- Starr volunteered to record the song and gave it an angrier, more intense tone. -- Released in June 1970, weeks after Kent State, it was a runaway hit and spent three weeks at the #1 spot in August and September. -- In 1986, Bruce Springsteen released a version of the song as a single, which reached #8. -- The YouTube video below juxtaposes Starrs classic 1970 version with images from Iraq....
SONG: John Fogertys Déjà Vu (All Over Again) (YouTube videos)
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- Written by Fran Lucientes
A surprise hit on UFPPCs web site has been the annotated lyrics of John Fogertys antiwar song, Déjà Vu (All Over Again), which with 6,044 hits as of Dec. 1, 2006, ranks as the UFPPCs site fourth most popular offering. -- Below are some YouTube videos of the song. -- John Fogerty performed the song in the Vote for Change tour in October 2004.[1] -- A video accompaniment to the studio version underscores parallels between Vietnam and Iraq.[2] -- Another version on the same theme is less well cut but equally moving.[3] -- An acoustic version by John Fogerty overlaid with similarly-themed images is less successful.[4] -- An amateur tribute accompanied by electric banjo is oddly affecting.[5] ...
BOOK EXCERPT: The President blanched at the implications of such a war
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- Written by Henry Adams
The following passage is from the pages of At Canaans Edge, the recently published third volume of Taylor Branchs monumental history of America in the King Years.[1] -- As chance would have it, the crisis in Selma, Alabama, which led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, coincided with the American decision to commit ground forces to the war in Vietnam. -- In one case, President Lyndon B. Johnson made the right decision; in the other, he made a tragic error. -- The tragedy is compounded by the fact that, as this passage shows, Johnson was amply informed about and aware of the realities of the situation he was facing in Vietnam, but for political reasons chose a course of action doomed to failure. -- At Canaans Edge is one of four books that UFPPCs book discussion group, Digging Deeper, is currently studying. -- It stands out as one of most compelling of the 100-odd volumes UFPPC has considered over the course of the past two and one half years. -- Published in January 2006, At Canaans Edge concludes a 2,912-page three-volume masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy. -- The other volumes were published in 1988 (Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63) and 1998 (Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65). -- (NOTE: The speech referred to in the last paragraph is Lyndon B. Johnsons historic We Shall Overcome address to the United States Congress, made later that day; it is reproduced below.[2]) ...