The media
they feedya
sensation not sense
you, public, so dense,
allow them to leadyaÂ
Â
They milk the inane
until we’re insane
They fixate on Palin
day out and day in
until we’re in pain
Â
They’re hung up on Hill
obsessed about Bill
They force feed us Brittney   Â
Expose ev’ry titty
until we feel ill
Â
Why can’t they relate
succinctly and straight
the substantive news
devoid of their views
Let us calculate
our eventual fate
-Joan Wile
Archive for the ‘Poems & Songs & Stories’ Category
DON’T HEED-A THE MED-IA
Monday, December 1st, 2008SUNDAY AT JASA WITH THE GRANNIES
Saturday, November 1st, 2008Lillian Pollak, Nydia Leaf, Lillian Rydell and I gave a presentation last Sunday, Oct. 26, at the SUNDAY WITH JASA series held at John Jay College. It was a rather small audience, but an enthusiastic one, and it was another opportunity to spread our message.
Lillian Rydell gave a fervent appeal to end the war as only Lillian can do in her characteristically convincing no-nonsense, straight talking (for real) way.
Lillian Pollak reminisced about her experiences with the WPA and her political interaction during the 30’s. Her articulateness combined with her age really wowed the audience.
Nydia gave a very concise talk about the work of the three Granny Peace Brigade committees — Legislative Campaign, Counter Recruitment and No Bases. She covered a lot of territory in a limited time frame and gave out literature relevant to her discussion.
I did my usual thing — talking about the grannies, the book, and singing a few songs. Because I had a bad cold at the time, I sounded like something between a foghorn and a grinding cement mixer. But, no matter — the message is the thing.
With all this activity — the three WBAI grannies; the story about Barbara Harris in the NY Times (and picked up widely by other publications and blogs); the counter recruitment actions on Parent-Teacher night; Vinie Burrows’ appearance on WBAI talking about the Teach-In and other GPB matters; the coming Teach-In itself; our Sunday lecture described above, and other events in the planning stage now — we are successfully keeping our message alive. The grannies just won’t fade away.
- Joan Wile
GRANNIES SHINE ON WBAI
Saturday, October 25th, 2008Â Vinie, Molly & Lillian guest on pre-debate round-table.
Like fingerprints and snowflakes, there are no duplications in the ranks of the Granny Peace Brigade. When WBAI put out the call for three grannies who survived the Great Depression to participate in an on-air round table discussion, their listeners got a kaleidoscopic look at the 1930s from three different perspectives.
 
 
Molly Klopot, Lillian Rydell and Vinie Burrows in action – always
Vinie gave a warm and nuanced recollection of growing up in depression era Harlem, reminding us all of the extraordinary journey of this talented woman. Molly’s account of the 1932 Ford Hunger March from Detroit to Dearborn that resulted in the murder of four of her friends is the stuff of legends. Lillian recounted the deep hardships suffered and life lessons learned in a small coal mining town in rural Pennsylvania. All three women spoke of the dynamic and positive role a responsive and progressive government can have during tough economic times. Citing ground-breaking programs like the WPA (Work Progress Administration) and the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps), the rise of organized labor, the creation of the Social Security Administration and other programs that helped level the social and economic justice playing fields, they called on concerned citizens everywhere to reach out into their communities. 

Click on the link and listen to the stories of these three life-long advocates for peace and justice — you won’t be disappointed.
- Fran Sears and Lillian Rydell
- Photos: Phyllis Cunningham & Eva-Lee Baird
MIS-FORTUNE
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES VS FINANCIAL REGULATION – Two Sad Stories
First Story:
We had a law on the books that might have prevented the present financial crisis if it had been left alone. The Glass Steagall Act was passed in 1933 to get us out of the great depression. It was doing okay for years until it became the victim of some unwise surgery.
In 1999, that good old Glass Steagall Act, was eviscerated when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act was passed by Congress. (Note well: One of the authors, Phil Gramm, had been an advisor to John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign, until he said that US consumers were “whiners.â€) President Clinton signed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act but if he had vetoed it, the number of votes in Congress was high enough that it was said to be “veto-proof.â€
This change to the Glass Steagall Act allowed investment banking, insurance, and commercial banking to be mingled in firms, rather than being kept separate.
Why is this important? Investment banks help companies raise money by issuing stocks or bonds. Usually they keep some of the stock for themselves, and this stock becomes part of their capital; they also earn fees for issuing and distributing the stock. These activities can be risky especially if the stock declines in price.
Conversely, commercial (and savings & loan association banks) were prohibited under the Glass Steagall Act from the above-noted activities; they could take deposits, and lend money in many ways, especially mortgages. They had to keep on hand enough money to pay out on demand. That all changed in 1999.
Insurance companies jumped into the mix. Insurance companies had a lot of money to invest, so they wanted to combine with investment banks and commercial banks.
Once the two types of banks and insurance companies could be combined, the riskiness of the investment banking activity could affect the health of the resulting institutions and their ability to pay money on demand and, even more important, their ability to continue making loans. However, there were rules, such as the net capital rule, that required maintaining a certain ratio of capital to debt, just in case.
In 2004 the Securities and Exchange Commission met for 90 minutes in April and eliminated the net capital rule for the largest banks, with over $4 trillion in assets. Examples are Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. The banks were supposed to monitor themselves. The SEC was supposed to oversee this but not regulate it, but they only had 7 people to do so, and after a while the unit’s chief resigned and was not replaced.
During 2005-2008 people who thought they were very smart bundled mortgage loans and “sliced and diced them†giving portions to companies that serviced the loan and creating mortgage backed securities for sale to investors, i.e., the securities were collateralized by the mortgages. However, these securities included many mortgages that were sub-prime, although they had higher interest rates on them than prime loans they were, of course, also more risky because the people had less secure jobs or were not careful or able to understand what they were signing. (Dollars & Sense “Predatory Lending story)
Second Story:
Fannie Mae was created in 1938 – the year I was born. It was a government institution created to help people keep their homes. It purchased Veterans Administration (VA) mortgage loans and Federal Home Administration (FHA) mortgage loans, which it then pooled and sold to investors in the open market. It had a goal of making housing affordable. This worked pretty well for quite some time.
In 1968, because of the Federal budget problems caused by the Vietnam War, Fannie Mae was made a semi-private Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE). It was then allowed to purchase conventional loans originated in thrift institutions (Savings & Loans banks). When Freddie Mac began operations in 1970, it was specifically created to compete with Fannie Mae for the secondary market for the conventional loans.
In 1995, Fannie Mae began including sub-prime securities (bundles of mortgages) in its purchases; this continued with increasing encouragement until 1999. In 2000 rules were put in discouraging the inclusion of risky mortgages, but in 2004, those rules were dropped.
Call your Senators. Call your Representative. Tell them to reinstate the provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act. Then join us in the streets. Granny Peace Brigade “Coming Events”
- Edith Cresmer
for the Granny Peace Brigade
A Vintage Community Organizer Recalls 1971, A Good Year
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008It was our time in history…the Great Society budgeted for creative ways to get people involved in having a say in their future…
I had majored in English, hoped for a career in theater in NYC, found instead a life partner and a new idea: teaching young children. I took a masters at Bank Street College of Education and, very green, began to learn the ropes of teaching first and second grades…
From a private school where I taught small classes in the E. 90s I found my way farther uptown to East Harlem where parents of kids who needed day care had partnered with licensed people to create a parent-directed preschool.**
By then I was helping the parent-assistant teachers learn to apply a method called Cuisenaire-Gattegno mathematics to the teaching of arithmetic and number concepts. I wasn’t a stranger to East Harlem; Steve, my husband, had also migrated there from downtown where he had been in two Episcopal Church parishes as an assistant clergyman. When I met him, he worked out of a storefront parish in East Harlem. So many people there were addicted to heroin. Steve and a colleague started the East Harlem Protestant Parish Narcotics Committee.
It took a while to learn what helps addiction. The team found they could reach people who wanted to start over while they were in prison and help them with re-entry. The learning process was long, painful and very worthwhile. Kindness was only part of the formula.
By the time we had been married seven years and our son James was three years old, Steve was running a state facility for drug treatment, part of a program created under Rockefeller’s administration which died after eight or so years. Just for the record, it was a good program and saved lives.
I was able to have James enroll in the East Harlem Block Nurseries daycare program, as I continued my relationship with mentoring teachers at the schools. We were deeply fortunate to have James experience the Block Nurseries.
The teachers were wonderful; the children were well-fed and cared for. Andrea, the cook, made the most wonderful bacalao and other Puerto Rican delicacies. The feeling of being part of a mixed community of White, Puerto Rican and African Americans was intoxicating in its hopefulness. There was a lot of love swirling around.
I received so much more than I gave or was able to give at that time. I learned a lesson I still carry with me. That is, affirming the strength and beauty of people who have been poor and discriminated against has huge effects. United, we learn from one another.
At the time I’m describing, the early 70s, the euphoria surrounding CETA and other programs infusing some cash into East Harlem for community organization was so great that I didn’t learn the lesson of myself as the racist-oppressor. Nobody bothered at that time to make me feel my “whitey†self in a painful or shameful way. It was all about accepting one another. Yes, we had arguments and hurt feelings, just like any people, but it didn’t seem to be about our racial and economic differences.
The years that followed were the years of cutbacks to funds for improving public education, cutbacks of all kinds to public programs. The Block Nurseries still exist, and some of the parent-assistant teachers I knew and worked with are now licensed New York City elementary school teachers. Some have even reached retirement age and have good pensions. This means that they made it through college courses and licensing requirements during that period of the flowering of the Block Schools. They found their confidence and became part of the mainstream. The same kind of growth is to this day part of many good HeadStart programs, where parents and assistant teachers develop and attain credentials to become teachers. However, the atmosphere surrounding the process has changed because of the lack of general public and government support for excellence in education and opportunity for all US citizens and would-be citizens and visiting workers.
A new chapter of support for Community Organizing is ‘way overdue. It’s not about Giuliani’s ha ha ha or Palin’s demeaning put-downs. It’s about justice and democracy and a modern interpretation of the US Constitution.
- Caroline Chinlund, Granny Peace Brigade
** The book which tells the story is “A School of Our Own” by Tom Roderick , Teachers College Press, 2001
SPREADING THE GPB WORD IN THE BURBS OF CONNECTICUT
Thursday, July 17th, 2008On Wednesday, July 16, Vinie, Barbara Walker and Joan Wile shlepped 2-1/2 hours to Norwich CT on AMTRAK to do a TV show, “TALK with Ben and Gerry,” which broadcasts throughout eastern Connecticut. Attired in our WE WILL NOT BE SILENT t-shirts, we discoursed, acted and sang for a whole hour, and had ample opportunity to condemn the war in Iraq and any plans to attack Iran.
The show is produced by Bonnie Hong, who invited us after reading about Joan’s book in BUZZFLASH (a popular progressive publication), and who is a fiery progressive herself, fiercely anti-war and anti-Bush, holding all the correct political opinions (to OUR minds) in common with us grannies. She was mayor of Norwich for a term, is a registered nurse, and an all-around dynamo. She was on air with us, along with her husband, Dr. Ben Hong, who is co-host of the program. Ben is a nephrologist (kidneys) with a very successful practice in Norwich, and somehow finds time to do the weekly cable television show we participated in. We admire very much this couple’s courage in doing their vehemently peace-promoting program in the midst of a heavily military population.
Vinie gave a most remarkable reading of a letter from a nurse stationed in Vietnam, “Dear America,” which graphically describes the horrible wounds of war. Vinie’s performance of the powerful letter moved Bonnie Hong to tears, right on the air. We were all extremely moved, in fact.
During the program, on air, we officially inducted Bonnie, a new grandmother, into both the Granny Peace Brigade and Grandmothers Against the War. Vinie did the honors, and presented her with the buttons representing the two groups, which she immediately pinned to her dress for all of eastern Connecticut to see.
We enjoyed the Connecticut scenery — parts of the Atlantic Ocean visible from the train, and a glimpse of the naval station in New London on the way. Our hostess, Bonnie, treated us to a delicious dinner at a waterside restaurant — the kind of place you imagine the elite country club set patronizing on a regular basis, with boats serenely floating by as we leisurely dined in our white lounge chairs. Very John Updike!
And, then the long trip back to New York, time passing quickly in the flow of non-stop conversation among us three young women.
A long day, but one well spent, we believe, as we hammered home to all of eastern Connecticut the granny anti-war message.
- Joan Wile
Dearest Florent,
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008When not that many folks were there for us, you stepped up to the plate — literally and figuratively. You helped us put together our trek to Washington, not only by throwing us a fundraiser, but by telling us “Yes, you can!” — and this was before Senator Obama was even a twinkle in the voters’ collective eye. You and your wonderful colleagues welcomed us into your ‘home’ and we love you all for it. As a true communitarian, you have set the bar high for whomever dares trod in your wake at 69 Gansevoort. Along with our tireless and brilliant attorney, Norman Siegel, and our faithful supporters like State Senator Bill Perkins, New Yorker Extraordinaire, Malachy McCourt, and Congressman Dennis Kucinich, you are definitely in the pantheon of all-time favorite Granny pin-ups — in or out of drag.
Photo – Richard Leigh
To say it was a pleasure to join you on Monday, considering the circumstances, may sound a bit strange. We booked in with heavy hearts, knowing this was the last time we’d be able to bask in the pink glow of your establishment. (And at our age, lighting is EVERYTHING! ) However, once we got there, your enormous good cheer and hospitality enveloped us and we had a blast. Hopefully, the other folks in the restaurant enjoyed our shenanigans — we couldn’t help notice that our performance of WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE had more than a few of your patrons singing along, but it was Granny Joan Wile’s debut performance of her original song, FAREWELL FLORENT that really brought down the house.
Photo – Richard Leigh
In THE 25th HOUR OF FLORENT MORELLET, David Amsden’s truly swell article in New York Magazine, he reports that you have the opening line of Diana Vreeland’s autobiography, “I loathe nostalgia!” writ large on your calendar. So we will take that as our cue and instead of bidding you a fond but sad farewell, we shall look forward to what you and your remarkable crew will cook up for the next chapter.
Rock on, dear Florent — we sure plan to!
- Fran Sears for The Granny Peace Brigade
RAGING GRANNIES HEAT UP UNION SQUARE
Tuesday, May 20th, 2008Want to jump-start your next peace action? Invite your local Raging Grannies and draw a crowd! Here the NYC chapter joins the Granny Peace Brigade and Code Pink for a “STOP THE WAR, IMPEACH BUSH” Phone-A-Thon.
If you don’t see the video click here.
WE ARE A GAGGLE OF GRANNIESWords: Esther Farnsworth & the Vermont Raging Grannies, with Corinne Willinger of the NYC Metro Raging Grannies and the Granny Peace Brigade
Tune: “Side by Side”Oh, we are a gaggle of grannies
Urging you off of your fannies;
We’re telling you now
We’re ANGRY and how!
NO MORE WAR!
With all that government spending
To fight a war that’s unending
We’re going for broke,
This isn’t a joke
NO MORE WAR!
(refrain)
The Bush gang keeps on lying,
They want to ’stay the course,’
But boys and girls are dying,
And they show no remorse.
Sooo, we may be a gaggle of grannies,
But we’ve gotten off of our fannies,
We’ll only rejoice for
We sing in one voice for, NO MORE WAR!
We really mean it – NO MORE WAR!
And we mean busines
NO MORE WAR!
Freedom Ride – Not Just Another Bus Ride
Friday, May 9th, 2008Who is this woman and why was this mug shot taken?
Joan spent her first two years of college at the Women’s College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro. It was 1957 and it happened to be the first year that the state of North Carolina integrated its public universities, in response to federal law, of course. A group of seven Black women was selected by the NAACP to fill the slots at WCUNC (the Women’s College.) One of these women became a close friend and Joan became aware of the courage that these women needed to study at the University and live on campus. In all fairness, the young white women at WCUNC were not overtly hostile to these young women and often seemed to just not know how to relate. After transferring to the to the University of California in Berkeley, Joan decided to return to the South as a Freedom Rider, riding an integrated train and demanding integrated facilities. Was she scared? “I think I was too determined (read dumb??) and too young to be really scared. And by the time we got to Mississippi, I was just stunned (see mugshot).”
Although the freedom riders spent weeks in jail before bailing out, it was necessary for them to return to Jackson, Mississippi for a trial date later that year. The Greyhound Bus Company had difficulty finding a driver for the bus to transport the riders out of Mississippi. No one wanted to drive them out of Jackson – the Greyhound drivers were afraid of mob violence and with good reason. Many buses had been attacked and the riders beaten. There were snipers on the roads. One mob had set fire to a bus in Alabama and tried to burn to death the Freedom Riders inside.
Finally, Joan’s group found a driver and they set off in the middle of the night. As stones started to hit the bus Joan and her compatriots asked the driver not to stop – to just keep going. He thought that a good plan.
- Joan Pleune,
Granny Peace Brigade
Viva Joan! Viva las Grannies!
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008May 5, 2008 – What better way to cap off a sparkling Cinco de Mayo than to do it Granny-style, by celebrating Joan’s new book, GRANDMOTHERS AGAINST THE WAR: Getting Off Our Fannies & Standing Up For Peace, Citadel Press.
photo – Masahiro Hosoda
Shape up time was set for 7PM at the Barnes & Noble at 82nd and Broadway and by 6:45 there was a solid line of folks filing into the store. Raging Grannies, Granny Peace Brigadiers, Grandmothers Against the War, Veterans for Peace, life-long peaceniks and aspiring activist packed the second floor reading area to hear Joan read from her book and to celebrate her accomplishments. In short order, all the chairs were filled and it was a SRO event.
photo – Masahiro Hosoda
Long-time Granny Peace Brigade ally and best-selling author, Malachy McCourt opened the proceeding with a poem (Yeats, of course), spoke movingly about the peace movement and the need for citizen engagement, then led us all in a rousing version of “Will You Go Laddy Go”.
Norman Siegel, the legendary civil rights attorney and lead defense attorney for the 18 Granny Brigadiers arrested on Oct. 17, 2005, read selected sections from the trial transcript — some of it funny, much of it moving, and it helped us all remember the day the Granny Peace Brigade was born. New York City Councilwoman Gale Brewer – a fierce opponent of the Iraq war and someone who is never afraid to use her bully pulpit to address injustice – was on hand, making a lot of us wonder if this woman ever sleeps!
Rumor had it that Joan was a nervous wreck before the event, but when the lights came up, our Joan stepped up and gave us all a splendid evening — she read from the book, reminisced about the last three years, urged us all, in the words of Granny Marie Runyon, ‘To keep on keeping on!”. To quote New York’s own Jimmy Breslin, “Read this book!” As the evening drew to a close, Joan introduced her family, including her two children and three of her wonderful grandkids and then sang – acapella – her signature anthem, “GRANNIES, LET’S UNITE!”. By the second verse, everyone in the room was singing along.
photo – Masahiro Hosoda
A long line formed for Joan to autograph books while a small group of grannies (who shall remain nameless) disbursed around the store to hand out some Granny Peace Brigade literature packets until one of the young clerks informed them this was not allowed. Even though these aging hooligans were standing just a few feet from their lawyer, the Grannies very graciously left the store — and continued distributing our literature on the street until they ran out.
Thanks Joan. For getting us going and reminding us that we’ve only just begun — and like that woman in the audience asked, “When are you going to be on Oprah?”
- Fran Sears