Legalize It (before you get shot dead or tossed in the Gulag Nouveau)

postage stamp from the Republic of Abkhazia
(a former Soviet republic, now independent)
honoring Marx and Lennon.

I've been driving up and down and up and down and up and down Interstate 91 the last few days on the most interesting business -- a remarkable convention of hundreds of remarkable people from all over the USA discussing the very reasonable proposition of promptly or immediately making all drugs legal all over the USA. (Oh, most of these people also believe that legalizing all drugs all over Planet Earth would be great, too.)

(But Clifford Thornton, who created the convention, probably wouldn't mind if we just started with his city, Hartford, Connecticut. Quick. Immediately. Tomorrow. Tonight would be better.)

Clifford Thornton created/honchos/runs an NGO in Hartford called Efficacy. I will be writing more about Clifford Thornton's remarkable convention at Hartford's Trinity College shortly. I hope my writing can rise to the level of and accurately reflect what went on at this remarkarkable convention.

Largely I was pressed into service as a Lodging-Provider and Chauffeur for one of the Attendees, a very accomplished gentleman who flew in from Florida, and who has Left A Comment on Vleeptron pretty often.

While I was waiting to pick up this vile Drug Legalizer at Bradley International Airport, I tuned into radio station WWUH-FM, the excellent station of the equally very fine institution, the University of Hartford. (Up around these parts, the Leading Industry ain't steel or halvah or oil, but Higher Education.) You can listen to some really excellent college radio right now.

The deejay, Kevin Lamkins ("Thursday Synthesis"), was playing some really interesting cuts from

Reggae Pulse 5 Protest Songs
RAS Records 06076-80483-2
Release date: Feb. 22, 2005

Protest Songs features the most potent reggae anthems in the history of Jamaican music, combined with five new recordings of classic protest songs from the 1960’s.

and Working Class Hero was being covered spectacularly by Bushman.

Close your eyes, pretend I'm a Reggae musician, and I'll sing it for you:

*****************

working class hero
by John Lennon

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero well just follow me
If you want to be a hero well just follow me