Subject: Origins: Universal Soldier
From:
Mrrzy
Date: 06 May 07 - 07:25 PM
I got this from someone at the Rally to Protest the Veto - whaddya think? Interesting stuff! Not that I ever thought of Buffy Sainte-Marie as Rock'n'Roll... Also, isn't Tracy Chapman more of a 90's phenom?
Buffy Sainte-Marie's censored sounds
by: Brenda Norrell
Posted: August 05, 2006
Indian Country Today
Link
PHOENIX - Nearly two decades after Cree singer and
songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie's song "Universal
Soldier" was released and shipments of her records
mysteriously disappeared, the truth of the censorship
and suppression by the U.S. government became public.
Now, in federal court, Charles August Schlund III
stated he is a covert operative and supports Sainte-
Marie's assertions that the United States took action
to suppress rock music because of its role in rallying
opposition to the Vietnam War.
Sainte-Marie says she was blacklisted and, along with
other American Indians in the Red Power movements, was
put out of business in the 1970s.
"I found out 10 years later, in the 1980s, that
[President] Lyndon Johnson had been writing letters on
White House stationary praising radio stations for
suppressing my music," Sainte-Marie said in a 1999
interview with Indian Country Today at Dine' College.
"In the 1970s, not only was the protest movement put
out of business, but the Native American movement was
attacked," Sainte-Marie said.
In an affidavit to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
lawsuit against President George W. Bush and others,
Schlund alleged he has been tortured in his attempts to
reveal the truth about the Bush family's manipulation
of U.S. voting results and the Drug Enforcement
Agency's covert drug supplies to black communities.
Detailing the assassinations of the Kennedys and
exposing the "Don Bolles" papers, named after the
murdered Phoenix news reporter, Schlund said he remains
alive today because of FBI protection.
Schlund, who said he previously worked in the covert
drug operations in Phoenix, said rock music posed a
threat to the United States and played a role in
opposition to the Vietnam War.
In his federal court affidavit, Schlund said he has
knowledge of "the detailed plans for the break-up and
destruction of rock n' roll music including the
assassinations of many people to achieve their goals.
The detailed plans to replace rock n' roll music with
all-American music called country western."
"This massive CIA and DEA covert operation was being
conducted to stop political overtones in the rock n'
roll music and to stop foreign influences on Americans
caused by the exposure to foreign music. This operation
was conducted because the Rockefellers had lost the
Vietnam War because of the protest that was in part
directly linked with rock n' roll music. In these
files, the Rockefellers had needed the natural
resources of Vietnam for the expansion of their
corporate empire and they blamed the loss of the war in
part on rock n' roll music.
"The assassinations started long before Vietnam but
the plans to replace rock n' roll with country western
music started during the Vietnam War and have continued
to the present," Schlund stated to the court.
In his federal court affidavits filed in Maricopa
County in Arizona, Schlund also stated that singer
Buddy Holly, killed in an airplane crash in 1959, was
considered a threat to the U.S. government.
Meanwhile, Sainte-Marie said she cut a singular path as
she was being censored in the '60s and '70s.
"I usually didn't do what other people did. You didn't
find me at peace marches. I was out in Indian
country."
Earlier, a young Bob Dylan heard Sainte-Marie sing in
Greenwich Village and recommended she perform at the
Gaslight, another hangout of the avant garde. Janis
Joplin, Elvis Presley and Tracy Chapman were among
those soon recording her lyrics. On the road, she
traveled the world and received a medal from Queen
Elizabeth II.
During this time, Sainte-Marie was selling more records
than ever in Canada and Asia. But in the United States,
her records were disappearing. Thousands of people at
concerts wanted records. Although the distributor said
the records had been shipped, no one seemed to know
where they were. One thing was for sure: They were not
on record store shelves.
"I was put out of business in the United States."
Later, Sainte-Marie discovered the censorship and
pressure applied to radio stations by Johnson during
the Vietnam era, particularly toward "Universal
Soldier" during the anti-war movement.
Sainte-Marie said Native people were put out of
business, not just because they were succeeding in
Indian country, but because they were succeeding in the
broader community. She and others were a threat to the
moneymakers of concert halls, uranium and oil, she
said.
Then, fellow activist and Santee poet John Trudell's
wife, mother-in-law and children were burned to death
in a mysterious house fire shortly after Trudell burned
an American flag in Washington, D.C., Feb. 11, 1979.
"I was just one person put out of business. John
Trudell is just another person whose life was put out
of business. Anna Mae Aquash and Leonard Peltier were
put out of the living business - we were made
ineffective," Sainte-Marie said of slain American
Indian Movement activist Aquash and imprisoned Peltier.
But Sainte-Marie continued with her music and efforts
with children after becoming a familiar face on
"Sesame Street." In the 1990s, from her home in
Hawaii, she created the Cradleboard Teaching Project to
link American Indian students with other students
online around the world.
Remembering the 1970s and Trudell, Sainte-Marie said,
"We just kept chugging on. We kept coming to Indian
country. We didn't worry about the fortune and fame
because we went with our sincerity, our hearts and with
our friends."
Those years, however, were filled with pain.
"It was hard - seeing people hurt," she said.
(c) 1998 - 2006 Indian Country Today.
End of email. Sorry about the double-spacing and all.
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sj
