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JAN 9, 2013 - Has-been musician and Teabagger mouthpiece Ted Nugent gave an interview on World Net Daily, and said that gun nuts, er...I mean gun owners "will be the Rosa Parks", outrageously comparing Americans who must fill out a form and undergo a background check and other regulations that will probably be implemented by the Obama administration to the plight African-Americans went through to secure their civil rights. He insanely said, "There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed." He and many conservatives are insanely asserting that President Obama is planning to confiscate all weapons, and says that the law enforcement won't allow it. He also brain farted, “The media and the government is hell-bent on convincing that water is dry and we should all reconsider our conclusions about the dampness of H20. These people are out of their cotton-picking minds, and they scare Americans who are committed to logic, truth and common-sense, and real solutions instead of the insanity that I witness from our government and media. If you were attempting to write an offensive script to a new ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie, I couldn’t come up with a dumber and [more] unbelievable insanity than our government and our media is perpetrating on the American public". Read more on WorldNetDaily here.

JAN 8, 2013 - Country-folk artist Adrienne Young made a PSA music video from her song, "Hills and Hollers" 4 years ago to show support for the Virginia Wildlife Action Plan to help protect and preserve wildlife from over-development, and she asks that people be aware of wildlife, and the need to protect it for future generations. Like she says, once we destroy it, we can't get it back. Check out the cool song and PSA below. (photo credit: CC/Artaxerxes)

JAN 8, 2013 - A group of artists have made a PSA for a new organization formed after the Newtown tragedy to try and help stop gun violence. The new organization is called "Demand A Plan" and demand our leaders find a way to stop gun violence that has been plaguing our country. Their 3 main demands are background checks for every gun purchase, a ban on assault weapons and high capacity magazines; and finally they want to make it a federal crime to sell guns across state lines and go after "straw purchasers" that buy guns and then sell them illegally in another state. Watch the PSA below, and check out their website DemandAPlan.org to sign their petition that demands a plan from a leaders to lead us away from gun violence.

JAN 3, 2013 - Musical activist Cael 8 sent us a great music video called "Ohhhhh" he wrote for "the unfortunate children, the battered children..." and speaks out against childhood abuse and violence and says in the song, "Remember when you was a child...Watching others in the farmyard, Violence which didn't look so hard". He wrote the music and plays all the instruments, check the video out below, and don't forget to "Like It"!

Cornelius Cardew's Treatise Composition rejecting notes and structure.

DEC 3, 2012 - Cornelius Cardew, a left-leaning musical activist who was heavily involved with street fights against fascists that often landed him in jail, was a victim of an unsolved hit-and-run in 1981, and some content that he may have been targeted and assassinated for his heavy politics and activism. Cardew was an English "avant garde" experimental piano composer who also challenged the status quo of piano composing. He even challenged using notes and the rigid structure of sheet music. He created compositions on paper with symbols and geometric shapes instead of notes, with no explicit instruction for the instrumentalist; although he stressed artists should get together beforehand and decide how they would interpret the symbols and shapes. One of his most famous was "Treatise".

Cardew later then rejected his experimentation for what he called, "People's Liberation Music". He joined forces with many other British musical activists, and formed the "Peoples Liberation Music group", and wrote songs such as, "Smash the Social Contract" and got heavily involved with Marxism and communism; he fought against neo-Nazism revival in Europe which many people believe may have made him a target for murder. Read more about him on his Wikipedia page. Tom Service of the Guardian has a blog post up detailing his life and career, his politics and then his sudden death at the young age of 45. Check out a composition from Cardew from back in 1974, called "Revolution is the Main Trend".

DEC 20, 2012 - Paul Simon sang yesterday at the funeral yesterday of the heroic teacher who died trying to save her students in the Connecticut tragedy. Paul Simon knows the Soto family through his nurse sister-in-law, and during the middle of the service, Simon picked up his acoustic guitar and sang Victoria's favorite song, "The Sound of Silence". When he finished there was no applause, just sobs and hushed, reverent silence. Read more on the Daily Caller and also sign their petition to ban assault weapons here.

DEC 18, 2012 - Ted Nugent, one of the leading Teabagger mouthpieces, Tweeted after the news broke of the national tragedy in Connecticut that "we take our kids huntin so we dont hafta hunt our kids", and has (no pun intended) stuck to his guns and continues to voraciously and vocally support the rights of Bushmasters to be in our communities, rather than side with the families who want to protect their children. RawStory.com reports that Discovery Channel announced they have canceled the "Ted Nugent's Gun Country" TV show, along with another unrelated show "American Guns". One wonders about the "Sons of Guns" TV gun show and it's future. I say we rethink this whole thing about these death machines being "entertainment". Hitler ruined the toothbrush mustache, and Lanza ruined assault weapons as "entertainment". Take up another hobby, do a different TV show. JTMP fully supports bringing back the assault weapons ban, closing the "gun show loophole", and other measures to make our communities safer and reduce the chance, even if slightly, of a tragedy like this one.

DEC 18, 2012 - A Massey Energy executive will plead guilty to 2 criminal counts of violating safety laws and lying to government officials, read more on JTMP Green here.
(photo credit FacesoftheMine.com)

DEC 18, 2012 - JTMP stands with the rest of America as we mourn the loss of life in the senseless tragedy in Connecticut. We ask for less negativity and violence in society, and for our political leaders to be "leaders" and enact public policy that can address this epidemic of shootings across our country. The first thing we can do is bring back the assault weapons ban, and stop the manufacture, transfer and sale of these military-type assault weapons that have a high rate of fire and ammunition and are not suited for home defense or hunting. Let's have less violence, and more common sense.

DEC 12, 2012 - Ravi Shankar, one of the first musical activists of modern times, passed away on Tuesday at age 92. He, George Harrison, and other musicians put on "The Concert for Bangladesh", considered to be THE first "large-scale" activist musical concert ever and set the stage for future events like "Live Aid". Ravi introduced Eastern spiritualism to The Beatles, and became a teacher for George Harrison and other musicians who wanted to learn to play the sitar and learn the South Asian musical style. The huge event featured Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russel and the group Badfinger. Ravi and Ali Akbar Khan played a separate set of traditional South Asian music, all to raise awareness and funds for the victims of the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and atrocities inflicted upon eastern Pakistan refugees fleeing war. The concert was a huge success, and raised millions for a UNICEF fund. Help continues to this day through the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF. Read more about his long and eventful life on Wikipedia here.

Read more on Washington Post.com, especially the part about Ravi Shankar fleeing the Monterey Pop Festival when he saw Jimi Hendrix burn his guitar (Shankar thought it was "irreverent")  in a piece by Robert Thomason. (Photo credit: CC/AIgnatenko)