When Jews Met the Blues

When Jews met African-Americans in the early part of the 20th century the collision created American popular music. Both groups were immigrants to the great cities of America’s north – Jews came from Eastern Europe and Blacks from the American South. But their desire to get away from oppression to economic opportunity wasn’t the only thing they had in common. Their cultures were deeply rooted in music and music of a particular kind: crying out and soulful and syncopated. In this cultural history from the FRDH archive, Michael Goldfarb traces out how talented people in both communities met, borrowed, occasionally stole musical ideas and along the way created the American songbook, as well as rock and roll and and rhythm and blues. He also tells the story of the coming together and then fracturing of the great alliance for political progress in 20th century America … the alliance between African-Americans and Jews.

It is an alliance that can be traced at least as far back as Harlem in the 1920’s and disintegrated after the Civil Rights successes of the mid 1960’s amid acrimonious accusations of exploitation and appropriation. An argument that continues.

This FRDH podcast is a cultural history with lots of music and thoughtful interviews.

Mind of the South

If you want to know America, you have to understand the Mind of the South.

If you want to understand the dynamics that drove events towards the Charlottesville Outrage, you have to understand the mind of the south, or specifically the “white” Southern mind. That mindset did not just pop up, the day Donald Trump took office. It has been the driving force in American politics … all the way back to the foundation of the Republic.

White Southerners are a powerful force in American politics. Not a majority – but the largest single political bloc – in the country. In the century after the Civil War this bloc was attached to the Democrats – Lincoln was a Republican – and it acted as a drag anchor on the progressive forces that shaped the modern Democratic party. In response to the civil rights movement white Southerners shifted to the Republican party. Superiority is a key part of the white southern mindset, not just racial, but religious, as well. In the 18th and early 19th centuries the region saw a heavy influx of protestant immigrants from what is today Northern Ireland, Ulster.

In this FRDH podcast, Michael Goldfarb talks with Southern historians about the region and the mind of the South and traces the origins of recent events to well before Donald Trump entered politics. And through the medium of the Republican party the mindset is spreading all over the country.

Crash Anniversary Thought: Work ≠ Employment

On the tenth anniversary of the start of the Financial Crash, Michael Goldfarb looks at work and employment. Are they the same thing?

We are told we will have to work longer – in Britain last week it was announced that the age at which Britons in their 40’s could collect their state pensions – social security – would be going up to 68.

Work longer, but will we be employed longer?

It is all well and good if people are living longer that they stay in the work force longer but it would be jolly nice if the government told that to employers, almost all of whom seem keen on getting rid of their employees once they get past 55. When you add in all the stories about robots doing most forms of work by the time those in their 40s are eligible for their pensions, there seems to be some contradictions that need to be resolved.

The unemployment rate today – midsummer 2017 – is 4.3% in the US (4.5% in the uk)

In the 1960’s the golden era of the American economy, 4.3% was full employment and economic contentment. Numbers are pure in their value but data is not. 4.3% unemployment today is not the same as 4.3% unemployment back then. Today you are counted as employed if you work one hour or 40 during a week. Back then 40 hours was the standard.

A quarter of the jobs added in the most recent monthly report in the US were in restaurants and bars. Hospitality is not an industry for building a career, Waiting table, tending bar are good gigs for people on the way to something else or for folks who need a little cash infusion every day – I’ve worked for tips and I urge everyone who hears this to be generous – But you wouldn’t want to build a society in which more people work for tips than work at a steady job, manufacturing something or developing specialist knowledge that can be exported. And yet that seems to be the direction in which the Anglo-American economies are headed.

Robots are doing the heavy lifting in manufacturing and as we keep being told in the technology press, they are coming for the jobs of paper pushers next.
Since the Crash we live in an era of pre-emptive downsizing. Within four months of Lehman’s going bust 1.9 million people were laid off in America. Most did not work in financial services. Employers in enterprises of all sizes in many different areas of the economy took advantage of the event to cut payrolls, “reduce headcount,” etc. Many of the new jobs created since that nadir have been in part-time work.
We have entered a new epoch in which you will, if you are lucky, have a 20 year window of full-time employment and can lay the foundations for the stability that comes with it: buy a house, set aside for retirement, educate your children.

Michael Goldfarb answers his own question. Listen to FRDH podcast and find out the answer.

On the tenth anniversary of the start of the Financial Crash, MIchael Goldfarb looks at work and employment. Are they the same thing?
We are told we will have to work longer – in Britain last week it was announced that the age at which Britons in their 40’s could collect their state pensions – social security – would be going up to 68.
Work longer, but will we be employed longer?
It is all well and good if people are living longer that they stay in the work force longer but it would be jolly nice if the government told that to employers, almost all of whom seem keen on getting rid of their employees once they get past 55. When you add in all the stories about robots doing most forms of work by the time those in their 40s are eligible for their pensions, there seems to be some contradictions that need to be resolved.
The unemployment rate today – midsummer 2017 – is 4.3% in the US (4.5% in the uk)
In the 1960’s the golden era of the American economy, 4.3% was full employment and economic contentment. Numbers are pure in their value but data is not. 4.3% unemployment today is not the same as 4.3% unemployment back then. Today you are counted as employed if you work one hour or 40 during a week. Back then 40 hours was the standard.
A quarter of the jobs added in the most recent monthly report in the US were in restaurants and bars. Hospitality is not an industry for building a career, Waiting table, tending bar are good gigs for people on the way to something else or for folks who need a little cash infusion every day – I’ve worked for tips and I urge everyone who hears this to be generous –
But you wouldn’t want to build a society in which more people work for tips than work at a steady job, manufacturing something or developing specialist knowledge that can be exported. And yet that seems to be the direction in which the Anglo-American economies are headed.
Robots are doing the heavy lifting in manufacturing and as we keep being told in the technology press, they are coming for the jobs of paper pushers next.
Since the Crash we live in an era of pre-emptive downsizing. Within four months of Lehman’s going bust 1.9 million people were laid off in America. Most did not work in financial services. Employers in enterprises of all sizes in many different areas of the economy took advantage of the event to cut payrolls, “reduce headcount,” etc. Many of the new jobs created since that nadir have been in part-time work.
We have entered a new epoch in which you will, if you are lucky, have a 20 year window of full-time employment and can lay the foundations for the stability that comes with it: buy a house, set aside for retirement, educate your children.
Michael Goldfarb answers his own question. Listen to FRDH podcast and find out the answer

The Republican Party has become the people James Madison warned us against: a Faction. In any country, the most dangerous thing that can happen is for a group and its political representatives to act as if their view alone represents the nation. That thinking leads to the view that they alone “are” the nation and that those who disagree with them are not of the nation – even if they are fellow citizens, born on the country’s soil. When this happens in a democratic republic, like the US, and the view takes over a political party, then the threat to the national fabric is mortal.
And that is the heart of the crisis in America today: The Republicans are no longer a political party but a faction.
The danger of factions was noted at the foundation of the United States. In Federalist paper #10
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Federalist_(Dawson)/10
James Madison defined faction as, “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a minority or majority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”
The Republican Party has been slowly morphing into a faction for almost 70 years. In this FRDH podcast the history of this change is told through applying the words of the Declaration of Independence to current Republican behavior.
The Declaration of Independence is really a bill of divorcement, a declaration before the community of nations of the causes leading the states to separate from Britain. As I read through the list this past holiday it was amazing how many could be applied to the Republican faction today.
Republican factionalism leads their elected representatives to upend existing Constitutional customs and norms and defamed the design of Madison, Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers by refusing to cooperate with anyone not of their group The design of the founders was a constitutional order that provided a mechanism for balancing the inevitable competing points of view that would grow in a society where people were free to follow different religions and debate ideas freely. Without respect for these rules the system cannot work.
The result is the United States has, over the last quarter of a century, become ungovernable and now, more than at any moment in my lifetime is on the edge of some kind of catastrophic disintegration.

In Mosul ISIS has been defeated but does it count as victory? America’s misadventure in Iraq shows that defeating your enemy on the battlefield is not the same as victory. ISIS defeated in Mosul but that won’t mean victory in Iraq’s second city, any more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant victory there, or the killing of his sons in Mosul a few months later, or the frequent attempts by the US to buy off the networks funding insurgents of various stripes that are headquarted there.

How can you measure victory in Iraq? This FRDH podcast offers a personal definition of victory.

Mosul is a city that is well-known even if you are not aware of it. The opening sequence of the, The Exorcist, was filmed there. Mosul was called the Pearl of the North, in the old days. It was the envy of all Iraq. With sounds of battle recorded on site this podcast traces Mosul’s history since George W. Bush declared victory in 2003. This city was never pacified and now that ISIS has been defeated can it ever enjoy the blessings of victory. Listen to the podcast to find out how you will know when victory has been secured.

In Mosul ISIS has been defeated but does it count as victory? America’s misadventure in Iraq show that defeating your enemy on the battlefield is not the same as victory. ISIS defeated in MOsul but that won’t mean victory in Iraq’s second city, any more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein meant victory there, or the killing of his sons in Mosul a few months later, or the frequent attempts by the US to buy off the networks funding insurgents of various stripes that are headquarted there.
How can you measure victory in Iraq? This FRDH podcast offers a personal definition of victory.
Mosul is a city that is well-known even if you are not aware of it. The opening sequence of the, The Exorcist, was filmed there. Mosul was called the Pearl of the North, in the old days. It was the envy of all Iraq. With sounds of battle recorded on site this podcast traces Mosul’s history since George W. Bush declared victory in 2003. This city was never pacified and now that ISIS has been defeated can it ever enjoy the blessings of victory. Listen to the podcast to find out how you will know when victory has been secured.