[Peace-discuss] RIP Studs Terkel

[Matt Reichel]

The famed Chicago radical historian and award-winning author passed away Friday at 96 years old.

I met Studs about 5 years ago when I was invited to his Uptown house for a fund-raising visit; He always supported the Chicago area peace movement very generously.

As the following article alludes to, he was no fan of lesser-evilism, or voting for the "electable candidate." He was willing to work with good Democrats, having recently supported Dennis Kucinich's two runs for the White House. However, he would never waste his time with such mindless and trivial choices like the one between McCain and Obama . . 

http://www.alternet.org/election08/105664/studs_terkel,_you_will_be_missed/?page=entire

Studs Terkel, You Will Be Missed
by John Nichols


When Studs Terkel was in the seventh grade, his teacher, Miss
Henrietta Boone, asked the smart young whippersnapper who he was
supporting in the presidential election of 1924."Are you for
Calvin Coolidge or John W. Davis?" Miss Boone inquired, mentioning the
names of the Republican and Democratic nominees.Terkel, who had
already imbibed the radicalism of Chicago's labor left, was for neither
of the major party candidates. Rather, he favored the third-party
contender who was campaigning against imperialism abroad and Wall
Street at home."Innocently--or was I damnably perverse even
then?--I piped, 'Fightin' Bob La Follette,'" Terkel recalled eight
decades later, mentioning the name of the progressive senator from
Wisconsin who earned his support that year. "She was startled, poor
dear. Why have I always upset such gentle hearts? Why couldn't I have
been my cute little button self and said the right thing: 'Keep Cool
with Coolidge.'"Studs could be cute, and damnably perverse.But
the Pultizer Prize-winning author, pioneering radio personality,
battler against Joe McCarthy and McCarthyism, raconteur, rabble-rouser
and grand old man of the American left, who died Friday at age 96,
never pulled his punches when it came to politics.Early in 2002,
as George Bush was scheming in 2002 to exploit the fear of terrorism in
order to steer the United States toward a new career of empire, I wrote
an article for The Nation about the lonely dissents of Ohio Congressman
Dennis Kucinich.Studs responded, as he had to La Follette's call eighty years earlier:"When
I finished reading John Nichols's exhilarating communiqu from
California ("Kucinich Rocks the Boat," March 25), the bells began to
ring," he wrote for The Nation. "In his speech to the Southern
California Americans for Democratic Action, criticizing Bush's conduct
of the war on terrorism, Dennis Kucinich set the crowd on its ear--one
standing ovation after another. Sure, they were all liberals, but what
counted was the response on the Internet. The Cleveland Congressman's
e-mail box was stuffed to overflowing with 20,000-plus enthusiastic
letters. Among them was the call: Kucinich for President.""Kucinich is the man to light the fire," Studs declared. "Amen."As it turned out, Kucinich didn't get any closer to the presidency than did La Follette.Studs was disappointed, but undaunted.Politics
was never a game for Studs. It was the work of a lifetime. He wrote
brilliant books about the lives of working people not merely because
their stories were fascinating but because he wanted to get a
conversation started about class in America.He wrote about "the
good fight" of World War II because he wanted to remind new generations
of Americans that this country had once united to battle fascism.And he kept his sense of humor and his optimism, even when those around him despaired.Not
long after the invasion of Iraq, when President Bush was still enjoying
the ill-gotten high approval ratings of his "Mission Accomplished"
moment, Studs explained to me that one of the benefits of his advancing
years was his pronounced loss of hearing."My bad hearing leads
me to higher truths," he quipped. "For instance, terms like 'embedded
journalist' come through to me as in-bed with journalist. My problem
with the media right now is that we've got too many
in-bed-with-journalists and not enough of the skeptical, questioning,
challenging journalists who will hold George Bush and his boys
accountable."For Studs, who had made his name as an incisive
radio interviewer, the increasing consolidation of radio station
ownership, and the homogenization that went with it, was deeply
troubling. But Studs was not only concerned about the sector of media
he knew best."Information, news, ideas--that's the juice that
gets a democracy going. When a few corporations control all the juice,
they decide how the democracy works. Or how it won't work. I don't
worry that much about people doing the right thing if they have the
facts about what their government is up to. But if they don't get the
facts, the whole thing falls apart," said the man who had spent most of
his life interviewing Americans regarding their work, their ideals,
their politics and, in his last years, their optimism about the
prospect of making a better world.As far as Studs was concerned,
the run-up to the war in Iraq provided a perfect example of how things
fall apart when the media fails to do its job. While TV news anchors
pinned on flag pins and conducted fawning interviews with members of
the Bush administration, the senior member of the US Senate, West
Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, was virtually ignored as he questioned
the rush to war."Senator Byrd has been fantastic. He's the one
guy who said 'bugger off' when Bush came around trying to sell the idea
of this war. I think he's the one guy who really stood up for our kids
in the military, when he said he did not want them going off and
invading a country that was no threat to us," Studs said. "But Byrd got
no headlines. You hardly ever saw him on television. I think that if he
had, we might not be in this war today. That's an example of what
happens when the big media companies just give us the administration's
version of the news."Long before others dared do so, the man who
immortalized the generation of Americans who fought "the good war" of
the 1940s termed the Iraq War "a quagmire for America.""We were
the most honored country in the world at the end of World War II," he
noted. "Now we're the most loathed country. We need a media that asks:
'What the hell are we doing there?' "Studs was delighted when,
in 2004, a young Chicago state senator with whom he had marched on
picket lines, was elected to the US Senate on an anti-war
"what-the-hell-are-we-doing-there?" platform.He followed Barack
Obama's campaign for the presidency with enthusiasm. The old civil
rights campaigner wanted to see an African-American elected president
in his lifetime.But he also wanted the Democrat to remember his
roots as, dare we say it, a community activist. "Obama can't be a
moderate!" Studs said in one of his last interviews. "He's got to
remember where he comes from! Obama, he has got to be pushed!"In
particular, the man who well recalled the first 100 days of Franklin
Roosevelt's presidency wanted to make sure that Obama was pressed to
promote a new New Deal."I'd ask Obama, do you plan to follow up
on the program of the New Deal of FDR? I'd tell him, 'Don't fool around
on a few issues, such as health care. We've got bigger work to do! Read
FDR's second inaugural address!'" he told a Chicago reporter. "The free
market has to be regulated. And the New Deal did that and they provided
jobs. The government has to. The WPA provided jobs. We have got to get
back to that. We need more reg-u-la-tion."The truth is that we need more Studs Terkels.There will never be another quite like him.But
as Americans of good will ponder the notion of forging a change we
believe in, we would be wise not merely to recall but to emulate the
disdain for moderation, the enduring progressive faith and the
delighted determination to speak truth to power -- from the days when
he was talking up La Follette to the days when he was talking up Obama
-- that defined the politics and the life of Studs Terkel.

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