Pubdate: Thu, 18 Jan 2007
Source: Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (NY)
Copyright: 2007 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.democratandchronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/614
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/john+sinclair
Note: John Sinclair  http://www.johnsinclair.us/10for2

JOHN SINCLAIR VISITS ROCHESTER

John Sinclair May Be Just As Fired Up As He Was in The 1960s, but His 
Profile Is a Bit Lower

John Sinclair spent two years in jail because he gave two marijuana 
joints to a cop.

No, let's be honest about this: John Sinclair spent two years in jail 
because he was a beatnik who sided with Malcolm X and the 
anti-Vietnam War movement, listened to weird jazz, formed a commune 
and arts workshop in his hometown of Detroit for promoting dissident 
messages that the authorities didn't like, created the White Panther 
Party to support Huey P. Newton's Black Panther Party and managed the 
groundbreaking rock group MC5, whose anarchism-laden live 
performances gave a musical voice to Sinclair's belief in "total 
assault on the culture."

Sinclair continues the assault, but it seems less visible these days. 
He's 65, and since 2003 has lived in Amsterdam. "Why not?" he laughs; 
a gruff laugh seems to accompany almost all of Sinclair's statements, 
no matter how seemingly outrageous. Certainly, Amsterdam's tolerance 
of drugs is an attraction. But he likes the mass transit, the 
architecture, everything. The attitude there is a balm for one of his 
major concerns, "The consumer world that envelopes us.

"I was reading this morning in The New York Times about 'the hip, 
edgy new car models.' A $40,000 car edgy? What planet are these people on?"

Not Sinclair's planet. "I don't drive a ... thing," he huffs. "I take 
the train."

Sinclair winds up a week in Rochester with two gigs of music, spoken 
word, poetry and rants. Thursday, he's at Daily Perks Coffeehouse. 
Friday, he plays at Rochester Institute of Technology with a blues 
band, hoping to rouse the same rabble he did in the 1960s.

He's not holding his breath. Although Sinclair sees the Internet as 
the today's version of burning the campus ROTC building, "They just 
don't have any ideas," he says. "Kids don't have a clue. They're 
vaguely aware that something they don't like is going on.

"George W. Bush can go over there and bomb people about nothing, and 
no one says anything," Sinclair says. "And there's no hope for them, 
anyone who supports that. They'll go straight to hell. If there is a 
hell, it should open up right now and accept them."

What does Sinclair attribute this complacency to?

"Nobody says anything because white people are happy in this 
country," he says. "They're happy that their kids are over there, 
bombing innocent people into oblivion.

"Saddam Hussein didn't blow up the Twin Towers. Three out of four 
Americans believe that. They're idiots. They're watching television. 
Television is just a tool. The New York Times is just a tool. I was 
just reading their bio of the new general in charge of the activities 
over in Iraq. It was like a bio by a public relations firm."

Sinclair once aligned himself with the Black Panthers because he 
believed that black Americans in the '60s -- particularly through 
music and culture -- were leading a tide of change. He no longer sees 
it that way. "The capitalists bought them off," he snorts. "They give 
50 Cent his own clothing line."

Can the dissatisfied American hold out for any hope?

"Total collapse," Sinclair says. "Pretty soon, you'll have the 
Republic of Ohio. The Duchy of Oklahoma. Disintegration is what I'm 
hoping for. The end of the social fabric."

Yes, he is a professional provocateur who has published his seemingly 
Don Quixote quests in books such as Guitar Army: Rock and Revolution 
With the MC5 and the White Panther Party. But such strong words were 
once common, and it wasn't uncommon to see a crowd gather to hear 
them. After Sinclair was sentenced in 1969 to 10 years for passing 
those two joints to a cop, a Free John campaign went to work. It led 
to a 1971 benefit concert in Ann Arbor, Mich., featuring Phil Ochs, 
Stevie Wonder, Allen Ginsberg, Bobby Seale, John Lennon and Yoko Ono. 
Three days after the concert, the Michigan Supreme Court overturned 
the conviction, and Sinclair was released.

He remains defiant, outspoken and frequently outrageous: Sinclair 
believes the CIA was behind the assassination of John F. Kennedy 
because "he was going to pull us out of Vietnam the next week." Yet 
there has been no need for another Free John campaign to rescue 
Sinclair from the authorities.

"They don't even know I exist," he says. "I haven't had any problems 
for 35 years. Once I stopped taunting them, I learned that important 
thing: If you want to do something to the authorities, don't call a 
press conference. Let them learn about it on their own. Work from the 
underground."
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MAP posted-by: Elaine