JOHN SINCLAIR


This should give you enough rope to hang me with. Maybe I would like to mention my radio show and our internet station, Radio Free Amsterdam.

As a cultural activist I directed the Detroit Artists Workshop, the Allied Artists Association, Jazz Research Institute and Detroit Jazz Center. I managed the MC-5, Mitch Ryder and other bands, and produced records by artists from the MC-5, Little Sonny and Deacon John to Sun Ra.

As a political activist I fought the marijuana laws through Detroit LEMAR, the Amorphia organization and a five-year struggle in the courts of Michigan that cost me 2-1/2 years in prison before I won my case and got the old laws thrown out.

I was the chairman of the White Panther Party and its successor, the Rainbow People's Party, battling Richard M. Nixon and his goons from the beginning of his administration to the bitter end. It was my court case challenging Nixon's "national security" wiretap program that produced the historic Supreme Court decision in U.S. vs. U.S. District Court that warrantless wiretaps would no longer be allowed.

There's much too much more to mention, but let it suffice to say that I've enjoyed a full and productive life in the arts and community affairs for more than four decades.

All this activity takes place well beneath the radar.

The downside to underground life in America is the relentless economic terrorism that grips our existence and very rarely lets up.

Amsterdam - 2006

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