This program included a tribute to the American singer Johnny Cash born in 1932, (d. 2004) and his
unique importance in the history of American music and song. We mentioned some of the topics he
covered and his concert in Dublin in the 60s, when he where he sang and played with the Carter
Family, including his wife June Carter and her mother Mabel. We played some of his songs,
including ‘Peace in the Valley’, ‘The Man in Black’, ‘Don’t Go near the Water ‘ (a track from his CD
‘Ragged Old Flag’) and ‘Folsom Prison Blues’.

He covered a whole range of social issues and in his CD
‘Bitter Tears’ he covered some of the Native American songs of Peter La Farge who was a
contemporary of Bob Dylan and who was very gifted as a writer, composer and magazine editor but
who died very young and in mysterious circumstances. For championing the cause of the Native
American Cash’s was banned from access to the airwaves for a period of time. The most famous
song in the Bitter Tears CD was Ira Hayes a Pima Indian who was one of the soldiers who planted the
US flag at the top of Iwo Jima The Battle of Iwo Jima (19 February – 26 March 1945) was a major
battle in which the United States Marine Corps and Navy landed on and eventually captured the
island of Iwo Jima from the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II We talked about
the danger of an all our new war at present and the fact that Enviro is an anti-war program and
mentioned that the 20 January each ear is ‘Martin Luther King ‘ day. We included a quote from him
when he charged the US government with being “The greatest purveyor of violence in the world
today” and we agreed that this has not changed.

Today the US is involved in eight wars. We also
quoted Mohammed Ali who on the TV program ‘Soul’ said “They want me to go to Vietnam to shoot
some folks that never lynched me, never called me ‘nigger’ never assassinated my leaders”. In the
same context of peace we mentioned Marianne Williamson author of ‘A Return to Love: a Handbook
for a new American Revolution’ and her recent book ‘A Politics of Love’ These are in effect a
handbook for the kind of changes that are now required in American society and in the political
sphere. She has taken part in the Democratic debates for the US presidency, and is now gaining
important exposure in the media.

We also mentioned the following :

1. 5G
2. HAARP
3. Veganism is a philosophical belief and so is protected in law, a UK judge ruled in a landmark
decision made on the 3 rd . of January 2020.

Presenter Producer John Haughton
Panellist Joe Dunne