Artist – Title – Album

Emily Sprague – Dock – Water Memory/Mount Vision
Marc Barreca – Vs Chorus – Music Works for Industry
Palmbomen II – Caitlin Ross – Memories of Cindy
Capitol K – City – Island Row
Li Yilei – 0.00 – The Wiretapper 49
Capitol K – Breakers – Island Row
Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton – A River Song – Music and Poetry of the Kesh
Capitol K – Celestial – Andean Dub
Champagne Dub – Drops – Drops
Wharp & Rom – President Pullman’s Elephanthead Patriarchy – Radical American Hippy Kraut
Wharp & Rom – Computers – Radical American Hippy Kraut
Quixosis – Plan A – Zorroxxe
Syrinx – Chant For Your Dragon King – Tumblers from the Vault
Quixosis – Carbo’n – Zorroxxe
Mess Noir – Fdbck Trpsm 4 – The Wiretapper 49
Wharp & Rom – The Suite – Radical American Hippy Kraut
Li Yilei – 0.00 – The Wiretapper 49
Time Wharp – Halpern – Feel No Pain
Syrinx – Journey Tree – Tumblers from the Vault
Capitol K – Jamboree – Nomad Junk

Mr. Jones Goes to Washington
Art Jones – Candidate for Congress, IL-3 (R)

All right. A poem about Vietnam. I wrote several poems. This one in particular is very germane to the whole issue of what’s going on with our armed forces right now. They’re fighting for a cause that my judgment is just absolutely a criminal waste of lives and money. Here’s the poem.

“Yellow with three stripes of red. How many are now dead so that you can fly as high as my old glory. You live only because others have died and because you lived, you’re only half alive. What a pity, what a waste to fight for a flag as ugly as you, a yellow field with three red stripes in the middle.”

***

I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life. I went through a whole series of jobs, and I couldn’t settle down on one particular thing. I worked for a Frito Lay corporation working in the powder cheese division. The powdered cheese would come down this big chute into a big drum with a plastic bag there to catch all the cheese. When it got to 250 pounds, I’d have to put a lid on it and roll it off onto a pallet.

I thought, “This is no kind of job at all,” plus I couldn’t stand the smell of the powdered cheese. So they put me in the caramel corn division and that was even worse. So then they put me in the paraffin division where my job was to reach inside hot ovens and take out long sticks of paraffin. Our forearms were getting burned all the damn time and had to do it within a certain period of time. This foreman comes along to me and he told me that I was holding up the thing, I wasn’t fast enough, blah, blah, blah. So we get in a big argument. I slugged him.

You punched him.

I punched him. Yeah. I walked out the damn door, walked down the block to the Army Recruiting Depot there. I decided, “To hell with it.” I just signed up for the army. I went from basic training, went to Fort Ord, California. I was there for a few days, called up my father. I said, “Hey, dad.” I said, “The longer I stay here, the less chance I have of going to Vietnam because they’re sending guys to Germany from California.” They’re flying them over to Germany for God’s sakes instead of sending them to Vietnam. I got to thinking, “This is a pointless war.” The way we’re fighting that war, we’re not going to win it. It was another UN controlled, no win war. So I decided to be a war protester. So I went into the PX, I bought myself some civilian clothes and I went AWOL.

I figured, I’ve never been in California before, probably never see it again, so why not enjoy it? I’m making my living selling hippie newspapers on Fisherman’s Wharf. I buy them for 5 cents a copy and then I’d sell them for a buck a copy to the tourists. Oh look, Martha, here’s a real hippie. The Provost Marshall comes to see me and he says, “You say you want to protest this war? Is that what you want to do son?” I said, “Yes sir.” He says, “Do you want a Court Marshall? We’ll oblige you.” He said, “I’m going to tell you.” He said, “The men on that court martial board, they’re going to be Vietnam veterans and they’re going to look at you and they’re going to consider you either you’re a communist traitor or you’re a coward. In either case you’re going to get a dishonorable discharge, probably get some time in prison and when you get out, your life won’t be worth a fuck.”

That’s exactly what he said to me. “If you want to go through with it go ahead,” he said. He said, “You can sign this flight manifest right here which says you’re volunteering for duty in Vietnam.” So I signed a fight manifest, got on the plane in handcuffs, and they kept me in handcuffs until I landed in Vietnam.

There were 16 million men that served in Vietnam, and I was one of the few that actually participated in the invasion of Cambodia. I was in the 3rd wave. By that time, it was getting dark. The first two waves got the hell shot out of them because the enemy was already placed there and they just turned their guns down. The helicopters, the ones that tried to land, they had … it was an elephant grass, tall grass but they had planted these huge bamboo spikes in the ground. So when the helicopter would land, the damn thing would go right up to the floor of the helicopter, and then pail the helicopter.

Then the enemy would swarm out of the ground in the tackle.

Wow.

The wave that I was in, they said, “We’re not landing. Forget about it. Get ready to jump.”

“To jump?”

“That’s right,” he said. “Try to land on your back.”

I jumped from about 15-20 feet in the air to land on my back. That was a hell of a landing, let me tell you, but the guy next to me, I don’t know who he was. He landed on one of those spikes and went right to him. He was dead. That killed him right off the bat. Just like that. He was laying there like that. We were ordered, “Where you land, you dig a trench with your little entrenching tool,” a little shovel that flips out. What you do is you dig a trench that’s the length of your body and maybe about that deep.

That’s about two feet.

That’s your fighter position. Essentially, you’re digging your own grave is what you were doing. Then it started to rain. I said, “Oh, shit. Rain.” The water starts filling up. Next thing you know, I’ve got about 10,000 bugs crawling all over the place. I dug into a termite colony. Can you imagine what that’s like? I had all these creepy things crawling all over me. I couldn’t leave my position. I just stayed there all night long. I can still see the damn things crawling.

When did you first run for Congress?

Oh, well that was 1984. I felt that the direction the country was going, these senseless wars in the Middle East, I just couldn’t sit back and let it go on without trying to do something to stop it. My whole motivation, I told people, I was getting my signatures. They said, “Well what’s your issue, Mr. Jones?”

“My main issue,” I said “Is I want to do what I can to stop these senseless, costly criminal wars in the Middle East. I said, “In my opinion, the so called war on terrorism is a total waste of lives and money.”

Just to start off, could you introduce yourself?

Mariah Woelfel: Yeah. So my name is Mariah Woelfel. I’m a morning producer and reporter at WBEZ Chicago public radio.

Oh, so who is Art? Can you talk a little bit about his history in electoral politics?

Mariah: Yeah, he’s always run as a congressional candidate in the 3rd district as far as I can see. He’s ran in 2006, 2008, 2012. The State GOP has always gotten someone to run against him and I think they got him kicked off the ballot in 2016 because of signature problems with his signatures. He hovers around. He gets between like 10%-30% of the vote each time.

Just to set the scene, what is the Illinois 3rd?

Mariah: It has parts of the Southwest side of the city, but it’s mostly made up of the South suburbs.

Archival: South and Southwestern Suburbs has been represented by Dan …

Mariah: Has been held by the same democratic family for the past 36 years.

Archival: Lipinski inherited the seat from his father, William Lipinski. He’s a conservative Democrat …

Archival: Pro-life, against same sex marriages and voted against the Affordable Care Act.

Mariah: It does have a lot of conservative voters and that’s why the Lipinski family has been able to last and have such a strong hold in that district. It’s an interesting place.

Art: So it’s time for a change, quite frankly. It’s ridiculous. It makes a mockery of the whole democratic process to have these dynasties established. Anyways …

What did you do about it?

I kept running and I kept running. I kept running.

How many times have you run for the third Illinois District specifically?

Seven.

Seven times.

Seven times.

Since the 80s basically.

Yeah.

Okay. So what happened last year?

Well, what happened last year was I waited until the last day to file my petition. Very low key. I didn’t put any announcements in the paper that I’m running for office or anything like this. I just went door-to-door with my petitions. Quietly got the signatures, waited until the last day to file, turned the bin and to my utter astonishment, they had nobody to run against me in the primary. I ended up being the only candidate on a Republican primary ballot. If I only voted for myself, I would’ve won because nobody was running against me.

Archival: Many Republicans are embarrassed by the only GOP candidate in the primary.

Archival: Arthur Jones, who has tried unsuccessfully for the Illinois House Senate several times since the 90s …

Archival: He won’t give up. For the 7th time, Arthur Jones is running as a Republican in Illinois’s 3rd Congressional District.

Archival: As the only Republican on the ticket, it looks like he is about to win the primary next month.

Archival: A special message to you from, Arthur Jones, your conservative Republican candidate for Congressman.

Art: Where I stand, repeal all multinational treasonous trade treaties, negotiate new bilateral trade agreements to bring back our jobs. No taxes on minimum wage workers or their tips. Repeal Obamacare, term limits for all federal judges, gun owner’s rights including concealed carry for personal protection. Build the wall. Bring our troops home now to defend our borders. No more sanctuary cities. No amnesty for illegal alien criminals or the vicious gangs. Pro-life, yes.

Homosexual marriage and adoption of children by homosexuals, no. It’s time to put America first. American workers first, American seniors first, American families first, American veterans first. For details that needs issues, please see my website.

I got 20,435 votes, 70% of every Republican vote that was cast. That was just the primary. I got this in the mail. State board of Elections, to whom it may concern. We do hereby certify that at a primary election held in the state of Illinois and the 20th day of March 2018, that Arthur J. Jones of Illinois, was duly nominated by the Republican party as a candidate for the Office of Representative in Congress, 3rd congressional district to be voted on for an election to be held in the State of Illinois on the 6th day of November 2018. I was promised the peacock when I got this. That’s when all the publicity started.

Archival: Mr. Jones is going to be the Republican candidate for Congress in a suburb of Chicago and that’s big news because he is an actual Nazi.

Archival: A former leader of the American Nazi party is running for Congress in Illinois.

Archival: Racist, Holocaust denier and the Republican candidate for Congress.

Archival: Jones’s association with racist and antisemitic groups dates back at least to the 70s.

Archival: The 70 year old retired insurance agent prides himself as a white supremacist, anti-Semite who believes the Holocaust didn’t exist.

Art: The white majority are fed with all of these lying cheating, thieving, warmongering, child molesting political pimps and whores of this corrupt and definite two party, joke party, queer party system. Now President Trump, he has surrounded himself with hordes of Jews, including the Jews of his own family, that punk named Jared Kushner. I’m sorry I voted for him, but if I could take the vote back, I would in a minutes. They’ll never get it again.

Archival: Amen.

Art: White power!

Archival: Arthur Jones, that Republican candidate for Illinois’s 3rd District joins us now. Mr. Jones, it is shocking to hear how vocally and unapologetically racist you are. Are you a Nazi?

Art: There’s no Nazi party to speak of in this country anymore. Really, there’s people that call themselves National Socialists, but as far as any organized national socialist movement, it’s kaput. Nothing like what I belong to when I was in the National Socialists White People’s party. That was the Nazi party.

And what was it about the Nazi party then?

They told the truth.

Right?

They told the truth. They said that communism was Jewish and it was. They said that Jews have far too much influence on our country and they do. They said that racial equality is just a lot of Marxist clap trap, and it is. They said that the all that we call civilization is a byproduct of our race, which it is. I thought, “My God, they’re telling me the truth.” So I moved to Milwaukee. I got very, very involved with the local unit there. I became what’s called the director of public relations for the unit. Put out the press releases. I designed the flyers and the leaflets and everything. I ran for Mayor of Milwaukee in 1976. I finished in 4th place campaigning as an open National Socialist, complete with a swastika.

We had car caravans, we had rallies, we had meetings. Get this, I was the first one to have television commercials as a National Socialist. I did a commercial. They had me sitting behind a desk with a false bookcase behind me. That was the stage they set up for me. Looked like a real scholar there with all kinds of books and everything, but it was a fake design. It looked real on TV. I’m sitting there and I got a double breasted blue blazer on with a nice tie and everything. On one side is a Stormtrooper, on the other side of the Stormtroopers saying that parade rests with arms behind their back and the swastika armband Brown shirts. I’m sitting there at the desk and there’s an American flag on one side and a swastika flag on the other side and me in the center of this thing.

Then the music would come on. It was the little jingle. Ring knit bell shout for joy, Milwaukee’s day is here. Gather all the liberals up and herd them on the pier. Stand up for your rights, make your wishes clear. It’s time to show just how you feel. Vote for Jones this year.

After that election, I was asked by the party commander, Matt Koehl, if I would be willing to man the party headquarters in Cicero because they were having trouble keeping guys there. They just couldn’t stand being locked up like that, because the headquarters, the way it was designed, it used to be a doctor’s office but they bricked up all the windows. All you had there was little peephole with a steel door. There were no windows, you couldn’t look out or anything on the lower floor where we were. A lot of guys are getting claustrophobic, from that sort of thing. They just couldn’t stand it. They just had to get out. I signed on and I stayed on for two and a half years.

Then the Jews, they’re producing this movie, the Blues Brothers and they needed some props for the movie and they see our ad in the yellow pages. They called it up, and I answered the phone. They said that they’re producing a movie and would it be possible to buy some material to add to the realism of the film. I said, “certainly.”

I gave the address and before they got there, I changed all the prices and all the merchandise. Flags that were selling normally for $25, I made it $50. Armbands normally was going for $5, I made it $10. Books that we were selling for $10, I made it $15. I gave them the National Socialist discount. When they came in, these producers, they were dressed in plain clothes. No fancy suits or anything, just looking like plain working men. They had the tall tale Jewish snoz and the curly hair and everything.

Anyways, if you see the movie, just bought everything in that movie except for the coffee can hats. I sold them.

Archival: Election night, 2018. America votes.

Archival: It’s a momentous election night in America and we’re about to …

Archival: Tonight, Democrats aim to take back the house for the first time …

Archival: As polls close across the country at this hour, we are here with the entire NBC news team to bring you all the results and what they’ll mean for you on this night.

Art: The result was I actually received 57,885 votes and that absolutely astounded the media. The Sun Times wrote an editorial that started this way, “How the hell did I not take in 57,000 votes?”

I guess there’s a bunch of theories that you could have, right? There’s a certain number of people who aren’t aware and they just vote straight Republican. Then there could be people who are aware but don’t actually care or I guess it’s … I suppose it’s possible that he got like half the votes. That reduction was made up for by a bunch of folks who are really excited about voting for a Nazi coming out of the woodwork. I guess that’s the other thing too. So having spoken with people in the district, what do you feel is the answer?

Mariah: Oh man, I do not have an answer for that. I think it’s just with the reporting that I’ve done, at least impossible to tell. People either knew who Art Jones was and didn’t vote for him and were completely fine voting for the Democrat even as Republicans or didn’t know who Art Jones was at all. I didn’t find anyone who knew who Art Jones was and voted for him.

Obviously it’s not scientific but that would seem to indicate that it’s something like 89% of GOP voters in that district. So two down.

Mariah: I mean, yeah. It’s the best case scenario and it’s still a large amount of people who are voting just completely without any knowledge. So it’s still pretty depressing.

Speaker 4: I’m wondering, does the name Art Jones mean anything to you?

Speaker 5: No, I don’t think I’ve heard of him. I don’t have to even have my hearing AIDS in.

Speaker 6: Arthur Jones, does that ring a bell?

Speaker 7: Not at all. Not at all.

Speaker 5: I don’t recall the name. That would be disturbing, wouldn’t it?

Speaker 4: Art Jones, does that name ring a bell for you?

Speaker 7: Yes, that does actually. I visited his website.

Speaker 4: You did?

Speaker 7: I recall that, yes. That was disturbing.

Speaker 8: I’m a registered Republican. I know who Art Jones is, and I would not vote for that man because of who he is.

Speaker 9: What a jerk. I don’t know. I’m waiting for him to come here.

Speaker 4: Come here, like to your door?

Speaker 9: Yeah, because I’ll run him out.

Speaker 10: As a Republican, that’s nothing that I would stand for or I believe in.

Speaker 9: I can’t believe that they don’t do something … somebody don’t do something about running him out of business or something.

Speaker 10: My husband and I were making phone calls today to find out what we can do to make sure that this never happens again.

Speaker 11: Everybody I know … nobody I know voted for that man. All of us that are Republicans.

Speaker 5: Democrat or Republican, I don’t believe anybody who has an interest in our country and our neighbors would support Nazi views.

Speaker 4: Yeah. He ended up getting almost 60,000 votes in the general.

Speaker 5: Really?

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 5: Like who voted for him?

Speaker 4: Well, that’s the question.

Speaker 5: Another Nazi?

Speaker 4: My suspicion is that it was people who were just voting Republican without knowing who he was.

Mariah: Do you just vote straight down the Republican party ticket line?

Speaker 12: Not at first. At first, I was trying to pick candidates that had policies that agreed with Trump. If I didn’t see any Trump candidates, I just voted Republican just because I just got into politics right when Trump was running. I actually learned more about politics since Trump’s been running in these past two years than I did in my previous 36 years or so.

Mariah: Okay. My story is about a candidate named Art Jones. Did you hear about Art Jones at all?

Speaker 12: No.

Mariah: Okay, yeah.

Speaker 12: He was on this last ballot?

Mariah: Yeah, he was. He was a congressional candidate running against Dan Lipinski.

Speaker 12: Well, like I said, was he the only Republican?

Mariah: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Speaker 31: I voted for him then.

Mariah: Art Jones is kind of a … well he is a self proclaimed Nazi and a white supremacist. He ran on the Republican ticket because not many Republicans run out here in the third district. Knowing that, how do you feel having voted for him?

Speaker 12: Kind of mad now because I believe anyone who has those views, they’re going to right away try and put it on Trump. Hey look, Trump is backing this guy. I definitely regret voting for him. If I had to redo it, I wouldn’t have voted for either one. I’ll say this, this Art Jones guy, I’ve never heard of him. He can’t be that bad. I could tell you over 20 democratic candidates that probably did and said worse things than that guy Art Jones did, and I don’t even know who he is. What has he really done? Look at my head, I could say I’m a Nazi, but I’m not. If you look at my head, I got scars, battles, you know what I mean? Is he really a self proclaimed racist or is he just got a shave tad and people are calling them that?

Mariah: Oh no, I’ve talked to him.

Speaker 12: You have talked to him?

Mariah: His website has a picture of him with a swastika.

Speaker 12: I don’t like that. I wish the media did a better job of putting the facts out there, definitely. Again, you got to blame that on the Democrats. They run Chicago, they run Illinois, they put billions of dollars in advertising. They flood the radio waves and the news waves and that right there is what prevented the word being put out about this guy Art Jones. It’s a shame. I think there should be something in our constitution that automatically disqualifies people from even running like that.

Mariah: If they were a Nazi?

Speaker 12: If they’re a Nazi or proclaim white power or Jewish power. Let me tell you this, there are a hundred times more Black and Mexican hate groups than there are Nazis. To me, the Nazi thing is something that was a problem in the 50s. It’s not a problem right now. You don’t hear any black people being lynched. If anything, it’s the other way around.

If you actually look at statistics, white people are the most oppressed and the most victimized race. Statistically, this whole war the Democrats have on cops, if you look at those statistics, more white people are shot and killed by cops than blacks. You don’t hear those facts. If you look at the statistics, I urge anyone who actually wants facts, don’t listen to the media.

Go look it up on websites. They got local statistics, nationwide statistics. White people are the most victimized race by far, and it’s not even close. It’s not even close. There is no more black oppression. The past 30 years, it’s been white oppression. Our rights are being taken. We’ve been victimized, but you don’t hear our people saying it on TV or complaining about it and whining about it. That’s the problem, is you got all these new stations, they push out all this propaganda and all this white oppression and white hate and the Nazis are here, when the Nazi’s been gone for 50 years. Right now what’s here is La Raza, MS13, Black Panthers and they all are against white people. Every one of them.

Mariah: All right, great. Well, it was good talking to you.

Speaker 12: It’s a pleasure talking to you.

Mariah: Thank you so much for all your time. I think I got your last name, right?

In terms of the number of votes that you’ve got, the most prominent argument that I’ve heard is that a lot of people didn’t know who they were voting for. They just are straight ticket Republicans. Do you think that’s true?

Art: That’s total bullshit. You can quote me on that. That’s total bullshit. I mean, 57,885.

Votes aside, it just means the ideas that you’re espousing. Please don’t take offense there. They’re somewhat out of the mainstream.

No, they’re not. No, they’re not.

You think they are mainstream?

They are the mainstream. What’s out of the mainstream are all these liberal ideas. America now is becoming just a 3rd world dumping ground. These people will absolutely destroy this country if we don’t deal with them in a very firm manner. I’m just standing up. I’m seeing what people want to say but they’re afraid to say because they have families to support.

They got jobs they want to keep. My wife has a part-time job and she’s a retired teacher. If it wasn’t for her, quite frankly, I’d probably be out in the street with a tin cup like I see a lot of white guys. Big healthy white men. I know they’re big and money. It’s shameful. It shouldn’t be tolerated and it wouldn’t be necessary in a government that I envision.

That’s why I say, anybody that voted for me, they knew who they were voting for.

Art, I don’t want to cut things short, but I am actually quite desperate for a bathroom. I feel like we’ve covered a lot of it.

Oh, all right. I didn’t think it was going to last this long either, quite frankly. I’m giving you this information here, all this literature. You can read it. Especially read this.

All right.

State of Illinois wants to legalize marijuana. When I was in the army, I tried it once.

On behalf of my bladder, I have to ask you to wrap it up. I’m sorry, man.

To think of all the thousands of people that are going to be high on drugs, getting in their cars, driving up and down the highways we’ve got at stakes. It’s just going to be a total disaster.

Well, on that note, let that be the final word.

Okay, all right. Listen, I want to show you one more thing here. Just a book.

In the 2018 general election, Art Jones received just under 58,000 votes. That’s about 10% fewer votes than the last Republican candidate to run in the district.

***

Featuring:
Art Jones

Reporting contributed by:
Mariah Woelfel

Production:
Nick van der Kolk, Host and Director
Steven Jackson, Producer
Phil Dmochowski, Managing Producer