This Week with David Rovics: Recent Episodes
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It was a wide-ranging and very enjoyable interview with Trudy Leong for WZRD Chicago the other day.
The Velvet Unicorn interviewed me for her show on CFUV in Victoria, BC. This is the full interview, rather than the nice edited version she'll be broadcasting.
Dave Goodman and I talked for an hour or so for his radio show, Sound and Fury, on WMBR in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it was a damn fine conversation.
Randy Caravaggio, shining light on Cuba in its darkest hour; David Rovics, minstrel of our Titanic times in the second half
Many people around the world are calling for the government of Pakistan to release the leader of the Awami Action Committee now, along with all of his unjustly-imprisoned colleagues.
I had never heard of Ehsan Ali, or the Awami Action Committee, or, to be honest, the region of Pakistan known as Gilgit-Baltistan, where Ehsan Ali is from.
After Ali's arrest, two months ago now, I began to hear from his supporters, who have embarked on a serious campaign to bring international attention to the state repression Ali and the Awami Action Committee are currently facing, with so many of the movement leaders having been jailed, and held in deplorable conditions, with Ali being denied vital medical care.
No one who is protesting and engaging in civil disobedience on behalf of their people's ability to afford to eat should be persecuted like Ali is being persecuted. I was glad to see that people around the world are taking up this cause, and once they brought it to my attention, I wrote this song in the hope that it might help amplify their efforts.
The second half of a two-part extensive interview with me for Mark Helpsmeet's Song of the Soul radio show/podcast is now up.
The latest album from the Ai Tsuno Project to drop on the streaming platforms is BEFORE THE WAR. Here we have an audio tour of the album.
The first of a 2-part interview Mark Helpsmeet did with me for his Song of the Soul radio show is up now!
Audio interview with political singer-songwriter David Rovics originally broadcast on March 3, 2026 on Transformation Highway with John Malkin on KZSC 88.1 FM / kzsc.org at the University of California Santa Cruz.
You probably won't find a better hour-long primer on the US-Israeli war on Iran than this guided tour of our new album, Epstein Empire. (And you surely won't find one that rhymes as much as this one does.)
The brilliant Ron Placone interviewed me on the occasion of St. Patrick's Day 2026 for his One Thousand Podcast. We talked about all kinds of things, with an emphasis on the St. Patrick Battalion.
The latest album of the Ai Tsuno Project drops on all the music streaming platforms on March 15th. All lyrics that were written and songs that were rendered in the winter of 2026, introduced to you in this podcast.
After destroying Afghanistan and Iraq
The empire strikes back
To try to conquer the Noble Land
Invading Iran
Ai Tsuno released a song about all of my albums being deleted from YouTube Music, and so there had to be one about my channel being deleted, too, for good measure.
It never ceases to induce shock and awe to consume the western media's coverage of Israel, which more and more bears all the characteristics of stenography rather than journalism.
The Labor Heritage Foundation's weekly Labor Heritage Power Hour radio show/podcast hosts an annual "Labor Grammys," where listeners vote among the entries on the winner. I'm very gratified to say that this year Ai Tsuno's "No Contract, No Coffee" was the winner (with one of my favorite living artists, Maria Dunn of Alberta, Canada, the runner-up). During the first half of this latest episode, host Chris Garlock and I talk in between songs about Minneapolis, music, AI, and other fraught subjects.
My latest collaboration with the Ai Tsuno Project drops on all the music streaming platforms on February 1st. Here's a guided tour of the album.
Chad Westover is a man around my age, who also lives in Oregon. David first learned about Chad because of having kids, and living in the same city as Chad’s extended family.
Chad’s extended family is full of kind and loving people, which, by the accounts of all of them and many others, Chad is, too.
Chad’s generous nature was exactly what led him to want to stick up for his friend, who was being threatened and bullied by his friend’s neighbor. In the ensuing confrontation, the neighbor pulled out a knife and stabbed Chad three times.
Chad then managed to get a hold of the knife and stab his assailant, who, very unfortunately, was killed that night in September 2024.
Press reports have tended to paint a picture that, naturally enough, positions the deceased, Tristan Thomas, as the victim, and Chad as the murderer. A simple scenario involving a perpetrator and his victim. But if you look a little closer at the details of the whole encounter, it all becomes much more complex.
It’s obviously incredibly tragic that anyone was killed that night. There are a lot of things that everyone involved could have done differently, that might have avoided anyone getting hurt in the first place. But that’s not how things played out, and ultimately, Chad was not the one who pulled out a weapon, and he clearly does not deserve to be charged with murder.
If there is to be justice in this case, Chad should be with his family, rather than in jail in Clackamas, facing a possible murder charge, and a potential sentence of decades in prison.
“Song for Chad Westover” will drop on all the music streaming platforms on February 1st, as part of the latest album of the Ai Tsuno Project, War with the World.
Just before our Berkeley show last night, Kamala and I spent the hour with Dennis Bernstein as guests of Flashpoints on KPFA Community Radio. Along with us there were appearances via phone from the brilliant poet, Anita Barrows, and a report from the streets of Minneapolis as well.
I had a very nice and wide-ranging interview with Rebel Fagin on his Radio Resistance radio show recently, which was broadcast on his show on KBBF Community Radio on Sunday. Here's the podcast version.
A lot of people are saying a lot of things about AI to me, and in general. Here I make a bit of effort to distinguish the baby from the bathwater.
The Ai Tsuno Project's latest album, Save the Humans, drops on all the music streaming platforms on January 15th. Ai Tsuno’s 10th album includes such instant classics as “Disarm Israel,” “Message from Gaza,” and “Bisbee, Arizona, 1917.”
As much as Trump is behaving in ways that could be characterized as unprecedented, in other ways his behavior is surprisingly consistent with the history of US imperialism.
What does the US invasion of Venezuela, the Cuba-Venezuela Solidarity Tent at the World Social Forum, and my visit to the US-Mexico border last weekend have in common?
Between abducting the Venezuelan president, killing scores of Cubans, boarding Russian tankers, and threatening to invade Greenland, the immediate future is feeling very sketchy.
Meanwhile in Gaza, Israel is banning aid groups and starving all the children to death. Anyone going to kidnap Netanyahu and his wife?
Is there hope for planet Earth? Well, there's always the prospect of being saved by Aliens from Outer Space. Title track of Ai Tsuno's January 15th album release!
Miko Peled was on Al-Jazeera the other day, making so much good sense, I had to write a song about it.
“Disarm Israel” will be one of several catchy tracks about the ongoing US-Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people that will be part of Ai Tsuno’s January 15th album release, Save the Humans.
Chris Cook did an absolutely wonderful wrap-up of 2025 for his Gorilla Radio podcast, consisting of snippets from interviews he did throughout the year, with a song of mine between each one!
Perhaps the most broadly notable thing about Bisbee is the town's outsized role in US & Mexican labor history. And the most timely piece of information about Bisbee? I'm playing there this weekend!
One of the things that 2026 holds in store is what some are already calling "the trial of the century."
A guided tour of Ai Tsuno's 9th album, which consists of 12 songs David Rovics created with Ai Tsuno over the course of December, 2025. Topics covered include the ongoing Gaza genocide, the trial of Luigi Mangione, the corporate internet, and the beauty of Bonoboville. The Red and the Blue drops on the music streaming platforms of January 9th, 2026.
If you're feeling hopeless, most likely the first thing you should do is leave all your devices in a hole somewhere and go outside.
This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, The Red and the Blue, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.
The modern internet, controlled as it is by the world's biggest corporations and their conflict-promotion algorithms, has become a nightmare of monolithic proportions.
This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, The Red and the Blue, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.
My biggest hope for 2026? That by the end of it we'll be experiencing a more or less normal winter in the northern hemisphere, and not a nuclear one.
This will be one of the tracks on my next album with Ai Tsuno, which, if all goes as planned, will drop on all the music streaming platforms on January 9th.
What makes a piece of music good? What makes a song a good song?
The music industry has, for a century or so, been obsessively oriented with creating mysterious and exciting identities for artists they want to turn into stars. The industry emphasizes the artist, rather than the art. The art itself, along with the producers, lyricists, session musicians, engineers, and promoters, are all those kinds of things happening "behind the curtain" that, like the Wizard in Oz, are meant to be ignored.
But if you extract all the PR and music business hoopla, what makes a song a good song? Is it actually about the artist recording or performing it, or is it about the music itself? If it's the artist that makes the song, then what about the artist? Does the artist need to have lived a virtuous life in order to make likeable art? Does the artist need to be from a certain part of the world, and not another? Does the artist need to be human?
My take on these questions is in the end, other factors may play into how a song is perceived in a big way, but what really matters is the song itself. If it's delivered well by a competent performer live or recorded, and the listener is in a good place for really listening, then a sad song will make the listener cry. A song about memories of your youth will evoke such memories. A satirical song about current events the listener is following in the news will likely make the listener laugh. These reactions of the listener are the measure of the song's impact.
That's what this song is about. I invite you to close your eyes and give a song your full attention. You might try doing that every day, and call it meditation.
I sat down this morning with the intention of writing a bit of a travelogue about my recent travels in Texas and Georgia, but then I wrote this song instead. I'll probably eventually write the travelogue, too.
British members of Palestine Action on hunger strike are close to death, Israel's "ceasefire" is just a continuation of the famine, disease and slaughter Israel continues to deliver to the Palestinian people, and across the west, leaders express their deference to the genocidal killers, ship more weapons, and ban words and phrases that make fascists uncomfortable.
The hunger strike continues
In the British prisons
As the courts refuse
To reach a decision
Will they judge this time
As they have before
That the crime is sending
Weapons to the war
Because the terrorists here
Are the Zionists
Who’d try to hide
A genocide
It's a holocaust
And it's happening now
A hundred thousand lives lost
And no one knows how
How many more
Will ever be found
Under the rubble
Beneath the ground
Chorus
The Palestinian people
Beneath plastic sheets
There's no ceasefire, just a famine
As history repeats
History from the Nazis
Brought down on the holy land
Beside the bloody sea
With an F-thirty-five at hand
Chorus
As the Israelis go on
With their endless killing spree
While Egypt plays the pawn
With their new refinery
And throughout the west
They ban phrases and words
As our leaders do their best
At being completely absurd
Chorus
Members of Palestine Action are being held without bail or trial in England for trying to stop a British-sponsored genocide. Many are on hunger strike, and the doctors say they are dying, as their organs are beginning to fail due to some of them now going on 6 weeks without eating. Meanwhile in Australia, they are talking about passing a law to say that the phrase, "globalize the intifada" is hate speech. Resisting genocide is apparently a very hateful thing to do. Terroristic, even.
In the aftermath of an event like Bondi Beach, media can play the role of building bridges and finding mutual understanding, or it can play the role of being the propaganda arm for a genocidal regime.
David Rovics is an activist musician who composes songs that educate about historical events, provide political analysis about current events, and raise up people from social movements. His solidarity with Palestinian liberation is deep, spanning his entire musical career. Recently, his entire 50-album catalog on YouTube Music was deleted. Clearing the FOG speaks with Rovics about the retaliation he has faced, some of his recent songs, how platforms like Spotify and YouTube are impacting the music industry, his artificial intelligence band, Ai Tsuno, and calls to boycott Spotify. For more information, visit PopularResistance.org.
Steve Zeltzer and I talked for over an hour about all sorts of interesting things the other day.
On the daily news and information show broadcast out of KPFA in Berkeley, California, every Friday host Dennis Bernstein is joined for the first half of Flashpoints by Sam Husseini to talk about the latest in Israel's genocide. Today journalist Robert Inlakesh and I joined Dennis and Sam to talk about our respective experiences getting blacklisted by YouTube, or in Robert's case, by Google altogether.
The latest David Rovics musical production, Ai Tsuno's eighth album, drops on all the streaming platforms later this month. In this podcast special, Ai Tsuno herself presents a guided tour of Rage Bait, and introduces you to songs such as Pogroms of the Occupied West Bank, Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber, Let's Talk About Sex, They Deleted David Rovics, and the title track.
I had a conversation with Scott Harris on Counterpoint Radio earlier this week. The first half is about news of all my albums being deleted from YouTube Music, and the second half is about the double-edged sword of AI and AI music.
The Labor Heritage Power Hour is a weekly radio show on WPFW in Washington, DC, as well as a podcast. Most of the hour consists of Chris Garlock and I diving deep into the weeds of AI music generation and the future of humanity. It was a great interview to begin with, but then the way the songs were edited in for the final version makes it even better.
The latest chapter in the ongoing saga of David's journey down the corporate Memory Hole.
The Oxford English Dictionary announced yesterday that their word or phrase of the year for 2025 is "rage bait." Here's a song about it from Ai Tsuno.
It's a sunny forecast for the rest of the weekend in Portland, Oregon. Our weekly neighborhood vigil for Gaza is happening Sunday at noon, and I wrote a jingle for it.
When YouTube Music deleted all of my albums from their platform the other day because my very existence apparently violates their terms of service, Ai Tsuno wrote a fairly blistering song about 1984/2025.
Ai Tsuno presents a guided tour to our album, Class War Zone, which drops on music streaming platforms on December 4th. Class War Zone consists of very recently-penned and tremendously catchy songs about things like the ongoing Starbucks workers strike, the Jeffrey Epstein files, the cost-of-living crisis, the campaign to bring the killers of Hind Rajab and her family to the ICC, and the nonexistent ceasefire in Gaza.
A guided tour of Ai Tsuno's album, Gaza Riviera, which drops on all the music streaming platforms on Thanksgiving Day (November 27th).
I had another scintillating conversation with Gorilla Radio host Chris Cook today. He interviews me for the last half of the hour. Mostly we talked about AI... (The first half of his show, interviewing another pro-Palestinian guy named David, was also very good.)
Kamala and I were guests for the better part of 2 hours on Graham Dean's Common Sense Songs show on Berkshire Community Radio a few days ago in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, along with our good friend, Massachusetts-based singer/songwriter Ben Grosscup. The live talk and music starts about 25 minutes in.
Sam and Amal are the hosts of a show on WUSB community radio in Stony Brook, New York called Unbound: the arts & culture of Palestine. They interviewed me for a very enjoyable hour the other day, in advance of the show we'll be doing on Long Island on October 26th!
Scott Harris interviewed me a few days ago for the Counterpoint public affairs radio show. We talked about the situation in Portland and other things.
My adopted home town of Portland, Oregon is once again in the international headlines, and this calls for a little primer.
Everything else happening in the world aside, we are at a fascinating juncture in the history of humanity. Assuming we live long enough to witness it, many people would say we're on the cusp of a new reality, represented by the three words, Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Ai Tsuno's fourth album gracefully explores this theme. For this special edition of This Week with David Rovics I bring you Where the Algorithms Rule: a guided tour.
Chet Gardiner has delivered a remix of "Invisible Rulers" that sounds just like the collision of the rumor mill with the propaganda machine! And with that, the next album is coming. This'll be track #1.
When I heard on the news that the Global Sumud Flotilla was being attacked by drones and Abba music, I was struck by the muse.
As the Trump administration tries hard to capitalize on this latest instance of political violence in the USA, Chet Gardiner has for us a remix which vastly improves everything.
Renee DiResta's book, Invisible Rulers, does a brilliant job of introducing us to the modern online age -- an age which she characterizes as one during which the rumor mill and the propaganda machine have, in so many ways, collided.
He spent most of his short life feeding off of algorithms, and now the algorithms are feeding off of him.
We're at another one of those seismic moments in technological development as it applies to the arts and most other things.
With the addition of Amherst, Massachusetts, the Ministry of Culture's October tour of the northeastern US now includes 10 confirmed gigs! And I recorded a little musical October Tour PSA as well... Radio and other audio people please feel free to use!
Olympia's beloved Zahid Chaudhry remains in ICE detention in Tacoma. A wounded veteran of the US military, in his wheelchair, was detained by ICE. A cherished member of the community and a loving father, taken from his small children. Here's Chet Gardiner's lovely remix.
Most people in Olympia seem to know Zahid Chaudhry, and everyone who knows him loves him, including me. He's the most effusively affectionate leftwing military veteran in a wheelchair you're ever likely to meet. And now he's in ICE detention, being tortured in Tacoma.
More info: keepzahidhome.carrd.co
What do we need? Historical knowledge, vision, optimism, organization, and deep culture. When do we need it? Always.
A song for a photograph, for the photographers, the artists, the journalists, and all who are finding effective ways to tell the stories. In this case, the stories of a genocide. Latest remix from Chet Gardiner. If anyone knows where to find the photo I wrote the song about, please tell me.
In preparation for Sunday's vigil for Gaza that I'll be singing at (12-2 pm at 12th and Hawthorne SE here in PDX) I did a livestreamed concert from my living room to practice some relevant songs.
While Israel continues its genocide of the Palestinians, all the Republicans in the Senate and half of the Democrats voted once again to continue facilitating the genocide. This song names the names of the genocide-supporting Democratic Senators, all of whom should obviously not be in positions of power -- all of whom should be locked up in the Hague, for that matter. This version is another brilliant remix from Chet, bound eventually for another album.
Another powerful remix from Chet Gardiner to drive home the message of the song I wrote just the other day, following announcements from Israel-supporting, war-profiteering leaders like Starmer, Carney, and Albanese that they might just consider recognizing the state of Palestine --if there are any Palestinians left alive come September, and if Hamas gives up and the Palestinians who haven't been killed yet pretend effectively "play dead."
The western powers talking about recognizing the state of Palestine sometime in the fall if certain outrageous conditions are met is the very definition of the term, "gaslighting."
After 22 months of Israel's total war on the children of Gaza, Senator Bernie Sanders put forward a bill to stop sending arms to the Israeli death machine. All the Republicans in the Senate voted against it, along with half of the Democrats. These 24 Democratic senators who voted to support Israel's ongoing genocidal war have names. And after initially trusting an AI chatbot to give me correct names, I did some proper research with the aid of human journalists, and wrote an updated version of the song.
After 22 months of Israel's total war on the children of Gaza, Senator Bernie Sanders put forward a bill to stop sending arms to the Israeli death machine. All the Republicans in the Senate voted against it, along with half of the Democrats. These 24 Democratic senators who voted to support Israel's ongoing genocidal war have names.
If it weren't for a very long flight, all the kangaroos and kookaburras, and everyone driving on the left side of the road, I might have thought I was still in the USA.
This song is probably my best songwriting effort on the awful subject of Israel's continuing genocide of the Palestinian people by mass starvation. Chet Gardiner has provided us with another stellar remix.
Some distinctions between Auschwitz and Gaza? Gaza is much bigger. And the genocide is being financed and armed by the US and most of the rest of the western world.
Vivien Langford was at last weekend's Gaza solidarity rally in Sydney for 3CR Community Radio, and she made this audio montage from the rally, featuring an amazing speech from someone from the Australian Jewish Council, followed by Kamala and I singing "I Support Palestine Action," and an announcement about the National Convergence on Canberra, which we will be singing at today, tomorrow, and Tuesday.
Maha Almassri is a Palestinian grandmother from the Gaza Strip who was staying with her son in Sydney, New South Wales, after fleeing Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, when one morning she was abducted by police in a pre-dawn raid and put in detention, where she remains today, with no explanation, and no recourse but detention or "self-deportation." Maha is one of several Palestinians who have been similarly abducted and detained by Australian authorities this month.
The British courts have regularly been finding Palestine Action innocent of any wrongdoing, in the group's efforts to smash the war machine, deeming them to be on the side of international law and British law, and deeming the state and the arms industry to be breaking the law. In light of this state of affairs, the British parliament has acted decisively, passing a law with an overwhelming majority to declare Palestine Action a terrorist group, and thus to declare that anyone expressing support for Palestine Action to be a terrorist as well, potentially liable to spend up to 14 years in prison for singing the chorus to this song.
Photo by Guy Smallman, from a protest in London at which many were arrested for holding those signs. Many more were arrested in the following days.
As the daily American-and-Israeli massacres of starving Palestinians in search of food parcels continue in Gaza, Chet Gardiner has delivered a powerful remix of one of the many songs I've written in recent months on this subject, borrowing a line I heard from a reporter on Al-Jazeera, "The Food Lines are the Front Lines Now."
Evening in the Americas when I received this brilliant remix from Chet Gardiner, and at the very moment I received this mix I was hearing news on Al-Jazeera about yet another morning massacre in Gaza, of starving Palestinians knowingly risking a likely death by Israeli machine gun fire in order for a slim chance at obtaining a small sack of flour. The abhorrent Gaza Humanitarian Foundation's Hunger Games continue.
This is the 3rd of 3 Selections from My Life as a Protest Singer. The full 11 episodes of My Life as a Protest Singer are available in the Everything folder that all members of my CSA have access to. If you appreciate my musical (and/or other) efforts, have disposable income to speak of, and might be willing to part with a few bucks a month to keep me on the road, making recordings, etc., please feel hereby encouraged to sign up! A few dozen more people joining my CSA could vastly improve my family's currently fairly precarious finances. Let's keep the protest music going. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The US seems ever more intent to go to war with Iran. Meanwhile, there is a country in the Middle East with undeclared nuclear weapons, which the IAEA never visits -- Israel.
As much as I love all of the instrumentation and vocal harmonies that characterize the new album (which you can hear in that multilayered form right now on Bandcamp), listening to all of these songs in their original, solo acoustic form yesterday I found personally to be a powerful experience.
I think these 12 songs, heard in this order, provide a fairly raw and I daresay gripping account of the past two months in certain vital corners of planet Earth. I thought I'd present them to you like I heard them, back-to-back, in case you want to try that, too.
I made an audio mash-up of songs from the new album, and a slideshow to go along with it. Which may represent the sum of my abilities to hype an album release. In Our Dreams is on Bandcamp now, and drops on streaming platforms in July.
My Life as a Protest Singer is an approximately 11-hour audiobook, available exclusively for members of my CSA. This is the 2nd of 3 Selections from the audiobook, available for anyone to check out.
As Israel continues its bombing campaign against Iran and Trump considers whether to join in, I witness intelligent-looking pundits with reasonable-sounding voices discuss matter-of-factly whether dropping massive amounts of bombs on the cradle of civilization again might make the world a more peaceful place this time around.
A song I originally wrote soon after the murder of Dr. George Tiller (May 31st, 2009), which we thought we'd put on the new album (2025). New instrumentation by Chet Gardiner, harmony vocals are Laura Love.
As much of the US military heads in the direction of Iran, the fighters and bombers and destroyers are all armed with missiles made by 5 American corporations, otherwise known as the War Machine. Powerful remix from Chet and Laura, destined for the upcoming album.
Most recently the daily massacres of starving Palestinian children seeking small packets of flour are being carried out by drones and tanks. Haunting remix from Chet and Laura for the upcoming album.
In the wake of the killings of the Israeli diplomats in Washington, DC, and the bizarre press reports about antisemitism, I wrote this song. This is the version destined for the upcoming album, brilliantly transformed by Chet Gardiner and Laura Love.
As my friends are trying to reach Gaza by sea and trying to gather at the border in Egypt, the Israelis are proceeding with their plan for the expulsion of any Palestinians who manage to survive Israel's famine, bombings and daily massacres. This is another brilliant remix from Chet and Laura.
Throughout 2024 and early 2025, in between writing songs and essays, touring and raising kids, a side project has been another memoir project. I declared it finished, and recorded the whole thing. The memoir is in the form of an audiobook.
My Life as a Protest Singer is my third or fourth effort at writing a memoir. This may seem ridiculous, but those who have engaged in the practice of memoir-writing know it’s not. There is so much to write about, and so much that will inevitably be left unwritten. There are so many angles, so many approaches. The vast majority of whatever it is will never make it in.
The full production of My Life as a Protest Singer consists of 11 episodes of about an hour each, or about 11 hours of me wagging my jaw. In its full 11 episodes it’s available exclusively for members of my Community-Supported Art program. Whether you’re a paid member via my website or via Patreon, Substack, or Bandcamp, you’ve been given a link to my Everything folder. It’s in there, within the “Extras” folder. If you’re a CSA member and don’t have the link to the Everything folder handy, just email me for it.
What I have made available for free to the general public is the very abridged version, Selections from My Life as a Protest Singer, which is a 3-episode series.
Starting with Selections from My Life as a Protest Singer EPISODE 1.
The song I wrote about recent events in Los Angeles, transformed by a chilling and very electric remix from Chet and Laura.
I spent an hour yesterday talking with Tom Walker, who was interviewing me for the Peace & Justice Report on WSLR community radio in Sarasota, Florida.
The final phase of the genocide involves daily massacres of Palestinians so driven to feed their families that they're ready to risk being shot by Israeli soldiers in order for a chance to get ahold of a little pasta.
Brilliantly rocking remix from Chet Gardiner and Laura Love of this song I wrote a few days ago about the horrific conditions in the Krome detention center in Florida -- which are a lot like the horrific conditions at so many other ICE facilities in this land of cruelty.
Among the various absurdities is Trump saying Los Angeles looked like "occupied territory." It is, of course -- since at least 1846. But he probably wouldn't get the irony.
The point, obviously -- and openly stated by our government officials -- is to make the USA such a terrible place to seek asylum that people would rather face torture or death or hunger at home, than to even try to leave.
Whether it stops the genocide or not, the upcoming album is going to be really good, full of remixes like this one just in from Chet Gardiner and Laura Love of my latest song, "Gunning Down Little Girls and Boys."
Every day since the US/Israeli mercenaries set up their fake aid distribution killing field, they have committed a massacre of starving children -- children who have been starved by those very same governments who are putting food parcels in their hands and bullets in their backs. Was there something else in the news?
The Israeli regime has been telling us all along what's coming next: mass expulsion or death for everyone in Gaza. Do you believe them yet?
Israel has one company that makes the sorts of bunker-busting missiles that have been annihilating the population of Gaza for so many years (Elbit Systems). The US has the rest of them, which provide Israel with most of its missiles, fighter jets, etc. Otherwise known as the American war machine -- without which the genocide would not be possible.
The girl in the flames the world has been seeing over Memorial Day weekend actually survived the bombing of the classroom she was sleeping in, unlike the many other children and women and men who were burned alive, in that and other Israeli air strikes targeting children throughout Gaza, throughout the weekend.
I spoke at length with folks from Atlanta, Georgia for the What the Folk? show on WRFG Community Radio. Here's the whole show -- the interview segments as well as all the excellent song selections from various artists that comprise the rest of this wonderful two-hour radio show.
I'm very excited to announce that the brilliant Laura Love is contributing vocal harmony parts to tracks on my upcoming album, such as this one. What these harmonies are adding to the impact of the songs is immeasurable, in my humble opinion.
In the Israeli military there is a popular expression. They say the soldiers of the world's most moral army, as they call themselves, care so much about humanity -- even Palestinian humanity -- that they are all crying while they're shooting. I'm quite certain the same is true for Elias Rodriguez as he shot the Israeli diplomats.
On my recent trip to BC I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Brian Charlton & Stephen Harvey for their Labour Beat radio show. We had a wide-ranging and downright fascinating conversation. The first 40 minutes of this episode represents Part 1.
When I was in BC recently I was interviewed at some length by Cornelius Lundsgaard for Hornby Island Community Radio.
Another powerful and timely remix to the latest song I've recorded, from Chet Gardiner.
While EuroVision was getting the headlines, FalastinVision was where you could find the most relevant music.
There is a mythology so many of us grew up with, that because of the experience of the Nazi holocaust, Jews were generally a more moral people, as a whole, and no state run almost entirely by Jews could possibly do something like genocide another people. This mythology was wrong, and Gaza is the evidence.
Chet Gardiner has made some powerful improvements to the song, with various instruments. The genocide of the people of Gaza is happening now, via famine and disease. One thing you can do right now is share this song. Songs can reach places the news stories don't.
The Israeli plan is to kill everyone in Gaza -- "to holocaust them," as Netanyahu's advisors say live on national TV, in Hebrew.
I had a good time chatting the other day with the hosts of the podcast, Unfinished Business with Paul & Rob. We talked about Gaza and music and other things. The interview with me begins 12 minutes in.
Americans Who Tell the Truth -- americanswhotellthetruth.org -- is a brilliant project that's been going for decades now, which involves portraits painted by Robert Shetterley of many wonderful people. I was interviewed recently for the website by Constance Carter, AWTT's Director of Education, and the interview was so nicely edited that I thought I'd share it with you.
Do it well, and you might just grow a movement. Do it badly, and you can kill it in the bud.
Here's a little Earth Day preview of the sort of concert folks have in store coming right up in BC and Denmark...
Some of us were just going for the bread and circus, but when we went there, we found neither.
After our visit to Mexico, we spent several days in southern California and three weeks between England and Scotland.
Almost a month into Israel's complete blockade of food, water, medicine or anything else getting into the Gaza Strip, as the Israeli military orders mass evacuations of Palestinians to an unknown destination, here is Chet Gardiner's chilling remix of my most recent song about all of that.
The only groups that are actually trying to enforce international law when it comes to Israel's war crimes are organizations that are illegal in many western countries to say anything nice about, or you risk being considered a terrorist.
Normally the ruling elite is supposed to be able to distinguish between reality and their own propaganda, even if most of the commoners believe it. With the new administration, it appears that these people actually believe their own lies, and are actively setting up a whole regime based on them being true.
A song about what Kamala and I have been doing for the past several days in Mexico City.
As we wait to hear whether Mahmoud Khalil will be given a trial, be deported without one, sent to Guantanamo, or who knows what, here's Chet Gardiner's powerful remix of the song I just wrote.
ICE agents taking orders directly from the top and disappearing a student activist with no warrant, no due process, canceling his green card and holding him incommunicado in an unknown location, this is what's happening in the USA right now.
Some thoughts on that majority element of top-quintile US society that persistently refers to itself as "the middle class."
Another fab remix from Chet Gardiner, of a song that's at least as relevant as it was a few days ago, when I wrote it, after that meeting in the Oval Office.
The Ministry of Culture is thrilled to be kicking off our 2025 bout of touring with the St. Patrick's Weekend events in Mexico City! We're also looking forward to LA, London, Glasgow and elsewhere after that! More info: davidrovics.com/tour
I'm constantly unable to decide whether they're brilliantly theatrical, Machiavellian coup-plotters or just bumbling billionaires whose emotional development stalled out a long time ago.
The Israeli government has shut off the Gaza Ghetto completely, so no food can get in. After a brief message from our sponsors, this holocaust now continues.
I have some free advice to anyone trying to organize a memorable protest or a successful social movement.
I don't know what came over me, but this time when I got the summons for jury duty, I didn't make up a reason why I couldn't do it. Next time I get such a summons, I'll make sure I'm out of town, or have a sick child to care for.
Somehow I have a lot to say about a movie I haven't seen yet. Sort of a non-review here.
OK, now they're firing all the military lawyers who are supposed to be responsible for determining whether a command is legal or not. Folks, this is definitely a coup, in case there was any question. This is not a corruption cleanup operation, it is a dictatorship installation operation. Here's Chet Gardiner's hopping remix of the song I wrote about it earlier this month.
To the list of allegedly democratic, free countries where the police arrest journalists for writing in opposition to Israeli fascism, we may now add Canada.
A really lively remix of this song I wrote earlier this month (that Elon Musk earned every penny of), with an especially counterpunctual bass line, from Chet Gardiner's studio in Hawai'i.
"The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe." Albert Einstein
I learned belatedly that the wonderful and brilliant woman on the left of this photo, Joan S. Livingston, died last month, at the age of 70. This photo is from December 1st, 2024, last time I was in Boston, playing at the Community Church of Boston, where I had seen her so many times before.
In a special episode of This Week with David Rovics, I had a discussion earlier today with Peter Phillips about his new book, Titans of Capital: How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity.
With Trump's new round of immigration raids, detention centers, and protests against them, I'm remembering two decades ago.
After the worldwide revolution, when the people united, we looked back at our accomplishments.
Listen to episode 16 first, or start at the beginning with episode 1 at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld.
2020-2022* The Centers for Disease Control suspend evictions nationwide (“Don’t Pay the Rent”) * New Zealand/Aotearoa becomes one of the very few places on Earth free of Covid-19 (“Aotearoa”) * George Floyd is executed on camera, and protests and riots explode across the US (“As I Watch Minneapolis Burn”) * Sustained protests take place across the US for months and millions of people say that Black lives matter (“Say Their Names”) * The Trump administration declares Portland and Seattle to be “anarchist jurisdictions” (“Anarchist Jurisdiction”) * Israel bombs Gaza again, with even bigger bombs than the last time (“Watch the Buildings Crumble”) * Palestine Action forms in the UK and starts destroying Elbit Systems factories (“Smashing Elbit Systems”) * There is a Heat Dome over Portland, Oregon and the temperature hits 116F/47C (“116 Degrees”) * Russian invades Ukraine, and the US imposes sanctions on Russia (“This is Not a Trade War”) * Georgia state police kill an activist named Tortuguita in a hail of bullets for trespassing (“Tortuguita’s Playlist”)
More episodesThis series basically ends here with 2022. But for a lot of vitally important history on late 2023 and 2024, I have a three-part podcast series very much like this one which you can listen to at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Another brilliant remix from Chet Gardiner's studio in Hawai'i, of my most recent composition, "Deport the Billionaires."
You can just listen to episode 15, or start at the beginning of the podcast series at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld.
2016-2020
- Thousands of people travel from all over to protest against the pipeline being put through the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota (“Standing Rock”)
- Grenfell Tower burns in London, killing 72 (“Names and Addresses”)
- White supremacists rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer and injuring dozens (“Today in Charlottesville”)
- The state of Arizona cracks down further on those trying to keep refugees from dying on the border (“I Was a Stranger”)
- The Trump administration institutes the child separation policy on the US-Mexico border (“ICE”)
- Willem van Spronsen dies in an effort to prevent refugees from being deported in Tacoma, Washington (“The Time to Act”)
- The Great March of Return begins in Palestine on Land Day in 2018 (“Land Day”)
- Two-year-old refugee, Mawda Shawri, is killed by police in Belgium (“Mawda Was Her Name”)
- Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, is forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy and imprisoned at Belmarsh (“Behind These Prison Walls”)
- Stella Moris announces to the world that she and Julian have two children (“When Julian Met Stella”)
- Annual numbers of people dying on the streets of Los Angeles County exceeds 1,000 for the first time (“Living on the Streets of LA”)
- Bernie Sanders runs for president again and has his campaign sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee (“Bernie 2020”)
- Jason Hargrove becomes one of the first “essential workers” to die from Covid-19 in the US (“Essentially Expandable”)
- The Oregon Employment Department demonstrates itself to be completely unprepared for the Covid-19 emergency (“Ballad of the Oregon Employment Department”)
Just listen to this episode, or start at the beginning with episode 1 at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld.
2013-2016* Edward Snowden reveals the NSA's Prism Program to the world ("Prism") * I am prevented from entering New Zealand on a mysterious basis ("Spies are Reading my Blog") * Folks who smashed helicopter gunships with sledgehammers in Australia go on trial ("If I had a Hammer") * There is a coup in Ukraine, and the Biden family gives the appearance of involvement ("A Biden Ballad") * The police killings of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, Jr. elicit marches across the US ("I Can't Breathe") * A white supremacist commits a massacre at the oldest Black church in South Carolina ("The State House Lawn") * A massacre on the Kenya-Somalia border is prevented ("One Day in Kenya") * Hundreds of thousands of refugees flood into Europe from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere ("Upon Our Shores") * The autonomous region of Rojava is established in northern Syria ("Rojava") * Omid Masoumali immolates himself on the island of Nauru in an Australian internment camp ("Leila and Majnun") * Jeremy Corbyn is elected leader of the British Labor Party ("I Agree with Jeremy") * Donald Trump launches a campaign for the US presidency, and wins ("Make the Planet Earth Great Again")
If we deported the billionaires and nationalized their wealth, the rest of the US could be twice as well-off at least. A much better deal than whatever benefit we're supposed to get from deporting our neighbors!
Lots of folks are desperately wondering how we build the resistance. If such efforts have any chance of success, history shows that it had better be a resistance that sings together.
If you're a card-carrying member of the IWW or just Wobbly-adjacent, this message is for you. (If you've never heard of the IWW, it's also for you.)
I think this will be the last track on the new album documenting the past few months of our collective jump from the frying pan to the fire.
Last Thursday, at Secretary of State Antony Blinken's last press conference, journalist Sam Husseini asked such pointed questions that they had to drag him out of the room.
Yet another brilliant remix from Chet Gardiner. Sometimes his remixes are full of musical activity, and other times they’re more understated, like this one. Always in service of the song. One more and we’ll put out the next album…
Last Thursday, at Secretary of State Antony Blinken's last press conference, journalist Sam Husseini asked such pointed questions that they had to drag him out of the room.
As people in Atlanta prepare to remember Martin Luther King, Jr., on the weekend after MLK would have turned 96, let's also remember Cornelius Taylor, who was run over by a municipal vehicle on Thursday which was "sweeping" a homeless encampment across the street from Ebenezer Baptist Church.
This remix comes from Chet Gardiner's studio on the Big Island of Hawai'i.
Cornelius Taylor was killed by a municipal vehicle while sleeping in his tent, across the street from Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, the day after Martin Luther King's birthday, as the Department of Public Works was tidying up the neighborhood in preparation for MLK weekend events.
Listen to episode 13 first, or start at the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld.
2011-2013* Navy Seals kill Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan (“Osama Bin Laden is Dead”) * A white supremacist kills 78 people in Norway (“Breivik”) * Food Not Bombs founder, Keith McHenry, and others are arrested for serving food in Orlando, Florida (“Ballad of Eola Park”) * Riots in every major city in England (“London is Burning”) * Occupy Wall Street begins with a protest in Zuccotti Park in Manhattan (“Occupy Wall Street/Stay Right Here”) * Teenager Trayvon Martin is killed while walking down the sidewalk and his killer is found to be innocent, on the basis of having been “standing his ground” (“Trayvon”) * CeCe McDonald is attacked at a bar in Minneapolis and is jailed for “standing her ground” and killing her attacker (“Ballad of CeCe McDonald”) * NATO has a summit in Chicago where the FBI infiltrates protest groups and entraps people (“Meanwhile in Afghanistan”) * Spotify launches their Free Tier and destroys the lives of millions of musicians (“A Penny A Play”) * A train with 72 cars full of Bakken crude exploded in Quebec, killing 47 (“Oil Train”)
You can start here with episode 12, or start at the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld. If you're enjoying the podcast series, please tell people about it.
2009-2011* The killing of Oscar Grant by BART police sets off a movement against police brutality in the San Francisco bay area (“Song for Oscar Grant”) * Barack Obama is elected president on a platform of Hope and Change (“If Only It Were True”) * Private Chelsea Manning is arrested and imprisoned for revealing US war crimes in Iraq (“Song for Chelsea Manning”) * The Global Financial Crisis results in a skyrocketing in the cost of housing in the US (“Just a Renter”) * The biggest ship to try to break the siege of Gaza, the Mavi Marmara, is attacked by Israeli soldiers, with 9 dead (“Song for the Mavi Marmara”) * The Citizens United Supreme Court decision gives corporations an unlimited ability to influence elections (“Corporations Are People, Too”) * The people of Tunisia rise up (“Tunisia, 2011”) * Tens of thousands of people occupy the Wisconsin state capitol (“Wisconsin”) * A tsunami kills tens of thousands of people in Japan (“Minami Sanriku”)
Start at the beginning with episode 1 of the podcast series at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just listen to episode 11 here.
2004-2008* The Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal breaks in the New York Times (“After We Torture Our Prisoners”) * Neocon architect of the Iraq occupation, Paul Wolfowitz, is appointed head of the World Bank (“Paul Wolfowitz”) * Cindy Sheehan starts camping out in front of President Bush’s ranch (“Song for Cindy Sheehan”) * Hurricane Katrina and government ineptitude kill thousands of people in New Orleans (“New Orleans”) * Construction of Israel’s Apartheid Wall in Palestine begins (“They’re Building a Wall”) * Israel invades Lebanon in 2006, killing thousands (“Lebanon, 2006”) * My dear friend and longtime activist and musician Brad Will is killed by paramilitaries in Oaxaca, Mexico (“Brad”) * Rod Coronado spends eight months in prison for giving a speech (“Burn It Down”) * The premier squatted social center in Denmark, Ungdomshuset, is destroyed by the Danish government, setting in motion a new social movement (“Ungdomshuset’s Microphone”) * The Global Financial Crisis leads to massive protests in Iceland (“Iceland, 2008”) * The GFC leads to massive protests in Greece, too, in which a dog named Loukanikos plays a prominent role (“Riot Dog”) * Founders of the Holy Land Foundation are charged with supporting terrorism, and five men are sentenced to between 15 and 65 years in prison (“Holy Land 5”)
Start with episode 1 at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or start here with episode 10.
2002-2004* Israeli invasion of Jenin (“Jenin”) * Heightened border security resulting from global justice movement continues (“Outside Agitator”) * Woomera Breakout in Australian refugee detention center (“Woomera”) * Coca-Cola union-busting efforts in Colombia turn deadly (“Drink of the Death Squads”) * Attempted coup in Venezuela against Hugo Chavez is defeated by the Venezuelan people (“Song for Hugo Chavez”) * International Solidarity Movement volunteer, Rachel Corrie, killed by Israeli occupation forces (“The Death of Rachel Corrie”) * The US invades Iraq again (“Operation Iraqi Liberation”) * The global justice movement is drowned in tear gas in Miami outside of the Free Trade Area of the Americas talks (“Miami”) * Spanish journalists go on strike (“Spanish Journalist Strike”) * A year after the US invasion of Iraq, the insurgency against the occupation begins (“Fallujah”)
Talking about critical analysis of history and current events (or not), and some ancient Chinese philosophy.
YouTube has just informed me that my channel has been permanently demonetized — not just a 90-day suspension as I had previously been told. There is no possibility for redress, they say. It’s a lifetime ban on making any more income through this major streaming platform.
Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
2000-2002
- The rise of the global justice movement in its many forms, such as the guerrilla gardening movement represented by groups like More Gardens in New York City (“The More Gardens Song”)
- The Biotic Baking Brigade (“Song for the Biotic Baking Brigade”)
- The beginning of the Second Intifada in Palestine (“Children of Jerusalem”)
- The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the new antiwar movement (“The Dying Firefighter”)
- Al-Qaeda and “War on Terror” (“Promised Land”)
- Barbara Lee, the sole dissenter in the US Congress after 9/11 (“Barbara Lee”)
- The arrest of Ana Belen Montes and the ongoing US campaign to subjugate Cuba (“Song for Ana Belen Montes”)
- 9/11 and suspicious events in Hollywood, Florida (“Hollywood Bread”)
- The invasion of Afghanistan and the bombing of Kama Ado by the US Air Force (“The Village Where Nothing Happened”)
- The opening of an internment camp at the US’s naval base on the island of Cuba, Guantanamo Bay (“Guantanamo Bay”)
The hospital staff are still entirely unaccounted for, after the New Year's Eve demolition and torching of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip. Those who weren't killed were all kidnapped by Israeli soldiers. This remix from Chet Gardiner is, in my humble opinion, haunting and powerful.
Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
1980’s and 1990’s* The exposure of Israel’s secret nuclear arsenal and the abduction of Mordechai Vanunu * The Anti-Highway Movement and victory in Massachusetts * Sanctions on Iraq and the deaths of 500,000 children there, according to UNICEF * Industrial disaster in Hamlet, North Carolina and the failure of OSHA * Gun violence in America and the death of my dear friend Eric Mark in San Francisco * Riots and police shootings in Copenhagen after passage of the Maastricht Treaty * The blockade of Prince William Sound in Alaska following the Exxon Valdez oil spill * The arrest and imprisonment of Alvaro Luna Hernandez for the crime of self-defense * The rise of School of the Americas Watch and annual protests in Columbus, Georgia * The Minnehaha Free State in Minneapolis, and resistance to highway expansion there * The Timber Wars on the west coast of North America and the death of David “Gypsy” Chain * The environmental crisis is found to be profoundly affecting the male anatomy
2025 began with several massacres, the demonetization of my YouTube channel, and other notable developments.
Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
1970’s and 1980’s
- The blowing up of a dam and the birth of the Icelandic environmental movement
- The discovery of the FBI’s Cointelpro by the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI
- The imprisonment and escape from prison of Assata Shakur
- The CIA-backed coup in Chile, and solidarity from East Kilbride, Scotland
- The struggle for land and freedom at Big Mountain and the Navajo/Hopi dispute
- The collective construction of the world’s biggest windmill in Denmark
- The CIA-backed coup in Australia that overthrew Gough Whitlam’s government
- The Iranian Revolution and the seizure of the US Embassy by students
- Armed Republican resistance in Ireland, and the 1981 prison hunger strikes
- Civil war in El Salvador
In what has been standard operating procedure since the Palestinian Holocaust began in October, 2023, during the last few days of 2024 the Israeli occupation forces systematically destroyed and then burned every inch of a massive hospital complex that used to serve the needs of the population. Once destroying the building, the standard procedure is they arrest and torture the staff, which is what everyone is certain is now happening to the hospital director, as happened to hospital directors, doctors, and other staff at every other hospital in Gaza that the Israelis have systematically eliminated in the course of their genocidal war against the people, which the western media misrepresents (when they mention it at all) as a "war between Israel and Hamas."
Happy New Year to all my fellow canceled people -- you know who you are, whether or not anybody else does! Remix from the brilliant Chet Gardiner.
Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
1950-1970
- US/UN invasion of Korea and war with China
- The Red Scare and the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
- The Cuban Revolution
- The Cuban Missile Crisis
- Texaco/Chevron’s destruction of the Ecuadorian Amazon
- The Six Day War and the Israeli attack on the NSA spy ship, the USS Liberty
- The My Lai Massacre in Vietnam
- The antiwar movement in the US and around the world
- Martin Luther King, Jr assassination and the Poor People’s March on Washington
- Anti-Catholic pogroms and refugee crisis in Ireland
- Columbia Eagle Mutiny
- Kent State Massacre
Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
1943-1949
- The arrests and executions of German communists such as Hamburg city councilor, Franz Jacob
- The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
- The boatlift of the Danish Jews to Sweden
- The Dutch resistance and the killing of Henk Streefkerk
- The Normandy landings
- The liberation of Katharina Jacob and other Ravensbruck prisoners by the Red Army
- The US nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- The expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine, the Naqba
- The Berlin Airlift of 1948-49
1933-1941. Listen to everything from the beginning at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld or just start with this one!
- The rise to power in Germany of Adolf Hitler
- The International Brigades and the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War
- Anti-immigration laws and sentiment in the west and the turning back of Jewish refugees
- The kindertransports — rescuing Jewish children while leaving their parents to die
- The SS Winnipeg and Pablo Neruda’s rescue of the Spanish refugees in France in 1939
- Henry Ford and the popularity of fascism in the US
- Ram Mohamed Singh Azad and resistance to colonialism in India
- The US-imposed oil blockade on the Japanese Empire
- The internment of Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans in the western US
- Chiune Sugihara and the rescue of thousands of European Jews by “the Japanese Schindler”
Merry Christmas to all my fellow canceled people. If you're in the club, you'll probably identify with most of the lines in this song, I'll wager -- if you get a chance to hear the song in the first place, that is.
This episode covers events that took place from 1917-1921.
- The rise and fall of the Working Class Union in Oklahoma
- Danish syndicalism and the Battle of the Borso
- World War 1 and the Pandemic of 1918
- The Russian Revolution and US invasion of Russia
- The Winnipeg General Strike
- The Industrial Workers of the World and the lynching of Wesley Everest
- The Palmer Raids
- Kelly Butte and the use of prison labor in Oregon
- The Tulsa Race Massacre
- The Battle of Blair Mountain
There's no need to start at the beginning, necessarily, but all the episodes out so far can be found at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld, along with notes on each of them.
Here's the second episode of A History of the World According to David Rovics. This one covers events from 1846-1916.
The first two podcasts are up now at davidrovics.com/ahistoryoftheworld, and the rest will all be up there eventually, free for anyone to download. I would venture to say it's a really good bunch of podcasts, that could be especially good to share with folks who may just discovering people's history or radical politics.
For paid subscribers, 16 episodes are already up. They can be found in the Everything folder -- if you're a CSA member, whether you signed up through Substack, Patreon, Bandcamp, or at davidrovics.com/subscribe, you should have gotten a welcome email with the link to the Everything folder, but feel free to contact me if you need that again!
I did a bit of an impromptu live broadcast today, on the occasion of realizing I'd be alone in the apartment on a Sunday.
This is the first episode in my new podcast series, A History of the World According to David Rovics. In this series, I take on history, starting with what we Americans call the Colonial Era, then working our way forward, tightening up the timeline as we go.
I'll upload new episodes every so often, gratis, here and on other platforms, including at davidrovics.com/history.
For those who are able to become paid subscribers, those who can join my Community-Supported Art program are the folks who make it possible for me to keep doing what I do. If you're already a paid subscriber, thank you! (These posts always go out to everyone, either way...)
The first ten episodes are already up, for CSA members. They can be found in the Everything folder. If you're a CSA member, whether you signed up through Substack, Patreon, Bandcamp, or at davidrovics.com/subscribe, you should have gotten a welcome email with the link to the Everything folder, but feel free to contact me if you need that again!
By delaying what they then deny
By defending their actions as they watch us die
Well, you know
There are so many ways to kill a CEO
It's #SpotifyWrapped time again, and this year's summary of my presence on the platform is especially Kafka Orwell.
UNICEF says 35 children per day on average have been killed by Israeli bombs, snipers, or other such means since October 2023. Now the numbers will grow exponentially in the ongoing famine Israeli forces are imposing.
Kamala Emanuel and I -- aka the Ministry of Culture -- are off on another tour of parts of Europe and the US. Details about all the gigs can be found at davidrovics.com/tour.
With our spiffy new home internet connection, today's broadcast was not a disaster, for a change! I sang songs from the new album, Jabaliya, and other songs as well, mostly from the past year.
It was streamed live, this is what Streamyard calls the "Cloud recording," as opposed to the "Local recording," which is a WAV file that you can find on the Substack version of this podcast. For tech geeks out there, I'm singing through a Shure SM7B, and playing a Collings guitar with a K&K pickup, plugged into a Focusrite box, which then is connected to the laptop.
On Day 21 in the genocidal siege of Jabaliya, as the hospital is being destroyed by tank fire and the children inside burned alive, here's a haunting, powerful remix of the song I just wrote, from Chet Gardiner's studio in Hawai'i.
Another election, time to turn up the volume and shout at each other even more than usual again.
Chet Gardiner in Hawai'i has provided a gorgeous backup band for "Jill Stein." Complete with drums -- appropriately enough, since Jill herself is a fine percussionist!
So now if the song is so catchy that it causes a landslide vote for the Green Party, you can take your pick as to whether you want to blame me, Chet, or both of us.
Everything is burning as I watch the videoShe crawls out of the ruins, venturing to goOut in search of water, the final human needAlthough the consequences are almost guaranteedAs she goes out in the open, beneath the killer dronesWhich aims its sights on her, then shreds her to her bonesThen waits for any people who might be fool enough to tryCome to fetch her body, beneath the smoke-filled sky Two million people behind the ghetto wallWait for two-ton bombs to fallTo crush and burn the schools and tentsWhere your whole extended family wentScores more murdered with each passing dayWith so many more on the edge of being taken awaySurrounded by tanks that fire at willAnd the rest of the world stands by still Completely surrounded with no food getting inGhost-like faces, impossibly thinKids that look like babies, babies bornThirsty, starving, and forlornMen are being taken to who knows whereThe elderly, the babies, the wounded in wheelchairsWith donkey carts and wagons, south on cueAs the drones above the rubble ordered them to do They’re carrying out the Generals’ PlanWhich means kill all the kids that you possibly canAnyone moving, soldiers take aimWho they are doesn’t matter, they’re all the sameMake no distinctions, orders decreeKilling them all is just how it must beAnd right now in New Jersey you can buy sharesIn the resort Jared Kushner plans to build there
From top to bottom, Americans can virtue-signal like nobody's business. But material conditions of most of society in the US indicate a total failure of governance.
Bombing daily for well over a year
A death sentence for everyone here
The Lancet said it's 200K killed
Body parts strewn, mass graves filled
Shooting at families, then when medics arrive
Shoot again, leave no child alive
They announced their intentions, to clear the north
And they rolled in the tanks, firing forth
How many months now with nothing to eat
A twenty-mile strip of rubble-strewn streets
With no power, no water, schools destroyed
An occupying army completely devoid
Of one little trace of morality
After totally demolishing Gaza City
Beit Hanoun, Zeitoun, Jabaliya
Khan Yunis, Deir al Bala and Beit Lahia
Destroying everything everywhere
Producing their own footage as if to dare
Anyone else to do anything
To stop the destruction of everything
To stop them from killing everyone
Every daughter and every son
A zone of carnage, ruins and drones
That won’t even leave a living child alone
To starve them out is just what they say
As the air strikes are called in day after day
As the disembodied heads and hands
Scattered across this forsaken land
Get bulldozed into the ground to hide
The holocaust where everyone died
Killed by Biden, by Netanyahu
To colonize for the chosen few
The western media equivocates
Along with the leaders of the western states
Are they really aiming to kill them all?
Maybe we should do something to try to forestall
The end of this ancient civilization
But they just stand alongside the genocide nation
Who knew Jabaliya would end like this
The ghost of another apocalypse
They’re calling it the Generals’ Plan
Laying waste to whatever they can
Mechanized warfare run by AI
Where anyone living is subject to die
Higher-tech killing than ever before
Across the Atlantic, plans being made for
Condos on the Mediterranean sea
Where the people of Gaza used to be
The decline of the left in the US that I've been witnessing now for decades has been a process of exclusion that bears trying to describe.
I'm not much for playing Charades, so I never actually got around to voting in an election until Ralph Nader ran for president in 2000. I also sang at various events with him, and at the Green Party national convention around that time, and at the last Green Party national convention online, and many other Green Party events in between.
I've also voted for lots of Greens over the years since I started voting more consistently, here in Oregon, where you're automatically registered to vote when you get a state ID or driver's license, the ballots arrive in the mail, making it all extremely easy, even for an anarchist to bother with.
I wrote this song, "Jill Stein," in 2016. I never got around to making a good recording of the song, but after seeing some particularly offensive posts about Jill on social media, I felt inspired to make a better recording of the song, after changing one word in it. See if you can guess which one!
With concern to the US political system, we can either keep on playing along with the "lesser evil" philosophy and hope to speed towards that proverbial wall more slowly, or we can turn the train around. Given those options, supporting Jill Stein seems like the right decision to me. I understand why other people disagree. It's a hard choice, between the near future and the further-off future. I've always been one for the long game myself, though I can also be very impatient.
I had been thinking that maybe "The Ballad of Donald and Kamala" was all I was going to have to say about this election cycle, but apparently there's more.
Episode 3 of 3 of my audio seminar on the Gaza genocide. All of the episodes can be found at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Episode 2 of the Apocalypse in Review. You can listen to episode 1 at davidrovics.com/palestine.
To mark a year of high-tech war being waged against the Palestinian people, there have been many different efforts at putting the past year into context, by many individuals and media outlets. Here's mine -- or the first of the three episodes in the series, anyway. The other two will soon follow.
This first episode is a crash course in the history of Zionism in Palestine, up until October 6th, 2023. The second episode is focused on the fall of 2023, and the third one on 2024.
Writing, recording, and putting together this sort of thing is very time-consuming. If people like it, it's worth it. Either way, it's a relatively new way of presenting things for me, and I'd appreciate your feedback, whether positive, negative, or in between.
The Hawai'i department of the Ministry of Culture has given us a haunting remix of the song I wrote about those Iranian missiles that hit those Israeli military targets the other day.
Everywhere the Al-Jazeera reporters were reporting from throughout the Middle East during and after Iran's October 1st ballistic missile attack on Israeli military targets, people could be heard cheering loudly. Most of the people I know across the world might not have been cheering, but their hearts were a little lighter, for a little while, at least. I know mine was.
We interrupt these wars to bring you a Senate hearing with Bernie Sanders calling the shots. I'm still recovering from the shock of hearing a person with a Danish accent utter that much nonsense. Obviously they're not all fine upstanding radical leftists like almost everyone I know in Denmark!
If you've missed the proceedings, the upshot is that half of the expenditures for health care costs in the US these days goes for buying prescriptions of Ozempic, the new, extremely popular weight loss drug from Novo Nordisk. The reason it's so expensive is because the US government doesn't believe in regulating monopolies, and capitalism says charge whatever they'll pay -- it's basic supply and demand, after all.
If there were any press outlets interested in covering the trials and tribulations of a little-known traveling musician trying to sing any songs about Palestine without having people try to cancel his gigs, what might that coverage look like?
Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was born on July 27th, 1998, and killed by an Israeli sniper while standing in solidarity with besieged Palestinians in the town of Beita, in the Occupied West Bank, on September 6th, 2024.
Remixed rendition thanks to Chet Gardiner, from his studio in Hawai'i.
Here's Chris Cook's interview with me from earlier today, wherein I wax eloquent about the horrors for a half hour. You can hear the entire show and subscribe to Gorilla Radio, which is a wonderful weekly podcast, on Substack. And to meet the host, come to my gig next weekend in Victoria, BC!
Israeli settlers began a new campaign to steal more of the land from the people of the town of Beita, Palestine, in 2021. Turkish-American ISM activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi was the 17th protester to be killed by Israeli troops in Beita since 2021.
Over the course of the summer I wrote a bunch of things, but didn't make audio versions of most of it. Here's everything I missed, in one fell swoop, interspersed with appropriate songs. The following segments are the order in which I recorded them, and the order in which they were published on Substack, and in the case of "I Survived Chicago," on Counterpunch as well.
- Reflections on Singing for Wikileaks
- Don't Shoot, Organize!
- Notes from a Month in Australia
- I Survived Chicago
- Seegerism -- and the War Against It
- Downtown Portland and the Screaming Silence
My very prolific musical collaborator, Chet Gardiner, has come up with a very appropriately sinister backdrop for this song, which is the first of two songs I wrote after the arrest of Palestine solidarity organizer and influencer, Sarah Wilkinson, in England at the end of August.
Like the other song on the subject ("On the Streets of London"), this song is not just about Sarah's ordeal, but all the other journalists who have been getting arrested by Keir Starmer's balaclava-wearing Mossad thugs.
Sarah Wilkinson's outrageous and also impossible bail conditions have been dropped, due to popular pressure, but Keir Starmer's balaclava-clad Mossad thugs are still on the loose in England, terrorizing journalists. Here's Chet Gardiner's brilliant new remix of "On the Streets of London," the song I wrote a few days ago about this stark reality.
Sarah Wilkinson was brutally arrested and her home ransacked. Now she's under house arrest, prohibited from using phones or other devices, awaiting the possibility of further persecution under the extremely anti-democratic Section 12 of the 2000 Terrorism Act in England. This is a song about how you can be brutally abducted and charged with ridiculous offenses right now in modern-day England, on those lovely old and occasionally still cobblestoned streets of London. Sarah is only one of a number of journalists and others to be charged under this outrageous law, by the New Labor government.
Chet Gardiner has improved the sound and added some very tasty instrumentation to this song I wrote and recorded in my living room last week.
The song is about one of so many historical events that could, if they were much better known, have a real impact on the outlook of so many people, about the prospects for civilization.
Anti-slavery sentiment was so strong in the state of Wisconsin that it was never necessary to institute military conscription there during the US Civil War.
In the decade prior to the Civil War, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, which legally required authorities in states where slavery was banned to return people who had escaped back to those who claimed to own them.
There was only one attempt to enforce this law in Wisconsin, and it resulted in the captured, formerly enslaved man, Joshua Glover, being freed from the jail in Milwaukee by a crowd of thousands of local people, who then protected Glover and made sure he had the means to get to Canada, where he could be beyond the jurisdiction of the slaveowners.
Keir Starmer's Thought Police have been raiding the homes of journalists and activists in the past few days, most recently arresting longtime organizer, journalist, and social media influencer Sarah Wilkinson, who I have known, admired, and collaborated with for many years.
Sarah and others are being charged with violating Section 12 of the Terrorism Act of 2000. This is a very easy law to break, and until now, is one that has generally gone unenforced. If you are perceived to have said or posted something in praise of a group that is resisting an illegal occupation or a genocidal slaughter, and if the group you have said something positive about is on the UK's proscribed list, such as Hamas or Hezbollah, then you have broken this terrorism law and you are subject to a potential prison sentence of 14 years.
In addition to an early-morning raid on her home with 12 uniformed and plainclothes officers and having this potential sentence hanging over her head, they have taken all of Sarah's electronics, and forbidden her from posting anything online.
What they are obviously doing here is applying this law in an extremely selective and very political way, and it's a law that shouldn't be on the books in the first place, in any remotely democratic society. They have chosen people like Sarah to target, because, unlike the millions of other people they could be targeting for posting exactly the same sorts of things that she has posted, she has a direct following of hundreds of thousands of people on X, and many more people within her activist networks who benefit greatly from her involvement with campaigns such as the Gaza Flotilla.
If the MI5 thinks I have enough of a following for them to arrest me next time I land at Heathrow, someone will probably let you know.
Authorities in the state of Wisconsin only tried to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 once. But before they had a chance to hold a trial in Milwaukee, thousands of local people on horseback descended upon the jail and freed Joshua Glover from his captors, making sure he got to Canada, rather than being taken back to Missouri.
This is one of so many inspiring stories of solidarity from the history of humanity. I probably first heard about it from Ben Manski, who knows more about Wisconsin state history than anyone I've met. I've been meaning to write this song for years. Recently being in Wisconsin, I shared this story with a number of people, most of whom had never heard of it, which made me want to write the song more.
Those who read my recent lengthy missive have some idea of my impressions of the protests surrounding the DNC in Chicago last week, as they were executed. (Here’s that missive in Counterpunch.)
As I mentioned in that piece, protest organizers and people trying to help them have faced endless problems coming from the city authorities in the process of trying to get permits to have a rally and a march. Permits were only granted days before things were set to take place, an obviously preposterous situation for trying to organize anything, which the city authorities imposed on the rest of us, as they blatantly violated all of our First Amendment rights.
I wrote this song in Chicago, and this recording is from our visit to WZRD community radio last Thursday. It’s a song I could have written decades ago, it’s worth noting. There have been so many occasions before this Chicago DNC when authorities have blatantly violated the rights of the people to exercise their First Amendment rights. Two examples that come to mind are that very freezing day in February, 2003, when the mayor declared we could have a rally, but no march. And 2004 during the RNC in New York City, when the city fathers then randomly decided the antiwar movement this time could have a march, but no rally.
The Bill of Rights in the USA has always been more of a good idea than an actual reality. But it remains a really good idea.
On Thursday evening we dropped by the studio of WZRD community radio in Chicago for an impromptu set, which they broadcast live. They also recorded most of it, and here it is...
Most of August 14th, 2024's edition of Flashpoints -- the daily news and information show hosted by Dennis Bernstein on KPFA Community Radio in Berkeley, California -- was dedicated to music and poetry related to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The segment consists of Kamala Emanuel and me going back and forth with the absolutely breath-takingly powerful poet, Anita Barrows, who has written a poem every day since the genocide began in October.
I don't know how it took me so long to notice this, but Spotify and Facebook, among other gigantic tech corporations, are using the IMF's playbook as their business model.
Here's the archived, audio edition of the guided tour of the upcoming album, I HEARD A RUMOR. The guided tour was livestreamed earlier today. The album drops on all the music streaming platforms on August 1st.
Many of the Australians I know who are now in their forties or older participated in the convergence on the Woomera detention center for refugees just after Easter, 2002. It was a protest that became especially legendary because it was during this protest that a successful breakout of refugees detained in the facility took place.
It would be hard to overstate what an impact this protest, and the Woomera Breakout, seems to have had on both Australian refugee policies going forth, as well as elsewhere in the world that I have witnessed. Off-shoring refugees as well as dramatically increasing security measures at such facilities in many different countries followed. But the Woomera Breakout inspired many, and continues to do so. Many of those refugees who escaped detention then are still free people today, known collectively as the Skippies.
Yesterday I wrote a song about the murdered and missing indigenous women of Canada, and one in particular. Kamala and I recorded it with one microphone here in Australia, and in less than 24 hours, Chet in Hawai'i has delivered a gorgeous remix.
One among the ranks of the thousands of missing or murdered indigenous women in Canada who I learned about recently is Chelsea Poorman, found dead in Vancouver, BC after being missing for 18 months.
Chet Gardiner has delivered a wonderful, old-timey remix of this song I just wrote, which shall be included in our ever-expanding upcoming album, to be titled I Heard A Rumor.
The song may or may not be the best song I've ever written. Judging from the vast majority of comments thus far, most people understand where I'm coming from here. Especially folks who have read some of the essays I've been writing related to social engineering.
But to clarify for those who aren't sure what I'm trying to say in this song: I don't at all mean to be suggesting that having an opinion or doing something about each of the issues mentioned in the verses is unimportant. Just that these issues are some of the issues that are being methodically used by the entities that control the social media matrix of hegemonic control that we all live in these days as useful tools for keeping us constantly engaging in circular arguments with each other, and thus rendered totally useless.
Key factors to a successful rent strike include people doing it at the same time, and being organized for collective action when the cops come to try to evict. It worked in the 1930's, but since then society and the laws have backtracked a whole lot.
Ever feel like a marionette whose strings are being pulled by billionaires who like to watch their puppets form circular firing squads? Me, too.
Here's another song destined for my next album, which focuses on life in the matrix -- the operation of the rumor mill in its various toxic, destructive forms. The aspect of the disinformation nexus highlighted here are the sectarian cancellation campaigners, and one of them in particular -- author, journalist, and serial liar, Shane Burley, guru of a small local cult that calls itself Rose City Antifa.
For more information about Shane, his deep confusion about history, his bizarre obsession with rooting out antisemitism on the left, and the widespread promotion of people with his worldview by the liberal section of the mainstream media, my latest blog post/podcast is titled The Progressive Embrace of the McCarthyite Left and you can find it at davidrovics.com/thisweek.
In 1834, organizing a union in England was legal on the books, but not in reality. Farmworkers in Tolpuddle, on the south coast of England, tried to organize a union and were deported to Australia for it. A massive movement across the country forced the government to pardon the Tolpuddle Martyrs, as the farmworkers became known, and transport them back to England.
This version of the song, from a live show in Crewe, England, was enhanced afterwards by multi-instrumentalist and audio engineer, Chet Gardiner, from his studio in Hawai'i. It will be part of our next collaborative album, to be titled, I Heard A Rumor, to be released on July 4th, 2024.
The governor of New York's U-turn on imposing a congestion charge on car traffic in lower Manhattan has been in the news today. Read certain news sources and you'll even find out what the U-turn was actually about. Here's the rhyming version of the story.
I wrote a lot of songs during the pandemic that had a short shelf life, for one reason or another. This one still evokes, for me, the longing that I and so many others felt for the idea of being in a place that kept Covid out along with everything that generally accompanied it, like the isolation and misery.
Chet Gardiner has brought so much more to the song with the addition of multiple instruments. The song will be a fine addition to our next album, which we aim to put out on July 4th.
Australian musician Mark Cronin shared with me his rendition of my song about imprisoned Australian journalist, Julian Assange, "Behind These Prison Walls," and I had to share it with you, because it's gorgeous. Looking forward to being in Australia again myself very soon!
57 years ago this week, the Israeli military tried to sink an American ship and kill all the crew -- knowing full well that's exactly what they were doing.
A song for all those canceled or awaiting cancellation, I wrote it last year, and Chet Gardiner has just made it much more relevant with some brilliant instrumentation.
There is a widespread belief that the FBI was not just running a character assassination campaign on Martin Luther King, Jr., but that they were also directly culpable for his murder. There is also a widespread belief that the reason why they escalated their campaign to the point of killing him was that the establishment was deeply worried about the unifying impact of MLK's active plans to lead a huge occupation of Washington, DC of a broad cross-section of poor Americans who were to stay until victory. A symbolic version of his vision was enacted, a month after his death, as it happened, but it was nothing like the campaign he had planned to lead.
This rendition of the song I wrote earlier this month was enhanced by Chet Gardiner's banjo, bass and other instruments from his studio in Hawai'i.
As I sit here, most of the journalists still reporting from Gaza seem to be somewhere in a hospital complex in Rafah that is currently under siege by the Israeli military. This song is not a prediction of their deaths, but rather a plea for their lives.
Out of the ashes of the free internet, our techno-fascist future has arrived, with billionaires and their algorithms in control of our means of communication and our very minds. Here's Chet Gardiner's remixed rendition of the song.
And now watch them justify the missiles that they sent
To bomb the starving children dying in their tents
Amidst all the solidarity is the unavoidable observation there is a whole lot of fear and suspicion making sure it's unlikely to spread.
On the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, as what Israeli politicians have openly dubbed "Nakba 2.0" is well underway, I livestreamed a concert from my living room consisting of relevant songs.
As the Israeli military shoots its way into the center of Rafah, they have made it abundantly clear that there are certain broad classes of Palestinians that are targets for assassination, and that seems to include anyone who works for Al-Jazeera. Those of us who have been watching this genocide unfold live on Al-Jazeera's English channel for the past 7+ months are all especially familiar with and probably enamored of two reporters in particular who have been with us day in and day out the whole time.
A brief analysis of some of the considerations that go into deciding whether or not to have live music at your protest rally or other social movement event.
A song for Mother's Day, 1968 -- in deep appreciation for Cheri Honkala and the great organizing work of the Poor People's Army, the heir to the spirit of Resurrection City, who are organizing marches to both the RNC and the DNC this summer.
For many years now we hear a lot on the news about "the culture wars." But there's another war that's been going on for decades: the war against culture itself.
It's wonderful to see significant and dedicated fractions of the population take to the streets, or at least the campuses. But where is everybody else?
"Antisemitism" is the new "communism" -- have you ever said anything that could be construed in someone's convoluted mind as somehow anti-Jewish? Iran is the new USSR, Elise Stefanik is the new Joe McCarthy, and the House Un-Israeli Activities Committee is going strong, ruining one life at a time, and striking fear throughout academia and beyond.
The House Un-Israeli Activities CommitteeIf you imagine when considering a slogan
That it could have various interpretations
If you believe in understanding the other side
Then you’re clearly much too vulnerable, open wide
If you don’t want to be grilled by the Inquisition
If you’d rather avoid such a prone position
If you run a university and you act the way you ought
If you think there’s a place for nuanced thought
If it’s hard to boil it all down to yes or no
If you think context matters and you dare say so
You’d best be out of town when you’re the one they pick
To go get grilled by Elise Stefanik
You'd better tow the line or else you know what they’ll do
The House Un-Israeli Activities Committee will be coming after you
If you’re fond of notions like free discourse
If you think dialogue might be better than brute force
You’re thinking isn’t nearly black and white enough
And in the halls of Congress they’ll be talking tough
Showing those bureaucrats who knows best
Making sure who knows they could be their next guest
If you want to keep your job and your donor base
You don’t want to have to come face to face
You’d better call in the police and salute your leader
Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister
Make sure they crack the heads of all those Jew-haters
So says the queen of the new red-baiters
Chet Gardiner has done some especially impressive enhancements to this song so it really sounds like I'm playing with a band, if you didn't know I recorded my parts alone in my living room.
On another note, thanks to the wonderful gaggle of folks who joined my Community-Supported Art program on one platform or another since I put out this very autobiographical song in the first place a few days ago. Anyone else who wants to become a member, and receive a Better Anarchist Club card in the mail, please feel free! My children and my landlord will appreciate you, whether they know it or not.
I decided this morning to livestream a guided tour of some of the thousands of vile comments from pro-Israel trolls I've gotten on Facebook in the past 24 hours. Podcast version.
As I watch in the real world as well as through the various other means what is (and isn't) happening on college campuses across the US and beyond recently, a number of thoughts come to mind that seem worth exploring a bit.
A song of appreciation for all the protesting students, staff, and faculty at Columbia and many other institutions across the US.
The third in my series of musical broadcasts about the history of resistance in its many forms.
In this session I share songs and thoughts exploring:
The mostly Irish soldiers who left the US Army and joined the Mexican Army during the Mexican-American War
The gold diggers' rebellion in Ballarat, Australia in 1854
The syndicalists' occupation of the Danish Stock Exchange in Copenhagen in 1918
The Japanese diplomat who saved the lives of thousands of Polish Jews during WWII
The My Lai Massacre in Vietnam in 1968, and helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson's stand in defense of the survivors
The explosive beginnings of the Icelandic environmental movement in 1970
The notion that music can change the world
Israel wages real, genocidal war against Palestinians. But in other arenas, the pro-Israel lobby in its various forms wages war against global public opinion. The Zionist entity targeting me in recent months has been UK Lawyers for Israel, so I wrote them a jingle.
UK Lawyers for IsraelI woke up one morning with an email in my inbox
Containing lies and slander, known locally as “bollocks”
I was about to tour in England, singing songs about
The holocaust in Gaza, when one of the venues pulled out
They had gotten a letter from UKLFI
Threatening consequences if they did not comply
As Israel commits its war crimes, more and more people see
But this brave bunch of barristers are gonna keep the world free
The list of their accomplishments are right there in black and white
They take credit openly right there on their website
If you got kicked off of PayPal, GoFundMe or Facebook
They probably brag about it – go and take a look
Anyone who calls out Israel as a fascist state
If they get any attention, they can expect to meet their fate
Lose their jobs, have lies and slander spread about their name
Canceling careers, that’s the name of the solicitors’ game
UK Lawyers for Israel intends to turn the tide
To advocate for the state that is committing genocide
If you cry out against the slaughter that could be their cue
Their next target might be you
You can see there on their website, their email list is tiny
But they can compensate in cash for what they lack in popularity
And their legal threats aren’t limited just to the UK
Wherever someone supports Palestine, they’ve got something to say
If it’s a gathering in Glasgow or a conference in Berlin
These livid lawyers will make sure that censorship will win
They’ve even got a charity, and a troll farm, too
And they don’t care if you are a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew
Chorus
They took the Labor Party, centered in their sights
And accused all the best of them of being antisemites
They took the best professors and they got them fired
They took former Supreme Court judges, said that they were liars
If you're afraid to speak out, the roots of that fear
May result from a campaign intended to create that atmosphere
If you're feeling threatened, the reason why
Could just be the Lords and Ladies of UKLFI
Chorus
My pet battalion of pro-Israel internet trolls have migrated their operation from Facebook to X, and refined their emphasis as well.
I humbly submit that the pretense of the leadership of the Democratic Party that it's different because it believes in the rule of law is nonsense.
Shaun McCafferty has a brilliant new live album that's out on all the streaming platforms now. Here's one of the tracks -- a wonderful rendition of "St. Patrick Battalion."
Today I did a live broadcast which will be the first of a series of online concerts I plan to do about resistance.
Whether we're talking about armed uprisings, mass civil disobedience, or actions carried out by much smaller groups of people, current events and history are full of stories of resistance.
"When you fight, you win" may not quite be actually true, even if it's a good slogan. But even if making the effort doesn't always get the desired results, resistance in its many forms often leads to positive changes that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
The themes I explore in this episode include:
- When the Ottoman Navy rescued as many as 800,000 Spanish Jews in 1492
- The Merthyr Rising in Wales in 1831
- The Rent Strike Wars in New York State in the 1840's
- The resistance to British occupation by the Irish Republican Army in the 1970's and 1980's
- The blockade of Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1993
- Muslim-Christian solidarity on the Kenya-Somalia border in 2015
- Palestine Action's continuing resistance to Elbit Systems' efforts to supply the Israeli war machine with weaponry
- The resistance of Ansar Allah, aka the Houthi Army, in solidarity with the besieged people of Gaza on the Red Sea
Revisiting history, events in Minnesota in 1862 and events in Israel and Gaza since October 7th have some remarkable similarities.
It turns out there are a lot of artists who don't want to play for exposure while children in Gaza are dying of it.
I wrote this song about a year ago while on tour in Australia, and then promptly forgot about it. But now that banning TikTok is back in the news with a vengeance, I revised "Ballad of the TikTok Ban" a bit, and made a slightly better recording of it this morning in my living room studio.
The thousands of troll accounts spewing genocidal propaganda on my Facebook posts are abhorrent and completely full of crap, but they have a fascinating narrative, albeit completely farcical. All the more fascinating is the fact that, although obviously farcical to anyone with an actual clue, the western press and politicians generally accept the narrative as self-evidently accurate.
On March 6th, representatives Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman introduced the Living Wage for Musicians Act. They're working with the United Musicians and Allied Workers union, and the Make Streaming Pay campaign.
The holocaust that is underway in Gaza is being enabled by the US government and denied by the mainstream US press.
On the other side of the world, Aaron Bushnell's body burned in the same way the bodies of innocent people are burning every day in Gaza. As he burned he shouted repeatedly, "free Palestine."
After using starvation as a Total War, strategic weapon of collective punishment, the Israeli occupation forces are using food tactically as a weapon of war as well.
2,000+ hateful comments and one week later, what I have I learned from the Hasbara Trolls?
Award-winning filmmaker Regis Tremblay interviewed me at length earlier today from his home in Crimea. It was a wide-ranging and interesting discussion, if I don't say so myself! Here's the audio version of it.
"One side says it's a surgical strike
But that's not what it looks like
To anyone else who's seeing this
It looks just like the apocalypse
It looks like a whole population
Being targeted for total devastation
Times like these, you pick a side
You can't be neutral in a genocide..."
I wrote this song yesterday, as I was anticipating the genocide ruling from the Hague. Today, as the World Court has made clear that it is the responsibility of the world to prevent this genocide from being fully executed, I received this beautiful remixed rendition of the song from Chet.
Concert from my living room, mostly consisting of songs from the Notes From A Holocaust album, with mandola.
One of the most well-known aspects of the Second World War was that the virulently anti-communist leaders of countries like the United Kingdom made an alliance with the Soviet Union, because of the mutual interest they all thought they had in defeating Hitler. Here we are again -- but where's the united front against fascism?
Here's the podcast rendition of the discussion I had earlier today with Chet Gardiner, the musician/engineer I collaborated with to create my new album, Notes From A Holocaust.
The archived rendition of today's livestreamed broadcast of the new album, with commentary, in MP3 form.
AirDropAidForGaza has been trending on X and then the Jordanian Field Hospital in Gaza was bombed.
Joy LaClaire's interview with Jon Schwartz and Elise Swain of the Intercept was brilliant. All of them share so many valuable insights. I originally learned about the interview because of the inclusion in it of several of my songs, also very well-done.
Russell and Steve are both brilliant musicians from here in Portland, Oregon, and they've started up a weekly podcast series interviewing other artists. Here's the MP3 of their interview with me (it's also on YouTube -- look up Russell Gores).
I livestreamed a bit of a workshop, where I played the 20 pieces from the upcoming album, in the order in which I wrote them, with a bit of commentary. I played all the songs in standard tuning on the guitar — the most popular instrument, in the most popular tuning — in order to show folks who may like to sing them how to do so easily. Especially with the aid of the songbook for the album, which you can download at davidrovics.com/palestine, where you can also watch the video version of this tutorial.
Every struggle for national liberation that I've ever heard of, when the distractions are put aside, boil down to two intimately connected things: land and freedom. This is the last studio mix to go on the upcoming album. davidrovics.com/palestine
A brilliant mix from the studio magician in Hawai'i here for this song I wrote in late October. The rest of the tracks on what will soon be an album can be found in a playlist at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Audio from the upcoming album, merged with the original video. This is happening right now, every day. davidrovics.com/palestine
As the bombs continue to rain down on Gaza and the world races ever closer to World War 3, in the rest of the world, life goes on, as does death.
An improved rendition of the best song about weaponizing antisemitism in defense of genocide that I've written to date.
2.3 million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, and according to the UN, 40% of them are already starving. Here's a remix of "Famine and Disease," one of the tracks from the upcoming album. You can find the rest of the songs in the Gaza Holocaust series at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Word on the street is the Zionist narrative is losing traction, so to help shore it up I have written a wee jingle for the ADL.
In late November I wrote this song, about an acronym that had been written on the bodies of many children across Gaza, back before all the hospitals had been bombed into oblivion. This is the newly-remixed version that will be part of the upcoming album. The rest of the songs in the series are at davidrovics.com/palestine.
Earlier in December I wrote this song about the ongoing military raids and settler pogroms of farms, villages, towns, and cities across the Occupied West Bank, which the settlers call Judea and Samaria. This is Chet's latest remix from this series of songs which will soon be an album. You can hear the rest of them at davidrovics.com/palestine.
There is already a resistance to this genocide. The only relevant question, it seems to me, is how to join it.
Here's a new, improved version of my tribute to the Houthi Army's efforts to challenge Israel's genocidal war against the people of Gaza.
The latest remix for the upcoming album is the first song I wrote in the earlier days of Israel's ongoing, relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip, in October.
Working at breakneck speed, Chet has performed his studio magic on the song I wrote this morning, "It's Christmas Eve" -- even while it's still Christmas Eve (at least in the Americas, and even more so in Hawai'i, where he is)!
What's become clear to people paying attention to reality as it is, rather than the propaganda version most of us consume in the west, is the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is indiscriminate mainly to the extent that the plan is to destroy every building standing in the Gaza Strip. Otherwise, the killing and arrests have been very targeted, particularly aimed at people who are essential for the functioning of a society, such as hospital administrators, medical workers of all kinds, journalists, and their extended families. It is worth noting that targeted assassinations are nothing new for Israel.
The latest remix for the upcoming album about the Palestinian Holocaust.
As 2.3 million people in Gaza begin to die en masse from famine and disease, it becomes increasingly impossible to understand how anyone paying any attention to what’s actually going on there can justify the policies of Israel’s fascist regime, or how anyone understands Israel to be anything other than a fascist regime whose government, backed by much of Israeli society, is bent on genocide.
This song just mentions some of the parallels between contemporary Israeli fascism and the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1940’s that killed so many members of my extended family in central and eastern Europe. In the ten days since I wrote this song, there are so many more examples I could use.
This remix is the sixth track Chet Gardiner has worked his studio magic on from his home base in Hawai’i. When he’s done an album’s worth of remixes I’ll be putting them out as an album on Spotify and all the other streaming platforms.
Anyone who says a national liberation movement is about something other than land and freedom is probably trying to distract you from seeing the obvious.
Chet has delivered another remix, which I think breathes life into this song about death eloquently, if such a thing can be said.
This song is a public service announcement, to thank the Houthi Army for their service to the global public.
Chet Gardiner has sent me a few more tracks. Not only “They Were Raising A White Flag,” but also “From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.” He’ll be working with more, but I’m sharing them as they come, because everything is happening in real time.
Here’s the whole playlist of songs about the current apocalypse, which I’ve got arranged so the tracks that Chet has improved upon are mostly on top, such as the first 4.
These tracks, like everything else I’ve got on Soundcloud, can be streamed or downloaded for free, and of course they can also be played through a sound system at a protest, or on the radio, or wherever else.
For folks who want to hear them live, I’ll be doing a concert in downtown Portland, Oregon on January 20th, and then Ceasefire Tour plans after that include southern California, France, England, Scotland, Wales, the northeastern US, and Australia. If you’re from any of those places and might be inclined to organize a gig of any kind, I’d love to hear from you!
Part of Israel's strategy of destroying Gaza is to destroy the ability of the people of Gaza to tell their story, by explicitly targeting and assassinating journalists.
Here's Chet Gardiner's brilliant remix of a song I recorded in 2002 based on a story I read in the Palestine Chronicle back then, called "In One World."
From the vantage point of artistic output, as 2023 progresses I’ve been facing the only problem I ever like to have — writing more decent songs in the course of the year than I could possibly pack into one album project.
I already had plans to spend much of February in southern France making a recording with a fine international cast of musicians. I was starting to think about completely changing the plan for the recording project and making it all about the genocide in Gaza. But I was feeling bad about abandoning the idea of recording a lot of other material if we went that route.
Then it occurred to me that instead of radically altering the project we already had planned, the Gaza song cycle could be its own separate recording project. When the brilliant Hawai’i-based musician, Chet Gardiner, had me and other musicians there to record the Killing the Messenger album at the beginning of 2023, he mentioned the notion of working remotely with material I send him, that I record in my apartment.
I realized that this was the time to do that sort of project together, and Chet’s response was “I’m glad you asked.”
He got to work quickly, improving vocal and guitar sounds and adding tastefully minimalist layers of bass and synth to his favorite song in the cycle thus far. What I’m sharing with you here is the first song he finished. He’ll be serving us more morsels as December progresses. I hope you like it as much as I do (and the rest of them as much as I expect to!).
When we’ve got the whole batch, I’ll put them out as an album on all the music streaming platforms.
The danger of ignoring obvious historical parallels to unfolding events is the prospect of repeating them.
The Lutheran church in Bethlehem recently put out their variation of this year's nativity scene -- baby Jesus swaddled in a kaffiyeh, lying amid the rubble of a building in Gaza.
Despite the high death toll in this genocidal bombing campaign of children, medical workers, journalists, this apocalypse is being televised for all who want to tune in to Al-Jazeera or any number of other networks outside of the west and watch it unfold.
I got an email from a friend in Jenin, who runs a cultural center there. One of the young men active at the center has just been murdered by the IOF.
Meanwhile in the Occupied West Bank, many hundreds have been killed in the past two months in ongoing, extremely violent and destructive pogroms carried out by armed settlers, aided by soldiers.
Those of us paying attention to the news outside of the west will be aware that the World Health Organization and just about every other UN department is holding constant press conferences, trying to sound the alarm about an imminent genocide, and all the people in Gaza who are about to die of famine and disease.
Once the last Palestinian is killed, then the pundits and politicians will say "how could we have known," and they'll open another museum.
Henry Kissinger's reign of terror is over (having been very effectively passed on to his protege, Antony Blinken).
A culture of resistance can be built, and it can also be methodically dismantled, and sabotaged.
When there were still hospitals functioning in the Gaza Strip, before they were intentionally destroyed in an ongoing, genocidal bombing campaign, the surviving doctors wrote on the bodies of the surviving children, over and over again, the acronym, WCNSF -- Wounded Child, No Surviving Family.
What do they mean in Germany when they say "never again," and how does that relate to what is currently happening in Gaza?
Buffy Sainte-Marie has been big news lately. I have no interest in either joining the pile-on or proclaiming Buffy's innocence, but I do have some thoughts to share.
The Israeli genocide of Palestinians goes on unabated, but at least in Scandinavia it's "all out in the streets for Palestine."
The campaign against Elon Musk and his social media platform has become more shrill than ever. What is it actually all about?
In the mirror world, this slogan is controversial, and is a veiled threat of genocide against the Jewish people. In the real world, the ethnonationalist Jewish-supremacist state of Israel has been committing a genocide against the Palestinian people for the past 75 years, and this slogan is a slogan of liberation for all the people who live between the river and the sea. As with similar slogans in the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, for dominant political tendencies in Palestinian civil society it's about equality between all peoples, not genocide. Genocide, rather, is what Israel is doing. As the Israeli authorities openly and publicly say, this is "Nakba 2.0." We should believe them, they're serious.
Here's the audio version of last night's Concert for Palestine that we livestreamed in front of a small IRL audience.
Today (October 30th, 2023) an extremely moving press conference was held in front of Senator Merkley's office in downtown Portland, Oregon, to insist that Merkley represent his constituency and call for an immediate ceasefire. Speakers included two Palestinians from Gaza whose families are under bombardment, many of them killed, injured, or out of water and suffering terribly (Nael Saker and Mohammed Nabil), and a former resident of Israel who has Israeli family members currently held hostage in Gaza (Joel Beinin).
I don't believe there were any members of the press present at the press conference, although all of the local outlets were contacted by the organizers. I was providing the sound, so I hastily decided at also record the press conference with my phone, since no one was recording the event with anything fancier than that.
I'll soon be singing at antiwar rallies in various European countries, but it's unlikely you'll see me on stage singing at any of the upcoming protests in Portland, Oregon. It's not because I don't want to, and the reasons why are worth a mention.
For genocide to be committed, the perpetrators need political cover along with lots of weapons and money, and the rhetorical groundwork needs to be laid.
Here's the concert from my living room I just did, a week before I head to Scandinavia for the CEASEFIRE TOUR of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.
How did so much of what we once thought of as the left become an anti-intellectual, identity-obsessed cult, and how did I become Emmanuel Goldstein?
The western media helps maintain necessary levels of ignorance in the domains they control, while the rest of the world decries another ongoing genocide, brought to us by settler-colonialism and empire.
Last Friday I had another of my periodic discussions with John Coleman and Paula de Angelis, this one focused on the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
A backgrounder on Palestine, annotated with relevant songs. More at davidrovics.com/palestine.
The thing about the saying, "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger," is it's often not true.
As we stand by, the Israeli military is obeying its commands to annihilate the Gaza Strip.
Examining the connections between 9/11 and the events of the past weekend in Palestine/Israel is like peeling an onion with infinite layers.
Is the left mainly a bunch of censorship-happy, empire-supporting, virtue-signaling clowns? Or is that just the impression we get from social media? You can also find this at davidrovics.com/principles.
Sweden is now the #1 country in Europe for gun violence, among those that are not at war. I would humbly like to contribute to the discussion around dealing with this tragic situation, if I may.
The revolution actually will not be televised. That hasn't changed. If we want to build a real, lasting movement, it needs to be well-organized, it needs to produce its own media, and its own music.
In between having my Facebook account hacked and my wifi signal jammed, I heard an interview with Roger Lucey, and my imagination went wild.
Ever wake up one morning and realize you've been a pawn in someone else's game, when you thought you were making history instead?
If you spend most of your time going down rabbit holes, it's easy to develop tunnel vision.
What if we collectively organized as a class against those rich men north of Richmond, in defense of our mutual class interests, like guaranteed, actually affordable housing for everyone?
I am shadowbanned on Bandcamp, and there is complete silence from them as to why. People have trouble understanding what a shadowban is in this case, or why it matters. So here I try to explain all this in a song, in under 2 minutes.
Alphabet is one of the world's biggest corporations. But most people don't seem to have any idea just how vital search engines are to the economy, and to their lives. I can tell you though that when you can't be found on one, they matter, a lot.
That's how it is for me, my music, and this important platform for independent music. You can find my Bandcamp page through Google just fine, yes. But not by using the search function on Bandcamp itself. I'm invisible there, just like Neil Young on Spotify, if you search for him on that platform.
Find out more at davidrovics.com/bandcamp. Which is not my Bandcamp page. That's a page about Bandcamp's shadowban that I have on my website. If you want to find me on Bandcamp, use Google... But first try to find me directly on Bandcamp itself, and see for yourself what happens!
The past 48 hours on anti-social media have been so eventful, I had to make a podcast about it.
I've heard from so many people asking for my response to this song that I had to listen to it, learn it, make a couple minor edits to it, cover it, and write an essay about it.
So many people have asked me over the past few weeks what a leftwing version of the song, "Rich Men North of Richmond" would sound like, that this morning I actually got around to listening to this beautiful, powerful song in full. There were a couple lines i changed -- but just a couple. Just the ones where Oliver Anthony was punching down instead of up.
I haven't improved at all on Anthony's gorgeous voice and delivery, or the excellent quality of his overall songwriting, but hopefully I've made a minor improvement on this song with these little changes. This is called the folk process, this is what people do to my songs all the time as well. I don't know Oliver Anthony and I'm sure he's very busy lately, with his song having gotten tens of millions of views all of a sudden, but I hope if he ever discovers my slightly revised version of his song, he'll like it.
For the record, here is Oliver Anthony's original second verse section:
I wish politicians would look out for miners And not just minors on an island somewhere Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat And the obese milkin' welfare
Well, God, if you're 5-foot-3 and you're 300 pounds Taxes ought not to pay for your bags of fudge rounds Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground 'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
Here's how I changed it:
I wish politicians would look out for miners And not just minors on an island somewhere Lord, we got folks in the street, ain't got nothin' to eat And the corporations milkin' welfare
If you got a silver spoon in your mouth and a private jet Taxes ought not to pay for all the money you get Young men are puttin' themselves six feet in the ground 'Cause all this damn country does is keep on kickin' them down
What makes me jump to the most paranoid-seeming possible conclusion about why I am shadowbanned on Bandcamp with no explanation?
The Scottish Highlands were cleared through methods identical to those that are transforming the US today, brought to you by the same sorts of investor-landlords and the same sort of captured state.
If a photo from twenty years ago can sometimes transport you to a time and place, what about a live concert recording?
Whether the left develops an inclusive orientation towards organizing the working class, or the exclusive orientation of a dystopic cancellation cult, is up to all of us.
Whatever it is that happened or is happening now in Centralia, come November, 2023, there will be a new, town-sanctioned IWW plaque in Centralia Square.
In November of this year, after 124 years, the statue in the center of Centralia, Washington memorializing the deaths of four members of the American Legion will finally be joined by a plaque remembering IWW organizer, Wesley Everest, and our fellow workers who were sentenced to 25-40 years in prison for defending their union hall as it and other IWW halls across the country were under attack by the same organized groups of war veterans doing the bidding of our newly-formed national secret police force, the FBI -- which was created with the express intention of destroying the radical labor movement.
If we were to try to assess the overall impact of no-platforming campaigns over the course of the past century, what would we conclude?
What do a popular conservative journalist and a little-known leftwing musician have in common? Ask our trolls.
Here's a broadcastable response to me being prevented from appearing on a radio show at my local community radio station this week here in Portlandia.
For untold numbers of people, the reality of living online via corporate anti-social media platforms means a life lived in fear of committing a transgression and being targeted for cancellation by dedicated armies of trolls. This I already know. Whether any of you out there who already know this also think this song captures the feeling well is another matter, but it's an effort at that.
Global Exchange and Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin is only one of many well-known leaders of the US left being attacked by self-described anarchists. If you're confused by this, you're not alone. The written version of this piece appeared in Counterpunch at the beginning of June.
Daniel Nayberg made a beautiful soundboard recording during our show at the Ild i Gilden acoustic music festival in Denmark last month. This is what you hear in the audio for the 17-song video playlist culled from the 3-camera shoot that was going on at the gig, that can be found in full for free at davidrovics.com/roskilde. The MP3 we have here in this podcast is the audio for the full concert, talking and tuning included.
Here's the second half of James O'Brien's interview with me for his podcast, All Your Days. Each episode (including both of the ones featuring me) is an insightful and fairly deep dive into the lives and times of the artists he interviews.
Whatever one's views of the causes or justifications of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and regardless of what you believe might be the solution that might end the slaughter, of one obvious, inescapable reality we can all hopefully agree: the US just happens to be a major producer of most of Russia and Ukraine's biggest exports, such as gas, oil, corn, wheat, sunflower oil, and of course, arms and ammunition.
James O'Brien is one of the best interviewers I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. His podcast is a series of explorations of the lives of lots of different artists, and for this week and next week's episodes he's talking with me. This is part one. You can find lots of other interviews James has done with other artists (including a number of my friends) by looking for All Your Days on any of the usual podcasting platforms, such as Apple Podcasts. Part 2 coming next week!
A few songs from my living room on the last day I have time alone in the apartment before I leave for Europe.
When I start circulating propaganda about an upcoming tour, people often ask me how I organized it. Here's an attempt at a real answer to that question, about the tour that's coming right up.
Here in Portland, Oregon there's a referendum on the ballot to fund legal representation for all tenants facing eviction. How much more than this might it take to truly address the housing crisis we face?
One of the things I got to do while I was on the east coast last week was spend some time with Al Glatkowski. In March of 1970 he and fellow merchant marine Clyde McKay led a mutiny aboard the SS Columbia Eagle, in an effort to prevent a massive delivery of napalm bombs from reaching the port of Saigon, where the US Air Force would be loading it onto planes in order to drop on Vietnamese villages. I wrote this song over the course of a couple days after I got home from the trip.
During my March/April 2023 visit to Australia, James Brennan interviewed me over the phone for his show on 3CR Radical Radio in Melbourne.
Andy Payne is a great songwriter in the folk punk tradition based in Brisbane, Australia, where he hosts a show called Paradigm Shift on the community radio station, 4ZZZ. He interviewed me for his latest show, earlier this month. Here's the MP3!
A response to Shane Burley's latest piece of disinformation in Truthout, along with related thoughts on Al-Jazeera's Labour Files exposé, Scandinavian economics, and the future of civilization.
Sunday's benefit concert for Green Left was recorded brilliantly with soundboard audio as well as an ambient mic, by none other than Alex Bainbridge.
Ram Mohamed Singh Azad was hanged at Pentonville Prison in London, England on July 31st, 1940.
The idea that TikTok is less trustworthy with our data or with their algorithms than scandal-ridden platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube is completely preposterous, based entirely on fantastical, nationalistic and xenophobic notions of the world, its corporations and its billionaires, having nothing to do with how anything actually works.
Before all the banks fail, we lose our jobs, and go out into the streets again, some reflections on the last time that happened.
The vilification of China and the Chinese people in the US -- and Russia and Russian people, among others -- goes way, way back.
I made a musical little 55-second public service announcement to promote my imminently-approaching tour of the east coast of Australia. Tour info at davidrovics.com/tour!
There is widespread recognition that Portland's public schools are under-funded and under-staffed (like most of the public schools throughout the United States). There is an ill-conceived initiative to reform the Local Schools Foundation. The LSF is the primary reason the better-functioning schools are able to function better, and this reform would kill it, in the name of equity. But if the answer is taking money from an already under-funded, under-staffed elementary school, then we're asking the wrong question. More info and to get involved: Save PPS Foundations
Tortuguita was killed by Georgia state police on January 18th, 2023. A few days ago a friend of theirs sent me a playlist on Spotify.
Tortuguita was 26 years old and inside a tent at the Stop Cop City encampment of forest defenders in Atlanta, Georgia when they were killed in a hail of gunfire by highly militarized state police doing one of their many heavily-armed raids of the encampment, on the morning of January 18th, 2023. I'll have much more to say. But for now, a song.
After a year of the brinksmen using Ukraine as their venue for global hegemony, some reflections.
I had another scintillating conversation with Chris Cook for his radio show/podcast, Gorilla Radio. The first half of his one-hour show is a review of the recent antiwar protests in Washington, DC, and the second half is the first part of a conversation with me. The next part of that conversation coming soon...
For the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the bloodbath in Ukraine that is bringing us closer to Armageddon with each new morning, here's a song I wrote last March.
This is getting closer to the final mix for this song that will be on the album that will be out very soon, on all the streaming platforms, and as a folder of songs to download for all my patrons/CSA members.
The album will be called Killing the Messenger. All of the songs other than this one feature me as the main vocalist and bouzouki player, but on this song, Chet Gardiner sings the main vocals, with Lorna McKinnon and Kamala Emanuel forming the chorus, as they do on all the songs on what will be a wonderfully harmony-laden album.
Album cover art by the great Eric Drooker.
After a quarter century of the internet being a household phenomenon, and 17 years of domination of it by corporate social media platforms, some reflections on what's changed in the lives of musicians.
As people fall ill and animals die, the EPA rushes to tell the poisoned people of East Palestine, Ohio their air and water are clean, in the wake of yet another freight train full of toxic chemicals derailing and burning in the USA.
I spent the last half of January making an album in Hawai'i, and nine days during the first half of February on tour, mostly in California. This podcast version of my missive on the subject ends with a sneak peek at the upcoming album, in the form of the song, "As I Walk On By."
The African People's Socialist Party, based in St. Louis, Missouri, is under attack across the US by the FBI, with heavily-armed feds in armored vehicles ransacking homes and arresting senior citizens, among others, on charges that have not been made clear, supposedly involving Russians. For more info: handsoffuhuru.org.
My old friend Robert Hoyt -- singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, organizer, nurse, father, lover of the wild -- died on the morning of February 1st, 2023, at the age of 68.
The recording project for the new album is still in progress here in Hawai'i, but we have a little preview of the title track, "Killing the Messenger," which is one of several songs on the album related to the ongoing imprisonment and persecution of award-winning Australian journalist, Julian Assange.
The last half of this week's episode of Gorilla Radio, hosted by Chris Cook, is an interview with me, that was recorded earlier today.
Was it a peaceful gathering, a riot, or an insurrection? That depends on who we're talking about, and who's talking about them.
What can we learn from which pronoun people use in comments and messages on social media? A lot.
The last Saturday session from my living room for December '22 was basically a baritone unboxing video.
Some thoughts on nuanced thinking and effective communication, especially on what they call social media.
“In football everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.”
Jean-Paul Sartre
It's not necessarily related to the holidays, but it is related to family, so maybe it'll provoke a couple of good dinner-table conversations.
For the Perez family in Richmond, California, Sunday will be the ninth Christmas they'll spend without their only child. Pedie Perez was murdered by a cop on September 14th, 2014. Officer Wallace Jensen is enjoying his retirement, entirely unaccountable for losing his shit and killing a completely innocent young man one night, for no conceivable reason. I met Pedie's parents and grandparents when I was in California earlier this month, and wrote this song.
What's about to happen to global society with the rise of Artificial Intelligence is truly terrifying to consider.
I participated in a wonderful holiday-themed concert with Emma's Revolution and so many other stellar artists yesterday. This song, "Pirate Santa," was my humble contribution to an otherwise beautiful collection of songs. You can see and hear the whole concert on Emma's Revolution's YouTube channel.
It was a busy and thought-provoking week touring parts of Oregon and northern California, with the "accountability-seeking" cancellation campaigners failing to cancel any of the gigs, much as they tried.
I'm on a west coast tour this week, and as usual, someone's trying to get my gigs canceled. Gig hosts are generally horrified to hear from someone telling them they're hosting a Nazi performer, but in the end they find the argument unconvincing. I thought my critics needed a theme song, to get their message across more effectively, so I wrote one.
I'm doing a west coast tour next week, and the wackos are back, trying to intimidate gig organizers into canceling my little acoustic gigs, calling up farmers and people hosting house concerts to tell them I'm a Nazi. Welcome to my life in 2022.
For Saturday, November 26th, 2022, I introduce you to the NS Designs 5-string fretted electric cello. If anyone wants to form a punk rock string quartet, hit me up, for real. These are some of the cello parts, which I think should ideally be complemented by other stringed instruments.
My monthly Last Saturday concert from my living room this time will be a little exploration of the five-string fretted electric cello.
Various recent developments remind many of us that we live in an information landscape dystopia.
After 27 rounds of annual talks that amount to just a bunch of corporate hot air, we're hopefully that much closer to the tipping point when people give up on relying on the capitalists to save us.
While they're nursing the wounds caused by shooting themselves in their own feet so much, I'm sure some of them are well aware that if they hadn't spent the past 50 years stabbing the working class in the back, the working class might support their party.
The written version of this rant appears in both the physical and online versions of Slingshot #136. Slingshot is a wonderful anarchist newspaper going strong since the 1980's, and they put out a fabulous thing called the Slingshot Organizer -- the 2023 edition is available now! slingshotcollective.org
Some reflections on what Scandinavia has that so many other places lack, after spending most of October on tour in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. You can also find this in written form at davidrovics.com/thisweek.
Some thoughts on the way the liberal press likes to frame things when it comes to the arts, which entirely involves the rearrangement of deck chairs on a sinking ship. (Published in written form in Counterpunch earlier in October, I was on tour and didn't have a chance to make the podcast version til now.)
Green Cities is a billion-dollar Portland-based corporation that is intent on gentrifying the world as rapidly as possible, making as much money as possible, with no interest whatsoever in the welfare of their tenants who can't keep up with Green Cities' massive rent increases, made possible by our broken system.
Here's the podcast version of the livestreamed concert from my living room I gave for the internet earlier today. There were a couple brief interruptions in the feed, but I have it here as it happened live, unedited.
Here's the podcast version of the livestreamed concert from my living room I gave for the internet earlier today. There were a couple brief interruptions in the feed, but I have it here as it happened live, unedited.
With the demise of the British queen I found myself obsessively reading everything I could find about the time she gave an award to the Australian monarchist who dissolved Gough Whitlam's administration in 1975.
With the demise of the British queen I found myself obsessively reading everything I could find about the time she gave an award to the Australian monarchist who dissolved Gough Whitlam's administration in 1975.
A written version of this podcast can be found in this weekend's edition of Counterpunch.
A written version of this podcast can be found in this weekend's edition of Counterpunch.
K. Rambo, the recently-hired Editor in Chief of the local Portland paper, Street Roots, apparently thinks anonymous Twitter trolls engaging in a cancellation campaign are a legitimate source of public opinion, and that if you interview someone, that means you agree with their views. This is my response to Rambo, which you can also find in written form in this weekend's edition of Counterpunch.
On August 30th, 2019, a young man named Elijah McClain was killed by a gang of police in his home town of Aurora, Colorado, for being Black. #TDIH #PeoplesHistory #BlackLivesMatter
The main theme of this incarnation of my monthly Last Saturday livestreamed concert series is songs about the history of this month. Here's the MP3 version of the concert that I streamed live on Twitch, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook on August 27th, 2022.
When fascism comes to America, it will delivered by a midwife called the Progressive Industrial Complex.
You can find this in written form in today's edition of Counterpunch, as well as in both written and podcast forms at davidrovics.com/thisweek.
Have you heard about the hundreds of people arrested in the UK for breaking into weapons factories and smashing equipment? Here's the podcast version of the piece you can find in written form in today's edition of Counterpunch. #FreePalestine
The news is once again full of talk about the Espionage Act of 1917. Here are some thoughts on connections between the "transportation" of the Tolpuddle Martyrs to Australia for taking a secret oath, and the extradition of Julian Assange to the USA under the draconian Espionage Act.
The apologists for US imperialism call it "whataboutism." Here's a song for them. I challenge anyone to find a single word in this song (prior to the last line) that doesn't involve something the people of occupied Ukraine and the people of occupied Palestine have in common.
John Coleman of the Apocatastasis Institute interviewed me about what I've been up to over the past couple years, and about the state of the modern-day left, such as it is. I spent a lot of time talking about the Progressive Industrial Complex. Not sure what that is? I'll explain.
The most inspiring thing I've heard about in a long time are the folks all over the UK going around with sledgehammers, smashing equipment at arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems, under the banner of Palestine Action. For inspiration and information, check out palestineaction.org and follow them on Instagram and Twitter.
There is a gorgeous 8-song album in Spanish just out from Abraham Roman of Mexico City, which you can stream or download for free from the website of Mexico's Ministry of Culture. Here is track 8, which is Roman's brilliant Spanish translation of "St Patrick Battalion."
My latest musical effort at attempting to briefly elucidate some of the salient points relating to the ongoing transnational persecution of Julian Assange.
A few days ago I shared Chet Gardiner's solo acoustic recording of this song that I wrote a few months ago. Here is a full band recording of the song that he's just shared with me, which leaves me that much more excited about the prospect of making a record with Chet and other musicians in Hawaii this winter, if all goes as planned...
If you've never heard of a musician named Chet Gardiner, here's a fine introduction. This is his solo acoustic version of a song I wrote a few months ago, which he recorded at his home studio in Hawaii.
Both the bassy resonance of Chet's voice and his delivery reminds me very much of the last recordings Johnny Cash made, which I think were brilliant. Chet's fingerstyle DADGAD guitar playing is so evocative as well.
He plays a lot of other instruments as well, and I'm very much looking forward to hopefully spending the last half of January with other musicians at his studio in Hawaii making a record together. More on those plans soon...
It's been interesting to hear in recent mainstream news reports all of the open speculation about the Saudi government's role in the 9/11/2001 attacks in the US. An old friend of mine knew Mohamed Atta. He tried to tell the FBI, but they weren't interested. After years of living on the road, in fear of being killed for knowing too much, he decided it was time to contact me and tell me his story, the basic details of which I try to capture in this song.
I can't reveal the identity of my friend, and I can't personally verify the details he has shared with me, but I'm sure he didn't make this up.
The most recent round of attacks against me online from my cancellation campaigners are because I sang at the wrong conference. In this podcast I explore that kind of response to an artist allegedly doing the wrong gig.
The most recent round of attacks against me online from my cancellation campaigners are because I sang at the wrong conference. In this post, I explore that kind of response to an artist allegedly doing the wrong gig.
While Merrick Garland goes to Ukraine and makes plans to prosecute Russian war crimes, the hypocrisy of his Justice Department's ongoing pursuit of the extradition of Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes -- under the draconian and anti-democratic Espionage Act of 1917 -- becomes increasingly outrageous.
If you're like me and you heard a recent NPR story and marveled at how a touring band gets to the point where things are so precarious that an increase in the price of gasoline means they have to cancel some of their festival gigs, I thought I'd unpack this reality a bit.
Every year in mid-July there is a festival on the south coast of England to remember the class war that raged there during one particularly tumultuous period in the 1830's. As I'm looking forward to singing at the Tolpuddle Martyrs' Festival next month, I was inspired to do more research and write a song for the occasion.
We're launching this tour from my living room. The fancy livestreaming equipment will stay at home -- it'll just be my bouzouki and a carryon suitcase on the road with me this summer. Destinations include Kansas, England, Scotland, Ireland, New York, and Oregon. More gigs wanted!
Many of the people I know who are opposed to gun control laws are anarchists, communists, and others associated with the left. This podcast is for them.
Living in a settler-colonial country that was built by Replacement as a fundamental operative concept, I now listen to liberal pundits talk about the idea as if it were just invented by the Right.
Some thoughts on precisely what it is that makes the United States so exceptional. Spoiler alert: Europe is full of racists, too, but they don't have mass shootings every day.
The tour did not involve a visit to Ukraine or even any countries bordering Ukraine, but it was most definitely a war-time tour of Europe.
It was an honor to be James Anderson's first interview subject for his new Waywards project. We had an extensive conversation about all kinds of stuff, with a focus on my trolls, and cancellation campaigning in general.
This is the audio-only podcast version. If you want to watch the video and read James' introduction to it, check out Waywards on Substack.
Real antifascists don't lead cancel culture cults that target people like me. The only thing to cancel is cancel culture itself. Fuck the trolls. For more information on the nefarious activities of this pseudo-antifascist cult based out of Portland, Oregon, please go to davidrovics.com/trolls.
After being attacked repeatedly in an ongoing cancellation campaign led by the false prophets of antifascist "research" for over a year, I have now added a new verse to an old song, dedicated to the anarcho-puritan cult led by Shane Burley, Spencer Sunshine, Alexander Reid Ross (and whoever they work for).
The anarchist scene in Portland, Oregon has a wingnut fringe, and its de facto leaders include one Shane Burley, who has recently published an article attacking me with all kinds of baseless lies. Here, I respond to the latest attacks.
The EU Free Assange Rally and Concert will be Saturday, April 23rd at 2 pm in front of EU HQ at the Place de la Monnaie in Brussels, Belgium. Jeremy Corbyn, Stella Assange, and loads of other great folks will be speaking, along with lots of live music as well, including the musicians featured in this little set.
It's a time of war, propaganda, and wildly increasing prices for anyone in the world who eats grain or uses fertilizer to grow crops.
I didn't manage to get to England to attend last month's wedding of Julian Assange and Stella Moris, but I've written a song.
Rick DeVoe is running for Congress in the 1st Congressional District of Minnesota on a Full Employment Plus platform -- www.votedevoe.us.
On Saturday, March 26th, I'll be playing music at the Home Plate Grill in Red Wing, Minnesota. It's a fundraiser for Rick DeVoe's insurgent Congressional campaign, and it's got its own jingle!
A wee web concert before I head out to Minnesota on Friday, and Europe next month, to do more concerts for actual physical audiences. I start with children's songs, then move on to grownup material.
There's an insurgent campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives on in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District. During the last week of March you can find me and the candidate, Rick DeVoe, speaking and singing from on board the Banned Bookmobile throughout the district. Concert at the Home Plate Grill in Red Wing on March 26th. Hope to see folks in Minnesota!
It is abundantly evident that the world is closer to a nuclear holocaust than at any time since 1962.
Adam Carpinelli interviewed me, Mic Crenshaw and Opium Sabbah about our new music video ("Free Em All") and album (Take the Power Back) yesterday for the Prison Pipeline show in KBOO.
My old friend and fellow anti-imperialist, Cindy Sheehan, has a weekly show called Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox. I was her guest this week, and it was a pleasure catching up with her, reminiscing about old times, and talking about our experiences with cancel culture.
I may be a voice in the wilderness here, but that's OK. It's a very nice patch of forest, you should come visit.
Chris Cook interviewed me for his radio show/podcast, mostly about Spotify, free speech, and Canadian truckers. I'm on with him for the last half.
Anyone who tries to boil the disinformation debate down to questions of free speech vs. censorship is either trying to distract you from the wizard behind the curtain, or they don't know he's there.
I had a very interesting conversation today with Mat Ward in Sydney, Australia, who has a great new album out called Why I Protest.
If you play by the rules of the cancel culture, the cancel culture rules. This is my response to being publicly disinvited from singing at a rally last Saturday, due to false allegations spread by Twitter trolls apparently being believed.
It may very well be the case that President Biden is bringing the world closer to nuclear annihilation than any president since Kennedy.
If the District Council of Trade Unions isn't given a better deal than what the City of Portland, Oregon currently has on offer, union members have voted overwhelmingly to strike. The strike is set to begin on February 10th. In the meantime, I wrote a sing-along for the occasion. I'll sing it in front of City Hall at 2 pm on Saturday, at the city workers' rally -- come all ye workers and join us!
For this week's winter Wednesday livestream session, we introduce the octave mandolin, and we talk smack about Spotify, NATO, and more.
If you know any military generals or Biden administration officials, please share this song with them.
Joni Mitchell has now joined Neil Young in removing her music from Spotify, and I have some thoughts on the subject.
I was Wes Brain's guest for his weekly radio show, the Brain Labor Report, on KSKQ in southern Oregon this morning. Here's the show for those of you who aren't in southern Oregon and may have missed it on the radio.
I spent an hour talking with longtime radio host, Scott Harris, about his decades at WPKN in Bridgeport, Connecticut, and much more.
A little analysis from me of global news hotspots and a few predictions about what might be in store for the rest of 2022.
In preparation for next month's trip to Scandinavia, this week's livestream was all about those northerly social democratic lands.
Today for my weekly living room livestream session I got back to playing the guitar -- but it's my new Collings, amplified with a K&K pickup and preamp.
Talking parsimonious municipality blues. For the first 25 minutes or so I talk to union representative, Rob Martineau, about the potential city workers strike here in Portland, Oregon, and the rally on Saturday at City Hall at 2 pm. For the rest of the hour, union songs.
I thought I'd share a few reflections as a movement musician at the end of a movement, in case it might be helpful for anyone else who's feeling a tad bleak.
For my weekly livestream this Omicron Wednesday, the state of the streets in 2021 with Food Not Bombs cofounder, Keith McHenry.
As the pundits and politicians of the world pay tribute to Desmond Tutu, let's remember some of the things they're not mentioning -- like most anything he did or said after 1998 or so.
Another Wednesday, another living room jam at high noon, west coast time. Here's the podcast made just after the fact.
As the hospitals overflow while the people of the world suffer through wars, famines, economic collapses, lockdowns and all the social and financial problems associated with them, among other things, well, I guess I'll see you in the metaverse.
Here's the MP3 version of today's livestreamed concert with my mandola, with its newly-installed pickup. You can tune in to the next one live if you're free at noon Pacific time next Wednesday, or check it out after the fact on one of the platforms where it was broadcast (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Linked In) or in podcast form on Patreon, or by looking up This Week with David Rovics wherever podcasts are found.
On the same day journalists received the Nobel Peace Prize, another journalist is one step closer to being extradited to to the US to face 175 years behind bars -- after the CIA has already made their assassination plans clear. Would the Royal Courts of Justice have extradited Jamal Kashoggi, too?
On the same day some journalists received the Nobel Peace Prize, another journalist is being held in a London prison, facing spending the rest of his life in a US prison.
While the pandemic has brought some people together to confront a common foe, it has also exposed many divisions, and created others.
Before I hit the road for the tour I'm on currently, professor Layne Hartsell conducted this extended interview with me, mostly about my analysis of certain aspects of history and current events that I've been writing about a lot lately.
I fly off to London on Friday. Very much looking forward to all the gigs around England, Scotland, events around COP26, etc. -- but I'm especially looking forward to singing at the rally against extraditing Julian Assange to the US on Saturday, October 23rd. While still here in my little home studio in Portland, I thought I'd render a version of the song I'll be singing that afternoon outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
Here's a report from me on last weekend's Rally for Senior Housing in Tigard, Oregon, a new ground zero in the struggle for affordable housing in the US. (Capped off by a song I wrote on the subject as well.)
Hamilton-Zanze is an investment group that specializes in buying what they call "undervalued properties" and making sure they get every bit of their money's worth of them, after they buy the buildings, kick out the residents, and double the rent, which is what they're trying to do with the only affordable housing apartment complex in Tigard, Oregon. Rally on Saturday, 2 pm at 113th and Durham in Tigard with the residents!
I haven't been interviewing people lately, but I did one today! Fascinating discussion on a vitally important subject -- the organization of society and the future of humanity.
It's the last Saturday of the month, and I'm not on tour, which is the combination of factors that leads me to do a little concert from my living room these days. Today I'll play some mandola for you, along with the guitar.
It's been a wonderful several days at Big Red Studio with a bunch of stellar musicians -- one more chapter in an ongoing project, which will be a mixed and mastered album by early 2022. This is a rough mix of one of the tracks, about political prisoners in the USA. There's a video coming, too, which is already in process as well...
All things considered, the main thing that changed on September 11th, 2001 was the narrative. What didn't change were any of the main circumstances that led up to the attacks.
I spent most of an hour this morning talking with Wes Brain on his weekly radio show, the Brain Labor Report, broadcast on KSKQ Community Radio in southern Oregon. We talked about politics, shockingly enough, along with topics related to my latest album, such as Labor Day, vaccines, our mutual friend Anne Feeney, climate chaos, and more.
It was a great pleasure being today's guest on Ron Placone's very excellent podcast. Here it is for my podcast subscribers to check out with ease, but if you want to subscribe to Ron's podcast, look up Get Yours News On With Ron wherever podcasts are found.
Before September 11th, 2001, most of the people I knew also had one of those before-and-after dates that defined our new reality: November 30th, 1999.
Most of us who live in what we call the United States are descended from refugees. Most of us also don't know it, because we've been raised on lies, here in the USA. But for those of us who do know about reality, and what really happened, rather than the nonsense they feed us in school and in the media, those scenes at the Kabul Airport look very familiar. For many of us, it all looks like recent family history -- still living memory for my parents' generation.
While "live free or die" has a nice ring to it, I'd much prefer "live with certain minimal restrictions and don't die" instead. Some thoughts on what the far left and the far right appear to have in common.
Some reflections on Denmark that I wrote while still in country, nearing the end of yet another wonderful concert tour of this remarkable place.
This is a response to an anonymously-written attack piece about me that ran recently in the neo-anarchist website and Twitter account, It's Going Down.
The biggest multiracial armed uprising of the working class in the history of the United States took place in the hills of West Virginia 100 years ago this month. Ever heard of it?
There's been a lot of talk in recent years about something called "class reductionism." Here are my two cents on the subject.
It seems a ridiculous thing to have to say, but I think intellectual discourse is generally a very good thing, rather than something to be stopped at all costs.
It seems a ridiculous thing to have to say, but I think intellectual discourse is generally a very good thing, rather than something to be stopped at all costs.
Vicente Feliú and Simón Bolívar wrote the chorus, I wrote the verses. Viva la revolución.
Who are Gilad Atzmon and Matthew Heimbach, and what do they have to do with why some people are saying I'm an antisemite? I'll try to explain.
This song is not hyperbolic. It is word-for-word, literally what happens to many people who organize a gig for me and who promotes it on Twitter. Welcome to my world -- you might want to avoid it if you care about your mental health. Let this song be a warning to any potential associates out there, seriously. If you think the song is funny, that's great -- but it is deadly serious. And for those who need ask, all the allegations are completely false.
I got a new tattoo on my guitar today, and wrote a song about it. Happy birthday, Woody Guthrie.
A new song that requires little explanation, unless you’re living on a different planet than this one that’s burning.
It started with a campaign to make privatized utilities public again in the state of Washington. Folks involved with that project thought the theme of taking the power back needed some music. When they heard me interviewing Mic Crenshaw on the internet, in the process of which we talked about the idea of artistically collaborating, a recording project was born.
Somehow or other we've only been meeting in the studio once every three or four months, so it's been a slow process, but I have to share one of the tracks with you, so you get the flavor. Tell us what you think.
Members of a wonderful local network called the PDX Houseless Radicals Collective suggested I might write a song about the group. It turned out better than I expected. You can read lots more about the collective, from the horse's mouth, as it were, at pdxhrc.org.
Chevron laid waste to the lands of five tribes in Ecuador, turning an area the size of Rhode Island into a toxic cesspool, which is what it is today. Instead of paying for their crimes, they abandoned the country, refused to compensate the victims, and managed to have the lawyer who successfully sued them, Steven Donziger, arrested -- in New York City.
We spend the hour with historian and self-described "participant-observer" in the making of history, Jeremy Brecher. He has a brand new book out on PM Press, more relevant than ever -- Common Preservation in a Time of Mutual Destruction.
The US housing market is fairly obviously a Ponzi scheme. Just don't tell the homeowners, they may get upset. Some thoughts on the coming crash, and what forms it may take.
We spend the hour with Ryan Harvey. As a songwriter, writer, podcaster, and organizer, Ryan has been in the thick of a lot of momentous occasions over the past couple decades.
Between May 31st and June 1st, 1921, a white mob lay waste to a thirty-block section of Tulsa, Oklahoma, with the active support of the authorities, killing hundreds of Black residents of the Greenwood neighborhood.
It is a chilling fact of history that exactly these sorts of neighborhood-destroying massacres -- leaving dozens, hundreds, or sometimes thousands dead -- were taking place in cities all over the Russian Empire only a little more than a decade earlier, targeting Jews. There, this particular form of mob-directed massacre became known as a pogrom.
The Greenwood Race Massacre was only the biggest of thousands of other attacks on Black communities by white mobs that took place in different parts of the US. In the immediate wake of US military campaigns, it has often been noted by historians that there is generally a corresponding increase in such racist attacks.
Here's the audio rendition of the concert I gave live from my living room on the last Saturday of May.
Some initial thoughts on the sudden death of Aziz Choudry, longtime McGill University professor, prolific author, organizer, friend and comrade to many around the world, including me.
We spend the hour with the author of Hegemony How-To: A Road Map for Radicals (AK Press) talking about effective, inclusive organizing, and how to avoid the pitfalls of sectarianism.
Among the more principled shoplifters, liberating items from upscale corporate supermarkets is always preferable. But especially since Amazon bought Whole Foods, it's #1.
This is the tenth musical collaboration between me and Jane Reynolds/Virtual Bird. Album coming...
We talk with one of the activists involved with mutual aid projects associated with the Etniko Bandido Infoshop and Community Resource Center in Pasig City, the Philippines.
There are several minutes about 2/3 in where I lose my internet connection (thank you, Comcast), but then I come back. My guest's internet connection there in Manilla remains stable.
New graphic (stickers coming) with a new song to go with it, on a concept of fundamental importance in places like the US and UK: the housing market is a Ponzi scheme, totally out of reach for most people, and the situation is literally killing us in large numbers every year.
The song is the latest collaboration between me and Jane Reynolds/Virtual Bird.
We talk with one of the greatest topical songwriters you've probably never heard of, Linda Allen, from Bellingham, Washington. She shares some amazing, brand new original songs with us live at the end of the hour.
Watching the news from Gaza with great alarm, got some gaps in your knowledge of the back story, and trying to understand what's going on? Here you go.
When the towers crumble in Gaza, they are drawn to the Earth by the same force of gravity as that which brought down the towers in New York, after the planes came.
With the headlines in so much of the world full of phrases like "inter-communal violence," the notion of the workers of the world uniting seems very distant -- but more relevant than ever.
Learning about implicit bias and microaggressions is a very good thing, but smashing capitalism is way better. Lyrics by David Rovics, for the most part. Everything else by Jane Reynolds/Virtual Bird.
Today we're talking with MC5 founder, guitarist, songwriter, recording artist, producer, and founder of Jail Guitar Doors USA, Wayne Kramer.
Even mainstream news outlets in the US have seen fit to admit the reality that far right mobs are regularly marching through Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem these days chanting "kill the Arabs." Like last Friday night. (But not like the song.)
We spend the hour with historian, Susan Soderberg, who is finishing up a biography of Josiah Henson, sometimes known as "the real Uncle Tom," which she's been researching for the past decade.
We spend the hour with Bev Grant, talking about her new book of photos from 1968-1972, documenting the social movements of the day, and her life as a musician and community organizer, among other things.
On the morning of May 2nd, someone plastered the windshields of my neighborhood with hate speech directed at me. I was, as they say, doxxed. This is my initial response. Much more will follow.
We spend the hour with writer, songwriter, comedian, Californian, and guerrilla marketing expert (though he may dispute this), Ron Placone.
May 4th, 2021 will be the 51st anniversary of the Kent State massacre. Although it has since become clear that there were orders to fire and that those doing the killing were under no direct threat at the time that they opened fire on the crowd of protesters, we are no closer to justice now than we were then.
This is my latest collaboration with Jane Reynolds/Virtual Bird. You can also find this song up as the latest episode of This Week with David Rovics, wherever you get your podcasts.
We spend the hour with award-winning filmmaker, Roger Glenn Hill, who is currently putting out new episodes of a documentary series about the corrupt and brutal police departments throughout the state of Ohio, called State of Injustice.
We spend the hour with Dave Marsh, longtime writer for Creem, Rolling Stone, Newsday, Fifth Estate contributor, author, and subject of a series of online events from April 30 thru May 15 that you can join at: landofhopeanddreams.co
Here's the archive of yesterday's concert from my living room, which went out as a livestream at 1 pm on the last Saturday of the month, as has been the tradition for a while now.
If the housing crisis were a life-and-death struggle for survival, like a war -- which, in fact, it is -- then a new front has opened up in Portland, and it is one as high in altitude as it is rich in very dark history.
We spend the hour with touring musician, recording artist, singer/songwriter, author, and all-around lovely bloke, Frank Turner.
We spend the hour talking trikes, Las Vegas, mental health activism, and poetry, among other things.
We spend the hour talking with longtime organizer, currently working on a book, Karen Pickett.
I talked with the brilliant folk punk phenomenon from Olympia, Washington, Jane Reynolds, also known as Virtual Bird. We talked about making music, living on the streets, and a variety of other things.
I discovered a fantastic song about Kett's Rebellion, which was one of the more significant efforts to fight back against the theft of the commons by the landed gentry in England. I had to learn the song and record a version of it.
When the automobile came around, the city of Portland, Oregon opened up Kelly Butte as a rock quarry to make gravel to use for paving the streets of the city. They did not employ anyone to split the rocks, though -- they arrested people off of the streets of the city on all sorts of nonsense charges, and made them split rocks at gunpoint, as prisoners. This prison rock quarry, run on some of the original land stolen from the original inhabitants, operated like this for almost half a century. Who are the descendants of the pioneers that were given this land? We know them well. Who are the descendants of the rock-splitting indigent prisoners? Do they live in tents on the sidewalks of the city today?
This is the latest collaboration between me and Virtual Bird.
We spend the hour with professor Fran Shor, whose debut novel, Passages of Rebellion, which mostly takes place in Minneapolis between 1967-70, is out now.
As the housing crisis continues to worsen, an especially intersectional solidarity initiative appears to be taking shape at Laurelhurst Park in Portland, Oregon. You can find this in podcast form by looking for This Week with David Rovics, or in print form in Counterpunch on Tuesday.
A song written on the Covid-19 one-year anniversary, this rendition is all Virtual Bird, vocals and music. There are other versions out there, including a solo guitar one, and one where Virtual Bird plays the music and I sing. But this version is my favorite.
We spend the hour with long-time organizer, Ahjamu Umi, talking about his insight-filled new book on how to be an effective organizer, out now in paperback and ebook forms -- A Guide for Organizing Defense against White Supremacist, Patriarchal, and Fascist Violence.
We spend the hour with Food Not Bombs cofounder, Keith McHenry, remotely joining me and folks from Defense Fund PDX here in Laurelhurst Park, which has become a focal point in the movement in Portland to stop the sweeps of tent encampments, and treat the housing crisis like the crisis that it is.
How would you feel if an angry man, clearly motivated by antipathy towards your Black Lives Matter signs, came in the middle of the night, hitting your car, smashing things on your porch, yelling provocatively, banging on your locked front door, for seven minutes? How would you feel if you then found out this man was an off-duty cop, whose department wanted to pretend nothing happened? This is a true story from last October in the sleepy Portland suburb of Forest Grove, which has resurfaced in the news locally because it's not the only incident of police misconduct there, and the people want accountability.
This is another collaboration between me (lyrics) and the brilliant Olympia-based punk folk outfit, Virtual Bird (music).
Over 100 people died on the sidewalks of Portland in 2019. Who knows how many died last year. They just renewed their declaration of a housing crisis here -- what they mean by that, who knows, as their deadly "sweeps" continue unabated.
This track is another collaboration between me and Virtual Bird.
Pretty much bumper-to-bumper coverage of today's press conference in Laurelhurst Park against the ongoing sweeps of houseless communities that are happening across this city constantly, successful resistance against which is currently ongoing at Laurelhurst Park, if not at the many other locations currently under this form of assault.
Food Not Bombs cofounder Keith McHenry and I were on the radio show, Flashpoints, on KPFA last Friday, talking about stopping the sweeps of tent encampments across the country, police torture, and other subjects. Here's the show, archived for posterity.
My friend Keith McHenry is one of many people around the world who has been held in a cage like the one he drew, of the secret black site where the San Francisco police tortures their prisoners, in such a way that leaves no mark. They kept him in there for days on end, on multiple occasions.
I wrote the lyrics, and the brilliant Olympia folk punk phenomenon known as Virtual Bird set it to music, and that's Jane Reynolds delivering the vocals.
The song goes out to all the victims of torture, everywhere, who have been held in such cages.
Ezra Brain interviewed me on Monday (3/29/2021) for a piece he's writing for Left Voice. This is the unedited interview that we recorded. We covered a lot of ground, from popular education to the music industry to eviction defense, and I was mostly coherent, I think.
We spend the hour with award-winning theater director, Olusola Oyeleye, talking about writing, directing, acting, and the state of theater in general. The radio play, Paul Robeson's Love Song, written by Tayo Aluko and directed by Olusola Oyeleye, drops worldwide on April 9th.
You can also find this as the latest episode of the podcast, This Week with David Rovics, wherever you get your podcasts.
We spend the hour with hip-hop artist and Anti-Racist Action cofounder Mic Crenshaw, author of an upcoming book about Black skinheads on PM Press, and cohost of a fantastic new podcast series about the early days of ARA and related networks in the struggle against the far right, It Did Happen Here.
It's the last Saturday of the month -- March, in this case -- so, it was time for another livestreamed concert from my living room, as the tradition has been going lately. Here it is for the archive.