All audio from the July 19th All-day South of the Equator Special including:
Bill McKibben’s July 17th talk in Vancouver, WA
Kambali Museveli - Friends of the Congo
Fred Pearce speaking on land grabs in Africa
Eduardo Galleano, author of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
and much more...
Audio from the Law and Disorder conference in May, with local Portland activists:
-Walidah Imarisha on Hip Hop and Liberation
-Jose Gutierrez on responding to racism in Portland
-Ahjamu Umi on the ongoing history of colonization in the U-S
Recent talks and interviews recorded by KBOO volunteers:
A talk by activists involved in the blockade of the Keystone XL pipeline
Rosalie Riegle: Doing Time for peace
Deepa Kumar on Islamophobia
Yolanda Whyte on Fluoride and the black community
Israeli Miko Peled on his transformation from a military officer to a peace activist
Two panel discussions on the history of the Portland women’s movement
Vanport flood survivors speaking on the 65th anniversary of the flood
A talk by Portland-born African American artist Carrie Mae Weems
Panel discussion: Why are there so few black people in Oregon?
The full set of recordings from this year’s Illahee Lecture series on Who Owns You, and What You can do about it: Raj Patel, Buck Parker, John Stauber, Catherine Austin Fitts and Jeffrey Clements
The drive also includes an exclusive set of new songs recorded by local radical folk musician David Rovics called ‘Into a Prism’ – a reference to the electronic surveillance program of the National Security Agency known as ‘Prism’.
Liner notes for songs in ‘Into a Prism’:
Prism – A heroic man named Edward Snowden exposed the fact that the NSA is, and has been for some time, spying on communications of US citizens and people around the world. And lying to Congress about it. But both Demoblicans and Republicrats in Congress want to lynch him for whistleblowing anyway. There's a name for this: a police state.
Landlord – In the 1840's there was a massive rent strike in upstate New York, which ultimately transformed what had been feudal relations between tenants and incredibly rich landlords, called Patroons. Despite the success of this movement, however, not much has really changed in the long run. We need many more rent strike movements like that one!
Assata – Assata Shakur has long been a heroine of mine, along with the organizations she has long been associated with, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and the Black Liberation Army. When the FBI teamed up with New Jersey authorities to announce that she had been declared the #1 Most Wanted Terrorist on their list, and the first-ever woman to occupy that esteemed position, I was appalled, as were many others. It is well-documented that despite her one conviction by a kangaroo court, Assata is innocent of all charges and allegations made against her over the years, including the killing of the cop. The terrorists who should have a lot to answer for, in a remotely just society, are the FBI and other federal and local authorities who considered members of the Black Panther Party and other organizations guilty until proven innocent.
The Man Who Burned the White House Down – A short walk from Tommy Sands' house in Rostrevor, County Down, is a monument to a very rich landowner of British descent, Robert Ross. I had already visited the man's grave in Halifax, Nova Scotia a couple years earlier. When I visited the monument and spent several afternoons hanging out with Tommy and talking about history, politics, and other subjects, I felt like I finally knew enough about General Ross to write a little song about him and his most infamous achievement in life.
Egyptian Rag – It was a shocking discovery for me a few months ago that most paper made during the latter half of the nineteenth century in the US was derived from what they called Egyptian Rag. Which consisted of the cloth that hundreds of millions of dead Egyptians were wrapped in for burial over the course of four thousand years. Digging up their bodies was, for decades, an industry in Egypt, fuelled by the paper industry in the state of Maine.
Someone's Got Their Ear – I was talking about the dismal state of US and UK politics with Mike in Belper (a lovely little town in Derbyshire, England). Mike said, in relation to the politicians, “someone's got their ear, but it's not us.” And I thought, there's a good hook line, and wrote this song.
Henk – Henk Streefkerk was a member of the Dutch resistance to the German occupation in the early 1940's. A relative of his in Germany commissioned me to write this song, for which I am very grateful, because it led me to do a lot of research into the Dutch resistance (and because I needed the money). It took a long time to come up with the song, not because I lacked sufficient information on the events of the day, but because it took a while until I felt like I had a handle on the feelings of the average Dutch person of the period towards the German occupation and the resistance to it, which is overwhelmingly, in my judgment, one of remorse (rather than patriotic fervor and the celebration of heroism, etc.).
Barack Obama – A perfect example of a politician. That is, he unfailingly represents the basic truth about politicians worldwide – that it doesn't matter what they say, or how eloquently they say it. All that matters is what they do. And with Obama, what he says and what he does have nothing to do with each other. Any progressive person who still thinks otherwise is either deluded or not paying attention (or both).
American Rag – This song attempts to address the question: if you're really, really patriotic, like the sort of person who has a flag in your front yard, a flag on your car antenna, a red, white and blue sweater, and so on – should you have a flag handkerchief as well?
Flight 800 – I had been meaning to write a song about this ill-fated TWA flight since it happened in 1996, but I only just got around to it after hearing an interview with a former CBS reporter who just put out a documentary on the subject.
A Brief History of the Orange Line – Much of the Orange Line of the MBTA that goes through the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain (where I lived for many years, and where my sister lives today) is a section of the T that was almost a highway which would have split JP in two and ruined the neighborhood, as highways tend to do. It became a part of the T and a lovely park as a result of a popular struggle that began in the late 1960's. The Wake Up The Earth Festival and the Lantern Parade, organized by an outfit called Spontaneous Celebrations, are all part of the legacy of this neighborhood social movement.
Vasili – Vice Admiral Vasili Arkapov is a name everybody should know, but doesn't, unless you regularly read Noam Chomsky or the Guardian newspaper. Vasili Arkapov saved much of the world from nuclear annihilation on October 27th, 1962. Which is also a date everybody should know. This fact was only made public after a conference in Havana involving people from the US, Cuba and the former Soviet Union who were directly involved with what has gone down in history as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Bonobo Song – We humans are more closely related to bonobos than we are to chimpanzees. This is significant because it flies in the face of how the so-called Social Darwinists (capitalist scum, etc.) would have us view ourselves. Chimps form gangs and fight each other. Bonobos don't – they work out any differences they have through group sex. Much better!
God Bless the USA – I have long wondered, when politicians in the US are constantly blessing “America” at the end of every one of their speeches, just which aspects of “America” are they blessing? I'm going for the ecumenical approach to blessing “America” in this song.
What Am I Doing Here – I spend a little more than half of an average year away from home, making a living, and hopefully having a positive impact on the world in some small way in the process. Sometimes I wonder why I bother, though, especially since I had a kid a few years ago, who I don't get to see enough. This was distinctly how I was feeling after a dismal gig in Dublin, Ireland, which featured the most depressing combination of characteristics – the sound system didn't work properly, there was almost no audience, and it didn't pay!