This Week with David Rovics

Why the Resistance Needs Music

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.

Will the Real Wobbly Please Stand Up?

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.)

"Trump 2.0" REMIX

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.

New song: "Trump 2.0"

Moving on from the frying pan to the fire.

"Blinken's Last Press Conference" REMIX

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…

New song: "Blinken's Last Press Conference"

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.

"Across the Street from Ebenezer" REMIX

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.

New song: "Across the Street from Ebenezer"

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.

New song: "The Ashes of LA"

Will the LA fires be a turning point?

A History of the World EPISODE 13

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”)