This Week with David Rovics

Lao Tzu, the Syrian Revolution, and Anti-Social Media

Talking about critical analysis of history and current events (or not), and some ancient Chinese philosophy.

Demonetizing, Deleting, and Disappearing David

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 9

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 Siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital" REMIX

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 8

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

Four Things That Happened on January 1st

2025 began with several massacres, the demonetization of my YouTube channel, and other notable developments.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 7

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

New song: "The Siege of Kamal Adwan Hospital" #FreeDrHussamAbuSafiya

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."

"Canceled" REMIX

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 6

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