This Week with David Rovics

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 5

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

A Year of Music, a Year of Genocide, a Year of Cancelations

My year in review.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 4

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”

 

New song: "Canceled"

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 3

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 2

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!

Solstice Session

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.

A History of the World According to David Rovics EPISODE 1

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!

Watching the World Shrink While Booking the Next Tour

What does it feel like to be canceled by a thousand cuts?

New song: "So Many Ways to Kill a CEO"

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