This Week with David Rovics

New song: "On the Streets of London (Free Sarah Wilkinson)"

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.

"In Wisconsin in 1854 (Song for Joshua Glover)" REMIX

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.

New song: "Section 12 (Do You Support the Resistance?)"

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.

New song: "In Wisconsin in 1854 (Song for Joshua Glover)"

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.

New song: "The Constitution Is My Permit"

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.

The Ministry of Culture on WZRD

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...

Anita Barrows and the Ministry of Culture on Flashpoints

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.

What Spotify, Facebook, and the International Monetary Fund Have in Common

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.

I HEARD A RUMOR album guided tour

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.

New song: "Woomera (Free the Refugees)"

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.