Monday Music Video: David Rovics-Live -you ain't done nothing if you ain't been called a red

Here's a classic radical song as song by David Rovics.

For those who are not in the know, David Rovics is an indie singer/songwriter and grassroots political protestor from the United States. His music is most accurately described as protest-folk and concerns topical subjects such as the 2003 Iraq war, anti-globalization and other social justice issues.

Friday Film: Nazi America: A Secret History

One thing you need to do is know who your enemy is. For that, Here’s an excellent History Channel documentary titled “Nazi America: A Secret History,” in its entirety. Lots of information on the underground hate culture and the development of the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movement in America.

Wobbly Wednesday: Utah Phillips on His Name, the IWW, and War Resistance

U. Utah Philips is the entire reason I a member of the North American anarcho-syndicalist union the Industrial Workers of the World. He is a great influence in my life and an inspiration.

Amy Goodman interviews Utah Phillips for Democracy Now! in 2004. Utah explains how he got the name "U. Utah", the history of war resistance, and the Wobblies.

Film: This Is What Democracy Looks Like

This film, shot by 100 amateur camera operators, tells the story of the enormous street protests in Seattle, Washington in November 1999, against the World Trade Organization summit being held there. Vowing to oppose, among other faults, the WTO's power to arbitrally overrule nations' environmental, social and labour policies in favour of unbridled corporate greed, protestors from all around came out in force to make their views known and stop the summit. Against them is a brutal police force and a hostile media as well as the stain of a minority of destructively overzealous comrades. Against all odds, the protesters bravely faced fierce opposition to take back the rightful democratic power that the political and corporate elite of the world is determined to deny the little people.

Hat-tip to Roig i Negre Videos for this.

Monday Music Video: ennio morricone/joan baez - The ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti

I don't usually like to post slideshows as music videos, but I'm going to make an exception. Yesterday was the 82nd anniversary of Sacco and Vanzetti's execution. For those who don't know, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian-born laborers and anarchists who were tried, convicted and executed via electrocution on August 23, 1927 in Massachusetts in what is considered one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in American history.

Friday Film: Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead is a groundbreaking film in the history of the horror genre. Zombies where not from the Haiti, but Pennsylvania — this was Middle America at war, and the zombie carnage seemed a grotesque echo of the conflict then raging in Vietnam. I don't know what would have been more frightening for the times: zombie hordes, or a black male lead.

Short Clip: Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation

This is a must-see. There's nothing else that needs saying.

Short Clip: S.U.F. on May Day 2009

The S.U.F. is Swedish Anarcho-syndicalist Youth Federation, (in Swedish, Syndikalistiska Ungdomsförbundet) is a youth-based group in Sweden that supports anarcho-syndicalism.

Inspiration also came from the anarcho-syndicalist union Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (or the S.A.C.). From just three groups in 1993 it grew rapidly and today it is a nation-wide federation made up of around 25 local groups throughout the entire country, and several committees active within the federation. They publish a magazine called Direkt Aktion and a monthly internal paper called Storm.

Here is a video of the S.U.F. from Mayday 2009.

Wobbly Wednesday: IWW union delegate speaks

Here's another interview, with Bruce, an IWW delegate to the curbside workers union.
Bruce describes duties as IWW delegate to curbside, and makes some brief comments on the labor movement in general.

Short Clip: The Simpsons go Parecon

this is kind of entertaining. Participatory economics gets a Simpsons remix.

This video created by The Pittsburgh G-20 Resistance Project. G-20 Resistance is a space where folks can come together and collaborate on ways to resist the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, PA. Visit there site at resistg20.org.

Monday Music Video: Bella Ciao, for the Persian Awakening

From June to Augest, the people of Iran rattled the chains of oppression that bind them. While the movement was anything but revolutionary, I think that any movement that challenges the anti-Semites Islamic fascists and reactionary Mullahs in favor of greater freedom is one worth supporting.

This is an old Italian anti-fascist song, with a slide show of those involved in the insurrection and lyrics.

Sort: Struwwelpeter: The Story of Little Suck-a-thumb

My Oma came straight from post-war Germany. She is a very traditional German woman. When I was a child, she would read a German children book about a boy who would suck his thumb getting them cut off with giant scissors. The illustrations in the book had this little boy bleeding with no thumbs. Why this stands out was, as a child I DID suck my thumb.

I recently found out the name of this traditional German childrens book: Struwwelpeter. Here is an animated interpenetration of the story that still haunts me, The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb.

Friday Film: Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance

On a July day in 1990, a confrontation propelled Native issues in Kanehsatake and the village of Oka, Quebec, into the international spotlight. Director Alanis Obomsawin spent 78 nerve-wracking days and nights filming the armed stand-off between the Mohawks, the Quebec police and the Canadian army. This powerful documentary takes you right into the action of an age-old Aboriginal struggle. The result is a portrait of the people behind the barricades.

Wobbly Wednesday: Interview with an IWW member

Here is an interview with a member of the IWW from the San Fransisco branch, taken at the SanFran Anarchist Bookfair.

Monday Music Video: The Beautiful People by Marilyn Manson

I think Marilyn Mansons second album, Antichrist Superstar, is one of the greatest albums ever. That album is a beautiful, hard rock explosion of nihilism that shows the destructive urge is a creative urge. I never listen to Manson when the album came out, and I don't think any of his subsequent outings are particularly good, but Antichrist Superstar stands out as one of my favorite albums.

The Beautiful People is a exploration into "the culture of beauty", and that culture's connection to Friedrich Nietzsche's theory of master-slave morality — the song's "weak ones", who are "always wrong", are oppressed by and exist solely to "justify [the existence of] the strong".

Friday Film: A Place Called Chiapas

A Place Called Chiapas is a Canadian documentary of first-hand accounts of the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN or the Zapatista Army of National Liberation or Zapatistas) and the lives of its soldiers and the people for whom they fight. Director Nettie Wild takes the viewer to rebel territory in the south west Mexican state of Chiapas, where the EZLN live and evade the Mexican Army.

Wobbly Wednesday: Anti-IWW propaganda

You ain't been doin' nothin' 'till you been called a red!

This is an old anti-IWW cartoon from the 1920s.

Short Clip: F.A.U. Berlin on Mayday 2009 *German*

The Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union (Free Worker's Union;abbreviated FAU) is an anarcho-syndicalist labor union initiative in Germany. It is the German section of the International Workers Association (IWA-AIT).

The FAU was then founded in 1977 and has grown consistently all through the 1990s. Now, the FAU consists of just under 40 groups, organized locally and by branch of trade. The federal organization exists in order to coordinate campaigns and actions and for communication purposes. There are 250 to 300 members organized in the various groups.

Here is a video from FAU Berlin during Mayday 2009.

Film: Battle for the Trees

This documentary examines the battle strategies of citizens, scientists, loggers, environmentalists and First Nations people who are fighting over the liquidation of public forests and, with it, a way of life

Monday Music Video: Bruce Springsteen with Tom Morello - The Ghost of Tom Joad

Last night, it was 11:30 at night, and my wife was sound asleep. I was flipping though the channels, tiered and board, but not sleepy. I flipped to PBS, Detroit public broadcasting, and they had a program celebrating the 90th birthday of Pete Seeger. I was a marvelous program. On that program, Bruce Springsteen sang a duet with Tom Morello, of the classic "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

Enjoy!