DAVE LIPPMAN AND GEORGE SHRUB:
COMING UP
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In addition to new songs about cars, candidates, God, and Jena, Louisiana, Dave brings a collaboration with Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Martin Niemoller that neither of them ever heard about.

Friday July 18
New York, New York
House Concert
117th Street at Morningside Ave
details TBA

Saturday, August 23
Boulder, Colorado
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center benefit with David Rovics, George Mann, and more

August 25-28
Denver
Democratic convention

September 1-4
St. Paul, MN
Republican convention

September 5/6
Madison, Wisconsin
Rafah Sister City benefit

Monday, September 8
Rockford, Illinois

September 12/13
Milwaukee

Sunday, September 21
Silver Spring, Maryland
benefit Gordon Clark for Congress

Now booking Fall - Call....!

For booking inquiries or show info:

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May 2008
New York
A stirring May Day parade comprising mainly immigrants is complemented by a showing of the 1970 film on the League of Black Revolutionary Workers, "Finally Got the News." In Detroit from the late 60s into the 70s, various plant-based insurgent groups, black nationalist and Marxist in nature, sprang up - DRUM, the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, FRUM (Ford) etc. and combined in the League. Detroit was the epicenter of US manufacturing at the time, and black workers took the lower jobs. The Detroit street rebellion of 1967 was different from many of that era, being driven more by workers than the unemployed. Everything about the Detroit scene pointed to a bright future for highly conscious and strategic revolutionary black organization at the center of the industrial working class. Now, gone. They fizzled out in a spiral of internal conflict, Cointelpro subterfuge and the ultimate collapse of the industry itself. Today, immigrant workers lead the way in organization and mobilization. What happens to the long-standing permanent underclass, African Americans? Watch for globalized action and reaction to increasingly mold internal movements.

December 2007
UK/Eire
When we watch our own country in steady slide into barbarism, we sometimes forget it's one world out there, and Thatcherism destroyed Britain the same as her buddy did in US. I go all primed for better newspapers, only to find them downsized, tabloided and generally less informative than they were 16 years ago when last I trod here. Likewise shrinking is the national health system and the public schools. The only good news in the shrinkage department is that no one goes to church anymore, except immigrants, who are responsible for that bit of culture along with most good food and music. (Some churches have been converted to rock-climbing venues....!)

Meanwhile over in Ireland there are now jobs, which means not only do the blokes stay in country, but vast numbers of immigrants from greater Europe are on the scene. A French friend is teaching English to Poles in Galway - with his accent thrown in for free. One result of prosperity is more cars, to be followed by more roads, which will tear up and uglify the legendary countryside. Oh well price you pay eh? Unless of course you plan. Heaven forfend.

August 2007
Newark, New Jersey
People for Progress, a Newark group, leads a new statewide peace coalition in the biggest march in years, led by African American and labor groups. 100 degrees is a near-match for the 1,000 peeps, but spirits are raised by the resurgence of black movement, soon to be amplified by a demo in Jena, Louisiana. Photo by Diane Greene Lent. (http://dianelent.com/)

June 2007
Atlanta
Another World is Possible, Another U.S. is Necessary: The richest possible cultural and political week is not tickets to five Broadway plays or a salon of New Yorker discussions but the US Social Forum in Hotlanta. One man's objective opinion. Strong focus on black-brown relations, labor rights, women, poor people's campaigns, anti-free trade, gender non-conformist rights, Gulf Coast survivors - grass roots community organizing generally. Strong youth presence and plenty of oldth. Jobs with Justice, indigenous rights: lots of positiviy. Anti-prison system, anti-military recruitment, anti-drug war - lots of good, solid negativity. General goal: a movement of movements. Today's goal: Get to know each other, learn how to be stronger together. New: learning to be open to who is different. New to U.S.: learning that grass roots campaigns are more important than newspaper selling. YAY. Watch 4:14 video.

Washington
First national march against the occupation of Palestine - well anyway the part taken in 1967 - brings out some thousands in DC. Good to see the people who remain committed to this uphill struggle, and those just coming to it. A taped message of support from Roseanne Barr - she an anti-colonial rep on her radio show. We need more Out anti-colonialists, folks! MC: "I'd now like to introduce Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie...but they're not here." Watch 2:04 video.

May 2007
New York Witness Against Torture demonstrates what they're against in street theater on Broadway. Pro-torture advocates remonstrate at the military recruiting station across the street. Watch 2:34 video.

Wisconsin: The Sami and Dave Story
Iraqi-American Sami Rasouli told US Rep Dave Obey that sectarian warfare is being provoked in Iraq. Obey: You don't know the half of it, and I can't tell you. Rasouli: they'll never get the differences settled this way. Obey: what makes you think the US wants to settle it?

April 2007
Chicago
The fourth Latin America Solidarity Conference brings out folks who work on Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and o so many other fronts to build alternatives to empire and defend those alt.govs and alt.movements. Highlight of the weekend is a victory for the Immokalee workers of Florida tomato fame: They don't have to go demonstrate at McDonald's because Mickey caved. They'll give a penny more per pound, following Taco Bell and preceding Burger King, the next target, whose front door entry says "You're here to have it your way" - our way being presumably sub-living wages for farmworkers - and whose exit door says "Buh bye. You Out?" To which I can only reply, no YOU out, if you don't straighten up your faux-hip corporate self and fly right. Stay tuned.

March 2007
New York
A very good panel of professors, mainly, on Iran and the US, put together by Adalah, the Coalition for Justice in the Middle East, featuring Ervand Abrahamian, Baruch College, City University of New York; Hamid Dabashi (Columbia U); Saman Sepehri (activist/contributor to ISR); and Fawwaz Traboulsi (Lebanese American U).

There is, in addition to the Arab alliance against Israel, a Sunni-Israeli alliance against Iran. The divisions between Sunni and Shia existed, but are agitated by external factors.

Bush told Israel he'll deal with Iran while in office. The US is ramping up tensions - blaming Iran for things, arresting people to provoke response, playing chicken - hope Iran will respond so US can respond with defensive air strikes. Ahmedinijad, the W of Iran, may fall for it. Arresting the British navy people may be just what it takes. Ahmedinijad ignores the adivce of Rafsanjani and Khatami as Bush ignores Baker et al. Ahmedinijad got 15 million votes from people who were denied university seats because there aren't any. So they go into militias or the army or unemployment.

The difference between the US and the Middle East is that there the US wants secular liberals in power.

If an attack is presented as surgical strikes, the public will buy it. The Dems already yanked a clause against air strikes from their Iraq resolution. Obama says we should be focused on Iran. An attack will harden support in Iran for the regime. It is presently soft. There are factions and strife. Example: A recent textile strike was led by women, who marched out of the factory and chanted "์Where are the men? Here are the women!๎ Ashamed, the men joined the strike. ( http://www.merip.org/mero/mero032507.html ). Iran will strike back in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at US bases in Bahrain and Qatar. Brzezinski says it will lead to a 30-year war.

Butner, NC
Dr. Sami Al-Arian, Palestinian professor late of the University of South Florida, finally modifies his hunger strike after 58 days. After failing to convict him on any counts of aiding terror, and having promised to release and deport him, the state terrorizes him by holding him indefinitely. We rally by the freeway near the prison. Send a letter.

Fayetteville, NC
The anti-war movement returns to Ft. Bragg, home of the 82nd Airborne Division and the Special Forces. Here Latin American officers are trained SOA-style, resulting in, for instance, the Acteal massacre in Chiapas, 1997: 50 indigenous children and parents gunned down by our tax dollars. From here the Forces are sent out to Special-ize the world, to keep it safe for freedom for the gangsters who rule in the style so well explained by General Smedley Butler in 1933:

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”

Here one finds the 82nd Airborne Division Museum, which explains the invasions of sovereign countries in recent generations as necessary to save American citizens – racking my brain, how many other countries overthrow governments to save five or ten of their nationals? – and of course to prevent the spread of Soviet client states, aka countries who don’t obey the United States.

And here anti-war demonstrators have pioneered the present-day unity of peace and justice-minded soldiers and veterans with civilians. Key speakers include Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, and Gold Star Parents. "They call us traitors," says Iraq vet Matt Southworth (left, in picture), "but a traitor is the man who lies us intowar. A traitor is the man who doesn't give the proper equipment to the soldiers to fight the illegitimate battle." Watch/hear their speeches here and here. Look at pix here.

Durham, North Carolina
Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom, born in Virginia, transplanted himself to Israel, where he founded Clergy for Peace and works with Rabbis for Human Rights, and does a lot of work with doubly (or triply) displaced Bedouins and allows that they represent the dispossessed and marginalized all over the world. He says Palestinians will soon be the majority in the area between river and sea, and Israel won't be able to dominate them, and that's the good news. He says that lately it's hard to find what's Jewish about Israel. He wants to know why would you construct a solution to European anti-semitism in the Middle East, where Jews did better, and take it out on the locals. We will only come to our senses, he says, when the price of the present course is too high.

Milgrom is on tour with Melkite Catholic Archbishop Elias Chacour, from the Gallilee. "The creation of Israel was good for the Jews - we're happy for them," he tells us. But it wasn't so good for the locals - "a terrorized nation" who became "dirty Arabs" as the Jews had been dirty. Occupation corrupts both sides, he said. On the good news side, he said Israel is learning from Lebanon what defeat means. The psychological assurance of the ability to export war has ended. "Welcome back to the human community." For peace to come, stop being the 51st state of the U.S. and become the 21st state of the Middle East.

Also speaking was Imam Mohamad Bashar Arafat, from Damascus now of Baltimore. He does a lot of interfaith work. He said religion is like rain: it comes down pure, but mixes with the sewage and becomes poison. GASP. He said it, not me.

December 2006
Whidbey Island, Washington
The peace forces have pushed military recruiters back into a corner at the local high school - they've yanked their hall pass and the army must bivouac in the career center, where no one goes - who wants a career?! Women in Black meanwhile made front page in the paper for their vigil and transported 1,000 signatures to Washington in a round of peacemaking visits to represenatives. You go Rural America!

 

November 2006
Columbus, Georgia
22,000 rally at the gates of the School of the Assassins - this demo started a generation ago with 13 people. Today 13 cross the line into Fort Benning - 'twould be more but the penalties are rising. Pacifist churchies mingle with punked out youth in a festival of hope and life. One imagines a future without the "School," with thousands returning to commemorate the victory over torture pedagogy and the townies welcoming the peace troops for more than just their hotel and dinner dollars. Meantime, soldiers are being sucked out the back door by the governments of Latin America which, responding to the entreaties of Father Roy Bourgeois, founder of SOA Watch, are refusing to send any more troops to learn the repressive arts. So far; Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela.

October 2006
New York
Indymedia reporter Brad Will, along with several local activists, was murdered in Oaxaca, Mexico October 27. Two municipal police and three other government functionaries are in custody. Brad may be the first indymedia.org journalist killed. Actions occurred today at many Mexican consulates; the one in New York was shut for the day. Folks chained themselves to gates and shimmied up lamp posts; there were 12 arrests. The young people who demand access to actual information about the world are rightly outraged at the killing of a friend who merely tries to do the job the mainstream press has abdicated. And the police – apparently no one has given them a new manual lately. They are still operating as if traffic flow is more important than information flow, order more crucial than democratic participation. One street in Manhattan could be given over to public action against corrupt and fraudulent governments for a few hours eh? The cars have all the other streets. Can’t we do our part here to support the valiant and imaginative movement of Oaxacans? Festivals of mourning and resistance clearly have priority over automobile traffic. I believe it’s in the Geneva Conventions or Declaration of Human Rights, I know I saw it somewhere….

Chicago
Voices for Creative Nonviolence held a sit-in at Senator Dick Durbin's office when it became apparent that US forces were planning to go Fallujah on Ramadi's butt. He phoned them up: "You've got my attention, what do you want me to do?" He brought the item to the Senate floor. Truth to power, folks.

Rockford, IL
The annual Crop Walk organized by Church World Service raises money for hungry people around the world. The local Catholic bishop ordered whoever listens to him not to participate because they give money to a clinic in Africa that gives out condoms.  Well at least he didn’t forbid shopping at the new Fair Trade store – don’t anybody tell him about it!

Madison, WI
Community theater produces Ugly Duckling, by Maine writer Carolyn Gage, in which young lesbians struggle to be permitted to exist at a girl’s summer camp. Can this play be produced anywhere besides the two or three Madisons we’re permitted in this country?

photo: Judith Mahoney Pasternak

September 2006
New York and Washington
Camp Democracy brings the war, or the idea of peace anyway, to the White House door. Tents on the National Mall host a parade of speakers and the premiere of a new film on stolen elections, "Stealing America Vote by Vote" - watch for it. At the UN, marchers overcome police resistance to permitting marches in a democracy. Democracy is relative, according to who owns it and who stands up to demand it. Hugo Chavez smells sulfur in the air from Bush's recent presence; he recommends a Chomsky book and the relocation of the UN to Caracas.  

August 2006
Teaneck, NJ
The Coalition to Bring the Troops Home Now pulls out the stops, bringing outstate reps and a police chief to a vigil and press conference, declaring majority opposition to the war in Iraq and urging stepped up grass roots action. State and US reps have been pushed from support of the war to opposition, and from opposition to vocal opposition. Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out emphasize that the death statistics don't include post-service suicides, and stats on the wounded leave out the 68,000 vets who have applied to the VA for help with emotional trauma. Impeachment is too good for this administration, says one vet. Prosecution is in order. A couple of youths turn out to heckle, but slide away as several families recount their suffering after their sons and brothers died uselessly in Iraq. See Families of the Fallen for Change.

Detroit
The USA bombs at will in Iraq, likewise Israel in Lebanon, but here's a town long ago econo-bombed out of existence. Auto makers continue to move actual car-making jobs abroad or down south, while the city struggles to survive with casinos and the odd computer company that brings its workforce with it anyhow, so no great gain there. While neighboring Dearborn boasts the biggest Arab populace in the US, the town of Hamtramck houses a veritable United Nations of humanity, from Bangladeshis to Kosovars to Poles and African Americans. 

My three-day Detroit experience kicks off with a Palestine event that serves as opening act for the formation of a local chapter of A Jewish Voice for Peace. Second night features Venezuela, sponsored by the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, which takes an interest in health care and similar Venezuelan quirks, and attended by members of the labor delegation which journeyed there. Final night is the Shrub and Lippman concert. No one is injured.

Chicago
SDS - Students for a Democratic Society - re-founds itself.
150 student types, with kibbutzing from the 1st gen veterans, gather at U. of Chicago. Complaints about undemocracy in existing orgs and lack of a  multi-issue, anti-imperialist national group for students led to the  reformation of the legendary 60s formation. A student calls a buddy:  "Guess what, SDS is back." Response: "Let's form one." 

University administrations have tried to ban or expel the new  radicals, but they persevere in direct action, linking up with  diverse student groupings and campus unions. They have organized film series, joined immigrant demos, dropped banners, died in, countered recruiters, worked against campus contracts with Killer Coke, produced multiple zines, and supported struggles in Colombia, Sudan, and New Orleans. They form grouplets  like the bike group "SUV" - Students for Unfueled Vehicles - and women's adjunct, Lunar Cycle. 

Young activists from all around recount their recent adventures, from blocking troop deployments at the port of Olympia to demos at the Israeli consulate in New York to anti-Walmart actions in Kansas City. Students have confronted John McCain, Jeb Bush, David Horowitz, Bill Clinton, and Ann Coulter. At the  Counter-Coulter event, activists evaded a ban on spoken disruption with a group fake orgasm. 

Sixties night (Seniors for a Democratic Society?) features stories of personal involvement from Al Haber, Carl Davidson, Paul Buhle, Penelope Rosemont and more. Torch is passed.