• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
david_rovics_-_meanwhile_in_afghanistan

DAVID ROVICS – MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN

CD Reviews

TITLE: MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN

ARTIST: DAVID ROVICS

LABEL: SELF PRODUCED

RELEASE DATE: December 1st, 2012

David Rovics for President

By Ross Altman

david_rovics_-_meanwhile_in_afghanistanIt took Israel six days to defeat a coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in October of 1967 and guarantee its survival; it took Abraham Lincoln four years to defeat the Confederacy and end slavery once and for all; it took FDR and Truman four years to defeat Adolph Hitler and Nazism, the greatest evil the world has ever known.

After more than ten years and counting, America under Bush and Obama are still bogged down in the graveyard of empires, the quagmire of Afghanistan, with another two years to go, and no one is asking why.

Well, almost no one; David Rovics, a one-man musical occupation, places that question front and center in his new album, Meanwhile In Afghanistan—which speaks truth to power, both here and abroad.

If you are on the left then you already know and admire Rovics’ work, the “musical version of Democracy Now,” according to Amy Goodman; if you are in the mainstream then you probably have not, a problem Rovics himself addresses on the album’s final song: Why Don’t They Play You on the Radio? He is Fox News’ worst nightmare—an eloquent, articulate people’s artist who has the facts on his side and takes a stand.

So let’s not quibble: Rovics is the a folk singer for the converted; for disaffected Americans who haven’t admired their president since perhaps Jimmy Carter; for disaffected Israelis who don’t like Netanyahu and believe, like Jimmy Carter, that Israel is an Apartheid state only to be compared with South Africa during the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela. Rovics speaks for the 1%–but a different 1%–the one per cent who voted for Jill Stein of The Green Party for President. Like her, Rovics political philosophy may be summed up in the phrase, “a plague on both their houses.” “Republicrats and Demoblicans,” he calls them—the two parties that control the political debate in this country, or as another author calls them—the Plutocracy.

Actually, though, David Rovics has a larger audience than Jill Stein does; he has amassed over a million hits on his web site’s various lyric pages. That puts him in Eugene Debs’ territory: the man who ran for President from a prison cell, after coming out against American involvement in World War I, and got over a million votes.

If you substitute hits for votes, Rovics is a third party unto himself—he is against war; against Empire, against injustice; for the common man, for Occupy Wall Street, for the Universal Soldier who he regards as another victim of America’s constant war economy; for a thousand small activist groups on four continents who keep him touring under the radar screen of big media and big festivals. He performs for fewer folk audiences than for political audiences. Like Mencken, he comforts the afflicted, and afflicts the comfortable.

David Rovics is the grassiest of grassroots performers—a voice for the oppressed working class—who for the most part don’t even realize they are oppressed—which is why they join the angry white male Tea Party and vote for a candidate and his running mate who have little more than contempt for them.

David has been at it for twenty years now, since 1992, and shows no signs of slowing down. If you wonder what happened to the protest music of the 1960s, look no further; pick up his new album, to be released on December 1st, and breathe some fresh air.

He once signed a concert poster for me during his Halliburton Boardroom Massacre tour with his brief but trenchant personal motto, “Aim high and throw hard.”  Keep throwing.

Ross Altman may be reached at greygoosemusic@aol.com

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/david_rovics_-_meanwhile_in_afghanistan.jpg 361 400 Steve Shapiro https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Steve Shapiro2012-12-01 09:14:452020-11-02 14:42:10

DAVID ROVICS – MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN

  • Book Reviews
  • CD Reviews
  • Concert Reviews
  • Film Reviews

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001- 2021 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy