Month: August 2017

Charlottesville
Blog Post · Folk Music · My Own Music · Spirituality and Philosophy

Charlottesville

Daniel Kelly2 Comments

We live in an age, for better or worse, where ignorance is no longer an excuse for bigotry. Back in the 1500s, you could excuse the populous for joining a bloody fight over a few flavours of Christianity. Even though the printing press had been invented in 1436, it would take us another 600 odd years until we are at the point where almost everyone in the developed world can access enough points of view to come to a sensible conclusion. Obviously if you live in in China, Russia or under the Taliban in Afghanistan, your chances of access to conflicting points of view is severely limited, but in the affluent west, anyone with an iPhone or a local library has the world at their fingertips.

Back in the 1500s, the illiterate populous was forced to listen to the priest of whatever religion held power threaten them with terrifying tales of the evils of the other side. Whether it was science, witches or heathens, the balance of access to information and its creation and dissemination was entirely in the hands of the elite, the church and its ruling pawns (or the other way around, as the case may be).

In this environment where a monopoly is held on information it is much easier to encourage humans to take up arms against other humans and commit the most heinous atrocities. I am writing specifically about the recent events in Charlottesville. For anyone who doubts the thinking of the white-supremacists that marched there on 12 August, you can watch this interview with some of them.

The most telling point of the interview, which was a repeat of what Justin Moore had said in a voicemail to the reporter:

“I’m sorta glad that them people got hit and I’m glad that girl died,” Moore said in a voicemail to WBTV. “They were a bunch of Communists out there protesting against somebody’s freedom of speech, so it doesn’t bother me that they got hurt at all.”

 – Charlotte Observer, 15 Aug 2017

This is an example of where a person is indoctrinated with a hate-filled ideology to the point where they are happy to see another human die for no reason other than a difference of belief. To me this is the heart of any toxic ideology, whether related to race, religion, sexuality or class. If we as a society cannot identify the sources of these beliefs and respond to them effectively, we are doomed to a future of senseless violence.

Within 24 hours of the death of Heather Heyer, it was possible to read over 20 eyewitness accounts collected by different independent websites and media companies. Footage of the march and the clashes from multiple perspectives was accessible on social media and YouTube. My conclusion is that that Nazi’s had come to Charlottesville to incite a riot and the anti-Fascist people were there to protect the populace and demonstrate that a rise of violence and intimidation by far-right groups will be met with resistance. This particular set of eye-witness accounts is most telling.

It was largely expected that Trump would respond inappropriately, but his ‘both sides are to blame’ initial statement was a new low, even for him. Apologising for Nazis on American soil must have had every veteran of WWII shaking his or her cane at the TV (or Twitter feed) in their retirement home. The statement flew in the face of the mass of evidence to the contrary. Even after he seems to have been forced to address the issue with a subsequent statement (clearly prepared from him), soon after he went back to his thinly veiled pro-racist statements.

What I am witnessing amongst my sphere of Facebook friends and other Internet contacts is the deeply polarising nature of these events. Those who I suspect have a lingering racist streak (sadly not uncommon here in Australia) are quick to decry the Socialist/Communists for violence and imply that the Nazis should have been allowed to march under ‘Freedom of Speech’.

I strongly disagree. Freedom of Speech, does not and should not cover hate speech. Whatever your ideology, if you advocate the death of a race, religion or any other set of humans based on some common attribute you have no right to publicise that belief in any way. I have been encouraged by the Jewish community’s strong response against this ‘Freedom of Speech’ argument.

Billy Bragg had the gall to support the removal of statues celebrating the defenders of slavery on his Facebook page. The vehement backlash from some of those who are supposed to be his ‘followers’ suggested that this sentiment is not just an American one. A small amount of research would reveal that the statues were erected long after the events of the civil war in order to fight for the retention of racist laws during the Jim Crow era in the South. A good article on the issue here. If you want history, go and read a book. Statues serve the purpose of dominating physical space with an ideology, they are not about history.

While writing this post, I am listening to Phil Ochs. He was a crusader against the ‘alt-right’ back in the 1960’s. I Ain’t Marching Anymore is a fine example of his work. I wrote my own song about the events in Charlottesville. I like to believe that it was the songs of Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Woody Guthrie and their contemporaries that have helped keep the ideology of the extreme Right at bay for the past 30 years.

What is the answer to this challenge facing humanity? I think that educating our children to distil their truth from a broad basket of lies and half-truths is the best thing we can do to immunise them against these hateful ideologies. We need leaders and public figures who come out strongly and un-ambiguously whenever these ideologies emerge. That is a big ask when this particular event has shown us how many of these leaders are in the pocket of extremists.

Make no mistake, I know there are ideologies on the Left which are just as violent and dangerous as what we saw the Right exhibit in Charlottesville. However, the evidence of the behaviour and the goals of the anti-Fascists in Charlottesville does not support an argument that these ideas were present or being touted in this event. It is the tool of these extremist ideologies to point out one flaw in a group and use it to tar the entire collective and all its ideas.

I have to trust in humanity; believing that any person who is supplied with enough of the truth and the tools to interpret it will eventually put down their club, or nuclear warhead, and learn to see the humanity in all others. For those who refuse to give up their hatred, I am encouraged that there are people still willing to put their own safety at risk for the interest of the society and stand in the way of hate.

Blog Post · Folk Music · Spirituality and Philosophy

Filk the World

Daniel Kelly9 Comments

This week, through a series of seemingly random events I became aware of the work of Leslie Fish. As an Electrical Engineer, Computer Programmer and a Science-Fiction/Fantasy fan I was surprised that the whole phenomena of ‘Filk’ music had largely passed me by.

I suspect it was because most of my Science Fiction/Fantasy reading was done in secret in small-town rural Australia, which wasn’t exactly overflowing with Star Trek conventions. It was probably also because my parents largely viewed that whole ‘dressing up’ scene with Pentecostal Christian fear and loathing. Dungeons and Dragons was, after all, a sure-fire pathway to demon possession.

Whenever I travel for work, my partner writes Facebook posts outlining the mayhem that often ensues with our five children. In the posts, the characters from Star Trek are borrowed as stand-ins for family members. As I am the one staying home this time, I made a few posts in the same theme and a friend mentioned ‘Banned from Argo’ in a comment (I had facetiously mentioned Mos Eisley in the context of Star Trek).

I made a recording of this amusing, raunchy, Star Trek inspired song and was surprised to get a comment back from Leslie. As I do for most of the songs I record, I researched the background. This is how I became immersed in the history of this prolific and rich cultural treasure known as ‘Filk’.

The cynic would pass the genre off as parodies and fan-fiction of little consequence. They would be wrong. Leslie’s 2012 album, Avalon is Risen, is a triumph of thought and expression in so many ways. It goes well beyond ‘space songs’ and covers issues of social commentary, paganism and fundamental questions of humanity. Fortunately, this beautifully produced booklet that goes with the album is available from Prometheus Music.

I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, as the same things that drive authors and fans to the genre of Science-Fiction and Fantasy are the things that make them question our history, our present society and our future. People who have a subconscious instinct from birth that the religious dogma and history they are presented with in adolescence feels contrived and doesn’t come close to fitting our lived experience find themselves looking for something else.

While Banned From Argo is an amusing romp, I picked The Sun is Also a Warrior to cover for my YouTube Channel. I read this song as a well-written rebuttal to the rose-tinted views of pacifism that often accompany the ‘New Age’ movement. Our race is, by its nature, in violent competition with our environment and each other.

The other serious song of Leslie’s that I am in awe of and wouldn’t attempt to re-record is Hope Eyrie. Set to some appropriate images in this video, the song perfectly captures the momentous nature of our mission to the moon in 1969. The song frames the event as not just a technical flea-hop off our planet, but the momentous start of the journey which will take us to other galaxies and ensure our existence beyond the small window of time in which we will consume this planet’s resources. It has taken some 50 years, but we are now seriously looking at a manned Mars expedition.

I have always appreciated artists who write and perform their songs out of a genuine desire to communicate and change society for the better, as opposed to making money giving comforting narcissistic fluff to wealthy consumers. I would place Leslie in the same league as Pete Seeger, Alistair Hulett and Billy Bragg and it is sad that her influence isn’t wider. Leslie’s song Chickasaw Mountain, on Avalon is Risen, is a tribute / letter to Phil Ochs, one of the great genuine folk writers of the 1960s.

This interview with Leslie, by Aya Katz, gives a good overview of Leslie’s views and some background to her songs and career. You can read more about Leslie in her blog here or her website here. If you want to know more about the Filk scene, this compiled ‘history’ by Gary McGath makes for interesting reading.