In Part 4 of our ongoing series we highlight a song from a few years ago but who’s words ring true just as much today. Mason Jennings a singer/songwriter out of Minneapolis who has recently gained some exposure touring with Jack Johnson. But back when he was just a small club troubadour he had a number of protest songs on his second album ”Birds Flying Away.” The first one we take a look at in it’s entirety is called United States Global Empire (lyrics below).

Our united states of america
Has quickly become a global empire
Come on
See it now for what it really is
Power hungry with nothing much to give
And violent, all in the name of freedom
Freedom is not domination
I believe freedom has got to come from within
Yes it does
And without the gun
Freedom’s the ability to feel love for everyone
The empire controls the media
And media controls the world
Come on
Media is the empire’s mouth
Capitalist propaganda coming out
And violence, all in the name of freedom
Freedom is not competition
I believe that freedom’s got to come from within
Yes it does
Not with the gun
Freedom’s the ability to feel love for everyone

Today the mainstream media are simply stenographers who reprint press releases and do little actual journalistic work to exercise the oversight activities that the Federalist papers had envisioned for them. When he writes “Freedom is not domination, I believe freedom has got to come from within, Yes it does, And without the gun” it seems as though this is directly speaking about our situation in Iraq.

Another notable protest song on this album is ”Black Panther.”  While both the songs featured in this post were written pre-9/11, the meaning comes clearer due to those events happening in our time. Both of these songs acknowledge that “freedom” is a continuous struggle but that attaining it through violence in the end will not be successful. The current instigators of our policy view non-violence and tolerance as signs of weakness.

 
Black panther defy the power
Fight the violence with nonviolence
What good is justice if the scales are bent
By a criminal government
Think of the dead in vietnam
Think of the dead in birmingham
Think of the freedom we don’t understand
Asleep in bed in a stolen land
Responsibility to understand
Responsibility to take a stand
Responsibility to know your place
In the struggle of the human race

Invoking history can be one of the most effective methods a protest song can use, as we saw in our previous post and, as we see in “Black Panther.” Everyone has their own interpretation of historical events, especially important ones such as the Civil Rights movement and Vietnam, but to disregard history and not internalize the lessons we learned from those events and how they have shaped our current progress is demeaning to those who lived it.

We have seen it in this last few days with the “dramatized” account of events on 9/11 that ABC is marketing to the rest of the world as being the“Official True Story”. Former President Clinton’s lawyers are respectfully requesting ABC refrain from slandering the former president and his cabinet officers by airing this (fake)docudrama. We’ll see what happens. My sense is that this movie is highly political and essentially paints Clinton (and hence Democrats in general) as weak on Security/Terrorism. Its airing arrives right at the beggining of an electoral season where being an incumbent is no longer a guarantee of success in the General Election (much less the Primary for that matter, right Joe?). The only reason ABC is putting up such a fight is because of its potential for Republican gain in enforcing their version of the story and hence history. Just how they think that they can rewrite the history of such a pivotal event in our national conciousness is beyond me. The populous is not stupid, just kept in the dark most of the time. They are finally being told the depths those in power go to stay in power and realize it is time for some accountability.

Listen: United States Global Empire - Mason Jennings

Contemporary Protest Music Series::Part 1 - Stars::Part 2 - Bright Eyes::Part 3 - John Fogerty