{"id":11969,"date":"2021-01-23T04:04:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-23T04:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=153777"},"modified":"2021-01-23T04:04:14","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T04:04:14","slug":"rumble-inside-the-chaos-of-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/01\/23\/rumble-inside-the-chaos-of-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumble Inside the Chaos of Capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The tables were turned \u2014 David Rovics interviewed me in a wide-ranging, tangentially themed hour a few days ago. Here is what one Dissident Voice<\/em> article has to say about Portland, OR-based Rovics<\/p>\n

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He is not one to wait for his turn to talk. He listens intently and when I\u2019m finished asks another question. After all that Rovics has seen and heard during more than 20 years as a singer-song writer who has performed all over the world, he has yet to act like a self-proclaimed expert on anything.  \u2014 \u201cThe Social Significance of David Rovics<\/a>\u201d by Jasmin Ramsey, July 25th, 2009<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

David and I have talked, exchanged emails, and alas, we are a few 110 miles away from each other, he in my old haunts, Portland, and me on the Central Oregon Coast.<\/p>\n

Lyrics by Rovics strike me hard since I was a social services activist and practitioner in Portland for people who were homeless, civilians, youth, ex-military and former prisoners.<\/p>\n

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Each couch by the street has a story
I wonder what this one maybe
Did they leave their home and move into a car
Or find a sofa to sleep on at a friend\u2019s house
Did they stay near, or go far away
Disappear without a trace [\u2026]
When they come to evict your neighbor, what will you do?<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u201cEach Couch by the Street\u201d song by David Rovics<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

We both feel the sting of parasitic capitalism as artists and writers (we are artists) in this predatory and war capitalism, pre- and during-the-plandemic.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I stated:<\/p>\n

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Rovics is acutely aware that most of the thriving artists who might weather economic tsunamis are white artists, but there are thousands upon thousands of BIPOC artists who continue working but do not have those \u201csafety nets\u201d underneath them. The mainstream and commercial art scene will continue to be a white wave.<\/p>\n

This gentrification is now coupled with lack of income(s), Rovics says, as artists who used to be able to show and sell their work (and bar-tend and wait tables), and in the case of musicians, perform and then peddle \u201cmerch\u201d at venues, have zero options for in-person engagement.<\/p>\n

Mounting debt, continuing eviction threats, and increasing vulnerability to disease and illness also are additional factors to the mental health stress of artists. David knows of artists who just have shut down, and can\u2019t work. Others are manic, going through sleepless periods but producing a lot. For Rovics, he fits this latter category, but he admits he is not immune to GAD \u2013 general anxiety disorder. He told me he watches a lot more news feeds than he did before the pandemic, and doesn\u2019t sleep through the night.<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u201cOn the Streets, In Union Halls, On the Frontlines: Have Guitar, Will Travel<\/a>\u201d by Paul Haeder, November 25th, 2020<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Listen to the interview. Yes, we covered a lot of topics, and the kernel of the interview is around my own newspaper journalist roots, and the many jobs I have had in communications \u2014 as a faculty at colleges and universities teaching writing, composition, literature and creative writing. And as a writer who happens to need a 9 to 5 job to continue writing in this exploitative and dead-end celebrity culture.<\/p>\n

I do this sort of writing to promote where I work, and for now, it\u2019s with adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Job developer, coach, life skills mentor, and more:   \u201cWhen the going gets tough, Shangri-la comes to the rescue<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written about this many times, and many of the pieces have ended up in Dissident Voice,<\/em> which is a semi-safe harbor in the sea of chaotic blogs, aggregating news sites, and specialty discussion boards and Zeens.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/youtu.be\/XnRxBAW25ZM<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Paul Kirk Haeder has covered police, environment, planning and zoning, county and city politics, as well as working in true small town\/ community journalism in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico and beyond. He’s worked in prisons, gang-influenced programs, universities, colleges, alternative high schools, language schools, and PK12 districts. He organized part-time faulty. His book, Reimagining Sanity: Voices Beyond the Echo Chamber (2016), looks at 10 years of his writing at Dissident Voice<\/em>. Read his musings at LA Progressive<\/a><\/em>. He blogs from Waldport, Oregon. Read his short story collection, Wide Open Eyes: Surfacing from Vietnam now out, published by Cirque Journal<\/a>. Read other articles by Paul<\/a>, or visit Paul’s website<\/a>.<\/div>\n

This article was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2021 at 8:04pm and is filed under Censorship<\/a>, Disinformation<\/a>, Elitism<\/a>, Empire<\/a>, Environment<\/a>, Ethics<\/a>, Exploitation<\/a>, Fascism<\/a>, Freedom of Expression\/Speech<\/a>, Globalization<\/a>, Housing\/Homelessness<\/a>, Labor<\/a>, Labor Theory of Value<\/a>, Language<\/a>, Media<\/a>, Peace<\/a>, Propaganda<\/a>, Socialism<\/a>, Solidarity<\/a>, Techno-fascism<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The tables were turned \u2014 David Rovics interviewed me in a wide-ranging, tangentially themed hour a few days ago. Here is what one Dissident Voice article has to\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[349,92,827,3027,1178,393,462,560,668,771,669,352,116,453,671,982,94,4,660,656,583,3028,785,3029,123,563,3030],"tags":[96,987,3031,3032,661,3033,569,2651,773,3034,354,456,3035,989,97,662,592,126,573,3036],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11970,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11969\/revisions\/11970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}