Sunday Concerts for Assange with David Rovics
Every Week only on YouTube!
Every Sunday at Noon PST/15h EST/20h GMT Assange Defense and Stella Assange Youtube stream concerts from musicians around the world in support of my husband, Julian Assange.
An eclectic mix of never before streams on Youtube, the series will include live, acoustic and home studio music sets from musicians. Upcoming musicians include William Crighton, Lowkey, Mark Chadwick from the Levellers, Paige Valentine and many more.
This series aims to spread awareness about Julian Assange's case in preparation for the New Court Date that we are expecting at any moment now. Every week we will be premiering a music set with weekly priority actions and other information on how you can join the fight and help Julian.
WEEKLY PRIORITY ACTION
Last week’s action resulted in:
16 members of the US Congress signing onto the bipartisan letter presented to President Biden.
Bowman, Jamaal - D
Burlison, Eric - R
Bush, Cori - D
Casar, Greg - D
García, Jesús - D
Gosar, Paul - R
Greene, Marjorie - R
Jayapal, Pramila - D (Leader of Progressive Caucus)
Massie, Thomas - R
McGovern, James - D
Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria - D
Omar, Ilhan - D
Pressley, Ayanna - D
Rosendale, Matthew - R
Tlaib, Rashida - D
Senate - Rand Paul- R
LET'S KEEP UP THE MOMENTUM!
Call your US Representative at 202-224-3121. Ask them to drop the case against Julian Assange. For step by step instructions and phone script visit: https://www.assangedefense.org/press-...
This Week’s Sunday Concert for Assange is with David Rovics.
Watch it now on YouTube.
Tracklist:
1. As the Bombs Rain Down
2. When Julian Met Stella
3. Behind these Prison Walls
4. Bullies
5. If I Had a Hammer
David Rovics is a songwriter, musician, writer and podcaster based in Portland, Oregon. Since the 1990’s, David has been touring regularly throughout North America, Europe, and occasionally elsewhere, playing on stages large and small, at protests and festivals as well as in squatted social centers and folk clubs. He has recorded dozens of albums and has millions of his songs streamed every year. His writing and podcasting can be found on Substack and other platforms. David also plays music for kids.
You're politically very outspoken in an industry where many may find it expedient to keep silent. What do you think formed your political perspective and activation?
It's true that advocating for political prisoners, speaking out against US war crimes, or criticizing Israeli policies, to take a few examples, are real career-killers for anyone aspiring to get on TV singing country songs or something. I've never had such aspirations. I always just wanted to sing about reality, because I noticed early on in life that this is a powerful, impactful thing to do, when I saw people like Pete Seeger at work, and the role he had in sustaining so many social movements. It was being exposed to people like that early on that got me on this road, along with being outraged by so many of my government's foreign and domestic policies.
How did you come to care about this cause?
I started being inspired by Wikileaks soon after Julian Assange started it. The exposure of the Icelandic banking system caught my attention, and then especially the exposure of US war crimes in Iraq, killing children and journalists in an aerial massacre and many other terrors. Over many years of this work, Wikileaks has probably been the single most important source of groundbreaking exposes about political and corporate corruption and bad behavior around the world. It's not only inspired lots of great journalism, but also lots of songs. It would be hard to count how many songs I've written that were derived from things I learned from Wikileaks. So when the US government decided to try to extradite Julian and prosecute him for exposing US war crimes, I was of course opposed to this! And also if they can imprison Julian for being a journalist, they can imprison pretty much any investigate journalist who is practicing the craft seriously.
What's the most important thing you'd like people to understand about Julian's case?
That defending Julian is absolutely essential to the cause of defending freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. That what the UK is doing to him is torture, by all accounts of people who are experts on the subject. The UK has also been violating all kinds of their own laws in order to keep Julian imprisoned, and the role of the Swedish government has also been atrocious, along with many others, it's not just the Anglosphere this time. Wikileaks pissed off a lot of powerful people around the world, and they want to punish Julian, and use him as an example. They already have, in fact. And this is such an outrage, on so many levels. Also on the human level. Julian has two beautiful little children that he's being prevented from being able to properly raise. The inhumanity of preventing this man, who is a threat to no one, from being with his family, is appalling.
Find out more about David Rovics on his website. His albums are available for purchase here. Follow him on socials: Facebook, X, Instagram, Youtube.
David Rovics performance on behalf of Julian is nothing really too surprising as David has been a stalwart supporter of Assange from the very beginning. The fact that David is using his incredible musical chops to entertain us all in a very dark time only makes my immense admiration for this singer/song writer grow larger still. Bravo David! Bravo!
Would love to get Jesse Jett’s “Winter in Belmarsh” spotlighted...