The Music of OWS! DJ D vs. Detroit Red

With May Day upon us and the semi-official Occupy! Spring Offensive starting. the two of us--Detroit Red and DJ D--have teamed up to crank out this overview of the music of OWS! Occupy! has no single anthem, no “We Shall Overcome”, no defining musical voice of the movement. Instead there has been a flowering of DIY music videos, Joe Hill-esque re-writing of pop songs, spontaneous rap battles in the encampments, and a parade of established musicians showing up at protests unannounced to lend their songs and support. Hell, even Miley Cyrus made a music video for Occupy Wall Street!

The two of us are stone revolutionaries--and deep-fried music geeks. We are both longtime activists, though from different generations— DJ D is 62, Detroit Red 34. Both of us have been totally jazzed by the transformation that the eruption of Occupy Wall Street! has already wrought in the political life of this country and in the tired, aging US left. Each of us took five songs (with a bit of dickering to avoid duplication) from among scores of worthy possibilities, five which we found particularly deserving of attention and comment. Then we wrote a short introduction and made some comment on each.

[Note: for those unfamiliar with current musical culture, that "versus" in DJ D vs. Detroit Red doesn’t mean we are enemies—it is used to label collaborative projects and mash-ups as well as musical throw-downs.]

[Now crossposted at Solidarity and Daily Kos.]

DJ D drops his five

One of the things that has most pissed me off about the movement against the war in Iraq and Afghanistan was all the folks, admittedly mainly ‘60s types like myself, always grousing about where are the anti-war songs. Damn, Neil Young started a page on his website which now has well over 3400 posted! (At, let's call it 4 minutes per song, that’s more’n two weeks of listening 24/7, just to hear ‘em all once.) 

At least anyone with the faintest actual acquaintance with Occupy Wall Street! and the Occupy! movement isn’t about to make that complaint! Even leaving aside the notorious drum circles, OWS! has been awash in music, with visits from famous artists and all kinds of playing and singing, planned and impromptu, at every encampment I know about. 

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Exclusive: Singing CIA Agent On Philip Agee's Death

George Shrub fights Red subversion in the trade unions.

[Philip Agee, the CIA agent who broke with the agency in the early '70s to stand with the "millions of people all over the world [who] had been killed or had their lives destroyed by the CIA and the institutions it supports," died last week. Still humiliated by his revelations, the CIA had no official statement on his death and worked overtime to see that the major media downplayed the story.

Fire on the Mountain is proud to break through this white-out and publish the first story from inside the CIA on Agee's death. Penned by George Shrub, the famous singing CIA agent, this look through "Company" eyes closes with the reminder that if we manage not to remember the past, hey, we get to repeat it all over again.]

Philip Agee in My Hindsights
by George Shrub
Director Cultural Division, CIA
(Committee to Intervene Anywhere)

One reason I’m known as the World’s Only Known Singing CIA Agent is that agents are, in general, not permitted to sing. This brings us to the case of the infamous Philip Agee, who made his name singing the names of his erstwhile colleagues in the agency charged with keeping our world our world.

Much digital ink has and will be spilt over the passing of this Agency Apostate. I choose the label carefully to focus on the real problem in this talented man’s life: his failure of religious nerve. For the task of an intelligence functionary, hindsight makes clear, is a faith-based one. We cannot know for certain that the overthrow of democratic governments throughout our world is guaranteed to produce long-term stability for Entrepreneurs of Size. We do know, however, that if we don’t do it, someone else will. And the prospect of a world dominated by vengeful peasant neighborhood associations is enough to drive any God-fearing congressman to fund pre-emptive, defensive torture (I prefer “alternative procedures” or “strong interrogation.”)

Agee entered the secret side of public service in that vibrant interregnum between America’s ascendancy as a non-empire (I prefer “Global Dominatrix”) and the complete privatization of the defense of our borders (especially our borders in the southern hemisphere, Middle East, and anything named Stan). (In this connection, those who feel queasy about the innovative role of Blackwater should recall the truly horrifying scandal of the previous era, Whitewater. Feel better?)

In our early ascendancy we were able to help so many people, so that they would not help themselves. That is, to their resources. People are far too resourceful for their own good.

Our helping began in Greece, which we cleansed of Communists. Unfortunately, our Helpfulness budget had run out by the time their colonels became differently helpful.

We helped Iran, finding them their very own Shah, who had been missing. This was the first time we were really in a position to help a nation in the Middle East – or anyway, British Petroleum.

We helped France, at least in Vietnam. We helped Vietnam, at least the South, which is to say, Marshall Ky.

We helped Guatemala, or, one might say more precisely, United Fruit.

The list goes on, but the point is clear: Agee was fortunate to have a place at the center of the helping professions. So why did he lose faith? Many things can contribute to a fall from grace. Some feel that thinking causes a surplus of information; others think that feeling is the cause of excess compassion. Either way, wavering of faith in the gospel of trickle down, vague feelings of unease with the triumph of middle class consumerism as the inevitable product of the ascent of generalized greed – these are ditherings hard to fathom in a scion of privilege.

Some have said that Phil must have been working for the KGB. If his desertion of duty had come later, he would have been clearly in the thrall of al Qaeda. But Phil preferred to look for flaws in his own house, describing the activities of the CIA and the governments it supported as “the worst imaginable horrors.” He was called by some a traitor; I think he was something more serious: a whistle blower. Nobody likes a tattle tale. He shall be long remembered as a tall tattle tale teller, endangering the pre-emptive horrors we have been forced, with a heavy heart, to perpetrate in defense of Western Values.

If the general public has grown suspicious, even weary, of our pre-emptivity in defense of that most fundamental human right, the right to profit from resources we find on or under other people’s lands, then they have Phil Agee to blame for their weary suspicion. May the next person to name names be indicted and imprisoned for life. (Offer not valid for Vice Presidents or their aides.) Philip Agee, rest in peace. You taught the American people a bit of their history. Which is a shame, because those who do not know their history will have the opportunity to repeat it.

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