Power to the Peaceful – Photos by Peter – Music

i just wish to thank michael franti and all of those who gave their time and immense energies to create such an absolutely INCREDIBLE festival.
it was a beautiful day and the meadow was filled with all kinds of fantastic freaky people!!!!
the only bad vibes seemed to be coming from the angry yellow jackets..........
many thanks and blessings to ALL!!!!!

Power to the Peaceful was fabulous this year, with an attendance of at least 20,000.
Saul Williams was well received, along with Alice Walker, who made a cameo appearance.
And Michael Franti, of course, had everyone feeling it at the end when he and Spearhead performed the impromtu "Taxi Radio" and "Never Too Late." I was a little teary, myself.

I'd feel better if this hippie-shit *augmented* a politically and strategically intelligent radical movement, instead of being its replacement.

Just because this event had an *aura* of politics doesn't make it any less an exercise in mass therapy and new-age catharsis.

The ruling class doesn't fear feel-good efforts like this one. Let's reach for something more.

Let's reach for their throats.

where did the spirit of the dead kennedys go?
what's this feel good crap?
where's jello?

You complainers just don't get it. Spearhead puts out fire-breathing anger in substained bursts that's way
more powerful than a chorus of shouted obscenities.

The lyrics call out in an uncompromising way for revolution, for radical change in a variety of ways, and offer heartfelt analysis.

What really makes you uncomfortable is that they're also not afraid to stand up and speak about the power of love.

Love and rage - they come from the same place.

There's no point in referring to people as "hippies" in a derogatory way -- just like it there's no point in putting people down for identifying as "punks'", "goths", or other lifestyles.

The point is unity and revolution - let's move towards that.

"The lyrics call out in an uncompromising way for revolution, for radical change in a variety of ways, and offer heartfelt analysis"

Could you point out some of this? I was there on Saturday, but I must have missed that part. Franti and the rest of the program seemed like a metaphysical, unchallenging peace-fest with some kind of vague political veneer. I mean "you can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb the world to peace"? what the fuck? how about social justice and freedom by any means necessary? what happened to that?

Even the term "Power to the Peaceful" is an offensive white-washed mutation of the militant "Power to the People" demand of the '60s.

But, maybe I just missed the good part, because the watered-down bullshit was too distracting...

"you can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb the world to peace"

who is Franti addressing himself to with this syrupy crap? the Bush faction of the US ruling class? what, does he believe these scum seek peace but have simply chosen an un"righteous" path? if not, what is he saying? does he think this is a "deep" observation? i'd say it's T-R-I-T-E.

let's face it, this is standard Franti fare. if someone could give an example of Franti's revolutionary lyrical wisdom, i'd like to see it.

Franti is talented and handsome, but he had alot more to say before he became a earthy pot-head.

"radicals" like Franti give apathy a good name.

"Honey, I think I'm pregnant, will you marry me?"
--Mary Jo Kopeckne

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it!"
--Teddy Kennedy

I have an mp3 recording of the air signal broadcast from KPFA. The file has Saul Williams and then most of Franti/Spearhead's set. However, my equipment was kind of tweaked. The recording has a high pitched hum all the way through. With a good equalizer, someone can zoom into that frequency or few frequencies and remove them. I don't have the equipment. But if someone does and is willing to massage a file that runs for about 90 minutes at 56k/bit stereo (not super high quality, but reasonable), I will upload the file to http://www.radio4all.net. After you download the file and fix it, you can then post it here (and I will delete the one I uploaded on radio4all.net and link to your fixed file).

Anyone up for the file fixing? If yes, post here and I will then post to radio4all.net

That's not how it happened.

See:

http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/07/1627857_comment.php#1633446

I wanted to respond to the two who posted questioning whether Franti's lyrics had serious content and were not just pie-in-the-sky.

"Rock the Nation" is only one example that is simply the first thing I snagged from the web before I had to leave. Just google spearhead and lyrics; or better yet, just sit down with Stay Human and take it all in.

Anyway, "Rock the Nation"'s chorus emphasizes going after the corporations and to "take the television and radio stations" - which is what protest movements who are getting serious do in almost every country except the USA.

There's also a video filled with arresting images. At the end of the video, a six year old African American boy (who has been drinking a soft drink with advertising logos prominently displayed on the screen) finally finishes his drink, pushes a piece of newspaper into the neck of the bottle - it looks like a Molotov cocktail. The young boy then stares into the camera for the last several seconds, holding the bottle in the air.

Is it advocacy of violence? Questioning of violence? You figure it out. I couldn't it - except to say that it makes you think. I think that's the point.


Rock the Nation


We livin' in a mean time and an aggressive time
a painful time, a time where cynicism rots to the vine
in a time where violence blocks the summer shine
lifetimes, go by in a flash
in search for love, in search for cash
everybody wanna be some fat tycoon
everybody wanna be on a tropic honeymoon
nobody wanna sing a little bit out of tune
or be the backbone of a rebel platoon
it's too soon to step out of line
you might get laughed at you might get fined
but do you feel me when I say I feel pain everyday
when I see the way my friends gotta slave
and never get ahead of bills they gotta pay
no way no way!
some make a living doing killilng Colombian penicillin
some are willing to play the villain they just chillin'
to pass the time, pass the information
or pass the wine
pass the buck or pass the baton
but you can't pass the police or the pentagon
the I.R.S. or the upper echelon
I think it's time to make a move on the contradiction

(chorus)
Bomb-bomb - rock the nation
take over television and radio stations
Bomb-bomb - the truth shall come
give the corporations some complications!

This is the dawning of our time I say it one more time
to emphasize the meaning of my rhyme
to rise above all the dirt and grime
add the right spice at the right time
fuck the constitution
are we part of the solution or are we part of the pollution
sittin' by and wonderin' why,
things ain't the way we like to find them to be, to be
for you and for me the people over there and the ones in between
check our habitation are we a peace lovin' nation
peace lovin' nation

I have a reasonable doubt I think I'll just spell it out
there's no need to scream or to shout
the N.R.A. just bought a man's soul
then he jumps up and shouts gun control
the government says that killin's a sin
unless you kill a murderer with a lethal syringe
so I ask again "are we peace lovers then"
some of them slang guns when they six years old
some of them end up in some six foot hole
this whole fuckin place seems to, lost control
so I raise my voice before I lose my soul

Bomb-bomb - rock the nation
take over television and radio stations
Bomb-bomb - the truth shall come
give the corporations some complications!


This is the way I'll express my feelings
vibe revealed and revolved spinnin on a record y'all
try to confiscate take what I communicate with
it's ancient gift of the lip steady creating
activating passin vocal vibrations to the blind plus the seeing
human doesn't mean just being
be coming don't believe it just belife it
belongings or beloved rehearse it or recite it
while shining drop your guns and move your tongues
battle motivation in no time lyrics come
sometimes fun others run their mouth or away
my mind co beaming like an early sunray
one day we'll get the picture and all combine
less the talking bout mines is mine and become one mind
every piece of the puzzle has its place
to build the piece of the puzzle called the human race taking it long enough we crush the formal journalistic
dyslexic critters talk backwards to rap words
I'm sure raising my hands with questions and demands
statements and a plan with a map of the land

Bomb-bomb - rock the nation
take over television and radio stations
Bomb-bomb - the truth shall come
give the corporations some complications!

In response to

>>>mp3 of event - I've got it, but...
by ziggy Wednesday September 10, 2003 at 01:28 AM>>>

Please post the file and I will give ti a sweet massage ;-)

...is that you mentioned (in one of your songs) a war on everything else, but didn't say a word about the war on the Palestinians. The Palestinians have suffered for at least the past 70 years in the longest humanitarian crisis of the 20th century, now going into the 21st, at the hands of European and American Zionist Jews. I thought you were against Western imperialism and colonialism.

Michael, in your "war on" list you did say something about "the war on "the Jews" ." What war on "the Jews", Michael? There are no suicide bombers anywhere else but in Israel. Palestinians are making the ultimate sacrifice with just about the only thing they have left to fight back with: their bodies. There are no suicide bomb attacks on "Israeli/Jewish 'settlements', cafes or Jewish delis" in New York, San Francisco, L.A., Montreal, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Sydney, etc., by Palestinians, other Arabs, or Muslims living there.

Michael, you won't alienate the fans who come to hear and enjoy your music if you also mention "the war on the Palestinians" in your song. The longest and most important conflict in the Middle East, and perhaps the world, today.

Stay human, stay strong.

I have no objection to re-penning the song or writing another (well, Michael is the one to ultimately decide) so that the Palestinians get some mention, so long as historical truth isn't compromised and trampled on.

bev mistake #1: "the war on the Palestinians."

Correction: there isn't and has never been a "war on the Palestinians". There has always been a war against Palestinian terrorists. But then I'm sure you insist these are legitimate freedom fighters, notwithstanding that they always wanted to destroy all of Israel and murder/drive out its Jews to create an undemocratic Jew-free racist nation state. You would probably counter Israel's creation was illegitimate to begin with since you think it's "stolen Palestinian land" etc., yet you're wrong nevertheless.

bev mistake #2: "The Palestinians have suffered for at least the past 70 years... at the hands of European and American Zionist Jews."

Correction: they have suffered at the hands of their own leaders who have missed almost every opportunity they had to make serious compromises for peace's sake, though you might argue they never needed to compromise since it was all theirs in the first place - another argument which doesn't bear scrutiny. Even their consent to the Oslo Accords has gotten them nowhere because their leaders blew the deal up (though I bet you lay the blame for that on Israel, like the rest of your friends do).

bev mistake #3: "...Western imperialism and colonialism"

Correction: if Jews settling in pre-May 1948 Israel were colonialists, they would have employed only Arabs in their farms and factories. But many Jewish immigrants - and subsequently natives - were manual laborers, factory workers, farmers, etc etc in Jewish and non-Jewish enterprises.
As for imperialism, which empire were the Jewish immigrants expanding? A Russian, Romanian, German, perhaps an American empire? These imperialism allegations are ridiculous and don't square with historical truth, though many believe mistakenly them.

bev mistake #4: "There are no suicide bombers anywhere else but in Israel."

Correction: there have been suicide bombers at least in Kashmir too (though not against Jews or Zionist Jews).

bev mistake #5: "There are no suicide bomb attacks on "Israeli/Jewish 'settlements', cafes or Jewish delis" in New York, San Francisco, L.A., Montreal, London, Paris, Rome, Madrid, Sydney, etc., by Palestinians, other Arabs, or Muslims living there."

Correction: a few months ago there was at least one suicide bombing on a Jewish target - the one in Morocco by Arab Muslims on May 16.

bev mistake #6: "Michael, you won't alienate the fans who come to hear and enjoy your music if you also mention "the war on the Palestinians" in your song."

Correction: He won't alienate "the fans" i.e. all fans, but will alienate at least some of the fans if not many.

Stay an activist, jettison canards and lies.

You sound like a Nazi explaining that the Third Reich only slaughtered twenty million Russians, and stole everything that wasn't nailed down, to "save Western Civilization from the menace of Bolshevism." Shame on you.

you can't handle the true facts so you try making me sound whatever you're subjectively thinking I'm sounding like in a bid to besmirch me. Well guess what: it's not working!

Pride on myself! :-)

Regarding the Power to the Peaceful event. I also felt like the music wasn't deep enough. Why weren't other Bay Area artists who are more anti establishement invited to perform at the event. I can name at least two that could have rocked the whole show:
1)reMo'Conscious who I heard recently on KALX with an increadible song "Let Me Live" which kills the Bush regime and all the bullshit.
2) Paris who just dropped a very good album which I would have expecfted to be there because of his amazing content as well.
I think that we need to be more agressive if we are to make any changes.
Any thoughts

Bev,

While I share your anger over the one-sided reporting about the Palestinian occupation, I think you might want to go back and listen to the song again. The line about the Jews you remember goes "A war on Muslims, a war a Jews, a war on Christians and Hindus." So while Michael didn't specifically call out the Palestinians from the general Muslim population, and while there are Palestinians who aren't Muslim, I would guess that the situation there was one of the things he intended to be covered by the line. And after all, it's a song, it's got to flow!

To all those who are complaining that the music isn't radical enoough- I know it's funand sometimes useful to critiques, but when it all comes down to it, do you have anything better to offer yourself? Are you going to sit passively there and wait for Michael Franti to save the world? It's easier to complain than to offer a better alternative- if you have an answer, start composing\playing\ performing it...otherwise you are just perpetuating the whole Western trip of putting people on a pedestal- thenknocking them down?

The Revolution is in the hands of EVERYONE- it's more about what YOU did today- he SANG! (and I myself enjoy a bit of light entertainment and dancing between all the hard work of actually DOING it)

S

Correction: Some (not all) of them are just trying to control a patch of *someone else's* land.

Bev....so good to see you still spitting out the same old tired lines. It's been a year or so since I've been to this site and you haven't changed a bit.

It's close minded people like you that allowed Democrats to put someone like Davis in office and, subsequently, give us The Governator.

Bravo. Stay in your little dark world. You're not progressive...you're static....

....and I just changed the channel.

http://www.denniskyne.com
aggressive in your face rock and roll
from a combat veteran

to address 2 points made by the Zionist bevie

"Correction: there isn't and has never been a war on the Palestinians".

The nation of Palestine was wiped off the map in 1967 when Isreal launched launched an aggressive war. To use the terms Palestinian and Palestinian People is to reflect the colonization of ones mind.

"There has always been a war against Palestinian terrorists."

By your logic the 1500 people who were systematically slaughtered when Ariel Sharon sent the Christian Phalange into the Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps in 1983 were terrorists.

BTW don't take my word for it look up the work Robert Fisk on the matter.


If you want to know what the entity of Isreal is all about just look up the words of superhawk and moral degenerate Manchem Begin. In the early 80s he described Isreal as America's unsinkable aircraft carrier. And that sums it up. Without the Billions of dollars in loans Isreal receives each year to "buy" American weapons Isreal would not exists. Most of those loans are "forgiven" ? so the US taxpayer winds up footing the bill for these death toys.

Isreal is nothing more than an outpost for US Imperialism.

>>"damn lies and brainwashing"

See the title above.

>>"thevoiceofjustice"

Well, forgive me if I chuckle up a bit at this newspeak-conceived alias.

* I stated above:
Correction: there isn't and has never been a war on the Palestinians. There has always been a war against Palestinian terrorists. You would probably counter Israel's creation was illegitimate to begin with since you think it's "stolen Palestinian land" etc., yet you're wrong nevertheless.

Sure enough, the anti-Zionist above is tries to correct me, only to spew fabricated revisionist history, such as:

>>"The nation of Palestine was wiped off the map in 1967 when Israel launched launched an aggressive war. To use the terms Palestinian and Palestinian People is to reflect the colonization of ones mind."

This brainwashed individual, along with many others, not only is unaware that there was NO distinct Palestinian people (nation) back then - see for example http://www.resident.com/12_16/opinion1.html and dozens of other URLs featuring this admission (and forget your excuses - they don't work!), but that most of the refugees of the '67 war returned to the disputed territories. Besides, from 1948 to June 5, '67 the disputed territories were occupied by Jordan and Egypt, and the local Arabs never demanded then a Palestinian state. Israel's launched the Six Day War in order to avert anihilation by several armies of Arab countries that were threatening Israel with extermination.

* I said above:
There has always been a war against Palestinian terrorists.

Anti-Zionist says:
"By your logic the 1500 people who were systematically slaughtered when Ariel Sharon sent the Christian Phalange into the Sabra and Shatilla Refugee Camps in 1983 were terrorists."

Your deduction skills are poor. Perhaps some of those people were terrorists. The Phalange decided to deviate from the mission they had been assigned and perform an indiscriminate massacre.

* Deluded anti-Zionist:
>>"If you want to know what the entity of Isreal is all about just look up the words of superhawk and moral degenerate Manchem Begin. In the early 80s he described Isreal as America's unsinkable aircraft carrier. And that sums it up."

Nope. He meant it in the way of Israel being America's staunchest ally during the Cold War with the erstwhile USSR and the Warsaw Pact.

* Deluded anti-Zionist says:
>>"Without the Billions of dollars in loans Isreal receives each year to "buy" American weapons Isreal would not exists."

Not necessarily. Before 1973 Israel barely received $$$s to purchase US weapons, and we know what had happened. Besides, much of Israel's reliance on American weaponry stems from two factors: bad habit and bad budget, not really because Israel needs the ammo so badly.

* Anti Zionist:
>>"Most of those loans are "forgiven" ? so the US taxpayer winds up footing the bill for these death toys."

Well, Germany, Japan, S. Korea and others have received "forgiven" loans to the tune of much bigger sums, but we don't hear you people yelling about that. Too bad you seem too obsessed with Israel to notice anything else.

Ignorant anti-Zionist:
>>"Isreal is nothing more than an outpost for US Imperialism."

You prove here that you aren't familiar with what Zionism is really about. Go educate yourself.

a part of a certain sentence above should read:

"much of Israel's reliance on American weaponry stems from two factors: bad habit and bad budget management."

I would like to say that I am so impressed with these incredible artists that are not afraid to say it how it is in the United States. My boyfriend just recently went to a concert in Portland Maine where he listened to Spearhead. He introduced this group to me, and ever since, I have been infatuated. Today was a snow day, and I sat at home listening to Spearhead. I have this new obsession with Micheal Franti. He is not only a great artist, but a smart man. I am a freshman in high school. I hear everyday, macho boys repeating the same thing over and over again in civics class: "Bomb the shit outta those people"ect...
What ever happened to what's his face.. Bin Ladden any ways? It seems like the media scares us out of our brains about one guy, and then goes ballistic on Martha Stewart. We seem to forget what we are doing in another country. Are we re-building it? fighting the "terrorists"? Or are we capturing world leaders in "rat holes"?
My father is a cuban immigrant. A lot of his family is still in cuba waiting for us to pay a visit. But somehow, our FREE country has made it impossible to visit our own family. It saddens me that my father is trapped in another country after he escaped the one before.
I have so much to say. I'm sure everyone has something to say, but something needs to be DONE.
I love my country, It is beautiful. But I would never stand to see my brother die for George doub-ya Bush. My family means everything to me... and I would leave this country in a minute if they tried to take my brother away.

I'm just practicing my first amendment folks. I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD! we have the right to tell everyone how we feel! I say bring the troops home, and re-build our OWN country. I say that we get out of debt...so I don't have to pay thousands of dollars in the future. That is another thing: How is it fair that the generation above me is making all these choices with my future money? Because I am a 15 years old, I am not "smart" enough to know what is going on in the world. Well, I can honestly say that i have a pretty good idea of what is going on. Our country is falling apart. The rich separated from the poor, the gays from the straits, the blacks from the whites. What happened to living in peace? Has our world gone mad, or are the leaders of the world just power hungry? I'm really interested in standing up for what is right.
Thanks to you, Michael Franti, I can see peace in the future, and feel it through your music.