Protest songs on women’s issues

Journalists of British daily The Guardian have made a list of protest songs. All of them in the English language.

I ‘ll reproduce some of that list on this blog. Not exactly in the same way as they did. Eg, they have options to listen to songs on Spotify, which is not available in all countries.

And I have added links. And grouped the songs according to themes. The theme of this entry is women’s issues. The Guardian journalists do not have many songs about that on their list.

Performance of “I’m Gonna Be an Engineer.”

I’m Gonna Be an Engineer Peggy Seeger 1973

Avoiding the aggressive dogma and ranting soundbites that dulled political doctrines in later eras, Peggy Seeger constructed a folkie story song of such cogent morals and lyrical wit it proved the perfect soundtrack for the march of feminism and a telling anthem for the international women’s movement. Beneath the jauntily engaging narrative about one woman’s quest to break into a man’s professional world, she takes a scathing scalpel to society’s sexist indoctrinations. CI

Top Ten Songs About Women’s Equality: here.

Sexist Bacardi commercial: here.

Economic crisis again

The economic crisis continues.

The recent scandal about AIG bonuses in the USA is not the first one since that insurance corporation was bailed out with billions of taxpayers’ money.

This video from last year in the USA is called 10/7 AIG Executives Scandal $500K Spa Resort Vacation Party.

USA: Obama is attempting to navigate between placating public anger over AIG and similar outrages by Wall Street firms that have received hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds and satisfying the demands of the financial elite, which will brook no government interference in its drive for self-enrichment: here. And here.

On Friday, a number of columns appeared in the US media defending the bonuses paid out to AIG executives: here.

Wall Street hysterics over the AIG bonus bill: here.

From the Working Families Party in the USA:

We’re all mad at AIG. Their executives bear a large share of the responsibility for bringing the economy to it’s knees, and now the same folks are getting hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses — at our expense. Join us for a field trip to bring them the message.

Schedule:

10AM: Pick up in Hartford
(Working Families Headquarters – 30 Arbor St.)

11AM: Pick up in Bridgeport
(ACORN Offices 2320 Main St.)

Tour and Protest
AIG Financial Products headquarters, executives’ houses.

2:30: Return to Bridgeport
3:30: Return to Hartford

See also here.

Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad on this bus tour: here.

US: Working families struggle to make ends meet: here.

Unemployment in the United Kingdom has recorded the largest monthly increase since records began in 1971: here.

Britain: The fraud of Brown’s “crusade” for social mobility: here.

The World Socialist Web Site spoke to workers and youth participating in demonstrations in France on March 19: here.

While speculators and criminal banking agencies go unpunished, a Berlin shop worker is sacked on suspicion of pocketing €1.30: here.

Chiffchaff and bumblebees

Today, to Gooilust nature reserve.

Near the entrance, a buff-tailed bumblebee queen. Many others later.

A buzzard. A grey heron near a ditch.

A chiffchaff singing and flying from twig to twig in a treetop. Maybe he is just back from the annual migration to Africa.

A jay. A female great spotted woodpecker.

A hare in a meadow. Another hare sits near a tree, with a buzzard sitting on a pole a few metres away.

On the bank of the ditch, many butterbur flowers.

In the meadow: two oystercatchers and two Egyptian geese. Many rooks.

As spring starts officially today, the snowdrops’ flowers are almost finished.

In the trees: a long-tailed it. Then, a treecreeper. Then, a nuthatch. On the bank, pied wagtails. In the ditch, two mute swans. In another meadow, a great cormorant.

The black witch’s butter on the fallen tree is in a very decayed state. Also a sign that winter is ending.

Today in History, March 21

This video says about itself:

“The Road To Resistance” is part 1 of a 6 part documentary series on the global anti-apartheid movements, stretching from 1946-1990. The first story covers almost twenty years of history as one nation embarks on a collision course with the rest of the world. In 1948 the United Nations adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but South Africa marches in the opposite direction implementing a system of laws called apartheid, segregating its people by race in every aspect of life.

The black majority led by the ANC mounts a non-violent campaign of defiance, attracting the attention of Gandhians in Britain, Sweden, and the United States — and the seeds of an international movement are sown. The world reacts with horror as protesters are gunned down in the town of Sharpeville. And in the fateful year of 1964, Nelson Mandela is jailed for life, and the entire ANC leadership is forced underground or imprisoned. The movement is effectively shut down in South Africa as hundreds escape into exile.

From Associated Press:

Today in History – March 21

Today is Saturday, March 21, the 80th day of 2009. There are 285 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On March 21, 1685, composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany.

On this date:

In 1804, the French civil code, or the “Code Napoleon” as it was later called, was adopted.

In 1806, Mexican statesman Benito Juarez was born in Oaxaca.

In 1907, U.S. Marines arrived in Honduras to protect American lives and interests in the wake of political violence.

Rather “patriotic” word by this US news agency to describe one of several colonialist invasions in that country.

In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan began a four-day conference in Bermuda.

In 1960, some 70 people were killed in Sharpeville, South Africa, when police fired on demonstrators.

In 1963, the Alcatraz federal prison island in San Francisco Bay was emptied of its last inmates at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.

In 1965, more than 3,000 civil rights demonstrators led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. began their march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.

In 1972, the Supreme Court, in Dunn v. Blumstein, ruled that states may not require at least a year’s residency for voting eligibility.

In 1985, police in Langa, South Africa, opened fire on blacks marching to mark the 25th anniversary of the Sharpeville shootings; the reported death toll varies between 29 and 43.

In 1990, Namibia became an independent nation as the former colony marked the end of 75 years of South African rule.

…

Five years ago: The White House disputed assertions by President George W. Bush’s former counterterrorism coordinator, Richard A. Clarke, that the administration had failed to recognize the risk of an attack by al-Qaida in the months leading up to 9/11. (Clarke’s assertions were contained in a new book, “Against All Enemies,” that went on sale the next day.) Iraqi-born architect Zaha Hadid won the prestigious 2004 Pritzker Architecture Prize, becoming the first woman to receive the profession’s highest honor.

One year ago: Officials admitted that at least four State Department workers had pried into the supposedly secure passport files of Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, prompting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to personally apologize to the presidential contenders.

Related articles

• Alf Kumalo, Whose Photography Indicted Apartheid, Dies at 82 (nytimes.com)
• Steve Gunn: Modern American fight their civil wars in the ballot box, not through secession (mlive.com)
• Jeep Says Americans Need to Brush Up History (motortrend.com)
• A little history – Martin Luther King (johncashon.wordpress.com)
• Roslyn Bernstein: Okwui Enwezor Traces the Struggle of Apartheid (guernicamag.com)