Music + Activism + Greenpeace

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock (Aug. 15 to 18), Treehugger.com has been running a series of articles about the spirit of protest born in the 60s and how it has shaped activism today. I wrote a brief history for them about the role rock musicians have played in Greenpeace activism over the years, starting with the benefit concert by Joni Mitchell and James Taylor that started it all, up to today when Anti-Flag is helping us organize young punk rockers at the Warped Tour.

One thing I didn't touch on in the piece that came up in my research, which I think is really awesome, is that Allen Ginsberg was an "early advisor and mentor" to Greenpeace. I'm a big fan of Ginsberg's poetry, so it made me pretty proud to find this out, and I thought I'd share this picture of Ginsberg reading "Plutonian Ode" at a disarmament rally back in the 70s.

I'd also like to give a little plug to the fantastic book in which I found much of the info for the Treehugger piece as well as both pics you see here on this post. It's by Rex Weyler, a journalist and one of the first Greenpeace activists, and it's called Greenpeace: How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists, and Visionaries Changed the World.

Here's a little taste of the many photos awaiting you on the Treehugger post. This is my personal favorite: Jerry Garcia playing to a sold-out crowd at a Greenpeace benefit concert right here in San Francisco, on Pier 31, in front of the Greenpeace ship James Bay:



The story of how this benefit concert featuring the Jerry Garcia Band came about and was pulled off in just five days is pretty fascinating. You can get a bit of it from my Treehugger post, but you'll have to pick up Rex Weyler's book to read the whole thing!

Photos © Rex Weyler

This post originally appeared on Greenpeace.org/USA.

New Radiohead track

Available for download on RCRD LBL now. It's called "These Are My Twisted Words" and it's a pretty lo-fi, ambient little number. Not a radical departure from what they've done before, but a pretty damn cool track — like everything they've done before.

I love me some Radiohead, by god.

My blog on Treehugger.com in defense of direct action

So last week we did an action at Hewlett-Packard's headquarters in Palo Alto, CA, where we re-branded HP as "Hazardous Products" because of their continued delay in phasing toxic chemicals out of their products.



Surprisingly, we caught a decent amount of flak for it, especially from some fellow environmentalists. I think that's because they are mostly the types of "environmentalists" who sit around reading and writing blogs, maybe following some top enviros on Twitter, perhaps they have even changed their light bulbs to CFLs and drive a Prius. In other words — calling themselves "green" but not really doing shit other than what's easy for them to do.

I'm not saying people shouldn't do these sorts of things — on the contrary, every bit helps. But if you're not familiar with non-violent direct action (NVDA) tactics or environmental campaigning, you probably shouldn't be commenting harshly on what other folks are doing and letting the world know just how little you understand about campaigning.

Anyhoo, I wrote a little post on Treehugger, which had posted a poll asking if these types of non-violent direct actions constitute reasonable means of communication for adults. Fairly loaded question, but I was still surprised by the results, which initially were pretty negative about Greenpeace's tactics. Though of course in the end the poll results ended up very much in support of our action.

Okay, I'll save it. Check the post for more.