From Ferguson to Jerusalem

A song about the intersections connecting state violence from the U.S. to Palestine

In 2017, I joined a delegation organized by Code Pink: Women for Peace (which is organizing an important march on Washington today) and Dr. Bronner’s Soaps to visit a series of olive orchards in the West Bank, where we met the families who have maintained them for generations.

At the time, I envisioned writing an article for my Truthout column after returning. My reflections, however, ended up coming out in a song. I share it today because its relevance grows hard to ignore, even though it’s nearly a decade old.

Ferguson to Jerusalem

Lyrics

Ferguson to Jerusalem (2017)

There's a Mike Brown in every town
Don't try to tell me that America was found
We've been slaughtering innocents from the very beginning
Our country spits a big game while sinning

Spitting half ass facts: "All men are created equal"
except apparently Blacks.
Folks got declared three-fifths when Whites wrote the Constitution 
and ever since then even it we keep abusing.

Mass confusion on our own stated principles
leaves the empire seeming invincible:
murder with impunity if shot by a cop, 
while prosecutors persecute the block nonstop.

CHORUS
From Ferguson to Jerusalem 
to Washington Houston we have a problem
for housing, education not enough funds
’cause we gave the real criminals badges and guns

In Palestine folks are on the front line
A massacre, the Nakba, gave rise in time
to all the crimes that you might now find.
Three quarters of a million refugees on the run.

Exodus. Chased by guns,
peoples of the Book allegiances undone
after a thousand years of solidarity, son!
Brothers killing each other. What's the function?

Supporting leaders with no compunction
destroying everywhere every town, every junction.
Careerists, institutional corruption
from Tel Aviv all the way back to Langley.

For a millenium, Jews, Muslims: one family.
Colonial schemes, the root tragedy in history.
Across the globe authorities claim security
but peace need not be a fantasy for anybody.

CHORUS

U.S. weapons in the hands of Israelis
infect a region with imperial rabies.
Diseases driving regimes crazy,
serving a hegemon by killing babies

not just abroad but across the U.S.
Weapons used in Palestine by the IDF
end up all over the world. Where else?
To your right and left, all over U.S. streets.

Like the CIA, an enemy of peace
undermining human rights from the west to east.
A beast like all police / intelligence agencies,
feasts of death, medical emergencies.

I'm here to help you feel a little urgency
to connect seemingly separate dots internationally,
help us see how we, all humanity
shares the same interest in restraining police.

We're a family like all others
Cain & Abel, murdering our own brothers.
Police act with impunity, their druthers
abuse while claiming to protect and serve others.

Paramilitaries serving corporate bosses
communities forced to bear crosses
innocent people gunned down every day.
Dance and have fun now, but don't turn away.

Tomorrow offers crucial opportunities
to support any of the many communities
targeted by authorities around the planet.
Revolution needs to happen. Help plan it.

CHORUS

Image at https://twitter.com/rananazzalh/status/499997861669797888

My hopes

Recording this song gave me a way to publicly connect the dots between parallel struggles in different countries whose roots both stretch back to the militarism emanating from Washington. While oppression is easy enough to recognize, it has many faces, and the dynamics that enable them often escape attention.

I’ve long hoped to produce a music video for this song to enhance its utility as a teaching tool. Given the seriousness of the subject matter, I’ve thought of perhaps using documentary news footage rather than the particular styles apparent in my previous music videos (for NSA vs USA and Bumpin in My SUV) seeking similar purposes as educational vehicles.

Paid subscribers can access each of those music videos, in addition to a series of four posts addressing the genocide unfolding in Gaza that I’ve published over the past month. They address issues including disinformation & propaganda, the painful consistency of U.S. history, and a strategy for how We the People might bring the Israeli assault to an end despite Biden’s support for it.