Spirit in Action

Addressing Upstream

Instead of just handling emergencies downstream, Up The River Endeavors creatively seeks to fix the causes of our problems. Peter Alsop's newest album, River of Life is full of songs growing out of Peter's connections with Mal Jones and Up The River Endeavors.

Duration:: 55m
Broadcast on:: 28 Dec 2014
Audio Format:: other

[music] ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark Helpsmeat. Each week, I'll be bringing you stories of people living lives of fruitful service, of peace, community, compassion, creative action, and progressive efforts. I'll be tracing the spiritual roots that support and nourish them in their service. Hoping to inspire and encourage you to sink deep roots and produce sacred food in your own life. ♪ Let us sing this song for the dreaming of the world ♪ ♪ That we may dream as one ♪ ♪ With every voice of every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world alone ♪ We've got a wonderful talented performer and a thoughtful, profound, and humorous worker for the world's improvement here today for Spirit in Action. Peter Alsop is a musician with a PhD in Educational Psychology. His music and presentations have addressed the wide range of concerns and possibilities for healing the world, including things like violence, equality, health, addiction, and many more issues, and his latest CD, Dove Tales, with the work of an organization called Up the River Endevers, trying to find remedies for the causes of our social ills. Peter Alsop joins us today from Topanga, California. Peter, I am so excited to have you back for Spirit in Action, and I think this is the fourth time. It's nice to be back with you. Thanks for having me. You know, I love your music. I've loved it ever since I first heard you in 1980 and through all of the changes you've gotten in your music. Let's mention something about that. You started out doing adult-oriented folk music with, let's say, a little bit of a juvenile spirit in it. You then transitioned to doing young people's music and speaking presentation for, what, 24 years? It's some long time. This is your second adult-oriented CD in just the last couple years. So talk about that transition, what you went from to and where you're at now. Let me talk about the very first album I did. I did a lot of humor. It was a live album at the ice house in California, Pasadena in 1975. It was my first album. There was a song in there called Strength that I wrote, which is about my parents, my father being very strong and my mother being somebody who is more likely to acquiesce about stuff. First verse is about my dad and the next verse is about my mom. And then my mom and dad divorced. And I wrote a third verse that said how my mom has gotten stronger from being on her own and my dad has learned to be more gentle in his way, but it was totally a lie. You know, my mother was still dealing with some of her stuff on my dad. I was still walking on people's feelings. And I knew that the first one tied it up nicer and was a nicer song, but for them to do something that was commercial and the second one was more real. And I said, I don't want to have to sing this song and know that it's not the truth every time I sing it just because it looks like a nice package. So I went with the more true version and that set me on a path for doing that kind of thing as opposed to trying to write hit songs, which a lot of young writers feel like you've got to write a hit song. So I'll get famous and then I can write what I want. And I saw the era of that way of thinking. So I've done a lot of truth writing. Then my next adult album was called The Sleep of the Helm. And it was all feminist stuff because I had a feminist girlfriend and I was constantly learning lessons which I was going, oh, yeah, you're right. And I'd write a funny song about it to help some other part of Schmuck not have to worry about going through all the same stuff. I just went through it to learn that lesson to maybe hear something who would pick it up. So I had a bunch of adult albums and mostly on flying fish. And when I started having kids, I wanted to make you do something that was funny and I learned a lesson as a parent from what my child had just done. When my first album, my daughter walked up and said, "Dad, can I give you a kiss?" And I said, "Oh, sure, honey, how sweet." And she licked me and said, "Don't lick your dad." I went, "Ooh!" I said, "That sounds like a kid's song." So I wrote a song called "Don't Lick Your Dad." And if you fool him, it'll get mad. So what I started having is much more success with my kid's songs because everybody likes this sense of humor. And, you know, the little, I write from a kid's perspective a lot of times because it gives the adults something to think about where an awful lot of, actually 85% of my kid's albums material is parenting information. And parents go, "Oh, I do that, don't I? Maybe I ought to cut that out." So they've been very successful and I could see from when I was doing the kid stuff that, there's an issue of some people not, I guess what I'll mention. I'll go into it. It was Richard Nixon 149 states and George McGovern 111. And I'm thinking, "What is it about people that they don't see that this president is pretty crooked? He's not telling the truth. He's got all sorts of other things up his sleeves. I need to work with the kids." So a lot of my songs are about open mindedness and about caring and about justice issues, which kids get real clearly. And you said something about adolescent approach. See, I use it with term elementary. They're called elementary schools because the kids are the elements of who we are as adults. And I would go around and last. It's been 40 years. I've been doing this by lecture at PhD in educational psychology. But I go out to Fortune 500 companies and do middle management training and talk about how, if you're having a difficulty with one of your managers and you can see the little boy or little girl, more likely the little boy inside, who's having trouble or scared of something, and that's why they're doing this out of balance behavior. Then you realize it's not necessarily personal and you've got some other information about how to proceed so that you don't trigger that little boy who's upset and scared, and you might be able to be more successful in your interactions. So by looking at kids of the elements of who we are as adults. So I've done that with my kids' albums. There's been probably 23, 24 albums out now. Recently, I've been looking at the world again and going, you know, when I was doing kids' albums, I could write a single song like "My Body's Nobody's Body But Mine." It's actually saved some children's lives. It could really be succinct and be effective. And as I'm looking at the world now, I'm seeing things that are so convoluted and connected with our financial system and the neo-contact of mentality and the split between poor people and rich people and the lack of social justice in so many areas. And I got to start writing some stuff for grown-ups now. I've done a lot of stuff for kids. And those kids have grown up and these grown 30-year-old kids who are, they're going to have to inherit this world. And I want to have people pay attention more to some of the stuff that's going on for us people and the baby boom generation. The latest CD, the one that you've just come out with, is "River of Life." And this is connected with your connection with Mal Jones and "Up the River" endeavors. Tell us what that is. Well, Mal Jones is this wonderfully eccentric friend of mine. He's been involved with the feminist movement for years. He's an engineer. And he was instrumental, Wayne, a colleague 40, 45, 50 years ago, back in LA. The LA feminist women's health center, Carol Downer, was when more started to take their own health into their own hands and they were doing menstrual extractions because they weren't really abortions. And you didn't even have to be pregnant. You could just do a menstrual extraction with a cannula, which would go in, go through the Oz, and remove the lining of the uterus before you're menstruated. And if you were pregnant, if you did have a zygote that had attached to the side of your... Well, you might not even know it yet, but you wouldn't have to worry about going to full-term with a baby if you didn't want to. And you might not even know that that was the case. And Mal fixed the cannula so the suction and stuff like that, so they weren't too strong. It wouldn't be harmful for women and he did a lot of that work. So we've known each other for a really long time through the National Organization of Men Against Sexism group that I've been involved with. And Mal has a large family foundation that he was giving away money to people, worthy cause organizations. Other feminist women's health centers would be the Mother Jones magazine. Mal was seeing the world go awry and worried about the number of people all over the planet and the asymptotic way that we're growing in population and needed some help. He couldn't figure it out himself, so he brought all these people in and he was giving them donations every year. And he said at one point, "You know, every year I give you guys money for pulling babies out of the river that are floating down the river. You help people all the time." He said, "But you come back the next year and you need more money for pulling babies out of the river." And he said, "It's that story about the three wise people that were sitting by the river." And so babies floating down and pulled a couple of them out. And he said, "Well, to the third wise person, we go save that baby." And the third wise person said, "I can't, I'm going upstream to find out why they're falling in." He said, "I need help from you people who are doing all this kind of good social work out in the world to figure out why babies are falling in." So he set up a wonderful situation with the foundation where he has us gather in Martha's Vineyard every year and would give people grants and say, "But 20% of the money I give you, you can't spend it for business as usual. You got to use it for up the river. You got to do stuff collaborating with each other. We're looking for reasons why we're in the situation we're in so we can address the root causes of this." And it was really remarkable because some organizations didn't want anything to do with that. So they would depart. And they also wanted to get the highest ranking woman official in the organization to come and work. Because women's mandate is more to try to, there's a woman named Judith Hand. I think I mentioned this in the album somewhere, but Judith is an anthropologist. She says, "For women's biological mandate is to get her kids to be old enough to bear children." So her genes can stay in the gene pool. It isn't something you really think of consciously. It's just the way that we're built because it's been going on for thousands and thousands and thousands of years with our ancestors. Man's biological mandate is to spread as much sperm as possible so that their genes can stay in the gene pool. So consequently, when there's resources available, men tend to use it to make themselves look more important so they can look more attractive to women and have more sex. And women tend to want to build infrastructure and be around people that can protect their kids so that their kids can get to be appropriate of age. So Mal said, "We need women to come to the forefront now, as what I'm looking for here, so that we can organize and take a look at this stuff and see what we can do about population, what we can do about a lot of the social issues." And he said, "I don't know. I'm expecting you guys to come up with it." So for the last 12 years or so, we've been meeting once a year on Martha's Vineyard, and we talk about stuff and we share information. I'm very, very lucky to be part of this group because it's just informed me wonderfully, and I've met incredible people that are doing wonderful work, and I wrote a bunch of songs about some of the things that feminist women's health centers is a group called Hollaback, which is preventing street harassment and building an organization around the world. There's a gene sharp of the Albert Einstein Institute that comes up, has materials on how to non-violently overthrow dictators. There's a bunch of these songs I just felt like I should do something about helping to publicize the other people in this group. So I wrote a bunch of songs for them, and I figured, "I'm going to put this on an album just because folks need to know these groups are there." And it's a great album, folks. Go to PeterAusop.com, and you'll find a link to it. Get it right away, and I think your life will be richer for it. You talked about the babies in the river, so why don't we listen to the title track, "River of Life", is the song. This will put the whole thing in perspective. Here it is, "River of Life" by PeterAusop. ♪ Floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some float better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ You help me and I help you ♪ ♪ Floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some float better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ You help me and I help you ♪ ♪ We've been pulling babies up and out of the river ♪ ♪ Helping kids buy the thousands every day ♪ ♪ As folks go floating by we pull 'em up and get 'em to dry ♪ ♪ But every year the story stays the same ♪ ♪ Some say it's been this way forever ♪ ♪ Some say there's just a hope so I try ♪ ♪ Some laymen or fear of fate ♪ ♪ Some say it's just too late ♪ ♪ But I cannot sit here and wait to die ♪ ♪ 'Cause we're floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some float better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Floating down the river of life together ♪ ♪ You help me and I help you ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ So some of us went upstream to get to the bottom ♪ ♪ Find a lot of folks who don't know what to do ♪ ♪ Scared and lonely just like us ♪ ♪ They don't want to make a fuss ♪ ♪ But there's just too many cracks where kids fall through ♪ ♪ So we're changing the way the story's going ♪ ♪ By teaching kids and families how to swim ♪ ♪ 'Cause it's really hard to drown ♪ ♪ With everyone around ♪ ♪ So we're swimming all together, jump on in ♪ ♪ Now we're swimming down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some swim better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Swimming down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Swimming with me, I'll swim with you ♪ ♪ We're singing down the river of life together ♪ ♪ 'Cause some sing better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Swimming down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Sing with me, I'll sing with you ♪ ♪ We'll try dancing ♪ ♪ Dancing down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some dance better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Dancing down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Dance with me, I'll dance with you ♪ ♪ Swimming one more time ♪ ♪ We're swimming down the river of life together ♪ ♪ Some swim better than others ♪ ♪ Yes, it's true ♪ ♪ Swimming down the river of life together ♪ ♪ You help me and I help you ♪ ♪ You help me and I help you ♪ The title track of Peter Alsop's latest release, "River of Life." He's talking about various aspects of this world that need healing, and he's talking about his connection to Mal Jones and up the river endeavors. You'll find a link on northernspiritradio.org. Babies in the river, yes. Let's deal with the problem up front. When you talk about health, GMO cafe is one of the songs on there. I don't think we'll listen to it right now what people can get, "River of Life," and then they can hear it. But, yeah, GMOs. We're putting something in the stream and something's going to happen downstream, and we're not at all sure what it does. We're experimenting on ourselves. You want to mention a few words, though, about GMO cafe? Well, I will. And I think it's also relevant. I was trying to figure out, as everybody else said, up the river endeavors, saying, "What are the root causes and what can we do?" And I'm a believer that the last album I did, "Before River of Life or Adults," it's called "Disciples of Perfection." And some of the concepts that I wrote songs about in that album also came out of up the river, though. I wasn't as explicit about up the river organization if it was with "River of Life." The disciples of Perfection is something, again, that the male brain does. I'm going to answer your question about the GMOs I'm getting there. But we put together a concept that says, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if things are this way?" "Hi, honey, look at this. It'd be great, and this works here and this works here." And the male brain does that a lot, and the women are going, "Yes, dude, that's what-- hold that thought. I'll be right back. I've got to feed the kids." And there's nothing wrong with having that kind of way of being in the world and men taking that way. The problem is when men take what power they have and try to force real life to fit what their image of how it should be. That's what extremism is, religious extremism or nationalism, that kind of stuff where there's a concept that doesn't quite fit real life, so we're, by golly, we're going to force everyone to do that. That's where the problem comes from. So as I was thinking about the stuff with "River of Life," I realized that one of the things that I don't do very easily, as in most men I know, and some women, is embracing the chaos of the world. We look at the world and we're trying to organize it a lot of times, trying to make sense out of what we see what our experience is. You ever go out to the woods, you go, "Well, what a mess out here, y'all. Look at all these twigs over here. I'll put the flowers over there." It's like instead of going, "This is incredible. It's chaotic." And I'm okay sitting amidst this because I can experience some stuff. I don't have to try to organize it and control it because it's not my job to do all of that. One of the things about the "River of Life" songs, talks about we're floating down the river together, is how do we just keep pulling babies out who are in trouble as opposed to jumping in with them. So it's all of us doing something together. It's the power of community, it's the power of family. What happens is that when we start pitting each other, one country against the other, or one person people of certain color against another people of certain color, that we're not looking at the stuff that can save us and can help us in trying times that happen inevitably to all of us. So what you brought about the GMO cafes, it's not that. I'm willing to bet you that there's people that work for Monsanto and other places that are intentionally modified foods that don't eat them themselves. It's like fracking. A lot of the people that frack don't frack in their neighborhood because they don't want to lose their property values if the water table gets screwed up. It's outsiders that come in and do it because of making money. That you can make money this way. And some of them do, of course. But there's story after story about people that go, "You know, I just didn't know. I'm sorry that I did that about some of the different things." And we need to err these days on the side of caution. Even just to say, let's make sure that these things are not going to screw up as much as we can. And let's embrace the chaos of going, "It seems like we don't know exactly what's happening, but if we all jump into river, okay. If we have genetically modified organisms, I'm willing to say, "Let's take a look at that." But rather than putting them on the market and selling them, because the GMO cafe song is about a friend of mine who sells organic seeds and works on helping people have heirloom crops and things that haven't been genetically altered by humans in order to sell them so they have a longer shelf life or whatever else they might be or so that they can take round up and not die so that they can spread round up around and everything else dies, but you're in corn because it's been genetically modified. She said she went out to a cafe one time. This is a true story. She sat down and she said, "Are the GMOs in the food?" And someone said, "GMOs? Gee, I don't know." And when they asked a chef, "Nobody knew about GMOs." So I'm just thinking, "I'm not even necessarily opposed to GMOs. I am, but I want more information about this stuff before we start trying it on ourselves." And a lot of the people that I think are making a lot of money, I don't think we're probably going to feed that stuff to their kids until there's more information. So that's the stuff that I wrote about in the GMO cafe that we're not going to play right now, but you would hear. I also have a song called "It's Just Capital." It has to do with the same kind of thing. What kind of thing? About taking a look at the systems that were organized within that have to do with individual people making a lot of money and not looking at doing stuff communally. I'm not a big fan, Mark, as you know, of labels. Like, for instance, you could call someone a spoiled child. I go, "Okay, that doesn't help me because if I think about something that's spoiled, I think I'm meat that's spoiled. So what do you want to do a spoiled meat? You want to throw it away? What do you want to do with a spoiled kid? You throw them away." And I'm going, "That doesn't help me as a human service professional." Give me some verbs. Tell me what this kid is doing, because that I can work with. If the kids are probably doing the best they know how to get whatever they need, and if I can give them some new verbs, I can show them some other ways to do that, you won't have such a reaction to them to call them spoiled anymore. They'll be more successful at doing some stuff. So labels don't really help. What happens is in just capital is I saw a woman after a hurricane, I think it was in Staten Island or something I could come through, and she was crying because her whole house was just too decimated, and her grown children were standing there with her, and she was crying and talking to one of the TV reporters. "I've lost everything. I have no reason to live anymore." And thinking, "Wow, this lady bought a bill of goods from somebody. She's got these kids standing there. They've got their grandchildren. She has no reason to live anymore." It's because she doesn't have her things that we're not somebody. Imagine how sad it is for someone to feel like you're not somebody. You have no reason to be alive as precious gift that we have for however long we have it. I think we're here to learn lessons, and yeah, it sucks. No question about it. But now you get up and say, "Okay, where do I go from here? What am I supposed to be learning? How do we do this?" It's the verbs. It's the stuff that we do, the behaviors that we have, and how do we live with the fact that there are character things around us. The capitalistic system doesn't allow for that a lot of times. It's about making as much money as possible and not doing stuff communally, not valuing, love, and caring about each other in ways that are communal. It requires, "Yeah, I love my family. I'm a capitalist. I want to make as much money as possible so my family can have resources." That other people don't get, some of the workers don't get those kinds of resources. It's the things we need to be thinking about our part in supporting systems that are not sustainable and are working very well in capitalism as one of them. So let's listen to just capital. It's off Peter Hausen's newest release, "River of Life." The other night I had a dream, seems like yesterday. Fire and flood ran through my home, swept all my things away. The stuff I only scattered, every single thing. I sat there in rubble, and this voice began to sing. It's just capital. All the stuff you own. It's just capital. Now your capital's all gone. It's just capital. It was more stuff than you need. It's just capital. And you are still alive, you see. It's just capital. It's just capital. Thought I was going crazy. This had to be a dream. The whole thing seemed so real, but I could not even scream. I've no capitalistic but without my stuff. I'm dead, and that voice began to sing again in my head. It's just capital. Insecure securities. It's just capital. See the forest, not the trees. It's just capital. You've been lost in the woods. It's just capital. You've been sold a bill of goods. It's just capital. Just capital. I woke up in a cold sweat. Tried to write this down. There are certain things we have to have. If we're gonna stick around. Foody clothing on our backs and the money bankers loan us. But I wonder if it's possible. Can I think that we own all of us? It's just capital. Now I think I understand. It's just capital. What I own's not who I am. It's just capital. We can never get enough. It's just capital. But I don't need all this stuff. It's just capital. Just capital. As long as we're alive. There is hope and we go on. It's the people who we love that help us make it through the dawn. The outstretched hair, the gentle touch. Loving things that people lose. Community not capital is what will pull us through. It's just capital. If my capital is gone. It's just capital. Why my life can still go on. It's just capital. Yes God gave me a shove. It's just capital. So now I invest in love. Invest in love. Can we invest in love? Well that was just capital. And again it's on River of Life CD. You're relating to different aspects of how we're going to make this world a better place. So just capital is one of them. I've got some questions about that. First I want to remind our listeners that you are listening to spirit and action. This is a northern spirit radio production and we're on the web at northernspiritradio.org and that's RG like inorganic as opposed to GMOs. So on that website you'll find nine and a half years of our programs free listening and download. You'll find links to our guests. If you find up to River Endevers or Peter Alsop you can find that on northernspiritradio.org. There's a place for comments. We love two way communication. It's good that you listen to us but your voice is important. So please post a comment when you visit and look at other people's comments. There's also a place to donate. We need your support. So you can click on support and donate to us. That is how we fund this endeavor. I especially want to remind you to support your local community radio station. They provide a slice of news and music that you get just nowhere else on the American airwaves. So start by supporting them. Again our guest today is Peter Alsop the latest album "River of Life" about up to river endeavors. And we just spoke about just capital. And there's something that you said in the introduction to that Peter that I wanted to follow up on because it really is at the very root of why I do these radio programs. Why do spirit and action? What song the soul got to do with it? For me in terms of healing the world we have to build strong communities. And I think we're used to fairly superficial communities. I think of the way that unions used to support each other. Millions did a lot of good and I think they probably hurt a number of people too. But I think especially they did a lot of good and built much about which is really good in the United States. But we don't have that sense of locking arms. Who's got your back? What are your best examples? What are the places you see where there's really tight community? People who really have each other's backs? Well if you hold up your hand and look at the five fingers and we see them as some sort of hierarchical individuals, first finger and families, second organizations, third and society. So the fourth and global stuff is the fifth. I think that there's an awful lot of what we learned in individual and family, compassion and support are lessons that we can start losing when we get into an organization. And we see some of the kinds of difficulties in organizations echoed in society and globally. Do you know what triangulation is? Mark have you ever heard of that? Sure. I know it is. Okay so for your listeners, if somebody is not familiar, my dad calls me up and says, "Hey Peter, I want to tell you something about your sister. But don't tell her I told you, okay?" And I go, "Sure dad." He tells me, "Wow, really?" And he says, "Yeah, don't tell her." I said, "Oh, okay, bye. Click ring. Hi, it's your sister. Did dad say anything to you about me?" Well now I have to either lie to my father or lie to my sister. And who put me in that position? I did by agreeing with my dad. Do we see that happening in families? Absolutely. But if I learn to say to my dad, "Dad, if you want to tell me something about my sister, go ahead, but I'm not going to guarantee I won't bring it up." So that's a problem. Don't tell me because I really don't want to know, which isn't the truth. I'm dying about. But I can try to stick up for myself so I don't get into that situation. And do you see triangulation organizations? Do you see it's society and globally? Absolutely. The stuff that we learn in the smaller areas of how to support each other and how to take care of each other and how to have someone's back, there's times when you have someone's back, but there's other times if you love someone you say, "You know, I'd love to have your back on this, but I don't think that you did the right thing there. I think it's a problem. And it's hard for me to support you in that because of what you did and how you did it. It's the same thing with organizations. When do you speak up? If you speak up to someone who's in power in the organization, you can get fired and it can be really scary to lose your job. But then there's a question, "Do I want to work or a place where they do this stuff to other people? Do they do stuff that's not okay or do I speak up because they care about the organization or can people over the next finger of the country?" People like Ed Snowden and Chelsea Manning, people that speak up and say, "That wasn't okay and I need to say something about it, but now I'm going to be in prison for the rest of my life or killed." As I said, because other people want to frame me in some kind of form that says that I'm looking for self advancement when, in fact, I'm just concerned about it and there's no dialogue about it. So in terms of what do I think about support, I think that there's a concerted move between people that are disciples of perfection who want it, the way they want it and they want to control it. It's a way of seeing the world and there's sincere about it. And they have some validity to some of the things that they're doing, but it's run from fear. I'm afraid that I have to be the one that's in charge, women and children automatically are emotional and do things that they shouldn't do, so I'm going to be in charge and tell them what to do and whoever else I can tell what to do. It tends to be one way of living. The other way is a style that says, "You know, the world's scary out there and I want my kids to have skills because I'm not always going to be around, so I've got to let them try things." As long as you're not going to get killed doing it, I'm going to want them to try on their own. Even if I disagree with it because that's how they're going to learn and build those skills themselves. And that's part of the living with chaos around us and understanding that I'm not trying to always organize and control stuff. I still end up with this question. What I'm seeing in our country right now is a lack of an effective coalition to move the country in a good direction because I think as you know, on perhaps the liberal end of the spectrum, there is much of a tendency to prevent each other's good agendas from going forward because it doesn't quite match our own. I think that in the 50 years that I've been watching politics, in particular, I've seen people who march together being much more effective and that's not necessarily because they're right, but I guess that which wins wins. Recently this past week, a lot of people evidently are losing their food benefits because the coalition, the people working together, who's got your back, doesn't work as well in protection of their good. Well, an awful lot of it I agree in. I think there's a bunch of things about getting in the streets and marching and talking to each other. I think when a bunch of the Hispanic kids went out on a march in Los Angeles here and one of the radios was interviewing one of the kids, "Come on, you're just trying to get out of school. Are you?" He goes, "Yeah, man. Some of my friends are, but I'm not. You know, I remember what Zapata and those people said, "If you walk together, you talk together and maybe I can teach some of my friends about the importance of some of the stuff that they're just trying to get out of school now, but they're going to learn some stuff." I thought, "That was great." It's the same thing I've seen people at Peace March just spanking their children for misbehaving and they're, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What's wrong with this picture?" Nothing about different between the left and the right. The right is trying to maintain the status quo by controlling it. The left is splintered because there's 500,000 different ways to think about how the future might be. There isn't one unified thought about. Let's keep things like they are. It's like, "It could be this way. No. It could be this way. It could be that way." There's all sorts of issues with how do we learn how to do that? We're a lot of times we're just talking about tactics. How do we make the world a better place? There's people who want to maintain the status quo and even me sometimes they go, "I don't think that's such a bad idea. I just need some tweaking. We need to do it a little bit differently, maybe, but it's working over here." Having that dialogue is what's important. There's a song on the album called "Me and You" that I wrote. It's about just exactly that thing. What happens is we lose the dialogue. We lose the ability to talk to each other because people, I was talking about labels before and I've said to my audience that sometimes, "I bet there's some Christians here. You don't have to stand up. We'll find out who you are in a minute." Let me ask you, would you raise your hand if you've ever seen another Christian coming toward you and you wanted to go the other way and people started laughing and raising their hands? It's not because of the label of who you are. It's about how that person does their Christianity, the verb again. They do it without any concern for the people around them. They're just pushing their own agenda and that's why those other Christians don't want to be around them. It's the same thing when you're having dogs that people have a different idea and a lot of the right-wing talk radio hosts, vilify and label people in ways that left when people can also be closed minded too, certainly. But my song "Me and You" says, "You don't have to see it my way, but I want you to see my way because if you can see my way, you don't have to do it. You don't have to do it. I just want you to see it because we can't have a dialogue if you don't at least see what the nobility of my purpose is, why I think this is a good idea. You don't have to agree. You know what? If you're going to take the time to do that, I don't want to do it your way necessarily right now because I want to see it your way, but I want to see your way and see why you think that's a good idea because now we're going to be able to talk. There was a song called "Me and You" which I think is important to pop down. My way is scary for you, you don't need to see it my way. If you can see my way, can you find some part of you when you see me? I don't need to see it your way if I can see your way, show me what you want me to see. When we know we're right, then the other one's wrong, no one's going to win this war. I thought a lie that I wrote this song, been down this road before, there's no way out when we yell and shout, we know this fight was no fun. We may seem different, but we act the same, nothing changes, nothing gets done. You don't need to see it my way, if you can see my way, can you find some part of you when you see me, and I don't need to see it your way, if I can see your way, show me what you want me to see. If you see my way, can you see me, and I need to try your shoes, it might not fit, but I'm going to sit here and listen until you're through, I hear your story and you hear mine, got to come up with something new, it's only going to stop if we find a way, it comes down to me and you, don't need to see it my way, if you can see my way, can you find some part of you when you see me, I don't need to see it your way, if I can see your way, please show me what you want me to see, it's me and you, just you and me. Peter Alsop, me and you from River of Life, just released, find the link to it from nordenspiritradio.org, me and you, Peter, you don't have to see it my way, you just have to see my way. Is this one of the things that you talk about, I mean you've dealt with Fortune 500 companies and with schools, I assume that's one of the issues you've been pointing out over the years. I've certainly talked about verbs and nouns and preference for verbs or something you can do something about and with, also has to do, but I haven't used it, I haven't spoken about it exactly in that way, that came up recently, I said it and I went wow, I think that's good, I can use that. The verbs and nouns thing has just been very, very helpful because we can, it's like kids that have low self esteem or have low self worth, I think I'm just bad, I'm just a bad kid, they go hang on to the label and makes sense that if you're a bad kid then why not just go ahead and keep being bad, you've used to it, you're familiar with it even if it's uncomfortable and you get in trouble, but if you did something that wasn't okay, that's actually empowering because you can change what you do, but you can't change who you are, so if you're seen us and you also see yourself as a labeled thing, you're a terrorist or you're a communist or you're a right winger even, that you know, there might be, those kind of labels don't help us appreciate the humanness in the other person and have a discussion about how we're doing what we're doing because that's what's informative and that's what runs the world and that's how we can change things is by altering how we're doing some of the things we're doing. Well, one thing that you include a lot of is humor of various sorts. By approaching something lightly, you find a way and one of the songs from many years ago is hopelessly heterosexual, I love that song, turning the focus looking at it from the other side and it's like, yeah, please be my best friend, don't hold it against me, yikes, seeing it from the other side is just wonderful, you're humor and you include some on this CD as well. I mean, we've seen hints of humor and what's been coming so far, but while blowing us out with another topic that you approach humorously, well, you've been listening to the album, which I really appreciate, there's a couple that I used to humor on, there's a woman named Emily May, a friend of people called Hollaback, it's IHollaback.com, which I even put into the song, but I was trying to think of some way because it's about stopping street harassment, you know, it seems like it's a tame kind of a thing, you know, it's just, oh, hey, baby, or whatever, if you're a guy, it's what's a big deal. I'm telling her how much I like her, you know, hey, you got a cue, but, you know, and you don't have to do anything, but it's so ways on women to go out on the road, like my girlfriend, so again, 45 years ago, we were living in New York and I said, come on, you're a feminist, it's your turn to go down and get the newspapers, because you have no idea why you should do it instead of me. I go, well, no, but I did it already, and she goes, well, it's here, follow me, about 20 paces behind me, I said, okay, I took the challenge and I went down and the landscape was so different for her, she wasn't dressed in any way that was provocative, but the little flower in the cellar on the corner was making lewd sounds with his mouth at her and stuff like that, and she was getting all old and stuff and I was going, okay, that sucks, doesn't happen to me, it wasn't my experience of the world. And so, I've been a feminist for a bunch of years, because I'm looking at some of the things that women happen to them, their experience in the world, as well as I can, as a man and going, that's not okay, basically the oldest power differential is men forcing women to do things because they're bigger and stronger, instead of having some equity about our equal humanity on the planet, and also happens to kids get forced to do stuff all the time. So street harassment is at the base of so many of the kinds of things that we run into with all the rapes, which I don't think have slowed down, we're not out of three young women sexually abused by the time we're 18, I've been saying that statistic for the last 40 years, that doesn't seem to have changed. It's about us men taking a look at what's our behavior, where does that leave us when we use certain language about women, and so stopping street harassment is a really important thing, and it's important that we don't have to do it in our personal lives, remember those five things that we were talking about, the individual family, but also organizationally we stop harassment and societally and say it's not okay to do that, the minute you're demeaning someone because of your own issues and making them smaller than, instead of looking at what they do or what they can do, you're limiting them by seeing them as a piece of meat or a sexual object, and not okay, that's something that we can work on because it doesn't come naturally. So I wrote a song called "Hollaback" that I didn't really write the music to, I borrowed it from the old song "Lollipop" and I rewrote the lyrics and I tried to make it commercial, I know people on the left have great ideas, but they're not so good at advertising sometimes, so I wrote a couple of jingles, one was for iHollaback.com and Emily's got an organization that have a whole bunch of different people from all over the world, young women, they've gotten together, started in all of it, probably I don't know how many different 42 countries that may be more than that now, where they've got little chapters of "Hollaback" where they're working to organize locally to stop street harassment and make a place where women can talk to each other online, tell their stories that don't get told, and invite men to participate and let's stop this stuff that we're doing, just taking advantage of people in this way, "Hollaback." Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, walking with my girlfriend down the street, this fellow treats me like a piece of meat, I want to hit it with a big bat stone, but I take this picture with my phone and put it on Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Don't be a dumb dumb, we're telling stories that are being alone, we've got computers and we've got cell phones, we've got a global movement growing here, and we refuse to be oppressed by fear, cause we are Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, We know you're horny, you have made it clear, but it is not a job to help you deal, you're still a boy who doesn't understand, so go home and honey use your hand in private, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, No means no Joe, you wanna know why you don't turn us on, log on to iHollaback.com, and read the story, see if you relate, you can change your ways, it's not too late, to join us on, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, oh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Do right tonight, we're stopping street harassment, me and you, Straighten L and G and B and D and Q Every color man and woman, every shape and size Hollaback has got us organized Three four, Hollaback, Hollaback Ooh, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback Oh Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback Oh Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback, Hollaback It's a vast improvement on the lyrics for the original lollipop song Hollaback by Peter Alsop and you'll find it on River of Life Again, Peter, what you're doing on this is this kind of fruits of many of the ways of thinking about improving the world that you've run into in your work with Mal Jones and Up the River Endevers So what kind of efforts is Hollaback one of those things that's supported by Up the River Endevers? What kind of things do they actually end up supporting? Well, they've been tons and tons of different organizations There's been a couple of feminist women's health centers The Atlanta Feminist Women's Health Center and Feminist Women's Health Centers of California where they provide full service care for women in the community One of my songs called "We're Here For You" which is exactly about that There's a group called the Albert Einstein Institute which supports a man who has worked named Gene Sharp Dr. Gene Sharp is a teacher at Harvard who's for 40 years been working on looking at how people have used nonviolent means to overthrow dictators and how much more successful that is than trying to overthrow dictators by using their same means which is guns and violence and fear They've worked with the supported Mother Jones magazine and they've supported Gene Goodall Institute and there's just been tons of stuff and tons of the National Organization of Men Against Sexism the National Women's Health Network which takes a look at some of the kinds of medicines and things that pharmaceuticals say this is really good but they haven't done good research on it solid research and so they've forced things like hormonal therapy and stuff on women and sometimes there's side effects that have not been proven so the National Women's Health Center has watched dogs that So many important topics and good work to address much of it sung about on your latest CD How about one more topic and song to finish off this Spirit and Action episode? What should we play and why? We could play Let's Not Do This anymore which is something that came from me hearing some domestic violence going on in a tent next to us and I didn't want to go out and get involved in particular but they were being violent with each other and I wanted to go out and just witness so I stood there but I also talked to my audiences so would you ever see a kid getting hit in a supermarket and raise your hand if you know what to do to intervene and I'm talking to a room full of human search professionals the hands don't go up because that's happened to a lot of us you're afraid if you intervene some way that's not defective the kid will get hurt worse same thing with domestic violence so sometimes just witnessing this going being there and I wrote a song called "Let's Not Do This anymore" which is thinking about how to intervene in some way so that we don't make the person who's doing the behavior we don't like the other we say include ourselves and so don't you do this anymore it's like let's not do this because that's meant to do these things let's not just use our power to force ourselves and our ideas on other people let's not do this it's not getting us anywhere let's be inclusive let's not do this anymore a sleep late at night in a crowded campsite crashed woke me up then a scream and a curse outside my tent couple having a fight I went out but it only got worse she yelled in his face then he shoved her down threatened to hit her she did it again I was scared but I stood in my ground he stared back we got a problem here friend I said let's not do this anymore maybe where you're from you can hit someone but hitting someone never settles the score so let's not do this anymore then she yelled at me too with tears in her eyes it's none of your business so go away he stepped up twice my size and the only thing I could think to say was let's not do this anymore some men think this is what women are born but it's not true and you know it too so let's not do this anymore he cocked his head clenched his hand I don't need lessons from a jerk like you maybe not but I understand you'd be doing this better if you knew what to do let's not do this anymore if you're really that strong then pass it along hitting someone but people are falling so hey let's not do this anymore [music] he grabbed her arm said get in the car it's your fault as they walked away and I'm not sure but through their open window I thought I heard him say let's not do this anymore that dude's right hey I don't want to fight this kind of stuff is what turns into war so let's not do this anymore let's just not do this anymore [music] [music] that's the last song we're sharing today by Peter Alsop from his River of Life CD you obviously went up to someone in the tent and said let's not do this anymore did you literally say those words? I did not what I did do is he was threatening and they were drinking and I just didn't do that I thought about it afterwards and it made me write this song and as I started writing as I wanted to tell him it's not okay to do that and I understood the frustrations and stuff but unless you sit down and think about what kind of behavior you should take beforehand so it's about thinking and talking about this with friends figuring out what kind of things they would do and just having that dialogue so that you have more tools in your toolbox when you run into this so that it isn't like new and fresh and you have no idea what to do you've never even thought about it there's not easy solutions but there's certainly closer to possible solutions if we actually prepare for it which is also what I like so much about Gene Sharp's book and again that song would be a good book you'll hear it on the CD "River of Life" along with many other thought-provoking approaches that will get you to see how we can make this a better world there's so many different areas where Peter House up you've been giving us valuable food for thought for so many years I thank you so much for holding up the example of Mal Jones and up the river endeavors and continuing to produce fun music that makes my life so much better thank you so much Peter thanks Mark I find Peter and his music at peteralsop.com or follow the link from Nordenspiritradio.org and we'll see you next week for "Spirit in Action" The theme music for this program is "Turning of the World" performed by Sarah Thompson this spirit in action program is an effort of Northern Spirit Radio you can listen to our programs and find links and information about us and our guests on our website northernspiritradio.org thank you for listening I am your host Mark Helpsmeet and I welcome your comments and stories of those leading lives of spiritual fruit may you find deep roots to support you and grow steadily toward the light this is "Spirit in Action" with every voice with every song we will know this world along with every voice with every song we will know this world along and our lives will feel the echo of our healing [MUSIC PLAYING]