Spirit in Action
Death and Taxes - Karen Brandow
Karen Brandow is a political activist whose association with Charlie King has led her to use music as one of her tools for change. 2 issues at the forefront for Karen are War Taxes & The Death Penalty. Karen spent 8 years in Central America, doing accompaniment & other work, was raised in a culturally Jewish household, is trained as a spiritual director.
- Broadcast on:
- 22 Jan 2012
- Audio Format:
- other
(upbeat music) ♪ Let us sing this song for the healing of the world ♪ ♪ That we may hear as one ♪ ♪ With every voice, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ ♪ And our lives will feel the echo of our healing ♪ - Welcome to Spirit in Action. My name is Mark helps me. 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, with every song ♪ ♪ We will move this world along ♪ - Today for a spirit in action, we'll be speaking with Karen Brandow. I got to know of Karen through the music she creates with a longtime musical activist favorite of mine, Charlie King. For a number of years, Karen and Charlie have been producing a wealth of musical commentary on issues near and dear to my own heart. If you are regular spirit and action listener, you've no doubt heard some of their songs as part of other programs I've presented. Today, we'll be visiting with Karen Brandow and listening to some of their music about death and taxes, two issues close to the center for Karen recently. Karen Brandow joins us from Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Karen, I'm very pleased to have you here today for a spirit in action. - Thanks so much for asking me to be part of this great show. - Karen, are you a folk singer or what is your major profession? What's your job? - That's such a great question, Mark. I've actually been thinking about that a bit. I'm not going to give you an easy answer here about what I would say if somebody asked me. So what do you do, Karen? And the best I can come up with is that I am a political activist. I am a worker for social justice and peace and that takes various forms. One of them is my being a traveling folk musician thanks to my partnership with Charlie King, who was doing that long before I came along and became his partner. - So you were a musician still before you met him or did you also catch me a musician, Chep, from him? - No, I grew up learning and teaching myself how to play guitar when I was about nine years old and sang with friends in junior high and high school and sang in the choir. When I moved to Guatemala, which was in 1986, I was very much a closet musician. I was one of those people who was terrified to play when people were listening and the friends in Guatemala who were musicians were very clear with me. There's a term in Spanish, "egoisto," which means selfish, as they said. Karen, it's very egoisto of you to have a talent as you're not gonna share it. So they pushed me slash encouraged me to play when people were actually in the room with me. So I started singing and playing guitar in public there. And I also formed a women's acapella singing group called the non-traditional imports. We were all foreigners. So I was doing some of that when I moved back to the US in '94 and I met Charlie in '95. - I was doing the math while you were speaking and I realized that means you spent a number of years in Guatemala. What were you doing there? And I mean, that's a long time. You must be very fluent in Spanish by now. - I am fluent in Spanish and I maintain this is another one of my tracks of the activism is I'm still doing Spanish interpreting and translating for progressive groups. And so I keep up my fluency that way. I lived in Guatemala and Mexico working with Guatemalan refugees for eight years. During that time, I did a lot of wonderful and different things. Accompanied to people who were under threat because of their own political involvement as what we would call an unarmed bodyguard with human rights teams. I led a lot of about 25 delegations of people from different countries who wanted to know more about what was happening in Guatemala. I taught peer counseling to some people who were doing organizing and I worked with street children for a while. Oh, of course, one of the major things I did is I worked with International Labor Solidarity and trying to offer opportunities to people to have links between workers in Guatemala and workers in other parts of the world. A lot of good work you were doing there. The topic you chose for today's spirit and action, and I knew, of course, that you and Charlie King have been active in so many venues and so many different topics, but the topics that you chose for today were death and taxes. So give us a little bit of background of your connection with death and taxes. - It's a little bit of a provocative title coming out, obviously, of that adage that there are only two things in life that are certain death and taxes. And one thing, perhaps, to challenge that a little bit. Two of the issues that I've been involved with for quite a while, one I came into through my association with Charlie King, my partner, because he'd been involved with it already, which is a movement to abolish the death penalty in the United States. And then the taxes part is that, I would say when I was 30 years old, it was a pretty significant year for me. And one of the ways that was significant was that I got introduced to the two Guatemalans who encouraged me to go to their country and how that happened. And the other was that I was attending a workshop with Wally and Juanita Nelson. They are people, longtime activist, much longer than I am, who live in the Syrian Western Massachusetts. And Wally asked me a question I couldn't answer, which was, Karen, how can you continue to work for peace and pay for war? And he was alluding to my participation in paying federal income taxes and how much of that goes for the purposes of defense, weapons, war, et cetera. I could not come up with a good answer for him, and that was the year that I stopped paying taxes. That's been an important backdrop to my life since then, not only in the non-payment of taxes, but the lifestyle choices inherent in making that decision. A number of us are war tax resistors. I've certainly been one since 1982, but part of the issue is if I don't pay it, they come and take it one way or another as best they are able. The lifestyle changes you've made that have helped you be effective as a war tax resistor. You wanna mention a few of those? - I can, and it's very interesting that word effective because I thought you were gonna go a different direction with that. I wanna say that I think of it as a form of conscientious objection. So it's primarily for my own consistency with my values and my conscience and what my spirit can live with. So I'm not thinking of it so much as a tactic per se that I think is gonna shift US budget priorities or set up the war. It's really for my own internal well-being and integrity. That said, the lifestyle choices that I've made have been in part looking at what is what I think is my fair share of financial resources on the planet and trying to live at that level. And so it means that compared to some other people in my social group, I earn less than a lot of folks do. My income is approximately $10,000 a year. It means I don't have a bank account, I don't have a credit card, I don't have a car, I don't have a home. I can't accept a job that has taxes taken out of it. So there's essentially nothing to be taken from me as part of a collections process. And that's part of that life choice on my part. - Well, you and Charlie both do music to support war tax resistors, yourselves and others, I'm sure. Can you share some of the music that speaks about this issue or the various aspects of it? - One of the songs that Charlie wrote to support war tax resistors, and I think he wrote this in the '80s, was a parody of the song Bye Bye Blackbird. It's a song called Don't Pay Taxes. And we rerecorded it around 2003, updated the third verse a little bit to fit the times, but it's pretty much still relevant. - In New York City in 1982, when a million people took to the streets, I'll bet some of you were there. We learned that Secretary of State Alexander Heg was asked to comment on this march, and his comment was, "Let them march all they want, "just as long as they continue to pay their taxes." So in that spirit, we offer. ♪ The IRS says pay your dues ♪ ♪ This just doesn't, why should you ♪ ♪ Don't pay taxes ♪ ♪ And run skipped a year or two ♪ ♪ Show the tax man you're no fool at all ♪ ♪ Pay taxes ♪ ♪ You can end this yearly aggravation ♪ ♪ Just pretend that you're a corporation ♪ ♪ And tell him that you're working hard ♪ ♪ Thrilling oil wells in your yard ♪ ♪ Don't pay your taxes ♪ ♪ A package you don't want or need ♪ ♪ Arrives this April, COD ♪ ♪ Don't pay taxes ♪ ♪ A few demented terrorists ♪ ♪ Have got you on their mailing list ♪ ♪ Don't pay taxes ♪ ♪ Please report these sleazy overspenders ♪ ♪ Mark your tax return, return to sender ♪ ♪ Call John Ashcroft or any fed ♪ ♪ It's obscene, unsolicited ♪ ♪ Don't pay your tax ♪ ♪ The dollars that you pay for won't kill people ♪ ♪ In El Salvador ♪ ♪ Don't pay taxes ♪ ♪ If some escaped to this fair land ♪ ♪ Your dollars send them back again ♪ ♪ Don't pay taxes ♪ ♪ The generals say they want you where they got you ♪ ♪ They got your buy in Black Hawk helicopters ♪ ♪ You work for peace, you pay for it ♪ ♪ If you hate war, don't pay for it ♪ ♪ Don't pay your tax ♪ ♪ Yeah, tell me I RS this year ♪ ♪ Let 'em know the box stops here ♪ ♪ And don't pay your tax ♪ (audience applauds) - Doesn't that make you just wanna stand up and not pay any taxes? Thanks for the inspiration, Karen. - Well, you're welcome, and you know I don't mean to come up as proselytizing or judging anyone else's life choices, we all participate how we can, when we can, and it's all valuable, it's all a piece of big picture. - So that song was Don't Pay Taxes, and it's from the Sparks and Tears CD by Charlie and Karen. Your website or the website where people can find this, which website's the best way to go there? - The website is www.CharlieKing.org, O-R-G. We tried to get CharlieKing.com and it turned out to be a realtor in Ohio, so if you go to come, you'll end up being offered some property in Ohio, and if you don't wanna do that, but you'd rather have the music, you should go to O-R-G, CharlieKing.org. - Well, you do a lot of different music. Is there other stuff? Have you been part of activities, protests, that kind of thing? - Charlie and I do concerts for activist groups, many of them are fundraisers around the country. We also do participate in political actions around different causes, one of which I know we'll talk about a little later, is around the death penalty. And we also go down to the School of the Americas, vigil every year at Fort Benning, Georgia, and we are a presence along with thousands of other people over the weekend before Thanksgiving at the Fort Benning military base to try to close the School of the Americas, which is a training program for Latin American military and methods of counterinsurgency and interrogation. That's been going on for 21 years, and we've been there for the last 11 or 12 of those years. We also get to participate in actions in support of striking labor activists who are looking for better working conditions. We've also participated in some actions around Central America solidarity. - So we get to do a lot of really interesting and wonderful work. - Could you share some more of your music? Some music you or you and Charlie do? - Sure. Pat, some please wrote a song called We Are One that we have loved singing. And Pat wrote it in English, and I did a Spanish counterpoint melody and translation for it. And that's the version that we recorded. I think of it as a prayer and to an anthem for reconciliation among people around the world who need to be reconciled for whatever reason. ♪ Smiling face ♪ ♪ Outstretched and undisputed ♪ ♪ Small and grand ♪ ♪ We will be ♪ ♪ Down our gun ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ (gentle music) ♪ In the rain ♪ ♪ And la rabiara ♪ ♪ Through the wall ♪ ♪ O la quera ♪ ♪ We have shared ♪ ♪ Compa di mo ♪ ♪ Pain before ♪ ♪ In the low ♪ ♪ In our grief ♪ ♪ In the side ♪ ♪ When it's done ♪ ♪ Quando carbe de r1 ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ Where the earth ♪ ♪ Tuchus car ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ We are four ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ We are the ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ Where the clear ♪ ♪ La sada ♪ ♪ Water's run ♪ ♪ La rascore ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ Where the light ♪ ♪ Tocas land ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ Oversea ♪ ♪ Over sand ♪ ♪ When each day ♪ ♪ Quando carbe ♪ ♪ As begun ♪ ♪ Quando carbe ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ So, so long ♪ ♪ When the rock ♪ ♪ Quando la roca ♪ ♪ Where the waves ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ And the time ♪ ♪ La rascore ♪ ♪ Rolls and sway ♪ ♪ La rascore ♪ ♪ By them ♪ ♪ Ooh la doo la ♪ ♪ By the sun ♪ ♪ Ooh la doo la doo ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ Where the earth ♪ ♪ Tocasier ♪ ♪ Ooh la doo la ♪ ♪ We are one ♪ ♪ La rascore ♪ ♪ Where the clear ♪ We are one. We are one. In the start of the night we will learn not to fight in our hearts. In the drum. We are one. In the burn of a child. Through the fear and the past. In our daughter. And our son. We are one. In our son. We are one. In the start of the night we will learn not to fight in our hearts. That was we are one. You can get it on the puppet town CD from Charlie King and Karen Brandau. That is a beautiful song. Your Spanish counterpart in there flows so nicely. Do you think dream eat? I noticed Charlie's Spanish accent isn't anywhere near as good as yours. But do you speak Spanish at home? Is that something that you could do? I know when I first met Charlie it was one of our fantasies that I would teach him Spanish and here we are 13 years later and we still haven't started that prize. Do you remain connected to Central American and other Latin American issues? By the way myself and my wife were part of a Quaker folk dance group that was just in Cuba two months ago so we got to see a slice of it there and I got to work on my own Spanish. Oh, wonderful. Yes, I've been to Cuba twice with delegation. It's a fabulous place that really is exemplary in a number of ways in one of which is how highly they value culture and encourage young people to explore it. I have email correspondence with a number of friends from Guatemala who live there. Another track of my activism that has emerged in my life in the last few years is doing spiritual and emotional counseling and support. Particularly for young activists who have been involved in Central American solidarity work and have lived there or recently returned from there or go back and forth in their support work. I reached a point where for my spiritual physical and emotional well-being was clear that I wasn't called to do on the ground work at this point. But one way I stay connected is by supporting others who are doing that and helping them learn, have care for themselves better in order to be able to sustain that work over the long haul. That's a lot learned from my own experience of what I didn't do well. You talk about doing spiritual and emotional counseling and support. Is there a particular method? Is there a specific spiritual or religious background to it? How do you do that? Well, I think what's probably true for a lot of us, I have a graduate degree in counseling that I didn't ever use the quote unquote professionally. I finished grad school and then went down to Guatemala right away. However, the things I learned there integrated with my life experience inform everything I do. There isn't a particular method or philosophy. It just draws upon the various learnings I've had through graduate school, through being involved in peer counseling, through my own activist work, through reading. I was in a spiritual director training program. So it's a mix of influences. And I am kind of a mishmush myself spiritually. I grew up in a Jewish household and the spiritual director training program I was in was at a Jewish retreat center where I was trained. My partner, Charlie, is Catholic. So I go to Catholic retreat centers with him and do reading with him and learn about his spiritual background. I have been practicing Buddhism since about the mid-90s. And so I am immersed as well in that practice. And so I draw upon all of that to work with people, just depending on where they are and what fits. That sounds like a very rich mix. If you just tuned in, you're listening to spirit and action. My guest today is Karen Brandow. She and her partner, Charlie King, well known as musicians, but she's got a much wider involvement of her own in political activism. Self-described, as you heard earlier, as a political activist, I guess partly what that also means is somewhere near indigent. She actually doesn't feel like I'm missing out on anything. It is one of the sad things in our culture that people who are doing such good for the world don't get the financial support, which would free them up to do even more. Yeah, I'm quite easy with what I earned. A little bit of anxiety producing to be self-employed and not know for one year to the next if I'm going to make enough to pay the bills. But somehow it always works out so far, though I feel pretty blessed in that way. We are talking with Karen today about issues of death and taxes. This is a Northern Spirit Radio production, and I'm Mark Helps me. Our website is northernspiritradio.org. You can go to our site, find links to Karen and Charlie, and you can hear our archives the last five and a half years. So you can go and find out more of the music that Karen and Charlie are making. And hopefully you'll buy it directly from them because I think they get a few cents more than if you buy their music through iTunes, where you can find it as well. Very true. So do check out charlieking.org, their website. But speaking of the music that you have, let's share some more to round out your issues of death and taxes. Well, if it's an okay time to transition into the issue of the death penalty, then I will bring up a song that Charlie wrote. We have the opportunity to travel with a fabulous group called the Journey of Hope from Violence to Healing. So after the song, I'll explain what that is. But by way of introducing the song, let's say one of the people we've traveled with, the Sister Helen Praision, the author of Dead Man Walking and Subject of that film by the same name. And Sister Helen gives quite remarkable talks, and she asks a question of the audience at whatever talk that served as the basis for the song that Charlie wrote called The Worst You've Ever Done. Ever say a stupid thing, wrong place, wrong crowd, wrong day. Ever long to take it back, make it go away. Now dig a little deeper, beneath the scab of shame. Something you pray you've never done, something you dare not make. Imagine being stuck right there for all of time and time. And on the good you did or could, forgotten and denied. By some strand you can't untangle from the winding web you've spun, to only be remembered for the worst you've ever done. Maybe you betrayed a friend, perhaps you hurt a child, or once some heart broke it, just to watch that heart go wild. You might have done it on a whim, you might have been arranged, you might have done it in a war, or done it for a way. Imagine being stuck right there for all of time to come, to only be remembered for the worst you've ever done. Well you outlive the wrong you've done, and now you're living well, but some live by the hour in a solitary sound. Wait for the one, wait for the noose, wait for the morning sun, smoldering embers, only remembered for the worst they've ever done. Who will sit in judgment, and who will stand alone? Who can load another's heart, who can cast the stone, where is the healing in the vengeance that we crave? Where are the flowers for a barren unmarked grave? Out of his mouth the red red groves, out of his heart a white, for the life he can never live over, for the good he did, or might. Imagine being stuck right there for all of time to come, a smoldering ember, only remembered for the worst you've ever done. A smoldering ember, only remembered for the worst you've ever done. The worst you've ever done, it's from the CD "Puppa Town", Charlie King, and Karen Brandow, quite powerful song. You said that Charlie wrote the song, Karen, do you co-write songs, or are you just a delightful voice that's in the mix? That's such a nice way to ask that, thank you. I do not write songs, I have not found my muse in this life so far, so he writes the songs, and wonderful ones they are. You said that Charlie was involved with death penalty work before you connected with him. It's pretty clear to me from the songs you chose, and from my discussions with you earlier, that it's pretty vital to you. What's so compelling to you about the death penalty work? I think it's the way I got introduced to it, which is through the group I was mentioning, The Journey of Hope from Violence to Healing. I'd like to share a paragraph written by Tate Madhan of Vietnamese Buddhist monk. There are a series of Buddhist precepts that really are ethical principles by which we can live our life, and this is his version of the first Buddhist precept on the Reverend for Life. Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I vow to cultivate compassion and learn ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to condone any act of killing in the world in my thinking and in my way of life. That's a pretty tall order and a lifelong practice to try to examine how our lives in one form or another contribute to killing. What we were talking about earlier around taxes comes in for me around that as does the death penalty, which is kind of a silent thing that goes on in our country that unless it touches us personally, many of us don't think about, which was true for me. So then I went on the journey of hope from Violence to Healing, which is a group of people who are murder victims, family members, who are opposed to the death penalty. They are now joined by people who've been exonerated from death row who spent years there who were innocent, of whom there are now 141 in this country, as well as people who have family members on death row. And this group travels to states where they have the death penalty and they tell their personal stories, which are heart wrenching, difficult for them to tell, day in day out, difficult for us to listen to, day in day out. And they have a lot of credibility because often people will say if one talks about the death penalty and opposition to it, well you wouldn't feel that way if it happened to you. And here is a group of people to whom it did happen, who have still found their way to some combination of forgiveness, of reconciliation, of knowing that executing another person is not going to bring them healing or closure. So they're very powerful teachers around those issues, and Charlie and I travel with them to these different states, not because we have a personal story to tell, but because we drive vehicles and we sing with them and sing that there's engagements, we carry boxes, we get signatures on petitions, and we just provide company and emotional support for the speakers so that they can do this for the 17 days of the journey. I'm sure there's a lot of people, it must really blow their minds the thought that someone, you know, your relative, your wife, your husband, your child was killed, and you're speaking against revenge, the possibility that hurt injury, deep grief, does not demand violence as a response. Some people just can't imagine that one doesn't connect with the other. How do they get disconnected? I mean, how do people learn that one does not automatically lead to the other? Well, each person has their own remarkable story and journey to tell, so there's not a formula per se. For some people, it was their religious faith and a lot of prayer and a lot. It's a long, several phase journey. It's not just an overnight process. And for some people, it is a recognition that to hold on to that degree of vengeance and anger and desire for that other person to be hurt was taking such a toll on their own physical, emotional and spiritual well-being that they needed to let it go for their own rest of their life to go on. Or else they think that the perpetrator of the crime will have had another victim in themselves. So there are some people for whom that is the story. For some people, they're still on that journey. They wouldn't say they've come to a place of forgiveness, but they would say that they know that it's not right to take another person's life that it dishonors the memory of their loved ones who was killed. And I, after a few years of going on the journey, took my own involvement in the issue in a somewhat different direction as well because I started to write to and visit someone on death row in Florida. And at the end of January, I'm about to go for my visit to see him, and we've been writing for about eight years. So having that one-on-one relationship also brings a different face to the issue for me. I think that's part of what's so powerful about the song "The Worst You've Ever Done" is that they're not really foreign creatures. They're like us, and if we look within, we see those same seeds. They're but for the grace of God, go I. And I guess most people have to believe that a person on death row is a different creature, but I guess when you exchange letters for five years, it's pretty clear this is just a person. It actually, compassion is called for not just in response to the folks who are in prison, whether it be on death row or not, but for the people who are working in that system. The system is so based on seeing the prisoners as other as less than in order to be able to do that job day in and day out. And I think that Steve Earle's song, "L.S. Unit 1," really speaks to that. Steve, by the way, is another activist who abolished the death penalty. He wrote to a Texas death row prisoner, Jonathan Nobles, for about a decade, and then was asked to witness Jonathan's execution, which was a life-changing experience for Steve. And yet he wrote this song, "L.S. Unit 1," from the voices of one of the people who's on the team who carried out the execution. Because those people also suffer in this whole system. I was fresh out of the service, and it was back in '82. And I raised some king when I come back to town. I left to be all I could become without a clue. I married down and had to settle down. So I hung on at the prison, just I always knew I would. Just like my dad in both my uncles done. And I worked on every cell block now, and things are going good. But then they transferred me to L.S. Unit 1. Swing low, swing low, swing low, swing low and carry me home. Well, my daddy used to talk about them long nights at the walls. And how they used to strap them in the chair. The kids down from the college, and they'd bring their beer now. And when the lights went out, the chair rose in the air. Well, folks just got to civilize, spark his gathering dust. Cause no one wants to touch his smoking gun. And since they got the injection, they don't mind as much I guess. They just put 'em down at L.S. Unit 1. Swing low, swing low, swing low and carry me home. Well, I've seen 'em fight like lions, boys. I've seen 'em go like lambs. And I've helped to drag 'em when they could not stand. And I've heard them almost crying when they heard that big door slam. And I've seen the victims' family holding hands. Last night I dreamed that I woke up with straps across my chest. And something cold and black formed through my lungs. And even Jesus couldn't save me though I know he did his best. But he don't live on L.S. Unit 1. Swing low, swing low, swing low and carry me home. Swing low, now let go. Swing low and carry me home. Some more of the wonderful music of Steve Earl. The song is L.S. Unit 1. My guest here today for Spirit in Action is Karen Brandow. She and Charlie King have been active in work against the death penalty for a number of years now as is Steve Earl. Very powerful song, very powerful song. Does he travel with you? Is this one of the people you meet during your paragornations as you're working to support the work against the death penalty? Steve was with us on a couple of journeys. Last time I remember being with him was in Tennessee on a journey that went through that state because that's where he was living at the time. And I know he still speaks about it in the work that he does and helped to raise funds as well. Of course you have a wealth of music that you and Charlie King have done. But you chose to share one of Steve Earl's songs. You said that while you're going on these tours, as you're touring with these people, you sing. What kind of songs do you sing? First you've ever done is an obvious one. Are there other songs that you and Charlie would contribute to the program? Yes. What we do is we sing in between speakers because you can imagine that the stories that they tell, even though everybody has their own style, are kind of heart wrenching. So it helps to have music just to transition between people's stories. So sometimes we'll do kind of spiritual message songs or sing along songs for folks to be able to take a breath, a collective breath, and get centered for the next story. They're going to hear. So Charlie has a couple of songs like "Step into the Holy Circle," "Step by Step," that are from his album "Inside Out," that we share with people on the journey. Hold on. This civil rights classic is another one that we would sing. We have a whole repertoire of what we call "Journey Songs" that we sing at that time. And there's one, you know, when Charlie was first asked to join the "Journey of Hope" and to do singing one of his response as well. There are not a lot of upbeat and perky songs about the death penalty that I can bring to this. Yet we do a song called "Hey Little Ant" that was actually written for children by Phil Hose. It's a song that's written to provoke discussion among young people about a relationship between a big child and the ant. That child is about the step forward. It's on children's album and it fits very well in this context. Hey Little Ant, down in that crack, can you hear me? Can you talk back? See my shoe? Can you see that? Oh, now it's gonna squish you flat. Please, oh please, do not squish me. Spare my life and let me be. I'm on my way home with a crumb of pie. Please don't squish me. Don't make me die. Ah, anyone knows that an ant can't feel. You're so tiny you don't seem real. I'm so big and you're so small. I don't think it'll hurt at all. Yeah, well you are a giant and giants can't know how it feels to be an ant. Come down close and you will see that you are quite a lot like me. Are you crazy? Me? Like you? Why I've got a home and a family too? You're just a speck that runs around. No one will care if my foot comes down. Oh, big friend, you are so wrong. My nest mates need me 'cause I am strong. I dig our nest, feed baby ants too. I must not die beneath your shoe. Yeah, well, my mother says that ants are rude. They carry off our picnic food. They steal our chips and our bread crumbs too. Who cares if I kill a crook like you? Hey, I'm no crook kid. Read my lips. Sometimes ants need crumbs and chips. Why one of your chips feeds my whole town? You must not let your foot come down. Yeah, but all my friends squish ants each day. Squishing ants is a game we play. They're looking at us. They're listening too. They all say I should squish you. Well, I can see you're big and strong. Decide for yourself what's right and wrong. But if you were me and I were you, what would you want me to do? Should the ant get squished? Should the ant go free? It's up to the kid, not up to me. So we'll leave that kid with the raised up shoe. What do you think that kid should do? Wow, what a delightful and deep song for children. That song is just so wonderfully thought provoking. It really raises so many important issues in just those short minutes, you know, the reasons why we what we could use to justify the carrying and a killing. Well, everybody else is doing it. Well, my friends don't think I'm weird. If I don't do it. Well, this person's just a crook anyway, so it doesn't matter. It's just great for having those conversations. Actually, one of the questions that I have about capital punishment, obviously capital punishment puts a person's life to end. But one of the things that I tend to that I wonder about is if corporal punishment is actually less inhumane than imprisonment. I read a book, it was dealing with conscientious subjectors from Vietnam War. The author mused at the end of it. He said, "Would I rather have a finger cut off than be taken away from my life and from my family for a year?" I would choose to have that finger cut off. He said that one point, rather than spend five years away from my life and my family, I'd rather have my hand cut off. And so the cruel inhumane label, for me it seems possible that imprisonment also is that. Yes, I think that the prison system as a whole, the way it is used right now is so much about punishment. I don't know that it might still be a title in what they're called corrections, but there's nothing corrective about it. So much about punishment and taking away people's power, just making every day as miserable as possible for them. And that's why a number of us involved in the abolition movement of the death penalty are also involved in trying to reform the way the prison system is set up. I know that there are studies documenting how much better people do when they've come out of a prison situation where they've received an education where they've been treated like human beings. I guess I want to mention too, there are so many reasons to oppose the death penalty, but one of them is the racism and racial inequality evident in the system. And as well as class, the majority of people on death row are people of color so disproportionate to the representation in the population. 80% of executions take place in this former slave holding state. So when you get the death penalty, often just depends on where you live in the country or who the prosecutor is or the race of the person who was killed. So there's a lot to be looked at there in the prison system in general and how it's used. You mentioned that a lot of the executions are happening in former slave holding states. Is there any movement in the country toward or away from capital punishment? It seems to me that ten years ago it was kind of the heyday of revival of executions. What's it like right now? What direction is the tide going? There are less executions for the past two years than the previous years. There are less people being given death penalty. There are more states that are really studying this issue and putting the moratorium on executions and having commissions look into it for many reasons. Some of which I mentioned in terms of the arbitrariness and the inequality around race and class and the innocent people who are sent to death row. The cost which is many times more when it would be to just imprison someone. So fortunately there isn't a move away from executing people and we are hoping for a time. And I believe this will happen in my lifetime when we will join the rest of the industrialized countries around the world and abolish the death penalty. Are we the only country in terms of top incomes that have death penalty? Yes. We share the stage in terms of executions with Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, some of the folks who are some of the questionable human rights violators in the rest of the world. That is a sad statement. Yeah, there is a lot of people from Europe who are involved in abolishing the death penalty in the United States because they don't have it and they know it's not necessary. Well, that's depressing news and I think I need just one more upbeat song to take us out. We've got just a moment left. Can you send us out with something that's not going to leave us totally depressed, Karen? Of course. No, definitely not the intention for folks to get depressed. This is a song that we learned was written by Harmon Grissman and the Spanish was written by Paulette Meyer and we tweeted a little bit. It's a song called "Break 'Em On Down" and what we're breaking down in this song is the walls between us, whether they be walls of a prison or walls between countries that divide us or walls of seeing someone as the other. It's a fun sing-along song, so as people catch onto it, when they listen to it, I would invite them to sing along. Thank you so much for having me here. You're very welcome. Thanks so much for joining us, Karen Brandow. Pass my regards on to Charlie. You've been my guest before in my shows. So we're going to take you out here with "Break 'Em On Down" performed here by Charlie King and Karen Brandow. Thanks again, Karen. You're welcome. ♪ Break 'em on down, break 'em on down ♪ ♪ Break 'em on down, these walls between us ♪ ♪ Break 'em on down, break 'em on down ♪ ♪ Break 'em on down, these walls between us ♪ ♪ Break 'em on down, break 'em on down ♪ ♪ These walls between us ♪ ♪ Break 'em on down, these walls between us ♪ Break 'em on down these walls, these walls, these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls, these walls, these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls, these walls, these walls between us. Tumbalas, tumbalas, las murayas entrainosotros. Tumbalas, tumbalas, las murayas entrainosotros. Tumbalas, las murayas entrainosotros. Tumbalas, tumbalas murayas, murayas entrainosotros. Tumbalas, tumbalas, las murayas entrainosotros. Tumbalas, tumbalas, tumbalas, murayas entrainosotros. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. Break 'em on down, break 'em on down, break 'em on down these walls between us. These walls, these walls, these walls between us. Karen Brandau and Charlie King, break 'em on down. Find more at CharlieKing.org. 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 move this world along. With every voice, with every song, we will move this world along. And our lives will feel the echo of our healing. [MUSIC PLAYING]