In 2015 when I spoke with Joan Baez, the warning signs were already brewing for a Trump take-over of America. When I asked her about the threat to American democracy becoming a reality she said this.
“My mom told me that when I was about 14 I was reading ‘The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire’ and I came out to where she was ironing and she says I said ‘mom you know the same thing is going to happen to the United States that happened to the Roman Empire’. I don’t whether to gloat or mourn. I think we have already long since become crumbling here. Not to mention the total refusal to deal with Global Warming which is probably what will get us all anyway”.
The conservative cancer is not just unique to America. At the time Australia had religious zealot and climate change denier Abbott running the country. Abbott’s extremism was comparable to Republican fanatism.
“That is like whoever the Republican was who threw a snowball across the room on Congress and said, ‘you call this Global Warming?’,” Joan said. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t know if they really believe things we think are crazy. I know there are a lot of intelligent conservatives who are in this show with themselves because they know they will lose their votes if they say they think Global Warming is real. They are still at that level. It’s hard to imagine they are serious and that there isn’t some ridiculous scam behind what they are saying.
“You had a heatwave in the 140s in Australia. I am in the least effected part of the country. Our property has completely changed. It is all drought resistant. I had to move or give up plants that were flowing and beautiful. We have the cactus and our water bill is down to a fifth of what it was. I am smart enough to know that in the bigger scheme that means very little.
“Sometime in the late 60s there was a cartoon of a man picketing the White House and he is saying ‘No More War”. And some man comes up to him and says “you know you’re not going to change the world” and he says “oh I know that. I’m just trying to stop the world from changing me”.
Check out the 2015 Joan Baez Noise11.com interview.
Part of the story of Joan Baez is told in the Bob Dylan biopic ‘A Complete Unknown’. Monica Barbaro plays Joan in the movie opposite Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan. A large part of the movie story is about the relationship between Joan Baez and Bob Dylan in the early 60s.
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