July 4th: Bring The War Home

Posted July 1st, 2007 by Scott Rigby

The London group is doing this project by a mutual friend, the group Red76:
"As it is the 4th of July (Independence Day in the US), we end the evening session by taking part in Red76’s Bring the War Back Home project."

I just called Sam Gould, lead instigator of Red76 and he thinks it would be great if we did this at Basekamp. All we need to do is download the mp3 and blast the audio out of the front windows at Basekamp on July 4th. We can then do whatever else we want. Let's make an event out of it!

Here's a project description below:

Bring The War Home

(a proposal by Red76 - http://www.red76.com)

Bring The War Home.mp3

Since the war in Iraq began in March of 2003 the US media has given the American public nothing but sugar coated versions of the reality of the situation on the ground in that country, as well as here at home in America. The glossing over of the realities of this conflict have led the general America public, even those who are (seemingly) informed, engaged, and upset, into a state of numbness and detachment.

With this in mind we encourage you, on this upcoming Fourth of July (2006), to Bring The War Home. Since we don't get much from the American media these days we went and looked over the internet and downloaded video and audio, shot and recorded by US Soldiers in the field, which they uploaded onto personal blogs and sites like YouTube; footage chronicling their life in combat in Iraq. We've taken this material and turned it into a sound collage of the gunfire, explosions, and voices the public at large is not hearing here at home, but that they, and the citizens of Iraq, hear day in, and day out.

We encourage you to download this MP3 and, along with any fireworks you may be lighting off on the Fourth, play it outdoors at your barbecue - LOUD: play it to remember, and help your neighbors remember, what those fireworks are meant to symbolize each Fourth of July, and so we can begin to discuss what we want those fireworks to symbolize on Fourth of Julys to come.

Please distribute this audio far and wide.

Hope this aint too late an

On July 3rd, 2007 aharon says:

Hope this aint too late an idea for this..

After listening to the track I got the notion that it sounds very american-centric, at least for my european ears... Then I recalled hearing about a practice by some american indian tribes where there will be a person who will do things backwards as a form of critique. Hence it seems that it might be somehow appropriate to play this track backwards,,, (Can easily done using audacity.sf.net )

Another thing, could we play this consecutively..?

backwards could have been

On July 7th, 2007 Scott Rigby says:

backwards could have been interesting... but no -- we didn't do this. It was enough for us to play the audio as it was -- very loud, blasting out of the front windows onto the streets outside of Basekamp space... it was disturbing -- which I didn't expect. Often I can be unphased by these things -- this however was very strange -- it brought up responses by nearly everyone who came in contact with it. People who didn't immediately appreciate the audio as an "artwork" were drawn into conversation about it.

I also thought it was interesting how the audio selections didn't reflect a single viewpoint or attitude in relation to the global events themselves. It was a "mix" of perspectives -- some of the audio portrayed US soldiers whooping it up cowboy style, and sounded juvenile, trigger happy. Another section was tense yelling. Another clip was whispering during an attack, showing fear and vulnerability. in between is gunfire, closer and farther away. It's hard to listen to this and feel completely apathetic. This is why these sounds are usually filtered out of US news media coverage of the war.

It is Ameri-centric in a sense -- it's site-specific, made for americans to hear and respond to. The date was important too -- and in this case, location was interesting (two blocks from Independence Halll & Liberty Bell), but it doesn't really matter all that much. It's really intended to be played anywhere in the US, to directly address american actions to american citizens - our own culpability and collective amnesia