Curated playlist
American anti–Iraq War activists
- Barack ObamaObama rejected a plan to bomb a compound in Pakistan and sent Navy SEALs instead. The 2011 raid killed Osama bin Laden.
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden by hiding in an underground meat locker.
- Ron PaulRon Paul delivered the Tejano singer Selena as a baby. He was a Texas obstetrician before he ran for president.
- Jimmy CarterJimmy Carter once was lowered into a crippled nuclear reactor for 90 seconds at a time. He later ran for president.
- Sean PennIn Kyiv in November 2022, Sean Penn handed an Oscar statuette to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "This is for you. It's just a symbolic silly thing...When you win, bring it back to Malibu." That was the whole speech. Penn is an…
- Jane FondaJane Fonda sat on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun during a 1972 visit to Hanoi, and a photograph of that moment outraged a large number of Americans. It earned her a nickname that has followed her for decades: Hanoi Jane. For many…
- Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky wrote his first article at age 10, about the fall of Barcelona.
- George ClooneyIn 1977, a teenage George Clooney tried out for the Cincinnati Reds and did not make it past the first round of player cuts. No contract was offered. Clooney, an American actor and filmmaker, would go on to collect two Academy Awards, a…
- Willie NelsonWillie Nelson plays a classical guitar with a hole worn through its face. Decades of strumming with a pick have scoured a wide sweep of wood away beside the sound hole. Classical guitars are made for fingers, so this one has no pickguard…
- Joan BaezJoan Baez was singing at a music festival called Bratislavská lýra in Communist Czechoslovakia in May 1989 when someone cut off her microphone. From the stage, she had just greeted members of Charter 77, a dissident human-rights group.…
- Tom MorelloTom Morello, the American guitarist behind Rage Against the Machine, once made an entire festival crowd listen to nothing but noise. At Lollapalooza in 1993, his band walked onstage naked. Their mouths were covered with duct tape, and…