Patriot games

The Guardian's Gary Younge on the death of democracy in America (thanks to Wan for the link). It seems that everyone is free to express themselves - as long as they're supporting Bush and his administration. And yet the 'Coalition forces' still claim to be fighting the war in order to liberate the Iraqi people and allow them to enjoy the same freedoms of movement and speech as us in the West. Isn't irony a wonderful thing?

I read with interest all the stuff in this week's NME about radio and TV music censorship. An MTV spokesperson justified their decision not to broadcast videos like Radiohead's 'Lucky', System Of A Down's 'Boom!' and Paul Hardcastle's '19' by claiming that the station "feels that content should be sensitive at this time of war". Well, that's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that it's a cynical and calculated attempt to suppress lyrics and images that might be seen to offer a critical perspective on current events and war in general. The web is the only place any kind of freedom of expression seems to exist.

Also quite staggering were some of the comments of Joanne Bell, Head of Music for British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) Radio: "The track used to open the service was Thin Lizzy's 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. That was overwhelmingly requested. It's a very good military 'we're back' sort of record". Tally-ho, Bertie, see you in Baghdad for tea and cakes. Another even more bizarre song featuring heavily on the service is The Clash's 'Rock The Casbah' - even more bizarre, because of the opposition of Mick Jones and the late Joe Strummer to war. Apparently "it always gets played. It's a 'you can't mess with us' record". Add in 'We Will Rock You' by Queen (presumably), and there you have it - the soundtrack to unnecessary and unlawful imperialistic thuggery.