It works just as in the other theme weeks, I look at the most popular songs from 1988 and look at the ones that stand out for some reason. Here we go!
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Tag Archives: politics
Music Box: Gang of Four’s “Entertainment!”
After Marie Antoinette I couldn’t help but wonder, why I haven’t written anything about Gang of Four’s Entertainment! before. This is one of my most influential albums that is so bold in deconstructing our society and goes beyond the “everything sucks” ideology of many punk albums. This is post-punk, of course, and while there are other political albums in music’s history, at least for me nothing achieves what this album achieves. It’s angry without being loud, it’s intelligent and challenges the listener because it doesn’t provide easy answers. It’s simply brilliant, lyrically and musically. If I ever need inspiration for change, for doing something, I put this one on and get going.
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There’s a Movement in Town
After reading about the anniversary protests in Turkey at the moment, I wondered that this has been featured so strongly in German media. Sure, Germany has a higher interest in Turkey than in most other countries but it reminded me again how one-sided and hysteria-driven the media can be and mostly is. Because at least since the Arab Spring and Occupy in 2011, protest movements have become as strong as they haven’t been since the 60s. Especially since they happen all around the world and cannot be centered on one idea but reflect the general unhappiness of people with our society. So I wondered if those protests in Turkey are really the only ones worth reporting about right now. Well, they’re not. So I googled “protests” in GoogleNews and here’s what I found on one day.
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Democracy or Let’s vote again until you get it right
I like talking about democracy. I recently read a great article that pretty much sums up how I feel about it (you can find it here). I summarize and add my thoughts (so, no, you don’t really have to read it anymore but you should because it’s quite good).
As we learn in school, democracy is the only form of government that is acceptable. In history we basically follow its steps from Greece to today with the supposed conclusion of “And now made it!” But did we? Democracy today means choosing between two major parties (in most countries) that in the end often don’t differ very much, being surveyed by the government or by companies, mostly about 50% voter participation and politicians who never seem to care about issues the people care about (will we ever really elect people who think global warming is a big issue?) and politics ruled by capitalism. Everyone’s always talking about how important voting is and how lucky we are to live in a democracy, but if you really get down to it, it’s a pretty devastating picture. I mean, who really thinks our kind of politics works well?
As we learn in school, democracy is the only form of government that is acceptable. In history we basically follow its steps from Greece to today with the supposed conclusion of “And now made it!” But did we? Democracy today means choosing between two major parties (in most countries) that in the end often don’t differ very much, being surveyed by the government or by companies, mostly about 50% voter participation and politicians who never seem to care about issues the people care about (will we ever really elect people who think global warming is a big issue?) and politics ruled by capitalism. Everyone’s always talking about how important voting is and how lucky we are to live in a democracy, but if you really get down to it, it’s a pretty devastating picture. I mean, who really thinks our kind of politics works well?Read the full post here.
