> If we can't formulate kinds of political expression
> that were apt for our own era, as, in their time, Marx
> or Bakunin or (fill in your favorite leftist writer),
> or, in music Joe Hill or Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie
> or the Freedom Singers or John Lennon did work that
> resonated then, we are going to continue to fail to
> influence our future in contrast to the way they
> influenced theirs.
>
> Give Peace A Chance is great song and the idea is not
> going to date, but it's sad for us that forty years on
> it's the centerpiece of rallies _and we don't have
> anything like it since._ I really think that if I go
> to another demo where they sing Give Peace A Chance
> and We Shall Overcome one more time I will scream.
I think there's a lot of good left protest music being produced right now -- particularly amongst hip-hop artists. When the Legendary K.O. put out "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People" ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOu_zIiihPI ) a few days after Katrina, I was convinced the best protest song of my generation had just been written. I'll play it for my children someday when they ask me about what happened in New Orleans. And then you also have Dead Prez, whose rhymes can veer towards the overly didactic, but they've still been able to flirt with the mainstream (appearing in "Dave Chappelle's Block Party," etc.). An exemplary ditty of theirs can be heard here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24_19_O6k9g (although the video itself is the perfect example of left-nostalgia). There're plenty more.
Now, I don't really foresee a day when everyone's going to be rapping at anti-war protests, but younger people are way more comfortable with hip-hop, so who knows. We could improve on the tired old speeches and old folk songs protest format anyway.
-WD