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Joe Strummer: Armagideon Time
"Joe Strummer's sudden death on 22 December 2002, possibly from a heart attack, came as a shock. For the last three months of 2002 I had been re-exploring the agitpop legacy of The Clash, the influential punk band that Strummer fronted with guitarist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon. Strummer had wisely avoided the multi-million dollar offers for a reformation and American stadium tour, preferring to concentrate on his new band the Mescaleros. He had just finished a United Kingdom tour with the Mescaleros and was planning a third studio album. But in press interviews Strummer had also made peace with his past. He had made up with Jones: ending a split that tore apart The Clash at their commercial peak. He now disowned the disastrous follow-up album Cut the Crap (1985). And, poignantly, he gave his approval to a one-night reformation of for their March 2003 induction into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. Now we'll never know what could have been."
Acharya S and the Christ Conspiracy
Smashing institutionalized religiosity and enslaving mythopoeic Cultural Scripts.
The Powell Doctrine: Baghdad/Jenin/My Lai
"Moral of the story? Truth is often the first casualty of war. Before we hang our hopes on heroes or unquestioningly believe what we hear from even the most reliable sources, we need to dig deeper to find the real story. Second, while the US was appropriate to be outraged at the targeting of its civilians in the September 11 attacks, we should extend that outrage to scenarios in which our government targets, or is complicit in targeting, civilians elsewhere."
1984 and Animal Farm: The Idealism of Paranoia
"In fact, the inconsistency of Orwell's world and the one that most of us perceive lies not in the strength of our character, will, determination or any of that other load of ego excrement. Truthfully, even the most machine-like dictatorship can never be perfect enough to reach such a level of organization that not a single, solitary hole can be found in their police state. What leader or set of leaders could construct a government with such foresight that nothing could overthrow it and no insurrections could be organized against it?"
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