Over At My Music Blog: Anti-War Video with M.I.A. Soundtrack

Over at my music blog, I recently posted an interesting anti-war video that I stumbled upon at YouTube…  The footage is of a breaking-the-barricades event (and typical police overkill event) at the September 15 march in Washington, DC.  The soundtrack is the song ”Paper Planes” by M.I.A.  The words printed on the screen talk about how “voting is not enough” and “marching is not enough” and how we need direct action.  There are some contradictions involved, such as the list of groups to contact near the end (such as ANSWER, who, at least as I see it, do anything but support real direct action).  But overall, the message is good.  And, of course, I love the use of that M.I.A. song – not only because it’s a great M.I.A. song, but because it’s nice to see an activist video using good contemporary electronic dance music (even though - or maybe especially because - it morphs an old Clash riff), along with some very good and smart satirical lyrics, versus the stuff that I’ve often seen in activist videos:  old folk or punk (but usually not anything as interesting as a good Clash song) or pretty boring rock, with lyrics that are just too obvious and non-poetic in the way that they deliver the message.  But maybe that’s just my impression, given my experiences…  M.I.A. is not always a poetic genius (even I’ll admit that), but “Paper Planes” is quite brilliantly satirical, with a quick critique of capitalist brutality that could be applied equally to music business hustling, international drug dealing, and imperialist war.  So, it was a very smart and refreshing choice for this kind of video.

But, of course, this is more commentary that belongs on my music blog…