From Michael Franti and the Disposable Heroes:

A 1992 Chumbawamba song about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, “That’s how grateful we are” tells the story of the famous felling of a statue of Stalin in Budapest’s main square by workers. The irony being that the statue was dedicated as a thanks to Stalin by the “grateful workers of Hungary”.

A humorous mp3 by The Evolution Control Committee that’s a piss take on capitalist “news”. Dan Rather’s predictions of doom are strung together to music. Well worth a listen…

Twenty-two years ago today Bob Geldof asked “..why do people starve on one side of the world while on the other people are paid not to produce food, or “surpluses” are allowed to rot? He said that no-one had yet answered that question for him satisfactorily..”

Well, in an article titled ‘Politics of Live Aid (Socialist Standard, September 1985) we let him know that “famine is not a temporary upset in an otherwise harmonious world order which can be put right by a quick injection of money and sacks of grain: it is an endemic feature of a world system of society which dictates that those who have money to buy food can eat, and those who have no money must starve; that unsold food produced in one part of the world will not, in general, be transported to where it is needed because no profit would be made. For in our society food is not produced because people need it, but because those who own the farms and land can make a profit from it. And if it cannot be sold profitably then it is left to rot.”

Fast forward twenty years and things must be better, after all Bob received a gong and the first Live Aid was thought to be a great success? Not at all: “Over the years, agencies of the United Nations such as the Food and Agricultural Organisation have posted the numbers suffering poverty. For example, in 1975, 435 million people were seriously undernourished. By the year 2000 this had doubled to 820 million. UNICEF states that approximately 40,000 children under five die each day from preventable causes. These figures indicate that since the first Live Aid concert in 1985 the numbers dying from poverty have been increasing horrendously, which leaves little doubt that pop concerts and the charities have made no significant impact on the problem. The grim facts are that the present methods of the “Make Poverty History” campaign stand no more chance of ending deaths from hunger. If we are to be serious stopping this perpetual holocaust, the many thousands of people who support this campaign should have a serious re-think about how best to go about it..”

Over 190 people died when the roll-on roll-off ferry “Herald of Free Enterprise” capsized off Zeebrugge, Belgium on 6 March 1987. The bow doors had been left open after departure, and water flooded the car decks. This disaster, of course, was a herald of free enterprise. Cost cutting, safety cuts, lack of training on the part of the ferry’s owners were found to be the cause of the disaster.

In the aftermath, the Irish band Fatima Mansions recorded their kind-of version of REM’s “Shiny Happy People”  adding some very angry (and not safe for work) lyrics condemning the ferry’s owners and the system which caused the sinking to occur.

You must have heard the song by Woody Guthrie:

“This land is your land,
This land is my land, … “