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The Radio 3 Boards > The Music Boards > Music Through The Ages > 20th Century > Poodle Play
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Author Topic: Poodle Play  (Read 2149 times)
richard barrett
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« Reply #75 on: 15:09:44, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: Ian Pace on 15:06:29, 12-05-2007
the key part of that slogan was 'war for oil'
I remember it being "NO war for oil".  Smiley
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #76 on: 15:13:26, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 15:09:44, 12-05-2007
Quote from: Ian Pace on 15:06:29, 12-05-2007
the key part of that slogan was 'war for oil'
I remember it being "NO war for oil".  Smiley

Yes, but we were singing 'You can stick your war for oil up your a*se' to the tune of 'She'll be coming round the mountain' - weren't you joining in with your noble baritone? Wink
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
George Garnett
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« Reply #77 on: 15:17:17, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 15:00:09, 12-05-2007
.....since the Iraq War went ahead anyway, and we all knew that it would.....

Actually I was naive enough to think that the UK's involvement was still on a knife edge. I still think it was at that point and it could have gone either way. It certainly felt that way from where I was sitting. The dissenters in Cabinet, and Parliament, rolled over however.

Quote
anyone who consequently sneers at the whole idea of demonstrating

Not me, as I hope I've made clear.
« Last Edit: 19:33:30, 07-09-2007 by George Garnett » Logged
richard barrett
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« Reply #78 on: 15:19:43, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: George Garnett on 15:17:17, 12-05-2007
Not me, as I hope I've made clear.
You have, G, you have. But wasn't the antiwar demonstration timed for just after the poodle and his friends made their decision?
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richard barrett
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« Reply #79 on: 15:25:43, 12-05-2007 »
See how we've cleverly manoeuvred outselves back on-topic?
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #80 on: 15:33:45, 12-05-2007 »
Well, to bring it full circle, here is a passage on an interview with Zappa by Nicky Campbell on Radio 1:

Asked for a favourite record to play, Zappa chose Anton Webern, and then caused Nicky Campbell to gasp as he talked about payola in American radio, and the fact that the American media had suppressed coverage of anti-war protests in the build up to the Gulf War.

NC: We got the impression, here, watching the news and stuff, that there was a lot of popular support for the Gulf War in America.
FZ: Well you would have the impression simply because the news was managed. There were many many anti-war demonstrations in the United States and there was a standing rule on network television that they were not to be covered.
NC: Seriously?
FZ: Yes.
NC: Who imposed that rule?
FZ: Who do you think? Somebody from the White House. There was a governmental agency that was set up by Ronald Reagan called the Department of Domestic Diplomacy and the goal of this organization is to manage the news.
NC: That's like George Orwell - that's 1984! This is the greatest democracy in the world?
FZ: Says who?
NC: The land of the brave?
FZ: THe land of the people who need to feel good about themselves because they blew up a bunch of Iraqis. It's shameful.

Zappa then went on to give an informed account of US support for Saddam Hussein prior to his seizure of Kuwait and the involvement of the Christian right and TV evangelists in fomenting anti-Muslim feeling.

Ben Watson - Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play (London: Quartet Books, 1994), p. 531.
« Last Edit: 15:36:54, 12-05-2007 by Ian Pace » Logged
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
George Garnett
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« Reply #81 on: 16:13:46, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: richard barrett on 15:19:43, 12-05-2007
But wasn't the antiwar demonstration timed for just after the poodle and his friends made their decision?

Call me naive (pause for thunderous chorus.... Cheesy) but the Prime Minister can't do something on the scale of taking the country to war without at least a powerful majority in Cabinet and he didn't have that at the time. It was very unclear whether he was going to get that. I do think it was touch and go. And the size (possibly rather than the lyrics, but you never know) of the marches contributed to that. I was astounded, for example, given the frenzy of the flapping in the dovecote in the days leading up to the Parliamentary vote, that it was only Robin Cook that resigned. But there you go, it was. Tony Blair remained Prime Minister and we were off.

And re. Ian's point, there were and are plenty of us who were just as adamantly opposed to the war but don't necessarily buy into the 'It's all about oil really' story.
« Last Edit: 19:34:42, 07-09-2007 by George Garnett » Logged
richard barrett
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« Reply #82 on: 16:21:26, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: George Garnett on 16:13:46, 12-05-2007
there were and are plenty of us who were just as adamantly opposed to the war but don't necessarily buy into the 'It's all about oil really' story.
Not "ALL about oil", no. But that was one of the important factors, surely you'd agree. Another which is frequently overlooked is pressure from the (US) "defence" industry. To keep their shareholders happy, profits have to go up. To make this possible, defence spending has to go up. And the best way to ensure that this happens is for there to be a war, preferably a string of them, or one which goes on indefinitely. In other words, one reason for starting the war was in order to have a war.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #83 on: 16:21:44, 12-05-2007 »
Quote from: George Garnett on 16:13:46, 12-05-2007
And re. Ian's point, nervous cough, there were and are plenty of us who were just as adamantly opposed to the war but don't necessarily buy into the 'It's all about oil really' story.

OK, I was really meaning that oil was the primary rather than exclusive motivation. I'm very interested in your own analysis of the reasons Britain went to war (I've tended to believe that if Blair hadn't backed this, thus fracturing the US-UK coalition more so than at any time at least since Vietnam, Bush might have had to at least think twice), very seriously, not at all spoiling for a fight!

What's telling now is just how many of those once adamantly in favour of the war are going very quiet on the subject, and there are relatively few trying to make a convincing case for its rectitude.
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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