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Originally Posted by demonrail666
I really like your idea about the Dixie Chicks acting as a kind of 'dissensus' within the mass, which, while ultimately limited in what it can achieve, is invariably more successful than the 'all or nothing' tactic employed by most 'revolutionaries'.
I have to disagree with your point that a 'system' (which I do agree is an annoyingly vague term, but anyway) cannot be 'smashed'. History provides numerous examples of this very thing taking place. One system may be replaced by another even more corrupt one, but it does happen. A lot. Even today, in the war in Iraq, can we not say that Saddam Hussain's 'system' has been smashed? I'm not convinced that doing so has been for the greater good of Iraq, but certainly it's been smashed.
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Yeah... but... I can't help but feel that there's two referents for 'system'. I don't think the Iraqi people rose up against their oppresor because of Green Day's 'wake me up when September ends'. In fact, so far as I remember there was no wide-spread insurrection in Iraq against Hussein. I realise this might seem a bit hair-splitting (or splitting-hairs, if you prefer), but the 'smashing of the system' to which middle-class white punks refer is a libidinal desire, not a political one. Oppressed people make mournful music, certainly, but the recently down-trodden (I'm thinking of Zimbabwe/ Rhodesia now) tend to have no voice at all -
their smashing the system is a struggle for air, not a struggle for a voice.