Marc's Jukebox: The Anti-Nowhere League: "Let's Break the Law"

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By MARC McDONALD

Sometimes a society passes bad laws. And bad laws deserve to be broken.

For example, take the law that enabled New York City's Michael Bloomberg to send in his heavy-handed cops to break up OWS's peaceful protest.

That was a bad law. And it was meant to be broken.

So was the law (the 2002 Iraq War Resolution) that enabled Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the NeoCon goons to launch their war of aggression against Iraq.

U.S. soldiers were obligated by U.S. law to participate in this war. But what they should have done is laid down their weapons and refused to fight. (Actually, some of them did just that---and they, in my opinion are the true heroes in the U.S. military).

The bottom line is that if the law of the land is a bad law, then We The People not only should break it, we have an obligation to do so.

Fighting against the oppression of the oligarchy that currently rules this nation is going to inevitably involve breaking some laws. I suspect that OWS is only the beginning. And the more the working class is oppressed today, the higher the odds that the People's Revolution that inevitably follows will turn violent someday.

Speaking of breaking laws, the British punk band The Anti-Nowhere League are a crew that I want on my side of the barricades, come the revolution. Actually, I'm not sure how politically aware these guys are. But there is definitely no mistaking their sincerity to the cause of creating mayhem in the streets, as a listen to their song, "Let's Break the Law" reveals.

The Anti-Nowhere League initially made a splash in the U.K. in 1982 with their classic album, We Are...The League, which soared up the independent charts that year. The album had many classic tunes, including a high-octane cover of Ralph McTell's "Streets of London," a celebration of the downtrodden, the oppressed, the lonely, and the forgotten members of society.