The arts and politics

"[2] Pertaining to such politically-intractable phenomena as the Modern conflicts in the Middle East, however, some artists and social critics believe that "art is useless as a tool for political change.

"[7] Protest poems include Gwendolyn Brooks "Riot", Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Tato Laviera's "Lady Liberty", Nikki Giovanni's "Rosa Parks", Amiri Baraka's "Short Speech to My Friends," and Jill McDonough's "Dear Gaybashers".

That's why a precise mechanism to defuse the role of artists and intellectuals is to relegate them into specialized, compartmentalized disciplines, in order to impose unnatural dichotomies as the "separation of art from politics".

[12] "Not content with claiming leftwing music", posters for the Conservative Party in the UK recycled iconic art styles of "socialist revolution" to communicate its political message in 2008.

Almost immediately after its creation, the artwork went viral, spreading throughout social media and through word of mouth (largely due to the publicity efforts of Yosi Sergant).

[14] Throughout history, Communist governments have used poster art as a common form of propaganda used to promote the ideology of communism, namely the Soviet Union in the early 20th Century.

[21] In February 1952, the United States Customs Service seized the passport of Paul Robeson, preventing him from leaving the United States to travel to the Fourth Canadian Convention of the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada; but, after "The convention heard Robeson sing over the telephone", the union organized "a concert on the US-Canada border".

[23] In force from July 1985 until May 2002 and considered by its opponents a Draconian "anti-music law", the Teen Dance Ordinance (TDO), imposing restrictions on clubs admitting those under the legal drinking age of 21 in Seattle, Washington, was still the subject of protracted political and legal opposition in U.S. Federal Court in early 2002, when a suit filed by the Joint Artists and Music Promotions Action Committee (JAMPAC) in 2000 was still being adjudicated.

Following the implementation of the Licensing Act 2003, the London Borough of Hillingdon cited "the interest of public order and the prevention of terrorism" as reasons for expecting promoters of live music events to complete the Metropolitan Police's Form 696.

[28] Though later clarified by a police spokesperson as not "compulsory",[29] the perceived "demand" for the information solicited on such "risk assessment" forms motivated Jon McClure, lead singer with Reverend and The Makers, to post an electronic petition in the "E-Petitions" section of the official website of Gordon Brown, the UK Prime Minister, at Number10.gov.uk, in order to facilitate protest against what McClure alleges is "racial discrimination" occasioned by such bureaucratic constraints,[30] which some have deemed "police authoritarianism".

In response, Detective Superintendent Dave Eyles from the Met's clubs and vice office told us that 10,000 such Risk Assessments would be processed this year.

'[29] By early March 2009, over 16,000 British citizens or residents had signed McClure's E-Petition, which remained open to potential signatories until 1 December 2009.