Usually, I play random playlists on Apple Music, and these playlists typically contain songs I listened to, at least at some point, in the early 2000s. Listening back to these songs, I keep thinking about how the protest songs written in reaction to the invasion of Iraq, government overreach, Islamophobia, and blind patriotism resonate today. Everything from Tool’s “Right in Two” and Glassjaw’s “Radio Cambodia” to Suicide Machines’ “War Profiteering” and Radiohead’s “2+2=5” and more. Today, I want to expand on my last post where I looked at two songs from Sleater-Kinney’s 2003 album One Beat and examine a few other songs from this period that really resonate with me right now in our current moment.

I’ve been a NOFX fan ever since I first heard 1994’s Punk in Drublic. With the mainstream success of Green Day and Rancid, I went down a east bay punk rabbit hole, devouring everything I could from Epitaph and discovered NOFX, who had already been around for a decade at that point. NOFX has always had a political edge, even on Punk in Drublic with songs like “Perfect Government.” Following September 11 and during the War on Terror, NOFX released The War on Errorism in 2003. Emblazoned with a cartoon image of a clown faced George W. Bush in front of an American flag on the cover, the album takes direct aim at the Bush administration’s polices and the blind patriotism that followed September 11.

I could choose various songs from The War on Errorism that speak to the current moment, specifically a song like “American Errorist (I Hate Hate Haters)” because it deals with issues of blind patriotism and the desire for war as a means of strength. However, I keep coming back, again and again, to “The Idiots are Taking Over,” a quintessential NOFX song that uses sarcasm and humor to point out the issues during the Bush Administration. Fat Mike begins by singing, “It’s not the right time to be sober,” arguing that in order to make it through the moment when we saw rights and privacy we must not remain moderate. While we typically think of sobriety in relation to drugs and alcohol, it also means, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be “grave, serious, solemn; indicating or implying a serious mind or purpose” or to be “quiet or sedate in demeanour.” In face of the Patriot Act, the War on Terror, and the invasion of Iraq, Fat Mike argues that now is not the time to be demur and sober, now is the time to speak up because if we don’t, then the stripping away of rights and freedoms will continue.

An uneducated populace is one of the keys to fascist and authoritarian governments. By keeping people ignorant, these governments maintain control, limiting what the populace knows about everything from history and literature to science because they realize that the more knowledge one acquires, no matter what that knowledge is, the more one questions, the harder it becomes for them to maintain their power. Fat Mike points this out throughout the song but most pointedly when the music shifts from a fast-paced punk groove to a half-time ska feel and he sings, “There’s no point for democracy when ignorance is celebrated.” Control, particularly in relation to education and Christian fascism, diminish the voice of the people because the voice of the people succumbs to the propaganda of the powerful, and when the “nation of god-fearing pregnant nationalists” rule and erase knowledge then they will “populate the homeland” and “pass on traditions” that will take decades and centuries to undue.

While “The Idiots are Taking Over” confronts the ways that democracy fails when the populace becomes uneducated, System of a Down’s “B.Y.O.B.” (“Bring Your Own Bombs”) from 2005’s Mezmorize highlights the ways that being apolitical or by merely ignoring politics also creates the space for authoritarians and fascists to take over. The song moves back and forth between a party groove and a manic, speed-induced groove, juxtaposing the two with one another. In the verses, Serg Tankian sings about the invasion of Iraq, detailing how it centered on oil and profits, not around Saddam Hussein’s supposed nuclear program and weapons of mass destruction. While the bombs fall in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, Tankian sings, during the chorus, “Everybody’s going to the party, have a real good time. Dancin’ in the desert, blowin’ up the sunshine.” These lines carry within them two meanings: one of an apolitical or ignorant populace and the other of am orgy of destruction half a world away.

During the bridge, Daron Malakian screams, “Blast off, it’s party time, and we don’t live in a fascist nation.” The latter part of this line, of course, is tongue-in-cheek, especially considering the rights being taken away from citizens, the rampant Islamophobia, and more that occurred in the early 2000s and continue to today. Malakian concludes the bridge by asking us, “And where the fuck are you?” He’s asking us if we are at the party, oblivious to the atrocities occurring around us or are we fighting the war for the rich or are we speaking up? System of a Down point out the same obliviousness and blind patriotism that Sleater-Kinney point out in “Combat Rock,” the adherence to a jingoism and consumerism that allow for individuals to ignore atrocities and the stripping away of their freedoms.

The apolitical and oblivious nature of many comes through in the music video for “B.Y.O.B.” The video moves back and forth from the band perfoming in the street as soliders march past them wearing helmets that read “Truth,” “Obey,” “Die,” or “Buy” and scenes in a nighclub where the band perfoms on stage as concert goers party, unaware of the threat approaching their door. When Malakian screams the bridge, telling us we’re not in a fascist nation, the soldiers break into the club and start attacking everyone, forcing them to don the masks themselves and thus turning them into faceless automatons. The video ends with the band wearing masks as static flashes across their visors. Coupled with the song itself, the video highlights the consequence of remaining “sober” amidst fascism and authoritarianism, the consequence of remaining moderate, of doing nothing.

When I listen to these songs, I think about the current moves to dismantle the Department of Education. I think about the executive order that “restores truth and sanity to American history.” I think about Fulbright scholars getting taken off the street because they said something that some don’t agree with. I think about individuals getting rounded up and sent out of the country, with families wondering if their loved ones are amongst those flown away. I think about government officials standing in front of those same individuals, who sit in a cell, talking about power and safety. I think about all of this when I listen to Sleater-Kinney, NOFX, System of a Down, Jaguar Love, Dead Kennedys, Woody Guthrie, Nina Simone, Propaghandi, and more. I think about all of this and replay Malakin’s scream in my head, “We don’t live in a fascist nation.” Except, I remove the “not” from my neck and recognize that we do, in fact, live in the midst of fascism.

What are some songs that you keep going back to in this moment? Here are some of mine. As usual, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Bluesky @silaslapham.