Forwarded (Re: Joe Strummer dead at 50)

[Ed George <edgeorge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[It is not every day that I find myself in full agreement with
occasional Marxmail poster Mike Pearn, but this, which he posted earlier
today to the welshleft list on Yahoo, for me says it all.]

***

The Clash were the greatest band for all of us now in our forties. Not
for just the music, or the politics, or style, or anything else but for
keeping faith with us. They never sold us out and stayed true through
thick and thin to an ethic and the idea of resistance. There was nothing
chauvinist about them either they were never parochial or nationalist
but represented a genuine internationalism.

I think I saw The Clash on every tour they ever did - once with both my
brothers one of whom I remember now listening to London Calling - and
each and every time they were a great band.

Loosing Strummer is sad as he meant so much. He and The Clash made
living in this shitty society just a little bit better. They gave us a
soundtrack to our struggles and made it all more real. Strummer was one
of our own. A revolutionary.

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