Anthrax - Capitalism Is Cannibalism

ANTHRAX - CAPITALISM IS CANNIBALISM

Based in Gravesend, Kent, Anthrax had initially been featured on Bullshit Detector 2 and from there had gone on to have a record (entitled They've Got It All Wrong) released on the Small Wonder label, leading to airplay on the John Peel show. Pete Stennet, proprietor of Small Wonder Records always had a good ear for a good band, being responsible for the first independent label recordings of a plethora of classic acts including Cockney Rejects, Menace, The Wall, Cravats, Punishment Of Luxury, The Cure, and of course, Crass.

Among the large number of demo tapes sent to him, something obviously stood out about Anthrax to warrant doing a single with them as it did with John Peel to warrant giving them airplay. Could it have been perhaps the angry intelligence at work in their songs and the perfect jelling of sentiment to sound?

Crass too obviously picked up on it by the fact of awarding them the opportunity to put out a single on their label. In the process of doing so, however, something very unexpected occurred: In the studio with Penny Rimbaud on production, Anthrax were turned into an astonishing hybrid of Flux Of Pink Indians and a teenage Crass. With phlegmy, snarling vocals, pounding drums, rumbling bass and squealing, feedback-torn, fuzz-drenched guitar, Anthrax were imbuing the Crass formula with new life and vitality.

The title track of their EP, Capitalism Is Cannibalism, was a masterpiece of political Punk combining both anger and despair in equal measures: "What a fucking set up, what a real mess. I can't make sense of it, it doesn't make sense."

Casting a beady eye upon the world, vocalist Oskar was diving head-first into the maelstrom and letting rip with invective: "Raised from the cradle and teethed on possession, they reared you upon TV capitalism. They spewed you out of school, they gave you a nice job. You get turned on when you're on top."

To Oskar, society was a vicious circle in which positions of consuming and of being consumed become blurred, where roles are prescribed and what you get for what you give becomes ever more toxic: "You have to survive by producing crap. Can you call that life? With the very same crap you have to buy back displayed on the supermarket shelf, over a thousand varieties - to damage your health."

For all the sloganeering within Punk alongside the grappling with politics and the wrestling with economics, it was very rare that the term 'capitalism' was ever mentioned. Whilst 'communism' was a part and parcel of everyday language from Sex Pistols lyrics to mainstream news reports, 'capitalism' was deemed almost archaic as though it was a redundant word. When describing the nuclear stand-off between East and West, even, it was always 'communist' Russia against the 'democratic' West.

Professor of linguistics and intellectual political activist Noam Chomsky would argue that this was no accident and was all part of the manufacturing of consent. If this be so, then Anthrax were one of the very first bands to go against the grain by not only ripping the mask of democracy away and addressing the western world's political and economic system by its proper name but defining it truthfully also with one of the most precise Punk slogans ever: Capitalism is cannibalism.

Equally unequivocal was the track-cum-slogan Violence Is Violence, which found Oskar describing how the media condemns violence one minute then condones it the next according to whatever suits whatever agenda is being set at the time. Citing the way the tabloids glorified the Falklands war when only weeks earlier they had been deploring hooligan violence on Britain's streets, he makes a good argument: "The whole fucking affair seems the same to me, one minute they're deploring it the next minute adoring it. But violence is violence no matter who inflicts it, whether used in a street fight or a war caused by politics."

Probably without realising it themselves, Anthrax were actually years ahead of their time specifically in regard to the subject matter of their songs. As well as bare-naked capitalism, for example, they were even getting to grips in the track All Things Bright And Beautiful with environmental conservation. These being two themes that years later would become the focus of major protest movements.

Although the artwork on the sleeve of the EP was perhaps not up to the usual high standard of Crass Records covers, the bold statement on the main fold-out poster side offered final evidence if it be needed that their hearts were firmly in the right place: 'Capitalism gives opportunities in life - Anarchy gives life'.

The Capitalism Is Cannibalism EP along with their Small Wonder début would be the only records Anthrax would ever release in their own right during the Eighties (until reforming many years later and finally releasing two albums, the first a compilation of past glories and the second a collection of totally new material) which was a shame, for even though they were derided by some as being mere Crass copyists, Anthrax were in actual fact a very special band indeed.

Greenham Common

GREENHAM COMMON

The Easter weekend of 1983 saw 70,000 people descending upon the county of Berkshire to once again congregate beneath the CND banner and stage another anti-nuclear protest. Having 'embraced the base' just a few months earlier, this time a 14 mile-long human chain was formed stretching from Greenham Common to Aldermaston nuclear research centre via Burghfield where the final assembly of mounted nuclear warheads took place. Highlighting the connection between the three establishments, it was a peaceful, symbolic demonstration keeping strictly within the law.

Back at Greenham that same weekend, stepping beyond the boundary of the law but still remaining resolutely peaceful, 200 women dressed as teddy bears stormed the perimeter fence of the base. Once inside the site a surreal protest in the form of a teddy bears picnic took place before being rudely gatecrashed by the police and the bears escorted off the premises.

Apart from the disparity in numbers, the main difference between the two protests was that one was conducted within the law and the other broke the law through trespass on government property. Not that this made any difference to newly appointed Defence Minister Michael Heseltine who accused all the protesters whether acting legally or not as being "misguided and naive enemies of the State".

Heseltine was to prove himself a formidable opponent of CND and indeed, even Thatcher would soon become wary of him and the threat he might pose to her own position. With his forceful character and striking appearance he cut an imposing figure who through sheer antagonism on his part would quickly become a politician to despise.

The problem with Heseltine's criticisms of CND supporters as being "misguided" and "naive" was that these were people whose only demand was that there be peace. It wasn't too much to ask for in life, surely? Heseltine may not have agreed with their advocacy of unilateralism but all he could offer instead was a constant state of fear, the constant threat of all-out war and a world edging ever nearer to nuclear destruction. It was a no-brainer.

And as for being labelled an "enemy of the State", what better accolade could there be? What better street credibility? Especially if as well as being a CND peace protester you also happened to enjoy playing in an Anarcho Punk band who had a record out on the Crass label...

Star Wars

STAR WARS

Such determination as displayed by the Anarcho Punk bands was going to be much needed in the face of what one of the world's most powerful Christians was about to announce. Since his entry into the White House, President Ronald Reagan had been successfully proving himself a good friend to all his loyal supporters who had aided him in his election victory. For the rich he was pro-tax cuts, for the conservatives he was pro-family, for the Jewish lobby he was pro-Israel, for the Christian Right he was pro-life, and for all of them he was pro-national defense. In the eyes of all these people, the enemy of freedom and of all that was good was Russia and after 40 years of Cold War, Reagan was determined that it would be his Administration that would finally see the end of it with western democracy emerging triumphant.

Having already escalated the arms race to an unprecedented level, without any prior warning given to his allies Reagan suddenly announced the spear-heading of a programme of research into a new defense against ballistic nuclear missile attack - the Strategic Defence Initiative.

The basic idea was to develop satellites with the capability of firing deadly laser beams at nuclear missiles, either at their point of launch or before point of impact. Controlled by a sophisticated computer system on earth, the satellites would provide an ultimate shield against nuclear attack from Russia. In all but name, Reagan was advocating the future militarisation of space where science fiction would become science fact and where science fact would become science dystopia. Critics immediately dubbed the whole idea 'Star Wars'.

Whilst obviously escalating the arms race further, Reagan tempered this fact by suggesting the Strategic Defence Initiative would actually supersede nuclear weapons as a deterrent and ultimately make all nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. As a firm believer in the 'mutually assured destruction' doctrine, Thatcher was appalled at the talk of a nuclear weapon-free world. According to her, it was absolutely due to nuclear weapons that there had not already been a third world war and the idea of a world totally free of nuclear bombs was neither attainable nor even desirable.

For their own (unspoken) economic reasons, Russia too was dead set against the initiative and for them the whole issue would soon come to dominate all talks on arms control. Due to the ultimate impact it would have on the nuclear arms race and Russian/American relationships, Thatcher would years later say that Reagan's original 'Star Wars' decision would be "the single most important of his presidency". At the time, however, it was yet another mad leap down the rapidly spiralling path to Armageddon.

Clearly, something was going very wrong with the world. The nuclear nightmare was growing ever more real, propelled by the Right-wing political agendas of both the Reagan Administration in America and the Thatcher government in Britain. In the name of peace - on land, at sea, in air, at home, abroad and now potentially in space - a war was being waged against all things politically left-of-centre. The forces of conservative power and control were on the march and no longer was there the option of ignorant bliss or of splendid isolation. The only question now being 'What to do?'.