Radiohead and the Jubilee 2000 Campaign

by Mario Tanny
(English major)

When the music group Radiohead first burst on to the music scene seven years ago, it became immediately evident through information means such as music articles, album covers, and an extensive website, that this particular band was not just another long-haired, head-bobbing grunge group only out to sell as many albums as they could. This band had a much greater mission than that. It was to inform as many people as they could of their polical, social and economic convictions through their personal website. While dozens of other websites have cropped up about Radiohead, this website remains uniquely their own because of its direct listing name and multi-faceted page within a page of personal comentaries, many written in a barely legible free-hand style, of such issues as upcoming protest rallies, animal testing, predictions on Middle East genocides, wrongful government spending, and barely sqeezed in daily journal entries on their current music progress. With Radiohead's political accusations constantly being updated in oversized bold print, their political cartoons of talking teddy bears appearing on a vast amount of web pages, and an often rushed-looking hand-written on their musical progress, it becomes evident that this website was created more as a world news commentary than a self-indulgent display case of itself.

Rather than waste any more space presenting every issue mentioned within the website, I chose one issue dealing with two themes that I felt would create the greatest concern to Americans both politically and economically. Prior to my download of the current web page titled, "US", I must admit having no awareness of Bill Clinton's plan to cancel a $5.7 billion debt owed by a total of 36 countries around the world. Clinton claimed this debt would be cleared by the year 2000 and challenged other taxing leaders to try "to do better". Few countries in the world are as responsible for taxing poor coutries than the United Kingdom, attacking a record 52 impoverished countries for an estimated $75 million each year.While the media has ensured the public that Prime Minister Tony Blair would write off $2.6 billion from the tax debts of poor UK countries, No commitment has been confirmed that his efforts would occur. According to Chandler, Mary Short, greater efforts have been made by Clinton to cancel U.S.-owed debts.

As an active protest agaist Blair's dormant proposal, Nick Buxton, author of this web page and communications and network executive, is assembling what he coins the "Jubilee 2000". This event, Buxton announced, will be held at the Parliament Square in centrol London at 12:30 p.m. this November 11th. Since November 11th marks the countdown of only 50 days left in the millenium, it has been chosen as the deadline for any possible changes of taxation to occur before the turn of the millenium. Loud trumpets will be among the means of demonstrating each person's dissatisfaction reguarding the current taxation laws. These trumpets, Buxton defines, will be present to "blast" the Treasury. Buxton concluded his protest advertisement by encouraging as many people as possible, what he hopes will be a turnout of thousands, to send proposals for individual event ideas or actions to the 2000 Jubilee Write Down. Although Nick Buxton is not an actual member of Radiohead, the 2000 Jubilee report examplifies Radiohead's invovement in outside resources and their cohersion in advertising another person's idea.

Perhaps the most obvious risk of this grand scale protest is the safety of the protesters. While no planned violence was mentioned, a protester revolt might occur should the police be dispatched to break up the function. Another risk might be the reputation of Radiohead. Though advertising similar events are not foriegn to them and has not tarnished their image to date, an event ending in a possible riot might cause enough dissapproval by UK authorities as to create backlash at Radiohead for allowing such an event to be publicized on their website.

Far too many issues are pending on what was not mentioned in the website for any one person, myself included, to make a concrete decision on whether this protest advertisement is justifiable with what information was given to the viewer. I cannot, for example, make any decision being unaware of the information , past, present, and future, that Radiohead knows in regards to the planned actions of both the protestors and the UK police. If a violent outbreak does occur where any people are harmed or killed, and Radiohead had remained aware that this was a possibility from the time they allowed this advertisement to be released on their website, could not justify, for me, the planning of this event. While I do agree with Buxton's cause, I only support it for as long as no one gets harmed or killed. Once this occurs, I drop my support and must do so ahead of time to prevent an injury or death from occuring. This personal perspective is further reinforced by the knowledge that despite any injuries or killings that might occur in the process, there is still no guarentee that Prime Minister Blair will revoke his taxation. All will have been done in vain and this is not a risk I would be willing to take, either to support or attend, from this event.

Naturally, other issues come into play outside of the one mentioned above. I have read an opinion, not a fact, from one person, whom I do not know and have never heard of. His debt figures are curious to me in how he configured them. I would want to delve deeper and find the sourse of his research, not just to varify if his debt calculations are accurate but also, and more importantly, to see if this problem is indeed as bad as he states. Is the UK taxing what they need to stay afloat and how poor are these "poor countries" Buxton refers to. There are far too many pending circumstances for any one person, without proof, to invoke me in a project as vast and dangerous as this this one might turn out to be.