We are watching TV when a documentary of why thousands of people are starving to death in Cambodia comes on the screen. It traces the history of what they once called the Vietnamese "situation" and points the finger at two men. War criminals. Kissinger and Nixon. Later, on the ,news. the memory of Carters debacle jog still in our minds, Edward Kennedy appears. He looks like a cartoon. Jesus, explodes a Swedish friend passionate^!, do you think the Americans should be allowed to vote at all? It was, on reflection, not meant seriously.

I ve noticed how many times letters to CREEM protest keep politics out of rock", in features too: I have a pretty good recollection that was one of the pieces of advice in the "how to be a rock journalist" article.

Its a cry we vaguely recall pre-punk here. Weird to still hear it. Okay, its bound to be a superficial view sitting here reading letters from people going crazy—with reason no doubt—in Michigan. But business? Question: What is the difference between Rod Stewart and a presidential candidate? Answer: Only that Rod Stewart doesnt drop bombs on civilians or build nuclearplants.

It seems as though people are scared when politics come into rock, as though thats all theres going to be. No more songs about pretty women, cars and love to sing in the bath. Just huge consciousness-raising sessions on vinyl. Come on, its nonsense—just as it is to have nothing but mindless blah-blahing about heroes and lovers and brown rice and windmills without anyone poking their head out of their holes and looking round.

Its sometimes as though rock is still looked on as a place to escape to. Out there somewhere. Well sometimes we all need a place to rest, but permanent hiding? And was it ever so pure? Did it really exist in a vacuum? When Elvis Presley cut his first record half the reason people went bananas was because of what Presley represented. It wasnt so much that he sang about this place of doom and misery where the desk clerks were in mourning for broken hearts (it helped but that wasnt all). James Dean and Marlon Brando were as much rock n roll as Presley was. "The voice of a generation" I remember them being called, a generation looking for some answers. It was always more than Bill Haleys kiss curl.

"Ill find some sand to hide my head in/All this talk of strength through labour/IH tell you this/You can leave me out"...("Guns Before Butter" by Gang Of Four)

I finished Studs Lonigan the other day. A book about waste. About ignorance, clinging to prejudices to survive, scared of change. Lost, Studs coughed up his lungs and died. No working class hero, but a working class waste for sure. This,week Martin Webster, a leader of the British National Front, was given a two-year suspended sentence, fined 150 pounds and costs. A jury found him guilty of inciting racial hatred through the pages of the NF paper. The judge decided against putting him in prison: "I do not want to make a martyr of you. "

On the TV set Cambodian families and their babies lay on makeshift cots in one of the only hospitals left standing after the murderous Pol Pot regime had razed most to the ground. They were dying. In front of a camera that was the first piece of equipment to communicate their suffering. The West had erected a barrier of silence about Cambodia. They refuse to send aid to keep the people alive because they wont recognize the Vietnamese government who went in to liberate the Cambodians. They were dying slowly, inexorably. They didnt move. Sometimes it was hard to tell these film pictures from the photographs reporter John Pilger showed of the thousands who had been systematically tortured and murdered in Pol Pot concentration camps. Only when the flies shifted round the lips of a young woman moaning were we shamed more than words could have shocked us. A leading TV critic here wrote that she had buried her head in her hands whilst watching: "Not that I should not look at them, but that they should not look at me."

It was called Zero Hour. I hope you see it. We watched it with full stomachs. It was on the commercial channel but there were no advertising breaks, how could there have been? A stick of a baby dying before you. ..a cut to a family eating fish fingers in their new kitchen, or why you should buy this new Allegro motor. Images in your front room can effect still if theyre strong enough. Overall though, The Gang Of Four are right about the media: "How can I sit and eat my tea/With all that blood flowing from the television/...Watch new blood on an 18-inch screen/The corpse is a new personality/Guerilla war struggle is a new entertainment." ("5.45")

Here is the news: People are shot down over your TV dinner, the next frame shows one of the Royal Family on a cruise. Everything is reduced to the same level of insignificance.

' "They end up presenting a supposedly neutral view of the world where nothing serious seems to happen." (Gang Of Fours, Jon King in a recent NME interview)

John Pilger is an independent journalist. He is never neutral. Nobody bothered about Cambodia from the media until he went there.

When The Gang Of Fours first single came out, "At Home Hes A Tourist" (one of the great titles this year), the BBCs "rock'* programme Top Of The Pops refused to let them appear until they changed some of the words. The offencfing lyrics went: "And the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket." Christ, we cant mention contraception! No indeed. Fine having Anita Ward singing coy insinuations about ringing her bell, women dancers half nude and undulating all over the screen, but not the mention of rubbers, not the intrusion of reality. The group finally said they would change rubbers to packets which roughly meant the same thing. The BBC said only the word rubbish would suffice. Which of course made rubbish of the lyrics and the band refused to appear.

After the shake-up the Sex Pistols gave them, the Establishment are fighting hard, in the empty space, to re-assert themselves. After all, coming into the 1980s, were post-punk. The world turned, shifted, fell back into place, and now they want to keep it that way.

Walking for miles on a pro-abortion rally the other weekend in London there were so many people on the street we couldnt always hear the bands travelling onthe flatbed trucks. We re-traced our steps towards the end, keeping an eye open for friends we hadnt yet met. One was dancing in a crowd of young punks and Rock Against Racism people, behind a truck with four young guys bent over their mike stands making hard edgy great music. "Great band!" yelled the friend stopping mid-head shake. Great, we agreed, admiring anyone who could sound so good on a moving flatbed.

Bob Marleys back fighting hard on his new album, the next XTC set is extraordinary, The Gang Of Four are signed to EMI, the only other musicians apart from Tom Robinson on the label who came through punk to say "Dont you believe it, just think about this for a minute. " They turnout for RAR gigs, Rock Against Sexism gigs, rallies like the abortion demo. They know people listen to rock because they do (I once knew all the words to "Gonna Get Along Without You Now", could do one of a three-part harmony in the school playground. Utterly meaningless words but we always remembered them) and that people who dont like the intrusion of someone thinking in-rock try hard to make it sound boring and dull. No fun. The Gang Of Fours album is called Entertainment—ha ha, and so it is. Avant garde new wave, slicing, jagged, finely controlled.

Ironically to the no-politics-in-music brigade the news is that The Gang Of Four look like being the most successful new band around. Yoii couldnt get within spitting distance of their last gigs, Entertainment is selling hot and fast. We hear that the new Fleetwood Mac album cost nearly a million dollars to record. We didnt hear anything about the thousands of gays who marched on Washington until we bumped into Tom Robinson whod been there. ®