What Is It Good For?

So when I was growing up my mom always used to give me a hard time that my generation stole everything from her generation (bell bottoms were back in style, movies and music covers were rampant, and she thought most of our music sounded like copycats of her music growing up) and we didn't have any original material. Good thing for her I wasn't into gangsta rap or goth music I guess. Anyways, there is a grain of truth to what she said, because most of the bands I like wear their influences on their respective sleeves, but she also mentioned that her generation's music had great protest songs that our generation could never duplicate. Well, I think I can make a strong argument against that, although I think much of my generation, and easily most everybody else, have no idea the great protest songs that have come into being in post-9/11 America. So on the eve of the most historic election in generations, here are some of my generation's memos to The Man.

(P.S. - I love doing playlists like this, but I always (a) forget something I meant to include (b) forget something that I should have thought of and (c) am introduced to something I had no idea about but would be a perfect match to the list. So, please, comments or posts with your own protest songs)

Protest Songs Playlist :
1) Wilco - War on War
2) Rilo Kiley - It's a Hit
3) The Decemberists - 16 Military Wives
4) The Thermals - Power Doesn't Run on Nothing
5) System of a Down - B.Y.O.B.
6) Nine Inch Nails - Capital G
7) Drive-By Truckers - That Man I Shot
8) Mike Doughty - Move On
9) Elliott Smith - A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free
10) Bright Eyes - Land Locked Blues
11) Tom Waits - Day After Tomorrow
12) Outkast - Love in War
13) TV on the Radio - Red Dress
14) Bruce Springsteen - Last to Die
15) John Fogerty - I Can't Take It No More
16) Radiohead - 2+2=5 (The Lukewarm.)
17) The Smashing Pumpkins - United States
18) System of a Down - Boom!
19) Green Day - American Idiot
20) The Arcade Fire - Windowsill
21) Devendra Banhart - Heard Somebody Say
22) Drive-By Truckers - The Homefront
23) TV on the Radio - I Was A Lover
24) Mike Doughty - Fort Hood
25) Bright Eyes - Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and Be Loved)
26) Pearl Jam - World Wide Suicide
27) System of a Down - F*** the System
28) Bloc Party - Helicopter
29) M.I.A. - Pull Up The People
30) Outkast - War
31) Blitzen Trapper - Furr

Expect an embedded playlist and some mp3s to follow, but I just want to get this up for now...