"This isn't whack-a-mole; this is sign language with missiles and aircraft." - Canadian general Pierre Trudeau, commenting on airstrikes by Canadian and Mexican peacekeepers fighting German raiders in the Ardennes.The second "Day the Music Died" was in 1986, when terrorists attacked a punk rock concert by driving over concertgoers with vans and buses before deploying machine guns, Molotov cocktails, and other homemade explosives. 76 people were killed, including Joey Ramone, Johnny Ramone, Patti Smith, Johnny Rotten, Joe Strummer, and Pete Shelley. The terrorists' identities or motivations were unclear. The Thatcher government tried to imply that it was the IRA, the Direct Action Movement, or the Anarchist Federation, and that this is just what you get when Leftist radicals organise; however, the investigation almost immediately implicated such groups as the EDL and the BNP, and certain actors within the London Police Service and even MI5 at least knew of or suspected the attack in advance. For example, Chief Constable Arthur L. Maynard was discovered to have changed police patrol routes the day before the attack to avoid the concert grounds, for unknown reasons (and during the hearings, he infamously escaped prosecution). The Thatcher government, with the support of the US intelligence community, used the terrorist attack and subsequent anti-police riots to justify the creation of a more extensive and heavily-militarised police and surveillance network. This provoked further violence between young punk revolutionaries and the police. In response to the government's heavy-handed policies, an actual Leftist militant insurgency with actual ties to the IRA and KGB took shape, and central to this nebulous movement's ideology, aesthetic, and propaganda is punk music.
This quote was said in 1987, by an independent radio station by the famous disc jockey, musician, and anarcho-communist revolutionary Madison Mackay. Here, she was talking about the transformative effect music had on her life. As a girl, she mourned and was devastated by the first "Day the Music Died"; but in 1986, the second "Day the Music Died" did not cause her to feel just sadness, but anger. Already a talented and somewhat-popular punk/riot grrrl musician with a somewhat-popular indie radio station, the events of 1986 radicalised her further, prompting her to drop out of university, go into hiding, take the alias "Comrade Pussycat," and reorganise her radio station as "Radio Anarchy." Despite the best efforts of MI5 and the CIA, Comrade Pussycat's whereabouts and activities remain unknown; however, she is suspected for being involved in Chief Constable Maynard's kidnapping and televised murder in 1988. Radio Anarchy remains either the voice of the resistance or a dangerous propaganda machine, depending on your point of view.
"This isn't whack-a-mole; this is sign language with missiles and aircraft."
"Gentlemen! Today we are not white, we are not black, we are not yellow or brown or red! We are the sons of one people!"
"Today we ride into glory! Sound the charge!"