Fifty years after his death, the sardonic protest music of American folk singer Phil Ochs (1940-1976) is finding a chilling new relevance. Readers of the Guardian have highlighted how his 1966 song, 'Cops of the World', which ridiculed US foreign policy and disregard for international law, seems to capture the current geopolitical climate.
A Song for Then and Now
Ochs released the track at the height of the Vietnam War, using his signature wit to critique American imperialism. The song's central theme—of the US acting as a global police force—has been thrust back into the spotlight by contemporary events. As one correspondent from Cardiff noted, the song 'captured the zeitgeist then, and sadly is even more relevant now.'
Modern Parallels: From G8 to 'G6'?
Readers were quick to draw direct lines between Ochs' lyrics and recent actions by the Trump administration. One letter from Glasgow pointed to Donald Trump's interventions in Venezuela and threats against Denmark over Greenland, questioning whether such behaviour warranted expelling the US from the G7 forum. The group, originally the G8 including Russia, became the G7 in 2014 after Russia's annexation of Crimea.
The analogy of American power was further sharpened by a reader from Surbiton, who contrasted President Theodore Roosevelt's 1901 foreign policy mantra—'speak softly and carry a big stick'—with the current approach, described as using 'a loudspeaker and bludgeon[ing] weaker nations.'
Institutions, Arrests, and Ironic Prizes
The correspondence took a satirical turn regarding Western policy on Venezuela. A writer from East Yorkshire suggested we would only know the West was serious 'when the Tony Blair Institute puts loafers on the ground,' a wry comment on the former PM's consultancy work.
Further dark humour questioned whether British courts would support a citizen's arrest of a 'rogue state' leader, while another reader from Nottingham pondered if FIFA President Gianni Infantino should demand the return of a FIFA peace prize in light of global conflicts.
The collection of letters closed with a sobering, timeless quote from Edmund Burke, reiterated by a reader in Chorley: 'All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.' Together, these reader responses frame Phil Ochs' decades-old work not as a relic, but as a persistent mirror held up to the conduct of nations on the world stage.
