Political Music - Pointless?

A quote from a friend of mine:

"When I become dictator, I'm not going to ban music against me, infact, I'd positivley encourage it. Thats the mistake other dictators keep making. If you ban the music, then people start realising the oppression, they get start to plot against you, your power is obvious. If however, they have an outlet for it, they'll just hang around, making music, and they wont actually do anything"

Or words to that effect.

So what do you think?

Is political music actually doing anything? Or is it just a lot of noise with no substance?

If you think about it, the Dixie Chicks didnt get the attention for speaking out againt Bush, they got it for getting whemselves banned on the rightwing radio stations ,IIRC.

Any views?

political music doesnt really do much, i mean does anything do much? even mass worldwide protests dont seem to change politicians minds...
music with political lyrics is just music about whats on the song writers mind really.. unless as a band they try and be political in which case they try to get somewhere but... dont. so it is kinda pointless in that way.

I think that it is just another to sing about. People write songs about most aspects of their lies and politics is one of them.