With all the talk of Al Gore and Climate-Gate (check You Tube for We Are Change Chicago confronting Al Gore at a recent book signing), I was reminded of when Dee Snyder (Twisted Sister) spoke at the Senate and got Al Gore all hot under the collar.
It made me think as well of Punk rock. I loved the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and anything like them back in the late 70s and early 80s. A lot of their music was heavily lined with anti-authoritarian themes. Anarchy in the UK? London Calling/London Burning. In fact, London Calling has a line about the ice age coming, the sun moving in.... this was before the major media onslaught of Global Warming. 30-50 years ago people were moving against govt interference in their lives, they staged sit-ins and Hippies did not just cry out for Make Love Not War, they also protested govts. Where are these people now?? I have seen clips of Green Day calling GW Bush a fascist - what are they saying now? Where are these cries against the govt from well-known bands now? Do they not see the heavy chains about to be wrapped tightly around our necks? Doesn't it anger them now? I don't understand it at all.
And then there is a verse from a Housemartins song that has been stuck in my brain since I first heard it in the 80s:
The people who grinned themselves to death
Smiled so much they failed to take a breath.
And even when their kids were starvin',
they all thought the Queen was charmin'.
(from The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death - 1987)
Who's names could you put in the last line to replace the Queen?
The thing is that those who raged against the machine in the past were really raging against America.
ReplyDeleteThey're not going to rage against the destruction of America.
You see, they're the Useful Idiots, the Fellow Travellers, the Koolaid Guzzlers. That's who they are.
That's why we don't see any big protests with hardcore leftwing freakazoids with gas masks, chucking molotov cocktails and rocks, smashing windows and burning Obama in effigy while chanting that he's Hitler and an "international terrorist", despite the fact that he's waging the exact same wars as was Bush, plus is bombing Pakistan, which Bush, if I recall correctly, didn't.
Of course, they're not going to get mad at the climategaters. Because they're part of the problem themselves. They WANT this nonsense, which is communism by stealth, by big lies, by imposition.
The only thing that can stop this neo-communist global-governing-regime from happening is the Common People.
A good start is the Tea Party movement. But more must get involved and bring extreme pressure onto the Powers that Be.
Yup. I don't know about the Metal dudes lol, but with other bands (much like with many celebs), they cry out about the iron fists of govt closing around our necks, but if it's a leader they approve of, it doesn't seem to matter if he/she too is wielding the iron fist. That makes no sense to me.
ReplyDeleteMy point of writing that is to make people think about it more - why would a band like Green Day cry out so loudly and quite obnoxiously about the past President but not be caught on camera name-calling the next one? Do they actually agree with this stuff? They are young men - they have NO idea what communism even is or what it could mean to people here.
I am reading a book called Cry Out Of Russia by Anna Fisher http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/order/general/cry.html . She is from my city but lived in Russia as a child. Perhaps I should send them a few copies???