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August 17, 2012 at 2:59 pm
j67k
Killing in the name of!
Some of those that were forces are the same that burn crosses
…
Those who died are justified, for wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites
…
And now you do what they told ya, now you’re under control
And now you do what they told ya!
…
F#@% you, I won’t do what you tell me!!!
Mother-f#@%er!!!
Uggh!!!
August 18, 2012 at 5:32 am
bolithio
Is this even true? I seriously doubt Ryan really listens to this band.
August 18, 2012 at 7:29 am
Erasmus
Tom Morello (a Harvard grad) has a net worth of $60 million. I guess the “machine” that he loves to “rage” against hasn’t impeded his rise to the lap of luxury!
August 18, 2012 at 7:45 am
Mitch
It’s always fascinated me how some people pretend that the ability to succeed within our system should disqualify one from recognizing and fighting against its transparently-evident injustices and flaws.
It’s as though they think that successful people who continue to criticize the evils of our system are demonstrating hypocrisy.
An equally sensible interpretation is that those who are successful within a broken system and still work against its flaws are able to think beyond themselves, and realize that their success is not proof that the system in which they succeeded is just peachy-keen for everyone else.
There is no obligation for people with compassion and empathy to be failures, and no obligation for successful people to destroy their compassion and empathy.
August 18, 2012 at 7:46 am
Mitch
From Wikipedia:
On April 6, 2006, Tom Morello was honored with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award for his support of worker’s rights and for his AOJ work.[35] Tom has worked on numerous labor campaigns: the Guess sweatshop boycott, the LA janitors strike, the Taco Bell boycott, the southern California grocery workers strike and lockout, and others.
August 18, 2012 at 9:05 am
Erasmus
Bruce Springsteen’s wife, quoted in a recent New Yorker profile of her husband,performed some verbal contortions similar to Mitch’s as she attempted to defend the opulence that surrounds her. And who can blame her — or Tom Morello? After all, who wants to live like a Thoreau?Or a Daniel Berrigan? Or a Dorothy Day? Or a Ludwig Wittgenstein (who gave away the fortune he inherited,so that people like Rilke could escape penury)? It’s much more gratifying to launch salvos safely from a financial cushion AND to feel that one is on the side of the dispossessed (who are out of view, of course). Raging against a Machine that enriches you? Sounds like paradise!
August 18, 2012 at 10:18 am
Mitch
It’s lovely that there are saints in the world. It’s even more wonderful that those of us who are not saints may remain in opposition to an unjust system, even while making out as best we can under its rules.
Those who support the status quo love the idea that people must either take vows of poverty or pretend that this is the best of all possible worlds. Such a terrifically phony choice.
August 18, 2012 at 10:39 am
Mitch
Here is your quote, Erasmus:
I’m wondering if you feel Springsteen is disqualified from sticking up for “the little guy” on the grounds that he has not given away all his earnings? Or is he allowed to keep half? Ten percent?
Is it acceptable from your point of view to wish your tax rate (and that of others with your income) were higher, but be unwilling to pay the higher rate when no one else will?
For as long as I can remember, the best conservative defense of the status quo has been to claim that no beneficiary of the machine has any right to challenge it. It’s a great approach — basically guilting people into thinking that because they have a human level of selfishness for themselves and their family, they must defend a system which worships selfishness like a golden calf.
I don’t see the logic, but as rhetoric I’m sure it’s been effective.
August 18, 2012 at 11:56 am
suzy blah blah
Raging against a Machine that enriches you? Sounds like paradise!
-a meaningless paradise where the art of subversion is just another product that feeds the machine. Break to commercial.
August 18, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Erasmus
I have no wish to preach to anyone,nor do I recommend poverty. As for the “conservative” view that anyone who benefits from the system has no right to challenge it —I reject the notion, just as I don’t deny someone like Clarence Thomas the right to oppose affirmative action (which certainly aided his career). Tom Morello, because he has chosen to amass great wealth when many are starving,will have to make peace with his lot in life. I hope that the self-congratulation that his numerous awards may induce will not blind him to the incongruity of his situation.——————————————————- “The art of subversion” as “just another product that feeds the machine”?All too true,I’m afraid. All the right-wingers have their favorite “edgy” rock groups. (Ann Coulter the “dead head”?!)
August 18, 2012 at 2:40 pm
Mitch
“The art of subversion” as “just another product that feeds the machine”?All too true,I’m afraid.
Alternative approaches that become admired by many will always become fashionable to those who think the surface is the essence. That doesn’t discredit the genuine people who created the alternative approach.
The many, many Jesus-hairs out there don’t discredit Jesus’ words.
Subversives whose dress and manner might strike most as “drab,” like Ralph Nader and Peter Singer, probably have their dress and manner imitated as well, but nobody notices, precisely because they blend right in.
August 18, 2012 at 7:19 pm
j67k
Learn about the band before you make asinine generalizations guys. Are they ‘part of the machine’? Do you even know what the ‘machine’ they are referring to is?
http://www.ratm.com/
Whatever…
August 18, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Eric Kirk
Here’s a link to the Rolling Stone op ed piece.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-20120816
August 18, 2012 at 9:43 pm
Eric Kirk
Oh, and Morello certainly puts in his due time for good causes. No question.
August 18, 2012 at 10:57 pm
Unk John
“Those who support the status quo love the idea that people must either take vows of poverty or pretend that this is the best of all possible worlds. Such a terrifically phony choice.”
Now, Erasmus, let’s take a step back from your Rage Against The Mitch for a moment. Let’s look at the above statement. I can’t say what you may think of it, but I find it succinct. To me, it is the heart of what this discussion has evolved into.
If you agree with me, then we probably need go no further. If not, perhaps you could point out a simple flaw or two.
August 19, 2012 at 7:35 am
Mitch
Those who think there’s no difference between President Obama and Mitt Romney, or who hated Les Mis, may wish to shield their eyes:
August 19, 2012 at 8:15 am
Erasmus
Unk John — I don’t know anyone (unless there is a reincarnation of Leibniz somewhere) who thinks that this is the best of all possible worlds, nor do I know of anyone who would admit to supporting the status quo. (Certainly not Paul Ryan.) Mitch talks about false choices — he ought not set them up as straw men.
August 19, 2012 at 8:23 am
Eric Kirk
Optimist: “You know, this is the best of all possible worlds!”
Pessimist: “You know, you’re absolutely right.”
August 19, 2012 at 10:33 am
suzy blah blah
(Ann Coulter the “dead head”?!)
-it could be that the attraction is some kind of reptilian Illuminati light show. I know that Mickey Hart and Bob Weir have attended the Bohemian Grove annual gathering, hanging out with Bush, Rumsfeld, etc.
August 19, 2012 at 11:03 am
Twigs
This whole argument is puzzling so I’m feeling the truly daft one left spinning in circles.
Of course there are those who benefit and those who don’t benefit from the system. That is the basis of a system to arrange elements to produce something. There hasn’t been a system designed successfully where everyone benefits equally.
To have a machine it must be one or more systems working together to produce a certain function. If that function is to maintain the systems then that is reasonable. The machine is self interested in maintaining its own parts.
So if the idea is that there should be a different system then that system too will have those who benefit and those who don’t.
Capitalism is a machine. It is made up of a series of systems. Because it is a machine it is regulated so the systems which make up the machine can’t tinker with it so the people who benefit more can make it so they benefit even more. Thereby, of course, make those who benefit the least benefit even less.
This thread seems to be caught up in arguing whether there is a machine or not and if the machine is rigged and if so just how rigged it may be and by whom.
I thought these things have been known for a long time. It is the regulations which have gone missing. Because the people who benefit from screwing up the machine have removed them. Because the people who vote let them do it.
August 19, 2012 at 5:22 pm
Unk John
I would not take objection with most of what Twigs said @ 11:03, but I am more concerned about what has been said about whether or not anyone like Tom Morello has any business attacking a system which has had a great deal to do with his financial success.
Again, the quote from Mitch was: “Those who support the status quo love the idea that people must either take vows of poverty or pretend that this is the best of all possible worlds. Such a terrifically phony choice.”
Erasmus, you don’t like the quote because you feel the hypothesis is invalid because you know no one who supports the status quo. I don’t either. You are also not fond of that portion of the conclusion that refers to pretend to believe that this is the best of all possible worlds, again not knowing anyone who does.
I prefer to think that the spirit of Mitch’s statement is that you are pressing Morello to make a choice between giving up the wealth or quit bitching. Otherwise, be labeled a hypocrite. I know you said that you “reject the notion”, but you immediately thereafter made statements that for all practical purposes say that you are not really willing to reject it.
I understand the dichotomy here. I grasp what you mean when you say he “will have to make peace with his lot in life”. People are starving and he has extra money. Same’s true for me and, I suspect for you. All I know is that in the context of this portion of this thread, Ted Nugent would not under any circumstances qualify as a hypocrite. He has a lot of money and wants to keep it.
I’ll take Morello.
August 19, 2012 at 8:02 pm
bolithio
This is also a common theme in music, that is the ‘sell-out’. If you make it, you’ve sold out. Of course thats not entirely fair, but many music fans will keep this attitude. Rage came out in a severely commercial era. If you wanted to make a living in music, you had to sell records, make videos etc… Were Nirvana sell-outs? What about Bob Marley or the Beatles? You enter the world of music and your marketed. But at least Rage actually gave millions of suburban kids a glimpse into another kind of music that wasnt songs about heartache and angst. And they didnt make the 7 record deal and slave away for Columbia.
“In the right light, study becomes insight
But the system that dissed us
Teaches us to read and write
So called facts are fraud
They want us to allege and pledge
And bow down to their God
Lost the culture, the culture lost
Spun our minds and through time
Ignorance has taken over
Yo, we gotta take the power back!
Bam! Here’s the plan
Motherfuck Uncle Sam
Step back, I know who I am
Raise up your ear, I’ll drop the style and clear
It’s the beats and the lyrics they fear
The rage is relentless
We need a movement with a quickness
You are the witness of change
And to counteract
We gotta take the power back!
For rap meets 90s grunge, they were a pretty cool band.
August 20, 2012 at 7:45 am
Erasmus
Hypocrisy has been well defined as “a tribute vice pays to virtue,” and no one is exempt from the charge. I’m not asking Morello to wear a hair-shirt– I’m hoping that the readers of this blog notice an incongruity in his life. “Extra money”? Wish I had some —my Social Security check is $607 a month,supplemented by whatever substitute teaching assignments I’m offered.(Last school year netted me $2,000.) Nope —not much extra money, no cable TV. Morello can yell “We gotta take the power back” without (apparently)blushing. I can imagine a person in a different economic bracket shouting the words with greater justification, in a country where wealth and power are so closely interwoven. ——————————-Ted Nugent does not pay a tribute to virtue, and for that reason I’d rather cast my lot with Tom Morello.
August 20, 2012 at 8:28 am
Eric Kirk
Ted N. pays tribute to what he perceives as virtue. He wants us to let him pay lower taxes so he can create more jobs to share with the rest of us.
August 20, 2012 at 9:07 am
Erasmus
Your mind is too subtle! — I’ll rephrase my thought: Ted Nugent does not pay tribute to what I and many others consider virtue: a greater measure of social justice. Of course, in his mind he is on the side of the angels (who isn’t? — in his own mind). But the best protest songs seem to come from the Left, not the Right —- conservatives have a constricted notion of what “virtue” entails, and their “tributes” to it are rarely (if ever) memorable. Equating Nugent’s devotion to gun rights to Morello’s vision of a more egalitarian society seems (pardon the expression) legalistic — true in only a trivial sense. There is little virtue in Nugent because there is little room for hypocrisy: one can imagine all his desires fulfilled —- no gun control, a minuscule level of taxation, etc. The Left will always be more liable to charges of hypocrisy because it prates about virtue so constantly. In that sense: long live hypocrisy! (May it just shrink to a tittle.)
August 20, 2012 at 9:35 am
Eric Kirk
But there is virtue in the Wango Tango!
August 20, 2012 at 10:12 am
Erasmus
OK, I’ll cry “Unk” ——- “I’ll take Morello” (reading the lyrics to this song pushed me over the edge).
August 20, 2012 at 12:06 pm
bolithio
Erasmus, for the record, Zack wrote the words and did the shouting. Morello plays guitar.
August 20, 2012 at 12:50 pm
suzy blah blah
i’ll take Murello
-does one really have to make another choice for the better of two evils? suzy doesn’t see anything but a superficial difference. One is an outspoken rock and roll stereotype from the right the other from the left. Both are in bands that create trite drivel for you to consume and for them to make lots of money from. Both are ineffective in making any real cultural change. Both add to the mediocrity of their chosen rock genre –and life goes on, yawn.
August 20, 2012 at 2:49 pm
suzy blah blah
Hypocrisy has been well defined as “a tribute vice pays to virtue,” and no one is exempt from the charge.
-i understand that in order to get their records heard widely they have to compromise with the industry’s contracts. I have no qualms with that nor do i see it as terribly hypocritical. Nobody who was ever successful in rock and roll was virginal in that respect.
suzy likes the way the Sex Pistols dealt with it. They were smart enough to expose the stupidity of the industry while capitalizing on it:
“Shortly after signing a recording contract for £40,000, the Sex Pistols appeared on British TV.
After Johnny Rotten said “shit” on the air, and Steve Jones called the host a “dirty fucker” and a “fucking rotter,” the Pistols were promptly shown the door and banned from playing sixteen scheduled shows in England. After the band vomited at the airport several days later, their label paid them £50,000 to abandon their contract.
Fortunately for the Pistols, another label stepped in and offered them a £150,000 offer. The Pistols promptly accepted and visited their new employers, spitting wine on the carpets, defecating through the windows, and having sex with the secretaries. Ten days later, the company destroyed every copy of the Pistols’ record and paid them another £75,000 to disappear.”
Within four months, the record industry had paid the Pistols £350,000 just to go away.”
-did they sell out? For sure for sure. Did they “go away”? LOL!
“rock and roll will never die, but you fucks will.” Johnny Rotten.
August 20, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Eric Kirk
The Sex Pistols, in my view, were boring. There was no substance, just a kind of random rage about nothing in particular. I think the scene in Sid and Nancy with Johhny Rotten singing “I am in anti-Christer” for some rich kids’ black and white ball on a luxury ship said it all.
Other groups might not have been substance-driven, but the Clash, Black Flag, and a few others at least made the effort.
Phil Ochs never sold out. But he offed himself, so I can’t credit him with a whole lot of character either.
August 20, 2012 at 4:40 pm
bolithio
Both are ineffective in making any real cultural change.
Thats BS suz. Many kids think more about things then would have otherwise because of music like rage, or public enemy etc… Further, many of these guys do good things now:
August 20, 2012 at 5:36 pm
suzy blah blah
There was no substance, just a kind of random rage about nothing in particular.
-i’m not a defender of them. They were before suzy’s time and i’ve never listened to them. But what i see from my limited point of view is that their ‘random rage about nothing’ reflected a particular growing aspect of society back to itself, especially the youth in England and America in the 70s. It could even be seen as prophetic. That may be a stretch but if you think of Columbine type events, or thousands of other smaller but similar random ‘meaningless rages’, it’s not so untrue. But, of course, what happens is that there are ignorant people who blame bands like that for causing the behavior. No, they catch hold of the zeitgeist and they reflect it. suzy calls that the truth. And i think that is more substantial than preaching an ideal.
@Bolithio, take a look around. There are a hundred thousand rock musicians serving the interests of policy makers who only want to use them and have no appreciation for their true value anyway. i think you’re fooling yourself if you think any subversive ideas in the music makes much difference in the big picture.
August 20, 2012 at 6:59 pm
bolithio
Suzzy – to understand you, are you saying music doesn’t make a difference in the big picture, or that specific bands/people dont…? Cause Im still not getting you. If you were one of the millions of suburban kids in any big city – and never heard music that stepped out of bounds with the love and angst formula – let alone ‘the system’ system (bob Marley back up chicks) would you be a different person? Im not saying that Rage was that deep – but even subtle free speech resonates. Music has been cultures curve ball for along time. Do not underestimate it.
August 20, 2012 at 7:08 pm
bolithio
(since were talking about punk suddenly…)
Other groups might not have been substance-driven…
True, but many many many bands did and do such as: Bad Religion, Dead Kennedys or Propagandhi
August 20, 2012 at 9:47 pm
suzy blah blah
@ Bolithio, Of course, all music affects society, and change is constant. What suzy said is that i don’t see any long ranging major change in society that is particularly due to the subversive ideas in songs of bands like ratm. At one time exercising free speech meant Lenny Bruce went to jail for saying “shit” in a nightclub act. That was subversive. In the 70s movies you don’t see a bare boob. That’s certainly changed too. But what can be subversive in today’s media circus? RAtM’s free speech isn’t anything new and it isn’t changing anything, it’s just another product for society to consume. There’s money in yelling and ranting. The left against the right and vice verse. Make sure the presidential race is a real “horse race”. The more shouting, the more advertising dollars it’ll help drum up. And then laugh all the way to the bank as you sign another contract with the latest popular radical screaming rock band who tells the masses on the left side what to think on your tv station. Maybe someday in order to get their subversive message out to even more people they’ll play halftime at the superbowl.
Do you like the superbowl Bolithio? Some of those professional jocks can really throw a nice curve ball, LOL! btw, tell Eric that most bands are “substance driven” LOL! that’s the rockandroll lifestyle. The Pistols puked substance all over the world.
August 21, 2012 at 6:14 am
bolithio
As far as boobs go… you obviously were not watching 1970′s science fiction, lol!
August 21, 2012 at 6:43 am
Mitch
According to the Gospels, a large crowd had gathered and was following Jesus. Jesus called his disciples to him and said:
“I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”
His disciples answered:
“Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”
“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.
“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”
Send them to the mosh pit, Jesus said. And then Jesus vomited puke for all, and spoke in tongues, saying my spirit shall never die, but you fucks will.
August 21, 2012 at 3:13 pm
suzy blah blah
-and this will be a better world when you do, Mitch.
August 21, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Mitch
Love and kisses, blah.
August 22, 2012 at 12:35 am
suzy blah blah
-chocolate kisses i would hope. But to get back to the subject, an artform to subsume and a product to consume: and so why wouldn’t ryan be rocking out to ratm? They are rockstar icons approaching the cultural status of Elvis and Jimi Hendrix. Granted, the timing of his declaration is highly suspect to say the least. But maybe he gets turned on by a perverted admiration of the ingredient of how much money they make. Don’t get me wrong, suzy would never say that they don’t have the right to preach thier ratm doctrine just because they are rich, oh no.