Vile wrote:

] The punk movement started out as an apolitical movement.

True, and now it's just a fashion statement.

] The
] doors never wrote political songs and Jim Morrisson was a
] heartless conservative.

Bzzt. Both 'unknown soldier' and 'twentieth century fox' are pretty loud political commentaries (for the times), and Morrison was anything but a conservative. He supported women's liberation, and legalization of drugs, both pretty radical at the time. The only thing that you could construe as 'conservative' would be his anti-tax ramblings. I agree that the Doors aren't a good example of a political band though. They were far too self-absorbed to care about what the hell was going on in the rest of the world.

] Janis wasn't particularly political
] in her songs, either.

no, but the mere existance of a conservative white girl singing the mississippi blues, getting sloshed with the boys, and being overtly sexual was a HUGE political pronouncement for 1970.

] Anyway, music and politics can go
] together well, but for God's sake, why do they simply support
] the democratic party line? Watching Lou Reed say in 2000 that
] he was supporting Clinton in spite of Al Gore's presence on
] the ticket turned my stomache. He said that Tipper Gore's
] pro-censorship activism was "water under the bridge." What a
] cop out! Zappa found out about Gore's presence as Clinton's
] running mate and commented that he would vote republican for
] the first time in his life in 1992. At least that guy had
] integrity and a free mind.

I hate to say this, but it wasn't necessarily Tipper's fault. Blame the RIAA for not capitulating on a labelling system that made sense and dragging their feet (sound familiar?) forcing parental groups to make the move for them. The reason why Zappa and Dee Snyder got into a tizzy wasn't so much because of Tipper, but because they were going to lose album sales thanks to the RIAA. I think Dee and Frank took it out on the wrong people. I still love the look that Dee gave Tipper in the testimonial process though!

] ] In this day and age of 15 sec attention spans, music and
] song
] ] are a perfect medium for imforming the public about
] political
] ] issues.
]
] Or we can let those with the 15 second attention spans be
] clueless, as they deserve to be. After all, when their
] devolution is done, they won't even be able to vote. They
] will be busy pumping gas and plowing fields. Keep voting in
] the hands of those who care about the land, not those who like
] John Cougar Mellencamp and the fucking Dixie Chicks. Shit,
] keep it out of the hands of any mindless monkeys that vote for
] elephants or asses.

here's the whole reason why I had to reply to this post. This is bad bad bad. Or maybe you're just throwing this grenade for effect? The last thing you want to do is cause MORE gap between haves and have nots. This is how revolution happens. And while I'm all for revolution, they have a tendency to be unpredictable and kill a lot of innocent people in the process. Besides, it's the people who are pumping gas and plowing fields who usually have their heads on straight about things most of the time. It's the stock brokers and executives that tend to think that life is nothing but a video game.

RE: Alice slams anti-Bush rockers