There Was So Much Rock'n'Roll In The Political News This Week

Let's see... Rage Against The Machine, Pussy Riot, Megadeth... Green Day. That's the official video for Green Day's new single, "Oh Love" from the first album in a trilogy they're releasing: ¡Uno! (September 25), ¡Dos! (November 13) and ¡Tré! (January 15). A reporter once asked Billie Jo if musicians ought to be putting political content into their music. He looked at the condescending asshole and told him, "The only people who should sing about social issues or politics are the ones who aren't full of shit."

In tribute to Billie's spirit, I took a blue stratocaster guitar that Green Day autographed for me while I was president of their label and decided to use it to raise some campaign funds for the politician I know who is least full of shit of any of them-- Alan Grayson. Here's a photo of the guitar. Everyone who contributes here-- any amount-- to Grayson's campaign has an equal chance to get the "thank you" guitar from Blue America. We'll pick one person at random. If you give $1,000 you get a chance to get the guitar. If you give $10 you get the same chance to get the guitar. (Yes, we're Democrats, not Republicans; that's how we roll. In fact, if you don't have the cash to give and you want the guitar, just send a note to us at Blue America, P.O. Box 27201. Los Angeles, CA 90027 and you'll have the same chance as everyone else.)

Who else isn't full of shit? Tom Morello from Rage, a band hipster gym-bunny Paul Ryan claims is one of his favorites. Well, Ryan isn't one of Rage's favorites. "Ryan's the machine we rage against," Morello tweeted a few days ago. He followed up with an absolutely devastating explanation in Rolling Stone:

Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.

Ryan claims that he likes Rage's sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don't care for Paul Ryan's sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!

Don't mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta "rage" in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he's not raging against is the privileged elite he's groveling in front of for campaign contributions.

You see, the super rich must rationalize having more than they could ever spend while millions of children in the U.S. go to bed hungry every night. So, when they look themselves in the mirror, they convince themselves that "Those people are undeserving. They're... lesser." Some of these guys on the extreme right are more cynical than Paul Ryan, but he seems to really believe in this stuff. This unbridled rage against those who have the least is a cornerstone of the Romney-Ryan ticket.

But Rage's music affects people in different ways. Some tune out what the band stands for and concentrate on the moshing and throwing elbows in the pit. For others, Rage has changed their minds and their lives. Many activists around the world, including organizers of the global occupy movement, were radicalized by Rage Against the Machine and work tirelessly for a more humane and just planet. Perhaps Paul Ryan was moshing when he should have been listening.

My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected, he'll pardon Leonard Peltier.  Maybe he'll throw U.S. military support behind the Zapatistas. Maybe he'll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign-- and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That's one possibility. But I'm not betting on it.

How's that for not full of shit? Neither are Pussy Riot. They're going to prison in Russia, Vladamir Putin's fascist hellhole. They've actually been convicted of blasphemy, although what they were really convicted of was standing up to Russia's autocrat. And most discerning people see the reaction from Putin and his fascist state as a verdict on their own authoritarian nightmare of a regime.

In a chilling passage of the verdict read aloud in a Moscow court today, three members of punk group Pussy Riot were said to be "motivated by religious enmity and hatred." A reasonable response might be that those who have locked up these young singers for the crime of blasphemy in Vladimir Putin's Russia were motivated by religious bigotry and fear.

Far from being hooligans, as the prosecution alleged, the three feminists were unconventional campaigners whose anti-Putin songs in a Moscow Cathedral achieved a much vaster audience than originally anticipated.

The Kremlin's foolish over-reaction, which included keeping the band members in custody and away from their families for five months, led it to a lose-lose situation today. Hand down the full sentence of seven years and incur the wrath of international condemnation; let them go free and appear weak. The final sentence-- two years' imprisonment-- was a hopeless fudge. And it bodes ill for Russia's society, economy and hopes for political reform.

No open society can brutally suppress free expression in the name of preserving other people from offense. If such suppression becomes the norm, it will inevitably be mobilized at the convenience of those in power. So it is, by all accounts, in Moscow now. The scenes outside the courtroom today, which included the bundling into a police van of former chess champion Garry Kasparov, suggest the country's slide into autocracy is, if anything, accelerating.

Dozens of people were arrested at the courthouse in Moscow, protesting what people who care about human rights see as a clear violation. Serious stuff-- unlike Megadeth's deranged right-wing singer/hate-monger Dave Mustaine who was campaigning against President Obama this week-- in Singapore. His claim is that Obama "secretly planned three recent shootings as a precedent to steal Americans' guns.  "Back in my country, my president is trying to pass a gun ban," he said. "So he's staging all of these murders, like the Fast and Furious thing down at the border and Aurora, Colorado, all the people that were killed there. And now the beautiful people at the Sikh temple." The audience screamed back that they love President Obama and luckily for Mustaine the Singaporean authorities didn't search him and find any weapons. The peaceful Southeast Asian country has a total ban on private ownership of guns. And no one is thinking of depriving the idiot of his freedom of speech or of charging him with any crimes. Only right-wingers do that.

And while we're on the subject of music, here's a thoughtful little ditty by Hugh Atkin that helps explain who exactly Mitt Romney is. (And, don't forget, here's where you go if you want a chance at the nifty autographed Green Day guitar-- or if you just want to help elect Alan Grayson to Congress.)