part two

i continued to comment on that last one, but i think some more information is needed here.
i guess i didn't clarify that not every band needs to be political, and that if a band is political, they don't need to do it all the time. i listen to lots of bands that have nothing relevant to say about anything (bauhaus sings vampire songs, for crying out loud, and i love them). i listen to plenty of bands that are great artists, but never have anything political to say. i listen to bands that occasionally delve into politics, and the state of the world (the smiths, elliott smith). i listen to bands that often delve into politics and things that suck, but are mostly party bands (the dropkick murphys). i listen to bands that are almost completely political (anti-flag, bad religion). and i dig me some rage against the machine. i don't always agree with these bands about everything, namely religion (and if you think i shouldn't have wrecked all my friendships by starting a taboo political topic, wait till i do my next big one: politics and religion), but i like them to agree with me a whole lot. if they're not actively saying things i agree with, they'd better be saying something profound and artistic. if it's not profound, then it had better be funny as heck. (the vandals, the dead milkmen, guttermouth).

but what i was really getting at with this topic, and maybe i've been too tired/cranky/lonely lately to state things clearly, is that i think that black people don't have enough of a voice in politics, and even though it's not my culture, i know that a lot of them agree with me on the current state of the nation. if the black artists had done something more than get on mtv with their jewelry and dogs and say "vote", then maybe we could have united and accomplished something. if black artists had said the same thing in their albums that punk bands were saying, maybe they would have woken some people up. but instead, we're concerned about midget-sized necklaces and fighting dogs. i think it's irresponsible, and i think that at one time, there was a lot of relevant cultural commentary coming from black artists. that's where punk got most of it's influence, you know. the reggae/ska bands in the late seventies had an enormous influence on the early punks. joe strummer was always trying to convince the apathetic white kids to start taking action the way the black community was doing at the time (the song "white riot" was all about that). i wish they would have kept it up.
but if it's so horrible for me to not calmly accept the things i see as bad, then go ahead and keep telling me how stupid i am for wanting to shout about it, for wanting to use my blog to get my opinions heard. to quote one of my favorite, reviled, semi-political punk bands, "i'll never shut up and i'll never behave". and to rephrase common wisdom, "what is right is not usually cool, even among your intelligent group of friends".
and sure, there are more direct and sometimes more reliable ways of getting political information, but i think art is the best way to learn everything there is to be learned. what makes sitting in a classroom, or reading a newspaper a better way to learn than by the voice of the culture? do we think what history books and newspapers say is so trustworthy, even infallible? don't we know that those who are in power write the books to say what they want them to say? there'll be a quote on that eventually.

here's today's quote:
We are the bastard children of a nation
whose dreams have died.
Everything we believe in it all
turned out to be a lie.
And change seems oh so difficult,
acceptance is the common voice.
Powerless against their power
we act like we don't have a choice.
Weapons of mass deception
Fear is the greatest weapon
used to maintain their control
cause the scared do what they're told
(The Unseen, "Weapons of Mass Deception")

and i meant it about that Kanye West quote. if you have one, and it's lucid and says something relevant, post it. i want to start a collection. find his quote, find more by others and bring me them. also, if any of you have read anything in the past two posts that you felt wasn't full of crap, maybe you could say so, because sometimes, amid all the "hippie, hippie" and "but what about..." a girl sometimes needs to know that someone found a kernel of truth in something she said.