Confession time: I like Rage Against the Machine. Not liked, like. If an old single comes on the radio, I turn it up and tap my steering wheel to the beat. Writing this, I’ve made a Spotify playlist for them. At 12-years-old during the height of their fame, the band was a–dare I say it–intelligent alternative to the vapid, emo nu metal populating the rock airwaves.
Yes, their civic ignorance and major-label hypocrisy are both easy and fun to mock, but they still knew how to jam, and guitarist Tom Morello achieved some truly awe-inspiring results in his sonic experimentation. Regardless of his politics, I could always respect him as a human and as a musician.
But oh, how the mighty have fallen. Here’s Morello before performing at Occupy Wall Street last Friday:
The crimes committed by Wall Street are just that–crimes. And if Barack Obama doesn’t have the courage to shut down Guantanamo Bay, then perhaps he can fill some of those animal cages with the Wall Street criminals who torpedoed our economy. And if Barack Obama doesn’t have the courage to do that, we may have to drag those sons of bitches off to jail ourselves. Perhaps we’ll put ’em in those little orange jumpsuits with the black hoods over their heads and crank Rage Against the Machine 24 hours a day.
To the left, there’s nothing worse than getting a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay. Even terrorists don’t deserve such a fate. Yet bankers sure do, because some animals deserve cages more equally than others.
The suggestion for mob justice isn’t the worst part of this. Look at the flash of glee that comes across his face at the thought of imprisoning and humiliating people who make their living through voluntary transactions. And that‘s not even the worst part of it; listen to the song he plays after his little fascist fantasy… if you can.
Morello could have outright called for the head of every last Republican in the country, but if he had then launched into some melt-your-face-off rawk, I would gladly shake his hand and step up to the guillotine. But this–this, at best, half-sung fizzling dirge performed under Morello’s solo moniker, ‘The Nightwatchman,’ is just embarrassing.
The man has devolved from one of the world’s premier rock guitarists to your local state college’s most famous acoustic singer-songwriter–and one that has to use a human microphone, at that. It’s no wonder, then, his leftism’s become increasingly bitter and violent.
Finally, what this really means for me is that Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum performing for OWS is a double heartbreak; not only is he an economic and moral dunce, but he’s now in the company of has-beens. Excuse me while I go cry in a corner and sing “Two-Headed Boy” to myself.