I'm 35. I listen to NPR, classical music, and go to punk shows.
> rage against the machine may be neither my favourite band/style or
> constitute the most impressive political statements I can imagine
> but I am massively impressed by their capacity to say something
> [anything] in effective ways on topics that matter to me
>
> mediocre seems excessively dismissive
>
> and to see admiration of che as utterly counter to the desirable cause
> well
> somehow it seems to me to miss the point
> i can see the compromise
> but admiring che is so much better than admiring so many much more
> frequently admired people
I'm certainly happy to see political bands like RATM around. We need more political bands. However, musically they aren't that exciting, if you are familiar with the punk that is being done these days.
Their politics is the type of shallow Leftism that I find annoying. They are pretty good at wearing the trappings of Leftism, but not very good at understanding the gist of it. It's pretty easy to wave a poster of Che around these days. Shit, the capitalists have had no problem using his image to sell all kinds of products. ANd I wasn't too thrilled when I looked at their liner notes for their first big hit CD and saw a picture of the Anarchist Cookbook. If they don't understand what the AC represents, then they might as well put a picture of the Book of Mormon on their CD liner notes.
RATM: Political, yes. Politically savvy, no.
Chuck0