Weblog: January/February 2003

Let me begin by saying that I agree with the principles Greg Stene articulates in his blog of last week, “The Political Uses of War.” Anybody who knows me knows I’m not an anti-war type by design. As noted in my earlier piece (see below), while war is a Bad Thing©, it is also occasionally necessary (see also, Harbor, Pearl).

I do not, however, agree that the current “Showdown with Saddam” (“Hoedown with Hussein”?) presents us with a satisfactory case for the application of those principles. I could go line by line through Greg’s analysis, but ultimately there is one passage that seems the center of the argument:

We will induce fear in the leaders of other countries who harbor terrorists. And we will gain the implied right of our country to invade and special-op any country or leader who harbors them.

The problem with this is that so far we have no evidence suggesting that Iraq is harboring, hosting, helping, or nurturing al Qaeda. As I said last week, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they have, but the fact is that we have no intelligence suggesting any such thing. And even if we believe that al Qaeda has people on the ground in Iraq, that doesn’t demonstrate sponsorship – according to our own office of Homeland Security, we also believe that there are potentially hundreds of people with al Qaeda ties in the US, so does this mean we need to invade Poughkeepsie?

I’m even less convinced that there’s a significant tie between Iraq and al Qaeda after Osama bin Laden’s radio address last week. I was fully expecting bin Laden to implicate Iraq, to publicly thank Iraq for all its help, really, to pull up just short of giving Saddam credit for personally masterminding the WTC attacks. Not that I think any of that is true, but I figured Osama would do all he could to enable our war planning, even if that meant lying. Why? Simple – bin Laden is possibly the only person on Earth who wants the US to invade Iraq more than George Dubya Bush. bin Laden wants a global war between Islam and the West, and right now nothing would further progress toward that goal than Operation Whaq Iraq. (I don’t know if you’re made uneasy by the fact that our president and our worst enemy are on the same page regarding American military strategy, but I sure am.)

So when bin Laden said no more than he did, basically urging Islam to rally around the people of Iraq (not Saddam, mind you), well hell, he might as well have announced that Iraq had been no damned help at all in the war on America, a point that was supported even further in this morning's Face the Nation appearance by Sen. John McCain. Understand, McCain is being trotted out to generate an illusion of credibility around the whole invade Iraq program, since he (unlike damned near everybody in the Bush camp) actually knows what war is first-hand. Looks like the White House may be getting tired of all this sniping about "chicken hawks."

The question was put to him directly – is there any linkage between Iraq and al Qaeda? His response was as telling as anything you will hear on the subject. He skirted the question, answering that there was no doubt that Iraq would provide weapons of mass destruction to terrorist organizations, because their goals were in line with each other. Okay, let me translate that answer into plain, non-partisan English: "No, there is no relationship at all between Hussein and bin Laden. None. We have as much evidence linking al Qaeda to the government of Delaware as we do Iraq."

So, Greg’s assertion that invading Iraq will send a message, that it will “induce fear in the leaders of other countries who harbor terrorists,” well, it seems a little off point, because Iraq appears to be not guilty of this particular crime, at least as far as we can demonstrate. Invading Iraq won’t prove that we’ll spank those who harbor terrorists, it will prove that when terrorists target us we'll respond with the moral equivalent of kicking the dog after a bad day at work. Next time we can’t get our hands on those who are actually guilty, we’ll cast a sullen eye around the globe, find somebody who has displeased us, and let's just say that if al Qaeda attacks us in the next week or two, you wouldn’t want to be Belgium, would you? I mean, we’re pretty sure bin Laden and company snuck into Pakistan, right? So why aren’t we invading the Pakis? We know they’re harboring terrorists.

No, this is all way off target, and it points up the gutlessness of the Dubya administration, because the fact is that there is a nation we know has harbored al Qaeda, has nurtured them, has supplied them with soldiers and cash and resources. This nation is the breeding ground of the radical Wahabbist Muslim sect whose ideology drives fundamentalist nuts like bin Laden. In fact, without the contributions and extensive support of elements within this nation, it’s unlikely 9/11 would have ever happened at all.

Yup. I’m talking about our good friends, our staunch allies, the Saudi Arabians. You remember Saudi Arabia, right? That’s where a vast majority of the 9/11 hijackers were from. And we’re doing not a damned thing about them. Why not? Because oil is thicker than blood, folks. Despite all the evidence, we have decreed that Saudi Arabia is our partner in justice, and of course that makes good economic sense, given the vastness of their oil fields.

If I believe that the principles Greg outlines justify a war, I’d have to suggest that we’re attacking the wrong country. In fact, given the stated goal of discouraging nations from harboring terrorists, I’d suggest that invading Iraq would be counter-productive. If we had the courage to address the problem head-on, maybe. But when you single out the little guy for punishment, the one who’s been isolated and weakened, and you jump him when everybody knows he’s not the real problem, well, all that teaches everybody is that you’re a coward. It doesn’t make them respect you, it makes them hate you even more. It doesn’t intimidate them, it inflames them.

It doesn’t deter terrorism, it fuels it.

:comments?

Just a thought after reading your war blog.

I have had to consider war as something other than just the evil it is.  Certainly, we have political uses for war.  And if you consider war as a tool of foreign policy, as it was first described to me in a rational sense back in the mid-sixties, could the following be operative and reasonably explain Bush's desire to go to war?

War (or the threat of war), as an instrument of foreign policy has numerous functions.  One is to conquer (total war, as in WWII).  Another is to intimidate to resolution (partial war, as in Kosovo).  Another is to advance the interests of your country by showing an example (Panama, though it was a weak example and more a joke ... I believe this idea of "no leader above the law" was the justification of those who waged it ... at least I think it was).

Now, consider war as a variant of the latter and the first.  You have a situation wherein terrorists are seriously waging war against us (9/11).  You need to dislocate these people from their power points.  So you, the leaders, invade Afghanistan.  But you fuck up.  You don't take it seriously enough and you spend your credibility capital in bombing and failing to show your resolve by doing the killing in a close-up, hand-to-hand, ruthless and total way to really kill off people who have the goddamned audacity to get up off the ground and come at you again.  Hell, they were down ... what are they doing getting up again and balling their hands into fists?  They're not acting with Western civility guiding them.

They've only seen you use bombs.  They have not seen your resolve while they came at you with a knife in one hand and an automatic in the other.  They have no reason to fear you.  Yes, the tech you have is killer.  But how deep is your resolve?

They never saw it.  So they got up off the desert floor and moved on and set themselves up to kill us again because we never had the courage to commit to real and meaningful war.

Hmm.  Seems sort of like how we worked Vietnam ... treat the war with Western sensibilities and all will work out ... and it didn't.  But if you treat it with Eastern-thought, a different thought and behavior pattern emerges.

And in Afghanistan, the bad boys both get away, and relocate. Shooting a few al Qaeda with hellfire missiles from a drone in what? Yemen? doesn't really accomplish much, other than making you feel good.  And pushing some nice PR.  (This was written about in a Time article recently about why the CIA should not pursue war ... it was a silly article in that it failed to accept the fact that people die in war and mistakes are made ... a fact of life and death).

You need to act in a different manner.  There's a big, and very real problem going on here in terms of governance ... the terrorist-thing is too isolated to bring a public together.  Public opinion cannot gel around these isolated incidents, as badly as they should.  You, as leader, see things that scare you shitless in the hands of that unpredictable leader and you need to bring that factionalized public to a point of action against those things.

You choose, as a foreign-policy tool, to use all-out war at this point as an instrument of foreign (and internal) policy for a very clear reason.  Your goal is not so much to conquer another nation (though taking Iraq down is indeed a serious goal).  Your real goal is to demonstrate to the world audience that we will have none of this crap and we will go to the most extreme lengths to stop "non-compliants," and noncompliance with the world will on the world scene.

I mentioned in an earlier e-mail that the unpredictability of Saddam made him a primo point requiring control/killing.  With the horror of the weapons we now see on the battlefields and in the laboratories, no country in this world can afford to have an unpredictable leader in another country.  Foreign policy and state security depend on the other leader being predictable and reliable.

SH ain't either.

Pursuing war at this point is not a silly matter of saving face (and it *must* be imposed at this point of logic against all compromises and alternatives) but rather a matter of clearly imposing order on an orderless situation (the unpredictable and unreliable leader).

Once that gauntlet is taken up, you cannot shrink from that responsibility, and Bush must pursue the movement to, and entry into and the conduct of war with vigor if the act is to be seen as a righteous tool of influence.

Yes, it knocks out the threat you're directing your power at.

But more importantly, ultimately more importantly, your successful pursuit of war shows you're willing to, as the wounded one (9/11), to act fully within the right to strike back.

Sorry to say, but 9/11 did not give us, in our public mind, the right to strike wherever the bad guys may be.  Too many years of media saturation about everything and special-effected events of violence have taken us to a point where we see, get outraged for a couple weeks, then drop the pain.

The idea of Pearl Harbor will never be understood again.

We remain at the next-to highest level of alert tonight.  We're being advised to have three days of food and water at our sides at our homes (see the USA Today article today).  How many people have that supply at hand?  Or even consider the need to be real?

Outrage is not only the initial reaction, but it must be the way in which we continue to respond.  We have not continued to respond to 9/11 with our anger.  None of us, in any practical manner, has responded to the recommended actions of food and water stockpiling, as an example.  We are not angry enough to even continue to feel fear.

This is not real yet, to us.  This war against us.

But you know, the war we wage in Iraq will make it real.  The unleashing of biological weapons by Iraq in response will make it real.  I'm really sorry to predict that and say it is what will happen, but it will be the eventual response out of all of this.  If not by Iraq, then a terrorist cell with merely a moderately talented biologist, later.  In revenge, or as a first offensive.

But not doing anything will not stop the terrorist-hatred.  Those who counsel that acting against them will only give rise to new terrorists, mindlessly forget that we have more than enough terrorists now to kill off the world with chems and biologicals.

You either act now in the belief your actions matter.  Or you act later, with only small hope that what you do matters.

But coming back to it ... what is the positive, the result of waging war in Iraq?  We will induce fear in the leaders of other countries who harbor terrorists.  And we will gain the implied right of our country to invade and special-op any country or leader who harbors them.

If you do not think of the ruthlessness of the terrorist, this will sound unduly harsh ... but in our act against Iraq now, and killing off the head of the beast of that government, we will gain the political right to kill anyone, including other countries' leaders, that we need to kill in this war.  Because the Iraq war will show that the weapons (WMD) exist, and we should fear them.  Especially, dear god, if the biologicals are unleashed in the process of the war.

Here's the bad thing.  You have to give up on hope that everything will just be fine.

There is no happy solution here.  Anyone who thinks so is mistaken.  Badly. There is only death for many of us coming from this point in history.  There is no negotiation, no sanctuary.

No matter what we do.  No matter how you horde food or seal up your windows and doors against disease and never let people enter your doorway.

Deal with that fact.  There is no negotiation.  No sanctuary.

People will die "over there."  People will die here in response.  We will all understand what it is to be at war.  And we will know the truth of Sun Tsu's guidance in the ancient book of The Art of War that it is only the hard, heavy, and merciless hand that acts righteously to end war by killing his opponent.  Because that settles things for the people of the land.  And the people deserve peace.

It is immoral to fail to act with proper force.

Because war, ultimately is meant to bring peace.  When war fails in that, the generals/leaders have failed.

I would prefer that we be the ones who have the sanction to bring war down when necessary, in preference to anyone else.  Though I do not trust our leadership, I trust the others even less.

:comments?

As I was telling a friend in an e-mail the other day, I started out being not terribly opposed to the forthcoming Operation Whaq Iraq, as there is no real case to be made against ushering Saddam directly to Hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200, etc. If ever a man needing killing, as we say back home, it's Saddam Hussein, and while we're de-verminating the Fertile Crescent, let's make sure we save a bullet or two for his sons, especially the sub-human Uday.

But as this thing has evolved, I have found myself increasingly against invading Iraq. I have listened to and read a good deal on the subject, including a host of opinions for, against, and undecided. I've noted the forceful voice of the anti-war forces and have further noticed that it seems to be getting larger and louder by the day.

Now, it should be understood that large rallies, regardless of what is being protested, rarely make much of an impact on me. I've never been a big joiner, and for whatever reason have always been kind of cynical about the possibilities of public collective outrage. Not that I want to dismiss the earnest, informed, passionate efforts of people who genuinely care – I don't. It's just that this isn't how I form opinions.

With respect to this particular issue, maybe my problem is that many of these protesters would oppose war under any circumstances, up to and including Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction against baby harp seals, and as such they have dick for credibility. I'm not a big fan of war, but I do understand that sometimes it's inevitable. Evil feeds on weakness, and it only stops when it's forced to. When the best among us refuse to stand against it, evil and her minions soon enslave us. So while war is to be avoided if possible, it is to be joined wholeheartedly when necessary.

So no, I haven't been terribly swayed by the anti-war camp. It's the pro-war crowd that has made me anti-war. It's Dubya and his circle, all lathered up and lusting for blood, and I have to tell you, I'm always uneasy when a mob grabs its torches and pitchforks and takes to the countryside in search of an enemy it doesn't fully understand. I can't help observing that almost all of those howling for war are chicken hawks. You know what a chicken hawk is, right? That's somebody who dodged war when they were younger, but now are all for it. People who were privileged, who had daddies who could pull strings, who wound up not going to Vietnam, but instead were posted to cushy stateside duty protecting the country clubs of Texas from the Viet Cong.

The folks who have been in a fight seem a lot less excited about heading back. (Colin Powell may be the point guy at the UN, but for the longest time he was the most visible and vocal voice of dissent in the administration – makes me wonder what he really thinks, even now, you know?) The pro-war camp probably likes the idea of war a lot more than they would if there was a chance in hell they would have to assume some personal risk. Bet the farm – a lot of body bags will come back from the desert, but none of them will bear tags identifying the dismembered contents as sons of Clans Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, etc.

There are other issues that trouble me, as well.

1. First, despite the Bush PR machine's best efforts to pretend otherwise, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are not the same person. (I know this will come as a surprise to some, given how you never see the two of them together.) It's hard to believe how, less than a year and a half after 9/11, you almost never hear bin Laden's name when Team Dubya is out stumping for mayhem. At least, this was the case up until the last few days, when somebody at the White House apparently had an "oh fuck" moment and decided that they better build a connection between Iraq and who we're really mad at, just in case anybody with an IQ of 80 or better is paying attention. So now we're presented, out of the freakin' blue, with "evidence" linking the two, evidence that attempts to show that Saddam is supporting bin Laden.

Well, he might be. I mean, it's plausible enough. In fact, I'd be surprised if Hussein hadn't given comfort of some sort to al Qaeda along the way. But the case so far has not been made to the satisfaction of a reasonable observer. Even if there are al Qaeda operatives in Iraq, that's not a case for war. Places like London are probably thick with bin Laden's people, and today's Orange Alert tells me the fine folks at Homeland Security think we have some of them here, too. So bombing every place we think al Qaeda might be hanging out, well, I'm not sure that makes for workable policy.

Also, I'm always skeptical of evidence that sort of bubbles into view in such timely, convenient fashion, and you should be, too.

2. Do you think we'd be facing down Iraq right now if the president who mucked up the whole Saddam situation the first time had been named "Clinton" or "Carter"?

3. I fear Dubya is on the verge of isolating the US from the rest of the world. For instance, you can send your mealy-mouthpiece Rumsfeld out to dismiss France and Germany as "Old Europe" all you want. France is what they have always been, and no amount of pointing out their long history of quisling appeasement and invertebrate foreign policy will significantly add to the storehouse of human knowledge. But Juheezus! When you can't round up Germany's support for a good boot-stomping, you might want to call a quick time-out.

The fact is that what the rest of the world thinks matters. No, you can't please everybody, especially if you're a leader, which we are and have to be. But by the same token, you can't lead without the confidence of those you hope will follow. Bill Clinton, whatever else may be said of him, spent eight hard years rebuilding the world's trust in us. For the first time in a long time, America was being the good neighbor, acting in a way that said we're about more than just us. This is the sort of thing that consistently pays dividends. The payoffs don't always result in big, bold front-page headlines, but they're there, and they matter in the day-to-day challenges of guiding the USS Superpower through the choppy seas of global diplomacy.

No, we weren't perfect during the Clinton years (see Blackhawk Down and the whole Yugoslavia debacle, for example), but talk to some Europeans, some South Americans, some Asians. Ask them how the international view of the US in 1999 compared with the view from 1991, and more importantly, 2003.

Let me say this again – what the world thinks matters. If you're the big dog and people believe in you, you can get away with anything. If you're a big dog standing all by yourself, then you're a bully who's a-fixin' to get his ass whupped. And while we're certainly big dog enough to stand alone against Iraq, we'd probably do well to avoid standing against the rest of the world.

That's where we're heading right now. "Old Europe" has abandoned us, and I suspect in the coming days we'll see more nations doing what Belgium did this morning – making public their opposition to unilateral American action – and it won't be long before we're standing out there alone, or nearly so (yeah, the UK will back us, but hell, they'd tag along if we were invading Canada, wouldn't they?)

4. Of course it's about oil, but that's not really the right argument. I have no problems with acting in the world's economic interests, to a point. Whether you like it or not, we have reached the stage where if it hurts the US economy, it hurts everybody. But I can't help wondering what life would be like right now if we'd been smart enough after the Gulf War (or for that matter, the 1973 OPEC embargo) to get serious about reducing our independence on Arab oil. And what if, instead of invading Iraq, we dumped the money it will cost us (both direct cost of war expenditures and indirect costs to the economy) into making oil irrelevant now and forever more?

Sorry, I slipped off into a daydream there for a second.

The problem is that we're again hosing our own credibility by pretending this is about democracy or freedom or whatever. There are dozens of dictators around the world who need a bullet to the head every bit bad as Saddam. And the fact that we only seem to care about the ones who represent a threat to our economic interests undermines what little claim to the moral high ground we have left.

In the end, though, I'm perhaps most distressed by the fact that our leaders aren't pushing a war because it's necessary. As I indicate above, I think that's the ultimate criterion. Bush isn't pushing a war because he has to, he's pushing it because he wants to. Nothing, among all the issues that have been raised, debated, settled or tabled over the past few months, nothing is clearer to me than this one simple truth: Dubya wants war. Despite the rhetoric of necessity that his camp trots out as a matter of diplomatic obligation, the last thing in hell Bush wants is to avert war. The thing that keeps him awake at night is the possibility (however faint) that tomorrow morning Saddam Hussein will wake up and decide that he needs to comply in full with all UN resolutions insisting that he disclose and disarm.

Don't take my word for it. Ask yourself. Do you think, honestly, in your gut, that Bush wants to avert war? And if so, would you do me a favor? Can you point me toward even the tiniest scrap of evidence that supports the contention?

Like I say, war is sometimes necessary. But the decision should never be left to those who see it as anything but a last resort.

:comments?

Several days ago this got posted to one of my lists. Frankly, I was blown away not only by the author's insight, but by his passion. So I tracked him down, introduced myself, and asked if I could perhaps post this brilliant rant on my site. He was kind enough to grant permission, and he also added me to his mainling list – as it turns out, he's writing fabulous stuff like this on a nearly daily basis. If you'd like to be added to his list, please send a polite e-mail via the link at the end of this piece. And thanks, Bob – we'd be a better society if more people believed the way you do... - Sam

Are you a JADED FUCK?

Oh, be honest. Don't deny it. You stopped believing A DECADE AGO! You SOLD OUT FOR THE MONEY! Fuck art, love, all you want is sex and CASH!

But I gotta ask you. How does it FEEL! To have prostituted EVERYTHING YOU BELIEVE IN for a bit of SECURITY!

Look at yourself. Stand in front of the mirror. Look at the piece of crap you've become. Wearing that fucking suit! What the fuck happened to that kid in college who used to stay up all night smoking dope and listening to music. I ask you, where did he GO??

If you've got any shred of dignity. You'll stand up right now. And tear off that tie. Slide out of those pants. Throw your jacket in the fire. Deny what you've become. Turn back into what you USED TO BE! Let's start the process RIGHT NOW!

I want you to quit what you're doing. None of it's as important as the business we're into, that we've got to take care of.

I want you to leave your office. IMMEDIATELY! And go to the nearest record store. I don't care if it's DOWNSTAIRS! Or whether you have to take a cab, or DRIVE FORTY MILES!

Go buy the Soundtrack Of Our Lives' "Behind The Music."

DON'T play it in your car. DON'T put it in your Discman.

No, I want you to GO BACK into your office. SHUT THE DOOR!! Break the shrinkwrap and slip the silver disc into that stereo that graces your shelf, even though it's TV you're paying attention to these days.

And I want you to CRANK IT! To the point of DISTORTION! I want you to FEEL the music. I want you to SQUEEZE OUT EVERYTHING ELSE! If people don't start knocking on your door in seconds, it's TOO SOFT!!!

Punch it up to "Sister Surround." Number 2. Not my favorite track, but the one the band performed on Letterman tonight.

Listen to the deep sound of those drums. Punching you in the gut. Listen to that Telstar guitar. Then the one playing in the middle. The RIFF! Let your body move. Let yourself flow with the music. This music that you used to BELIEVE IN! This stuff that directed you into this career like a bouncer throwing an underage kid out of a club. You had no CHOICE! The music was AURAL DOPE!

But it's not ANYMORE!

Now it's crap. You're purveying CRAP! Do you HEAR ME!! All that stuff you're releasing, it's TRASH! How do you look yourself in the mirror? How do you get up in the morning? How do you DARE tell people what you do! I SPREAD CRAP ALL OVER AMERICA! It's my JOB! Yes, I'm part of the PROBLEM!!! But the Soundtrack Of Our Lives is not the problem.

You see they're from Sweden.

If you're from Canada. Or Sweden. Or Norway or Finland. You're on the OUTSIDE LOOKING IN! Yup, you're moons orbiting around the U.S.A. Earth! Tiny planets revolving around the SUN!

And since these countries are in such subordinate positions...their denizens TRY HARDER!

Fucks in America think they're ENTITLED! It's all SURFACE! The U.S. INVENTED rock and roll, but it's abandoned the format. Now it's all about SUCCESS! As if SUCCESS had anything to do with MUSIC!

But those kids in Canada, Sweden. They were infected with rock and roll and they RESPECTED IT! They investigated it. Turned it upside down. Were DETERMINED to enter the game. On ITS terms. No short cuts involved. You should have seen TSOOL on Letterman tonight. I've NEVER seen a tighter band on the show. They hit every fucking note. With an amazing ENERGY!!!! If you knew the music, if you were a fan, it was like seeing your favorite band on ED SULLIVAN!!

Oh, the singer was a bit flat. Lacked a bit of power. He might have been sick. It might be that English is not his native language. Still, those fucking PLAYERS!!

The Hives on the MTV VMAs. They could play too, being from Sweden. It's just that their material...it's UNFINISHED! It's STYLIZED. It's an IMITATION!! Not the real thing. Whereas TSOOL writes SONGS! RIFFS! What came before is an INFLUENCE, a JUMPING OFF POINT, not the ESSENCE! The Strokes. The Vines. They're fucking LAUGHABLE! It's the LOOK. The HYPE!

Go home and play their records. CRAP!!!

It's a new day. This band from Sweden is illuminating the way.

Drop all those crap acts on your roster. Look for people who still BELIEVE! Who've got a PASSION! Not for money, but the MUSIC!!!

Yup, the question is, would they play this music if they could NEVER get rich? If they couldn't drop out and go back to school when they're washed up. Is it an avocation, or a CALLING!!

It was clear tonight that the members of TSOOL take it all SERIOUSLY! They've been tapped, they've been CALLED! It's not about a look, it's about an ability to PLAY!

They shouldn't be on TV at all. Rock and roll wasn't made for TV. Rock and roll was supposed to be SO LOUD that it BLEW UP TV equipment. TV execs were supposed to HATE IT!

If you were at a TSOOL gig and heard this sound...your body would be moving, it would be RESONATING!

TSOOL is not a breakthrough. It's just a REMINDER. Of who we used to be, of where we used to be.

And at no time more than now do we have to be reminded.

In an era when ANYONE can defend Tommy Mottola.

In an era when a news suit replaces him.

In an era when labels are only interested in COSTS. As if CUTTING COSTS will result in hit records. HUH??

Hit records come out of passion. A need, a desire. To make a sound. To make a STATEMENT!

Qualities absent from ALL the crap we're purveying.

WIPE THE SLATE CLEAN!

Fuck the AMAs. The worthless Grammys too. How can you respect an awards show that doesn't respect the MUSIC??

Fuck MTV. With all their dating shows. I know it's tough being an adolescent, but couldn't they show people SINGING about it??

Fuck Clear Channel. With their bottom line philosophy.

Fuck Carson Daly. You can't have it both ways Carson. Either you're credible, standing up for the good music, or you're a sold out fuck. I mean come on, why not QUIT TRL, even at THIS LATE DATE! Have some DIGNITY!!!! I'm on a witch hunt. I want people who STILL BELIEVE in the SUPERNATURAL! Who are willing to TAP THEIR TOES AND LOSE CONTROL!

Don't tell me about your gigs at the shed.

Rock and roll doesn't live at the SHED!

Rock and roll belongs in an unadorned box. Without sponsors. With beer on the floor. Hell, would you PRAY at a shed? Music belongs in a CHURCH! Hell, we don't even have a place to PLAY THE DAMN STUFF!

But at least we've GOT THE STUFF!!!

We've got the Soundtrack Of Our Lives' "Behind The Music." And their no tape, no phony live performance of these tunes.

This is not a passing fad. Just another band. No these are guys who BELIEVE. And if you don't start believing RIGHT NOW and adjust your business practices ACCORDINGLY, you're gonna be WIPED OFF THE MAT!!

Hell, I'm gonna expose you myself. You fucking label guys would be Nazi SYMPATHIZERS! Hell, you bitch, but I don't see YOU standing up to your bosses! It's just high school. You stood up in HIGH SCHOOL! Oh, but now you've got your BMW payment! Your PRIVATE SCHOOL PAYMENT!! You're playing it safe.

But rock and roll was never safe. No fucking way.

And when it was loud and out of control. There was enough money to pay EVERYBODY'S private school bill.

Think about that.

While you're listening to "Behind The Music." Remembering how it USED TO BE!!

© Copyright 2003 by Robert Scott Lefsetz. All rights reserved. No part of this editorial may be reprinted without the author's express written permission.

:comments for the author?
:comments for Sam?