BarryDonegan
Member
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2007
- Messages
- 2,355
I did an election-year political column on a big heavy metal webzine called The Gauntlet a few years back (very high alexa rank for a metal webzine), in which I wrote an open letter to Jello Biafra from the Dead Kennedys asking him why he supports so much government control in healthcare, food, and housing when he rails against the fascism and corruption of nearly every other type of government program.
I explained the fact that corporations are not market instruments, but government chartered ones, and his manager indicated that he was going to write a reply eventually.
http://www.thegauntlet.com/dangeroustruths/article.php?id=13
"This is by no means to diminish the outstanding career both artistically and politically which Jello Biafra, famed singer of the Dead Kennedys and head of legit indie Alternative Tentacles, enjoys. I find him to be one of two old-school punks (the other being Ian MacKaye), who never did anything identifiable as “selling out” on their own principles. DK is the most socially relevant, well-researched political punk band of the late 70s and early 80s, and Biafra has since become a powerful speaker and critic of corrupt government policy. He was also an early ardent defender of first amendment rights, battling censorship in the front lines by civil disobedience and facing the music in court.
His spoken word performances are enlightening, relevant, and well-researched, primarily in the way they criticize failures of our massive, police-state style government. He rails against the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and all of the “something bad”-industrial complexes.
There is one category, however, where I feel he slides off of the rails and could benefit with some further study. This is the typical place I part ways with Green Party style thinkers..."
etc etc
I explained the fact that corporations are not market instruments, but government chartered ones, and his manager indicated that he was going to write a reply eventually.
http://www.thegauntlet.com/dangeroustruths/article.php?id=13
"This is by no means to diminish the outstanding career both artistically and politically which Jello Biafra, famed singer of the Dead Kennedys and head of legit indie Alternative Tentacles, enjoys. I find him to be one of two old-school punks (the other being Ian MacKaye), who never did anything identifiable as “selling out” on their own principles. DK is the most socially relevant, well-researched political punk band of the late 70s and early 80s, and Biafra has since become a powerful speaker and critic of corrupt government policy. He was also an early ardent defender of first amendment rights, battling censorship in the front lines by civil disobedience and facing the music in court.
His spoken word performances are enlightening, relevant, and well-researched, primarily in the way they criticize failures of our massive, police-state style government. He rails against the military-industrial complex, the prison-industrial complex, and all of the “something bad”-industrial complexes.
There is one category, however, where I feel he slides off of the rails and could benefit with some further study. This is the typical place I part ways with Green Party style thinkers..."
etc etc
