The past couple of days, there has been chatter on the internet about Paul Ryan stating that Rage Against the Machine is his favorite band.
That boggles my mind.
First let me offer a standing ovation to RATM for rejecting Paul Ryan publicly and with venomous condescension. As a woman, I truly appreciate their stance in this matter, given that Paul Ryan is a shameless misogynist who would love nothing more than to bring about the Handmaid's tale, only have it ruled by the Pope instead of the re-animated corpse of Rushdoony.
Many commenters who *actually listen to Rage Against the Machine, are just as boggled as I am.
First of all, there is this notion that the Machine being raged against, isn't just the government, but a cultural level of materialism that uses government power to rob the weak and the small. This machine that is at times representative of our government, but really an extension of our dominant culture, that often targets minorities--meaning Women, African Americans, [anyone Not white and male] and genuine intellectuals who hold the best parts of our cultural legacies, as opposed to the shallow coffee table book version. The *Machine could be construed as a form of Keptofascism. The hidden hand of the corporate world reaching up Uncle Sam's backside to clack his jaw.
So why on earth would Paul Ryan like this band, unless he really doesn't listen to their lyrics.
Tom Morello made his feelings clear about what he thinks of Paul Ryan's use and promotion of the band and it's music which can best be summed up by the phrase:
Are you effing daft?
At the heart of Morello's distate for Ryan is "his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent." He goes on to say Ryan has plenty of "rage," but claims its "A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Huffpo"
I have to agree. The Paul Ryan Catfood for Seniors program--well that sounds like someone who doesn't like the elderly. His attempts to control women's bodies--clearly he doesn't like or trust women, and his or his party's views on the environment [as in all out denial] make it very clear he doesn't care about this planet or our health which is directly tied to the health of the Earth as much as he cares about profit and power. The Republican Party also makes it clear that they rage against successful public education, worker's rights, science, a working national infrastructure, and religious freedom.
Rage Against the Machine is raging against a Kleptocracy, and Fascism. The major planks that Romney and Ryan are running on.
I am going to operate on the assumption that Ryan never bought an entire RATM CD, and that he only listened to popular tracks, like WAKE UP on the Matrix soundtrack or No Shelter on the Godzilla soundtrack. Given his politics and the very nature of this story, I just cannot imagine him being deep enough to buy RATM CDs.
"He Turned The Power To the Have Nots! And Then Came the SHOT!"
Is this what you had in mind Mr Ryan?
Through counterintelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint troublemakers and neutralize them. WAKE UP!
Here we are in an age of drones and warrantless spying, cell phone tracking, facebook facial recognition software, where employers want access to your social media accounts to judge your private life---so they can punish you for not being a good little cubicle drone devoid of imagination or spirit or independent thought!
And you are claiming this band, this sort of music as your favorite?
This is all about the injustice and potentiality of political assassinations, and empowering the poor and the oppressed. There is nothing in these songs about empowering the Catholic Church to renew their role as King Makers, or forcing women back into a gilded cage of continuous, unplanned, pregnancies, or forcing the poor to live as ignorant serfs!
The cover of one of their [RATM] CD cases has a Buddhist Monk photographed in a moment of self immolation for heaven's sake! Please tell me that Ryan doesn't know what that is!
A number of Buddhist monks (including the most famous case of Thích Quảng Đức) immolated themselves in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the Roman Catholic administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam — even though violence against oneself is prohibited by most interpretations of Buddhist doctrine--Wikipedia-Self Immolation
Mr. Morello had a lot to say on this matter, and it bears reading. I imagine anyone out there with a smidgen of intelligence and knowledge of this band and Paul Ryan's voting record had similar thoughts.
Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn't understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn't understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
I like this comparison of Paul Ryan's fandom of RATM with Manson liking the Beatles. It's code for: Leave us out of your sick fantasy life Mr Ryan.
I wonder what Ryan's favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of "Fuck the Police"? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!
Do we really want someone who is incapable of deciphering these lyrics, one heartbeat away from the oval office? You can read the rest of Tom Morello's thoughts on this matter at the
Rolling Stone.
Rush Limbaugh has also been corrected by the band. Rush Limbaugh Stop Using our Music You Right Wing Clown.
Given Limbaugh's status as a speaker of the GOP, I am surprised that Paul Ryan wasn't given a heads up by this development, since he is incapable of understanding what he is listening to.
Let's examine some of those Godzilla lyrics:
There is a thin line between entertainment and war. There be no shelter here, the front line is everywhere.
Yes, that is the lesson I have learned from forced birthers like Ryan. He would love it if we traded our history for a VCR. He is counting on that. If we cannot recall what we have lost, then he has a chance to sell us on his profit-driven vision. I realize that this song is about consumerism and our inability to escape it, but it echoes thoughts on a variety of topics.
Hospitals not profit full, the Market Bull's got it's pockets full to advertise some hip disguise, view the world from American eyes.
And this predated Moore's Sicko by how many years? This predated the 2008 crash by how many years? The movie and the soundtrack came out in 1998. That's 10 years. Sicko came out in 2007, that is nearly 10 years. RATM seems like they are ahead of their time, but really it's the rest of us, who are just catching up. They seem like they are ahead because they are actually paying attention.
Bury the Past, rob us blind and leave nothing behind. That sounds like that GOP party Mantra to me, with it's love affair of revisionist history, and the attempts to lay waste to all the social reforms achieved since the inception of the New Deal. They promote a political dream that resembles nothing more than a plague of locusts, come to strip all that is good and useful in this world til there is nothing left.
Paul Ryan:
He wants to privatize Social Security
He voted against the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act.
He voted for the Bush Tax cuts
He voted to repeal aspects of Glass-Steagall
He voted against 2009 Credit Card reform to protect consumers.
He voted against Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform.
He voted against Healthcare Reform in 2010
He wants to cut educational benefits and funding
He wants student loans to accrue interest while they are in school
He wants to cut Pell Grant funding
He supports For-Profit Colleges, which rip veterans off all the time
He wants to replace Medicare with a voucher program
He gets a 100 percent rating from the National Right to life committee meaning he is against women having control over their own reproductive processes.
He supports jailing women for having abortions.
He thinks that eggs should have constitutional rights, but not the women who carry those eggs.
He opposes invitro fertilization and birth control medications
He wants to defund NPR and Public Programming.
He is a climate change denialist.
He doesn't "believe" that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
He likes to give huge tax breaks to big oil companies.
He is antithetical to all the issues that RATM sings about, and promote.
He opposes Same Sex Marriage and DADT as well as giving homosexuals the right to adopt children.
His claim to like RATM is one of jaw dropping stupidity. And the band was absolutely in the right, for correcting Ryan on this matter.
Paul Ryan's voting record makes it very clear he is nothing more than the handmaiden for future robber barons in a second gilded age.
I cannot imagine, anyone who cares about this country, and it's people voting for a person like that.