Goddamn Green Day

So, I'm sitting here in the Cake Eater Office, watching the live feed of Live 8 over the internet.

The husband and I were talking about how freakin' cool this all was. They have managed to throw together huge concerts worldwide to get their message out there. I read that between the internet, tv, mobile phones, etc. something like eighty percent of the world's population will have access to see the concerts. So, even if you don't agree with their message, you still have to admit this is all pretty damn cool, and that they threw this all together in six weeks is extraordinary. It's amazing.

It almost makes you want to believe that it's actually going to make a difference.

One of the things I didn't think they'd be able to pull of was to keep this very large political movement apolitical. But they were going to give it their best shot. Geldof kept saying this isn't about the war, we don't want people Bush Bashing because we want to engage him (and other world leaders) and if everyone keeps injecting their anti-war fervor into it, well, we'll alienate him. He won't listen and he'll have good reason not to listen. And I almost bought it.

Until goddamn Green Day got up on the stage in Berlin---that bastion of Anti-American fervor---and plays their song "American Idiot."

Here are the lyrics:

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
Don't want a nation under the new mania.
And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
The subliminal mindfuck America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

Well maybe I'm the faggot America.
I'm not a part of a redneck agenda.
Now everybody do the propaganda.
And sing along in the age of paranoia.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue.

Don't wanna be an American idiot.
One nation controlled by the media.
Information age of hysteria.
It's going out to idiot America.

Welcome to a new kind of tension.
All across the alien nation.
Where everything isn't meant to be okay.
Television dreams of tomorrow.
We're not the ones who're meant to follow.
For that's enough to argue

Thanks for that, kids! Woohoo! You don't think you could have put that one song on hold for the day? I mean if this is all really about justice and ending poverty in Africa, instead of record sales, one would think that you could put it on hold. Just for a day. But you didn't. I'm watching REM right now and while Michael Stipe has some stupid blue mask painted on his face, even he's managing to keep the petty everday politics out of it. I've watched ten other bands perform and they've all managed to keep politics out of it. They've managed to stay on the message Geldof listed out for them. Why couldn't you? Because you're an idiot American in Berlin who's just dying to have their voice heard by people who will UNDERSTAND? You've just clarified it for me. I will not be aligning my voice with these idiots. Because even if they claimed this was bigger than all of us, well, it's obvious that these people hate me, and everyone who doesn't think like they do, so why would I want to? And that they would play that song, on all days, for a German audience? Billy Joe or whatever the fuck his name is just ruined it for everyone. They were shooting for something bigger than petty day-to-day politics, but they had to bring divisiveness into it.

Well done, asshat.

UPDATE: So, I turned on the VH1-MTV feed and they were interviewing Kanye West. Who he is, I have no idea. But he claimed this was a big deal. All of these things were preventable, he said. So far so good, right? Weeeeel, he said poverty was preventable like HIV/AIDS was preventable: that if we'd created all of it, we could end it. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, that HIV/AIDS was "man made" and had been introduced into Africa. He didn't say why or who had introduced it into Africa, or why anyone would do such a thing, but he was sure that this was the truth, and the inference we were to draw was that it was to "kill off black people." It's the same thing with crack cocaine, he claimed, which had been introduced into the black community to kill people off. He said he knew this "for a fact" because "his parents were activists" and they'd told him what the real truth was.

What a fargin' idiot. He probably wants to Free Mumia, too.

If Geldof had been smart and really wanted this thing to go in the direction he had declared, he should have banned press access to any of the artists performing. To keep them from spouting ridiculous views.

Posted by Kathy at July 2, 2005 10:49 AM | TrackBack