Right-wing fans mocked for boycotting Rage Against the Machine after realising band’s politics

This article made me laugh pretty hard. f'ing right wingers.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-...es-politics-boycott-tom-morello-a9558241.html

One fan wrote: “The people angrily denouncing Rage Against the Machine for Tom Morello's leftist politics is one of the more hilarious things I have ever seen on the internet. WHAT MACHINE DID YOU THINK THEY HAVE BEEN RAGING AGAINST FOR DECADES? THE ICE CREAM MACHINE? THE ATM? LAWNMOWERS?”

 

I rage against weed trimmers next door when I'm trying to listen with open headphones. And my fridge because we have a small open plan living area.

 

What do they even want with the boycott? What even? They think the dudes can be like "Oh, we didn't mean all of that stuff we put in our lyrics and built a career and a platform for expression on! We're soooorrrryy!" Even if they did, does it matter? You're walking away regardless, and pretty much nothing is changing other than you're not buying their music anymore and nothing can be done about it.

When you're at the point where you are so invested in political ideology that you are basically doing the equivalent of proudly begging for cookies, I really have to question what is lost by you essentially rage-quitting. Save those cookies for people with something meaningful to say - there are people on your side who actually care and put a lot of work into honing their words and comprehension of the stuff that matters to them and they're looking down at you in disappointment.

I mean, you gotta be pretty dense to not pick up on what they're about lol. If this is really that new to you, you're kinda not making a good case for your opinions on culture or politics. It says something about how little attention you pay... that you can't even recognize things that wildly contradict your own ideology. Some things, I can understand missing... but they're literally over a decade too late and RATM is anything but moderate. This would be like going to white pride meets and becoming an executive officer before realizing you're not in a Lutheran church. "I thought the whole 'white power' thing was kinda odd, but I didn't know THAT'S what that meant!"

I don't get how you can be that politically charged and be so oblivious to the politics in a very heavily political band, as a devoted fan of said band. How in all of this time has the cognitive dissonance not totally worn you down to nothing? How do you listen to that and have zero problems with it for years only to completely flip it over at one turn of political events? It makes me think their convictions in their beliefs aren't very strong. Like they haven't put in the footwork to reach their conclusions and instead wear their politics like a hat. Hard to believe they actually have a clue what they stand for... or they do and they're not honest. Not sure which is worse.

I don't really care if anyone is left or right in their political beliefs. Actually, I think it's great that people think differently and we can all combine those thoughts to make new ones. But at least know your shit before jumping out there and making fools of yourselves! If you're this oblivious, you're wasting yours and everyone else's time! It's borderline disrespectful for shit that matters, that we have to figure out answers to together. How can you hate left-wing media and not know that your favorite band is VERY far left?! I just don't get that. You basically just said "I haven't known what's going on in a long time but I saw a thing that told me to be mad so now I'm MAD and I'm gonna DO something about it!" and then just applied that to anything remotely related. It's f'ing silly.

It's just like... get outta here with that crap lmao. This stuff may be above you if this is what you do when you happen to stumble into something that doesn't jive with whatever ideology you've taken into yourself. It's not even about the stance itself. It's pretty much arbitrary. It's more a matter of your stage in development. Want to get up and be political of something, but actually have very little political awareness at all. And people like that vote, man. The humanity.

 

Not the sharpest tools...

@robot zombie there is an abundance of right wing snowflakes. They just don’t get talked about as much

 

...but they are tools!

 

There is no shortage of clueless people. I think they are breeding somewhere. People who don't like leftist revolt music are free to turn it off; say nasty things about it; and get both of their friends to do likewise. Of course, I feel the same way about Gone With The Wind. The freedom of expression knife cuts both ways. My ire is reserved for those who feel somehow empowered use their superior judgment to pick what others can hear.

 

Tom Morello is, and continues to be, one of my favorite politically outspoken artists.

Band member Tom Morello responded: “Scott!! What music of mine were you a fan of that DIDN’T contain “political BS”? I need to know so I can delete it from the catalog”.
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I actually got into Rage Against the Machine through Morello's solo project, The Night Watchman. If you haven't heard stuff he did under that name, but you're interested in folk music + RAtM's politics, give him a listen. I think the project was his outlet for political stuff while he was with Audioslave.

On a related note, also didn't he go to Harvard for political science before starting RAtM?

 

I think this misses the larger point that people are getting tired of everything getting politicized now, even their entertainment. Especially because since it's so pervasive, a lot of it comes across as just signaling virtue rather than investment in actually fixing a problem.

 

@Stuff Jones im sure they’d be perfectly fine with “politics in my entertainment” if the message was what they wanted to hear.

it’s art. Do we really want art to have nothing to say?

 

Sure. And then others would have a problem with it.

Of course art should have something to say. I'd argue that universal themes are much more profound than the tiny in the scope of history political concerns of the day, but those can be covered too.

My point is that it's not hard to see why people might be tired of music, sports, commerce, everything public - all taking a political stance. A lot of it comes across as insincere, herd-mentality opportunism.

Agree that this dude picked the wrong target as RATM has always been political.

 

I understand what you mean, but this is music we are talking about.

 

As a daily reminder: People from all walks of life can get triggered over the most silliest of things.

 

If I stopped consuming media whose "message" didn't agree with some part of my worldview, well, let's just say that I wouldn't be consuming much media. And there are numerous artists whose message (if they have one) i don't agree with that are among my favorites. But I wouldn't listen to RATM even if it had no vocals, and the vocals are my least favorite part. I can't make out the lyrics anyway. But I mostly enjoy being challenged to reconsider my views.

 

One of my favorites in this genre is all the people (including famous politicians) who had no idea what Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” was about.

 

See also Neil Young's 'Rockin' in the Free World'.

 

LOL

 

Fela Kuti's music is nearly all protest based, and great. See for example Zombie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_(album)