At this, our final hour for taking a stand and fighting for what is right and decent and democratic, with Plamegate looming, a SCOTUS nominee in play and the war on “terrorism” still raging, I ask your indulgence as I resurrect a post from the past… a post about a protest song and our true base. All the people out there who need to hear the truth.

Green Day said it with “American Idiot”. Eminem said it with “MOSH”.

I said it back on November 13th 2004…
Now don’t get me wrong here, this is not some pop-culture, bubblegum and swooning kind of posting. I would seriously rather poke my eyes out then read or write one of those. This is about protest in a time of war and Patriot II. Serious protest. Put it all out there and call for a revolution. I honestly can say that I haven’t felt anything like it since Lennon and “Give Peace a Chance”. But Eminem is not John Lennon (in many obvious ways of course and please don’t think I am comparing talents… Lennon was a genius, Eminem is extremely talented. And I also don’t want to get into the whole, rap sucks and is not art debate. I think that some rap – Em, Dre, Snoop, Jay-Z, Nas, Ludacris, K-OS, Roots, etc… is quite artistic. Obviously most don’t create their own music, they sample, but that in itself requires talent. So leave it be. Moving on.), and George Bush is way more dangerous than any President Lennon tangled with (incl. Nixon). So… I want to give him props for putting himself out there.

Eminem’s Mosh is a fierce rallying cry to the lower classes in the US – I am going to start framing all struggles in the US as based on classes. Because the divides between rich and poor and middle class in the US at the moment is worse than anytime since the robber barons. And that my friends is the bottom line. White, Black, Hispanic, whatever, you have no money and no bright future on the horizon. Of course minorities have an extra burden of racism and that has to be worked on across class lines. But the main story right now that can unite all races is money. They have it. You don’t. They use your labour to enrich their pockets. And if someone else is willing to work for less elsewhere, or another community is willing to give more tax breaks (and everyone needs to start talking about tax breaks for corporations as taking money out of the collective citizens pockets and giving it to a company so they can employ you for minimum wage and not provide health benefits), they lay you off and go elsewhere.

Okay, back to Eminem and Mosh. The song rips into Bush completely. It is moderately a “get out the vote” song, but really is a battle cry to the youth and disenfranchised in the country. The ones who are scared of the draft. But it also says everything progressives have been saying for the last 4 years – Bush is a liar. The war is for oil. They have been using psychological warfare on us. This administration is truly evil. It was in heavy rotation on the radio and on MTV in the couple of weeks before the election and he performed it live on Saturday Night Live right before election Tuesday. I do believe it had a lot to do with the youth and minority vote coming out in droves (along with all the GOTV drives of various 527s efforts – Rock the Vote, Vote or Die – nice one P.Diddy, etc. etc.). Unfortunately the system failed with the record turnout (another story of course).

Here are some excerpts:

All the people../ Come together let’s all form and stomp just a little…/ All you can see is a sea of people some white and some black/ Don’t matter what color all that matters we’re gathered together/ To celebrate for the same cause no matter the weather…/ They ain’t gonna stop us they can’t, we’re stronger now more than ever…Stomp push, mush, fuck, Bush, until they bring our troops home, come on just…

Imagine it pouring, just raining down on us/ Mosh pits start outside the Oval Office/ Someone’s tryin’ to tell us something. Maybe this God is just/ Saying we’re responsible for this monster/ This coward that we have empowered./ This is Bin Laden look at his head noddin’ how could we allow/ Something like this without pumpin our fist now/ This is our final hour./ Let me be the voice and your strength and your choice/ Let me simplify the rhyme just to emplify the noise/ Try to amplify it, times it and multiply if by six/ Ten million people all equal at this high a pitch/ Maybe we can reach Al Qaeda through my speech/ Let the President answer a higher anarchy/ Strap him with an AK47/ Let him go fight his own war let him impress daddy that way./ No more blood for oil, we got our own battles to fight on our own soil./ No more psychological warfare to trick us to thinking we ain’t loyal/ If we don’t serve our own country, we’re patronizing a hero./ Look at his eyes it’s all lies the stars and stripes have been swiped/ Washed out and wiped and replaced with his own face. Mosh now or die, if I get sniped tonight, you’ll know why/ Cause I told you to fight….

Mosh
From Encore
Eminem

…. all I can say is right on Em. It is happening in the urban communities and in music. Live 8 was as much anti-Bush in Canada & the US as it was about poverty… the fierce peackeeping push & the anti-Bush sentiments in Canada & Kayne West and the Black Eyed Peas in Philly spoke volumes. It will happen. Keep it up. We will win. Empires always fall.

EMBRACE THE BASE.

All we are saying is give peace a chance…
~ Lennon

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