GeoffP said:
Now now. I don't think it reasonable to think that the artists and organisers wanted to receive gunfire, or a bomb.
To use a less severe simile, I recall the heavy metal wars of the 1980s.
Al Gore summoned Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Wendy O. Williams, and others before the United States Senate.
You know why Twisted Sister's
Under the Blade was "banned" insofar as major retailers wouldn't carry it? Two goddamns, a shit, and a fucking.
So here's the deal: With bands being hauled before the U.S. Senate, into courtrooms for prosecution (2 Live Crew, the gayest rap outfit ever) or lawsuits (Metallica, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest), the band Anthrax decides to pitch a temper tantrum.
To this day, "Cunty cunty cunty cunt!" is my favorite backup vocal in musical history. I don't believe any other will replace it.
Anthrax knew damn well they were stepping into the fight. Megadeth had done so, quite directly. And what sets
"Startin' Up a Posse" (Anthrax) or
"Hook in Mouth" (Megadeth) apart from, say,
"One Foot in Hell" (The Forbidden) or
"Suffer the Masses" (Flotsam and Jetsam) is that instead of taking up the fight against an idea, these couple of songs went after people. The point of these songs was to offend, and I don't recall either of them ever suffering the risk they stepped into, being hauled before Congress―though that was probably in no small part owing to the observable fact that calling these bands into the Senate chamber only rocketed their popularity and influence.
But it was a code of honor for that heavy metal generation; if you weren't in the fight you were ducking your duty.
And plenty did their parts.
Dirty Rotten Imbeciles,
Overkill,
Helloween ... really,
everybody did their part.
And in this fight, everyone was after the risk. To be so honored as to piss off the U.S. Senate?
To the other, pissing off murderers with guns and bombs?
Yeah, you know, dude, some fights you don't get into.
Screaming Trees at La Luna, a seven-foot longhair drunkenly crashing through the crowd. Tiassa drives him off. His friend gets in Tiassa's face: "Why you pushin' him around?" Tiassa responds ferociously: "Tell Chewbacca to keep the hell off people!" And, you know, sometimes you might be drunk, but you've still got a point. That would have been a bad fight.
Floater, Showbox. A fight just breaks out. Pit-related, I would assume, but there is a clear aggressor and a clear defender. Tiassa steps between and starts walking defender off as others restrain aggressor. "It's not worth it," Tiassa says. "It's not worth it." And, you know, it worked.
Floater, Off-Ramp (Subzero, El Corazon, I forget what it was called at that time). The second
Alter show; the Seattle debut of the album. The motion starts in a shadowy distance and Tiassa is suddenly moving. He moves to Tig's left and starts walking her off; it's a bad situation. Definitely a fight, and it's rolling across the floor toward where Tiassa, Tig, and the Squash, all of five months gestated, are moving cautiously, trying to mark its path, predict its future, and get the fuck out of the way. No matter how far they move toward the back wall of the dancefloor, the fight arcs toward them, and in the end Tig is climbing a table into the mezz, and Tiassa is preparing to take a blow as the miniature riot rolls past. Indeed, he nearly takes a boot to the chest. Later, we learn that security managed to pull the drunk to the alley, whereupon the drunk pulled a knife and proceeded to find his holy living fuck beaten into next week. But, you know, some fights you just don't stick around for; your only point is to get the fuck away.
Why am I not in this fight? I haven't figured a way to win it without firing an actual bullet.
The enemy is willing to kill just because one isn't blind.
This isn't a fight I would rush into.
So neither of us hold with "fighting words", but it is a reality we must deal with.
And if I'm prepared to pick a fight with fucking terrorists, the kind of people who have made it clear their tactics have no care for strategy, the sort who kill not for necessity but, rather, any fucking excuse they can find?
Yeah, I better have some tricks up my sleeve.
Standing around and crying because someone accepted my challenge will
not be an option.
You know, my mother learned a new technique last year, an art of, er ... ah ... artistic icing? I don't know, but after the effort I saw her put into Seahawks cookies, I can certainly imagine her church friends might try to get her to do some sort of Jesus cookie for ... well, I doubt we're talking about Pentecost cookies, or whatever, but you know what I mean.
But why would my mother decide to do a Muhammad cookie?
Why are these artists taking part in a "Draw Muhammad" event?
No Muslim will take part just to express the Prophet the way my mother might be convinced to try to draw Jesus. (She would decline for lack of confidence in her representations of human forms.) So what were these artists up to, if not entering the fight?
And instead of something we might celebrate, like getting called before the Senate for calling Al Gore's wife a cunt, the fight they're entering could very well get them killed.
I'm sorry, Geoff, but with all my revolutionary sympathies this has been an issue I'm rather quite required to consider. Yeah. When am I entering the fight, and just what fight am I getting myself into?
I have a short list of fights right now I would throw down for, but owing to Noish-Pa, I also accept that it is not my duty to go looking for the fights. And since
fatherhood is about as good of an excuse as I can find to not rush out and get myself killed, it's true, I do wonder why some would choose to seek that conflict. It is enough, when the conflict comes, to do our part; why would we want to
create it?
There is no question that the bad guys in this are bad guys.
But we need to stop painting the victims as innocent, clueless fucks who had no idea they were taking any sort of risk.