I could almost swear that it was Al Gore's wife who pushed the advisory sticker thing, and she is sure as hell not a right-winger.
scott kenney (saken@cyberspace.com):
Tipper Gore and the PMRC were pushing for a lot worse. They wanted a rating system (like the movies). The advisory stickers were the record companies' way of short-circuiting this effort. As for the Gores not being right-wingers, the enemies of Liberty come in all sizes and flavors.
poptart (ckile@bgsuvax.bgsu.edu):
But neither is the Tipster any longer a member of the PMRC. And she is on the record as regretting what that whole little episode became. No, when I said "nice Republican mommies" (god, what a great name for a band...take it someone, take it), I was thinking more along the lines of Marilyn Quayle -- you know, the one who (no kidding) FORCES her children to listen to fundie "motivational tapes" for teens. Besides, for what it's worth, Tipper once played drums in a girl band called The Barracudas. But I'll admit: That ain't worth much right now.
Personally, I think it's pretty scary that whoever feeds Ralph Reed, et al., information has it together enough to go after NIN. I mean it's easy to go after "race music" (as it was called/condemned in Elvis' day). But to go for the artist directly expressing/addressing nothing so much as young, intelligent, well-read, white, middle-class American fuckedupness and rage (or the listener's own relationship with that phenomenon) is another thing altogether for a mainstream political party (and this is different from Spiro Agnew going after the Beatles). I don't think the Republicans quite understand what they have done: attempted to torch a really explosive Gen-X THING.
At the very least, the Repubbies owe Trent Reznor an apology for going after him on the banal banal banal grounds of his sexually explicit evocation of straight sex with possible implied overtones of violence. His stuff is much more subversive than that! (And he did say in that Spin interview that he realized he'd been using that sex-as-metaphor-for-abcxyz wayyy too much anyhow, that he was moving into other ways of expressing things he'd heretofore used "sex" for.)
Let's win this one for Frank Zappa. It's time to wave our freak flags high.
patrick bullion (wanderr@infi.net ):
They're a bunch of spineless degenerate morons who are throwing up yet ANOTHER smokescreen so they can get re-elected by pandering to people's fears instead of their minds. Too fucking many parents in this country just want to squeeze out a few babies and then sit back down on the couch watching Ricki Fucking Lake interview escapees from behavioural research labs while they suck down warm Pabst Blue Ribbon and eat new super-mega-crispyfuckingtastic chicken from McBurgerWendyFriedPizzaChicken. They want their kids to shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down and quit banging that fucking screen door 'cause it's giving me a fucking headache and a new episode of Richard Bey is on and I ain't gonna miss it 'cause it's trashy people doing trashy things and they's just all SICK.
These fucking people want somefuckingbody else to raise their fucking kids and they want to blame everything that goes wrong on the niggers and the faggots and the Spics and Hebes and them uppity coons in L.A. burning their own neighborhoods down 'cause some nigger got beat and Bob Fucking Dole and Tipper "MY girls don't know about masturbation" Gore know that it's much easier to blame Trent "goddamned RIGHT I'm normal offstage" Reznor and Doctor "I got my 20 million and moved STRAIGHT the fuck outta Compton" Dre for everything that's wrong instead of telling these sorry-ass fucking people to take responsibility for their OWN fucking lives and their OWN fucking kids and quit blaming it all on the records these damned kids are bringing home.
Sorry. That got a bit out of hand.
Fuck Bob Dole. Fuck Tipper Gore. Fuck the ENTIRE system. I am just SO FUCKING SICK of people who won't open their fat fucking eyes long enough to see that Johnny isn't screwed up because he's listening to Marilyn Manson. Marilyn Manson are screwed up because Johnny's standing in front of them saying "Entertain me. Mommy's busy fucking the mailman."
I hate the fact that these politico-assholes can get me so angry that I can't even make a coherent argument against them.
I hate the fact that people LISTEN to those politico-assholes.
I hate the fact that people are so stupid that I have to use the word "fuck" 50 times just to make myself feel better about hating them.
I hate the fact that those stupid people run my country.
I hate the fact that those other stupid people voted for the first stupid people.
I hate feeling powerless against the stupid.
I hate Ricki Lake.
I hate fuck.
I fuck hate.
Fuck hate.
Hate fuck.
Fuck.
This overlong message has been brought to you by entirely too much pre-calc study, NO beer, Rush Limbaugh, Barbara Boxer, Bob Dole, Tipper Gore, Maxine Waters, and the two fu** (almost said it again) stupid Se** (I won't even capitalize it...they don't deserve it) senators who wrote letters to 15 electronics retailers "strongly suggesting" that they refuse to carry software that hadn't been "voluntarily rated." Now your kids have to be protected against evil VIDEO GAMES! And we're just the government to do it. Your kids, however, are on their own against crack, gun-toting school bullies, and the next guy who decides to do a little farmstyle demolition.
I quit now. Sorry for all the space I've wasted. I hope SOMEONE understands how frustrated I am tonight.
Sorry, folks.
Sorry, USENET.
Sorry.