i SAID: i'm not yr oil well

FROM June 28, 2004

SPESH TO TRAV, and everyone else: For all the stinginess I feel towards the Boroughs, I'm disinclined to fault Beasties for their lack of wringing, hard-hitting, life-altering protest/anti-Bush verse, verse that conduits our generation to saving itself (from convenience, death, misinformation, ignorance or otherwise). I might just be underscoring their Spin interview, but the Beasties simply aren’t political heroes. They're somewhat average liberals, and mouthpieces—surely Tibet is much more famous than it once was. But anger, unless translated into some quantifiable action (like voting), is still just anger.

So, I am not sure if Klosterman, in Spin, was making a point by thrice mentioning that Beasties were driving around NY in a Lincoln Navigator (or if Klosterman simply carries was some preternatural obsession with the makes and models of new SUVs, which seems possible) but it is worth pointing out. In the latest ish of HEEB magazine, Cornel West reiterated civic action as lifeblood of democracy, and spoke on its derailment by middle-class’ materialist aspirations. And the Beasties speak out against Bush with flattened vehemence—or a mindful sense of obligation—because, ultimately, what do they want for in life? They have buckets of money and a back catalogue that shaped the course of American popular music and families and girlfriends and a clothing line and top billing on the invite list to all the Spike Jonze premieres (not necessarily in that order). From my vantage, their basic needs are beyond met. I do not begrudge them this, but I can’t relate to them, either.

I can relate to Michael Moore: His emotions run waaahhld ‘n’ free ‘n’ big ‘n’ nasty through the poppies of a good story, and sometimes reason is left riding Smarty Jones. Fahrenheit 9/11 is, obviously, a film of great import. Come November, it could be the most important American film ever made. But for all its emotional appeal, his trademark incredulous “What-ifs” and soft-touch lightbulb conjecture (“What was Bush doing for seven minutes after the WTC attack? Was he wondering where to get a black marker [to blot out his documented connections to bin Laden?]”)—Moore stops short of explaining WHY THERE IS DEMAND FOR OIL. He doesn’t connect the Iraq War with US citizens’ personal accountability—that every $5 chevron fill-up funnels directly into the bulbous greased-up pockets of Bushes and their magnate cronies, some of whom are bin Ladens. We are a little bit complicit, each one of us.

Obviously, Americans are not trying to hear that, and to outright state it would have sent the film in entirely less effective places. More importantly, I left the theater with the shame of Pastor Niemoller on my conscience.