Lindsay Perigo
The Politically Incorrect Show - 30/10/2000
[Music - Die Fledermaus]
Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Monday October 30, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.
[Music up, music down!]
Free enterprise, achievement, profit, excellence, liberty ... they're all part of a package deal. Their common denominator is the human mind. If liberty is the most sacred thing in the universe, the human mind is the most wondrous. It is the thing within each of us that makes liberty a social necessity. That is why I fear for liberty's future at the hands, not just of politicians, bureaucrats & the sheeple who so unthinkingly empower them, but also of that element of contemporary popular music which is so brazenly mindLESS. Of course, liberty entails the freedom to like whatever one likes - but to me, embracing punk, grunge, heavy metal, hip-hop or hop-hip or whatever today's fads are called, is the esthetic equivalent of voting for any of our mainstream political parties.
What fascinates me is how sensitive people can be on this subject. I am, at least nominally, the moderator of an e-mail discussion group called Libertyloop, comprising freedom-lovers from all over the world. I say "nominally" because I don't screen the postings at all, as most "moderators" do - contributors just let fly at will. And let fly they do, on all manner of subjects. You'd be astonished at the things freedom-lovers find to disagree about. God, evolution & anarchism are the current hot topics. Arguments rage, tempers flare, rags are lost - sometimes including my own - and usually, at the end of the day, hearty laughs are had. But people take it very personally when I make one of my occasional esthetic pronouncements from On High, dismissing much of modern "music" as unmitigated garbage. Now why is this, I wonder? Is it just that I'm an intolerant, bah-humbug curmudgeon stuck in the past, or is it because the truth hurts?
Recently, one Libertyloopie expressed his dismay at the vote by Waikato University students for a return to compulsory student unionism. I responded by saying, what else would you expect from silly young things who've never heard of Paul Robeson (ignorance of whom had come up in a previous discussion)? To many, that was drawing a VERY long bow indeed, but I don't think it was. People whose music obliterates their minds are unlikely to show compunction about compulsion, which, at root, is also anti-mind.
One student Loopie who has risen above the headbanging caterwauling of which his peers are so enamoured, asked the heavy metal-lovers on the Loop why they didn't just listen to chainsaws? This reminded me of my time at varsity when, as part of our musical enlightenment, we were required to do just that - listen to chainsaws. In my naive state at the time, I thought this was merely silly. Now I suppose I can identify it as the rot setting in. I'm sure it's no mere coincidence that around about the time people starting seeking out chainsaw music, they also started watching chainsaw movies.
In the garden of liberty there will always be many flowers & many weeds. My concern is that if the weeds overwhelm the flowers, it won't be a garden of liberty any longer.
Ah well, this should keep the Libertyloop flaming for quite a while. You might like to comment also, over the next couple of hours: 309 3099. At two o'clock, though, I'm outta here man, splittin' the joint - gonna check out that cool Paul Robeson dude.
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