• mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Like a lot of fascism, it makes perfect sense if you understand the code words. “Inserting politics” or “getting political” means expressing a disallowed opinion that should be silenced. You’ll never hear this kind of language used about the approved opinions, only the to-be-silenced ones.

    • pyromaster55@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Exactly this.

      Kneeling for the anthem is inserting politics into sports, playing the anthem before the game? Not at all inserting politics into sports.

      Pride night? Not allowed. First responder (read: cop) Night? Totally cool.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        If first responder night was just fire department and EMT itd be infinitely better, fun fact a bar in my city banned that type of event since the fire chief nearly got into a fight with the police chief.

      • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        “I stand for the flag. I kneel for the cross.” –A phrase uttered only by people who have never once knelt in front of a cross, ever.

        I’ve also noticed a direct correlation between people who wave around “Blue Lives Matter” flags and people who think police officers should essentially be paid poverty level wages. They’re often the same group of people. And yes, the irony is completely lost on them.

        Now I have to tell a story. And this actually happened. Eons ago, I got a wild hair and decided to run for my local city council. At that time, the city was pushing a small tax increase to fund raises for the police and fire departments, where the average salary was like $9/hr for a patrolman. It was not a great wage even then. I literally had people with “thin blue line” bumper stickers yelling at me because “I make $9 an hour. Why should they be paid better than me?” I quickly learned that there is a large – or larger than I would have expected – percentage of the population that supports the “police” as a concept as long as it means they get to feel morally superior. When it comes to actually supporting the people who are the police, they don’t give two shits.

        It’s possible to think that police, firefighters, and other public servants in hazardous occupations should be compensated well AND be held to high moral and ethical standards. Mind blowing. I know.

    • Mango@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      That’s pretty well how it is basically any time someone’s trying to make another shut up. It doesn’t even need to be politics.

  • GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org
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    11 months ago

    For context, original lyrics:

    Don’t wanna be an American idiot
    Don’t want a nation under the new media
    And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
    The subliminal mind fuck America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Well maybe I’m the faggot America
    I’m not a part of a redneck agenda
    Now everybody do the propaganda
    And sing along to the age of paranoia

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Don’t want to be an American idiot
    One nation controlled by the media
    Information age of hysteria
    It’s calling out to idiot America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Super tame.

    In the New Year’s show, they changed “a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”. Okay, little bit more explicitly partisan, but basically the same thing.

    • pyromaster55@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      And yet, as a leftist redneck, I whole heartedly approve of the change.

      Feel a little more seen, even if it doesn’t mean anything.

      • ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I’ve known many rednecks who were good people. If you aren’t hurting people, you do you, friend! Also, chunk those punkins!

        • chrishazfun@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          In my experience, rednecks (chavs and bogans too) are at worst just really callous, well intentioned and imo would rather consider their opinion on something and try to make conversation to understand than someone intentionally aligning themselves with people who’re literally using some Austrian with a shitty staches manual.

    • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      “a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”

      If MAGA as a name for these people had existed then, they would have used it. They’re the same people.

    • AlienInAMask@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      I think part of the problem (aside from people that don’t ever listen to the words in songs) is less that the song/green day is apolitical in their interpretation, but more that for a lot of people the word “politics” means partisan politics. Being explicitly about a party or one of their core issues is what makes something 𝓅𝑜𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 to them.

      • hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
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        11 months ago

        What is and is not political is defined by oppressors. Their crosses, punisher skulls, and blue lives matter stickers are not political. The atheist symbol, antifa arrows, and black lives matter stickers are political. A keffiyeh is a political statement, but an IDF shirt isn’t. “Political” functionally means “talking about your oppression or the oppression of others.”

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        11 months ago

        JSYK, using special characters to write “political” like that doesn’t work with screen readers. Best case scenario it skips the word entirely, worst case it reads out the name of each special character individually.

    • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It’s tame by today’s standards but at the time it got quite a few people in a tizzy

      • cheesepotatoes@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Its usage in the song is not derogatory. It’s meant to highlight the offensiveness of it and to cast the speaker as one of the disenfranchised of America.

        It’s controversial, I suppose, but it’s meant to make a point. Changing it would just diminish it.

        • freebread@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          Also, notable that the songwriter/singer has been out as bi since the early 90’s

      • meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        As the other commenter said, it’s not derogatory. He’s taking a word that’s been used to belittle and dismiss him and people that share his views, owning it, and using it to fire back against those that would use it against him in that way.

        Basically, “Call me gay* (ok, like that’s supposed to be a bad thing? Watch me call myself gay lol) but at least I’m not a dumb idiot follower of the redneck/MAGA agenda.”

        To me, it’s like a more sophisticated “I know you are but what am I?”, if you will. He’s so unphased by the label that he uses it for himself with little hesitation, thus stripping its power as an insult against him. Hence why he fires back with a new, more critical put-down. It’s meant to hit them (someone that would call someone else gay or a faggot* as an insult) where it hurts, in the same way that person has meant to hurt others by using those terms derogatorily. He’s literally naming and shaming the bigotry of the time.

        *And yes I know the term faggot has some nasty origins, but it was colloquially just a much more rude/derogatory way to say “gay person” when this song came out. I highly doubt the majority of people that used it were actually thinking that critically about it. The song itself at least very clearly does not mean it in the original sense.

  • ClydapusGotwald@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s the rage against the machine all over again. Shows how truly dumb people are. Like do they even listen to the lyrics?

          • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            It’s the flat earth movement all over again. The flat earth thing started as a joke on 4chan. Like “wouldn’t it all be funny if we took something blatantly false and pretended to believe in it?” Then the idiots caught a whiff of it, mistook it for people being serious, then joined in unironically. At that point, 4chan took a step back and laughed, because what else can you do at that point? The idiocy fission reaction was self-sustaining at that point, so 4chan just let go of the reins and watched to see where it would go.

            • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              It dates back way further than 4chan, I want to say 70s maybe. But yeah this happens every couple of decades with flat earthers, hell I think there was a flat earth group back in the 1800s which was basically a running joke amongst naturalists. Then the dumbfucks came out of the woodwork.

      • Signtist@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Nah, I’ve got a family member who voted for trump and loves RatM. They honestly think the lyrics support conservative ideals, and advocate for violence against people who would change the country from the “good ol’ days.”

      • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I hope you don’t mind Unix systems, cuz you should avoid Windows after a statement like that.

    • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      It’s funny - I agree with Green Day in most ways politically, but stopped listening after American Idiot because so much of their music was blatantly political. That’s what they were going for, it is CLEAR and OBVIOUS to anyone listening to their music, where they stand. I am all for it, I would just rather be escaping the world’s issues while listening to music :)

      • Dem Bosain@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        I quit listening to Green Day because it was impossible to escape When September Ends. Couldn’t go out in public without hearing it somewhere.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
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          11 months ago

          What was baby shark speaking to politically? “What does the fox say” about interest rates?

          I get what you mean, it’s just funny to apply that to obvious nonsense music lol

            • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              11 months ago

              Some stay dry while others feel the pain.

              edit: Okay after reminding myself of the lyrics it’s actually a proletarian anthem and a banger

          • PorkRoll@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Baby Shark is about the increasing rise of extended families as a “nuclear family” is a thing of the past. “What Does the Fox Say?” is pretty clear on what the fox has to say about interest rates:

            Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding! Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!

          • Spur4383@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Baby shark is an anthem against marriage equality, it was clearly pushing for a man an a woman when calling out momma shark and daddy shark. It is clearly in the bands constitution, they stand for traditional family values and will never accept the idea of marriage not being between an man and a woman. That’s the way it was for Grandma shark, and the way it will be for baby shark.

            Don’t even get me started on how the sound of the fox represents the invisible hand of the Fed choosing who gets rich.

            /S, just in cass it wasn’t obvious.

          • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Since no one really responded with a serious answer I’ll go ahead and chime in.

            The art itself my not carry a poignant message about our political world, but it exists in a political world and thus is political in nature.

            It could be argued that everyone has an obligation to honestly and intellectually engage with the political nature of our world. And by not doing this an artist is choosing to ingore the political nature of their own reality

            Choosing to “not be political” is itself a political stance. Regardless of whether or not it was a conscious one

            (And yes, I know sometimes people just want to have fun. I’m not condemning fun. Just giving a serious response to the silly extreme example)

            (Also, also there’s a whole 'nother can of worms if you want to talk about art as commodity)

      • Thanks4Nothing@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It’s funny to me…I didn’t say they were bad, I didn’t say I didn’t like them, I didn’t say anything except for that they clearly took their music in a more in your face, political direction. That’s fine, I support them making that choice. I get that punk is inherently political, and that most music has hints of it. When I started listening, when 1039 came out - I was too young to understand what the music was about. Then came kerplunk and dookie. Dookie has many songs that are just about boredom, wasting time, or girls. Same thing for Insomniac and Nimrod. You cannot argue that EVERY song on those albums was political, it’s just not true. They became a pop-punk alternative band. That’s great, they still make great music, I just choose other styles and genres. Downvotes aren’t hurting me, but it seems excessive for sharing my thoughts.

        For the record, I was a ride or die fan in the 90’s. 5 shows, one of them I waited by the outdoor stage for 3 hours to get a good spot. I had my art featured on the earliest version of their website, back in the AOL days. I still love the music I grew up with. Bands style, peoples preferences change…I just don’t want to think about the broken world when I listen to music anymore.

  • LazyBane@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    He’s the one who likes

    All our pretty songs and he

    Likes to sing along and he

    Likes to shoot his gun but he

    Don’t know what it means

  • Cornpop@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    It’s like they interpret music as just a noise that sounds appealing with no meaning.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      11 months ago

      Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!

      No idea on the rest of the lyrics, something about forces and crosses. I wasn’t really listening. I like crosses! Woo, Trump!

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I guess this is the best place for this comment: about two years back my friend (who is a hardcore conservative, just not trump is God crazy and he doesn’t know about qanon), myself and two other guys (they’re all moderate or liberal) went to go see Rage Against The Machine for like the first time in 20 years. During one of the songs where he raps about humans living shitty lives because they can get ahead, there were posters all over saving things like "save the kids ". “feed the children”.

        My conservative buddy looked at me during the time the posters were up and was he like "WTF is this shit?*

      • hamFoilHat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        They should have kept “hold office”. The rhyme works better, “works forces” isn’t a saying so it seems really forced, and apparently no one would have noticed anyway.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Hence former House Speaker and Ayn Rand-lover Paul Ryan’s favorite band being Rage Against The Machine

      • Exocrinous@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        This is also why the Snyder Superman movies are bad.

        Superman is an illegal alien who learned the value of kindness and hard work from his adopted parents, uses his powers to help people because it’s the right thing to do, and spends the time that he’s not being Superman to do investigative journalism that exposes corruption.

        Snyder is an objectivist who understands precisely 0% of any of that, and that’s why his Superman movies completely fail to be about anything.

    • LifeOfChance@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I dont see that as an issue so long as you aren’t gonna attempt shaming them. I have songs I just listen to but couldn’t tell you a single lyric or who it is.

      • Cornpop@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Yea that’s all fine but when they get surprised that Green Day has a little something more to say after preforming American idiot it’s a bit funny.

  • Randelung@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    You don’t get to get away from it. MAGA politics has made life a living hell for so many people that can’t get away from it, and the only thing anyone can do is confront you with it every waking moment of yours.

  • dumpsterlid@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Maybe conservatives just take a sharpie and put a comma on the album cover so it says “American, Idiot” as in they are yelling at someone that they are American and that they should have known by their ignorant angry voice.

  • Kid_Thunder@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    American Idiot was already political and already critical of the Republicans. I guess all these American idiots didn’t know the lyrics before?

  • 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘰@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Anyone who wants to censor culture is a fascist at their core. In a liberal democracy you can say anything but you’re not immune from the consequences.

    That being said these users look fake AF and we should stop pretending Twitter/x/whatever is anything but a dead forum

    • WolfhoundRO@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Unfortunately they’re not only NOT fake, but irl they’re just as disgruntled and morally ugly as their online persona. Me and a friend finally got ourselves blocked by one common mutual who was behaving like that even in public and we couldn’t help but either A) block his stupid “centrist” hypocrite ass and never go out with him again or B) mock him, call him out and make fun of him for every unhinged thing he would say. We chose B and we had some good laughs upon his stupidity

    • danikpapas@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Right, exactly that’s the reason everyone should be allowed to say the nword.

  • Bristlecone@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Incredible that they can just keep coming up with shit like this day after day, indefinitely. Truly astonishing

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Every other argument they have is instantly demolished because of how stupid they are so they just reach into the barrel to scrape out more shit. But the problem is that they’re not just scraping the bottom, they’ve gone and dug a hole halfway to China.

  • Crafter72@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Guy who shocked by green day probably never existed back in 2004 or just want a piece of cake for attention. Green Day always has been political in some of their song release since Warning(?), even on The Network side project am I supposed to think The Network is Green Day? Am no American and enjoyed Green Day from Dookie to Revolution Radio (not really listened to them since FOaMF release).

      • Crafter72@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Agreed. No matter which era you like whether 90s Green Day or Post-American Idiot album, Green Day still great band and great live performer, their live performance are treat especially when they were playing faster live. You can see them on youtubes, my favorite is live version of Paper Lantern (specifically Chicago 1994)

  • Fleamo@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Making fun of the people who didn’t like the political statement is fine, and there were plenty of high profile people to dunk on for that, but this is literally some rando this person searched up, the original tweet had basically no interactions. This could even be satire for all we know.

    Effectively, if not possibly literally, nobody really said this.

    • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The whole “the right is up in arms” is bullshit. I’m sure there are idiots who say some stupid things, but I have conservative relatives. I get (unwillingly) exposed to war room more than I care to say. The only place I’ve heard about it is in posts like this.