How Metal are the Neocons?

Mark Ames in the New York Press compares the obsession with evil of murderous Norwegian Black Metalers with the obsession with evil of Richard Perle and David Frum. He concluded that thanks to the likes of Perle and Frum, America has become "the world's first Black Metal Nation." It's funny…because it's true?

Comments

[M. Simon]

The answer to tthe neocons is to give Iraq back to Saddam or at least let the mullahs enforce sharia.

That will be a big improvement over the American Death Metal Neocon Cult.

Yah. Right. Whatever.

So true. So true.

So how do you explain Chief Wiggles/Holton?

He musta not got the Death Metal word.

You know Saddam was quite good at the Death Metal bit for real. Surpised no one knows he is really a neocon. He is/was in cahoots with them all along.

Who knew?

Well I always say brush up your yiddish. It might come in handy in America real soon.

Damn neocons. So unAmerican. To bad HUAC is no longer on the job.

========================================

Who writes your material? No really.

[David]

Frum and Pearle believe that "Judaeo-Christian America is under threat from Islam"? They must be madmen! Where did they get that idea? Frum's "axis of evil" line has "crippled Bush's room for diplomatic maneuver"? Does anyone believe that?

The broader question is whether sane people interested in liberty and politics are more likely to comment on this blog, while pop-culture obsessed juveniles are reading and laughing back home, or whether Reason is steadily losing its audience with its turn to adolescent postmodernism. I know that I let my subscription lapse a few years ago because of this stuff. And I hate Bush and opposed the war.

[Dan]

It's funny...because it's true?

Perle and Frum are pushing us into war because they were nerds during the 60s? They're bitter they spent their time studying instead of becoming hippies and dropouts?

I can see how that would make sense to a certain kind of person -- namely, the kind of person who gets fired from his Kinko's job for smoking pot in the break room, then blames the Fascist Corporate State.

I remember one time, after I'd finished my finals for my sophomore year in high school, I was reading a book at the bus stop. Two guys from my class walked by; one said, incredulously, "what the fuck you reading for? Don't you know school's out"? The other said "Yeah -- dumbass." They walked off, amazed that I was too stupid to realize I didn't have to read anymore.

I'd always kind of wondered what happened to those two. I think I've figured it out: they write for the New York Press. 🙂

[CK]

I haven't read the Lords of Chaos, but it's painfully obvious that the authors got all of their information on black metal (and metal in general) from that book. I especially enjoyed the line about how "the point" of "Satanic rock" was to scare normal people and "empower the nerdoids". It could have been an interesting article... too bad it sounds like it was written by the "cooler jocks" that have no idea what they're talking about.

[ron]

i wish america was becoming a black metal nation. less faith based charities, more christraping blasphemy, everybody wins.

[Clearly Clueless]

I...umm...what was the question...?

[dhex]

lords of chaos is an insteresting book. then again, i think mike moynihan's an interesting guy, blood axis and all.

more importantly, i think neocons would make good gristle for that meat grinder gwar used to have on stage.

[DanInAlabama]

I for one found this review funny. Even though I know it?s about money, and the power it gives them over people?s lives, I have always thought that the ?Serious? people who were offended by the hippies during the Vietnam War have done their best to kept marijuana from being legalized partly to punish the people they associated with dope smoking . So, I tend to agree that Frum and Perle?s actions are somewhat revenge driven. Nonetheless, there is something seriously off kilter with people who think that through force of arms and killing people in other countries they can eradicate Evil from the world. Perle especially strikes me as a particularly Evil person who does what he does to further the cause, not of America, but of Israel, and his own pocketbook of course.

[PapayaSF]

Let's see: one the one hand we have some (physically and/or mentally) adolescent musicians trying to make money by making bad music and pretending to be "evil". On the other hand we have some adults who are trying to protect Western civilization from actual evil. Yeah, sure, I see lots of similarity there....

Is there a word for "smug and snotty pseudo-irony based on a superficial understanding of a situation"? There ought to be.

[DanInAlabama]

Yeah, and it's spelled PapayaSF. You don't protect civilization by using the lives of American soldiers to do the bidding of another country. How do you get along with people? Beat the crap out of them? Is that how you make yourself safe? Well, it does not work in personal relations, and it does not work in international relations. Some guy tried that already and most of the world united against him and that is exactly what will happen if these psychopaths actually get to implement their plans.

[noname]

excellent, I want my neocons evil, EEVVVVILLLLLLLLLLL!!!

Arghhhhhh, dimmu borgir, emeperor inno a satana
bliachhhhh, cough cough , grgrgrgrgrr

[The Fop]

You don't protect the civilization by using the lives of American soldiers to do the bidding of another country.

Gee thanks. Now I know that all those Amercian soldiers who invaded Normandy died in vain. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, so what the hell were we doing chasing down Irwin Rommel in North Africa? Where's the smoking gun linking Hitler to Hirohito? Yeah, war never accomplishes anything...Hitler = McCarther, Bush = Hitler, so I guess that means Bush = McCarther. Or how about Genghis Khan = George Washington, George Washington = Chuck Connors (he raped "Kizzy" in "Roots"), which means Chuck Connors = Richard Perle. The possibilties are endless.

[DanInAlabama]

It It was about money. Europe owed us lots of money for our munitions and loans and pretty much told us that if they lost the war we would not get our money. Read ?Infamy? and ?War is a Racket? ( a nice little book. It will take you about two hours to read.) After you read ?em you can lecture me on history and noble causes.

[Geotech]

"Satanic Rock", ahahahaha. He doesn't mention that Euronymous ate pieces of Dead's brain and made necklaces out of bits of his skull, or that Varg claimed to find a dildo in Euronymous' bedroom, insinuating that he was gay. There's also Jon Nodtveidt of Dissection, who killed a migrant worker or two, and "Bard Faust" Eithun of Emperor, who lured a gay man out in the Norwegian woods to stab him to death. He almost got away with it, but couldn't resist bragging. These guys are about to be let out of prison, and the before and after photos are a kick too. They went in looking like typical long-haired D&D loving skin and bone dorks, and now they're all shaved heads goatees and big shoulders and biceps. Goddamn, I'm rambling about Black Metal on Hit & Run. This is fucking Oz.

[Stephen Fetchet]

Duh. What a stupid article.

Everybody knows the NeoCons are actually either a Deth Maettal (sorry, no umlaut tags..) cult.

In fact, a good argument can be made that all Republicans are really just an answer to Jello Biafra and the Dead Kennedys. So the NeoCons are best understood as a snarky, post-post-punk idealists' answer to the Dead Kennedys' scathing indictment of U.S. foreign policy in "Holiday in Cambodia".

In this way, the NeoCons are in fact musically derivative of the existing scene, and perhaps a whole new thing entirely - much as the NYPD under Rudy Giuliani was an answer to the DK's indictment of law enforcement policy within the United States, in the witty "Police Truck".

[packsoldier]

Congratulations on a very gay thread. I suppose this is what passes for insightful commentary to the Neocon/Zionist/Lizard conspiracy theorists.

[Collin]

"It It was about money. Europe owed us lots of money for our munitions and loans and pretty much told us that if they lost the war we would not get our money. Read ?Infamy? and ?War is a Racket? ( a nice little book. It will take you about two hours to read.) After you read ?em you can lecture me on history and noble causes."

This pretty much rules DanInAlabama out of any intelligent conversation. Thanks for pointing out how biased some people can be. Kinda like the original story this blog linked to. Perle and Frum should have horns popping out of their heads according to this crap. The guy who posted that is making a mockery of this website, or possibly just himself.

[CK]

>>Let's see: one the one hand we have some (physically and/or mentally) adolescent musicians trying to make money by making bad music and pretending to be "evil".

[Andrew]

If you could somehow crawl into Schroedinger's Box, and peer forward in to two alternate futures-- Bush wins a second term/ Kerry unseats the incumbent-- what would strike you is how similar these two universes would look...particularly in terms of America's foreign policy, which save for some of the attached rhetoric, would be nearly identical: the burst of American FP activism that began on 9/11 has run its course, and the changes in the Post-Cold War landscape REVEALED (NOT produced) by that burst will continue to play itself out in the world scene (unilateralism as the effective FP stance of EVERY player in the world scene, the collapse of large Cold War multilateral institutions, a low US tolerance for rogue regimes and a distaste for unsavory ones)...and meantime the American polity will lose interest in foreign policy, generally.

Republican centrists have the conservative base hostage, because that conservative base cares enough about the war to want to see Bush re-elected. Win or lose, conservatives won't need to care after November.

The centrist caucus of the Democratic Party has to be careful this year because the Deaniac Left cares enough about Iraq to walk or stay home this election year...but win or lose, they won't have that problem after November.

And the Occupation itself won't last until Election Day. All the "big" issues of Bush's first term will be spent, politically, by December-- the Stolen 2000 Election, 9/11 and Afghanistan, Iraq...no matter who wins.

The Neo-Cons are finished-- they could console themselves by feeling that they did themselves out of work by doing such a good job. The Deaniacs are finished-- they didn't stop the war, they didn't get their candidate (or any one much like him) and if the Dems lose they can claim nothing.

The post-Modernist left-libertarian posturing of Reason is also finished. The interesting question for libertarians is who the next Republican candidate will be (you can be sure he will have to have been pro-war, and loyal in 2004). If Kerry is president, you KNOW who the Democratic nominee will be, and even if not, libertarians still won't have a horse in that race.

(Hell, they don't have a horse in THIS one, among Democrats...the war just made it seem that way.)

[dj of raleigh]

Go into an alley way and puke your guts out,
then walk away without a worry for cleaning it up,
for something will come along and gobble it down
thinking what a dish, and wanting the recipe!

This piece was distructive hog wash, falsely cute
confused enough to fool someone that sense was being made.
Wherever those two boys that made fun of his reading are,
irony would have it that they were reading his writing,
saying, yeah Dude, way cool.

[Ruthless]

For orchestrating obscure divergent points of view, Hit & Run deserves the equivalent of a Grammy.

Hit & Run "music" is melodious.

[PapayaSF]

You don't protect civilization by using the lives of American soldiers to do the bidding of another country.

I suspect this translates as "We're fighting at the bidding of our secret Zionist masters." No, Dan, we are defending our country and our allies.

How do you get along with people? Beat the crap out of them? Is that how you make yourself safe?

If they attack us first, sure. If they violate the cease-fire agreement that ended the last fight, yes. If they are allies of the people who attacked us and/or are planning to attack us, and the U.N. can't or won't protect us, yes again.

[thoreau]

This discussion is way too serious. The thought of Bush's foreign policy team with long hair and electric guitars is hilarious. So let's take it down a notch and imagine Paul Wolfowitz on drums, Donald Rumsfeld on bass, Condoleeza Rice on electric guitar, and Colin Powell on lead vocals. (Sec. of State represents for the rest of the country, so to speak, so it's fitting that he should be lead vocalist.)

[M. Simon]

"something seriously off kilter with people who think that through force of arms and killing people in other countries they can eradicate Evil from the world."

So true, so true.

Why just yesterday I was telling the missus that it was a complete waste fighting the Germans in WW2. We defeated the Germans and yet there is still evil in the world. What a waste.

Same goes for Saddam. I mean how many people could his boys personally rape, torture , and murder in a year? Couldn't have been that many.

I mean why bother? None of our business. The wogs will do fine no matter who herds them. No skin off our nose. Liberty is just for white men. The wogs can't handle it. That all men are brothers shit is just some cheap Christian propaganda designed to start wars. Uh, I mean cheap Jewish propaganda.

We is all athiests here.

========================================

So who writes your material? No really.

[Rick Barton]

Indeed, every sad word of An End to Evil oozes Perle?s and Frum?s pained, wasted 60s youths.

Oh; is this what caused Perle to spy on us on behalf of the Israeli government in 1970?

That year, while working for Sen. "Scoop" Jackson"s office he was caught on a NSA wiretap giving classified information to the Israeli Embassy:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82may/hershwh2.htm

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

[McClain]

Du-hu-huuude! Norwegian black metal is fuckin sweeet! Neo-cons are fuckin sweeet! This blog, like, kicks ASS! Black metal nation, yo! Word to your moms!

[some guy]

Is this Ames the same jackass as the one at "The Exile" in Moscow?

[Ignorant Law Student]

I say it serves the hippies right for not including Republicans in their love-ins.

[Ignorant Law Student]

I say it serves the hippies right for not including Republicans in their love-ins.

[Jeff Clothier]

This is tangental to a question I've had for years: Why do right-wing talk show hosts use rock and pop music for their themes and bumper music in order to makes themselves seem "hip" - music made by and for people whose morals and worldviews directly contradict those of the average AM radio gasbag?

Even our local guy is doing it. Jan Mickelson on WHO in Des Moines regularly uses the instrumental intro from Steely Dan's "Cousin Dupree" from the album "Two Against Nature" - a first-person saga about incest - as bumper music. I called in once to comment on it, noting his topic du jour was child pornography and the breakdown of the American Family.

[Mick]

NOW we know why Tipper was so adamant about censoring records back in the 80's! She realized that we'd all turn into Republicans and steal the election from hubby Al. It all fits!!!

[Dan]

Why do right-wing talk show hosts use rock and pop music for their themes and bumper music in order to makes themselves seem "hip"

Because they and/or their audiences like the music.

music made by and for people whose morals and worldviews directly contradict those of the average AM radio gasbag?

How does that work, exactly? Two of the Violent Femmes are atheists, but the lead singer and songwriter is a devout Christian. As an atheist, am I allowed to like the band, or am supposed to like the music but hate the lyrics?

Also, as a libertarian, am I allowed to listen to anything other than Oingo Boingo?

[dhex]

jeff: perhaps they were the soundtracks of their "youthful indescretions?"

or maybe some producer just picked it. which seems more likely.

rush should update his to some nice hefty spacerock or maybe a 90s orb single like OOBE or an ever growing pusating brain from beyond the center of the ultraworld. or whatever type of music goes well with painkillers. (???)

[thoreau]

Also, as a libertarian, am I allowed to listen to anything other than Oingo Boingo?

Dan-

Please post the contents of your CD collection on Hit and Run so that we can decide which music is ideologically acceptable. A pro-freedom movement will disintegrate if its members don't adhere rigidly to dogma and squelch even the slightest signs of amicability toward people who don't share all of our views 🙂

[TJ]

I vote we modify Godwin's law so that the first moronic comparison between WW2 and "Enduring Freedom" (or Desert Storm, Desert Shield, the liberation of Grenada etc.) terminates a discussion.

[Tim]

Isn't it great how we can attach a thought to any other thought these days? Dog=cat etc,etc.
I have it figured out now, these days you can tell who is probably winning a cultural war by who is being called, "radical" the most. Anyone who has a "radical" agenda is usually leading the masses. Because of that I know that GW will win the election. Anyway, that article was a pathetic reach to be clever. The simile was shaky. If anything it might lead some to think, "fuck that snotty critic, kicking ass IS cool." It reverses his argument against him in some regard. It's sort of like the kick that Reaganites got from that movie Red Dawn.

[xray]

funny article. funny over-reactions in H&R from the anal-retentive wing of the libertarian movement.

[Stephen Fetchet]

To those fools who think that the linking of neocons with Black Metal is just another infantile Hit & Run blog entry and comment thread, I can only say this:

Johnny Lydon - aka Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols.

John of Leiden - medieval heretic; led the revolt of Muenster.

Don't you get it? You got two good eyes but you still can't see?

Follow the money, man. Follow the money. And watch out for the black UN Helicopters. And the shadowy zionist NeoConspiracy.

[Shultz]

I can hum the tune to "California Uber Alles", so I have a hard time thinking of DK as a bunch of Democrats.

And "Holiday in Cambodia" looks to me like a chastisement of wealthy liberal types. It rubs their faces in what the world would be like if their leftist dreams came true.

I was suprised to read that Death Metal people took themselves so seriously in Norway. Authenticity?

When I think of their fans from the 80's, they were usually 7th and 8th graders who couldn't get a girlfriend. They wore black everywhere, and they got their buts kicked by the jocks, bullies, drunks, punks and other dweebs like them.

Very few people in America took Black Metal seriously. How could you? (Anybody else remember when Celtic Frost went Glam?)

So, you believe in Satan? How fascinating. Why?

Because you're young, and you want to make your parents crazy and you can't get a girl. Some kids play with matches.

Neocons are like pointlessly anti-social juveniles in this way?

...not really.

[Shultz]

Dan,

Everyone else can listen to whatever they want, but you may ONLY listen to Oingo Boingo.

[Jean Bart]

Yet another story I do not understand. You Americans are so cryptic. 🙂

[Jean Bart]

(CNN) -- American Airlines is investigating reports that a pilot asked passengers to identify themselves as Christians so non-Christians on board could talk to them about their faith, a spokesman has said.

Spokesman Tim Kincaid said on Sunday the incident reportedly happened Friday on Flight 34 from Los Angeles, California, to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

"It is under investigation," Kincaid said. "We've had some complaints about it."

Kincaid said the pilot, whose name was not released, reportedly asked Christian passengers to raise their hands before suggesting that the other passengers should discuss Christianity with those passengers.

The pilot, who had just returned from a mission to Costa Rica, reportedly said he would be available at the end of the flight for further discussion, Kincaid said.

"We're investigating to learn the facts," Kincaid said. "That would be against our policy if it did happen."

The pilot was not scheduled to fly during the weekend, the airline said.

[DanInAlabama]

Yeah, I'm the one who knows nothing.
Richard Perle One of Bush's Foreign Policy Advisors and chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. He had worked as Bush's Jewish national security campaign advisor. A very likely Israeli agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam.

Google: "Perle" "expelled" "Henry Jackson"

[Rick Barton]

From: "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"; A plan for Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu's new government written by a group headed by Richard Perle, 1996:

Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right.

To anticipate U.S. reactions and plan ways to manage and constrain those reactions, Prime Minister Netanyahu can formulate the policies and stress themes he favors in language familiar to the Americans by tapping into themes of American administrations during the Cold War which apply well to Israel. If Israel wants to test certain propositions that require a benign American reaction then the best time to do so is before November, 1996.

Now, not all of the advice Perle gives in the whole report is bad, or bad for America but; who's interest does it sound like Perle cared about? His sentiments didn't seem to change since 1970. That year, while working for Sen. "Scoop" Jackson's office, he was caught on a NSA wiretap giving classified information to the Israeli Embassy:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82may/hershwh2.htm

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

In his relentless and powerful push for War on Iraq we should certainly not take for granted that this traitorous snake had the interests of the US in his heart.

[dhex]

huh?

that's not very metal.

[Rick Barton]

Dan:

"Also, as a libertarian, am I allowed to listen to anything other than Oingo Boingo?"

Why is Oingo Boingo libertarian oriented? Of course, Rush certainly had some libertarian songs.
Any other artists? songs?

[Dan]

That year, while working for Sen. "Scoop" Jackson's office, he was caught on a NSA wiretap giving classified information to the Israeli Embassy

Yeah, it's been mentioned three times already in this thread; twice by you and once by "Dan in Alabama".

I realize the allegation "he worked for the J.E.W.S." is damning in some quarters, but this probably isn't one of them. It's like finding out that a vehement anti-fascist spied on America for Great Britain in 1940. It doesn't prove his true loyal is to Great Britain, as a true anti-fascist WOULD spy on behalf of the nation currently involved in fighting fascism.

At the time Perle spied for them, Israel was engaged in a war against genocidal Moslems; the same genocidal Moslems that, entirely predictably, turned on the United States during the next few years. What Perle did was illegal, and firing him was certainly justified. But what he did wasn't evil; it was the morally courageous thing to do.

Now, not all of the advice Perle gives in the whole report is bad, or bad for America but; who's interest does it sound like Perle cared about

The plan you're quoting is, as you yourself note, a suggested plan for the *Israeli* government. What is the point in feigning surprise that it describes what would be in Israel's best interests, instead of focusing on what's in America's best interests? If Israel wants to know what it can do to further American interests, it can call the State Department.

In his relentless and powerful push for War on Iraq we should certainly not take for granted that this traitorous snake had the interests of the US in his heart.

A traitor is someone who aids an enemy of the United States. Nothing discussed here thus far qualifies. However, were one to use the term "traitor" -- that describes opponents of the Iraq war much better than it describes an Israeli spy, as Iraq was an enemy and Israel was and is one of our only solid allies. It is certainly easier to believe that a vehement supporter of Israel could have American interests at heart than it is to believe that an opponent of the war in Iraq does, given that every single enemy of the United States was firmly in the "no war with Iraq" column -- along with you. You may perhaps consider it mere coincidence that you're in firm agreement with everyone from Osama bin Laden to the government of Red China, but why should I believe that?

I don't care if Perle supported war with Iraq because he's a Jew or just because he's intelligent, informed, and concerned about the security of the United States. Either way, the results are the same.

[Rick Barton]

Oingo Boingo; "Capitalism"

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Capitalism-lyrics-Oingo-Boingo/166E1E9646045B2C48256A2B002F906A

the not so Weird dismal Science

[DanInAlabama]

The whole point is one can not serve two masters. It is clear to me who Mr. Perle?s true master is for he has broken the law to support that master. I can?t for the life of me understand how this man, who had to resign the top spot on the Defense Policy Board due to his oblivious conflicts of interest, has been allowed to remain on the board. It makes no sense, and it makes no sense that he is still, and has been for over twenty years, in a position to influence the military policy in this country. As far as I know not one of our service men and women swore any kind of oath to protect and promote the interest of any country other than America. The USS Liberty incident is proof positive that the radical right wing faction of Israel is willing to go to extreme lengths in an attempt to co-opt American power for their own ends. Mr. Perle has proven by his actions that he is a part of that faction.

Four days after the attack Top Pentagon Advisor Richard Perle tries to blame the attack on Iraq.

The Daily Telegraph, which is owned by Top Pentagon advisor Richard Perle (Hollinger Inc.) starts with a series of articles about a possible connection of Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi diplomat.