With the news that Wade Page, the man under arrest for entering a Sikh Temple and not randomly, it's a hate crime, murdering six members of the Sikh faith, in Milwaukee on Sunday, was a member of two racist hardcore bands, End Apathy and Definite Hate,brought to mind something i wrote about the phenomena in January 2010: Here is what I had to say:
"From Sharia Laws to white supremacy, what do you with bad politics. I've had the opportunity to listen to white supremacy hard core bands on occassion and have pretty impressed with some of them. Unlike the UK "Oi" movement which was uniformly terrible and therefore easy to dismiss out of hands, a band like Empire Falls is the real deal.
Empire Falls sentiments are fairly terrible but they aren't the worst I've heard: "have you ever been kicked in the teeth for standing up for what you believe, who dares wins" is not an untypical rah rah for the race riots. But it is a powerful anthem. Before we start condemning art because it's sentiments are unconscionably terrible, let's burn Ezra Pounds poetry and Leni Riefenstahl's movies.
When you begin to censor art due to content, where do you end?
Some of the bands on the racist record distribution Micetrap are just terrible "Freezer Full Of N—-r Heads" (in this context I can't type the word) is a not untypical song title but there is a million miles between singing something and doing something.
Empire Falls songs are hardcore singalong anthems and a blast. The band members themselves are scum of the earth
."
I still think that Empire Falls sound great. I haven't found End Apathy but I did listen to some Definite Hate, and I think they are definitely not up to very much of interest. They claim there is a Southern Rock component to their thrast but there isn't one.
Now here's the confusion. I really think people have the right to espouse racist views. I Speech should be Free and people should be respected to pick and choose what they believe. If I write a racist song and somebody kills a black or white or yellow person, where is my culpability. Thought isn't action, words aren't action. If I kill somebody, if I am Wade Page, I deserve to be put to death. But speech isn't action.
Th thing is, how many times can you go to the fair before you want to go on the ride?
Where is the space between thought and action? But Page should be different: put it this way, Wade hates all ethnic minorities so HIS ACTION IS TO TRANSMOGRIFY THE HATRED INTO MUSIC. That should end the circle. But this guy was so stupid, he went one more degree of changing action into alternative, he killed people in a racist attack because his girl left me. I dunno how he justifies that at all.
