We had been warned of trouble looming at a show in Fairfax, Va., a conservative suburb outside Washington, D.C. The gig was at the Patriot Center at George Mason University. George Mason, a father of the Bill of Rights, refused to sign the Declaration of Independence because it didn’t guarantee enough rights and freedoms. (Were he still alive, he’d be cast out of Virginia; although its state slogan is “Virginia Is For Lovers,” in 1994, Virginia had an anti-sodomy law.) The promoter told Green Day in advance that they wouldn’t allow us to play, that we were inappropriate; Green Day’s response to the promoter was that if we didn’t play, they wouldn’t play.
The promoter backed down, but when we arrived, he pulled me aside for a lecture. In a friendly-yet-stern way, he said our material was too mature for Green Day’s young audiences. He said that there would be eight-to-12-year-olds in the crowd. I asked why he was worried about our lyrics and not Green Day’s, which also have some references that might not be suitable. And who were these kids, anyway? What parents were letting their kids go to concerts so young? I told him, if they’re that young, much of what we sing about is going to go right over their heads; they won’t get it. But they’ll know they saw a gay band, and it will get them talking one way or the other. To us, that would be a victory, meaning we’ve infiltrated Pat Robertson country. This guy kept saying things like he had a lesbian sister, that he was for gay rights, but not in these circumstances. He said he was dreading the day-after phone calls from parents. I told him I had the right to sing about it, kids had the right not to be censored, and what we sang about was part of the world we live in. Virginia was a sodomy-law state; the discrimination was written into state law. To counter years of hetero propaganda these kids had heard—and would continue to hear—a few bad words and risqué songs wouldn’t do them any harm. This discussion went in circles for 15 minutes, until I finally told him it was a waste of my time. When we played, the reception was mixed but more supportive than I’d feared; it was the only show we played with Green Day in the South.
The apex of that tour was a gig at Madison Square Garden. The show was a multi-artist extravaganza: faux-alternative station Z-100’s Christmas bash. The lineup from top to bottom: Green Day, Hole, Weezer, Melissa Etheridge, Bon Jovi (gag, choke, splutter, barf), Sheryl Crow, Toad The Wet Sprocket, the Indigo Girls and us. When Green Day found out Bon Jovi was on the bill, they were fit to be tied. This was everything we had ever fought against. This was an alternative station? Z-100 tried to throw us off the bill, but Green Day said they wouldn’t do the show if we didn’t get to play. We’ll always be grateful for the many times they stood up for us that year.
Telling a punk band they can’t do something is pretty much demanding they do it.
Like ratm in the radio told not to swear
Could you please stop raging so much? It scares the machine. Thanks for your cooperation
“Why can’t you rage against the immigrants, queers, antifa, liberals, dei, sjw’s, and jews just like jesus would’ve wanted?”
Meanwhile, how Jesus dealt with capitalists (aka “merchants” and “money changers”):
I’m going to be a pedantic asshole. Please ignore me. I can’t help it.
in the story, Jesus was more concerned with the corruption of the temple. If the merchants and money changers were set up in the commercial district, they would have been fine, but they were set up in the temple.
Capitalism hadn’t been invented yet. You’ve got to go forward to the Dutch East India Company or the British East India Company.
However, if he existed today, all signs seem to indicate to me that he’d be a RATM fan and a socialist.
Point 1 is very much the case.
He was otherwise a “render unto cesar” kinda guy.
people read what they want into the bible, right? i always figured his “render unto cesar” was “dude, do you want them fucking us over because we didn’t pay our taxes? don’t draw attention unnecessary from the government”. I might be unnecessarily connecting that to the don’t shout prayers on streetcorners thing, i’m not a bibble scholer.
Depends on who you ask, and I’m definitely not Christian, much less a biblical kinda guy. Just grew up around it enough to pick things up.
My impression of the render bit is that those following his way are to not care about taxes and such, or money itself, because those things are not “godly”, they don’t matter in the sense of how to live as a christian.
I’m inclined to agree. It’s been a while since I read it, but I feel like the vibe of this comic is in line with your comment:
Capitalism maybe had not been formulated “officially” but it still existed.
Claiming capitalism didn’t exist until it was formally invented/defined is rather fallacious.
No matter how much capitalists want to manufacture that narrative, they’re splitting hairs. There is no significant difference between private orgs/individuals or landowners using their wealth to influence the system and control laws/workers/consumers under that jurisdiction, vs a monarchy and private lords/landowners using their wealth to control the laws/workers/consumers of their fiefdom. The illusion of democracy or rule of law doesn’t change the underlying nature of the system, or how it operates.
For example, America is claimed to be a “capitalist” “democracy” yet in 2026 it is much closer to the same sociopathic, psychopathic, and authoritarian psychologies of the pre-democratic, pre-revolutionary fiefdom era, where a wealthy ruling class are subject to a different “rule of law” than the workers/consumers, than it is to the ideals and virtues written on paper. Acting as though the paper still applies while the president and all his accomplices are free to rape children on a private island is extremely delusional, and borderline psychotic.
It’s like how gravity didn’t exist until Newton invented it. Before then people were just floating around.
/s
I’d argue that capitalism is an economic theory, and not an action, much like Mercantilism before it and fuedalism before that. The activities that drive the theory have to exist before the theory can be formulated, and once the theory is formulated policy and action can be built upon and guided by the theory. This can even be seen in Mercantilism being a precursor to the more refined capitalist theory. Mercantilism defined all resources as finite and all trade as a zero sum endeavor with someone needing to lose in order for another to gain. Capitalism of course shook this off as it was figured out that more trade led to more commerical activities creating more economic output.
For a parrelel, physics obviously existed before scientists were able to define various laws of physics. Plenty of inventors were able to successfully apply physics without knowing the laws of physics, but once the laws of physics were defined a lot of failed inventions that relied entirely on theories incompatible with the laws of physics stopped being built. If you look through old 19th century and earlier inventions you’ll find a ton of inventions that would violate physics if they worked (most commonly the conservation of energy. Many, many unsuccessful inventions relied on adding belts and gears between a motor and its energy output to somehow increase the quantity of energy being output)
James Chapter 5:
I love that one. The chorus to the song is literally “fuck You, I won’t do what You tell me”. What did they think would happen?
They thought it will go down exactly the way it did, they just asked to have plausible deniability and to make it a better story.
Unless they are most mainstream American punk bands, then they ignore the plight of the people.