Text by Adam Lehrer
The widest margin of income inequality in the history of the United States. Rampant police brutality. The most overcrowded prisons in the western hemisphere. No guarantees of education or health care. Corporate greed. The mainstream media wants to tell me that I'm a sexist for not voting for Hilary Clinton. They say Bernie Sanders is too radical to be president, that people can't accept all that change at once? Fuck that. That is the military industrial complex keeping us complacent, telling us to make the sensible choice so that they can maintain the "natural order of things." If the sensible economic policies of Sen. Sanders are radical, then let's revolt away. President Obama was great for liberals and this country, but now is the time to take those epic policy changes and institute a full blown system overhaul. Protest away, my fellow Americans. It is our motherfucking right!
Music has always been a powerful tool of protest, bringing together disparate groups of people behind one message and one sound. The statement of protest can be clear, whether it be Rage Against the Machine encouraging us to bring down the system, or Ice Cube detailing the horrors of police brutality, or Killer Mike telling us that he's "Glad Reagan dead," or Beyoncé using her immortality to ally herself with feminism. Or it can be subtle, as in Miles Davis soundtracking the cold life of 1970s New York, Peaches celebrating her body and sexuality, or the very existence of Anarchist musical collectives like Test Dept, Can, or Crass (not available on Spotify, sadly).
Music brings us together, and together they will fall. The conservative right still seems to believe they hold all the power, but 86 percent of this country is made up of young people, minorities, and women. The rich white man is a dead monkey in the United States. It's time they realize it, and either stand with us or move out of the way. We all have the right to flourish in this beautiful country of ours. We all have the right to be healthy and to improve our minds. We all have the right to feel protected by law enforcement, and not vilified by it. We all have the right to see the corruption, and to declare it so. We have the right. And if that right is continuously denied to us, we will fight for it.