Interviews

Alternative Nation (April 2004)

Canada’s finest contribution to hardcore (or ‘progressive thrash’, as they style themselves with an element of tongue in cheek) Propagandhi hit the headlines last month, but as far as they were concerned it was for all the wrong reasons: they had been pencilled in to contribute to label Fat Wreck’s ‘Rock Against Bush’ compilation, but a refusal to omit a liner note taking a dig at billionaire venture capitalist (and prominent anti-Bushite) George Soros meant that they were asked to wait until volume two; they promptly withdrew from the whole project, and lamented the sensationalisation of what they considered to be a triviality in the face of issues like the wrongful conviction of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Guitarist Chris took the opportunity to get a few thoughts off his chest.

Kenny: So the whole Rock Against Bush thing went a bit crazy; time to talk about some slightly more salient issues. You’re obviously opposed to Bush and his administration, but not to the extent that you’re willing to compromise your principles – who would you vote for is you were a US citizen this November?      

Chris: Well, I should quickly point out first that we’re certainly not above compromise. Making measured, accountable, daily compromise is fundamental to living amongst other humans in any healthily diverse society. The problem is that in modern society, where power and wealth is so completely concentrated in the hands of the minority who benefit from the status quo, compromise is customarily a one-way street. Compromise is expected of people whose visions or desires or values conflict with the status quo. It is not expected of those whose visions or desires or values are congruent with the status quo.

Hence, for example, in the increasingly pathological race to oust Bush 2 from office, Americans who desire an end to wars (foreign and/or domestic, military and/or economic) waged by governments indentured to transnational corporations are expected to compromise their vision, their desires and their values and work to elect a new, "different" administration that has historically been indentured to transnational corporations and has embraced the art of war as a means of maintaining global capitalist hegemony. Conversely, Americans who are comfortable with capitalism and US global hegemony (but want legal abortions) are not expected to compromise by, say, working to elect a party outside the duopoly who refuses the financial influence of corporations and rejects war and expansionism as a centrepiece of policy. I’m all for reproductive choice and I’m especially interested in the termination of American foetuses (calm down, I’m joking), but it certainly wouldn’t be sufficient to compel me to vote for the other half of the planet-raping, war-mongering, corporate functionary duopoly.

K: So you wouldn’t vote at all…

C: If i were a US citizen who accepted the process as legitimate, I would vote for the candidate whose platform was a substantial reflection of my values. I imagine this is why many Americans just stay home.

K: Ralph Nader is standing again, and has attracted the ire of large sections of the liberal left and centre-left. Is he making a mistake, or should we be pleased that he’s providing us with a more progressive option, even if it means another 4 years of Bush?

C: How can a citizen in an alleged democracy be making a mistake by running in an election in the country that she or he is a citizen of? Let alone on a radically different platform than the ruling party/parties? Why isn’t anyone asking if the Democrats are "making a mistake" by running a candidate rather than deferring to Nader? Why isn’t anyone asking if the Republicans are "making a mistake" by running a candidate? Why are either of those questions any more absurd? They are actually less absurd questions. Nader is the only candidate who doesn’t accept campaign donations from multinational corporations. Thus, he is the only candidate that isn’t completely and utterly absurd.

K: Are we safer now than we were before September the 11th, 2001?

C: I would speculate that we, as a species, have made great unilateral advances towards the complete extinction of all terrestrial life since September 11th. We should all be very proud.

K: Do you think that violence can defeat violence?     

C: No, i don’t believe that violence can defeat violence. Enlarge its sphere of application, yes, but defeat it? No. I believe in the right to defend one’s self, but ultimately, gains achieved through violent means are corrupt and doomed to failure.

K: So we should follow the lead of the Spaniards who have just ejected [pro-war prime minister] Aznar.

Removing administrations who secure expansionist policy objectives through armed force from positions of power is always the right thing to do. Which is why I believe that concepts such as what I understand to be anarchism should be given serious consideration as bodies of philosophical and practical lessons from which to draw upon. My intuition is that the planet will not survive if decision-making continues to be the exclusive realm of an ultra-elite, whether they are "left" or "right", "hawks" or "doves".

K: Bush and terrorism are the most talked about threats to the world – each by people at different ends of the political spectrum, of course – but they’re not the only ones: the Pentagon of all people have warned that ‘climate change will destroy us all’; worrying, no? But what can we do while Bush just dismisses things like Kyoto out of hand?

C: We can begin to identify and prosecute such neglect as yet another form of terrorism for starters. The destruction of our biosphere is not an inevitable natural development. It is the predictable consequence of the conscious rape of the planet by a mandate made possible by governments indentured to industry. Bush, his predecessors, his international counterparts, and his handlers should be summarily tried and possibly executed for crimes against the entire ecosystem. Hyperbole aside, people should continue to agitate through whatever means they deem effective and moral to raise the social costs to the elite (through disruption and disobedience) of ignoring public opinion.

K: You drew attention - again - to the causes of people like Leonard Peltier [a Native American rights activist imprisoned in 1975], Mohammed Cherfi [an Algerian asylum seeker brutally arrested several times in Canada], and Mumia Abu-Jamal [on Death Row for ‘cop-killing’ after an insanely unjust trial] in the wake of the RAB ‘controversy’; if no one’s listening, what can you really do to help them?

C: I wouldn’t say no one is listening. I would say many of us are distracted by other events in our lives; some important like work, family, friends, survival… some utterly inane like sitcoms, reality TV, video games, Californian punk bands.

I think we all just have to bring some moderation to the table in terms of our consumption of ideological candy-floss. Popular culture is often popular for a reason: it is mechanism of control. It generally keeps us distracted. it keeps us sitting in front of TV’s watching commercials. It keeps us going to stupid, life-wasting jobs so we can afford to buy the crap they show us in commercials. It generally keeps out information and voices that threaten to upset the delusion, sometimes to the extent that people feel compelled to fly planes into our buildings to get our attention, if only negative and momentarily.

The bottom line is that we each have start listening to a wider variety of voices on the planet and help those voices get heard by the people we know in the places we live. Otherwise, there will be no understanding and consequently, perpetual distrust and conflict.    

K: You’re very much known as political activists, almost to the extent that it overshadows you as a band; I’ve not even mentioned your music yet. What do you  feel about people who listen to your music, but either disagree or - perhaps worse - don’t care about your message?

C: People make and listen to music for many different reasons and those reasons can fluctuate depending on any number of things like time, place or mood. We have no illusions or expectations that whatever audience the band has, is at all homogenous in its politics or aesthetics. By the same token, people shouldn’t rely too heavily on their preconceptions of what we are like as people. 99% of the time, they will be wrong and/or disappointed.

K: Do you feel pressured by the ‘punks’ you know will jump onyou at every given opportunity, every perceived misdeed? You even took flak for signing to Fat. Is it an issue?    

C: Of course, we don’t mind criticism. Often, it can aid in self-reflection. That said, punks are generally idiots. They go to warped tour. They listen to Rancid. They vote Democrat. Who gives a fuck what a "punk" thinks?

K: Finally, what does the rest of this year, and the future, hold for Propagandhi? A new record, a tour?

C: Yes, there will be a new record out this year. Unfortunately, there will probably be a tour after its release. I can hardly wait to fritter away the hours of my life in a van, visiting the incredibly diverse array of Kentucky Fried Cities that litter the western world. Ha. No, fortunately, we meet good people everywhere who turn our frowns upside-down and make the whole debacle worth it. Plus, we fuckin’ love to rock. Fuck, do we love it.

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