Queensryche's Geof Tate GREAT INTERVIEW "Conservatives are like children"

noahmijo

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sat Sep-10-05 11:24 AM
Original message

Queensryche's Geof Tate GREAT INTERVIEW "Conservatives are like children"

For all you Queensryche fans out there:

KNAC.COM: In your defense, in order for anything to be truly authentic, you would have to be focused and committed to the idea of your project rather than replicating a preexisting movement or merely copying a work that you’ve already produced.

TATE: Yeah, I don’t think anyone could be successful operating that way because you’re constantly chasing public opinion which is so damn fickle. It’s like you’re constantly chasing a tail that’s wagging in front of you. I just don’t even think that way. It isn’t like we’re trying to capitalize on the original Operation Mindcrime either. If we were going to do that, we would have picked a more successful album. We’re just looking to extend the story because it was left open ended. The timing just seems right to revisit the story now and tell the tale because the times we’re in now are so similar. The time the original Mindcrime was written was so similar to now--it’s really weird. We have Bush in power now along with the conservative, religious right that are limiting freedoms for Americans. We are invested in a no win war overseas that we are putting millions and millions of dollars into while running up an enormous deficit. We are all back in debt again, and these similarities are so ironic that it would almost be a crime not to explore the idea again. In our minds it is time to do that. This record is really a continuation that takes place eighteen years later, and we drop in on Nikki’s life and see what he has become.

KNAC.COM: I know you have been bandying around this idea of having a sequel to Mindcrime for awhile, and I also know you want to express yourself with this, but did you become more committed after this November’s election or instead were you discouraged by the results?

TATE: Well, I’m not really out to change anything or any person’s mind with this album. It’s more of a study of the human condition or a study of power--a kind of cause and effect. Regarding the election though, I don’t think that at any given time in my life have I been so disappointed as in this one. I have never been so puzzled by the supposed polarization of the public--actually, I don’t necessarily even believe there is a polarization of the public. I don’t think the election was an honest election--why should it have been any different than the last one? I think the Bush’s are just an incredibly powerful family, and their power extends back through American history. They have so much wealth and power and the ability to sway public policy that they can basically get away with murder. I actually believe that. I’m not talking about conspiracy theories or all of that kind of crap. I’m just talking about reality. The American public in the last ten to fifteen years has really dumbed down. We are just so programmed to accept commerciality and the idea of a consumer society. We have to purchase…stuff. Our culture is basically consumerism.

KNAC.COM: Our culture is Wal-Mart.

TATE: That’s right. That is exactly what our culture is. The people in power depend on the dumbing down of America. They don’t want the middle class to get an education. They don’t want them to rise above. They want to keep them down in order for their eyes to remain shut. Maybe that is an elementary explanation, but if you break it down, it makes a lot of sense. If the economy flounders, people in power who are heavily vested in this country lose money, and they don’t like that--who does?

KNAC.COM: That’s true, but when the whole idea of a democracy was first formulated, it was based on the premise that its citizenry would be well informed, active and want to participate in the politics of the land…we don’t have that--most people don’t even read.

TATE: That’s right, and it has actually gone downhill in the last twenty years.

KNAC.COM: How can you have a successful Democracy voted upon by people who base their votes on ignorance, images and misinformation?

TATE: Take Fox News Channel--that is a mouthpiece organization. That isn’t an independent news reporting agency although they are masquerading around as one. It is just a mouthpiece for the Republican party.

KNAC.COM: Home of Bill O’Reilly and the “no spin zone.”

TATE: They are completely masquerading as an independent reporting agency. Get this for example: CNN is supposedly known and respected around the word for their reporting, and that’s just bullshit. That’s a tagline that they sell. CNN just announced that they are going to stop doing as much commenting on the news and actually start reporting the news. (In June, CNN announced that they would change their reporting of the situation in Israel due to a perceived bias in some of their reports.) That is what used to happen before all of this instant commentary and opinion that has sort of taken over and become convoluted into fact.

KNAC.COM: And it works--it is consistently taken as the truth.

TATE: I think our biggest problem in this country is that we have a really entrenched power structure that has bought the media. We don’t have a media that is independent and out there actually reporting the issues. Since we don’t have this independence, we have a lot of censorship in this country.

KNAC.COM: The funniest part of it is that even when there is some reporting that might deviate from the norm or criticize the typical Republican party line such as Fahrenheit 911, all the Republicans have to do is say that “it’s all lies.” In reality though, if that documentary was entirely fictitious, the Bush family would doubtlessly have had the money and resources to have either had the film suppressed or to sue Michael Moore into poverty--neither of which happened.

TATE: Yeah, why not stand up for your powerful belief system if that isn’t true?

KNAC.COM: Especially since that “belief system” or Bush’s pseudo-religious postering is the most incredible portion of his persona. The fact is that he overwhelmingly carries the vote of the religious right due in good part to his stance on abortion and his ability to mumble through insincere public prayers is completely shocking.

TATE: I really think that men should have no fucking say in abortion issues. I don’t think it is any of our business. We have no idea about child birth or childraising or anything. It is a women’s issue. They should be ones debating and deciding what they should do with their own bodies. You know what really pisses me off? It is the idea that our government supposedly has a separation between church and state. It is total bullshit. The fucking Christians are at war with the Muslims again. It has happened over and over again throughout history. We’re on another Crusade right now. It is the same old story. Why are the Christians even associated with our government? Why do they have such a say so in our policy?

KNAC.COM: Because they represent the white nuclear family that is the face of this country--and they go out and vote.

TATE: That is completely at odds with what we have expected though. When there is no separation between church and state, why are churches exempt from taxes?

KNAC.COM: They shouldn’t be after the last election--we had preachers in this country telling their congregations that if they wanted to vote Kerry that maybe they weren’t where they needed to be spiritually and that maybe they needed to reassess their beliefs.

TATE: That makes no sense to me. Here is a supposed Christian philosophy where you look out for your neighbor and give them a helping hand. They vote against that? It doesn’t make any sense. We have people voting for that agenda who can’t get a leg up themselves. Why? Because they bought the friggin’ commercials the Republicans were putting out. I can’t understand how people could have so easily been sold this commercial of prosperity when all the evidence is right in front of them--all the lies that were told to get us in the war. The whole reason we are in the war in the first place with Hussein….just look at the deficit. What is that all about? Do people agree to go so easily into debt?

KNAC.COM: Maybe, and besides, we don’t have to pay it today, and maybe Bush will turn around and send more tax refunds to people who have tons of kids which really makes a ton of sense when the country can’t pay the bills it already has.

TATE: Who’s doing the math here?

KNAC.COM: Of course, besides the economics of our foreign policy not making any sense, the Patriot Act is destined to be continually renewed taking away rights in the name of keeping everyone “safer.”

TATE: It’s the illusion of safety. It is just one of the planks in the whole “keep the America down by the fear” factor. It is an insult to our founding fathers. Our founding fathers would have never come up with something like that. That stands as a total opposite to what this country was founded upon.

KNAC.COM: But once the public is conditioned to renewing it, it will become easier and easier to add another item or stipulation onto the act in an effort to further erode what should be basic freedoms in this country. Then, you are left with a corrupt media, a questionable government and a citizenry which is continually having privileges taken away, how much better are we at that point than other countries?

TATE: I think we are worse off than a lot of countries. In all my years of traveling and talking to people, I’ve never heard so many people talking about leaving this country and giving away their citizenship and just leaving. I’d never, ever heard that until about the last year and a half to two years. Now, it just seems like it’s on everybody’s mind.

KNAC.COM: Yeah, but maybe that’s for the best since if you are critical of any of your government’s policies, you cease being an American. Any negative expression makes you a radical or even worse--a liberal.

TATE: A liberal? Let me break that down--so, I have a liberal way of thinking of things meaning my mind is open to a lot of different concepts. Yeah, I’m really insulted by that.

KNAC.COM: But if you’re more comfortable with having others lay out the ground rules for your life, that does become a negative.

TATE: One common characteristic that all ultra conservatives and ultra religious people have is that they are like children. They need to have somebody that they can call their “superior”. I call no man my superior--fucking no one. I don’t buy into that whole concept that someone is superior to me. That, to me is an immature, childlike characteristic in certain human beings that apparently a lot of people share.

KNAC.COM: True, but that belief is in direct opposition to our whole celebrity worship culture, isn’t it? Don’t people have the inherent need to see something in others that they don’t in themselves?

TATE: Well….yeah, I can see that. You’re getting into a lot of psychology there. Yeah, there is a definite celebrity culture that gets pushed down peoples’ throats. We build them up to tear them down.

KNAC.COM: Through it all though, isn’t there always a line that remains constant? I mean, it always seems like there is an “us” and then there is a grouping of people that you will never be.

TATE: I think a lot of that is press and the media. Those are the images that are projected. No one feels sorry for multimillionaire musicians who are being robbed of their royalties due to Internet piracy. No one gives a shit about that. They just figure “they’ve got enough money now--they don’t need everything.” The problem is, that’s a myth. There aren’t that many multi millionaire musicians. Sure, there are a handful like Paul McCartney who has been around for sixty years, but the rest of us are working class people who are just getting by and feeding our families. We just do our job and tour, but it isn’t a multi million dollar industry like the press portrays and the record companies portray because it is supposed to have some glitter attached to it. It’s all just an image. It’s smoke and mirrors.

http://www.knac.com/article.asp?ArticleID=3781