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Re: U2

> "Guns in the hands of bad people is a bad thing.  Guns in the hands of
> good people is a good thing.  Except for bad people..."
> Then the screen cut to a ~2 year girl picking up a gun off the floor.

So obviously there is a third class of people that Heston doesn't cover.

Would U2 campaign against automobiles by showing a 2-year-old wandering
out into a highway, or a 10-year-old getting behind a steering wheel?

> By the way do people feel that it is OK for bands to push issues with
> their music?  Has any of these caused people not to listen to a certain
> band?  For example, like when E. Vedder drew "Pro-choice" on his arm
> with a marker?

Well, Sheryl Crow is pro-choice, IIRC, and I ain't, but that never stopped
me from listening to her music.  I'm also a big fan of Sinead O'Connor,
but I haven't a clue whether she'd consider herself pro-choice right now;
I'm inclined to think she would, especially given that she has actually
had an abortion, but the very poignant (IMHO) CD-single she devoted to
that subject, 'My Special Child', shows a lot of pain and regret.

Generally speaking, I don't care *what* a person's political views are if
they don't affect the art.  And if they *do* affect the art, well, it
depends, then, on *how* it affects the art.  I find some of John Lennon's
solo music rather tedious, for instance, because he kept harping away at
the peace and anti-religion thing, and not very artistically.  It often
didn't get beyond the sloganeering or create a sense of peace itself.

I remember an interview with Sting in the late 1980s, where he said he'd
wanted to write a protest song about Pinochet but couldn't think of how to
do it, until he discovered that the widows of Pinochet's victims were
dancing by themselves, in protest, to symbolize that their partners had
been killed.  This led to 'They Dance Alone', which is, IMO, a very good
song on an artistic level, as well as an effective example of political
protest.  In that same interview, Sting said he had been invited to take
part in an anti-apartheid protest song, but he said he couldn't do it cuz
'I'm Not Going to Play Sun City' was about as artistic as fried bread.

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
 "I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
      Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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