NIN NOT PLAYING MTV AWARDS?

Now, I'm the last person to sit through an awards show. If I care (IF I care) I'll find out who won by reading the news later. However, TheFiancee just called me to say that she heard on the radio that Trent Reznor, the brains behind Nine Inch Nails, one of my favorite band, was told he/they couldn't perform at some MTV awards show the way Reznor wanted to.

See, there's this song on his new album that is called "The Hand that Feeds" and it's essentially Reznor challenging the listener to challenge the people who "feed" them. Now, he wanted to perform this song on this MTV awards show in front of a giant picture of George W. Bush. MTV said no way to the pic of King George, so Reznor apparently said no way to MTV.

As if he really gives a crap about publicity at this point in his career.

Anyway, so I'm digging around to find out anything on this and I come up with zip. When I do a search on Google News, the damn thinks I am trying to search MTV as the source. Check it out--I enter "nine inch nails bush mtv" and when the results come up, I get no results. Then I notice in the text window, instead of the above text string, it has: "nine inch nails bush source:mtv"

What's up with that?

Oh, hang on--I just messed around with it and managed to get some actual news by using the "advanced search" feature.

Ironically, the first story I found was from MTV.com. Here's what they say about the story:

"While we respect Nine Inch Nails' point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement.

I am getting SO FRIGGEN TIRED OF THAT WORD.

"Partisan."

If NIN was known for being pro-Democrat, like writing songs about how great Clinton was, or how Gore really won the 2000 election and would have been a better president, I could see labelling this a "partisan" move by NIN.

When does partisanship end and honest political difference begin, anyway?

When can I say I don't like someone without it being attributed to some pre-existing bias against the type of person the unliked person is?

Is it possible to not like someone for their actions and not simply their politics? I think so.

If tomorrow, Bush apologized for Iraq and announced plans to withdraw US troops and dismantle those 15 permanent bases in Iraq, I'd be so happy. I don't give a shit about his Republican-ness or anyone else's Democrat-ness. I just want KILLING TO STOP.

Sure, it'll never stop completely, but Bush stopping would certainly be a step in the right direction!

Regardless, this is a blatant attempt by the corporate media to censor and silence the opinion of a buttload of Americans--not just Reznor.

There is no liberal media. There is no conservative media. It's all about the corporate media that thrives thanks to the USG's lax regulation. It surely doesn't bite "the hand that feeds" it, but it sure does "kiss the ass of that which feeds" it.

Does this blatant censorship offend anyone else?

Sure--it's MTV's show they can do what they want with it. But if the song is about challenging what we're being fed by the Bush admin already, why is throwing up a pic of Bush suddenly too much for MTV?

When I was in college, I took an easy-A class on MTV. No joke--we studied not just music videos and MTV's other programming, but also who the musical evolved into the music video. On the final exam there was an extra credit question that asked: "What do you think MTV really is and why?"

It was multiple choice with the expectation of an essay written and not just a tick in a box to get the extra credit. I don't recall the other choices, but the one I went with was "message from God."

In many ways religion tells us how to behave in the world. The Ten Commandments are not just guidelines, their supposed to be God's commands to us (hence the word "commandments"). From the beginning, MTV was telling us what was cool and what wasn't. Not just music, but clothes, and celebrities and more. In this way they were literally telling teens how to behave in the world.

Well, here we are again and MTV is telling us to not overtly dissent against Bush, the Great.

How many of today's obese, lazy, brain-dead teens are going to listen? All of them.

Now, I just hope there are enough teenagers who are not obese, lazy and brain-dead who did what I did at that age and turn off the TV and think for themselves.