WITH THE ELOQUENCE of the Church of the Sub-Genius, the f--k you of Johnny Rotten, and the balls of those kids with the black kerchiefs at World Trade Organization protests, Jello Biafra has been the voice of the far, far left for longer than most of those anarchists have been alive. First, as front man for the punk-rock band, The Dead Kennedys, then as a spoken-word artist whose albums are considered to be, by some, a religion unto their own. (In September, a collaboration with The Melvyns, Never Breath What You Can’t See, will be released, his first musical album in almost five years.)
Saturday, the man whose band was the first in the United States to face obscenity charges, in 1985 for its album Frankenchrist (they were acquitted), will address those impressionable and chemically influenced youth of UNLV as part of the Punk Voter Tour.
His message? Look at Bush, then slap yourself for voting him into office.
What will you tell people this Saturday?
I’m going to give people the lowdown on just how horrible, horrible our current regime is, and just how urgent it is for people to get off their butts and register to vote to start fighting back against our corporate dictatorship.
Any chance that you would tell people not to vote for Kerry?
I haven’t made up my mind how I’m going to vote in the fall. I want to see what Kerry has to say about the drug war …
Well, what—
Let me finish. I want to know where he stands on NAFTA, the WTO, and I want a commitment from him to abolish the Patriot Act. Not just some of it, all of it.
Then …
Let me finish my thought. You’ve got to quit interrupting me. Would I vote for Kerry? I’ll make up my mind in the fall. I don’t know who the Green Party is going to run yet, and as much as I respect Ralph Nader and think it’s total horseshit that there’s this wide misconception that he cost Gore the 2000 election, that people are using that to beat up on other Green and third-party candidates running for smaller office, I’m not sure whether this is the best use of Nader’s time. He couldn’t even get enough signatures to get on the ballot in Oregon, which is very much Ralph Nader territory.
That’s heartening.
Heartening or disheartening?
Heartening.
Some of the worst excesses of the Reagan-Bush regime got rammed through [during Clinton’s administration]. NAFTA, formation of the WTO, Clinton’s signing of the welfare bill at Al Gore’s urging that has raised the homeless population 10 percent the last three years in a row. If the Anybody But Bush crowd succeeds in getting Kerry in, it’s very important to light a permanent fire under his ass. After all, Kerry and Bush both come from serious old money. They’re both Skull and Bones members (a secret society of Yale students and alumni). They know their main reason for being there is to protect the assets of old money and make the rich richer.
Did you know that a pair of historical researchers say Bush and Kerry are 16th cousins, three times removed?
I haven’t heard that one before. Golldamn, look what inbreeding did for us. [Laughs]
Are you finding the young people you meet on tour apathetic?
I haven’t had nearly as much exposure to apathetic youth as I have to ones with fire in their belly. I think more interesting are polling results from early caucuses and primaries. In Iowa, the people 18 to 29 who showed up were quadruple the number in the 2000 election. In New Hampshire, those numbers held, which leads me to believe that there’s a very good chance that it’s not going to be some cardboard corporate stereotype like soccer moms and NASCAR dads who decide this election. It’s going to be pissed-off, disenfranchised youth who are totally terrified of a Bush America future. One thing I’m trying to wake people up to on this tour is that the jobless rate of people 18 to 24 is over double the national average. And we’re not talking about unskilled workers. We’re talking about people who get out of college and can’t find a job. Maybe that’s why the Bush mob is gearing up to reduce our excess youth population and bring back the draft if they get back in. Also, the Pentagon is studying a special-skills draft, where they only draft people with computer skills technology. Another one is looking at drafting people with knowledge of languages spoken in the Middle East. In other words, we have a horrible shortage of Arabic speakers, which is part of the reason we’re so clueless over there. But for crying out loud, whatever you do, don’t study them now, you might get drafted! The usual boneheaded logic of the Bush mob.
Ten years ago, did you think you’d still be talking about this kind of thing?
I wasn’t sure I’d even still be alive.