In recent years, the Republican party has pissed off several very well-known musicians by using their music at GOP campaign and fund-raising events, among them, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, The Talking Heads, and most recently, The Silverspun Pickups. Needless to say, the boys on the right got schooled REAL FAST on where these musicians stand on their music being co-opted to promote a political and cultural agenda that is the very antithesis of what they believe. ASSES GOT HANDED and permission got denied. The most amusing part of the entire debacle is that, had these conservative politicians and their staffs taken the time to actually listen to the lyrics, they would have found that many of the songs surreptitiously chosen as GOP anthems have been songs OF PROTEST AGAINST THE VERY PRINCIPLES AND TRADITIONS ON WHICH THE GOP IS BUILT. Ronald Reagan invoking “Born In The USA?”

Knitter, PLEASE.

And while we’re on the subject of music and the GOP, now comes word that Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, Paul Ryan’s, favorite band is Rage Against The Machine. Rage Against The Motherfucking Machine. Holy shit, I wish you could have heard the HOWLS OF GENUINE BELLY LAUGHTER that left my body when I read that last night. Apparently, RATM’s guitarist, Tom Morello, wasn’t nearly so amused.

TESTIFY, BRUTHA TOM!

“In a blistering op-ed published Thursday night on Rolling Stone’s website, Tom Morello [guitarist for Rage Against The Machine] blasts Mitt Romney’s new VP choice as ‘the embodiment of the machine our music rages against.’

In painting Ryan as antithetical to progress, Morello compares the Congressman’s appreciation of RATM to Charles Manson’s love for The Beatles and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s liking for Bruce Springsteen.

At the heart of Morello’s distate for Ryan is ‘his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent.’ He goes on to say Ryan has plenty of ‘rage,’ but claims its ‘A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment.'”

Like I have said many times before…really think it through, decide which side of history you wish to be on, and CHOOSE WISELY, my friends….because if you don’t like the progressive ideology of our side, THEN YOU DON’T GET TO USE OUR ART TO HELP SELL YOUR HATEFUL, HORSESHIT, RIGHT-WING ETHOS, EITHER…because that open-minded ideology is where the art COMES FROM, motherfuckers.

It comes from what we believe in.

It comes from who we are.

Choose your side wisely…or the only anthems you have to pick from come from the edgy, riveting, rapier-like minds of guys like Crazy Dave Mustaine, Pat Boone, Lee Greenwood, and the motherloving Osmonds — and you just gotta trust me on this one: not a single one of those guys can fuck.

My personal belief is that people perpetually look for god in all the wrong places. God doesn’t necessarily dwell in some rarefied cathedral in Rome or some bottomless collection plate in Fresno. God is YOU. God is ME. We are ALL GODS, walking the earth, powerful and beautiful and infinite beyond measure.

You wanna know what my religion is? You wanna know what I believe in? You wanna know what moves my soul and makes me want to be a better person?

Listen to the first 45 seconds of Jimi Hendrix’ “Voodoo Child.”

That’s it. It’s that fucking simple. THAT, my friends, is GOD. Hearing that makes me want to sing. It makes me want to dance. It makes me want to feed the poor and tend to the sick and dying. And, even more importantly, it makes me want to BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY.

Yeah.

Look, I don’t need my fatass dipped in the River Jordan TO BE FILLED WITH THE ECSTASY OF THE INFINITE. In my religion, this is irrefutable proof of our Human Divinity, distilled into 45 seconds — 45 seconds that represents the very best that we are, and even more importantly, the very best that we can be. All I gotta do is close my eyes and listen to the beginning of this masterpiece of human achievement — pouring out of just one man’s heart, soul, and very mortal fingers — to know that WE ARE ALL GODS.

Shantih. Shantih. Shantih.

And Amen.