Frank Zappa on Crossfire (1986)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HljzEXJvj8

Discuss?

The really important part of that video is the coming together of right-wing religious fanaticism with left-wing government nannyism; it happened with music and now it's happening with videogames. Learn the lessons of history, ladies and gentlemen.

He also hit the nail on the head with calling the country a facist theocracy - when one religion starts being the basis of the country's morality and laws are passed to represent that. We're still seeing that today.

The two sides were just too extreme. Zappa wanted absolutely everything available to the public, and the other wanted only sugar-coated fantasy land stuff available to the public. Music, movies, and games are good right now because they're in the middle. They all self regulate and assign ratings or warnings to content that may be objectionable. The only medium that's still in the stone age is TV, but hopefully that'll change once the V-chip saturates the market.

I'm with Zappa, the country can go to hell if it isn't strong enough to last with that sort of stuff around.

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Originally Posted by Schlep

The two sides were just too extreme. Zappa wanted absolutely everything available to the public, and the other wanted only sugar-coated fantasy land stuff available to the public. Music, movies, and games are good right now because they're in the middle. They all self regulate and assign ratings or warnings to content that may be objectionable. The only medium that's still in the stone age is TV, but hopefully that'll change once the V-chip saturates the market.

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We shouldn't everything be made available and the public make its own decisions instead of Big Brother deciding what is and is not decent for me or bullying the industry to do the dirty work?

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2664570 Here's Zappa's second Crossfire appearence.

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Originally Posted by IronPlant

I'm with Zappa, the country can go to hell if it isn't strong enough to last with that sort of stuff around.

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I can't believe the most profound thing I've ever heard said on this matter just came from IronPlant.

Good show, chap.

The argument about what our founding fathers had in mind is bunk: their personal feelings had nothing to do with it. They would probably be personally appalled by music lyrics and graphic imagery on the screen. However, the intent behind our country is not that of restriction and I highly doubt that they would have been so IGNOBLE as to find it a good idea for the government to tell us what we can or cannot hear/say/view/whatever. Zappa is 100% correct. They are just words. And IronPlant is also 100% correct. Hitler lead a nation to one of the worst acts in history because the country wasn't strong enough to stand up to him.

It's looking like our country is not strong enough to deal with popular culture, too.

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Originally Posted by g0zen

We shouldn't everything be made available and the public make its own decisions instead of Big Brother deciding what is and is not decent for me or bullying the industry to do the dirty work?

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Eveything is available to the public. The only people who can't buy everything they want is 12 year olds, and that's a good thing, imo.

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Originally Posted by Schlep

The only people who can't buy everything they want is 12 year olds, and that's a good thing, imo.

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Why?