In the spluttering, bloody, dog days of America's last unprovoked imperialist war, Jane Fonda - arguably the greatest living American - organised huge anti-war rock'n'roll concerts for US troops stationed all over the world. The troops duly attended in their "fuck-the-war" chanting thousands. This, of course, was well after Woodstock, where ex-US Army paratrooper Jimi Hendrix desecrated the national anthem with his mindblowing impression of a Phantom dive-bomber napalming a terrified gook village, and where Country Joe and the Fish distilled rock'n'roll's instinctive anti-war righteousness with a storming rendition of the Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag. Would that happen today? Probably not, and here's one reason why.
{xtypo_quote_left} Unless you're onstage every night and lambasting the squinting King Chimp and his gang of dead-eyed gangster cronies, you have betrayed rock'n'roll. Embedding for journalists totally fucked the credibility of the U.S media. Embedding for bands totally fucks the credibility of alternative music. {/xtypo_quote_left}
Five years into another war that has been fought (as far as anyone can tell) entirely for the benefit of the artificial limb and psychiatric medicine industries, the Pentagon is using unfair psychological tactics to lure the descendants of Hendrix and Country Joe into going on pro-war tours of US military bases.
How do I know? Because at the annual gathering of music industry swine at SXSW in Austin, Texas earlier this year, the parasitic, free-beer-bloated hordes were handed crap-filled goodie bags. Inside, one item stood out: a plastic soldier clutching a guitar instead of a machine gun. Its little eyes filled with nostalgic tears as they reminisced about more innocent times, when they lined up plastic soldiers just like this on suburban lawns and driveways, soaked them with lighter fuel and then blew them up with an M-80.
The plastic soldier dude was called Sgt Solo. He was tied to a piece of card that made him look like he was onstage in front of a crowd of goofily grinning troops. And underneath came the irresistibly penile sales pitch: "Plug in your weapon, turn up the power and fire away. Your limo is a Humvee and your ride is a Blackhawk. For over 50 years, America's stars have earned their stripes by performing for our country's greatest audience. Find out if you have what it takes to tour the world entertaining the troops with Armed Forces Entertainment."
And I know for damn sure every single male rock'n'roller who read that thought: "Hell yeah! Guitars! Guns! Cocks! Where do I sign up?" Because the Pentagon knows all about the average male rock'n'roller's Freudian inability to distinguish between guns, guitars and penises.