Mosh
The song "Mosh", from Eminem's forthcoming Encore, and its animated video (directed by Ian Inaba of the Guerilla News Network), are at once an indictment of President Bush and an alarm call to America's younger and less empowered citizens to get out the vote. The track is typical Serious Eminem: It has an almost martial piano line backed by low, plodding drums; it's dark and brooding, bordering on noir-ish; and throughout, Eminem maintains a consistent, steady cadence and vocal timbre, rather than gradually becoming unhinged.
In the first verse, he lays out his case as a generational leader with the Messianic fervor of Bush himself; on the rest of the track, he lands a few punches at the administration-- and he's not swinging exclusively with his left. The power of the track is that, in this supposed 50/50 nation, he doesn't try to play Paul Begala/James Carville to Bush's Tucker Carlson/Robert Novak. Em's central metaphor (his GOTV army as moshpit) works as a descriptor of the often chaotic base of the Democratic Party-- a mish-mash of grassroots organizations formed around very different interests (unions, greens, civil liberties watchdogs, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, etc) rather than the more top-down, corporate-like GOP-- but on the track and in the video, the pit is manned by the have-nots, the young, and the 16 million strong who buy Eminem's records. Sadly, it's a group of people who've been largely excluded from today's Democratic process, so they've dropped out or never joined.
Oddly, in both this election and Em's video, the central mobilizing factors are anger, hatred, and fear-mongering. Once-scattered left-leaners have focused their attention on this election more as a result of disliking Bush than of loving Kerry; the GOP and their so-called "Culture of Life" drives the wedges of abortion (never mind that the number of abortions in the U.S. has spiked under the Bush administration after decreasing throughout the Clinton administration), gay marriage, and stem-cell research between voters that should be attracted to the Dems' strength on economic-based domestic issues. And when Em says "mosh now or die," it's obviously a reference to P. Diddy's Citizen Change group and their "Vote or Die" slogan, but it also echoes Dick Cheney's shameless insinuations that if you don't for the GOP, the terrorists will kill you. In short, it's going to be a hell of a nasty week.
Inaba's clip is more focused and powerful than Eminem's song. Because we expect provocation from Em, his calling Bush a "weapon of mass destruction" or yelling "fuck Bush!" isn't as jaw-dropping as much more polite language was from, say, Natalie Maines. The clip, however, shows Eminem leading a black-hoodied army of voters: National Guard members re-deployed to Iraq against their will, minorities wronged by racial profiling, and those facing worsening economic woes in the face of tax breaks for the wealthy and a corporate tax cut that Sen. John McCain has called "the worst example of the influence of special interests that I have ever seen." This video is a battle cry, and its PSA message avoids seeming quaint or preachy-- even when it marches to an inevitable Election Day conclusion, it remains dark and resonant.
What shines brightest is Eminem's final few verses, in which he articulates a series of complaints that all Americans should have: He blasts the president for his co-option of populace-owned ideals such as patriotism and freedom (the terrorists hate ours, y'know-- that's why we were attacked), stoking our fear with bogeyman stories, and not owing up to playing fast and loose with the truth. Taking advantage of 9/11 to push through a far-right agenda was always a gamble-- in that new era of good feelings, the GOP could have taken baby steps to their revolution and easily secured a second term. Instead, it's Eminem and the ABB crowd who are attempting to be the great unifiers, and the election will be a dead heat.
On Sunday, I read a headline that said, "P. Diddy takes vote drive to swing states." It's about time. His Citizen Change has "Vote or Die" billboards plastered throughout New York City-- why not Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Milwaukee? Eminem's album is set for release after the election, and "Mosh" is hitting the Internet and MTV well after voter registration for this national election has ended. In that light-- an anti-Bush song released a week before the election-- "Mosh" initially seems ephemeral at best. And yet, it's probably perfect timing. With the 24-hour news cycle, minutes can seem like hours, and in an election this close, having an issue, a talking point, a music video, or the loss of 377 tons of explosives crest at the right time can matter.
As cliched as it sounds, the stakes are high-- from the disintegration of civil liberties, to the erosion of the division of church and state, to permament tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, to potentially far-reaching shifts in the Supreme Court, to America's staggering federal and foreign debts, to the erosion of our traditional allies, to a consolidation of power in one branch of government, to the damage done to our entitlement programs to, yes, the threat of terrorism, a lot is on the line. And yet, at the end of the day, this song and Diddy's drive aren't as much about getting one man out of office as they are about getting millions of people to take part in a process that deeply affects them. It took a contested election, a terrorist attack, and the disenfranchisement of thousands of black Floridians to rattle the cages, but the belief and hope isn't that the sleeping masses vote to get Bush out, but that they vote period-- in 2004 and beyond.
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