Replies

FYI this is his take on 9-11 (from his website, posted Oct 5, 2001):

Of course, this newsletter comes in the wake of the events of September 11. It would be trite and evasive not to address this topic. I have been putting off writing this to you because of exactly that reason. I knew I would have to deal with it in some way and I was not looking forward to it. It is no fun to dwell on such catastrophic news. I would be out of line to think that I could add anything of worth to what has already been said, but like you, I have been thinking about it on many levels.

Yesterday I was on one of the local radio stations here and of course the interviewer wanted my take on the current events. It was the first time I had been live-on-air addressing the topic. I felt very on the spot and knew I had to use caution as I proceeded. There’s no way I was going to able to talk about this for half an hour and not piss someone off if I didn’t choose my words carefully. Some of my statements surprised me.

I don’t think that America deserved what it got in any way. I can’t say I was surprised though. There are people in other countries who plainly see our way of life as repellent. My manager said to me the other day, "A lot of people in other countries hate Americans." He and I both travel extensively and often and have found this to be true. To anyone who travels often, this is nothing new. I have encountered rudeness, indifference and outright hostility when visiting other countries. These instances are very rare and you can have the same experience in America on any given day, of course, but the fact is that there’s a perception of Americans in other countries that one almost has to go out of one’s way to disprove.

Many cultures all over the world see America as crass and destructive, exploitative and manipulative. America does a lot of good and a lot of not-so-good. No country is perfect, of course, but no country on earth does things in such a grand fashion as America. The Hollywood industry could have never come out of Europe. I am not talking about making movies; I am talking about Hollywood as an attitude, a power and a presence. Whenever I see an actor getting into the political arena it makes me sick. I can’t imagine what other countries must think. When Florida couldn’t get their votes tallied in the last presidential election I winced thinking about how hard the rest of the world must have been laughing. It also occurred to me that forces that dislike America could take in that information and reckon that we don’t have it together and that it’s a good time to attack.

When you live as well as America does (and America lives very, very well), you have to protect it and you have to deal with the fact that there’s millions of people all over the world who don’t have a fraction of what the average American has. From material possessions to basic freedoms--America is the rockstar nation.

I think the American media should stop the "Boy are we surprised!" type of reportage. Wake the fuck up. America, you’re hated. Terrorism happens all over the world all the time. I heard someone say on CNN the other day, "America used to be the world. Now America is part of the world."

It’s an all time low and we gotta deal. The flag waving "U-S-A" chanting is a too little too late. The knee jerk patriotism is corny to me. If you want to be a patriot, then be one all the time, not just when you feel your homeland attacked. It’s not just about being vigilant against attack, it’s about knowing that until racism is gone, illiteracy and semi-literacy is gone and myriad other social ills wiped out, then no one is totally free. That’s my kind of patriotism. No more ghettos, no more idiots, no more of the blind, brutal ignorance that keeps progress at a crawl. I have at least said way too much.

Another Henry Rollins quote (please turn your sense of sarcasm on):

...and also, there's this place called Iraq, and they have all this poisonous gas, and this has a little bit more priority to me than who's fucking who in any fucking city anywhere. One little spot of anthrax on your lung and you are one *dead* motherfucker.
I came up with another idea, reckoning that America is going to be like a nation of pussies, I think at this point we're living so good, look at this place, beautiful, look at all kinds of nice places in America, you go to
other countries, other motherfuckers don't have it as good as we have it, I think we're getting a little soft, a little too plump. I think we're getting too overweight, and we're going to get taken out, and we won't even be
*awake*. We'll be on the fucking reclining chair with the satellite dish and the remote when people come to fuckin' kill us.
So, I reckon we should put on a way more meaner image for the rest of the world to see, and here's some ideas I came up with, like...
Remember a couple of weeks ago, they killed that woman? Y'know, the first woman to be executed in the country since the Civil War?
Okay, they should have done it at half-time at some major football game, at the 50 yard line. And basically, what they should have done is got the local baseball team to surround her with baseball bats, close in, and club
her to death like they did to Mussolini. Just fuckin' flatten her until she was a body bag of broken bones and fucked-up entrails, then they should have hacked her in pieces, flown the parts to the White House, and hung the parts off the trees, videotaped it, and sent the tape to the Middle East to say "See what kind of crazy motherfuckers we are? Ah ha ha, AHHHH!"
They should execute Death Row prisoners at every half-time at every game, there's enough of them! There's tons of them waiting on Death Row to go, they should be killing them at every Superbowl, at every World Series, at
every playoff game half-time there should be a killing.
And there should be a three camera shoot, every hip director or video director in America gets to do it; Tarantino gets to videotape his, and like cut it together, put it to some cool music, and like put it out on MTV, and
just have like "Murder Television", worse than Cop TV, just show the actual brains flying out, mutilation and torture, and say to the rest of the world
"We do this shit all the time. We're fuckin' insane. IYEE IYEE YAHHH!"
And just take abstract European tourists, take them down to Miami and just kill'em, like all the time. "But I have a family." BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM! "You have a family... in mourning!" And then you hack them up and you hang them
from trees at the White House. And the rest of the world will go "They're fucking crazy."
And the next time we say "Iraq, put your fuckin' shit down,", they'll go "Cool! That's cool. You still got the rotten head of that woman you killed?"
"Yeah, I still got it, it's on my fuckin' bedpost. AYIEEAHHH!"