From this interview with David Eugene Edwards. Because I’m obsessed with Wovenhand right now. Again.

People want to stand up and address things that they see that they don’t agree with. They stand up and they say “This is what’s going on, and we need to do something about this,” and people get together in groups and try to make this happen politically, socially, or however. The conflicts – I mean, the whole idea of punk rock music and rock ‘n roll are the same, which are, for the most part, an act of response to oppression. These are responses to oppression, and there’s many different responses to oppression. Oppression is a problem, so you can’t point at rock ‘n roll and say “Okay, this is bad,” just like everybody else talks about constantly – you have to go to the source of the problem. You can’t put a band-aid on it.

You gotta go find the root problem, and that is the world right now with everyone trying to get to the root problem of whatever it is, whether it’s intolerance or religious fanaticism or whatever. We wanna get to the root problem. What’s the root cause of these people acting like this? So we do all of this, and we meet in this center pavilion and talk about this stuff, but the place that we meet – this is fucking Disneyland. We’re having our little meeting in Disneyland, and maybe you live on the northside of Disneyland, and it’s great over there, and the southside’s great, but we’re living on Disneyland.

The land you’re on does not belong to you. The buildings that you’re walking around on and in, and the roads that you’re driving on were built by slaves that were murdered and not paid and raped, and then you stand there and wanna make these decisions about rock ‘n roll or gay people, or when the church is basically an institutionalized pedophilia ring. All over America. All over the world. You create a problem, then you solve the problem. That’s how this country works. You create a problem, then you solve the problem. You bankroll both sides of the deal, and then you just keep rollin’ on. I have no patience for some guy in a suit that’s gonna come up and tell me anything. I have no patience for it.