Reminds me of the reaction from the right to Steve Earle's John Walker's Blues

. Have we really come so far that we can't (even artistically) attempt to engage the Other? If so, that doesn't bode well for the future of liberal democracy.

Also, for the masses. Euston, we have a problem...

I echo the first comment. Fundamentalism--of several kinds--threatens the way of life of those of us who believe in pluralism. Terrorists perpetrate suicide bombings; politicians perpetrate the erosion of our civil rights. Why must we answer these frightening happenings with simplistic responses (Terrorism=bad)? I've read Zizek. And Jean-Luc Nancy, and Robert Paxton, and Fanon, and Bhabha, and Foucault, and... And I can use that critical theory in approaching Reznor's album, which I would never have bought until I read your article. Examining how our collective fear of the Other has contributed to the polarization of Muslim and Western (in the terrorist outlook) can be helpful in motivating us to do the philosophical and political work of healing the damage we have done. The West and its choices or "lifestyles" did not cause 9/11, as the Falwells of the world would have us believe, but attempting to create a world devoid of Others is not the answer. We need to use our brains to respond to contemporary times, and sometimes our brains need to think through to the limits. I suppose I'm a utopian thinker at heart, but I believe provoking thought is a good place to start.

The image that comes to mind here is that of a multitude of oppressed, liberal-minded Iranians, Afghans, Iraqis, and Syrians quizzically titlting their heads in unison at the suggestion that "understanding" the people who brutalize them is more worthwhile than standing in solidarity with their struggles for liberty. They're fighting for things liberals should love: universal suffrage, equal rights for women, freedom of speech and press. Have the good commentators above considered that a moment spent on Shirin Ebadi, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Maryam Namazie or any of a multitude of dedicated liberal activists and feminists fighting against ultraconservative radicalism might be more fruitful, not to mention becoming, for those who fancy themselves the liberal champions of the "Other?" If we're all so learned in critical theory, we might remember a major contribution of feminist theory--the idea that lumping different people with different struggles together and then claiming to speak for them isn't such a good idea. It's paternalistic and condescending to put our own words in the mouths of Islamists and liberal activists. If bin Laden says he wants an Salafist Islamic Empire and Anzar Nafisi says she wants freedom for Iranian women, who is the more racist, those who take them at their word or those who make them their own mouthpiece when they say bin Laden is against imperialism and Nafisi is in the service of a neocon cabal? The Other in this case is not a nebulus "Islamic World" for whom bin Laden is the spokeperson. In fact, more careful examination of the milieus we're speaking of show a dramatically tense social situation, where--believe it or not--extremists and liberals coexist. I know this is hard for many racist Western leftists to swallow, but not all Muslims are fundamentalists, and plenty of Muslims despise the radicals that beggar their countries. So which "Other," precisely are we proposing to engage and who is more deserving of our time, energy and passions? And if one can't start from the admittedly simple premise that terrorism--in our case the random mass slaughter of civilians--is 'bad,' then isn't the moral compass guiding discussion in dire need of realignment?

Steve Earle is an example of why artists should do a bit of fact checking before they put pen to paper. John Walker Lindh wasn't "raised on MTV" and "sodapop commercials" as the lyrics suggest. He was deeply obsessed with an obscure anti-commercial strain of hip-hop that centers around black nationalism and, by extension, Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. JWL was not so different from any music fan, nor is he emblematic of the ennui of American life. As a fan of the Manic Street Preachers, I found myself delving deeply into the lives and work of folks like Paul Robeson, to the point of becoming a community and labor organizer in impoverished Philadelphia neighborhoods. Only where my identification with the Manics' Marxism took me into the homes of poverty-stricken widows, JWL landed in an Islamist army. I personally don't care what left or right said about "John Walker's Blues," as I imagine it was a truckload of partisan rattling nonsense. The fact remains that the facts don't seem to matter much to artists who want to make political statements--that's my gripe.

Sorry, I just don't buy it. It's as if you've tortured Reznor's lyrics into a pretzel in order to fit your conclusions.

the more you know the less you understand.

You have an awesome command of the English language. You manipulate words with a delicate touch and carry the reader along every vowel and through every consonant guiding them into the heart of your piece.

You're a great writer...
You're completely full of shit, but you're a great writer nonetheless...

A man of your talent needs to grow to find his own voice. Being the mouthpiece for an agenda or a dogma is not a good look.

Josh,

I entirely agree. I listened to Capital G (a promo mp3 from Trent's marketing site.) While I'm a fan of the music and found it the tune to be very catchy, the political points are weak and objectionable. It's incredibly irritating to listen to someone spouting such simple rhetoric.

I guess anything other than praising Israel or the US government gets a negative review.....pathetic. Choose another line of work, kid.

Kinda weak on the zizek (hard to know what you're trying to say). I mean, it sounds like your saying (Zizek says) that because Children of Men has a trenchant political subtext it's "more real than reality"? Kinda sets a low bar, don't you think? Especially given what a bunch of simple agit prop that movie was about one level removed...And I'm not sure what that has to do with Reznor's movie unless your saying that all political-themed fiction also makes reality "more real..." hmmm. But anyway, good job holding that ditz, Reznor's, feet to the fire. You're right, he should stick to animal fucking.

The point Zizek makes (it's his point, not mine) is that, like Hegel's saying that a good portrait is more real than its subject, 'Children of Men' functions to help us see our own reality the more for what it is.   What is supposedly a future projection is more of a magnifying of the present so that we see it for what it actually is.

"Kinda weak on the zizek (hard to know what you're trying to say). I mean, it sounds like your saying (Zizek says) that because Children of Men has a trenchant political subtext it's "more real than reality"? Kinda sets a low bar, don't you think? Especially given what a bunch of simple agit prop that movie was about one level removed...And I'm not sure what that has to do with Reznor's movie unless your saying that all political-themed fiction also makes reality "more real..." hmmm. But anyway, good job holding that ditz, Reznor's, feet to the fire. You're right, he should stick to animal fucking."

Did you even read what Zizek said about Children of Men? He starts off saying that the film was a great film because it abandoned the didactic of the novel it is an adaptation of—the underlying theme of the novel being that “we are all infertile” or some religious Jesus-esque political psychobabble like that. The thing that made Children of Men a good movie wasn’t the plot; it was the background of the film. Understanding the background of the film became necessary to truly understand the world in which the story took place—in this sense, the background of the film is more important than the foreground. And we can say the same thing about the real world, also, that the background, the underbelly, is more real than the vocal media. Children of Men is entirely believable in its dystopia of terrorist-like pious zealotry. We can measure reality by means of the passive phenomena imbedded in the tone of our media. In that sense, we can have a film, like Children of Men, which is “more real than real” because it assumes the end of the passive background and creates a conflict between background and foreground. We now see the background of reality in the foreground of the film, thus seeing more of reality than we can percieve by means of societal reality.

you really had me almost all the way to the article: yes, it should make us listen closely when an artist who's done practically nothing but proclaim how bad he feels about his own existence for his whole artistic career all of a sudden turns to politics.
yes, even a metaphorical approximation to the vocal outbursts of fanatics, purists, fascists,... (you name it) of any couleur, be that religious or not, should be tackled with the greatest of care... which you do not, at least not when it comes to the political context:
the "liberal democracy" which you keep referring to, is right now involved in a war which has cost not only thousands of civilians, but also american soldiers their lives. the same "liberal democracy" has cut back on its citizen's personal rights in a sort of emergency law reminding strongly of similar situations in totalitarian regimes like egypt.
and the fact that this "liberal democracy" chooses to perform a different form of censorship than that practised in most european countries, namely allowing complete freedom of speech to everyone, including hate groups like national socialist parties or white power groups, and thereby robbing any serious political utterance (like "not in our name") of its inherent worth, is no disproof of any distopian vision of where this country is going, quite the contrary; it only proves that too many people are busy formulating too many worthless opinions instead of "setting their queer shoulders to the wheel", as allan ginsberg put it, or to rephrase that to your own situation, dear josh, unless you've done your part to defend liberality and democracy in a society that is (in the eyes of a hell of a lot of people all over the world) on its way to a new kind of fascism, you're simply in no position to comment spitefully on someone who cares.

So Anonymous, let me see if I've understood....number 1) liberal democracies under emergency law have approximated the repression of a country whose president is re-elected by "99%" of the population every election, and number 2) total freedom of speech is a form of censorship because it deprives the most narcissistic anti-war slogan of all time of its meaning? National socialists having a say or no, I pretty much got the 'don't get my hands dirty' gist--a slogan which takes no notice of all the people who will continue to suffer so that your hands might stay clean. I do care where we're going: we're going someplace where a great many on the left who I once considered my colleagues, who claim to tout the values of human rights and freedom, are enamored of a figure who is more concerned with showing solidarity with Hezbollah than with the Iranian student democratic movement. So, while, Ansar-e Hezbollah, the Iranian wing of Chomsky's Khomeniist buddies, murders and jails students fighting for an end to religious totalitarianism, our good MIT professor visits their ideological cohorts in Lebanon and gives them his seal of approval. And too many of our rock stars think him and his politics are all so bad-ass. You have the nerve to put "liberal democracy" in scare quotes when chances are, you've known nothing of rape rooms, random arrests, kidnapped or murdered relatives. You claim I should be more careful before I say a country that makes men sit naked on broken glass until they bleed to death and sends a videotape to their family is fascist. I say you should be more careful before you say living under the Patriot Act is the equivalent or some new form that only us folks who have read Negri, Zizek and Deleuze can comprehend in our brains while others experience fascism as an actual noose around their very physical neck. One should criticize and resist bad wartime policies and legislations, but false equivalencies like that are nothing but a matter of drama queen distortion. (by the way, the quote from Zizek is as follows: "A good portrait loks more like the person who's portrayed than the person themself--a good portrait is more you than you are yourself. This is what the film does with our reality. The changes that it introduces do not point to ultimate reality--they simply make our reality the more what it already is.")

Do they have some kind of neocon exam to write here, even for the cool rock guy?

Nick Cohen described the peculiar case of Kanan Makiya, a fellow whose core argument never changed much--he was a friend of the left when Saddam was America's friend but was abandoned and deemed a 'neocon' when Saddam became America's enemy. I believe the turn of phrase goes something to the effect that he crossed from one side of the political spectrum to the other by standing still. Call me what you like, fascist, neocon--the most entertaining thing from my perspective is listening to the improvisation, wondering what I'll be labelled tomorrow for doing the same thing I'm doing today: speaking in favor of democratic, civil society, gender, and labor movements who live under the yoke of authoritarianism and decrying my neighbors at home who advocate, glamorize, or apologize for those who sabotage their efforts to change things. The labels don't depress me so much as the lack of creativity.

As predictable as a Jewcy writer going batshit crazy if someone even thinks of looking at Isreal funny?

I don't get it. Are we batshit crazy zionists, or are we anti-semites running a cleverly disguised Neo-Nazi website? We get called both weekly.

Yeah, I was kind of curious which Israel-related material the anon was referring to. But then I thought, nah.

You know Anon, I used to be a flag-burning, gas mask-wearing, IWW card-carrying anti-capitalist community organizer. I've grown up a lot since then but that doesn't mean I reject all premises of anarchist critique out of hand--that's for David Horowitz, going from radical new left to radical new right. If that's what you see in me, you're the one who's batshit. While I've read Strauss, the 'Neocon Reader' and other such texts, I read them as a matter of education, not with slobbering sympathy. I like Strauss' rejection of relativism--his belief that Greek political philosophy is relevant for today is positively absurd (imagine that--a fellow with both clever and stupid things to say!). But I still sympathize most with left-ish thinkers who are skeptical of nationalism and state power. Israel is no exception, neither is the United States. If you read my comments above carefully, you would notice my sympathies lie with a civil society uprising in Iran, not with a military intervention by the U.S. or Israel. The fact is, I never once mentioned Israel. That you found Israel when Israel wasn't in there says a lot about you. What superceded my zealous leftism was not neoconservatism, but rather humanism, something more in the style of the late Mr. Carl Sagan rather than Robert Kagan. Humanism doesn't take a definitive position on the good or ill of capitalism, nation-states, etc.--only on whether or not such a judgment is level-headed and supported by strong evidence and argument. I despise superstition, fantasy thinking, disregard for facts because I think these things, whether manifested in religious extremism, postmodernism, Stalinism, blind political partisanship, or what have you, are deadly. Voltaire comes to mind: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." That goes for paranoids like you. Some people see evil ghosts in the world if they don't understand electrical fields or the sundry tricks the human brain is able to play on itself. Folks like you, who can't cope with the chaos of politics, see neocons and Israel wherever something you don't like happens. Just like the spiritualist, you engage in lazy thinking--you entertain absurdities and fall so in love with them that you substitute them for argument. Not that you asked, Anon, but if I claim an affiliation to a political ideology these days, it is the one articulated by Robert Conquest: A United Front Against Bullshit. I go batshit when somebody looks at the Is-Real funny--somebody like you who may as well, in my eyes, be reading sombody's palm, tea leaves, or Tarot, in order to make sense of the world. What's most predictable--and also very apropos--is that I don't actually know who I'm addressing right now. So many Anonymous comments, you could all be different folks. The brilliance of it is that it doesn't matter--your non-arguments coalesce into one big cluster of assertions. Assertions are rather different from arguments--I can assert the proposition 'All monkeys can fly' but it's quite a bit harder to argue it. States are big messy machines they do awful things and good things. The U.S. Government ushered in Augusto Pinochet, ousted Mossadeq, and ALSO liberated the Kurds, Bosnians and parts of Europe from genocidal movements. Some of my Native American ancestors were displaced and/or murdered by American settlers. Yet the United States is also the world's only state not founded on some allegiance to ghosts and is regarded even by the beloved Mr. Chomsky as the freest land on Earth. Even most Afghans appreciate U.S. help in defeating Soviet imperialism but remain angry since the U.S. didn't keep its promises and instead let the country descend into civil war which led to the rise of the Taliban. Can you handle these paradoxes, contradictions, and complexities, ye Anons, or must politics be a matter of haloes and split-hooves? Can we not criticize wiretapping and the Patriot Act while acknowledging that Iraqi liberals, leftists, and trade unionists don't wish for troop withdrawal any time soon? Can we not criticize the appropriate Israeli politicians and criticize crazed homicidal theocratic mass murderers at the same time? In a world of angels and demons, magic spells and doomsday conspiracy fantasies (like those of the Okhrana, St. John, or Reznor) are all you have. Once you start seeing these affairs for what they are: namely human and manifesting the same flaws and contradicitons as humans themselves, you realize that you must learn to live with contradiction, stop seeing ghosts, and decide merely who you can live with. The moment you start focusing on the life and future of Pakistani women like Mukhtaran Mai, the life and future of Afghans and Nigerians and Somalians--on life and future in general, you stop focusing on when and how everything will come to an end. Once you have goals, once you have brothers and sisters, there is little time to wallow in destructive fantasy. Once you know what you positively believe in, who you stand beside, your enemy comes into focus. If you start by choosing your enemy, and if, like a ghost or demon, your enemy can pop up anywhere, what you believe in gets blurry and eventually you will believe anything no matter how absurd. And if I've gone batshit at all over your Israel comment, it's only because you dreamed it out of thin air and couldn't possibly have gathered what my opinion is on the state of Israel or its activities from anything that I said. You could have replaced 'Israel' with 'Leprechauns' for all I care--it's the mere casualness with which folks like you expect me to make your demons my own--or to to subscribe to the theory of demons whatsoever--that irks me so. When the day comes that regular people won't settle for dreams and illusions, or nonsense culled from the aforementioned thin air, but opt instead for reality, no matter how complicated or confusing, corrupt states and politicians will lose one of their primary assets.

you think reznor the atheist is al qaeda's frontman? you must be high. He's getting a lapdance or snorting coke off a stripper as we speak. I think it's jackasses like you who represent hard-line fascist movements, not real artists like reznor. ps, your fake emo band probably sucks.

Reznor gave up coke.  I hate emo.  If you think Reznor is a 'real artist' when there are records out there by Scott Walker, The Comsat Angels, Kate Bush, Bjork, Love, PJ Harvey, The Zombies, Suede, The Sound, New Model Army, Primal Scream, The Chameleons, etc., then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you haven't yet heard any 'real artists' yet and you don't know any better.  Believe it or not in 1995, I was a dedicated NIN fan.  I just can't relate to it anymore--haven't been able to for years, but this new record really kind of stirred a discomfort in me.  I know Trent Reznor would say bin Laden is a bad guy and probably mean it and I know he means well with the statement he's trying to make.  Neither of those points can really change the fact that, taken side-by-side, the manifestos of radical Islam and Reznor's new album have lots in common.  Writers aren't required, though, to waste wind giving you all those disclaimers.  You cut to the chase and come right out and say that 'Year Zero' has things in common with the fantasies of al-Qaeda.  It's simply true and I'd dare anybody who disagrees to go out and buy some of the writings of these thinkers.  I only know this mental mistake so well because I've made it.   It gave me the willies to watch promo videos for Islamic Jihad Army and find out that I was literally saying the same thing.  Did that make me a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad Army?  What do you think?  If my intentions are different or if I'm unawares, but I am saying the same thing where does that leave me?  I'm actually as certain of Reznor's good intentions as I am of Sayyid Qutb's.  Qutb saw racism in America, he saw corruption in Egypt, he found bankruptcy in communism and captialism--how could you not sympathize with that?  He wrote 'Milestones' while being tortured in an Egyptian prison.  He wanted to envision a political movement that would counter all of the ills he had experienced.  That political movement today lives and uses the indiscriminant murder of innocent people as a tactic.  At such a point, good intentions are out the door.  I couldn't be bothered to care that he meant well, nor would I defend his work or his intentions.  As it happens, his ideas have brought a great amount of misery upon the very people he hoped to liberate.  Qutb and Islamists therefore become the enemies of most Muslims, not their spokespeople.  They say so themselves--their definition of jahiliyyah is vast and actually far more focused on cleansing the world of bad Muslims than it is on cleansing the world of Western evils and infidels.  The Muslim who believes in democracy is a worse enemy to them than any Western or Jewish or Christian person.  Their movement is an obstacle to the development, progress and peace it proclaimed to be creating.  As for Trent's record--I can't let it slip past on good intention.  It feeds into a very dangerous near-sympathy with these groups, but more than that, it reinforces a very erroneous and factually false impression of the degree to which the U.S. is becoming a fascist state.  As for trenchant Chomskyian critique in rock and roll, I can be totally fine with that sometimes.  I do like Radiohead and I keep repeating I think Primal Scream's 'XTMNTR' is almost the most wicked political rock record ever.  But does the track 'Swastika Eyes' on that record rub me wrong?  It does--just as much as 'Year Zero' does.  But that's one track--other tracks talk about the military-industrial complex, and the ills of our prison systems, the corruption of our legal system, etc.--all of that I can still appreciate.  But Reznor, it seems to me, made a record full of 'Swastika Eyes.'  It's just gone too far.  The imagery and equivalency simply don't hold up.  I don't know what kinds of music you listen to, but listen to the Clash or New Model Army--these bands sang tunes about working class experience, about class politics, and much of it still matters today.  When George W. Bush is gone in a year, when the Iraq war is finally over, what will 'Year Zero' represent?  If you can honestly tell me that you believe that in 15 years America might be a full blown totalitarian theocracy, then I just disagree.  In 15 years, America will likely be the same flawed place--but it may be a better place not a worse one.  Regime change for us doesn't require military force (that's the whole point)--we're all about to enjoy one in a year or so.  If we elect a decent person who can clean up the mess Bush has made, America might look even better in 15 years and Reznor's record will be little more than a reminder of a paranoid alarmism that existed for a brief moment in our history.  It will be a record of dismal angst and doom-ridden fantasy in a time when progressive people who are worried about the state of the world should have their mind focused not on bad politicians or on people who blow themselves up to fight against the "Evil Empire" but rather on people who are fighting for a better world, both for a better America and for a better global situation.  Those people today don't have anybody writing anthems about them--do you know of any? 

This is the most ignorant review of any CD I've EVER read. Good job.

I just read this review, and my first thoughts were, "Batshit crazy".

What were you smoking before writing this drivel? Spend some time playing around with the ARG websites to get some back story rather than deciding to write your own. FFS...

"Reznor's record will be little more than a reminder of a paranoid alarmism that existed for a brief moment in our history."

While I didn't agree with your review (who cares its the internet). The point above is excellent, and really proves the whole point of the Year Zero concept.

It was written as a warning this is the worst that could happen type situation. Unfortunately you seem to have hung yourself on Reznor's keffiyeh. While his transformation into political commentator is largely far-fetched after all 12 months ago he looked like the Hulk singing about his new found sobriety. All addicts exchange one thing for another and it looks like he's put the weights down and started reading the morning paper.

You have used Year Zero as an ineffectual crutch for your own opinions.

Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view. If ignorance is bliss, you must be ecstatic.

Coming right out of the gate with "Trent Reznor loves terrorism" and ending it there with the attendant goon-worthy headliner image would have saved us all a lot of time and been just as substantial. I might even have let you get away with descending into analysis of rock lyrics (which are never more than a notch or two above stupid, ever, and here are misquoted all over the place, which is even worse) on the level of political theory - but not without any attempt to consider the context provided by the artist. It's one thing to pick this stuff apart for fun, but to do so seriously without paying much attention at all to the elaborate back story (and no, it's not only "marketing" - though that is part of the equation, as Reznor does NOT deny) is to deny any benefit of the doubt whatsoever. And for the love of any God you pick, don't attack someone for not fact-checking when you can't copy-and-paste anything yourself without screwing it up.

The fact that you added "[sic]" right next to a bit you got wrong out of Reznor's e-mail promo gives away how much this diatribe amounts to: bad form and laziness. Let me provide you with an actual, undistorted quote from Reznor, speaking about his new album (the first one attached to this page yet, I believe): "it's entertainment." Doing as you have done - that is, taking song lyrics as a workable set of policies - is rather silly, particularly given the lengths to which any actual messages behind this experimental fantasy record are embellished and distorted in the subsequent critique (killing whatever credibility this publication might have had). Meanwhile, the author comes across as a frustrated kid venting disappointment about how his former favorite pop singer is just not deep enough for him anymore.

This review accuses Reznor of equivocating and then does - guess what? - just that: it equivocates all over the place. Where should we begin? The decades-old charge that all of Reznor's "tortured posturing" is purely the domain of adolescent glamorization and not a symptom of failed outlets for depressive tendencies? That Reznor "revels" in fantasizing about spilling "the blood of the guilty" (perhaps I need to be clued in, but what exactly are you even referencing there, by the way)? That everyone in the so-called resistance of Year Zero is ever proclaimed "righteous" and "courageous" (check out the dialog between characters in the actual Year Zero alternate-reality sites, not just out-of-context fan-made "viral videos" - there isn't a concrete good and evil depicted, is there)? Did the reviewer actually read anything at all of the painstakingly crafted material on those websites, by the way? Was it not made completely clear that "The Warning" is a third-person account of a supernatural/extraterrestrial message, which goes unheeded by humanity?

But hey, we can fashion a ridiculously thin argument from that conclusion, too! BIN LADEN'S AN ALIEN THAT ABDUCTS ROCK STARS! It all makes sense now! Hmm, I caught something about "down from the sky" - wait, don't tell me - it's an office building! It couldn't be the image on the album cover, because that would make sense. Besides, it's more convenient for me, a narrow purposed hack, to take Reznor's lyrics as the actual "manifesto" of him and his audience - just as other like-minded morons did when he wrote about characters flirting with guns on The Downward Spiral! But of course, that was when NIN was still cool, right? My mistake. I'm equivocating. Let's see, what's an intellectual-sounding and suitably impenetrable phrase for me to insert into this increasingly boring rock album review? How about "Orentalist eschatology"? Boy, this is fun!

Wow, I think you made some pretty good arguments and this is an engaging critical essay.

Too bad so many NIN fans are too rabid (or stupid) to read it that way.

You are definitely missing the point of the album.

ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....................

where should i start..........

*falls asleep*

*wakes up*

oh sh.... sorry. The review was too boring for me...

All i can say is...

*falls asleep*

Considering it's a shemagh and is of the British military issue variety... do some fact checking.

that was a good laugh... oh wait... you were serious about this?
sorry pal, you totally missed the point of year zero.

All you wrote above is your perception of it, although you act like it's a fact, the only known truth and anyone that disagrees with you are wrong.

While most NIN fans are very loyal, to the point of being blind sometimes, I must disagree with you in one point: Reznor is alive, he has stated his opinions and the concept of this album through interviews and what-not. Never has he come out even vaguely like the author of this post believes Year Zero to be. The arguments are all refutable.

Actually, it's unlikely that most of Reznor's fans can spell "Wahhabism" let alone know what it is. You're way over their pointy little heads, here.

The "point" of "Year Zero?"

Cash. Lots and lots of cash.

What an ignorant and utterly ridiculous post.

I have to agree with one of the earlier replies that stated that you are quite the talented writer and have a stellar command of the English language, particularly when it comes to your persuasive skills.

Unfortunate that such talent can't be combined with simple logic and reason.

As an educator, I can say that just because something is "well-written", it does not constitute "smart", nor "correct".

You hide behind your SAT words and elaborate sentences to just spew your own opinions on subjects that have virtually nothing to do with the subject at hand.

Did you just feel like talking about this and then decided through a Rolling Stone and picked out an album to work into your little master plan?

As a writer, unless you are writing fiction, you should have checked your facts a bit more thoroughly. If you would have taken the time to read some interviews or watch some videos of Mr. Reznor discussing the album, you would know that what he is trying to convene here is anything BUT what you have spun it as.

Furthermore...since when were music lyrics supposed to be taken so damn seriously? If you would have looked into the storyline that Mr. Reznor provided to back up the CD, you would have seen that it contained a "character" that was a giant hand that came out of the sky. Should we be writing about that too? Complaining that he is supporting the hatred of those with big hands by saying associating one with an evil figure in the story?

Come on... you seem like a smart guy that just made a bad judgment on this album and I wish you would be an adult and admit to it.

"As a writer, unless you are writing fiction, you should have checked your facts a bit more thoroughly. If you would have taken the time to read some interviews or watch some videos of Mr. Reznor discussing the album, you would know that what he is trying to convene here is anything BUT what you have spun it as."

Generally, literary critics don't interview the authors when using critical lenses to analyze text. For example, a writer would not be able to dig up Jane Austen while applying Marxist literary theory to "Pride and Prejudice." Is the literary critic then "wrong" for applying these criticisms without at least getting Jane Austen's opinion voiced? In the world of literary criticism, that'd be a big fat NO. Otherwise, there would be thousands and thousands of literature professors and students who'd be wandering around aimlessly.

This author applied criticisms to an album, treating the album as "text." This is not the first time this has been done, of course. Generally, criticisms spark discussion. So far, except for the first 3 or 4 posts before the NIN fans jumped in here, none of the arguments made in these comments directly and intellectually argue the criticisms by and through the criticisms used. See, that's the way it's generally done ... he applies postcolonial criticism to argue the negative "Othering" aspects of this work, and you're supposed to use that same theory and criticism to argue why that's not true. Or, use another criticism that refutes his application.

Or, in this case, application of philosophical criticism, and deconstruction of the text. The author of the text (in this case, Reznor) becomes "absent" and separate from the text; the text takes on a life of its own (with or without the intention of the author).

It's as simple as this - if you are going to criticize anything, have your facts straight. Especially if you are going to be making a sweeping generalization and very critical assumption such as this.

This review just feels like a high-falutin' way for the author to take the disdain of an album he honestly doesn't like and use it to fuel his own paranoid agenda. Yes, I was led to this review because I am a NIN fan. And I understand that they can be quite rabid in their devotion. I also understand that the reviewer does not like this album, and I think that is his right. Not all NIN fans like it. But I do like it, and I understand that will affect my argument here. But I am also knowledgeable enough of the whole back story and ARG behind Year Zero (which was one of the most fun and entertaining experiences I've had on the web...) to know that the album's intentions had nothing to do with what the author of this review is claiming. Yes, there are some characters in the Year Zero story who want to act by extreme measures (http://www.anotherversionofthetruth.com/violent.htm ), but others who in the same story are saying, "no, don't act with violence." Thus the whole "Art Is Resistance" campaign ( http://www.artisresistance.com/ and http://opensourceresistance.net/ ). The songs on the album are supposed to be told through the points of views of many different characters in the story - from soldiers losing their faith in their missions to those who want to resist the government through violent means, from blind supporters of the government to those who want to resist through non-violence. It covers a lot of different perspectives. But I feel that the reviewer here pretty much missed the point of Year Zero because he filtered the album through his own worries and fears. And I guess that is the risk that Trent Reznor and any artist takes when he expresses strong opinions in his work.

I really would have liked to have come to this site and had my first impression be one that would have made me feel open-minded and willing to learn, but I'm afraid that was not the case. I am not Jewish. I am not Muslim. I was raised Christian, and now I consider myself more of a Universalist thinker - I believe all religions are worthy of consideration and tolerance. I do NOT believe in terrorism. But I would have like to have been directed towards this site - which seems to be filled with a great amount of information that I could use to educate myself more about the modern Jewish community - and have found a more non-biased seeming article. My immediate response after reading that was to think, "this guy is a Muslim-hating jack ass!" And I don't think that's what the goal of this site is. Or what the author of this review really wants me to think. I hope not. I really want to try and educate myself enough to be able to understand and tolerate the views of those who have different socio-economic and religious backgrounds than I have. I think that's the only way to make this world work. But a review like the one above is just so extreme that all it does is bring up divisive feelings in me towards you and your opinions. And that doesn't do anyone any good.

And forgive me....I am obviously not a good writer.

i hope you die in a fiery car crash, this is despicable

"My immediate response after reading that was to think, "this guy is a Muslim-hating jack ass!" And I don't think that's what the goal of this site is. Or what the author of this review really wants me to think. I hope not."

Do you really have to respond or react, at all?

Isn't the beauty of being a free individual include not only this writer's ability to analyze this album and juxtapose it with various beliefs (even if the album was written without those intentions), but also your right to think "wow, he made some good points and I don't agree with him BUT ... I will defend to the death his right to say it?"

In criticizing this guy for writing a simple essay, you guys sound a lot like these NeoCons running around trying to shut everybody up and claiming they have all the answers and we just don't "get it."

You have no real idea what was in Trent Reznor's head when he wrote this album. What Trent Reznor "says" to the press in order to support a project he is trying to sell in order to make a living and what is REALITY can be two different things. But your blind trust in your NIN leader is not really much different than the blind trust Americans have had in their leader, yes? Why is this so important that many of you people are busting arteries over it? If anything, this guy did your Hero a favor with controversial attention.

this guy did not give trent reznor ANY fucking thing. controversial attention my ass, trent has enough attention right now, i doubt he needs somebody to put his name and al qaeda in the same fucking essay.

Meh, he's already been associated with Satan, I hardly think he cares ...

"Do you really have to respond or react, at all?"

No, I guess you're right. I really don't have to respond. I can just continue to think this guy is a jack ass and maybe also think that his views are held by most other young Jewish people. Why should I try to understand his point of view at all? I should just go on being ignorant. But I consider comparing someone's music to a battle cry for Al Qaeda as extremely offensive. And even if the reviewer has a right to say what he said, I have a right to say that his views offended me and that I think he's wrong. That's the great thing about freedom of speech.

Before you accuse me of hating Muslims, perhaps you might take a moment to go read some of the debate in this magazine over whether or not the U.S. should bomb Iran (particularly the comment threads, where I was vocally opposed to bombing Iran--I even devoted a good deal of time to arguing with people whose views I considered the height of anti-Muslim bigotry).  You'll notice that I'm quite preoccupied with the positive elements of Islam, Islamic history, literature and culture.  One of my main interests is the diversity within Islam.   al-Qaeda does not speak for Islam and there are many Muslims who find al-Qaeda as aberrant as I do.   There are alliances of Islamic clergy and jurists who have composed tracts and statements denouncing al-Qaeda and violent Islamic extremists.  Even the Saudi Arabian government has recently enacted a program aimed at rehabilitating al-Qaeda members--one person in charge of this program refers to the group as a cult.  

...and keffiyeh are interchangable by the way--they both refer to the same thing.  

"Muslim hater?
Before you accuse me of hating Muslims, perhaps you might take a moment to go read some of the debate in this magazine over whether or not the U.S. should bomb Iran (particularly the comment threads, where I was vocally opposed to bombing Iran--I even devoted a good deal of time to arguing with people whose views I considered the height of anti-Muslim bigotry). You'll notice that I'm quite preoccupied with the positive elements of Islam, Islamic history, literature and culture. One of my main interests is the diversity within Islam. al-Qaeda does not speak for Islam and there are many Muslims who find al-Qaeda as aberrant as I do. There are alliances of Islamic clergy and jurists who have composed tracts and statements denouncing al-Qaeda and violent Islamic extremists. Even the Saudi Arabian government has recently enacted a program aimed at rehabilitating al-Qaeda members--one person in charge of this program refers to the group as a cult."

See....when I get some more background on you, then I can make a more educated judgement as to your stance on Muslims. You are obviously NOT a Muslim hater. And since I know the background story of Year Zero better than you, I know that the story is NOT just a promotional tool for violent resistance (violence is actually kind of down-played as the "bad" way of going about things in the story). Maybe you should go and read up more on the story surrounding the album so that you yourself can make a more educated assessment of it's meaning and influence. This page has a cache of all the websites that were found during the ARG that are officially related to Year Zero: http://www.exhibit24.net/default.htm (And you did get some of the lyrics wrong, and they do make a difference with your argument.)

And before you write the ARG off as just a marketing scheme, realize that it's a lot more complicated than that. If that's all that Reznor wanted, he would have told his record label about it and had them pay for it. But he actually paid for every bit of it out of his own pocket and purposef