NOFX Votes
Going one step beyond MTV's Rock The Vote, Punk Voter is not only mobilizing today's youth to get out and vote, but they are telling these impressionable young minds exactly WHOM they should be voting for. With a concert tour called Rock Against Bush, and an album release under the same name, Punk Voter is making it clear through not-so-good music that Bush is the devil and must be taken out at all costs.

Some of their "reasons" why Bush is evil are just a wee bit problematic:
-Kids under our country's legal drinking age are fighting overseas and dying. Hrm. OK I could buy the whole Vietnam thing about not being able to vote for your country but being allowed to die for it. However, not being able to chug a 40 doesn't really have anything to do with it. If you are going to protest the fact that over 700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, you'd best find better ground to stand on than the drinking age limit.
- Unemployment has reached 9 year highs. True, very true. But one president doesn't control the employment rate by magically causing it to plummet one day and then pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat the next and creating a million new jobs. The economy is a complicated organism and while economic policy can effect change here and there, there's more to it than Bush is evil and wants the average American to live off of bread and water in their refridgerator box condo. 9/11 dealt a devastating blow to our country's economy and personally I'm impressed we weren't more destroyed than we were. I'd say pick specific Bush economic policies to complain about rather than just acknowledging that we are in economic trouble.
- The 18 to 24-year-old voter demographic dropped to an all time low of only 38% in 2000. And is that such a bad thing? If these 18-24 year olds are highly educated on both the issues and on the candidates, then yes. If it's just a matter of pure numbers and they just want all these kids who can barely tie their own shoes and make it to class on time to be deciding the outcome of a national election...then I don't know if this is such a bad thing. Perhaps talk about the percentage of that age group who can talk intelligently about the election campaign and can provide solid reasons for voting one way or another. And not just because their favorite band told them to.

In the 2000 election, I complained that fashion magazines were telling women who to vote for and why. Nail polish color and international politics don't have much to do with each other. I can admire some of these bands involved with Punk Voter for trying to get kids excited about the political process and away from their PS2's, but bashing them over the head with propaganda just negates any positive effects their movement may have had.

Besides, do we really want someone named "Fat Mike" telling us what to do?