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ROLLING STONE, DECEMBER 29,2005-JANUARY 12,2006 65
| year, the instant when culture and politics collided, and the apple cart of a president who once had a ninety percent ap- proval rating was turned up- side down. NBC's censoring of Kanye West's remarks, I'm sure, made sense to the brass at Gen- eral Electric. After all, we now live in a time when dissent must be marginalized, ignored, pun- ished and, most important, seen as something that gives aid and comfort to America's enemies. What NBC didn't under- stand was that the American public was already way ahead of them. Thanks to a number of in- dividuals who, in 2005, dared to step out of line and say some- thing real, the public had begun a seismic shift away from the chokehold of uniform and un- informed thought. It was the year the Stones got political and showed no sympathy for the devil. You could turn on Jay Leno and see Bright Eyes singing "When the President Talks to God." George Clooney seemed like he was churning out a film a month that spoke to the dark path the country had taken -- and people were lining up to buy tickets. It was a year when the most popular music video (Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends") was one that dared to show an authentic depiction of how the Iraq War costs young soldiers their limbs and their lives. BUT NOT ALL OF2005's TRUTH- tellers and troublemakers were well-known artists -- some were just average citizens who had simply seen enough. A student |
. FEAR AND LOATHING Hunter S. Thompson and the Spirit of the American Maverick literary outlaw, a political firebrand, a speed freak and a shotgun enthusiast. His first wife, sandy, often said that Hunter "shot out of the womb angry." And last February, when he died of a self-inflicted gunshot, she noted that he left this world in cut a legendary swath through American life. Like the rebels honored in this inaugural tribute to "Mavericks, Renegades and Troublemakers," he was a sworn enemy of everything pompous, entrenched and entitled in our culture. And he never gave up hope for the country, even as he succumbed to dispair for himself. As he observed in his final story for ROLLING STONE, a few months before he died, the Vietnam War protests represented the best of America. "We were warriors then, and our tribe was strong like a river," he special year-end issue to his memory.---------THE EDITORS |
December 1st should be a na-
tional holiday, to honor all those who rebel for the common good. Without these people there would never have been a United States of America, and with- Far from becoming Public
Enemy Number One, Kanye West was not only roundly applauded across the country, he was asked to come back and appear live on the following week's telethon, one that aired on all the major networks. The country had come a long way from a certain Oscar night two years prior, when a guy I know was booed off the stage for his I asked Kanye what prompted
him to speak out, and he told me he hadn't planned on doing so: "I was just standing there, look- ing at the teleprompter with the words they had written for me to say, and I just thought, 'How can I read these words when And that's the good news
about 2005. This year's maver- icks and rabble-rousers stuck their necks out -- and they didn't get them chopped off. They helped the nation make a turn toward the truth, and average Americans began to speak their minds freely in the diners and the churches and the bars, little words of discontent and dis- sent and growing outrage. You can argue that it was five years and 2,100 dead soldiers too late. Or you can say that Americans may be slow learners, but when we finally figure something out . . . well, watch out. A new |
| in Ohio decided he'd take on the Army recruiters swarming his campus in search of fresh bodies. A guy in Texas made it his mission to uncover the dirty deals of the Republican House majority leader. A lone mother of a deceased soldier went to Crawford, Texas, one day, and the Ameri- can people listened and wondered what they would do if their son had died for a pack of lies. It never got better for Mr. Bush from that day forward. As a rule, we are instructed from child- hood that serious consequences shall arise if we dare to rock the boat. We learn in- stinctually that it is always better to go along so that we get along. To slip off the assembly line of groupthink means to risk ridicule, rejection, banishment. Being alone sucks, but being alone while you are attacked, smeared and scorned is about the same as picking up a hot poker and jamming it in your eye. Who in their right mind would want to do that? Especially when conformity to the community offers as its reward acceptance, support, love |
This month we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of a moment that shook the world. On December 1st, 1955, a black seam- stress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat to a white man when she was ordered by the law to do just that. This . . . . . . . . abuse from the authorities, the press and even from some of the old guard in her own black community. None of that mattered. A simple act by a lone woman ignited a rev- olution. When Rosa Parks died in October of this year, the president-who-doesn't- care-about-black-people couldn't even bring himself to make it to her funeral. |
majority forms, and there can be no stop-
ping it. Stands taken by this year's trouble- makers had become, by year's end, the mainstream position of the American people. Every poll shows the same thing: The majority now oppose the war and no longer trust the president when he speaks. . The time is ripe to get this country back in the hands of the majority. Will we seize the moment? Or will we need a whole new crop of rebels next year to keep us honest? Thank God we will still have artists and writers and everyday citizens willing to sign up for the call. Those who dare to be different are the closest thing |
66------------------ PHOTOGRAGH BY ANNIE LEIBOVITS