America 51

by Corey Taylor

  When I was walking the paths at Dachau, none of that was on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about American mistakes or how the West was won. I was paying my respects to those who died for fascist, racist, hateful, horrible reasons. I was listening to the silence left behind in the wake of such an atrocity. I was letting that lesson sink in before feeling something as out of place as pride that the armed forces of the United States of America had something to do with liberating the survivors of this catastrophe. There was a fleeting thought about it, but I pushed it aside—it wouldn’t have been right to feel that in that moment. I waited until I’d left to try to comprehend the dichotomy between the America that was, the America that is, and, worse yet, the America that certain leaders would have if given the opportunity. Today that thought process comes floating back across the stormy waters of my mind as I write this book, looking for the right wave, the perfect break, the point at which I should paddle out and surrender to the sea and all its metaphors for chaos theory. If you’ve ever wanted a more beautiful sense of poetry for what’s happening in America today, look no further than our oceans. Yes, swirling below the surface is a world also made up of systems and routines, of life and all the things that come with life. Even if you find your place among it all, you could still be eaten alive in the blink of an eye.

  When the curtain is pulled on this country, I don’t want its legacy to be that of a roving predator in the deep blue sea. I want it to be more like the blue whale, making its way through the darkness, coming out to grab a breath every once in a while, but mainly doing its own thing, because anything and everything else is none of its business. It merely wants to live. Hopefully it breeds and passes life on to its children, but there’s no guarantee of anything else. We must find a way to be that whale: concentrating more on our own place in the world and less on what others have gotten themselves into. Sometimes you have to let everyone else fail. But when you do, there’s a very good chance that those same people will in fact win from losing. You have to come up off the mat sometimes to secure that knockout punch. Babies don’t walk because we want them to, and they generally don’t walk if we keep helping them all the time. They have to crawl, then stagger, then fall and cry, and then eventually climb to their feet under the strength of their own legs and take those first few faltering steps that will inevitably lead to walking, then running, then standing on their own. We must allow the world to do that; we can’t afford the resentment that comes with holding their hands all the time and not allowing others to figure it out for themselves. Until we do that, we will not truly be a superpower or even a global leader. We’ll simply become that asshole neighbor no one likes, who never minds their own business, constantly meddles in affairs that aren’t their own, and by the end of the sitcom has been replaced with a less-aggravating actor or actress.

  CHAPTER 9

  CMFT + GOP = WTF

  BEFORE YOU READ THIS CHAPTER I WANT YOU TO UNDERSTAND how difficult this is going to be for me to write. You see, although I may agree with some of the platforms and policies associated with the Republican Party, I have a hard time being fair and balanced with the GOP because, quite frankly, the people who abused me over the years held these same beliefs, even observing the hypocrisy of “family first” while beating the absolute shit out of me and tearing me down mentally and emotionally. I have come to equate my abusers with this party, largely because while my pain was going on, the Republicans were doing everything from debilitating the American farmer to performing voodoo economics on the public as a whole. The people I was living with and the others who allowed it to go on were—how do I put this delicately?—salt-of-the-earth-type folks. Professional alcoholics who lived paycheck to government check, unleashing their ignorant violence and drunken malice on children—these are not the overall view of who or what a Republican was, but for a long time that idea was all I had. Big, loud, forty-year-old adolescents who’d rather hit you than love you, all hopped up on whiskey, God, guns, and trucks. This was the better part of my childhood, if you could call it that. So I have to fight that stereotype when I go out on the high wire, letting my own bias get the better of my unabashed opinions and not-so-subtle way of pissing off the straights.

  So I want you to comprehend this—really comprehend this—when I lay out today how much of the GOP platform I absolutely do agree with, and what’s going to shock most of you is that there is actually a lot that I definitely do agree with. Things like the Second Amendment, the death penalty, lower taxes (for the middle class and downward, but we’ll get to that), support for 98 percent of our law enforcement and our military, and, in a lot of ways, smaller government. Not that shit they’re trying to shill right now under the guise of small government: deregulating everything yet sticking your fucking noses in people’s business is not smaller government, you fucking tick-turds. I’m talking about real smaller government that allows local governments to do their jobs, on up through state governments and so on and so forth. Depending on how you felt about what I’ve written here so far, let’s pretend for a second that I’m not Corey Taylor, the big-mouth fuck-face with a neck the size of a Yellowstone sequoia. Let’s pretend I’m someone who digs most of the things I’ve been tearing apart. Let’s pretend I’m, well, you, if you’re running more with the elephants than the donkeys.

  Yes, I am a firm supporter of all those platforms. I’m not saying they’re all perfect. I’m not even saying they can’t all be fixed in a way. But I am saying I am 100 percent behind these concepts. Why? Well, for one thing, I am a little more old school than some of you think, and I’d be lying if I said I was worried that you disagreed with me. And for another, crime and punishment are things deeply embedded in our national DNA, and I’m sorry, but some people have forgotten that. It needs to become a reminder. I’m no Buddhist; I’m a pragmatist. The only thing I have in common with the Big, Bald, Awesome Fat Guy is my belief in karma. I also back these ideas because they are connected to the original Constitution, which means they were put there for a reason. They were put there to keep despots from assuming power. They were put there to make sure we the people could protect ourselves. And although the times have changed and maybe our understanding of these rights may need updating, I still agree with them wholeheartedly. It may be because I was born and (mostly) raised in Iowa. It may be because most of my family is very conservative, and even though I’ve always been the rogue liberal, black-cat artist, I continue to agree on a lot of the things they are passionate about. Yes, I’m a city boy, through and through. But this city boy also used to do things like working “detassling” and driving tractors.

  When I was a kid the only male role models I ever had were the washed-up, shitless, dick-breath dildos who blew through my mom’s life from time to time. She dated some and befriended others. They were nothing special—essentially different fucked-up interpretations on similar crappy themes. Needless to say I never really learned anything substantial from any of these bleeding-gum mercs, with the exception of how to make a person pass out while holding them in the air or, oh yeah, also the proper angle to throw a plate at someone’s face so as to break their nose but not the plate itself. So I didn’t have a lot of great men to look up to in a lot of areas of my life. But the place where I did have great male role models was on my grandma’s side of my family. I had several great aunts and uncles who were and still are very important to me. They instilled in me some values and work ethic—most of them ran their own farms. Before my life fell apart as a child, I have fond memories of spending time with all my cousins, having fun and being normal because they didn’t care about my history or my bullshit—I was just family to them.

  Back then the strongest man I’d ever known was my great-uncle Jim, or Uncle Jim for short. Uncle Jim was the father of my three closest cousins—Karl, Craig, and Todd—and we used to hang out every summer as much as we possibly could. So I got to see Jim a lot as a kid, and I’m telling you right now that in those days, he scared the shit out of me. Jim was a man’
s man: he worked for years at the Firestone plant until he retired, ran his own farm equipment, raced stock cars in Knoxville—I mean, Uncle Jim was the baddest motherfucker on the planet to me. I certainly didn’t want to fuck with him. He had a way of raising his voice that I have tried to emulate with my own kids, just for the sheer terror it induced in me. By the way, I’ve never told him any of this, so if you’re reading this, Jim, sorry, but you were pretty intimidating to this kid here. I loved all my uncles, but Uncle Jim was The Man.

  By hanging out with the boys, I in turn learned how to be a boy myself. I learned how to ride go-carts and play sports. I learned how to stick to my chores and take responsibility for my actions. In fact, the very first time I touched a guitar was in their house. It only had four strings on it, and I don’t even know if it was in tune, but that’s where my love for the guitar began. So Uncle Jim and Aunt Sandy’s house is where I saw how a working family works. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but they loved each other and still do. That was a house where I saw how a family lives and breathes. They had beliefs and faith and morals and a whole host of other things that I was bereft of; I may as well have been a feral kid. But in a lot of ways hanging out with Uncle Jim shaped the way I’ve tried to carry myself as a man and a father. He was the closest thing to a dad I ever had. I learned to respect and stand up for what I believe in, and that lesson has never been lost on me. We’ll talk more about Uncle Jim later on—I just wanted to make sure you all met for a second. The reason I told you about my family is because when it comes to my conservative side, the side that has a very clear sense of right and wrong, no matter how fluid it might be, it comes from a place I care deeply about. This is not right-wing fanaticism flaring up; this is just a melding of the minds, the crossroads where liberal and conservative meet. Shall we begin?

  Let’s start with the death penalty, because to me it should be a no-brainer.

  As far as I’m concerned, it’s simple: you take a life in cold blood, we take yours. I’m truly sorry to some of you who feel it’s harsh or inhumane or, worse yet, it’s not a real deterrent for anything. That’s a giant pile of horseshit. All you need to do is look at the facts. People may say that crime is going down, but the violence involved, the viciousness and pure sadism is going up. That’s because there’s no real threat of punishment, no worries about any sense of retribution. I’m not saying the death penalty would solve the whole problem, but a healthy death penalty would surely put some pause in a motherfucker’s actions. If the threat of death were there, maybe they’d put away the knife or not load the gun. If the threat of death were there, maybe there wouldn’t be so many white men running around killing minorities. I know that’s not a very popular view among Republicans, but motherfuckers, the proof’s in the shootings. These white domestic terrorists should face the strictest and harshest justice there is—I’m not a believer in saving all the crazy people to study them and learn from them. You want time to talk? Fine, you’ve got until their appeals run out. After that, these bastards fry for good. No more treating this with kid gloves, no more turning the other cheek, and no more rising above that sort of behavior. Guess what? We’re humans. That means we’re assholes. You hippies want to pretend we’re better than all that vengeful stuff, you go right ahead. But as a survivor of domestic violence and as a man who’s known and lost people to it, you’ll find no mercy or peace from me. The world can be a brutal place; there need to be brutal consequences for people’s actions or in no time at all the levels of violent entitlement will grow to the point of no return. There must be punishment. There must be justice, and god damnit, yes, there must be revenge.

  There are some stipulations, of course. The death penalty doesn’t apply to any nonviolent crime. Furthermore, if there isn’t enough proof, it’s off the table. There have been too many innocent people sent to prison because of bullshit pride, professional stubbornness, and outright prejudice or hate. The death penalty must be reserved for the worst of the worst, not those who may or may not be on the lines of guilt. That’s where I stand on it—this is something I know comes down to a case-by-case basis, but it doesn’t change the fact that it needs to be. It needs to be. It’s like not disciplining your kids. Sure, there are exceptions where it sort of works, but the majority of the time those kids are fucking walking all over their parents, acting like assholes, and waving their bratty self-entitled bullshit around like an umbrella indoors. When it comes to the guilty—beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt guilty—there need to be ramifications for the damage done. Most of these killers and rapists and whatnot don’t fear prison because they end up better off than they were on the street: a place to sleep, food, exercise, books, religion, education, better hygiene—these fuckers don’t care about their “punishment.” Only those who’ve been sent to a violent prison for a slight offense understand how bad prison is supposed to be. To the other alpha villains, it’s just a giant cement clubhouse. Fuck that shit. To me, if you’re a serial killer, you’re dead. If you’re a rapist, you’re dead. If you’re a violent criminal, you’re dead. If you’ve harmed women, children, animals, the old or basically anyone else who can’t defend themselves, you deserve to die. Fuck you and your second chances. I do believe in “innocent until proven guilty,” but I also believe in “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life.” Please don’t ask me to apologize.

  That’s a perfect segue into law enforcement. I know there has been a rift in our country, coming long before I was around and coming on the heels of intolerable violence and cruelty toward American citizens, especially blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, and Muslims. The actions of various law enforcement officers (LEOs) and the agencies they represent are unconscionable; they are supposed to protect and to serve, not to dominate and to repress. But I have faith that this is a small percentage; I’ve had the chance to meet and get to know many LEOs all over this country, and I’m proud to say they take the job very seriously. They are the ones who charge into the night, prepared to handle whatever gets thrown at them, and sometimes it’s a lot to take. And they do it, without complaint, without regret, and without hesitation. Whether or not the community supports them in the moment, they do their best with what they’ve got, and I’ll be damned if I’ll turn my back on the ones who fight the good fight to keep people safe. I wish I could say that for all law enforcement, and maybe someday we will be able to. But for now I stand by the ones who do their job in the face of mounting pressure and stress because it’s the right thing to do. I’m with them when they stand up against injustice, even if it pains them to do it against the very officers who have transgressed against the law they have sworn to uphold.

  There are always going to be people who abuse power. As the saying goes, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” No truer words have ever been said. You see it all the time: someone finds themselves in a position where they have carte blanche control and people to satisfy their every whim, along with money and clout and everything else that comes with it. Whether it’s corporate or political, it all comes out in the fucking laundry. Imelda Marcos, J. Edgar Hoover, Leona Helmsley, and, something tells me, the Cheeto too—all these people took their power to the extreme in the name of personal gain and ruthless control, lording over others with disgust and disdain. This is why our country was supposed to have checks and balances. This is why no one branch of the government should have more power than the other. This is why America must be careful when senators and representatives speak about “restructuring the branches of government”—that usually means someone’s trying to pull something over on the American people.

  But let’s get back to what I agree with in the conservative pamphlet. The concept of smaller government has always been what they say they want, but all they’re doing is moving the big spending and federal control around to other places on the Monopoly board. For every Democratic program that helps the arts and music in school, there’s the Republicans waiting with a giant budget cut so they can funnel that money into
national defense. For every Democratic welfare program that benefits the lower class, there’s a Republican tax cut for the middle to upper class—not necessarily a bad thing but also not beneficial for the nation’s budget. The new GOP hits the old talking points but really doesn’t have any plans to drive costs down—as long as inflation is on their side, they can control the means of interest and profit until the cows come home. Smaller government, according to people like me who still appreciate the idea, means an even spread of federal and state legislation and lawmaking: all sides working as one, and no one side trying to filibuster or countermand ideas or laws. That’s smaller government to me—the states have a handle on things and the federal level can augment but concentrate on things like foreign policy and overall oversight.

  That, sadly, is not the case when you have so many states trying desperately to legislate horrible laws designed specifically to be prejudicial and biased. From the HB2 laws in North Carolina to the a-woman-is-just-a-host legislation introduced in Oklahoma to combat abortion, the states have gone off the deep end in a lot of unlawful ways, causing the Supreme Court to have to step in and rule against most of these ignorant, hateful attempts to oppress people and get us running backward into the decades where—legally—you could rape and beat your wife just after lynching a black man (depending on what state you were in). Thank goodness progress has slowed these advances toward ridiculous misanthropy. However, the specters of these kinds of foulness keep coming up every time we take the rugs out to beat the dust out of them. How can we trust the state governments to get on with business as usual when these same politicians are trying to spin the clocks back to a time when the only way to truly be a safe, law-abiding citizen was to be white?