
When it comes to conservative rockers, Ted Nugent takes the top spot. My mom, after reading Ted, White & Blue, is even a fan. There are a few others who side on the Republican side. Gene Simmons of KISS wasn't afraid to tell anyone Bush was right for the country in 2004. Alice Cooper recently opened a Christan center for kids. Sammy Hagar has been a contributor to California Republican Congresswoman Dana Rohrabacher for many years, and supported Bush in 2004. He also played in Minneapolis during the RNC this past year.
I am incredibly pumped with the announce of his new super group that includes Michael Anthony, friend and bass player from Van Halen, guitarist extraordinaire Joe Satriani, and former Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith. He calls the new group Chickenfoot, and the new CD will be out around April. You can get a taste of their sound at Van Halen News Desk.
Van Halen has had its share of right leaning front men. Gary Cherone stood up for pro-life efforts, writing two letters to Pearl Jam front man and abortion advocate Eddie Vedder in 1999. The letter may have been what pushed Cherone out of Van Halen. Here are those letters.
"I feel like I know every angle of this issue,"said Eddie Vedder."I know the adoption angle; I know what it's like to be fifteen and be in a situation and have to make a decision. Terminating pregnancy is not an easy thing."—Eddie Vedder, Rolling Stone 11/12/98 #799
An Open Letter to Eddie Vedder When is a woman not a woman?
Therein lies the only clear refutation of a woman’s rights.
A woman’s rights —seems a mere tautology, a redundant catch phrase.
Are not rights self evident?
Intrinsic assumptions of the inalienable?
So, when is a woman not a woman,a right not a right?
When she doesn’t exist.When does a woman become a woman?
Is it when her first ballot has been cast?
Or when she graduates from her class?
Is it when she makes a wish on her sweet sixteenth?
Would I be amiss if it were her first kiss?
Is it when she’s diagnosed by the boy next door?
Or as ambiguous as the cutting of the cord?
Is it the time it takes to travel the distance through the canal?
Or when she’s kicking and becomes viable?
Is it when her sex is discovered by a sonogram?
Or after eight weeks when the changes in her body will be mainly in dimension?
Is it when her brain waves are detected after 40 days?
Or is it around three weeks when her primitive heart beats?
Can there be only one true line of demarcation?
One finite measurable point in time that differentiates life from non-life?
Womanhood from non-womanhood?
Rights from no right?
Is it the moment of conception —that point when all of the above is set in motion?
That precise moment when"a separate human individual, with her own genetic code,needing only food, water, and oxygen, comes into existence"?
Indeed,It is at that point,"like the infant, the child, the adolescent,that the concept
us is a being who is becoming,not a becoming striving toward being.
She is not a potential life,she is a life with great potential".
She is not the mother,she is an other —a somebody other than the mother.
A woman, however beautiful, however complex when fully grown,begins life as a single cell, a zygote —that stage in human development through which we all pass.
She fulfills "the four criteria necessary to all life —metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction.
Her genetic makeup is established at conception,determining to a great extent
her own individual, physical characteristics": her eyes, her hair, her skin color, bone structure, her gender.
So let us not be confused,"she did not come from a zygote — she once was a zygote.
She did not come from an embryo, she once was an embryo.She did not come from a fetus, she once was a fetus".
She did not come from a little girl — she once was a little girl.
When is a woman not a woman?
The answer is absolute, non-negotiable.
To argue against would be to ignore the innate,the fact of the matter.
The answer can never be a matter of opinion or choice.
This is not a metaphysical contention.This is biology 101.
The answer is scientifically self-evident —as inherent as the inalienable.
Therefore,the ability to pursue happiness is contingent upon liberty —her liberty,and her freedom is solely dependent upon the mother of all human rights...the right of life.
Respectfully,Gary Cherone(June 1999)
The Second Open Letter to Eddie Vedder
What About the 98.6 Degree Angle? Another Letter to Eddie Vedder
The vast majority of people who support abortion take that position with the firm conviction
that life does not begin at conception
That being said...If one personally felt "terminating pregnancy is not an easy thing"
but was the right of the individual to make that "decision"
Is the life within the mother's womb a human person?
If the answer is no, it is not a human person
Why would one feel it "is not an easy thing" to do?
If the answer is yes, it is a human person
Why would one advocate "terminating" it?
If the answer is I don't know, if it is, or isn't a human person
How many more "decision(s)" would one make in an uncertain "situation"?
If the unborn is not a human person
No justification for abortion is necessary
However...If the unborn is a human person
No justification for abortion is adequate.
Nearly all arguments for abortion are based on the faulty premise that the unborn are not fully human.
Respectfully,
Gary Cherone(1/22/2001)
Cherone claims to be a Libertarian.