Remember the moon landing? Didn’t happen. You know those guys ISIS? Not real. Donald Trump’s presidential race? Just a front to get Jeb Bush elected. Or, at least that’s according to Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave/Future User/Wakrat member Tim Commerford. He recently spoke with Rolling Stone in a highly entertaining interview where his recent projects took a back seat to exploration of his beliefs.
The interview kicks off with a dialogue about RATM’s musical legacy, before jumping into discussion of a video Commerford recorded for project Future User; an open criticism of the US healthcare system that see’s the musician under go real life back surgery. WARNING: It’s a bit gory.
When asked which presidential candidate would be best suited to help fix the problem he says:
“I don’t buy into the hype. My advice would be none of them. They’re all the same; their campaigns are all funded by the same corrupt corporations that accept the same favors. And I don’t care whether a Republican or Democrat wins; the same shit’s going to happen. That’s why you’ll never see me at the ballot box ever…I don’t believe in any of it. It’s all bullshit. They’re not the ones calling the shots. Whether it’s the heads of the corporations or the military guys that have been in there for 30 years, there’s no president coming in every four years and telling those motherfuckers what to do.”
And on the topic of Donald Trump:
“Oh, I’ll tell you what’s going to happen right now. He has united these racist people in America to focus on immigration and at the last minute — mark my words — he’s going to drop out and he’s going to hand the sword over to Jeb [Bush], and Jeb will get all the supporters that Trump has. It’ll probably be another eight years of Bush, which sucks but I don’t know that that’s any different than eight years of Obama. It’s a bunch of bullshit just like, “I’m going to get out of Afghanistan and pull the troops out of Iraq.” I’m a conspiracy theorist, so you don’t really want to get me started on this.”
But of course, they did want to get him started on this. We all know there’s nothing more enthralling than hearing a conspiracy theorist espouse their tin foil hat mentality to the world. And Commerford was quite happy to oblige.
On ISIS he says:
“I don’t believe ISIS is real. ISIS has been an inspiration for a lot of the songs that I wrote with Wakrat. I don’t believe that all the different factions in the Middle East have gotten together and said, “OK, we all hate each other and we all hate America, so let’s all put on the ISIS uniform and join forces and just become ISIS.” That’s a bunch of shit. I don’t believe the Jihadi John beheading video. Go look at those videos and study them, and see if you don’t think they’re fake…We created Jihadi John and ISIS so we can go drop bombs.”
And, the moon landing: forget about it!
I can’t help but look at the lunar landing and go, “We didn’t go to the moon.” We never went there. My dad worked for NASA on the Apollo missions, and I’ve always felt it’s been fake since I was a kid. The one thing I always questioned: We put the flag on the moon. Why did we put a metal rod on the top of it? Why wouldn’t we just plant it into the moon’s surface and have the astronaut pull it out and let it go and we can watch it do its dance on the moon? It would’ve been an image we couldn’t have faked and one that we would have never forgotten.
The self proclaimed denier even regales how he confronted Buzz Aldrin about it at a movie premier. But, remember that this is a guy who climbed the rafters at the VMA awards in 2000 in an effort to disrupt and destruct the MTV institution. He is no stranger to outlandish behaviour. If you haven’t seen the footage, it is well worth a look.
When Rolling Stone points out that most conspiracy theorists are looked at with ridicule and skepticism, Commerford leaves readers with some parting advice:
I say, “Question everything.” It feels good to find information that doesn’t mesh out. I’m into it. I’m proud of who I am.
You can read the whole thing here.