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Count Five: Rise Against's Tim McIlrath Calls Out America's Problems

Chicago hardcore group Rise Against have never been afraid to take a social stance -- both in their songs and on a personal level. Accordingly, while keeping alive the old-school tradition of punk music as an instrument of political change, they make it a point to walk it like they talk it -- the band members are fervent animal-rights activists, to cite one example. Lead singer Tim McIlrath, who takes very seriously his responsibility as an American to voice his opinion that the nation should live up to its ideals, has listed five ways in which he believes the government and the American people have not kept up their end of the bargain.

1. The Iraq War: Still being involved in an unjustified invasion of Iraq that is now a civil war that is taking our beloved soldiers -- our brothers and sisters and wives and husbands -- away from us, en masse.

2. 'American Idol'

3. The Minutemen: If you patrol the border of Mexico in your pickup truck with your buddies, some dogs and a rifle, you are a racist and you are looking for an excuse to use your gun rack. Stop pretending you aren't.

4. Meat Is Murder: America's obsession with torturing animals, injecting them with hormones, brutally slaughtering them, establishing acceptable amounts of feces and then not only eating it ourselves but then teaching our children that this is "the way things are," just like our parents taught us -- bon appetit!

5.: Global Warming Naysayers: People who still believe that global warming is just a theory and that our climate change is simply a natural cycle -- those same people believe the War in Iraq has something to do with 9/11. Those people bore me.

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sk8ingmaster500

Meat is Murder- but only somewhat. Call me evil, but i look past some of the things we do, though i wish it were otherwise. Some of this is exaggerated though. Do most Americans really enjoy torturing cows, and is their death as brutal as some tortures we use on humans? I wouldn't think we intentionally kill them slow and painfully. And hormones? Seriously, you can get estrogen or testosterone or HGH, it's not painful to have hormones. We do treat livestock badly, but then again we treat captives badly. It's good to protest these things, but please don't over-exaggerate. And i bet no animal rights-activists do this: hunt. Let the animals live free, and shoot them. Is that inhuman? Death by shotgun is swift. Try it. And death and meat eating is natural, just not mass-slaughter. You kill plants, they live too, just not to the extent you do. You can't live without dying, they are connected

March 15 2009 at 6:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jepha7against

CO2 has barely if anything to do at all with Global Warming. Al Gore manipulated statistics to make people believe that CO2 increased the Earth's temperature when actually it's the other way around. The Earth's temperature increase caused CO2 levels to increase. I am, however, for the discovery of cleaner, more efficient, renewable fuel sources, but I must say Global Warming is not man-made.

November 11 2008 at 8:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
aeroblade

Oh and vegitarians as far as global warming is concerned... u are eating the solution, im eating the problem

June 20 2008 at 5:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to aeroblade's comment
4teen

oh plase being a vegitarian isen't only eat plants smart-ass.

June 07 2010 at 7:11 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
aeroblade

Umm u have a lot of good points and u guys are one of my favorite bands but, a cow outputs more co2 in a year than an entire city in a year so im not a beliver in global warming but i am with u on getting our troops out of Iraq

June 20 2008 at 4:57 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
~RiseAgainst~

I recently came across Rise Against and I've been listening to their music for 5 hours straight non-stop. I love Rise Against, I love Tim, he's awesome. I agree with Tim 100%, I would kill to see them live but they stay around The US, come to Canada...please!

August 16 2007 at 2:35 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
liz

i think Tim brought up some really good points, and I have to agree with him on them. And to 'stu' who posted that comment, I think you're definitely an ignorant asshole. Get a life.

August 03 2007 at 4:01 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
stu

sounds like Rise Against is a bunch of pussies, pity cause i did like them.

July 19 2007 at 1:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
twenty3

...too bad America has A LOT more than 5 problems.

July 16 2007 at 1:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dw

Yeah, meat *is* murder. Go vegetarian. Hooray for Rise Against.

July 14 2007 at 11:06 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply