Soundtrack for Insurrection

> Date: Monday, July 25, 2005

> Time: 6:46 AM EST

>

> Email address: xxxxxxxxxx@lycos.es

> Subject: website feedback

>

> visitor_name2: Jose

>

> Comment: Hello my name is Jose and I’d like to
interview you, for fanzine “respuesta

> urbana” from spain.

> These are the question.

> Un saludo!!

> Entrevista a emcee lynx

> 1-Presentation (introduction)

check out the “about me” page on my website for that I
guess.

> 2-What discs have you edit?

My albums so far are Soundtrack for Insurrection 1 and 2,
the Black Dog EP, and The UnAmerican Lp. I’m almost finished with a new album but don’t know what it’s going to
be called and I’m working on a couple of side projects as well… I’ve averaged an album a year for the last 4
years and I’d like to keep that up if I can.

> 3-What do you think about capitalists rap bands?

Well it’s not quite that simple, really. Most hip hop artists are broke, and I can’t
say that I honestly have a problem with poor people wanting to not be poor any
more, so if someone can make a living and get out of a bad situation by selling
their music then I can’t blame them for wanting to do that.

I do not, however, like bands or musicians in any genre that
glorify sexism or commercialism or exploitation; but even some of them occasionally
say worthwhile things. Jay Z’s song
"99 Problems (But a Bitch aint One)" is totally sexist (as you might
guess from the name), but he spends close to 1/3 of the song talking about
racial profiling by police. So even
corporate pop-rap artists occasionally say things that are worthwhile. It doesn’t mean that I’m gonna go out and
buy his album, but it means I can’t just condemn the man as being a bad
influence or something.

There’s also the matter of underground "conscious"
hip hop artists that run their own independent labels and sell their music and
market themselves, bands like Spearhead, Blackalicious, Zion I, and
others. A lot of those bands put out
very positive messages and I really respect and enjoy their music. At the same time, they’re engaging in
capitalism by selling their music. I
think it would be silly to condemn them for that since they’re using their
music to put out very positive messages and that’s important and worthwhile. At least until the revolution we’ve got to
live in the system after all.

So I guess it really depends on what you mean by
"capitalist," if you mean the artists that make music about how rich
they are and the jewels they wear then generally speaking I’m not interested in
listening to or supporting their music. Frankly, I don’t think most of it is
even hip-hop, it’s corporate Pop music in blackface. Occasionally though something worthwhile comes through, even
there.

> 4-Is there many anarchists rap band in the USA? Do you know more anarchists rap band around the world?

When I put out my first album back in 2001 I think I was the
only self-described anarchist hip hop artist in the U$A, and I have yet to run
into anything released by an Anarchist hip hop artist before that. Some people argue that Dead Prez are
Anarchists and I have mixed feelings about whether they are or not, but I know
that they do not describe themselves as Anarchists.

Since then, there have been a few more folks come out. Entartete Kunst, which is a Oakland
California based group that used to do this crazy abstract electronica, has
started putting out Hip Hop music lately and their DJ, Dj Malatesta, produced
one of the instrumentals for my last album. They’re nice folks, and damn
talented.

There aren’t any other self-proclaimed anarchist hip hop
crews or artists with any visibility to speak of that I know of right now, but I do know a bunch of folks that call
themselves anarchists and are putting out music. Wwhether that makes their crew
or their music “anarchist” though is another story entirely since most people
aren’t nearly as overt or as clearly identified with an ideology as I am (probably because they’re trying to sell albums to pay the rent and don’t want to
alienate listeners who might not agree with their ideology). Not having to sell my music gives me a bit
more freedom that way. Even beyond
that, most of the people I know are very reluctant to claim any ideology,
they’d rather leave it open; but I know a lot of people who I would describe as
Anarchistic if not "anarchists" per se.

As far as the international scene, there are apparently a
few anarchist-oriented groups. Looptroop, from Sweden, describe themselves as anarchists (They rap in
English for some strange reason, no clue why…some of their stuff is very good
and some of it is kinda sexist and lame. Overall I like their music though) and there’s apparently a German group
called anarchist academy, but I don’t speak german so I can’t comment on their
content. I don’t think we have anything
even approaching an anarchist hip hop scene in any country, at least I’ve never
encountered or heard of one, but I think there *is* a lot of receptivity and
openness to anarchist ideas in hip hop culture as a whole. So there’s a lot of room to grow.

> 5-Do you sell your music in capitalists stores or do you sell it in anticapitalist distros?

I don’t sell it at all usually. I realized when I was trying to figure out how to release my
first album that it would cost me hundreds of dollars I didn’t have to get my
music printed so I could sell cd’s, but I could post it online and give it away
for practically free. Since my goal was
not to make money but to share my music and communicate with people, I decided
I’d be better off just giving it away.

Also, that was right around the time that there was that
huge fuss about napster and whether file sharing was a crime or not, and so I
thought it would be a good thing for me - as an anarchist who’s opposed to
private property and intellectual property rights - to take a stand with my
music and encourage people to burn copies for people and post it on file
sharing networks. While Dr. Dre and
other big name corporate rap artists were calling their fans criminals and
thieves for sharing music online I made a point of saying that I thought it was
the record companies who were thieves and that anyone who wanted my music could
get it for free.

I’ve put out a total of four albums now, like I said, and
I’ve given them all away the same way. All of the mp3’s are available for free download from my website and are
available on most file-sharing networks, and I haven’t made a penny off of
that. What I have done, however, is get
explicitly anarchist music out to thousands of people all over the world - my
last album has had over 100,000 downloads in the last year from my website
alone. So now people all over the world
can hear my music and I’m doing this interview with you for a ‘zine in Spain,
and that’s everything I could ask for. I’m in this because i want a fucking revolution, not to make money, and I’m not interested in
getting rich off my music. I make it
cuz I enjoy making it and because it’s one of the best ways I know to
communicate with people, and I feel like I’ve been pretty successful with that.

The only place that I DO actually sell cd’s is at shows,
where I sell burned cd’s and put the money from that into covering the costs of
equipment, my website, and transportation. At this point I’ve about broken even, which is fine.

If anarchist distro’s want to sell my music their welcome to
do so, all they need to do is download the mp3’s and print out the covers and
they can make their own copies to sell. All I ask is that they let me know so I can post links to them on my
website, and if they make any money off it I generally ask them donate it to
local organizations. I had my first
album reprinted in the Czech republic that way as a benefit for the Anarchist
Black Cross and The Black Dog EP and the UnAmerican LP were printed and
distributed by a local group in Jakarta, Indonesia, as a benefit for local
anarchist groups late last year.

> 6-Are you united with the anarchopunks?

Well… I don’t know really. Most rock music makes my head hurt, so I don’t go to punk shows
as a general rule. I’ve performed at
punk shows before and I have friends in the punk scene, so if that makes me
united with them then sure, but generally my focus is on the hip-hop
scene. Outside of the context of actual
shows, I’ve worked with a lot of anarchopunks and have generally had good
experiences with that, there are lot of good people in the punk scene.

> 7-We have read about a political rap congress in
Chicago. Tell us about it.

*shrug* I dunno,
there’s tons of stuff happening in chicago, and everywhere else for that
matter. I don’t know what event you’re
referring to… chicago is a long way from san Francisco and the local scenes
in different parts of the us don’t keep in contact very well so I really don’t
know.

> 8-Is the rap a political music?

Everything is political, and music in particular is always
political, so yes. Every time someone
makes a song about how much cash they stack and how many diamonds they wear
their making a political statement - and it’s the same political statement made
on every television commercial. they’re
saying "look at me, I’ve succeeded in the system, if you just buy in and
work hard enough you can escape your poverty and oppression and be loved and be
sexy and get to be a member of the ruling class." It’s a lie, but it’s scary how many people
believe it without even realizing what it is that their being sold - it’s a
mind state and an ethos and a social disease.

On the flipside, every hip hop artist - and punk or raver or
goth or anyone else - who uses their
music to send any OTHER message is also political, simply because their not
buying into the programming. Rap and
hip hop music is perhaps more overtly political because it has more lyrics so
while a rock or pop musician can get away with just humming or repeating the
same sentence a dozen times, an emcee has to actually SAY SOMETHING. whether
they say something worth while or not is another matter entirely, but that
means that for people who WANT to say something and do have something worth
saying, hip hop is probably the single-best art form for doing that.

At it’s most basic level rap is about telling stories, and
some of those stories are beautiful and some of them are fucking stupid; but it
gives people the *opportunity* to tell their story in a way that no other music
does, so in that way I think it’s the most political music there is. whether we like the politics expressed in it
or not is another matter entirely.

> 9-Do you participate in other proyects?

Yes. Right now I’m
working with the Collaborative Arts Insurgence, a radical poets collective here
in San Francisco that hosts an open-mic/free-speech event on the street corner
every Thursday night. I’m also working
on a couple of concept albums with different people, but I don’t want to say
any more about those until they’re ready to be released.

> 10-Tell us about the anarchist movement in San
Francisco: bands, groups,…

there are probably close to a thousand self-described
anarchists in San Francisco alone, (though most of them are not particularly
involved in any kind of a movement) and even more in the Bay Area (which
includes San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, Union City, Hayward, Fremont, San
Jose, Palo Alto, and several other smaller cities in the area). Unfortunately, having so many anarchists
around tends to make people lazy and complacent - a lot of people are more
interested in telling everyone else why they’re wrong or in arguing about who
has the most perfect theory then they are in actually organizing anything.

That said, there are some very dedicated people here doing
some absolutely beautiful work. Bound
Together Books, a worker-owned anarchist bookstore operates here in San
Francisco, and Ak Press, a worker-owned anarchist book distributor, has an
office in Oakland. AK Press is also
very active tabling at shows and being involved in the community. There are lots of other worker-owned
businesses in the area, most of which run along anarchist lines without
hierarchy. Recently, there’s been an
effort to put together a Bay Area Anarchist Council to help coordinate
activities throughout the region, and there’s also a new group in San
Francisco/Palo Alto called Anarchist Action that has thrown several marches and
is working on organizing a fare strike to oppose a fare increase on our bus
system. There are Reclaim the Streets
actions fairly regularly as well, and we had some truly huge anti-war protests
here last year. So there are a lot of
positive things going on.

> 11-Recomend us a band, book, publication…

Band: I’m listening to a lot of Celtic music lately, and
Martyn Bennett in particular, he’s a
scottish musician that blends traditional instruments and melodies with hip-hop
and electronic beats. very invocative
stuff… more relevant to this
interview I’m really enjoying Shamako Nobles "The Return of the Coming of
the Aftermath," Shamako is an old friend of mine and was something of a
mentor to me when I first got into the hip hop scene here in the bay area, and
he’s also one of the most talented emcee’s in California. Other local artists that kick ass are
Spearhead, Zion I, The Coup, Blackalicious, and Lyrics Born.

the best political book I’ve read recently is "Acts of
Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader." Ward Churchill fucking rocks, and he’s been a huge influence on my
thinking about culture, politics, and resistance.

as far as serial publications, I read 2 or 3 newspapers a
day most days, and I try to read ones that I disagree with on purpose, so The
Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the BBC’s website
get a lot of action. They’re slimy
bastards, but they’re running the world, so it makes sense to keep an eye on
them.

Date:
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Time: 10:30 AM EST

Email address: ————@hotmail.com
Subject: website
feedback

visitor_name2:
danai

Comment: hi,

just read thru your
blog thing, its great that you’re putting your
thoughts out, i
think its great you are spreading the wake up call via your
music, but you’re
also very good at putting your thoughts into words,
it would be great
to see a book or something by you, it may widen your
audience. your
words are needed to be heard.
i keep recommending
you, and the feedback is good. people like you and
there is much
thirst at least in the circles of politicaly awake and
aware for what you
have to say and for what you do.
keep on going.
hope you do kick
your ass to put more music out and more of your
written word. be
well approciated.
peace to ya.
danai

————————

hey
danai,

I’ve actually been
thinking about writing a book, probably in the form of a collection of
essays.  It’s definitely in the long-term "things i might do
eventually" category though, rather then the "shit I’m working on
right now" category.  Maybe after I get this next album finished (if
and when I get it finished) I’ll look at it more seriously.  in the
meantime I’m using the blog as a way to organize my writing and give myself a
reason to write things outside of school.

anyway, glad you
like it, I haven’t gotten much feedback on the blog yet so it’s nice to hear
good things. =)

solid,
emcee lynx

i came home from a family dinner at my parents house (after a long day of yet more classes) last night and wrote this, which is no where near a completed essay but may eventually become one.  dunno yet.  tell me what ya think.

——–

In our franctured society, there are (as I said in the essay i posted last week) 3 classes. There are the sheep – domesticated,
complacent, scared and begging the wolves for protection, there are the
shepherds / sheep-dogs (domesticated wolves) who manage the herds, and decide
on a day to day basis who will be sheered and who will be slaughtered, and
there are the owners of the fields – wolves in men’s clothing - who are
generally only peripherally involved in any of the day to day operations but
whose tables are daily stocked with fresh meat and whose bank accounts reap the
rewards of a well maintained system. I
don’t need to say which role each social class occupies, we all know in our
bone marrow which class we belong too.

Every day we stare it blank in the
face and try not to see because if we look at it too carefully it scares us
shitless. Every day we numb back the
pain with endless drugs, endless television, and a vast array of
corporate–approved lifestyle identity niches that give us some sense of
identity without requiring us to do the unthinkable and identify ourselves as
individuals. We don’t do it because we
want to or because we choose to, we do so because failing to do so would mean
rendering ourselves unable to function in the only world we have.  Those
who fail to do so are shunned and reviled, and more often then we would care to
admit - end up removing themselves from the situation by the only readily
available means - suicide.  1997, suicide was the 8th leading cause of
death in the U.S and the 3rd leading cause of death in 15 to 24 year olds (who
are old enough to see the world as adults but young enough to have not yet gone
completely numb to the horror of it).[1] For these people, anything, even the
cold dark oblivion of the grave, is better then living like this. For the majority that isn’t willing to
consider such a drastic solution, our consumer society offers few good choices
and a lot of not so good ones. Television – america’s favorite drug – is chief
among these. It is not a means of
communication in any meaningful sense since by its very nature it’s broadcasts
are unidirectional. Rather, it is a
means of propaganda distribution for the ruling class and a way for people to
“unplug” – to stop living their life-defeating meaningless lives for a few
hours at a time and be caught up in someone else’s dramas, troubles, and
victories. The bargain is as simple as
it is diabolical - they allow us to forget we are slaves and in return we
forget that we are slaves - and thus become incapable of fighting for freedom.
Most working class Americans know more about the “lives” of the fictional
yuppies, cops, and other parasites that populate these programs then they do
about the day to day operations of the government that bellows its claim of
democracy so unconvincingly. This is
not an accident. One would be hard
pressed to think of a better way for the ruling class to make sure that the
herd stays complacent then to teach the sheep to identify with the wolves who
consume them, and believe that is good for carnivores is good for the
herd.

Interspersed in these infusions of
synthetic reality we are bombarded with ads reasserting what we already know
and secretly fear – that we are worthless, imperfect, un-loveable, ugly and
frankly disgusting; and that the only way we can hope to ever fix ourselves is
to consume more. Shopping is patriotic,
it is recreation, it is identity – but more then any of these things it is
ritual. More specifically, it is the
ritual by which we assume our identities and assert our place in the
world. Any high school freshman in the
country can walk onto the campus of a strange high school any where else in the
country and tell you within five minutes who are the athletes, who are the
artists, who skateboards, who is popular, and within a very narrow margin of
error tell you what type of music any and all of them are listening too on
their identical ipods. Identity is
designed, fabricated, marketed, bought and sold; and our only possible role in
the sequence is as consumers of a product. The same is just as true of Americans at any age of life, from the
cradle to the grave we spend our entire lives playing roles designed for us,
and that is every bit as true of the middle aged executive working 60 hours a
week whose marriage is slowly disintegrating and whose children not so secretly
loathe him (or her) as it is of the teenage stuck in a dead end job or the
elderly person watching the price of their prescription drugs skyrocket even as
their fixed income completely fails to keep pace.

All of us are gears in the machine,
and all of us know it at the cores of our beings. We are lower then wild animals; we have been broken,
domesticated, castrated, and set to graze until we are called in for the
slaughter. We beg the wolves for
protection and they obligingly promise to protect us from all the other wolf
packs, and even while we watch them consuming the live of our friends and
neighbors we huddle together and reassure ourselves that if only we’re very
good sheep and work very hard we’ll come out all right in the end. Worst of all, when the call to the slaughter
comes, we compete with each other over who gets to go first.

We hate ourselves. From before we could talk we have been told
that we are not good enough as we are and one of the interesting things about
humans is that they will believe anything if they hear it enough. The most powerful weapon of the slave master
is the mind of the slave, after all. We know we are stupid, weak, ineffectual, and need strong leaders to
keep us safe from each other and from Johnny foreigner because we have been
told so since we could remember. And if
we think so lowly of ourselves, you can be damn sure we don’t think so highly
of our neighbors either. There are few
things that are more useful to tyrants then subjects that hate and fear one
another; and one of those few is having subjects who believe that, while maybe
they and their friends are all right, the vast majority of the country is
stupid and couldn’t possibly be trusted with freedom since they’d only mess it
up anyway. So it is that rich (mostly
Anglo) whites despise poor (mostly non-Anglo) white people, who are taught to
fear and hate black people, and black people are forced to compete for scarce
jobs and economic resources with Chicano’s or Asians, and so on down the
line. We fear each other and we compete
with each other, cooperation against common enemies is simply not an
option.

Societies with internal cohesion
and structure – where things like Families (for instance) are not just empty clichés
but actually the basic functional social unit, capable of competing directly
with States for the loyalty of the people – are much harder to rule; and have
in fact been one of the basic structures of every revolutionary movement in
human history. One of the chief aims of
the American ruling class for over a century, therefore, has been their
destruction. With the exception of
unassimilated immigrant minority groups, “family” in america no longer refers
to the vast web of social relationships spanning generations and giving meaning
and cohesion to all actions, it refers to single generation unit incapable of
meeting even basic needs like childcare without the assistance of Capital and
the State. Likewise “Community” which
for thousands of years has been a more extended version of the extended family
– a network of life-long relationships, obligations, and support – has been
reduced to functional nonexistence. People use the word today to refer to things as ephemeral as a loose
group of people who share a common interest or identity characteristic and
forget that it once meant something incomparably larger and more powerful. By breaking down any and all social
infrastructure that could provide any meaning, strength, or identity outside of
the marketplace, America has created every capitalists wet dream – a nation
full of people who don’t know who they are, where they come from, or what they
believe; and whose self loathing is only exceeded by their hatred and fear of
each other. Not only is each of these
things an opportunity to sell a product, but together they virtually guarantee
that the sheep will remain sheep since it is impossible for them to see
themselves or each other as anything else. And – to add insult to injury – they tell us that the fact that we are
deprived of these basic necessary social relationships makes us “individuals”
and that the choice of prefabricated lifestyles makes us “free.” This last point is critical because it is
the final lock and chain that guarantees our submission - as Harriet Tubman
pointed out it is impossible to free someone who refuses to believe that they
are not already free. In reality, we
are just as free as a cow on a slaughterhouse ranch – we may not have shackles
on our feet but that’s only because the farmer knows just how strong the fence
is.

We the people – the vast majority
who work day to day and whose flesh and bone feeds the machines – have no say
in any of this. No one asks cows or
sheep what they think of their role in the economy and no one cares. We are resources to be exploited, expended,
and disposed of – nothing more or less. There is no social contract between rich and poor and there never has
been, and the moment we begin to believe that there is we become like the dog
that is beaten every day and still begs for scraps from its masters hand. Freedom would mean an end to crouching and
whining submissively – it would require bold action, remembering our instinct
to rebel and springing for the throat come hell or high water. That instinct, however, has been bred out of
us as thoroughly as it has been bred out of every domesticated animal, and
because we are intelligent we remember what happens to those foolish enough to
fight back. There are two ways to go,
one is the quiet life where you slowly but surely work yourself to death in
order to provide for your children who will in turn do the same for your
grandchildren and so on; and the other is perhaps more exciting but also much
shorter and more brutal. True to our
instincts as herd animals, most Americans don’t even have to stop and consider
which of these they prefer, and that choice is demonstrated every morning of
every day when millions of us wake up to alarm clocks and commute through
gridlock to jobs we hate for bosses we despise. Every day all of us – the collective herd of herds that is the
global working class – makes a choice, and that choice is to sell another
irreplaceable day from the finite collection of days we are all allotted in
exchange for the basic necessities we need to repeat that choice again
tomorrow. For over 200 years radicals
have looked at this daily ritual and screamed out with hearts full of love and
rage that it cannot continue, that someday we the people must say enough is
enough and put an end to it. And every
day they have woken up to see the same ritual repeated.

It is
entirely possible that that golden day may never come, that we will all remain
sheep until the ranch itself is finally obliterated by ecological, financial,
or other collapse - taking us all with it. It is also, theoretically at least,
possible that the system will collapse some how and that we may decide to run
things a bit differently without ever having had to actively overthrow the
current system (most likely though it would just mean a new pack of wolves
running things). In the mean time,
however, if we the sheep (err people) decide that we’d like to keep our wool (thank
you very much) and that we don’t particularly feel like becoming cold cuts, it
might be a good idea to at least consider laying aside our sheepishness and
reminding the wolves that – all metaphors aside – we the people really are the
most powerful force on the planet, and when we stand up together we can
accomplish anything. Even freedom. The question is, how the hell do we stand up
together when there is no coherent “we” to convince to stand? And the answer is… I have no fucking clue. But maybe it would be a good idea to start looking for a new definition
of “we.” Which is a lot easier said then done but really, what the hell we
might as well give it a shot, gods know we’ve tried everything else.

> Date: Saturday, July 30, 2005
> Time: 3:09 AM EST
>
> Email address: xxxxxxx@yahoo.com
> Subject: website feedback
>
>
> visitor_name2: Christian
>
> Comment: Hi partner, i hope you can understand me, i
> am not a native english speaker. I live in Mexico
> city.
>
> I just wanna greet you. I really love your music and
> your work, your lyrics are awesome!! I mean it.
>
> And well, i think you really do what you think.
>
> I am glad you help anarchists prisioners.
>
> It is also good that we can download books, music,
> video, etc, from you webside without paying, because
> some people force people to pay them. That is not
> good, they only want profit.
>
> And not all people have a check count or a credit
> card for paying them, especially in countries like
> in Mexico. I donot have any credit card, and i
> wouldnt pay any cent to fake¨"anarchists" who want
> me to pay them money 4 downloading their music.
>
> I am glad you do not do that, you are a real
> anarchist, i admire your work.
>
> Well, here in Mexico i have participated in several
> political actions, such as UNAMs strike in
> 1999-2000. We have to continue till we destroy the
> fucking state and capitalists.
>
> Ok, that is all my friend, keep going, because here
> in mexico we will continue. Just as you say in a
> bullet in a chamber: We need unity of porpouse, no
> more race divisions.
>
> FUCK ANY state.
> FUCK capitalists.
> ¡Muerte al estado, que viva la anarquía!
> ¡Ni dios, ni amo, ni marido ni partido!
>
> Take care brother, see ya!!

christian,

thank you for the letter and for the feedback.
getting letters like yours is what makes me want to
keep making music.

don’t ever stop fighting!

solidarity!
lynx

> Date: Thursday, August 4, 2005
> Time: 12:38 PM EST
>
> Email address: xxxxxxx@aol.com
> Subject: website feedback
>
>
> visitor_name2: Ryan
>
> Comment: This is demonic music you should consider
> going to a church of christ and listen to your
> preacher you also should start thinking the devil
> cant help you make it to heaven you need Jesus
> Christ in your life and I pray for you as I pray for
> all. May god continue to bless all people and things
> needed in prayer because we cant make it on are on
> GOD is the Key, and I do believe when I die I want
> to make it to Paridise ( Heaven ).

Ryan,

well since you took the time to write me a letter I’m
going to hope that you’ll take the time to read my
response.  I read, considered, and responded to yours
after all, and failing to show the same consideration
would be rather impolite.

The first thing is that you called my music "demonic,"
and I’m assuming you meant that term to be offensive.
thing is, doesn’t that imply some sort of belief in
demons?  cuz i sure don’t believe in demons, or hell
for that matter.  There is a critical distinction
between a satanist (someone who advocates for satan in
some sort of inverted christianity) and an agnostic
like myself.  I am not a satanist and am not
interested in advocating for satan because i don’t
believe she/he/it exists.  As an agnostic i simply
refuse to believe that any religion has the complete
truth or the answers, and there are things I like and
dislike about all of them.  my music is a lot of
things, but demonic definitely is not one of them.

as far as going to heaven, i personally have no desire
AT ALL to spend eternity in "heaven" with a god so
small-minded, cruel, and fundamentally evil that
it/he/she is willing to send the majority of the words
population to someplace as horrible as the hell you
christians believe in.  in other words if your god
actually does exist (and I’m fairly sure he doesn’t),
I would refuse to go to heaven even if he personally
invited me in.  I’d rather go to hell (which i’m
fairly sure does not exist either) then spend eternity
surrounded by bigots.

As far as i’m concerned, you can feel free to believe
in your god and do your best to live whatever type of
life seems moral to you - and that’s just fine with
me.  I’ve known some genuinely good people who believe
in god and use that as a source of inspiration and
strength to help them do good in the world, and more
power to them!  I have absolutely no problem with
people believing in god or christianity (or islam or
juddhaism or buddhism, etc), my issues is that some
christians - apparently including you - are so
convinced that their (your) belief system is the only
one that holds any validity that they are willing to
commit all kinds of atrocities; not least of which is
consigning the majority of the worlds population that
does not agree with their particular religious views
to hell for an eternity of torment. 

At the point where you deny other people their basic
fundamental right to disagree with you and live their
own lives according to their own value systems, you
stop being a follower of Jesus of Nazareth (or
muhhamad or buddha) who all said that you should
"treat all men as you would like to be treated."

now THAT is demonic.

have a nice day,
emcee lynx