Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello Hopes Paul Ryan Is a Mole

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney recently announced that he’d selected GOP Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate for the 2012 election. Over the past week, everybody’s been clamoring about the new veep candidate and his P90X addiction. People have been debating his budget proposal and trying to find shirtless pictures of him on the Internet. One of the morsels of information we learned about Paul Ryan: The Guy is that he’s a big Rage Against the Machine Fan. That’s something that the band’s guitarist Tom Morello isn’t thrilled about. He wrote a response on the issue for Rolling Stone.

Ryan claims that he likes Rage’s sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.

But, Morello holds out hope that it’s all a rouse and that Ryan, if elected, will flip and turn out to actually embody what Rage is all about.

My hope is that maybe Paul Ryan is a mole. Maybe Rage did plant some sensible ideas in this extreme fringe right wing nut job. Maybe if elected, he’ll pardon Leonard Peltier.  Maybe he’ll throw U.S. military support behind the Zapatistas. Maybe he’ll fill Guantanamo Bay with the corporate criminals that are funding his campaign – and then torture them with Rage music 24/7. That’s one possibility. But I’m not betting on it.