We are all human, its time to prove it.

As some of you may notice that line from and Anti-Flag song, you might guess that this post will be something about the nature of my political thought, or my interest in punk rock music.
If you guessed the latter of the two, you are right.
I am a guy who enjoys his punk music, and it can almost be attributed to the Anti-Flag song that I referenced in my title. For those of you who dont know the song, it is called "911 for peace". When I first heard the song, I was probably in 7th or 8th grade, I heard it on a mix cd I got from one of my friends. It didnt really do much for me until I bought the cd that the song was on. Mobilize is a great album for someone new to Anti-Flag. First, it shows off the nature of the band and what they are all about in terms of wanting peace, and political freedom. Secondly, it is able to showcase some of their other songs from earlier albums in the form of a live section at the end of it.
This was the album that got me into punk rock. Of course, I was also plagued with what many people would find as an abomination to music, I listened to mainstream pop-punk bands such as Blink-182, Good Charlotte, and Simple Plan. This was part of a phase I went through while growing up, it happens to the best of us (at least thats what i tell myself).
But back to my first "real" punk rock experience. The other things that stuck out to me was what the band had written on the last page of the booklet that came with the album. They wrote about how the record came into being. How they had originally intended to write a full album with fresh material, but then came the defining moment, 9/11. They explained their reaction, which was very different from the rest of the nation at the time. Instead of buying into the bullshit the media and the government was selling us, and which my young mind easily grasped on to, they took a different approach. They wrote the song 911 for peace, and quickly got it out there, they played live shows, they did all they could to get people to see what was really going on, and that it was a bad thing to make rash decisions on a whim.
By seeing this, and how they handled the situation, and hearing the music, Justin Sane's intense singing and wonderful lyrics, Chris Head's great guitar playing, keeping the song together, Pat Thetic's amazing drumming, giving it a great beat, and most importantly, hearing Chris #2's amazing bass playing, to me, was a great experience. It allowed me to look into a part of music that i had never really experienced before. It gave me something to strive for musically (being a terrible bass player at the time, Chris #2 really helped me push myself). I really owe a lot to the band.
I have since changed a lot of my musical interests, although the majority of what i listen to is punk, I still tend to mix it up at times. But the band that i will still go back to, time and time again, will always be anti-flag.