Ian Svenonius Quotes

#1. Cool thing about Fidel Castro is that the CIA and the mafia - which are both terrible organizations that tried to murder him again and again - haven't succeeded.

Ian Svenonius

#2. I don't like the triumphalism of the American narrative, this kind of "chosen people" complex that American people have, so it's inspiring to see people snub their noses at the American empire and succeed.

Ian Svenonius

#3. Kanye West hasn't really done anything worthwhile
except maybe musically, I haven't heard him. But he hasn't overthrown the government.

Ian Svenonius

#4. If a Cuban refugee is escaping, we're saying they're a political refugee, but why isn't a Haitian refugee a political refugee? They're escaping the capitalism and degradation of economic imperialism. We don't call them political refugees; we call them unfortunate people.

Ian Svenonius

#5. A lot of people come to America all the time for economic opportunities. This country is this huge work farm and you can make a lot of money here.

Ian Svenonius

#6. We live in a unipolar world at this point with America as a moral arbiter and the whole morality is based on this insane corporatocracy.

Ian Svenonius

#7. When a capitalist looks at the river, all they can think about is, "How can I pollute this river and destroy it and make money from it?"

Ian Svenonius

#8. In underground music, there seems to be this real inability for people to express themselves in any kind of heroic or mythological way. There's this idea that we're all normal joes, and that creating a persona onstage or having schtick is somehow false and misleading and evil.

Ian Svenonius

#9. If your moon sign is in Leo, you have a lot of empathy for Leos. You empathize with their approach and their aims and their aura.

Ian Svenonius

#10. What is music in America? It's this stand-in for political action in a lot of senses. We have no democracy and we have no art culture, and we've long considered politics nebbish-y and hopelessly unsexy. So a lot of what would be considered political activism is channeled into cultural work.

Ian Svenonius