Lately, there seems to be a prevailing narrative here on DKos and progressives in general, that “Brown Sugar” is an inexcusable piece of art and that The Rolling Stones’ pulling it from the setlist of their current tour is a victory proving the moral arc of the universe is setting things right.
I’m sorry, but that is just a comforting fairy tale, and it was achieved by ignoble and immoral means to do so.
Simply put, Bjornulf Vik, the owner/operator/webmaster of The Stones’ semi-official fan forum and fan club, It’s Only Rock N’ Roll, stated that leading up to this decision, a group of radicals decided to create spam accounts pretending to be Stones fans when they weren’t, and flood the forum with comments denouncing the song. This is in flagrant violation of the forum rules, which states that nothing remotely political can be placed on the forum, not even in a separate thread many such fan forums have on them, or said poster will be automatically expelled. I know this for a fact because I was a former member of the forum, and I was expelled myself, not for political threads, but for being told I wasn’t making enough posts relevant to The Stones, and I distinctly remember the forum rules.
While these radical members had their accounts purged, these comments did make their way to the band’s management group and company group, Promotone BV, based in the Netherlands for tax reasons. Because of the semi-official nature of the forum, the band and their group could see all the archived comments denouncing the song, and even more than a few death threats were given. As a result, the band was rattled by this behavior and decided to cave to them.
Simply put, this is deplorable behavior, and it simply does not reflect well on us. Because while Republicans are able to get away with posting actions like these as the results of a few bad apples, Democrats and progressives are unfairly tarred as being emblematic of everyone, especially in light of how BLM protests have been unfairly framed as violent mob acts, when the fires and looting were caused by right wing agents provocateur or general assholes taking advantage of the unrest. It only sends the message to be amplified that we’re nothing more than bullies, unable to tolerate dissent and engaged in Soviet-style revisionism. This cannot be emblematic of who we are.
Not to mention, removing the song from the setlist only tarnishes the band trying to move on without the late, great, Charlie Watts behind the drums. If he were alive and still active, I seriously doubt the band would’ve decided to take the song off the setlist at all.
If anything, Mick, Keith and Ronnie should stick it to the radicals and bring the song back. Let that pirate flag fly once more and demonstrate that bullying has no presence.