Self-taught, first time director of the underground classic, Afro-Punk, James Spooner and I recently met over a veggie Ital lunch in Crown Heights. Listening to and laughing with the lanky brother and his ‘hella lovely’ California cadence was engaging and entertaining. Very creative, sharp, quick-witted people are always thinking. Knowing that, I felt safe in assuming this brother would have some and candid opinions about politics. Just like his film, Spooner’s views on politics are nothing shy of bold and brawny.

RLC: Do you think you would ever run for an elected office, either local or national office?
JS: No. I don’t vote.

RLC: So are you not voting during this election?
JS: I don’t vote. I don’t feel comfortable with it. I feel like voting is a gesture that the government grants us to sedate us. We learn sophomore year of high school about the electoral college, who knows who those people are and whether they listen to the [popular vote] or not. [Besides] whoever gets put in office, the hood is still [going to be] the hood. The President [is considered] the highest position in the land, but I feel pretty confident that General Motors or Mr. Ford, or whomever, has more power than President Bush. In a country ruled by money, it’s not going to be a guy that makes $200,000 a year that is ruling stuff, so to me [voting] is a waste of time and it sedates people into thinking they have a voice.

RLC: So what do you think are some options?
JS: Stuff is not going to change with whomever gets in office. Creativity and technology fuck people up. I feel like the revolution is going to take place with a 14-year old kid and his computer. Someone could just write a virus and send it into the Pentagon and shit would just be fucked, you know. Not to applaud the 9/11 folks, but that was some creative shit…they sat there and were like, these muthafuckas have bombs, what do we [have]? So to me that was a creative, revolutionary action - [with] a very specific target - they blew up the symbol of the American economy.

RLC: Can you speak more on technology and the 14 year old kid?
JS: Technology just challenges the way things always have been done. For instance, the technology of downloading is destroying the record industry. And in my opinion that’s a good thing because it’s going to force the record industry to come up with new ways of making money, and records are just going to have to be cheap or free. So technology offers different alternatives, and I think this is really what I am talking about. Granted these different options are given to us to make money [for corporations]; but it also challenges the way things are done and creates new opportunities. As it stands though, no one is necessarily challenging the way things are done with the political system. They are like: we have Republicans, Democrats, or some other dude…