Donald Trump is a Pig, says Roger Waters
The former Pink Floyd songwriter, who also renewed his
longstanding criticism of Israel, closed out the first three-day weekend
of Desert Trip which earlier brought the Rolling Stones and Paul
McCartney to a vast stage in California.
As Waters played “Pigs (Three Different Ones),” Pink Floyd’s
1977 assault on power mongers, an oversize swine-like balloon floated
into the crowd with a sketch on it of the Republican presidential
candidate.
“Ignorant, lying, racist, sexist,” ran the words on the
balloon’s side, as overhead screens flashed inflammatory quotes from
Trump including his boasts of groping women that were recently aired in
an explosive video.
Unflattering drawings of Trump — in one he is naked with a
miniscule member and in another he androgynously has developed breasts —
also appeared on screens before the message in bold letters: “Donald
Trump is a Pig.”
Waters drove home the point with a notch more subtlety as he
performed Pink Floyd’s classic “Another Brick in the Wall,” bringing to
stage a troupe of singing teenagers, mostly ethnic minorities, who wore
T-shirts that read “Derriba El Muro” — Spanish for “tear down the
wall.”
Trump, who is running against Hillary Clinton in the
November 8 election, launched his campaign on promises to build a wall
on the Mexican border as he alleged that undocumented immigrants were
rapists.
“The Wall,” Pink Floyd’s rock opera, takes the barrier as a
symbol for personal isolation but it has since frequently become a
political metaphor, with Waters proud of his role as an activist.
Speaking to the 75,000-strong crowd, Waters hailed
California students at the forefront of the so-called Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions campaign that aims to exert economic and
cultural pressure on Israel.
“It’s rare that somebody like me gets a platform like this,
so I’m going to use this platform,” said the 73-year-old British rocker.
“I’m going to send out all my most heartfelt love and
support to all those young people on the campuses of the universities of
California who are standing up for their brothers and sisters in
Palestine,” Waters said, hoping the boycott movement would “encourage
the government of Israel to end the occupation.”
Israel and a number of US Jewish groups strongly oppose the
boycott movement and recently won a victory when California barred
companies that do business with the state from shunning individual
countries.
While Waters’ anti-Trump stance elicited cheers, albeit not
universally, his statement on Israel drew a more muted response with
some fans clapping but others booing and at least one proudly waving an
Israeli flag as a counter-protest.
Desert Trip, which will take place again next weekend with
an identical lineup, is likely to be the most lucrative festival ever
and also featured The Who, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.
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