Enough B.S. From Beck, et al, Where Are The Protest Songs?
Friday, September 3, 2010 at 09:54AM What is happening?
These days I am truly amazed at the amount of ignorance that passes for credible fact in the media.
Lies about the president’s status as a citizen; the demonization of anyone of the muslim faith; the crowds that want to deny our constitution and our history of religious freedom; these are all indicators that a population is being kept ignorant, so that they can be led around by the nose.
In the sixties, people like Beck and Palin would not have been given the bully pulpit that they enjoy right now. They simply would have been relegated to the lunatic fringe.
So my question for today is where are the protest songs, the rallies, the meetings of concerned citizens?
If you are experiencing any kind of writer’s block, here are some things to consider:
Removing the middle class and keeping everyone scrambling to pay the rent, while the bread and circus distracts them from being actively involved in their own government.
Lincoln called our democracy the “great experiment”. He wondered whether a people could actually govern themselves. And watching the revered republican party become the party of the far right, the religious right, the lunatic fringe, you have to wonder if maybe we can’t.
Partisan politics have robbed our representatives of their ability to think, weigh, judge and act according to what they believe is right. All these bozos are doing is trying to keep their jobs up there in Washington.
Which begs another question. Given their incredible self serving record, why do we continue to send them back there?
We have a president that inherited one of the worst shit storms in history created by an incredibly inept regime led by the dimmest president in American history.
And Obama is being vilified for not fixing decades of short sighted greed and corruption in eighteen months.
And people are actually considering putting the Republicans back in the drivers seat?
Are Americans turning into lemmings and running right off a cliff that they can see?
Whether you agree with me or not, there’s plenty of material out there for songs and recordings that could and should make an impact.
When I was coming up, an artist was judged on whether they actually had anything to say or not. Corporations didn’t shove Katy Perry’s down our throats.
Come on, kids, let’s respond to this shitstorm of a world with our art. It is our responsibility and our duty.
Reader Comments (3)
Bravo!!!
I think that some of the problem has to do with the general "dumbing down" of society. It used to be that there was a common body of knowledge that people shared that acted as a kind of built in "Crap-o-meter". People generally knew when something was just wrong. Because they knew their facts, they knew their history, and people actually THOUGHT about things. Now..intelligence is suspect, pure unadulterated ignorance is celebrated, and too many people let others think for them, because "it's just too hard". I wonder where we will be in another 10 years?.
Now, before we get unreasonable, I have been on both sides of this. It is a bit insulting to say that Katy Perry was "shoved down our throats" because, in all honesty, despite her so-called "stupidity" of some of her lyrics, she is one of the hardest-working people in the industry who really knows what she's doing (right up there with GaGa). Now, there is PLENTY of inspiration here which is really all I was looking for. Thank you!
James…I wrote a little ditty a few months ago called “Back in Time” which is somewhat of a yearning for the 60’s/70’s (as Batdorf would put it, “A Gentler Time”). Not that they weren’t turbulent times; however it was definitely a much simpler time where people actually talked to each other, rather than impersonal contact such as the all-too-convenient text messaging. And, the Becks and Palins were far and few between.
“There’s thunder in the Whitehouse, nobody seems to know-- what on earth they’re doing, or where they want this country to go. So we’re loosing time and I’m loosing my mind…and I’m slippin’, yes I’m slipping ….back in time…..”