62 Comments

1. Pajamas Media » Cognitive Dissonance in the Lefty World of Folk Music:

[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]

Jan 11, 2009 - 3:36 am 2. misanthropicus:

Reading rock/folk musicians’ past political predictions and assessments goes hand in hand with relying on astrologial predictions.
Not long ago, in a fund-drive KCET enthusiastically run a tape with Sex Pistols singing “Sandinistas”, a remarkably graceless piece.
Now, Ortega is back in the office, true, but this doesn’t make the 1980-s furror over the Sandinistas less silly.

Jan 11, 2009 - 8:24 am 3. Maggie:

Conservatives would be wise to find their own Hattie Carrolls – individuals that have been abused by liberal excesses. Joe the Plumber comes to mind. Conservatives need to do a better job at story telling and explaining conservative principles.

Jan 11, 2009 - 8:44 am 4. TexEd:

Your stereotyping of folksingers is offensive. Sure, they are unwashed, anti-establishment, lazy, dope-smoking socialists, but they are not ALL the same! Well, maybe they are.

Jan 11, 2009 - 8:47 am 5. ReConUSMC:

Liberalism , Socialism is a feeling and Emotion and nothing more .
Yes they all The Talk , Talk about the Poor but Live in a World of Huge Abundance few know .
LIBERALS and Socialist actually give 32 % less help to the Poor than do Christian’s and Conservatives .
Remember America has 91 Thousand Churches and few don’t help the needy .

Proof you ask ?
A Socialist PhD. Professor from Syracuse University has written a Book on that very subject and has done many years of research and he was alarmed to learn those facts and as he said quite surprised .
Liberals and Socialist see Big Govt. as the life time Nanny.
So they “”Talk ” but are not bothered to help . Where as Christians and Conservatives help Individuals one person at a time until they can get on their feet .

Jan 11, 2009 - 9:17 am 6. view from afar:

Liberals want someone else to be responsible, while they sure care alot, but prefer to sit and drink wine (expensive wine at that) and never do anything. Oh, they make me think of the royalists of old…

Jan 11, 2009 - 9:35 am 7. john from cinncinatti:

a hand me down i’ll take any day but a handout usually has an agenda attached to it. i can make my own wine alot cheaper than that and it will be my own custom blend. now where is my Che shirt?

Jan 11, 2009 - 10:35 am 8. Western Comfort:

I wonder what it would take to get Obama to read this?

Jan 11, 2009 - 10:57 am 9. Donna V.:

Oh, they make me think of the royalists of old…

That was my thought too. Right before the French Revolution, members of the old French aristocracy got a thrill from dressing up as milkmaids and farmers and playing at being honest, simple, salt-of-the-earth peasants. Like many, many bad ideas, that fad can be traced to Rousseau. The aristocrats tinkered about in cute little cottages and undoubtably felt quite virtous – until they got bored and went back to their grand chateaus.

Not much different from drinking expensive wines while listening to songs about the common man. The only common men (and women) these modern-day aristos know are the ones who clean their houses, watch their kids, walk their dogs,…,

Jan 11, 2009 - 1:49 pm 10. Sissy Willis:

I’m encouraged that these members of the cultural elite don’t have the courage of their “convictions.” All the more opportunity for the High Hollywood project now roaring down the track to make inroads. My take here: The look of love

Jan 11, 2009 - 2:16 pm 11. Bugs:

I believe real folk music died when the first Jewish political science major from NYU picked up a banjo and sang “Polly Wolly Doodle” in a coffee house.

Trouble with “folk” music today is that there are no more “folk” as folkies define them. Farmers, coal miners, factory workers, chain-gang inmates and other members of the working class don’t make up simple yet profound ditties about their jobs that they can sing to ease the pain of being the victims in an economically and socially unjust world. They listen to their radios, CD and iPods like everyone else. They prefer rappers, rockers, and country boys to effeminate folkies. While folkies do sing plenty of non-political songs and many people enjoy them, they and their fans typically live relatively prosperous and privileged lives. I have to laugh when any of them pretend to speak for working people, the poor, or foreigners experiencing wars and revolutions.

Jan 11, 2009 - 6:24 pm 12. zrodfx:

“…I believe real folk music died when the first Jewish political science major from NYU picked up a banjo and sang “Polly Wolly Doodle” in a coffee house….”

Bugs, that should be on Pete Seeger’s tombstone….great line !!

Jan 11, 2009 - 8:49 pm 13. zrodfx:

Steve Earle once famously wrote “Dwight Yoakum’ eats quiche”, on the wall of an elevator in Nashville. Dwight is authentic, having been born in Eastern Kentucky , to a family of coal miners.Earle couldn’t carry Dwight’s lunch. He wrote the Quiche comment right before he did the obligatory right of passage for all ’serious’ musicians, and went in for rehab to get off heroin. He is a hack, has always been a hack, and a poser,who had one ‘good’ album….Exit O.

Jan 11, 2009 - 9:00 pm 14. plainsrabbit:

Shorter Ron Radosh: The murderer immortalized in a dirty hippie song once attended Sidwell friends school, which is now where Barack Obama’s kids go, which shows that Obama, like all other lefties, is a dirty hippie murderer. Or something like that. Brain gears …grinding …to a halt… blargh!

Jan 11, 2009 - 9:54 pm 15. jeebus:

Woohooo…listen to the rubes! C’mon guys…you can do better than that!

Jan 11, 2009 - 10:47 pm 16. Nick:

I have a question to all the conservatives in the room: I challenge you to name the main reason why socialism is bad. I think more importantly, what is socialism. I think as you do research, you may be surprised.
Here are some facts you may not understand:
1. Communism is not the same thing as socialism.
2. Socialism is about equality, not about totalitarianism.
3. Socialism intends to empower every individual equally.
4. Russia is not communist or socialist, its some sort of hybrid.
5. Nazis did adopt parts of socialism but Nazis are not socialists and socialists aren’t nazis. In fact the nazis were anti-communist.

Listen I’m not trying to advocate socialism, but i think many of you should seriously research the topic before you go bashing it. I suggest wikipedia as a start – it does a good job coming at the topics objectively.

Jan 11, 2009 - 11:46 pm 17. varmint:

guitar town was a great album. but that was twenty years ago. now earl looks like a cow walking on it’s hind legs.

Jan 12, 2009 - 2:20 am 18. Sandy Cash:

Hey, as a card-carrying conservative who just happens to be a FOLKSINGER, I take exception to this article. We takes our gigs where we gets ‘em, and I don’t fault Steve for his success.

Because I live in Israel, it’s not likely I’ll be hired to play in a fancy NYC winery anytime soon. But Pajama-fans may be still be interested in viewing “The Children’s Brigade” – a song of mine that illustrates the tragedy of school-age jihad education that plagues my neighborhood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hToxAai9uME

Jan 12, 2009 - 4:55 am 19. sean sarto:

Yep..If you know the history of what people consider “folk” music today….it’s easy to see how corrupted it is. The Seeger’s, an’ Dylan’s an’ Springsteen’s…yo can thank for that…In the elite circles (liberal an’ conseravtive)Springsteen is considreed the best…those circles protect thatpreemminence because their inherita

Jan 12, 2009 - 5:33 am 20. sean sarto:

It’s easy to see without lookin’ to far..”…well, if ya know the history of what is considered “folk” music today pretty well…you can see plain how corrupt it has become…thanks an’ blame that on the Seeger’s, the Dylans, (mostly middle class kids…who never suspected their privillages had anythin’ to do with their place in society)the Springsteens…other people’s suffering is their commodity….it’s obvious as hell they don’t suffer personally…the elite circles endow them to that,(both liberal and conservative..in fact Regan is the archtype of Springsteen..the same that Schwazenneger hopes to become)..Springsteen is considreed the BEST(he is good but he was afforded the opportunity) only because his preeminence is well protected by this minority of power because their investments lie in that structure of status….not material goods….He has ta know that Rock musicians out there are givin’ up because they have to work 8+ hours a day then rock a bar full of TV sets an’ deaf ears…an’ no matter how good or “authentic” they are…people are gonna watch TV……So the competition,or the “free market” that Springsteen is supposedly, like all his elite friends, “competeing” in is basically a hallucination…a “dream” if you will.
Study the industry and you see how it undermines the effectiveness of real “folk” musician’s beacause there is inherently a confict of interests between the two classes…those with ethics and those without. Springsteen’s own credo is basicaly “Get Rich or Die tryin” that is why he is surrounded by Rappers these days who worship him as a Tony Soprano ,”Scarface” kind of way…because they know that this “liberal” hoax was basically just mafia buisness. But it is veiled in the appropriated imagery of Pretty Boyd Floyd’s, Billy the Kid’s,’John Dillenger’s an’ such..The effect of that is that Springsteen gets to stand alone without competition on the national scale…an’ enjoy the profits of a wider margin of markets through the generations. Because all the corporations are invested in his image, celebrity an’ interests..they protect his person as if he was the President..they way Obama now conducts his buisness…Noone connects Springsteen with the gutter mouth of “Pimps an’Ho’s” misogynist Gangstas…though in spirit they are the very same “Cain” or “Kanye” and since Springsteen doesn’t have anyone to contest his talents he plays the stadiums…sells over priced beer..hot dogs…cars an’ the gas that fuels them…football games…etc..thus he generates small profits. But all those aspects of products are non-threatening, impotent empathies…
The cultural effect of this is damning. The only new “rock stars” today ,as it was understood in it’s origins of underprivillaged Caucasioans are basically the kids of industry outsiders,and are entrenched in their parents investments… limited to the attention spans an’ procvilvities of college campuses…In the 1990’s a determined effort to have the African or Black agenda, specifically the drug dealer element, prosperous was made in the assasination basically of Kurt Cobain…and thus the marginalization of grunge music..essentially that gave Obama his platform to stand on….The grunge movement was authentic working class Caucasians with the talent to undermine Springsteen’s an’ Dylan’s potency..they called out the 60’s generation as being fullof doo-doo an’ expressed the rage an’painthat the sons an’ daughters were feeling….the African’s an’ Mexicans who were in alliance with Springsteen saw the threat to their agendas,because they were part of the provocateurs of that pain, an’ criminally thwarted the prevalent culture at that time with these veru same liberals assistence…all under the pretenses that it was good for the company an’ buisness, therefore also good for country, so that Springsteen would continue to poster boy their cause….Kurt Cobain an’ other’s like him were speakin’ more closely and true of the hypocrises of civil rights and denouncing the liberal hypocrsies…they were in the public schools an’strugglin’for dead ends jobs competein’with these racial elements an’ bein’ castrated by the policies of the elite to fend for themselves..it is also worth mentioning that Cobain was a drug taker…not a dealer…thus the mafia-like relation becomes more apparent.

Jan 12, 2009 - 6:28 am 21. jonesy55:

What’s wrong with quiche?

Jan 12, 2009 - 7:00 am 22. sean sarto:

I meant the kid’s of industry insiders…otoutsiders…the corporate Disney mousketeer crowd..etc…

Jan 12, 2009 - 7:35 am 23. That Fuzzy B*s*rd:

The other interesting fact in the article is: “In 1991, The Maryland Independent disclosed that Mr. Zantzinger had been collecting rent from black families living in shanties that he no longer owned; Charles County, Md., had foreclosed on them for unpaid taxes. The shanties lacked running water, toilets or outhouses. Not only had Mr. Zantzinger collected rent for properties he did not own, he also went to court to demand past-due rent, and won.”

So Zantzinger continued being a rich Texas as*h*le long after being called out. What could be more “royalist” than drunkenly beating the occasional servant to death, in between bouts of collecting back rent you never earned? It’s practically feudal.

And speaking of “aristocrats dressing like farmers”: Bush is moving back to Dallas, having occupied the Crawford place from 1999 to 2008. Gosh, it’s almost as though the brush-clearing cowboy ranch was just a photo op all along! http://www.newsweek.com/id/172135

Jan 12, 2009 - 7:37 am 24. Bugs:

zrodfx: Well, there actually was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, a Jewish doctor’s son from New York City who became a protege of Pete Seeger and mentor to Arlo Guthrie. Jack at least had the cojones to run away and join the rodeo for three months before billing himself as an authentic workin’ man.

I have to give the old lefty-folkies some credit. I like some of their music. I also appreciate that they did a lot to rescue real American folk songs and singers from the musical memory hole. What I mainly object to is their ulterior motive – they used American folk music to sugar-coat their socialist or communist propaganda. I guess it was easy for them to do: Folk music was all about working people; socialism was all about working people; therefore, all folk music was socialist music.

Whatever. I think they were just useful idiots. But entertaining useful idiots.

Jan 12, 2009 - 8:47 am 25. Richard Wells:

Wow, lots of vitriol here, and I feel like I’m wading into dangerous waters, but what the heck.

Steve Earle isn’t Woody Guthrie, has he ever claimed to be, (neither are Dylan or Springsteen; and Hank Williams Jr. isn’t Hank Williams,) so I’m wondering if this isn’t a case of comparisons being odious. That being said, I think Earle’s bio gives him some cred. Working class parents, hard-travelled youth, drugs, alcohol, jail, recovery. I’m not a huge fan of his music, but it seems his life and success have been hard won. Where he plays? Sounds like someone could make a case for, “comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable.” And, “hypocrisy”? What’s the income cut-off between authenticity and hypocrisy?

Jan 12, 2009 - 9:45 am 26. scruzman:

“…I believe real folk music died when the first Jewish political science major from NYU picked up a banjo and sang “Polly Wolly Doodle” in a coffee house….”

Bugs, that should be on Pete Seeger’s tombstone….great line !!

zrodfx: second that

Bellushi smashing the “I gave my love a cherry” guy’s guitar on the steps of Animal House comes to mind…

Jan 12, 2009 - 11:53 am 27. Shari Ulrich:

I have to take issue with the criticism of Steve Earle for performing at an Upper Crust venue. First of all, everyone needs a gig, no matter what it looks like from the outside. We work where we can. Secondly, one could look at that audience as being those MOST in need of seeing the world through the eyes of these artists. Preaching to the converted is not necessarily an effective way for our music to help change the world and minds around us. He’s not a traitor or any less authentic in his ability to translate the challenges in our social structure through his art form. People with money aren’t evil or unworthy of experiencing great art. It’s a gig – it’s an audience.

Jan 12, 2009 - 1:22 pm 28. BMoon:

The whole image of a posturing socialist folk singer crowing his antiquated, quixotic tunes in an upscale, exclusive cafe for aging wealthy hippies is almost too surreal, ironic, and satirical to bear.

Jan 12, 2009 - 1:26 pm 29. BrokeAsTunes:

Man, people just have no idea about the reality of being a musician in this day and age (or any other for that matter.) A gig is a gig and a gig in a fancy winery is a good gig! Those people have just as much a right as anyone to enjoy Steve and Allison’s music and they have every right to play for them without a bunch of ignorant people making some very far-fetched assumptions about their credibilty. Steve Earle has proven his beyond a shadow of a doubt with an unmatached catalogue of undeniable quality. The idea that playing that gig means he’s some kind of hypocrite is laughable.

Jan 12, 2009 - 1:31 pm 30. zrodfx:

Bugs, I would recommend the movie “A Mighty Wind”, by Christopher Guest. It does for the folk era, what “Spinal Tap’ did for old rockers. Actually, the people who produced and starred in Spinal Tap, are the same people who did this movie.

Jan 12, 2009 - 2:31 pm 31. sean sarto:

To add, the Grungers, basically the white working classs heirs to the punkers, wore second hand clothes an’ denounced the coporate mantra…whereas the African Gangsta took corporate logos, football team mascots,an’”new flashy Bling” as their symbols and therefore courted the corporate jet set mentality that supported the ideology that “art is advertising” (it is my contention that “art” is an invividual expression, “Indutrsy” is orginization..the two twains don’t meet..expect in the primal ordinance of sex)…I called this strategy that the ghetto crowd was using, urban “camoflauge”…because it is subversive racial politics and agenda disguised by manipulating the economic institution through the mechanisims of competitive commerce…a pretense of “buisness strategm”. (To add these same “underprivilleged” Africans were making alliances and deals with Third World sweat shops to make the threads clothes to affix those labels on..then they pose themselves as righteous soldiers of Social justice…”Sean John” is nothing more then T-shirts)…It is essentially the policy’s of segregation being reinterpreted and applied upon upon the founding Anglo poulation’s system using “class” because it is a divisive factor in any racial order,(notice how working class white boys are kept non- existent in the medium…as are working class adults as was the majority and of folk musicians prior to the 1950′& 60’s an’ the emergence of the Bob Dylans an Pete Seegers of the world…..in this you can see the industry’s effect) “Class” can be utilized by invasive communities as a determinent of social mobility and arbitration and thus a weapon of disruption or mitigation.
“Grungers” were adamantly against the pervasivenes of Idoltry and things like “Air Jordans”…the rappers embraced it as their own product and the corporate boardmen fell for the ole “good for the company, good for the nation” schtick, hook, line an’ sinker.. I don’t know who’s gonna bail them out now…certainly not me, “working-class American folk singer” ( And I would agree with anyone who is familiar with modern folk that it is mostly dominated by the Berkshire an’ Berkley professor’s sons and daughters fancy cofee an’ microbrew crowd (ie John Gorka’s, Shawn Colvins, nostalgic Celtic music..etc..an’ I would include Ramblin’ Jack amongst them)…not dispossessd American blue collar factory workers, not anyone who poses a threat to the investments of social order and class…I tried ta find my place in that crowd an they jest wanted a good actor..an’advertisemnet for their orginization (a “profit”,”prophet” if you will)..an so they used my labors and patriotisim and Protestant ethic against me…jest like those in the corporate offices who use the Springsteens, an’the Dylan’s, an’ Obama’s…etc…for the same disenfranchising purpose.

Jan 12, 2009 - 2:33 pm 32. Christina:

I wish that some of you would sit down and think before you write. You are so eager to stomp anyone who appears to confirm your rather bigoted ideas about people who espouse progressive politics, and unwilling (or perhaps unable) to THINK. Why aren’t any of you (except Donna V) even remotely interested in the hyposcrisy of the audience? Maggie: do you really think that the media beating up on Joe the Plumber (whom McCain brought into public view, by the way) is really the equivalent of murder? Sissy: do you really believe that folk singers are among the “elite” of this country? Personally, I think the “elite” are the wealthy, and they are the ones the other 95% of us should hold accountable.

Jan 12, 2009 - 5:10 pm 33. Jon Quate:

Wow I stumbled on this article while looking for info on Folk Music. I don’t know if this site is a parody or not. If it isn’t that would be very sad. I really hope it is some comedy, parody site, because if people are as stupid, bigoted, and uninformed as these posts imply, the job of “dumbing down America” is complete.

Jan 12, 2009 - 6:26 pm 34. Bugs:

After all this going on about folkies I had to read some about Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. One thing that sticks out is what he said in an interview about a documentary his daughter made about him. He basically said he made a conscious decision to become Ramblin’ Jack – to become this cowboy-like workin’ man with a high-lonesome voice and a countryfied accent. Because that’s what he wanted to be instead of a Jewish doctor, lawyer or businessman from New York City. Apparently, it went beyond just adopting a stage persona. He completely changed his own identity to conform with his love for cowboys and their music.

I think of Jack as an eccentric – a colorful guy who defined himself the way he chose to. I guess it’s called “reinventing yourself.” But as far as I know, he didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t just to make his audience more receptive to some message he was pushing. I don’t know if he even had a message.

Modern folkies who perform in upscale venues don’t really bother me. Like I said, I don’t think the “folk” exist anymore. We’ve been sort of leveled. The “folk” are now musical consumers just like everyone else. That’s one of the contradictions of modern folk music. In the past, the “folk” had to invent their own music about their own lives. That’s what made it special. Today, the “folk” just go to Wal Mart and buy a CD. They don’t make up their own, unique tunes – they have other people to write tunes for them. Sometimes those people are “folk” themselves, but more often they’re just specialists who are good at a particular style of music. I think that’s what it’s about – style, not authenticity.

Jan 12, 2009 - 7:16 pm 35. BMoon:

Broke, you obviously have no sense of irony.

Jan 12, 2009 - 8:06 pm 36. Jim Baker:

I don’t care about folk music politics, or even folk music.

Jan 12, 2009 - 9:56 pm 37. BrokeAsTunes:

B Moon assumes I have no sense of irony because I don’t see the issue via their own assumptions, which include; Steve Earle is “posturing” and that his music is “antiquated.” Sorry, neither is true. Steve has a long history of putting himself on the line for the causes he supports and sings about-more than most artists you’re ever going to find. There’s also nothing “antiquated” about modern folk music-the style in which Steve chooses to work. It’s a continuously evolving form which draws on rich traditions while absorbing new sounds, ideas, and subjects that are part of the current world we live in. In fact few musicians exemplify this better than Steve. Believe me, he’s not living in the past. Finally, how can it be assumed that the patrons of the winery are “aging, wealthy hippies.” C’mon. They’re probably a wide ranging bunch of people with all kinds of backgrounds, beliefs and values. The fact of the matter is that the angle of this whole story is based on these kinds of unsupported assumptions. Obviously there are many people who will readily buy into this kind nonsense.

Jan 13, 2009 - 8:27 am 38. sean sarto:

Bugs in 36…I have to say I would mostly agree with your assessment…style an’ costume..fashion is all…faced it to be a musician today…requires you don’t work any other kinda job…that you spend all yer time absorbed in yer public image..selling that image…no matter the truth of it…it doesn’t matter as long as you accept it as part of an “act”…an’ not somethin’ greater…which quite honestly, it is. That’s whats pathetic about Ramblin’ Jack an’ his kind, he didn’t even percieve he was underminin’ the integrity of other’s people’s lives an’ sacrafices…jest so folks like his father could beget more sons like himself…
ANother point should be made here; How did Ron Radosh get the rights to post a Bob Dylan picture for this article? SONY folks are very aggressive about maintaining royalties…they don’t give a crap about if it’s pro or con Dylan…as long as the franchise works…

Jan 13, 2009 - 10:41 am 39. sean sarto:

Bugs in “34″ I correct myself…

Jan 13, 2009 - 10:42 am 40. Bill:

Doesn’t anyone see the irony that Bob Dylan who is seen on the homepage linking to this story is the fellow behind the song the anti-semitic apologists for Hamas would like us to forget, “Neighborbood Bully.”

Jan 13, 2009 - 11:08 am 41. M:

There is no revolution,merely a perpetuation of the Establishment.

Or something like that.

Cut me some slack,comrades,it’s been longer than I care to remember since those all night dormroom bull sessions.

Jan 13, 2009 - 11:33 am 42. Glasko:

Since when is it hypocracy to sing about the poor to an audience of the rich??? What better venue, I ask?

Jan 13, 2009 - 1:28 pm 43. Bugs:

Full disclosure: I never listen much to current folk music. Don’t fret about its politics at all – it’s just the style and the subject matter and the general…aura that surrounds it. A lot of it seems too self-conscious, too precious or something. I have nightmares about Nanci Griffith…

I do like older stuff – mostly pre-Woody Guthrie or modern renditions of the same. I guess you’d call it “traditional” folk rather than “neo-folk.” (Did I just coin that name?)

Ultimately, I guess, it’s all down to individual taste.

Jan 13, 2009 - 2:41 pm 44. paul_unalaska:

Folk music. There’s no such thing. It’s solely to make money. Period. The only difference is it’s insipid lines and nonsensical stories. ie. see Bob Dylan.

Neil Young for example. Mr. Young put out an album with a song titled, ‘Let’s Roll’ an homage to the 9/11 flight in Pennsylvania. A few years later there’s another ditty titled, “Impeach the President.’ Ahh, the comforts of folk music.. living on both sides of the political spectrum.

Joni Mitchell cashed out of the scene because she was no longer making money. But Joni, I thought you wrote, sang ‘for the people.’ Absolute rubbish. Thank goodness, if I had to hear another cover of ‘Paved Paradise..’ (Is there anyone more irritating than Marc Cohn? ‘Walking in Memphis’ – gag!)

If only the other crooners of 70’s am music would follow suit and go way of the dodo. Jackson Browne, James Taylor (Mr. Taylor’s new album is.. drum roll.. Covers! I’m shocked. His music was always ’so deep.’) I truly don’t know what’s worse. Disco or this crapola. These supposed do-gooders singing about the injustices in the world and yet, drowning in the caveats of their capitalistic venture. Their hypocrites and con-men all under the guise of ‘Peace & love.’

Jan 13, 2009 - 3:24 pm 45. Alex Bensky:

I don’t begrudge Earle making a living wherever he can. I would be curious to know if he inquired into what the place pays its employees and whether that wage is commensurate with his principles and a place that charges %5,000 a throw for membership.

Fortunately I’m a craft beer buff and my local brewpub doesn’t charge anything at all to walk in…and they have two dollar beer on Mondays.

Jan 13, 2009 - 4:56 pm 46. spike:

nick, re-read your own BS:
—————————-
1. Communism is not the same thing as socialism.

-communism is merely socialism at gunpoint

2. Socialism is about equality, not about totalitarianism.

-socialism is about equality only in that everyone ends up with the sams ’stuff’ whether he/she earned any of it, or just stood around with one hand out and one thumb up his/her a##…it’s the fantasy of every kid who lost a race, failed to make a base hit, got knocked out of a dodgeball game 10 seconds after it started, or couldn’t whine their way into getting the ‘cool kids’ to like them.

socialism is a system that rewards indolence and failure and punishes initiative and success

Jan 14, 2009 - 8:14 am 47. Paul - Indiana:

Re #44. Additionally, Paul, ‘country music’ is an oxymoron.

Jan 14, 2009 - 9:38 am 48. spike:

re #47

kind of like ‘liberal thought?’

Jan 14, 2009 - 10:06 am 49. paul_unalaska:

Paul – Indiana – I, ‘Second that emotion.’

The country music ‘awards’, ‘music’ is anything but nowadays. Patsy Cline, Connie Francis etc., is replaced by ‘artists’ who haven’t any depth, substance.

My wife and I have found comfort, solace in modern classical music. I’d returned recently to the U.S. overseas and saw an Icelandic classical music group while in Brussels. Their name, ‘Olafur Arnalds.’ I recommend listening via Youtube if available. It’d given me hope there’s artists who still recognize, appreciate their predecessors and write, play accordingly.

Jan 14, 2009 - 10:27 am 50. Jim Baker:

Musicians are about as useful as preachers, politicians, and poets. While they can produce pleasing sounds, they produce nothing else. As long as people are willing to pay to hear pleasing sounds, these folks will continue to make a living.

Jan 14, 2009 - 12:49 pm 51. The Historian:

LEFTY’S ARE GOOD NEWS FOR GOP
The far left is just what the Republican party needs.

http://greensrealworld.blogspot.com/2009/01/best-hope-for-gop-far-left.html

Jan 14, 2009 - 1:00 pm 52. Pat J:

I prefer folk music over the fascist jingoist overtones of the likes of Toby Keith.

Jan 14, 2009 - 1:05 pm 53. commie atheist:

Shorter Ron Radosh: Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, no conservative Republicans ever attended Sidwell Friends School.

Jan 14, 2009 - 1:10 pm 54. Sam:

You have GOT to be kidding me. Somehow you’re exposing irony of scandalous proportions, because Bob Dylan appears to be liberal, yet wrote a song that decries someone who happened to go to a “liberal” leaning school? You treat everything remotely left-leaning as though it were all part of the same amorphous blob. What loyalty should Dylan have to that school? His concern was to expose and lament the existence of extreme social problems, not to protect some kind of liberal Illuminati. Furthermore, you seem to be insinuating that this deranged alumni somehow reveals the school to be a festering pot of hate crime advocacy. By that logic, does Virginia Tech not advocate school shootings?

Jan 14, 2009 - 3:44 pm 55. Donna V.:

Trouble with “folk” music today is that there are no more “folk” as folkies define them.

Well, Bugs, I fear the times, they are a changin’.

Give us 4 or 8 years of the New New Deal and we’ll all be eligible for “folk” status once again – because we’ll be broke once Obama, Reid, and Pelosi are done gangbanging us for our own good.

Ah, yes, I can see the hits a’ coming: “The Subprime Bailout Blues,” “Hey, hey, hey, where’s my 401-K?” “Global Warming is Here and I’m Freezing My A** Off” – ah, yes, the folkies will have plenty of material.

Jan 14, 2009 - 7:39 pm 56. Jim Baker:

I am no fan of Toby Keith, but Pat J, could you please give us an example of a fascist and jingoist overtone so I will know what the hell you are talking about?

Jan 14, 2009 - 8:48 pm 57. Ultron 24000:

Hasn’t Keith always said that he is a Democrat….and didn’t he come out for Obama during the election?

Jan 16, 2009 - 9:32 am 58. George Clarke:

Nick,

The problem with socialism is that it destroys the money supply. Money is congealed profit. The only way you can generate more profit and more money is to reward the producers with that profit, which means the workers should be the private owners. Socialism outlaws, partially or totally, private ownership and the ability to expand the national supply of profit and money is greatly curtailed. The immense supply of money and wealth that has been accumulated with capital creation combined with private ownership and free markets is suddenly dissipated as a bunch of self-interested power grabbing monopolists unnecessarily limit the supply of production even while they are making sure that their power centers grab more and more of the shrinking supply by governmental force, without any obligation on their part of reciprocation and exchange.

It doen’t have to be this way to achieve equality of opportunity and private ownership of the growing supply of capital, if everyone is provided a private meaningful share of capital ownership based on effort. The Socialist pursuit of the forced reduction of the supply of wealth is not necessary to achieve equality (and won’t achieve equality anyway) once the supply of money and wealth is maximized by making everyone a capital owner properly trained in the purposes and obligations of capital accumulation.

The next time you are inclined to move history backward toward the socialism of fuedalism, think of how many people your reactionaly theories will force into starvation and poverty just because you have been brainwashed into thinking less wealth and money somehow gets us closer to equality, which is not true anyway.

Jan 18, 2009 - 2:57 pm 59. Pat J:

Jim Baker:
I am no fan of Toby Keith, but Pat J, could you please give us an example of a fascist and jingoist overtone so I will know what the hell you are talking about?
—————————
Keith’s lyrics are sophomoric at best.

Jan 20, 2009 - 6:10 pm 60. David:

Pat J,

YOU are “sophomoric”.

And you didn’t asnwer the question asked by Jim Baker.

Jan 21, 2009 - 1:59 am 61. Max Friedman:

Steve Earle has openly described himself as perhaps the richest “marxist” in country music, which he also admitted was a little hypocritical. However, he wants to use his money to promote marxism and socialism.
Why not? People have been listening to the aging Stalinist turned Maoist turned marxist-du-jour Pete Seeger since he was a Party member way back when. Nothing wrong with his music. Just his mind. Warped, like some old records I have.

Jan 21, 2009 - 9:05 pm 62. Max Friedman:

Re Paul #47. Country music is not an oxymoron. It has evolved and grown. I think singers like Tobey Keith, Keith Urban, Brooks & Dunn, Shania Twain (I love that woman, along with Martina McBride and Sara Evans, and the always have Deanna Carter), have given country music an upbeat (I’ll call it rock N roll or Rhythm and Blues beats)that makes it more singeable and danceable.

Say whatever you want about Billy Ray Cyrus (not a bad actor) but his “Ackie Breakie Heart” was a lot more danceable and memorable than the “Macarena.” The same for “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” by B&D.

As the CC Music Machine would say, “Get up and dance, yeah.”

PS: Just in case you think I have forgotten my rock & roll roots, my first 45 record was (and still is, with jacket) “Jailhouse Rock”. Long live the king!

Jan 21, 2009 - 9:12 pm

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