Thursday, August 05, 2004
"Blind Faith In Your Leaders Can Get You Killed"
So there's a massive concert tour mobilizing out there. The Vote For Change tour is an unprecedented collaboration of musicians putting on multiple concerts in cities across the so-called swing states with an eye on mobilizing people to vote in the election and hopefully change the direction of the country.
One of the major artists involved is a guy whose musical career is very close to my heart: Bruce Springsteen. Longtime fans of Springsteen know what his political views are. All you really need to do is listen to his anecdotes on his various live albums to get a feel for it. Ironically enough, Springsteen has also been one of the more misquoted and misinterpreted artists. Anyone who has actually read the lyrics to "Born In The USA" knows it's about the hardships of a returning Vietnam veteran...hardly good background music for the Reagan campaign.
Normally one to not be so overtly political, Springsteen has joined up on this tour and has given a few interviews on his views as well as a NY Times Op-Ed piece. As usual, he has some interesting things to say:
"Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of 'one nation indivisible.'"
"We offered up the lives of the best of our young people under circumstances that have been discredited. I had to live through that when I was young myself, and for any of us that lived through the Vietnam War, it was just very devastating."
"If there was one single thing I’d like to give every high school kid in the United States, it would be a two-month trip through Europe at some point during the formative years. Because it’s very difficult to conjure up a real worldview from within our borders. It’s hard. It’s hard because we’re so big, and the hegemony of American culture is so weighty and so heavy that it’s very difficult without stepping outside and realizing what it’s like to have the next country just a two-hour drive away, to have a certain kind of interdependence that is different than what we have here. It’s just a certain view of the way the world works that is different. So if I could give every young kid one thing, that would be it -- because it would broaden what we listen to, the way we perceive ourselves, the types of leaders we choose. It would change the nation dramatically."
"Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?"
