Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | Angry young man
via largeheartedboy
A primer on why it's so difficult to take the angry left (would be Rock Star Division) seriously. In an article about the Canadian rock band The Stills (who "insist that their US gigs host a booth for Music for America, a partisan not-for-profit organisation that encourages young music fans to vote"), the British newspaper The Guardian shares some telling quotes:
"There's something very, very wrong happening, especially in terms of American foreign policy, American policy in general. And Tony Blair is just a henchman," he [Tim Fletcher, lead singer and guitarist] says.
"Things are pretty bad in the world right now, and we truly believe that if young people in the US don't pay attention and vote, things can only get worse," says Fletcher.
Huh? {begin run-on sentence here} A surprisingly large number of religious fanatics are attempting to overthrow the very idea of Western Democracy - the very thing that enables young Tim to pursue his rock and roll dreams and speak his mind about and against whatever he pleases with only the personal opinion of those his message reaches to worry about - and his greatest concern is that America's policy of engaging these fanatics (I can only assume this is what he refers to) is dangerous part of the equation. I say again, huh?
What causes otherwise intelligent and creative folk to suffer such an intellectual disconnect? Perhaps this is small clue:
On the band's home city of Montreal:
"There's a Montreal state-of-mind with very leftist political ideologies floating around. There's a lot of radical politics, anarchist politics, feminist politics. I think people are politically aware and interested.
"People can go to school for really cheap and become fly-by-night pseudo intellectuals and ruminate," he adds. "It's a pretty safe environment to indulge yourself in that."
Freedom allows for an astonishing diversity of ideas - being able to indulge one's fly-by-night pseudo intellectual leftist ruminations in a safe enviornment comes from the freedom the previously mentioned fanatics want to destroy. Like it or not it is the United States and its allies' staunch protection of that freedom that allow for the ideological trust fund kids of the world to hang out in Uncle Sam's rec room, get high, and blame every broken heart and pimple on "the Man". They didn't have to earn the freedom they they so willfully exploit so they lose track of its value.
If the other side wins - if the fanatics hold sway over the once free world - you can bet the lefty actors, artists, poets, authors and rock and rollers will be close behind the hated Republicans on the scaffold - after they've all gotten to know each other in the torture camps.
The article also includes this howler:
It's unusual, if not risky, for an up-and-coming young band - and a fairly marketable one at that - to be so political. It was barely two years ago that the Dixie Chicks were crucified for their anti-Bush remarks at a London gig. Since then only ageing agitators like Steve Earle, the Beastie Boys and Joan Baez have dared get on their soap boxes. New artists fear harming their careers if they voice an opinion.
I don't know what alternate universe the article is refering to - up and coming artists - at least in the clubs, bars and concerts I go to - are usually the most outspoken.
Also, how dare they refer to the Beastie Boys as "ageing"!
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