Well, I’ve been through the new Neil Young album – Living with War – a couple of times now, and I really like it. It’s got that rock-country-feedback kinda sound to it. Very Crazy Horse, I think. It’s up on Rhapsody, and it’s a higher quality than it is on the free streaming site. There are some classic lyrics, too, of course.<\/p>\n
Let’s Impeach the President uses dubya’s own words against him, punctuated with a chorus of “flip…flop.”<\/p>\n
What if Al-Qaeda had blown up the levees?
\nWould New Orleans have been safer that way?
\nSheltered by our government’s protection?
\nOr was someone just not home that day?<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nLooking for a leader is another great song. <\/p>\n
Maybe it’s Obama, but he think’s he’s too young.
\nMaybe it’s Powell, to right what he’s done wrong.
\nAmerica has a leader, but he’s not in the house.
\nHe’s walking here among us, and we got to seek him out.
\n[…]
\nAmerica is beautiful, but it’s got an ugly side.
\nWe’re looking for a leader, with the Great Spirit on his side.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nShock and Awe:<\/p>\n
Back in the days of Shock and Awe
\nWe came to liberate them all
\nHistory was a cruel judge of overconfidence,
\nBack in the days, of Shock and Awe.<\/p>\nBack in the days of Mission Accomplished,
\nOur chief was landing on the deck.
\nThe sun was setting on a glowing photo op,
\nback in the days of Mission Accomplished.<\/p>\nThousands of bodies in the ground
\nBrought home in boxes to a trumpet’s sound
\nNoone sees them comin’ home that way
\nthousands buried in the ground.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThere are many others as well, but the last song on the album is an a capella version of the 100-member choir singing “America the Beautiful” that put a lump way down deep in my throat, and brought a tear to my eye. It’s a beautiful rendition, of course, but that’s not what had me misty-eyed. <\/p>\n
Listening to it, in the context of this album, and of the world we now live in, it seemed to me to be a requiem – a dirge, for the death of the America that I grew up in. The America that’s been killed by this administration and their enablers and apologists. I know we’ve never exactly lived up to our ideals. We’ve done unspeakable things in countless parts of the world, to be sure. But somehow, there was always at least an idea of what this county was supposed<\/em><\/strong> to be, and what it stood for, even if it didn’t always manage to do the right thing. <\/p>\n
Where once we were proud of our right to speak our minds, now we think twice about what we say, and around whom we say it. People with a “No Blood for Oil” bumper sticker are banned from seeing their president – their servant – at a public event. We watch as the mother of a fallen soldier is cuffed and roughly hustled out of The People’s House, for the crime of wearing a t-shirt – as if asking “how many more?” is an act of sedition. “News” has become state-sponsored propaganda. American citizens are taken away in darkenss, with no right to an attorney – ever. Others are hauled off to be tortured in a foreign country, or to rot in a dog pen at our gulag in Guant\u00e1namo Bay. The president signs a bill outlawing torture with a statement saying the law doesn’t apply to him. He launches a program of warrantless wiretapping of US Citizens, in direct defiance of the Fourth Amendment, and our Congress – the people’s “Representatives” do nothing to stop him; even a meaningless “censure” is deemed too radical.<\/p>\n
So, anyway, that’s why hearing America the Beautiful made me kinda sad, because, in spite of all its flaws, I think it was, once, something beautiful. That chapter, sadly, appears to be ending. It all changed back on September 11th, but it wasn’t Al Qaeda or the attacks that did it. Everything changed because we – perhaps not we, here, but the collective “We The People” – allowed it to change. “We” allowed a group of madmen and thieves to twist and pervert the very principles upon which this nation was founded, and if this is allowed to continue, they will have succeeded where Stalin and Goebbels failed. <\/p>\n
I only hope “We The People” are finally waking from our collective coma in time to stop these madmen before the damage they do is impossible to repair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, I’ve been through the new Neil Young album – Living with War – a couple of times now, and I really like it. It’s got that rock-country-feedback kinda sound to it. Very Crazy Horse, I think. It’s up on Rhapsody, and it’s a higher quality than it is on the free streaming site. There […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.morningseditionists.com\/msblog2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}