I was recently going through some old college papers and I found some newspaper articles that included a quote that december could use for a sig. I offer it free of charge:
My word, that’s a brilliant yet pithy reduction of the very foundation of right wing philosophy! Why this little-known comment never became a popular slogan among the common conservative, I’ll never know… Grab it, december, before simply everyone wants it!
Persinally, “live free or die” has a certain something.
I ask you again, december: Have you listened to the song or read the lyrics?
If not, I suggest to you that your strident insistences of what the song really means merely serve to display your prejudice. I’ve no doubt that direct knowledge of the song would fail to sway your opinion, but at least it would then be an informed opinion with which I could offer to disagree (had I listened to the song as well), instead of a position of ignorance to which I can only offer derision.
I have read some of the lyrics, as reported by Reuters:
*"We came to fight the jihad, our hearts were pure and strong.
We filled the air with our prayers and we prayed for our martyrdom.
Allah has some other plans, a secret not revealed.
Now they’re dragging me back with my head in the sack to the land of the infidel.
If I should die, I’ll rise up to the sky like Jesus."
"I’m just an American boy, raised on MTV,
And I’ve seen all the kids in the soda pop bands,
But none of them look like me.
So I started looking round, and I heard the word of God.
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
of Allah, Peace be upon him." *
Would you care to explain why you deem the analogy inappropriate?
Sure. As has been pointed out to you before in this forum, comparing non-racist remarks/comments/writings to verifiably racist r/c/w to try and generate equivalent outrage is not only fallacious but dishonest as well. (Can you show the “racist” remarks in Earle’s lyrics?)
Now, would you care to explain what exactly about the lyrics you’ve finally (after much prompting) decided to review support your preemptively formed opinion that the song is “anti-American”? Or would you rather wait for the rest of the lyrics, so that you can put them all in context?
My entire point here, should it have continued to escape you, is that your charge of “anti-American” seems to have been based not on the content of the song, but on its mere perspective. Some of us might consider such kneejerk condemnation as counter-American in and of itself.
december, would you agree that the person who wrote the following lyrics (from an actual song, btw) was probably a racist, anti-Semitic homophobe?
Are there any queers in the theater tonight?
Get them up against the wall!
That one there, he doesn’t look quite right to me–
get him up against the wall!
And that one looks Jewish, and that one’s a coon;
who let all this riff-raff into the room?
That one’s smoking a joint, and that one’s got spots!
If I had my way, I’d have all of you shot!!
Or the person who wrote the following, I think we can agree, is probably a misogynist, woman-hating right-wing gun nut:
Well, I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Then to see you with another man.
You’d better keep your head, little girl,
or you won’t know where I am.
You’d better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man – that’s the end, little girl.
pldennison – I’ll bite on your first example, which a search turned up as Pink Floyd. I do find thse lyrics offensive. I do not know what the song is intended to mean. It may be that the intent is to disparage people who hold racist, antisemitic, homophobic views, but ISTM that singing those actual words is more likely to help make those views acceptible. YMMV
Furthermore, with any performer, there’s always the suspicion that the primary purpose of the lyrics is to be shocking, in order to get publicity. It may be merely a convenient excuse that these shocking words can be justified as supposedly meaning the opposite of what they sound like.
Ann Coulter, writer of that book about liberal lies about conservatives - “Liberals Hate America”
Hmm if they hated America, they wouldnt be working so hard to change it.
The purpose of the lyrics is to show the inevitable hateful effects of social isolation. How the psychology of a mad man works. Go watch “The Wall” Pink Floyd.
I was referring not to the treatment itself but to the idea of holding them up on non-American land for what is already a long period of time without making significant efforts to weed out the innocents etc. I don’t see anything particularly un-American about such a legitimate criticism.
Let us not forget the misogynistic, drug-addled heathen who sang, “Early one mornin’ while makin’ the rounds, I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down…”
Great country music has often been written from the scoundrel’s point of view.
Dr. J
december replied to me: *“While I have always agreed that exaggerated insults serve no useful purpose, I think that [the patriotism issue] is a pretty silly reason to avoid them.”
Kimstu, would you apply this standard to race? I wouldn’t. I think exaggerated racial insults should be actively discouraged, not just refuted.*
So do I, but not on the grounds of some kind of appeal to national “morale”, just on the grounds of appropriate standards for respect and courtesy in public discourse. If you want to argue that critics should not call Bush a “moron” (or any other outright term of abuse) because it’s rude, mean, and discourteous, I’m with you all the way.
But what you’re claiming is that it’s tolerable to use such language in peacetime but unacceptable during the current “war” because it’s insufficiently patriotic. I don’t buy that argument.
“So I started looking round, and I heard the word of God. And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word of Allah, Peace be upon him.” [Steve Earle, John Walker’s Blues]
:eek: There has got to be a mistake or a typo somewhere in there, either on the part of the songwriter or somewhere along the path of transmission. “Peace be upon him” (“pbuh”) is a phrase that Muslims traditionally use after the name of Muhammad or other (dead) prophets or saints, but it is not correctly applied to God! Maybe it’s meant as an oblique reference to Muhammad’s having transmitted the word of God, but it looks extreeeeeeeemely weird and I strongly doubt that either JWL or any other Muslim would ever say it.
Be that as it may, I think other posters here are right in saying that the lyrics are obviously meant to be imagining JWL’s perspective rather than expressing Earle’s own opinions about whether America is “the land of the infidel” or whether JWL is a “martyr”. As Dr. J points out, it’s a very common literary device, in songs and elsewhere, to tell a story from the perspective of the bad guy. If you think that’s unacceptable because it might seem to condone the bad guys’ views and make them too sympathetic, you’re going to have to throw out a hell of a lot of literature, including not just many country songs but Nabokov’s Lolita and large chunks of Paradise Lost.
** Kimstu **: *"…you’re going to have to throw out a hell of a lot of literature, including…Nabokov’s Lolita and large chunks of Paradise Lost."
Precisely, kimstu.
And since you’re enumerating some the many great European authors who have relied on this ironic device, I thought I’d just mention those true American classics…
(Ha-yeah!)
Runnin’ with the devil
(Oh, yeah! Ya-yeah!)
Runnin’ with the devil
(Woo! Woo!)
Runnin’ with the devil
(Ah-ha, yeah! Ah-ha, yeah! Ah-hah, yeah!)
Runnin’ with the devil (Woo!)
Damn it- I was just going to mention Paradise Lost. I used to have a coworker who was convinced that Milton was an atheist who said “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” as an expression of his (Milton’s) own personal beliefs. I tried several times to explain to him that it was Milton’s character Satan who actually said it, but he never seemed to get it.
I also worked on an off-Broadway production of The Cocoanuts, the stage version of the Marx Bros. movie. When the producers were trying to find a theatre for it, they tried the Lamb’s Theatre on 44th St., which is owned by a church. Now The Cocoanuts was written in 1925, with songs by Irving Berlin (and is very funny) but the Lamb’s would not rent to us because they did not like the title of one of the songs, which was sung by the bad guys: Pack Up Your Sins and Go To The Devil. JDM
Found a quote in the “Steve Earle” thread in the BBQ pit that has what I surmise to be a more accurate version of the verse that made me go :eek: :
Much more theologically correct. 
Interesting, btw, that that other version also has “peace be upon him” following the name of Jesus (which is also traditional practice for Muslims) in the line “…I’ll rise up to the sky like Jesus”.
If that is indeed the way Earle wrote the song, I wonder why the version december quoted (and which I’ve seen elsewhere too) left that phrase out? Perhaps because portraying a Muslim as overtly showing reverence for Jesus would mitigate the “shock value” of the song’s general theme and wouldn’t get the “patriotic” readers riled up enough? Hmmmmmmmm… Well, it sure is hard to judge underlying motives.
JDM: I used to have a coworker who was convinced that Milton was an atheist who said “Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven” as an expression of his (Milton’s) own personal beliefs.
LOL! Priceless. You should have just told him that Milton also said “Father Eternal, thine is to decree, Mine both in Heav’n and Earth to do thy will supream” and let his head explode from the contradiction.
I dunno. I’m almost willing to give december the benefit of his interpretation of the lyrics. Have some entertainers done wildly offensive things just to get publicity? Sure. Do some entertainers actually believe some of the “terrible” ideas and/or emotions that they project? Sure. Why do we need to defend Earle’s lyrics? If Earle is not issuing a blanket condemnation of the U.S., surely there are others out there whose lyrics will not be found to be ironic or satiric.
Now let’s suppose that Earle is simply a person who has a “bad attitude” who is using shock lyrics simply to get attention.
Alternatively, let us suppose that he is someone who truly opposes “American” politics or society or way of life or whatever.
Now, given either assumption, what does throwing out the labels “un-American” or “anti-American” really do? Basically, it simply puts Earle in a little box for us to ignore–something we can do without the label, so the label is simply redundant–or should be.
By placing a big “un-American” stamp on Earle’s forehead, it allows numerous people to ignore him without even hearing what he said. They don’t have to examine his lyrics or his background or his presentation. They do not have to consider whether the U.S. has made errors in judgement that Earle may be pointing out–or exaggerating. They do not even have to take the time to find out the truth of his topics and discover why he is wrong. They can simply look at the label and mindlessly ignore him because the “right” people have branded him “un-American.” No thought is required. This is a very comfortable way to live.
(And there is no question that some on the Left and some among Libertarians and Greens and other groups do exactly the same thing. Once you’ve pointed your herd down the trail, you simply hold up labels at any branch in the trail and the herd shuffles off in the direction you want them to.)
However, in the hands of the “right” people, that label can be used to harrass and intimidate Earle–or anyone who chooses to listen to Earle to see whether he had said anything to consider, despite the package into which he put his ideas. It is a very convenient tool that can be used to silence Earle without any further thought. It is, in fact, a sort of demonization–the sort of demonization against which december has railed at length when applied to the Right (while steadfastly ignoring any examples of demonization applied to the Left).
This sort of labeling is very convenient for taking to legislatures and Congress. "Let’s resolve to make these (apply label here) people outlaws because they are bad people–in fact, they are unAmerican. Begin patriotic music.
We’ve done it before. That horrible opponent of all humanity, Farley Mowat, (Never Cry Wolf) was denied a visa to speak in the U.S. by the Reagan administration to prevent him from corrupting the American Way of Life with his tales of conservation of Nature. (He shared the undesirable list with about 400 others of whom the Reaganites did not approve.)
So, on the “moral principle” level, december resolutely deplores this sort of labeling and demonization–at least when it is used against people he supports.
tomndebb: *That horrible opponent of all humanity, Farley Mowat, (Never Cry Wolf) was denied a visa to speak in the U.S. by the Reagan administration to prevent him from corrupting the American Way of Life with his tales of conservation of Nature. *
??!? A visa? Isn’t Mowat Canadian? Aside from the general ugliness of that kind of blacklisting, since when the hell do we require the TruNSFers to get a visa to come into this country? They’re CaNAdians fer chrissakes, they’re right next door! They never ask me for a visa when I go visit them! What the flick is this? Is it some kind of special invited-speaker requirement? 
Mowat could probably drive up to any bridge in New York or Michigan and drive across with no problem. However, he was engaged for a speaking tour and needed the appropriate work papers in order to come into the U.S. and earn money. The tour had to be cancelled because those papers were denied him because he was “hostile” to the U.S. (He probably was–he’s kind of cranky–but he hardly represented a threat to the country. This is the sort of nonsense that bothers me about labeling people. It always encourages idiots with power to exercise that power wrongly.)
As a Mowat fan, I do remember this somewhat. I was appalled. No doubt Mowat is a lefty, but he’s an important writer. In addition to Never Cry Wolf, I recommend People of the Deer – a fantastically moving book.
I tried to find details of this episode on google by entering Farley Mowat visa, but all the hits I got seemed to be about using a Visa card to order his books. 