The Usual Suspects Thursday, August 05, 2004

A thought occurred to me after deadline. In the Stanley Crouch quote, he talks about America "coming through" on progressive causes like unions, labor laws, etc. Meanwhile, in my Springsteen spiel I make mock of those kinds of causes. The difference is, the ideas and movements Crouch was talking about were worthy and appropriate in their era. Certainly we needed trust-busting and child-labor restrictions; certainly we needed desegregation and the Civil Rights Act. But the Ghost of Tom Joad crowd never, as they say, moved on from that era. They romanticized the fight for those causes and stopped asking whether or not the fight had been won or not.

Case in point, Steve Earle:

It's Christmastime in Washington
The Democrats rehearsed
Gettin' into gear for four more years
Things not gettin' worse
The Republicans drink whiskey neat
And thanked their lucky stars
They said, 'He cannot seek another term
There'll be no more FDRs'

I sat home in Tennessee
Staring at the screen
With an uneasy feeling in my chest
And I'm wonderin' what it means

Chorus:
So come back Woody Guthrie
Come back to us now
Tear your eyes from paradise
And rise again somehow
If you run into Jesus
Maybe he can help you out
Come back Woody Guthrie to us now

I followed in your footsteps once
Back in my travelin' days
Somewhere I failed to find your trail
Now I'm stumblin' through the haze
But there's killers on the highway now
And a man can't get around
So I sold my soul for wheels that roll
Now I'm stuck here in this town

Chorus

There's foxes in the henhouse
Cows out in the corn
The unions have been busted
Their proud red banners torn
To listen to the radio
You'd think that all was well
But you and me and cisco know
It's going straight to hell

So come back, Emma Goldman
Rise up, old Joe Hill
The barracades are goin' up
They cannot break our will
Come back to us, Malcolm X
And Martin Luther King
We’re marching into Selma
As the bells of freedom ring

I first heard that song in concert in NYC--and the crowd went positively apeshit. The vibe I got was that they were stunned that a big fat redneck like Steve (this was before his big political coming-out party) could be so...sophisticated. In retrospect, if this isn't the dumbest goddamn statement ever, I'm hard pressed to think of another. It makes Toby Keith sound like Alexis de Tocqueville.

This written during, and about, the Clinton administration. The idea that we are perpetually battling top-hatted capitalist adventurers, or marching on Selma, is ludicrous and dangerous--but obviously profitable. If we're always in danger, we'll always need prophets of doom.

I realize, too, that we are perpetually in danger (for the bible tells me so!). And, yes, there are still social threats on the level of Bull Connor and Uncle Moneybags to contend with--but in new forms, requiring novel responses. To frame the present in outdated terms masks the moral dilemmas we face now and, maybe more important, ignores the progress we've made. The unions have been busted? Excuse me, who are the largest and most powerful donors to the Democratic party? A more imaginative radical might make the case that, with their corruption and forcing of memberships into voting blocs, the unions are as needful of reform as the old workhouses were. Their proud red banners torn? Yeah, there's an image for the world post-1989. (Forced famines, anyone?) And let's get a few more bomb-throwers like Emma Goldman back on the scene while we're at it...

This is of course to ignore the fact that "social" threats at this point are not the biggest issues we face. e.g., terrorism, geopolitcs, those little issues. I'm thinking Steve's--and Bruce's--thinking on all that stuff froze somewhere around the Fourteen Points. (If not the Port Huron statement.)

"Art isn't about beauty; it's about truth," a friend of mine told me once before never speaking to me again. By truth he meant the kind outlined above--i.e., another place's, another time's. I'm all for "truth-telling" in art; but for Chrissakes check the calendar before you do.

@ 7:15:00 AM,

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