John Mellencamp on yesterday’s KQ Morning Show, talking about why the US prospered so much during the Baby Boom’s childhood:
(paraphrasing very closely)
During World War II, we bombed everyone else back to the Stone Age! That’s why we prospered! There was no competition!
Ah, Coogs. Silly, silly Coogs. We did it, huh? If the US hadn’t been so damn trigger happy, World War II would have worked out for everyone?
Ah, well. We’ll always have Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee.
Schmuck.
I thought it was a point of pride the the U.S. Air Force bombed the beejessus out of Germany and Japan.
It was a matter of fact.
But the US Army Air Force didn’t bomb the whole world, as Mellencamp said. And the US was responsible for a fraction of the overall destruction wrought around the world in the war.
What he was probably trying to say in his semi-literate way is the war was fought just about everywhere BUT mainland USA. We were able to build up a massive industrial base while much of Europe and Asia bore the brundt of a war THEY started.
Cry me a river.
Well, if that was what he was trying to say, he did a piss poor job of it. The phrasing was very much “America was a big bad bully”.
From your paraphrase it looks like Cougar asserted a fairly uncontroversial if overlooked fact. You seem to read the “America was a big bad bully” into it. Do you hate America? Are you ashamed of what we did in WW II? Why else would you read such anti-American ideas into a rather plain statement by Cougar?
Personally most liberals and Democrats take great pride in the fact that FDR brought America through WWII as the one major industrial power whose homeland was untouched by war.
You listen to the KQ Morning Show?
I think that’s your first problem, right there.
From your paraphrase it looks like Cougar asserted a fairly uncontroversial if overlooked fact.
Rubbish. I heard it, you didn’t. His statement was “we bombed everyone”. Like it was an American plot to open new markets and stifle competition.
You seem to read the “America was a big bad bully” into it.
Not a bit.
Do you hate America?
No, I’m a Republican.
Why else would you read such anti-American ideas into a rather plain statement by Cougar?
Spin-doctoring the un-doctorable again, are we?
Personally most liberals and Democrats take great pride in the fact that FDR brought America through WWII as the one major industrial power whose homeland was untouched by war.
That was more a function of two big honking oceans and 10 million American servicepeople than “FDR”.
But let’s face it – when it comes to protecting this nation, FDR, Truman, JFK and LBJ would puke their guts out at the sight of the current Democrat party.
You listen to the KQ Morning Show?
I listen to almost no morning radio, since usually take the bus to work.
But on the odd occasions I do drive, I surf stations pretty quickly – and if something sounds interesting, I stay tuned. Mellencamp, dumb as he is about politics, used to be one of my favorites (Uh Huh, Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee are among my favorite records), so what the heck.
To be fair, if you take this in the context with Mr. Mellencamps very public pronouncements on Bush and Iraq (and war in general) it’s not a long stretch to attribute “America is bad” opinion to him, since he’s pretty much said just that on numerous occasions.
Mitch, you’re gonna wanna hit me for this.
But.
Springsteen, Mellencamp, Seger et al. should record a song together and call it I’m So Damned Working-Class, And That’s Why I’m A Dim-o-crat.
They all apparently believe that part of having “working-class cred” is mouthing the standard leftist tripe. Sad.
Mitch farted: ‘Do you hate America?’
“No, I’m a Republican.”
That means he only hates freedom of speech, religion and press; open, accountable government; fair trials, equal opportunity, truth and justice.
But flags and the national anthem? He’s nuts for ’em. He’s a Republican.
Set ’em up, I knock ’em down.
hates freedom of speech
I oppose McCain/Feingold, campus speech codes, and the “Fairness” Doctrine.
Mitch 1, Clown 0.
religion
I’m a strict constructionist on religion.
2-nil.
and press
Oppose “Fairness” doctrine, believe press shield laws should be extended to citizen media.
40-love.
open, accountable government;
I was a libertarian long before John Ashkkkkroft was sworn in, back when ‘clown and his ilk thought fussing over civil liberties was a Bircher thing.
4-0
fair trials,
For people apprehended in America by American law enforcement not carrying out acts of war against the US (defined fairly strictly)? I’m pretty absolutist.
5-0
equal opportunity,
I am the most ardent feminist you will ever meet; I have a daughter, after all.
6-0
truth
Participate in center-right alternative media, and am thereby more focused on truth than the entire mainstream media.
7-zip.
and justice
I oppose the Clinton-era property forfeiture laws (and opposed their wiretap laws – more onerous than the Patriot Act by a long shot).
Mitch 8
Clown 0.
Thanks for playing. Bring your A – or even your B – game next time.
I like JCM’s Scarecrow, it was produced by Steve Litt, who also did REM’s Life’s Rich Pageant and The Indigo Girls all about the same time.
I don’t care much for JCM and his views. It seems that many of the people who have been very successfull economically from their artistic talent don’t like what it takes to provide and defend a nation that provides such personal, artistical, and economic freedoms.
I use this quote all the time from the former president of the NRA, Kane Robinson. “The scariest people in the world are free people who hate freedom”.
Springsteen may have started it all with his fond allegiance to Woody Guthrie. There’s an ignorance of history there; it’s the belief that Guthrie and his ilk somehow made America free with their paeans to the Working Class and the Unions.
The folks who made America free are, of course, resting under crosses and stars of David in many a military cemetery.
But that’s not so romantic to write about, I suppose…
Yep, JCM at his best (and Litt did produce some of his best) was some great music.
His politics (and, in fact, his personality) have always sucked – but I figure I’ll take musicians’ advice about politics about the same time I take politicians’ advice about music.
Alois,
Not sure that I agree that admiring a musician (whatever their politics) takes anything away from the veterans and the dead…
“We like all of angryclown’s comments. Especially his earlier, funny ones.”
I’m just glad that ‘clown is out of anger-management inpatient treatment.
Hope it takes this time!
Nah, Mitch, I like Springsteen. And Mellencamp. And Seger.
They’re just obsessed with being down with the working class, and that’s okay. I always liked Mellencamp going on about the family farm, although I scratch my head in wonderment sometimes at The Boss and the pictures he paints of an America that hasn’t existed since the Fifties.
the pictures he paints of an America that hasn’t existed since the Fifties.
Well, some of what he wrote about, I could identify in small-town middle America.
But the whole “working class” thing is funny, coming from a guy who’s never held a straight job in his life…
And Springsteen could use an agriculture lesson, too… since when do farmers in the Michigan and Ohio area experience “wheat prices keep on droppin’ till it was like we were bein’ robbed”?
You try to grow wheat around there, you’re going to get robbed all right.
Mitch ruled: “Thanks for playing. Bring your A – or even your B – game next time.”
Kinda hard to win if the jury and prosecutor are the same person. But that’s not something you worry about. Like you said, you’re a Republican.
“Kinda hard to win if the jury and prosecutor are the same person.”
Quick! Call a WAAAAAAHHHHHHmbulance!
AC, it’s Mitch’s blog, get used to it. Don’t like it? Start your own.
Kinda hard to win if the jury and prosecutor are the same person. But that’s not something you worry about. Like you said, you’re a Republican.
No. I’m the absolute master of this blog!
I’m the absolute master of this blog!
Or, in a more colorific fashion:
Let it be said: I run this bitch!
“angry clown”. That would be a great nickname for Garrison Keillor. Or Al Franken, or Nick Coleman. All “angry white males”. And clowns.
I’m surprised AC didn’t pick up on the obscure Woody Allen reference. I question his true New Yorkerishness.
A. Mellencamp was referencing a PBS program about the boomer generation.
B. If you listen to the interview (which is active at the KQRS site) you’ll notice that there is an obvious sarchasm in his tone.
Mitch, your are to nationalism what Al Sharpton is to racism.
Doug, you are to dickheads what Jimi Hendrix was to the guitar.
We’ll have to come out with a term to describe your rage. Perhaps “infidel pimping”.
Nah… Doesn’t really roll off the tongue like “race pimp” so we’ll just stick with incessant whiner.