Re: Why We Fight/ Not Dark Yet


Delia wrote:
Ken Shain wrote:
really real wrote:
As a Canadian, it may be hard for you to
appreciate how the channels of critical discourse have been closed or
redirected here in the US.


I do indeed appreciate what has been going wrong with the American
democracy. One of the points in the movie Why We Fight was how
patriotism was misused to stop dissent.

Canada has a similar problem these days with our troops taking over for
yours in Kandahar. First, we weren't allowed to see the coffins coming
]vement that gave it its
power. Here in the states, the Democratic Party initially got its power
from the mass movement that had been organizing since the days of the
wned, in part, by
the Vietnam war, paved the way for the systematic fragmentation this
movement into component special interest groups that linger and persist
to this day.

With the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the mass
movement that gave the Dems their power, we see the rapid rise of the
Republicans on the backs of their rank and file, typically rallied
against the very same lifestyle issues represented by the shards and
fragments of what used to be called "the movement."

Now, the Democratic party is an abstraction, an ideal, with no roots in
the communities it represents. It has been reduced to pure politics for
mere survival and mere polemics for its definition. Sure, we have some
promising lights on the horizon, but these candidates will be
charismatically determinate, not issues-based. IMO, of course.

In many ways, Bob saw this coming. To me, it looked like he distanced
himself from the loonies and crazies in this world not once but twice.
He, more than anybody in the music business today, has the positioning
to make a difference. But without a mass movement to give our political
forces power, there is little anyone can do. I am sure that is why he
remains very careful to this day. Not just because of all the dangers,
but because there is some merit to the notion of keeping one's powder
dry. For what, I am not really sure...


I think Bob decided a long time ago that it wasn't his role to speak
directly about political events. I don't see him keeping his powder
dry, so to speak, as directing his comments to the interplay of the
cultural landscape and the human soul. You can see this in a song like
High Water. His comments in the Rolling Stone interview just after the
release of L&T, which also turned out to be just after 9/11, of course,
seem to me to be some of the most salient of his career. I've quoted
them numerous times.


http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5938584/bob_dylan
[RS]This record was released on September 11th -- the same date as the
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I've
talked with several people in the time since then who have turned to
Love and Theft because they find something in it that matches the
spirit of dread and uncertainty of our present conditions. For my part,
I've kept circling around a line from "Mississippi": "Sky full of fire,
pain pourin' down." Is there anything you would like to say about your
reaction to the events of that day?

[BD]One of those Rudyard Kipling poems, Gentlemen-Rankers, comes to my
mind: "We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and
Truth/We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung/And the measure of
our torment is the measure of our youth/God help us, for we knew the
worst too young!" If anything, my mind would go to young people at a
time like this. That's really the only way to put it.

[RS]You mean because of what's at stake for them right now, as we
apparently go to war?

[BD]Exactly. I mean, art imposes order on life, but how much more art
will there be? We don't really know. There's a secret sanctity of
nature. How much more of that will there be? At the moment, the
rational mind's way of thinking wouldn't really explain what's
happened. You need something else, with a capital E, to explain it.
It's going to have to be dealt with sooner or later, of course.
----------

Then, there's the vision of a broken-down banana-republic America that
we get in M&A, where the majority of people have been abandoned. But
on the whole, Dylan's been quite clear for a very long time that his
role is to provide musical and poetic insight, but not to lead
poltically. Bruce Springsteen has taken a very different tack. I've
been listening to his Seeger Sessions a lot lately. He's using folk
music much in the way Seeger did, but with a lot more instrumentation.
It seems very different from Dylan's vision of folk music, very
political. But that's probably another discussion.

I think you might've omitted one of the most important lines, there,
Delia--"Things will have to change. And one of these things that will
have to change: People will have to change their internal world."

.

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