Posted on 08/19/2004 10:00:54 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
"Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November." -- Bruce Springsteen, writing a guest editorial in Rolling Stone magazine.
Attention, all Bush-loving conservatives!
We need to talk about your taste in music. Do you have anything by any of the following artists: Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow, the Dixie Chicks, Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, Usher, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Five for Fighting, Bright Eyes, My Morning Jacket, Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Jurassic 5, Keb' Mo' and/or Death Cab for Cutie.
If so, I regret to inform you that you cannot listen to them any more -- not if you're going to remain loyal to your president and your party.
They're all a part of that radical Vote for Change concert tour, put together with the help of those rabid anti-Bushites at MoveOn.
Don't kid yourself. "Vote For Change" is just code for "We Hate the President and We Want to Put John Kerry in the White House Even Though He Might Not Have Earned All Those Medals and He's Married to That Ketchup Woman." They're revolutionaries, is what they are.
Here's what Dave "Hike up your skirt a little more and show your world to me" Matthews has to say about the tour:
"A vote for change is a vote for a stronger, safer, healthier America. A vote for Bush is a vote for a divided, unstable, paranoid America. It is our duty to this beautiful land to let our voices be heard. That's the reason for the tour. That's why I'm doing it."
How can you ever listen to "Ants Marching" again?
Stay off Thunder Road!
Of course, that would be an extremely silly thing to do -- to deny yourself the pleasure of listening to some of your favorite music because you don't agree with the political views of the artist.
For one thing, how can you keep track of all that? Sure, we know Toby Keith is a red-state, red-blooded, red-white-and-blue kind of guy -- but what about his drummer? His roadies? His lighting people? How do we know they're not liberals?
Such complications notwithstanding, Dr. Marilyn O'Grady, a Conservative Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in New York, is running commercials urging the public to boycott Springsteen because of Springsteen's participation in "Vote For Change" tour.
"Here's my vote: Boycott the Boss," says O'Grady in the spots. "If you don't buy his politics, don't buy his music!"
O'Grady also claims: "[Springsteen] thinks making millions with a song-and-dance routine allows him to tell you how to vote."
Well. I don't think the Boss is taking his nickname literally. He's telling you how he's going to vote, and he's hoping you'll join him. He's not issuing a rock star command that must be obeyed.
Granted, O'Grady's Bruce-goose is an easy way to get publicity. If she appeared in a series of issue-oriented ads on Albany cable TV, she probably wouldn't be getting mentions in the New York Post, the Washington Times, Howard Stern, the Times of India, et al. It's a good publicity stunt.
But O'Grady's call for a boycott isn't just disingenuous and goofy.
It's practically un-American.
"Collateral" damage?
If you support President Bush, you're probably going to avoid the Vote for Change tour. Why sit there and endure all that speechifying between songs?
But are you really going to boycott an artist's work because you disagree with the artist? Of course that's your choice to make -- but if you're going to limit your pop culture consumption to the works of those whose political, religious and social views exactly mirror your own, pick up a guitar and start strumming in the mirror.
Longtime E-Street mainstay Steven Van Zandt is participating in the tour. Are you going to boycott "The Sopranos" because Van Zandt plays Silvio on the show?
If I like a song, I like a song. Just yesterday morning, I put in some quality time on the speed bag while listening to "Milkshake," among other tunes, and I didn't once pause to consider the political views of Kelis.
Consider Tom Cruise's fierce beliefs. "If [people] don't like Scientology, well, then, f--- you," Cruise says in a Rolling Stone interview. "Really. F--- you. Period."
Am I a Scientologist? No. Am I interested in becoming one? No. Would I be concerned if a loved one turned Scientologist? Yes.
But none of that gets in the way of my enjoyment of "Collateral."
This is America. We're supposed to celebrate our differences and the right to express them. I'm sure my bookshelves and DVD and CD racks include works by individuals who are Republicans, atheists or short. I'm none of those, but it doesn't affect my appreciation of the work itself.
If the Boss converted to the GOP way overnight, I'd still love "Born in the U.S.A."
Even though some conservatives misunderstood the real meaning of the song.
Absolutely not. Haven't heard of many of them either.
Oh no! It's the attack of the sucky bands! We're doomed!
I'll feel free to download their music for free if I want to hear it. Well, I might have done that anyway, but now I can feel justified.
Attention Roeper: When I want bad film reviews, I'll read you. Otherwise, shut the hell up.
Why is it that it's okay for liberals to boycott conservatives but when conservatives fight back and boycott them, THEN "This is America and we have a right to believe whatever we want" blah, blah, blah?
Pretty lame all in all. I guess Roeper is never going to get it.
Those Liberal idiots think they're entitled to a pass on everything...
Thank you Mr. Roeper for listing the anti-Bush musicians for me, now I can boycott them without having to research the views of every musician!
Almost none of the names mentioned do I even care about. Copying music without paying for it is so easy these days that liberal musicians are probably seeing their glory days coming to an end anyway. I do like REM and have one song that my daughter got from Pepsi I-tunes. Does that count?
Roeper misses the point. I assume my favorite musicians are liberals until proven otherwise; and I don't mind as long as they're more or less quiet about it. I'm not saying have no right to say these things, only that I go to musicians for music, not for politics.
To the point: It's fine if musicians (or actors for that matter) and I disagree about who to vote for. It gets to be a problem when they makes so much noise about their views that their politics overshadows ther music or movies.
Seems to me that all Ms. O' Grady in doing in buying free publicity for the Anti Bush Concert.
This is America. We're supposed to celebrate our differences and the right to express them. I'm sure my bookshelves and DVD and CD racks include works by individuals who are Republicans, atheists or short. I'm none of those, but it doesn't affect my appreciation of the work itself.
Yes, we are supposed to celebrate our differences and the right to express them. However, the right to free speech does not include the right to be heard. If Springsteen and the rest of these folks on the "listen to me" tour would play their music without infusing it with their politics, then conservatives would have no problem with them.
But they want, desperately, to be relevant - to make sure the world conforms to their myopic views. Conservatives have every right to express our own views, even when we "vote with our feet". You are entitled to your own opinion, sir. Your are also entitled to express your opinion.
But I am entitled, along with all of my compatriots, to borrow a "saucy" phrase from elsewhere in the political realm and tell you to "SHOVE IT".
I wonder if liberals avoid the Declaration of Independence because Jefferson had slaves and they think that if conservatives are deprived of pop music it would be an equivalent deprivation.
The bottom line is that if you are in the entertainment business, you have to weigh the risks of expressing your politic views against the possibility that you will alienate your audience. If you alienate enough customers, you should expect your ability to sell tickets or CDs to be harmed. Free speech is a two-way street.
So if I think Roper is a liberal hack stamping out a tatoo in his heels and I choose to avoid reading his tripe I'm wrong?
Oh please. He's afraid of choice. Isn't that what listening is after all? Choice.
You can choose to screech and I can choose not to listen.
I guess I'm pro-choice after all! ( ;
I didn't even know I was boycotting most of these groups.
No, hell no, no, no, no, no, no, who the hell are they?, what the deuce?, no, no, no, no, I hate rap, no, and absolutely not.
Even better--upload some and share their music with others....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.