Posted on 06/05/2008 6:36:08 PM PDT by Ganymede
Bob Dylan says Barack Obama is 'changin' America
His 1964 track 'The Times They are a-Changin' became the anthem for his generation, symbolising the era-defining social struggle against the establishment.
Now Bob Dylan - who could justifiably claim to be the architect of Barack Obama's 'change' catchphrase - has backed the Illinois senator to do for modern America what the generation before did in the 1960s.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, published in T2 today, Dylan gives a ringing endorsement to Mr Obama, the first ever black presidential candidate, claiming he is "redefining the nature of politics from the ground up".
Dylan, 67, made the comments when being interviewed in Denmark, where he stopped over in a hotel during a tour of Scandinavia.
Asked about his views on American politics, he said: "Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralising. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor.
"But we've got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up...Barack Obama.
"He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."
He added: “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future."
Dylan's endorsement contains much symbolic significance. The legendary singer-songwriter, who has an art exhibition opening in London next week, became a focal point for young people worldwide when he released the album 'The times they are a-changin'," including the famous song of that name, in 1964.
The track, which he wrote as the social liberation of the '60s astonished politicians and parents, included lines urging people to accept and embrace what was happening around them.
Memorable lines included: "Come senators, congressmen, please heed the call. Don't stand in the doorway, don't block up the hall," and: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, and don't criticise what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command. Your old road is rapidly agin'."
As a musician, Dylan’s a heck of a musician.
As a political analyst, Dylan’s a heck of a musician.
:-)
Sorry Bob, but have you seen how many of the poor in South Side Chicago have been redeemed from poverty by the Obamination?
Thought not.
conservatives that don’t vote for McCane are voting for some of that change. If hussein wins, change will be all they have left after the government redistributes their paychecks to the more needy that are too lazy to work.
I refuse to help dig that hole.
Shut up, write music, and let the left-brain folks decide the worth of candidates. ;-)
Quit trying to guilt trip us into supporting McCain. First, let McCain actually do something to EARN our support. OK?
As for Dylan...maybe he should just stick to singing.
He hasn't changed anything in my life. Come to think of it, neither did Dylan.
ROFLMAO!!!!
Dylan was on to something about 10 years ago. He’s lost it now.
I thought he was “serving the Lord”, but I do have to wonder.
inspired to change me handle....i was born in Hibbin’
Bob, America’s been changing long before Obama
What of the last 40 or so years?
• If black Americans’ gross domestic product were measured separately, it would be the 16th-richest country in the world.
• Nearly 80% of blacks live above the poverty level vs. 65% 40 years ago.
• The greater percentage of blacks live either middle-class or better lives.
• The employment rate for married black men equals that for married white men.
• The average black woman with a college degree makes more money than the average white woman with a college degree.
• The highest percentage of blacks in U.S. history — 46% — own their homes.
• The majority of blacks live in integrated neighborhoods (with at least 10% of neighbors belonging to “other races”).
• Black-white marriage has soared — after anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1967 — from 65,000 in 1970 to 422,000 in 2005.
• Los Angeles, devastated by the Watts riots in 1965, with a population 11% black, hired back-to-back black police chiefs.
• A black man served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
• A black man served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Two blacks have served as members of the United States Supreme Court.
• The predominately white American Medical Association elected a black physician as leader.
• The American Bar Association elected a black president.
• The Ford Foundation, one of America’s largest philanthropic private foundations, with 2007 assets valued at $13.7 billion, was led for 12 years by a black man.
• Blacks hold or have held CEO positions at major companies such as Merrill Lynch, American Express and Time Warner.
• Black-owned businesses grow at a rate faster than white-owned businesses.
• The multiracial Tiger Woods is the world’s most famous and wealthiest athlete in earnings and product endorsements.
• Major League Baseball is made up of 40% black, Latino and Asian players.
• The Super Bowl, the most-watched sporting event in America, recently featured two teams headed by black coaches.
• Black women have won the Miss America beauty pageant.
• Black economist and best-selling author Thomas Sowell, based on the number of newspapers that carry his column, is one of the country’s top 10 columnists.
• “The Cosby Show,” a positive, upbeat sitcom about a black, upper-middle-class family, reigned for years as America’s most-watched television program.
• Black faces on television abound — in commercials, as local and national news anchors, and in shows playing a variety of characters — from doctors and lawyers up to and including the president of the United States.
• Will Smith, a black actor, tops the list of the nation’s movie box-office stars.
• Black actor Samuel L. Jackson appeared in more movies than any other actor of any color during the 1990s.
• Black television host Oprah Winfrey, arguably one of the most powerful television personalities in the history of the medium, has amassed, to date, a fortune estimated at $2.5 billion.
• Blacks serve or have served as mayors in many U.S. cities, including the three largest — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
• The current speaker of the California Assembly is the first black woman to head a statewide legislative body.
• Blacks make up 10% of the House of Representatives, including some from primarily white Southern districts.
• A black man chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee .
• A black man served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
• Virginia, one of the states of the original Confederacy, elected a black man governor.
• The Republican Party, in the last election cycle, nominated blacks as candidates for governor of Ohio, governor of Pennsylvania and senator from Maryland.
• Blacks have served the current administration as back-to-back secretaries of state.
So, what does Obama’s candidacy mean? His victory shows that America grows ever closer to Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a society that judges people based on content of character, rather than color of skin.
Obama’s victory does not prove this. It confirms it.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=297552260318981
Another of our many problems is that McPain doesn’t seem to mind losing to Oprah’s Obama.
Dylan thought Reuben Carter was the best middleweight of the century.....
The Bob Dylan from the 60’s would never have said what he said today about any politician. He always denied being the voice of a generation was just a “song and dance man”.
The times are a changing, all right. And with Obama, They’ll be for the worse.
And, he wrote about George Jackson, too.
THE AUDACITY OF TRUTH ABOUT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
Those wild eyed people represent the millions of Americans raised in the government day-care and indoctrination centers we call public schools who did not have, or would not listen to, parents and others who tried to counterweight the garbage they heard at school...who have been raised on 60 second sound bite time spans and know no better.
You have other tens of millions on the dole who will vote for him regardless of position because he promises to keep pilfering the public largess for them.
Still othes of millions will vote for him simply because he is black.
Other millions will vote for him because they know exactly who he is and what he represents and agree with his anti-American positions.
The first three are all what is termed, useful idiots, a term coined by Lenin for the dupes he got to support him.
Against this it is left to us to educate, arouse, and amass the tens of millions of Americans who understand and hold fast to the foundational principles our constitutional republic rests upon...many of them the bitter, rural Americans clinging to their guns and religion that Obama so arrogantly spoke of.
“You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor”
I can just imagine St Peter at the Pearly Gates lookin’ down at Dylan and hollerin’ for St. Francis to come take a look at this messed up dude.
but what the hell...maybe 'ol bob will like it....
I think he’s a horrible vocalist. He wrote a couple of good songs but way way overrated.
the Bob Dylan,raised on the Range.... would have been hung from a locker door by his jock strap,daily,in gym class...noted strap being coated with Atomic Balm...explainin his singin voice,an polyticks.
Exactly. Dylan is the one songwriter that I consider a poet. Over the decades his politics have crisscrossed the landscape. He’s a vagabond who’s well-paid, but applied for the job not caring what the salary was.
Portray me as you will, I will not vote for a man that I feel should be hung for treason. There is a line beyond which I must stop holding my nose...McCain is way beyond that point.
This is about Bob Dylan, why post a pic of Vincent Price?
Is Obama really ‘changin’ America? Leftists of all stripes like to use the word “change” as if it alone is enough to justify their horrid positions and tyrannical tax policies. Obama will indeed try to change some things if he is able to swindle and peddle his way into the White House. It certainly won’t change the left feelings about racism and discrimination. We will enjoy their admonition of latent racism anytime we oppose a President Obama. It won’t be because we don’t like high taxes it will be because he is a black man. It won’t be that we don’t wish our society restructured to seek the peculiarities of a deviant sexual minority it will be because he is a black man. It won’t be because we are outraged about millions of abortions and millions of illegal aliens it will be because he is a person of color that we oppose his policies.
What is really shocking is how much Obama is not different than the white liberal establishment. Obama is probably less like most of black America than almost any other imaginable candidate and I think that is one of his weaknesses. What is apparent though is that for most of black America as is the case with their voting for white liberals that no matter how much Obama is not like them his color and his handouts will win the day.
You might be interested to know that of Bob’s contribution to “Clinch Mountain Country”, Ralph Stanley it was the best of all.
This really has me scratching my head. Does not sound like him at all.
I assume Bob Dylan does not remember Mother Theresa, who lived with the poor and passed with few worldy possessions.
Hey Dylan, stfu.
“Every Grain Of Sand” I thought was excellent....
Uh, oh, there goes another FR myth of Zimmy the conservative!
"He's redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to."
That's the most tepid "ringing" endorsement I've ever heard.
He added: “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.
That's the very definition of a conservative.
Perhaps when Bob gets back to the States and finds out more about Obama, he'll sing a different tune.
I thought it was Sean Penn....
We should stop unfettered illegal immigration by criminals thugs with no interest in assimilating to our native Anglo European culture? That would be a nice change if they didn't get free schooling, medical care and welfare. How about that Obammy?
How about all our treasonous dim Dhim Democrats actually standing up for America and freedom against Islamofascism before they nuke our major cities? That would be a nice “change”.
How about we open up the coastal waters, ANWAR and all the oil buried in the national lands, start building nuclear power plants and building more refineries? That would be a nice “change”
Otherwise it's just more Obammy O’Baloney.
How about Obammy gets a divorce from his racist wife witch? That would be a nice “change”.
I could go on and on, etc.
"Bring it all down, man" ranked second as symbolizing the era-defining social struggle against the establishment.
Dylan is a money maker, first and foremost.
He buried the blatant liberal lyrics when it cut into his profits.
I used to admire you, Dylan. But, knowing how paranoid you were after 9-11 because you feared an Islamonazi would try to assassinate you, a Jew/Christian/Jew/? and that now you are backing the a$$hole that will embolden the Islamonazis, I now know that you aren't half as intelligent as the mystique your nurtured.
GTH, Zimmerman.
That’s the thing with Dylan. His songs are great but only with someone else singing them.
Then again, I simply can’t imagine anyone else singing “Tangled up in Blewwwww.”
I know. I disagree with Ralph, he sounds horrible on his bit. I do like that he recognizes and praises Ralph. I’ll give him props there.
I hear Obama is for hope, too.
The maestro must be going senile.
He has never, EVER, endorsed a political candidate before in his life.
That’s how his songs stay so timeless. With the exception of his early folkies, he never pinned them to anything or anyone specific. It was up to the listener to fill in the blanks for themselves.
You don’t need a Bill Ayers to know which way his wind blows! WAKE UP, Bob!
Bob Dylan is a “Have” compared to most US citizens. Is he endorsing the Alinsky goal that the “Have Nots” should be able to take from the “Haves” like BO has been community agitating? Can I come take a look so I know where the “good stuff’ is located before election results are in?
"What is this sh*t?"
Sad, indeed.
I don’t believe in Zimmerman.
Rock and roll ping.
I think Bob may have had one too many chili peppers in the blistering sun.
who give a damn what he says....this is just what you’d expect from a burnt out has been. Great songs and all that, but please....
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