Posted on 06/20/2005 7:04:27 AM PDT by crushkerry
This summer's family wedding season has drawn to a close for me. The last stop found me in Duluth, Minnesota (not Duluth, Georgia; there would be no runaway brides at this ceremony) from where hails my maternal lineage. These are a hearty breed of Norwegian and Ojibwa stock. Lutheran. Hard working. Honest. Humble. And very, very liberal. Now, I'm not about talking your sanctimonious, excruciating Northeast liberals here, but rather genuine progressives with big, if bleeding, hearts.
One of my uncles is a Vietnam Vet and a genuine ex-hippie. My two other uncles share his progressive enthusiasms. For example, one asked me teasingly how I enjoyed Fahrenheit 9/11.
Fortunately, all three play guitars and sing quite well. So with a fire roaring (it was in the mid-60s this June weekend, with a steady breeze rolling in from Lake Superior), we gathered around to listen to some old-time protest songs.
Now, given my right-wing bona fides, the reader might be surprised to learn I have always had a sneaker for protest songs. Maybe it's the inner anti-government crank in me. Or maybe it was growing up listening to Irish rebel songs (dad's side) like Come Out Ye Black & Tans and Kevin Barry. Whatever the case, I'm a sucker for a ditty that artfully tells The Man where to stick it.
All the ghosts were there that evening. John Prine. Woody Guthrie. Pete Seeger. Gordon Lightfoot. Of course, you can't sit around a fire and complain about the establishment without Bob Dylan, himself a loyal son of Minnesota, making an appearance.
My uncle Jesse picked up a six string and belted out The Times They Are A-Changin'. It's one of Dylan's angriest, most threatening songs:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
I can rest assured that by "people" Dylan is talking about rich, white Republicans like me (except for the rich part). And yet I'm hooked after only a few bars. But before long, it seemed as though my uncles were singing to themselves:
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
I scanned the younger faces that glowed against the fire. Suddenly it dawned on me. Their sons and daughters are beyond their command.
There's my cousin, nursing a 4.0 GPA at a fancy liberal arts college, fresh from voting to re-elect George W. Bush on his first-ever ballot, much to the disfavor of his mom. There's the bridesmaid, also a cousin. She's been a die-hard Republican since her high school days and is still dedicated to the cause. And there's yet another cousin, fresh from a conservative Bible college located in Tulsa. And, of course, there's me, a paid professional political hack.
What's happening to my family is a microcosm of what's happening to the entire Land of 10,000 Lakes. Yes, yes, George W. Bush lost Minnesota. But it was "in play" up until the very end and the Democrats actually had to spend big money to keep it blue. President Bush ended up with 48%, up from Bob Dole's 36% in 1996. And the county-by-county electoral map from 2004 bears similarities to the national map. True blue counties, which can be counted on one hand, stand out against a sea (or, perhaps a Great Lake) of red.
Meanwhile, Minnesota has a Republican governor and one Republican senator. Democrat Senator Mark Dayton's retirement provides the GOP a chance to pick up the other Senate seat in 2006.
If you listen closely to the wind blowing in from "the big lake they call Gitche Gumee" you can still hear Bob Dylan singing, "the times, they are a-changin'."
Patrick Hynes is a freelance writer and the proprietor of AnkleBitingPundits.com
He is also the proprietor of AnkleBitingPundits.com
This is an enjoyable article. I love it when blue begins to turn to red!
In the recent interview of Bob Dylan in Rolling Stone(?) he said that he hated those hippie types. His farm was inundated with the freeloaders trying to commune with him. He quote,"wanted to set these people on fire!".......
It's funny how many 60's protest songs are perfectly appropriate today to protest against the aging hippie generation that made them popular in the first place.
Bob Dylan just wanted (like the rest of us) to keep his own money.
Does this mean that we're the hippies of the early 21st Century?
My longtime goal has always been to live long enough to see those self-absorbed, self-important creeps repudiated, humiliated, mocked and badgered for the rest of their natural lives. It looks like I'll have my wish.
In spite of that it looks like the damage they caused is permanent.
In his auto-bio, he said he couldn't get away from the freaks. He didn't want to be the revolutionary icon that the leftist media was trying to portray him as. HE JUST WANTED TO WRITE SONGS! He even said that allthat imagry in his lyrics was just that! Pretty words on paper that made a good tune..........I remember my HS hippy friends were all agog over his every word. Dissecting it and projecting it onto their own ideals. If they only knew!.............
Isn't this the first of two or three books he plans to write ?
http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com
I believe so......http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6539707/bobdylan?pageid=rs.ArtistArticles&pageregion=mainRegion
Next time around perhaps Minnie-land will turn blue.
Maybe the Cheese state neighbor will also turn a lovely shade of blue too. Time to liberate all of the heartland from the commie leftist libs.
I read a squib of Dylan's narrative on a national mag some months ago. I found it a bit disingenuous.
Only no drum circles!
Drum circles are evil.
All true hippies are either unaffiliated with a political party or maybe Libertarian.
You know, it starts as a drum circle, next thing you know youv got a college.
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.