We live in a political world courage is a thing of the past…

What the heck is going on?

Every morning I turn on the tv and scratch my balding head and wonder what the heck is going on.

Every night I turn on the news and wonder again.

I have to say heck as my wife is usually there and she has refined sensibilities, even when faced with the Orange Blob of Hate.

I have been intermittently saddened, angry and helpless all in the space of minutes throughout the week, this week, and it’s only Tuesday. I sit here and watch The President spew bile and hate and then shift the blame onto others. For some time I have been in public and private railing against this hate filled man who’s orange face fills our screens day in and day out. Then I realized it is not him that is the problem but our own apathy and unwillingness to stand and be counted in these days.

He has reached down into the sad hate filled souls of the fearful and bigoted and drawn their darkest thoughts out into the light. Instead of being disgusted and ashamed there are those who revel in it.

Dylan said it in 1989:

Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken

The system is broken, hopefully it can self correct, it will take the honesty of artists and we the people to stump up the courage to actually stand and be counted.

I just read a whole thread of blog posts on another site as an artist was criticized for getting political. Let’s face it we live in a political world as Bobby said on Oh Mercy. There’s no avoiding it all that’s left is to chose your side.

Art and social change have been interwoven since the first song was sung, and cave painting daubed on a wall, from Troubadours passing on their version of the news to painters holding a mirror up to society, not to mention playwrights and poets using the spoken and written word to vilify oppressors. It is better to have the art out there causing those difficult thoughts and feelings than sitting complacently watching the world unfold. It’s even better to have the hate filled jingoistic shit that passes for patriotism these days out there so you can identify the oppressors.

There really is a right and wrong, it is wrong to be intolerant of others rights and to oppress other human beings, it is lacking in intelligence to refute the evidence of science and it is unforgivable in this time globally to be silent and not heard. History is full of the enlightened being ground down and silenced, this however may be the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire when the circuses and distractions have worked to keep the people apathetic.

As Ray Davies said:

The Roman promoters really did things right.
They needed a show that would clearly excite.
The attendance was sparse so they put on a fight
Threw the Christians to the lions, sold out every night

In a vain effort to regulate, its important that the evening listening begins with an album that starts with the immortal cry of the rocker. 1.2.3.4. It better for our cities to be in flame with rock’n’roll than hate and intolerance.