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I miss protest songs. Partially I miss the music; I like songs that
take a stand. But mostly it's the passion I miss, the feeling that
patriotism wasn't a default condition of doing what you're told and
not making trouble. That being a citizen involved choices, and that
there were costs associated with those choices.
Now it all seems so far away. How can a guy with a guitar stand up to
the volume and the reach of a Bill O'Reilly? These days, you can't be
both passionate and funny. (I present Dennis Miller as Exhibit A.)
But there was a time of people like Bill Paxton, who could make a
point through a song. Whether it's
LBJ
and the escalation of the Vietnam War or
former
orange juice spokesperson Anita Bryant espousing Christian
conservative intolerance, Paxton found a way to make the heart
sing and the blood boil.
So where are the protest songs of our time? Surely there's a song or
two in Iraq. Or how about the threatened dismantling of the American
safety net? Or corporate greed and politicians' contempt for the
people they're supposed to serve? This stuff is just dying to be put
to music.
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