2:39 p.m. - June 04, 2007
In A Free Land
I guess with my new situation that means my writing time is a bit irregular. No, it doesn�t need some Haley�s M-O, it�s just that I�m actually almost doing more work now. Heh.
But things are fine and groovy and all is well.
Anyway, because a couple of Husker Du songs came into my head while mowing the long, I decided to put another one on my proposed mixes that I�m making.
(I have five mixes thus far, and the fifth one is ALL over the place. I mean, even more so than a normal Smed mix. It�s just�well�I�ll post it one day.)
So anyway, this is the song that I decided to mix from Husker Du. It was originally a single back in their very early days, when they played as loud and fast as they could and Bob Mould (and the others) spat out the angry missiles of words toward the audience with a great fury.
But songs like this need some fury, don�t they?
This is �In A Free Land�, written by Bob Mould, published by Granary Music, and please don�t sue me.
Government authorize education
(Don't mean a thing)
They'll teach you what they want you to think
(Don't mean a thing)
Saturation of stars and stripes
(Don't mean a thing)
The only freedom worth fighting for is for what you think
Why bother spending time
Reading up on things
Everybody's an authority
In a free land
In a free land
The lines of the chorus stuck with me. This song was written in 1982, and it�s now 2007.
Bob Mould didn�t know about the internet, nor did he know the power of the blogging community when he wrote that song. There weren�t pundits on every cable channel looking to score points by out-outraging everyone. News was a serious business, it seemed, and only newsmen could report on the news.
But now, everyone IS an authority. Everyone has an opinion, and they will put it on line.
Pundits and talk show flappers rail about things where they SOUND like they�re an authority, but they�re only holding the party line or skewing research or only using research (and most of it flawed) that only promote their side of it.
Many people, all of a sudden, are experts on global warming, on the �homosexual agenda�, on exactly what the Bible says and doesn�t say, on politics, on religion, on all kinds of things.
Is this a good thing?
Well, there are some unfortunate souls who only believe what certain people tell them. If it comes from source X, it must be true. Otherwise, it�s a smear campaign, a conspiracy, or worse, a blatant attempt at misleading the public by selling lies as fact. (When, in fact, they are selling lies as fact instead.)
There are people who are so certain they are right that even when they are wrong they won�t admit to being wrong � they�ll just move along.
However, I hope most of us, even with notions firmly in place, know what kind of bullhockey to filter out when you read it, but don�t dismiss anything that you read or hear until you�ve decided that it�s bullhockey.
Believe it or not, I do.
Even if it comes from Fox News (�They report / I deride�), I give it a chance. No one can be wrong ALL of the time.
Right?
Anyway, better to be in a land where there is too much information available, and everyone can spout off an opinion, than a land where there�s not any dissent nor alternate views allowed. I think you all know that.
But I just wanted to say it again. It makes me feel all gooey inside. Yes, that�s right, I get all romantic about freedom of speech.
Now whisper the rest of the Bill of Rights in my ear, baby�
