Yes, the title is a stretch.
So I saw this:
Bob Dylan does not like being told what to say is.gd/sscuWl
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) September 14, 2012
…the link being to this Reason article highlighting a Rolling Stone article where the interviewer tried to get Bob Dylan to give his blessing to Barack Obama. Bob Dylan chose… not to, largely because I get the impression that Bob Dylan doesn’t actually like politics very much. Or possibly he has political views that don’t mesh with his typical audience’s, and so Bob Dylan just, as the phrase was once put, shuts up and sings.
Anyway: as I replied to Dan: the Left is often surprisingly insecure when it comes to cultural matters. You’d think that they wouldn’t be, given their current domination of pop and celebrity culture – but perhaps the sheer scope of their domination makes them uneasy whenever they encounter a notable challenge to it. Because, seriously, it freaks them out in an almost Lovecraftian fashion. Remember how the Left went befuddled and bewildered when it came out that Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground was a Tea Partier? – Because it was Moe Tucker. Of the Velvet Underground. Being one of them. That ‘one of them’ was ‘older, opinionated lady worried about our financial future’ – which is, by the way, both a perfect description of both Moe Tucker and a large section of the Tea Party – was apparently not enough of an explanation, either.
I don’t really have anything more to say about this, except of course to note that all of this sounds like a useful way to needle certain folks. Because, you know: Dylan. Maybe one of them.
Back in the day, they tried to get ol’ Bob to condemn the Vietnam War. He…wouldn’t…
I still want to show up at a Tea Party rally with a guitar and get people singing The Times They Are a-Changin’. It really does fit so well. As a bonus, put video of the singing crowd (you know there will be plenty of reformed hippies to get it started) up on YouTube and watch the frothing rage and exploding heads begin.
Dylan is a strange bird. Some of the things he DID say in that article are baffling too. Saying the US is ‘permanently stained’ from slavery (as if other nations didn’t deal with it as well–or even still DO have legalized slavery).
It’s like he’s sampled so many different ways of life that he doesn’t feel comfortable in any of them. That said, he does the White Guilt thing heavily enough.