Reflections on the 60 Minutes Springsteen Interview

See it here first....

The level of discourse in this country is at an all-time low. I cannot account for it. Sometimes I think that someone has been putting stupid pills in the water supply. What passes for common knowledge is undisguised ignorance and bigotry. People express opinions today about all manner of subjects of which they know next to nothing and no one bothers to correct their views. It is considered impolite to point out to another person that they have their head up their ass. Instead, you are expected to say, "Well, you have a good point but..." when, in fact, their point was baseless and idiotic.

George Bush continues to receive the approval of 1/3 of all Americans. This is presented in the media as embarrassingly low, but i find it appallingly high. One out of three of my fellow citizens finds that imbecile impressive. What can one say? As Harold Bloom would say, there is an affrontery in this that leaves one speechless.

Watching the 60 Minutes interview, I observe how Bruce has learned to laugh off the idiotic questions. I have to say, having listened to Magic through a few times, that I don't find it overtly political at all. I find the lyrics are often dense, writerly, and suggestive; but the political climate in this country today is such that if you even SUGGEST that maybe all is not well in our world, you are committing treason.

Bruce mentioned the distance between the America we live in and the America of our ideals. My greatest fear is that the America we live in IS the ideal America for many of us. In order to realize that ideal, Homeland Security has been rounding up immigrants by the thousands and deporting them. The xenophobia in this country is unbelievable. It is not just directed at Muslims either. Hispanics are also demonized. White people seem to thrive on witch hunts and their victims are, predictably, brown people. African Americans are keeping their mouths shut, understandably relieved that it's not them this time. But then there is the Jena 6. Everybody is just hanging on, trying to retain what little ground they gained in the '60's and '70's. The Reagan Revanchement remains in full swing. What started as a correction of abuses has become a crusade to overturn every decency we once regarded as our birthright as Americans.

My American ideal is the Whitmanian Republic. The America I live in, however, is the Benighted States of Leviathan. Hear the good gray poet sing:

How solemn as one by one,
As the ranks returning worn and sweaty, as the men file by where I stand,
As the faces the masks appear, as I glance at the faces studying the
masks,
(As I glance upward out of this page studying you, dear friend,
whoever you are,)
How solemn the thought of my whispering soul to each in the ranks,
and to you!
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,
O the bullet could never kill what you really are, dear friend,
Nor the bayonet stab what you really are;
The soul! yourself I see, great as any, good as the best,
Waiting secure and content, which the bullet could never kill,
Nor the bayonet stab O friend.


And again:


As I lay with my head in your lap camerado,
The confession I made I resume, what I said to you and the open air
I resume,
I know I am restless and make others so,
I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death,
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to
unsettle them,
I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have
been had all accepted me,
I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions,
majorities, nor ridicule,
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me,
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still
urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.


And again:


Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand--nor
am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born,
The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love well the
martial dirge,
With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's funeral;)
What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I? therefore leave my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and with piano-tunes,
For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me.


Bruce is in the Whitmanian line. But he is, as he said, a canary in a coal mine.