Uber-Rich Bruce Springsteen's 'Rage' to 'Raze Wall Street'
In Friday’s USA Today, music critic Edna Gundersen became the latest liberal journalist to hail the new Springsteen album as a 2012 soundtrack for Barack Obama as the Boss goes on “a tear to raze Wall Street and raise Main Street.” (Earth to Edna: Springsteen earns tens of millions a year. Would you dare to check his stock portfolio?)
Gundersen gushed that the new album’s “populist anthems are unlikely to be misinterpreted and appropriated by Republican candidates. President Obama, however, has a ready-made campaign playlist.” She called it his “most politically pointed” work yet."
But what’s politically “pointed” about somehow putting all the blame for a “tattered and toxic economy” on financiers and zero on President Obama? She said Springsteen was “stomping with fury yet crackling with jubilation as its protagonists scramble for lifelines out of a tattered and toxic economy.”
She oozed: "The messages — biting, unambiguous and in language often drawn from the Bible — focus on unemployment, crooked banks and the decaying American Dream. Rage and despair fuel these tunes, but an uplifting chorus is always just around the corner." Obama is apparently the uplift, not the target of despair. She concluded:
For all its joyous noisemaking and impassioned calls to action, a thread of resignation runs through Wrecking Ball. In Jack of All Trades, Springsteen sings, "The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin/It's all happened before and it'll all happen again."
Maybe so, but for now Springsteen offers inspiration and motivation for anyone inclined to join his struggle against injustice and escapism for those content to ride out the storm.
- Tim Graham's blog
- Login to post comments
Comments
The twisted irony of aged, rich rockers wailing against wealth
Submitted by Galvanic on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 5:09pm.
Their own wealth measured in the tens if nor hundreds of millions of dollars, who are they appealing to? The Baby Boomers? The younger generations just look at these dinosaurs and smirk.
I'd love to see Springsteen or Jagger invite someone from the concert audience to come up on stage and kick them in the groin because the Top 1% deserves it.
It's all there
Submitted by deadeyedan on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 5:36pm.
Because I can't stand Springsteen's "music", this is going to be especially delicious for me.
Published several decades ago was a book with the amusing title "The Triumph of Conservatism" by Gabriel Kolko. Though a tough read because of Kolko's stutter-step phraseology, it nonetheless brings up points that surely the author did not intend.
In it he takes to task the "Captains of Industry" of the Guilded Age by noting that the anti-trust legislation of the day may as well have been written by the "Robber Barons" themselves, given the actual results. Instead of there being more competition in the aftemath of these laws there was nearly 40% less, and as you have already guessed it can be inferred that it was because of all the regulations in said laws that squeezed out the ability for new enterprises to enter the market.
Kolko elaborates on how this took place in the name of (oh, no!) Progressivism and how the naive culture of the time could be duped into thinking they were improving a bad situation but instead were playing exactly into the hands of the Guilded.
Does any of this sound familiar? Joe the Plumber has little chance of getting started because of all the goofy regulations. And, instead of asking Joe if he would hand out half his venture capital to someone else, why did not Obummer ask him if he had received any from some other, well-established plumber?
"The Triumph of Conservatism" ought to be required reading (after being placed in more readable prose) so that the current morass becomes more understandable. Perhaps Springsteen could either dish out some of his earnings to aspiring musicians or tell us about whatever musician(s) gave him the capital to get started.
By suggesting that the title ought to have been "The Triumph of Liberalism" back in 1970 I nearly flunked the history course it was assigned in, but that's the name it should have been given.
LIBERALISM - government of the people by the theories and for the ideologists
Entrenchment
Submitted by Unsane on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:29pm.
All these regulations and taxes the Left so badly wants?
Much of it can be traced right back to the desire for some to entrench themselves firmly in place.
I suspect that is that book's argument.
By the way, I get so damn sick of hearing "Born To Run" at running events...
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Pay your NJ real estate taxes like the rest of us, Jackass.
Submitted by SickofLibs on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 7:17pm.
Same goes for your 'apiarist' neighbor Bon Jovi.
He's so angry he's going on vacation for three months.
Submitted by drsamherman on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 9:00pm.
Not that he has anything productive to do.
Wisdom from Steven Wilson
Submitted by Unsane on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:13pm.
"Music of rebellion makes you wanna rage,
but it's made by millionaires that are really twice your age."
- Porcupine Tree, "The Sound of Muzak"
"CONSUMED DEMOCRACY RETURNS A SOCIALIST REGIME" - Slayer, "Fictional Reality", from Divine Intervention (1994)
Whap a perfect quote
Submitted by Radical1979 on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:22pm.
.
I am what could be called
Submitted by Trix Rabbit on Fri, 03/02/2012 - 10:45pm.
I am what could be called "working class". I work. I work for a living while Brucie Spleenstink prattles on about the plight of the middle class and the poor.
He has long been a parody of himself and needs to shut the hell up and retire to the old folk's home in southern Florida.
For the MSM: In your pomp and all your glory, you're a poorer man than me. As you lick the boots of death born out of fear.
Ian Anderson "Wind up"
Brucie boy
Submitted by gfrrman on Sat, 03/03/2012 - 1:12am.
has ALWAYS SUCKED! And please "pass" that jar of Jif P'nut butter. You've had that same constipated look on your face for all time. For heavens' sake there IS Metimucil.. I did say he AND his music sucked? Oh ok.
g
Like most wealthy and elitist
Submitted by killa37 on Sat, 03/03/2012 - 1:44am.
Like most wealthy and elitist liberals, Springsteen seems to be living in a delusional world that doesn't jive between who he is and what he has............and what he is singing/talking about. And I don't begrudge his fame or his fortune either - he worked hard and he earned it - whether I like it or not (and I don't really like his 'music' very much). But who the hell does he think he's kidding when he tries to sound like the 'common man' or the 'working man', or whatever..........when everybody knows that he's a multi-zillionaire who isn't even in the same ballpark as the things that he purports to support.
And I've read that he isn't a very good 'boss', either........................