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Civil Rights, Big Government

Rock and Roll and Obamacare



“Live at Leeds” was The Who's first live album. Decca and MCA Records released the album in the United States on May 16, 1970. Although the album came out at the beginning of a new decade, it looked back to the previous one.
Many consider “Live at Leeds” the greatest Rock album of a live concert ever recorded. If you are open to it, listening to the complexity of the fifteen-minute track “My Generation,” may leave you breathless. "'Live at Leeds' is one of the purest (if not the purest) rock album ever recorded. There are no keyboards, synthesizers, sound effects, or spoken word segments. It's just four angry men making a lot of noise, and a hell of a good noise at that." I converted recently my vinyl copy of "Live at Leeds" to an MP3 file so I could listen to it on my iPhone. After that conversion, I started to wonder if this change in technology mirrored a change in generations.

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When The Who sang "People try to put us d-down, (Talkin' 'bout my generation)," We knew in the '60s these "people" were in all the structures that had grown over time that did not see the individual as important. Big government, the government that was waging the war in Vietnam, was one of those structures. Why aren't American young people today protesting Obamacare the same way young people in the '60s protested the war in Vietnam? Why aren't today’s youth marching against the "individual mandate" in Obamacare? If big government can make them buy insurance, what else can it make them do; buy a Yanni CD? Who knows what the '60s were about? Some say that the two great metaphors of the '60s were Rock and Roll and Civil Rights. Each metaphor developed in its own way, but they also had something in common. That commonness was their relationship to government and authority. Rock and Roll saw government as an obstacle, something that had to be removed to solve the problems of the Baby Boomer generation. This led to the protracted protest movement against the war in Vietnam. Ironically, Vietnam was the first US war fought with a Rock and Roll soundtrack. After Vietnam, the military and popular music changed. The US Army became an all-volunteer army. There was not a soundtrack to Iraq. Maybe a Toby Keith album played in the background, but that was about it. There were few protest songs or marches. In all the protest of the '60s, there was also a self-centered element, one that asked that you, "Tune in, turn on and drop out." It is little wonder that the guitar emerged as the principle musical instrument of the '60s. The hand and arm motions needed to play the guitar is the perfect symbol for self-centeredness. The Civil Rights movement, on the other hand, saw government as a solution to social problems. Members of the movement argued that only intervention by the federal government could solve the problems of segregation in the South. Furthermore, only the federal government could solve the problems of every minority, up to and including these days same-sex marriage. So, the community organizer instead of the rock star became the one who carried the Civil Rights metaphor from Utopia into politics. The metaphor of Civil Rights won the day, and since the '60s has dragged popular music along with it, like an older brother dragging his younger sister along on a date. Contemporary music has become now the handmaiden of Marxism. It’s difficult to point to a single song that represents generation X and beyond. One major difference between the music of that generation and the boomer generation is that for generation X there are no super bands like the Beatles or Rolling Stones. Rock and Roll has sold out to the forces of collectivism and conformity. Like most of the arts, with the possible exception of opera and country and western music, the working class energy and protest exemplified by The Who, the freedom and drive to go forward, has been replaced by a "Hope and Change," that is as burnt and bitter as a used roach. There are many explanations why, over time, the protests against big government in the '60s morphed to support for big government in 2012. “Hey, hey, LBY, how many kids did you kill today,” has become, “He's our man. Yes we can!” One explanation points to the decline in the importance of religion in American life, while another points to the social class origins of the '60s protestors. Simply put, from a religious perspective, acts of charity that religious institutions used to do, are now to be done by the government. The excuse for not giving to charity, "I gave at work," is replaced by, "I paid my taxes." Recent survey data show that the most liberal states in the US are also the ones where people are the least religious and often vote Democrat (Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine). On the other hand, the most religious states are states where people vote Republican (Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana). Another reason for the shift from individualism to collectivism over the generations is the fact that many of the boomer protesters ended up with good paying jobs in government or the academy. They started from an upper-middle class base and today hope their liberal politics will preserve that base. Unlike the working-class youth of the '60s who the sociologist Peter L. Berger wrote about in this article, "The Bluing of America," working-class youths realized somebody had to work to keep the lights on or make the electricity to power the guitars. The core of the boomers could afford to drop out on their father's American Express card, whereas working-class young people couldn’t. The kids who went to Woodstock, and their kids, grew up to vote for Obama, while the kids who went to work instead of the concert grew up and joined the Tea Party. Paul Simon sums up best the transition that took place with generations from protest to conformity in his song "American Tune," released in 1973. Already at that time the limits of Rock and Roll protest were giving way to the inevitability of big government and the surrender of power from the individual to the state.
"And far above, my eyes could clearly see...The Statue of Liberty, drifting away to sea...We come at the age's most uncertain hour, And sing the American tune, But it's all right, its all right, You can't be forever blessed...That's all, I'm trying to get some rest."
It’s hard to tell how the present boomerang generation will vote in the 2012 election. If they want to keep their freedom, they could go back and listen to "The Who," and then vote against big government. After the election in November, elements of the '60s may come back with a vengeance. The protests of the '60s may return along with the music. “Live at Leeds” is still available on vinyl. “Some reports say vinyl (now) outsells CDs by 6 to 1.” If Obamacare goes forward, it’s possible that some day soon Rock and Roll and The Who may be declared harmful by Health and Human Services, and banned. Then what? Will ABBA be next?


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Robert Klein Engler -- Bio and Archives

Robert Klein Engler lives in Omaha, Nebraska and sometimes New Orleans. Mr. Engler holds degrees from the University of Illinois in Urbana and The University of Chicago Divinity School. Many of Robert’s poems, stories, and paintings are set in the Crescent City. His long poem, “The Accomplishment of Metaphor and the Necessity of Suffering,” set partially in New Orleans, is published by Headwaters Press, Medusa, New York, 2004. He has received an Illinois Arts Council award for his “Three Poems for Kabbalah.” Link with him at Facebook.com to see examples of his recent work. Some of Mr. Engler’s books are available at amazon.com..


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