Birds of a Feather Flock Together on the Potomac
Last night, CBS broadcast its December 6th taping of the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors at the performance hall along the Potomac in Washington, D.C. Among the honorees were Robert DeNiro, Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck and Bruce Springsteen.
The honoring of Springsteen was particularly apropos, considering the current Presidential Administration.
The image of the most overrated musician in the history of the planet being lauded by the most overrated politician in the history of the planet was really too much. It’s the type of thing that could seriously cause a rip in the space-time continuum.
Both men utilize style over substance to draw in their fans. One with incoherent mumbling allegedly about the plight of man, delivered with resounding conviction. The other with clarity of speech and similar conviction in delivery, continuing to raise the same plights of man to the nation’s forefront.
In both cases, the plights raised result in echoes of “Hell Yeah!” or “Hope and Change!” from their adoring flock. But, at the same time, neither man has the first clue how to address those plights, nor do they want to address them. After all, without plight, Bruce Springsteen has nothing to sing about on his next record and President Obama has no one to divide, exploit, and incite for their next round of elections.
Since President Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty in America in 1964, there has been no progress despite tens of major welfare programs and subsidies and trillions (with a T) of dollars spent.
In the words of Ronald Reagan’s 1988 State of the Union address:
What has all this money done? Well, too often it has only made poverty harder to escape….With the best of intentions, government created a poverty trap that wreaks havoc on the very support system the poor need most to lift themselves out of poverty: the family. Dependency has become the one enduring heirloom, passed from one generation to the next, of too many fragmented families.
No one benefits from enduring poverty, except Democratic politicians who continue to promise just one more silver bullet program to those who “need it”…in exchange for just one more vote in the next election.
Never fear Bruce…the politics of the Democratic Party and President Obama will insure that people still depend on government, still get let down, and still have plenty to complain about when they seek solace in your music.
