James McMurtry, and Bob Dylan – Songs of Protest and Social Commentary

No, they aren’t Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie – and that’s a good thing – but their voices can be relevant to our times, nonetheless.

There was a time…no, not as in the opening scene of the film, “Lucky Number Slevin” (sorry I had to reach for the reference, but sometimes that’s how it is) – there was a time before I came to realize there is the Political Class, and then there is Everyone Else. Before I reached that epiphany however, I both loved and hated this song:

I loved it because it hit on all the right issues (those that mattered to me, anyway), and I hated it because at the time I thought it more than a little unfair to lay all of the blame at the feet of Republicans, going as far back as to take a cheap shot at Reagan.

He undoubtedly was blaming the Republicans. In the back of my mind though, I couldn’t help but wonder if he wasn’t partially correct – not because he understood the institutional dysfunctional nature of a deliberative body such as congress (no Democrat bothers to think anything through, they just parrot the talking point of the moment) – but in spite of that fact.

Knowing what I do now, the globalist Republicans (represented by the administrations of both HW and W Bush), are more than deserving of scorn, but so are the Democrats (I would distinguish between globalist Democrats and regular Democrats, but there is no such distinction to be made), and they were no less responsible than Republicans for sending entire industries overseas.

As you might conclude, there are no popular songs that ridicule Democrats – ah, well.

What makes, We Can’t Make It Here, appealing is the oversimplification of serious problems. This is true of all such songs, though.

The closest example I’ve encountered that calls out the hypocrisy of Democrats (and it is indirect), is Bob Dylan’s, Neighborhood Bully.

Its appeal is also oversimplification, but in this instance it’s the nation of Israel and its achievements – chief among them, its ability to merely survive despite being surrounded by others seeking to wipe it off the map. I extend the anti-Semitism of the region to the Democrat Party.

I’m inclined to give McMurtry a pass because first, I reserve the right to be a hypocrite; second, there isn’t another track on the album that isn’t worth a listen. His description of a family gathering at Thanksgiving is all too true. Come the beginning of the holidays, it’s among my favourites:

Third, my suspicion is that he’s honest in his convictions. I can admire such integrity even if I completely disagree with his politics. Given his somewhat limited commercial success owing to his niche or cult-like following, he doesn’t seem to be left-leaning for the money.

Contrast him to that trio of no-talent asshats, Green Day, and its front “man,” Billie Joe Armstrong (what an affront to all who share that name):

My impression is that the trio knew on which side its bread was buttered, and while they may have truly believed the leftist narrative, it was a result of guzzling the Kool-Aid, not born of genuine conviction. They knew they were entertainers, but they also knew that the more cleverly mean-spirited they could be toward the rest of non-leftist America, the better it would be for their bank accounts.

I’ve been indifferent toward that waste of oxygen from the start, but to learn this:

Armstrong went on to write the song after hearing the Lynyrd Skynyrd song ‘That's How I Like It’ on his car radio. ‘It was like, “I’m proud to be a redneck” and I was like, “oh my God, why would you be proud of something like that?” This is exactly what I'm against.’¹

It merely confirms I was right to regard him as little more than just another leftist vacuous pinhead.

Well, Billie, rednecks do a lot of the kinds of work that you and your fellow snowflakes in California not only will not but could never do. The people you pejoratively refer to as rednecks – and smile, when you say that – have a sense of history, pride in their country, pride in their values, and pride in their culture. So, it’s only all too fitting that those are things you are against, but all you can do is be against something – you have no convictions, you have no moral compass, and you stand for nothing.

Had he come first, I’d say they were simply being the Stephen Colbert – vulgar and unnecessarily offensive only for the sake of maintaining leftist credibility (is that an oxymoron, or what?) – of the not-yet-living-in-the-real-world post-teenage privileged freeloaders. Instead, Colbert is the Green Day of late-night TV.

Whether one loves, hates, or is otherwise indifferent to the lyrics of, We Can’t Make It Here, one must admit they are thought-provoking, nonetheless.

Let’s explore further, shall we?

There's a Vietnam vet with a cardboard sign
Sitting there by the left turn line
The flag on his wheelchair flapping in the breeze
One leg missing and both hands free

No one's paying much mind to him
The V.A. budget's just stretched so thin
And now there's more coming back from the Mideast war
We can't make it here anymore

It’s hard to argue with this indictment of how this nation’s veterans have been treated and mistreated by the VA under administrations both Republican and Democrat. Wars fought on foreign soil; America’s strategic interest questionable, at best. Veterans of the war in Vietnam might have been treated better had victory been the objective with the resolve to achieve it. This nation’s veterans deserved so much better from the administrations that sent them to war.

Yet, sixteen years after the USA’s ignominious flight from the southeast Asian country, the HW administration and a willing congress felt there needed to be a US show of force in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Seemingly seized by the ghost of Eisenhower at the end of WWII, the US placed too much value on the input of its allies and stopped short of finishing the job, failing to take out Saddam Hussein.

Ten years after that, the W administration showed an almost brazen refusal to learn from history by invading Afghanistan.

Two years later, it demonstrated equally poor judgement by invading, then occupying Iraq and alienating the civilians who could have helped make it a success. Apparently this was the chosen course of action because being an occupying force has worked out so well in the past – apparently no one recalled the War of Northern Aggression.

In pursuing its nation-building mission (which it had sworn it would not do), the Bush 43 White House almost raised rank amateurism and incompetence to an art form by continually relying on what is largely suspected to be desired-outcome-driven intelligence from neocon analysts in the IC. Accepting those reports as nothing less than the absolute truth only dragged the US military deeper into the quagmire. This, instead of going after Saudi Arabia, the nation most directly responsible for facilitating the terrorist acts on 9/11.

Iraq likely did have chemical weapons of mass destruction, but between Hans Blix tipping off Hussein to where the US-led UN inspectors would be looking, and how poorly the war was otherwise prosecuted, the claim of the presence of weapons of mass destruction came to be regarded as a lie – a joke – a source of ridicule among congressional Democrats (who were allowed to have it both ways, even then), and the late-night talk shows.

And that big ol' building was the textile mill
That fed our kids and it paid our bills
But they turned us out and they closed the doors
'Cause we can' t make it here anymore

You see those pallets piled up on the loading dock
They're just gonna sit there 'til they rot
'Cause there's nothing to ship, nothing to pack
Just busted concrete and rusted tracks

When the album, Childish Things was released in 2005, most of the industries that had been lost beginning in the late 1970s through the early 2000s were, in my opinion, a function of three factors:

1.  Organized labour in the US was fighting to remain relevant, and many of the unions dug in their heels, refusing to negotiate new contracts in good faith, for fear they would continue to lose members.

2.  Technological advancements were putting at risk companies that either would not or could not modernize – jobs were going to be lost either way, that’s just how it is with automation.

3.  While the changes to the corporate tax code (such as accelerated depreciation of assets) during the Reagan administration were a boon to the economy on the whole, their benefit further downstream was somewhat limited.

Many statehouses under the control of old-school, FDR-era tax-and-spend Democrats made it impossible for many of the larger companies that constituted various industries to remain profitable. What choice did they have but to move production overseas?

Empty storefronts around the square
There's a needle in the gutter and glass everywhere
You don't come down here unless you're looking to score
We can't make it here anymore

The bar's still open but man it's slow
The tip jar's light and the register's low
The bartender don't have much to say
The regular crowd gets thinner each day

This is an indictment of the downstream effect not only of industry being forced to abandon less-than-friendly environments, but the oxymoronic “urban renewal” policies of the 1970s. Grants for “improvement projects” under this federal policy all but killed vibrant downtowns in smaller urban areas and communities across rural America. Ironic, isn’t it?

A hallmark of these policies was a focus on federally subsidized affordable public housing (multiple-family dwellings like duplexes) in established neighbourhoods which only resulted in lower property values for those homeowners so affected. They could see what was coming, and they determined that getting the best deal for their home now was better than waiting until there was no equity to be realized in a sale.

The media called it, ‘white flight’ – and that’s a lie (should we expect anything else?), but to understand the why behind that, we need to understand how we got there in the first place.

Having destroyed the two-parent black family, another “unintended” consequence of LBJ’s Great Society was public housing being overwhelmingly populated by black single-mother led families, and without a father, more often than not the kids turned to crime. Distributing new public housing throughout established, predominantly white neighbourhoods would only prove to be a disservice to both the black single mother and her children, and the community at large.

It was a disservice to that black single mother and her kids by forcing them into an environment where they were not welcome – not because they were black, but because of the difference in the mentality of a homeowner versus that of one who doesn’t own their home – it’s a cultural ethic that is organic to having a financial stake in the community. If your housing is provided you, or you rent, you are not a stakeholder.

To demonstrate that such is not unique to whites, on Chicago’s south side there once were beautiful neighbourhoods, with well-kept single-family homes, the residents of which were a mix of working-class, middle- and upper middle-class, and even a few who would be considered wealthy, but still overwhelmingly black.

Instead of public housing being distributed among the neighbourhoods, massive public housing complexes were constructed in very close proximity to many of these communities. Within a few short years, those neighbourhoods had been abandoned by those black families for the very same reason as whites years later. Unfortunately, ‘black flight’ doesn’t have the same ring as, ‘white flight.’

The lesson of those times ought to be the value of the traditional nuclear family – mother and father, raising children in their own home. Literally every other facet of our society’s decline stems from the destruction of the family.

Begging the question: If municipal, county, and state policies drive out industry along with the families that rely on said industry, what fills that vacuum in the community? The answer: Violent crime and anarchy.

Some have maxed out all their credit cards
Some are working two jobs and living in cars
Minimum wage won't pay for a roof, won't pay for a drink
If you gotta have proof just try it yourself, Mr. CEO
See how far $5.15 an hour will go
Take a part time job at one your stores
I bet you can't make it here anymore

Vice endures, and folks may be flat broke, but there’s always a way to afford alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and sex. However, this is where I begin to take issue with the overall tone of the song.

It’s as if individuals have no control over their spending habits or the financial impact of the decisions, they, themselves, make. While true that minimum wage is not a working wage, it was never intended to be a working wage.

Even as late as the 1970s, the days when one could make a career in sales on the retail floor were long gone – and even when it might have been viable twenty-some years earlier, those who were able to forge such a career were rare unless you owned the store. My experience was that those guys making such a living were selling men’s tailored clothing to local businessmen of all stripes when men wore suits and ties almost all of the time. Business was transacted in-person, in the physical confines of the store. What’s more, those customers were men cut from a much different cloth, and of a much different era.

To illustrate, once while I was delivering the evening paper on my route, I can recall happening on an older gentleman who wore pleated gabardine trousers with cuffed pant legs, and a white button-down shirt. His necktie was tucked into the placket between the second and third button from the collar so that it wouldn’t get caught on anything – and all he was doing was mowing his lawn!

So, no – $5.15/hour will not go far because it isn’t supposed to – it ought to be a catalyst for you to find more lucrative work or gain the skills and experience that will better enable you to do just that.

It’s a topic for another essay, but the federally mandated minimum wage is one of the most formidable obstacles to unskilled workers in this nation, effectively barring tens of thousands (if not more) from gaining entry to the workforce.

There's a high school girl with a bourgeois dream
Just like the pictures in the magazine
She found on the floor of the laundromat
A woman with kids can forget all that
If she comes up pregnant what'll she do
Forget the career and forget about school
Can she live on faith? Live on hope?
High on Jesus or hooked on dope
When it's way too late to just say no
You can't make it here anymore

Again, individual responsibility is not part of the narrative, here.

Dreams, even bourgeois ones are fine but when one becomes a parent, such dreams become deferred, or replaced by other ones centered on the kids you are raising.

How does a woman “come up pregnant?” Does it happen completely at random, the same way one might catch a cold? No, she cannot live on faith and hope, but those two are crucial for survival. “High on Jesus or hooked on dope” are not the only options, but the song doesn’t lend itself to much of anything more thoughtful than the cheap swipe at the late Nancy Reagan’s initiative, “Just Say No”². Its simplicity makes it an easy target.

Now I'm stocking shirts in the Wal-Mart store
Just like the ones we made before
'Cept this one came from Singapore
I guess we can't make it here anymore

Should I hate a people for the shade of their skin
Or the shape of their eyes or the shape I'm in
Should I hate 'em for having our jobs today
No, I hate the men sent the jobs away

I can see them all now, they haunt my dreams
All lily white and squeaky clean
They've never known want, they'll never know need
Their shit don't stink and their kids won't bleed
Their kids won't bleed in their damn little war
And we can't make it here anymore

Squarely placing the blame where it belongs – the men who sent the jobs away. The unions who abandoned their members, for example. While there was no competing against a nominal labour cost (pennies per hour v dollars per hour)

those same leaders might have sought some help from the federal government in the way of tariffs.

Tariffs are not a sustainable strategy, but they are a most effective tactic. The imposition of tariffs on cruiser-type motorcycles from Japanese manufacturers was instrumental in facilitating an employee take-over of Harley-Davidson, allowing it to re-emerge as an American success story.³

Other culprits include members of the Political Class that preferred the issue of unemployment to a solution favourable to a majority of the remaining workers, and perhaps community leaders who never demonstrated any appreciation for the employer’s presence as a good corporate citizen. Would any of these, by themselves, have made a difference? No, but would a combination of them have meant a different outcome? Probably not, but we’ll never know.

As for the ones who haunt his dreams, I take that as directed at those union leaders that continue to receive fat salaries on the backs of the rank-and-file membership, the corporate suits who are heroes on Wall Street and of the moneyed left, and the Nomenklatura of the Political Class.

These are the ones who lead lives of privilege, whose sons and daughters attend elite colleges and universities and received deferments during the Vietnam war, and whose kids today will never have to serve in a forward position even though their fathers will be all too willing to send those of working-class men and women into harm’s way.

Will work for food, will die for oil
Will kill for power, and to us the spoils
The billionaires get to pay less tax
The working poor get to fall through the cracks

This is richly deserved condemnation of the UniParty corporatists, looking after themselves by having one set of rules for its members, and another for Everyone Else.

So let 'em eat jellybeans let 'em eat cake
Let 'em eat shit, whatever it takes
They can join the Air Force or join the Corps
If they can't make it here anymore

The dig at President Reagan aside, this seems to be the attitude of far too many members of this nation’s Political Class.

So that's how it is, that's what we got
If the president wants to admit it or not
You can read it in the paper, read it on the wall
Hear it on the wind if you're listening at all
Get out of that limo, look us in the eye
Call us on the cell phone, tell us all why

This was undoubtedly directed at W, and deservedly so, but it is applicable to the one selected to succeed him – in fact, anyone who holds the office of President of the United States whose constituency are the globalist elites of the left (I’m looking at you, HW, Bubba, W, 0-bama, and Wilhelm) instead of the people who do most the living, dying, and working in this country.

In Dayton, Ohio or Portland, Maine
Or a cotton gin out on the great high plains
That's done closed down, along with the school
And the hospital, and the swimming pool

Dust devils dance in the noonday heat
There's rats in the alley and trash in the street
Gang graffiti on a boxcar door
We can't make it here anymore

It’s just how it was not quite twenty years ago and sadly, it’s only gotten worse.

Maybe it’s not too late, though. Maybe there is still time to stem the decline, and foster a rebirth, a revival of the exceptionalism that defined America for these many years. If so, then it’s up to each and every one of us.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something⁴
–Max Lucado

Thank you, dear reader, for your time and indulgence in this, a departure from my usual long-form missive.

Until next time…

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Idiot_(song)

2. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/just-say-no

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-Davidson

4. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/481876-no-one-can-do-everything-but-everyone-can-do-something