The current issue of Entertainment Weekly has an interview with Bruce Springsteen.
In it, he's asked whether we'll go to war with Iraq. Here's his response:
I think we [already] are; I think the administration is just set on it. A month ago I wasn't so sure, but now I am. Those drums are being beaten really hard.
I think the administration took September 11 and used it as a blank check. And like most Americans, I'm not sure the case has been made to put our sons and our daughters and innocent citizens at risk at this particular moment. But I don't think that's gonna matter, unfortunately....
The actual war against terrorism is extremely complicated. You try not to be cynical, but without the distraction of Iraq, [people would notice] that the economy is doing poorly, and the old-fashioned Republican tax cuts for the folks that are doin' well will seriously curtail services for people who are struggling out there. I don't think that's the kind of country that Americans really want. All the cutbacks in the environmental restrictions - it's just a game of shadows and mirrors at the moment.
Normally, I'm pretty hostile to "stars" and how they use their opinions - largely because where an important issue is involved, their ability to mobilise support is often outweighed by the way opponents use their presence to marginalise the issue - but throughout his career Bruce has, if nothing else, been a citizen first and foremost.
He also had an interesting comment on Europeans' perception of the US:
For the best part of a decade, we've had a bigger audience overseas than in the States. Two thirds of my audience has been there; they were very connected to the ''Tom Joad'' record, very connected to music that was explicitly American, [so] there must be a tremendous commonality felt about the values of those songs. People continue to be very taken with America, with its bigness and its history and its drama, its myths and its values.
There's a lot of dissent about America [now], about this administration's policies. But I think those things are specific, I don't think they're something as general as a blanket anti-Americanism. Bob Herbert said in a column in The [New York] Times a few weeks ago that [Europeans] respond to a country that uses its power wisely abroad and dispenses its benefits fairly at home. Those are the things that are very debatable right now - the direction we're going in.
Came across a piece in a recent Salon from a couple of weeks ago which demonstrates perfectly how the Bush administration has succeeded in confusing the war on terror with a campaign against Iraq.
At the end of the first week of January, the Princeton Survey Research Associates polled more than 1,200 Americans on behalf of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. They asked a very simple question: "To the best of your knowledge, how many of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens?"
Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.
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In it, he's asked whether we'll go to war with Iraq. Here's his response:
I think we [already] are; I think the administration is just set on it. A month ago I wasn't so sure, but now I am. Those drums are being beaten really hard.
I think the administration took September 11 and used it as a blank check. And like most Americans, I'm not sure the case has been made to put our sons and our daughters and innocent citizens at risk at this particular moment. But I don't think that's gonna matter, unfortunately....
The actual war against terrorism is extremely complicated. You try not to be cynical, but without the distraction of Iraq, [people would notice] that the economy is doing poorly, and the old-fashioned Republican tax cuts for the folks that are doin' well will seriously curtail services for people who are struggling out there. I don't think that's the kind of country that Americans really want. All the cutbacks in the environmental restrictions - it's just a game of shadows and mirrors at the moment.
Normally, I'm pretty hostile to "stars" and how they use their opinions - largely because where an important issue is involved, their ability to mobilise support is often outweighed by the way opponents use their presence to marginalise the issue - but throughout his career Bruce has, if nothing else, been a citizen first and foremost.
He also had an interesting comment on Europeans' perception of the US:
For the best part of a decade, we've had a bigger audience overseas than in the States. Two thirds of my audience has been there; they were very connected to the ''Tom Joad'' record, very connected to music that was explicitly American, [so] there must be a tremendous commonality felt about the values of those songs. People continue to be very taken with America, with its bigness and its history and its drama, its myths and its values.
There's a lot of dissent about America [now], about this administration's policies. But I think those things are specific, I don't think they're something as general as a blanket anti-Americanism. Bob Herbert said in a column in The [New York] Times a few weeks ago that [Europeans] respond to a country that uses its power wisely abroad and dispenses its benefits fairly at home. Those are the things that are very debatable right now - the direction we're going in.
Came across a piece in a recent Salon from a couple of weeks ago which demonstrates perfectly how the Bush administration has succeeded in confusing the war on terror with a campaign against Iraq.
At the end of the first week of January, the Princeton Survey Research Associates polled more than 1,200 Americans on behalf of the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. They asked a very simple question: "To the best of your knowledge, how many of the September 11 hijackers were Iraqi citizens?"
Of those surveyed, only 17 percent knew the correct answer: that none of the hijackers were Iraqi. Forty-four percent of Americans believe that most or some of the hijackers were Iraqi; another 6 percent believe that one of the hijackers was a citizen of that most notorious node in the axis of evil. That leaves 33 percent who did not know enough to offer an answer.
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posted by Steve at 3:13 PM
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