August 5, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Chords for Change
By BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/05/opinion/05bruce.html

nation's artists and musicians have a particular place in its social and political life. Over the years I've tried to think long and hard about what it means to be American: about the distinctive identity and position we have in the world, and how that position is best carried. I've tried to write songs that speak to our pride and criticize our failures.

These questions are at the heart of this election: who we are, what we stand for, why we fight. Personally, for the last 25 years I have always stayed one step away from partisan politics. Instead, I have been partisan about a set of ideals: economic justice, civil rights, a humane foreign policy, freedom and a decent life for all of our citizens. This year, however, for many of us the stakes have risen too high to sit this election out.

Through my work, I've always tried to ask hard questions. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the world finds it so hard to keep its promise and faith with its weakest citizens? Why do we continue to find it so difficult to see beyond the veil of race? How do we conduct ourselves during difficult times without killing the things we hold dear? Why does the fulfillment of our promise as a people always seem to be just within grasp yet forever out of reach?

I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith.

People have different notions of these values, and they live them out in different ways. I've tried to sing about some of them in my songs. But I have my own ideas about what they mean, too. That is why I plan to join with many fellow artists, including the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Jurassic 5, James Taylor and Jackson Browne, in touring the country this October. We will be performing under the umbrella of a new group called Vote for Change. Our goal is to change the direction of the government and change the current administration come November.

Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting.

Bruce Springsteen is a writer and performer.

"I don't think John Kerry and John Edwards have all the answers. I do believe they are sincerely interested in asking the right questions and working their way toward honest solutions. They understand that we need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith."

Plus I am certain he is being paid lotsa "caish" to convince folk that the only way to get rid of Bush is to vote for Kerry ( untrue ).

"We need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith."

one has to wander why all these RIAA musicians are really there.

"Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. "

there is a difference between collective unity and collective biggoted backlash.

"We need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith."


boy do we ever. anybody seen one of these lately?

"We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible." "

This statement says a lot. He admits that he has gotten those 1% richest tax breaks, but is more than willing to give them up for what he believes would make a better America. How many politicians do you know that are willing to give up ANY money they earn to make America better?? I've yet to see one.

Where does he say he is willing to give up that tax break ??
Is he doing this concert for free ?
If not, who is paying for it ?
Where did the money to pay for this expensive, extravagant affair come from ?
He seems to be saying exactly what those of us on low incomes would like to hear, while collecting a fat paycheck for saying it.
Sneering at the corporate dollar while taking the corporate dollar.

"We need an administration that places a priority on fairness, curiosity, openness, humility, concern for all America's citizens, courage and faith."

LOL...I'd settle for one that didn't have to be doped up by his doctor because someone dared to ask him about his association with Ken Lay, and who ran off and pitched a hissy fit.

I'd settle for one that isn't crazy as a sh*thouse rat.

Read my lips...
"NO SECOND TERM"

Exactly ...
No second term for Bush.
No chance for Kerry to fuck us over.
Vote for Neither.
Vote for someone you really believe in.
NOT the lesser of two evils.

There is a great danger for the "get Bush out at all costs" movie star/music star types who are attempting to awaken the young to political involvement. Or even the middle aged people who are more in Springsteen and James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt's age bracket.

The younger demographics support Bush more. (Except the very young, who are least likely to vote.) The greatest Kerry support is among the elderly.

"President Bush's support is running contrary to that received by most previous Republican candidates for president. At least for now, the two age groups most opposed to him are those 45-54 years old (Kerry 48 percent, Bush 33 percent) and those 55-64 years old (Kerry 48 percent, Bush 36 percent). "

(from www.insideradvantage.com)

Perhaps if you want to make the greatest impact, this site should be renamed, "Boycott RIAA, Granny."

I just moved from Austin...where young college kids represent a high portion of the population, owing to the 50,000 or more who attend UT, not to mention Austin Community College and the Austin Independent School district.

We also have one of the largest populations of independent musicians in Texas, perhaps, the US, since Austin is the "live music capital of the world".

I talked to a lot of them, and I must say, they are far more politicially motivated than kids were in the 80s and 90s. They are, in vast majority, ANTI-BUSH...not pro-Bush. Most of those I talked to felt Bush is , at the very least, mentally unstable and apt to get us involved in WW III. I was also recently in Houston for a couple of days, and the young folks (voting age) were ALSO, very anti-Bush, many adhering to the ANYBODY but BUSH line of thought.

So, I can only speak based on my personal dialogues with young folks and older folks here in Texas, mainly in the biggest metropolitan areas, but if they are representative of young folks nationally, then Bush is going down.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/4892115.html
"July 25, 2004 CMINN0725
Hennepin County Attorney Amy Klobuchar noticed it the moment she set foot on the DFL state convention floor in Duluth a couple of months ago: The delegates seemed, well, younger.

"I was shocked by the difference. I thought, wow, competition works," she said.

For Minnesota DFLers, the national convention that begins Monday in Boston marks the passing of the torch to a new generation of Democrats, to paraphrase the last senator from Massachusetts to move to the White House.

The delegation is headed by a legendary elder statesman of the DFL, former Vice President Walter Mondale, and includes several delegates who can still recall the glory days when the party dominated state and national politics in the '60s and '70s.

But the state's 98 delegates and alternates in Boston this week is the youngest group the DFL has ever sent to a national convention, State Party Chair Mike Erlandson said. One in four is under the age of 35, and three of four will be attending their first national convention.

Erlandson, who was the nation's youngest elected state Democratic party chair when he took the DFL reins at age 35 in 1999, said competition in Duluth among those hoping to be elected delegates was so fierce that the speeches ran four to five hours.

"It's exciting to have so many young delegates to our national convention," he said."

http://blog.johnkerry.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=370
"Comments: Young Professionals Call for Kerry!
This if for the campaign staff:

My name is Ed. I live in New Haven. George Bush and company scare the heck out of me, and I am desparate to see them defeated in 2004. (I don't really want to follow through with emergency plans to emigrate to Nova Scotia.)"

ALSO, The idea of the reinstatement of the draft is worrying young folks...
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?Category=14&ID=173380&r=1
"In fact, college students already are slamming down their double-skim lattes and iPods to equate the military draft with the most heinous form of forced labor. The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at the University of Texas, Austin, likens a draft to slavery because in both, “someone else owns your body and mind.” An editorialist for The Daily Princetonian feels the ghosts of Vietnam draftees hovering over the ivied towers while warning that laws now prevent draft dodgers from seeking refuge in Canada.


If Congress reinstates conscription, Mississippi State Professor Joe Atkins predicts massive street demonstrations against it. Today’s college students may be novices at political protest; lining up for refills at Starbucks could be the closest they come to organized movement. But any generation that can bilk the recording industry out of billions of dollars without even leaving the dorms can surely concoct outrageous ways to oppose a draft.

Youths who prefer Old Navy to the U.S. Navy may find themselves in uniform soon. Without waiting for congressional approval, the Pentagon has effectively ended the all-volunteer Army by blocking the retirement requests of 40,000 soldiers in what are called stop-loss orders. Also, the Selective Service is enlisting 11,000 volunteers to reactivate 2,000 draft boards that have been vacant for three decades."

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/08/05/Decision2004/Musicians_hope_to_roc.shtml
Musicians hope to rock Bush from job
""A vote for Bush is a vote for a divided, unstable, paranoid America," Dave Matthews said in a statement. "It is our duty to this beautiful land to let our voices be heard."
Remember, Dave Matthews, Bonnie Raitt,Sheryl Crow,REM,Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam,
Springsteen, and others are very popular with young people, and these series of concerts could do a LOT to mobilize more younger voters to vote for Kerry, or even Badnarik (the one I intend to cast my vote for).

And, under the "Does our administration give a damn about young people" department, see this:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-14.htm
An article by the son of Ronald Reagan...
"The Case Against George W. Bush
The son of the fortieth president of the United States takes a hard look at the son of the forty-first and does not like what he sees

by Ron Reagan


It may have been the guy in the hood teetering on the stool, electrodes clamped to his genitals. Or smirking Lynndie England and her leash. Maybe it was the smarmy memos tapped out by soft-fingered lawyers itching to justify such barbarism. The grudging, lunatic retreat of the neocons from their long-standing assertion that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama didn't hurt. Even the Enron audiotapes and their celebration of craven sociopathy likely played a part. As a result of all these displays and countless smaller ones, you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet. Not unlike that scene in The Day After Tomorrow, then in theaters, in which the giant ice shelf splits asunder, this was more a paradigm shift than anything strictly tectonic. No cataclysmic ice age, admittedly, yet something was in the air, and people were inhaling deeply. I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, "but not this time." There was the staid Zbigniew Brzezinski on the staid NewsHour with Jim Lehrer sneering at the "Orwellian language" flowing out of the Pentagon. Word spread through the usual channels that old hands from the days of Bush the Elder were quietly (but not too quietly) appalled by his son's misadventure in Iraq. Suddenly, everywhere you went, a surprising number of folks seemed to have had just about enough of what the Bush administration was dishing out. A fresh age appeared on the horizon, accompanied by the sound of scales falling from people's eyes. It felt something like a demonstration of that highest of American prerogatives and the most deeply cherished American freedom: dissent.

Oddly, even my father's funeral contributed. Throughout that long, stately, overtelevised week in early June, items would appear in the newspaper discussing the Republicans' eagerness to capitalize (subtly, tastefully) on the outpouring of affection for my father and turn it to Bush's advantage for the fall election. The familiar "Heir to Reagan" puffballs were reinflated and loosed over the proceedings like (subtle, tasteful) Mylar balloons. Predictably, this backfired. People were treated to a side-by-side comparison—Ronald W. Reagan versus George W. Bush—and it's no surprise who suffered for it. Misty-eyed with nostalgia, people set aside old political gripes for a few days and remembered what friend and foe always conceded to Ronald Reagan: He was damned impressive in the role of leader of the free world. A sign in the crowd, spotted during the slow roll to the Capitol rotunda, seemed to sum up the mood—a portrait of my father and the words NOW THERE WAS A PRESIDENT.

The comparison underscored something important. And the guy on the stool, Lynndie, and her grinning cohorts, they brought the word: The Bush administration can't be trusted. The parade of Bush officials before various commissions and committees—Paul Wolfowitz, who couldn't quite remember how many young Americans had been sacrificed on the altar of his ideology; John Ashcroft, lip quivering as, for a delicious, fleeting moment, it looked as if Senator Joe Biden might just come over the table at him—these were a continuing reminder. The Enron creeps, too—a reminder of how certain environments and particular habits of mind can erode common decency. People noticed. A tipping point had been reached. The issue of credibility was back on the table. The L-word was in circulation. Not the tired old bromide liberal. That's so 1988. No, this time something much more potent: liar.

Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on.

None of this, needless to say, guarantees Bush a one-term presidency. The far-right wing of the country—nearly one third of us by some estimates—continues to regard all who refuse to drink the Kool-Aid (liberals, rationalists, Europeans, et cetera) as agents of Satan. Bush could show up on video canoodling with Paris Hilton and still bank their vote. Right-wing talking heads continue painting anyone who fails to genuflect deeply enough as a "hater," and therefore a nut job, probably a crypto-Islamist car bomber. But these protestations have taken on a hysterical, almost comically desperate tone. It's one thing to get trashed by Michael Moore. But when Nobel laureates, a vast majority of the scientific community, and a host of current and former diplomats, intelligence operatives, and military officials line up against you, it becomes increasingly difficult to characterize the opposition as fringe wackos.

Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power? I simply cannot think so. And to come to the same conclusion does not make you guilty of swallowing some liberal critique of the Bush presidency, because that's not what this is. This is the critique of a person who thinks that lying at the top levels of his government is abhorrent. Call it the honest guy's critique of George W. Bush. "

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=131779
"The new Harvard University/Institute of Politics poll of college students shows Bush in deep trouble among this group as well. Since March, Kerry's already-wide lead over Bush among students has increased by eight points, from 53 percent/40 percent to 58 percent/37 percent. Bush's approval rating among this group has sunk to 40 percent, while support for the United States having gone to war in Iraq has fallen to 42 percent, with 56 percent opposition. And, at this point, by 50 percent to 31 percent, college students feel that the Kerry campaign is talking about issues that young people care about, while, by 61 percent to 26 percent, they feel that the Bush campaign is not."

Doesn't sound like Bush is winning the hearts and minds of young voters nationally, and again, lest we forget, Bush took the side of the RIAA in its fight with Verizon. The thousands of kids sued by the RIAA should never forget this...especially in November.

Yeah Bush and the Republicans take the side Riaa and its fight with Verizon and John Kerry and the Democratic taking big money for PigMedia bosses who make anti-bush movies when not giving us nipplegates and being seen with Riaa controled (whored) artists a sure sign where Kerry stands in the fight against the Riaa. Anything really going to change with the democrats in office??? The party of Sneaky Media Bosses, Obese Filmakers, Fading artists, movie wackos, anti-american haters?? Noway!

"Plus I am certain he is being paid lotsa "caish" to convince folk that the only way to get rid of Bush is to vote for Kerry ( untrue )."

What a stupid comment. If Bruce wanted money he could book ten nights at the Meadowlands for next week, sell them out in 1 day and go home with 10 million dollars in his pocket. He has played many charity concerts for free in New Jersey and gives away millions of dollars every year.

Hi Mroop, Missed you.
If Satan gave away millions of dollars, he would still .. be.. satan.

Watch out for that tree

We need an administration that puts America first, and will go to war to protect her people.

We need an administration that understands the concept of sovereignty, and does not bow to thw whims of hostile bodies such as the EU and the UN.

We need an administration that understands that the person who earns the money deserves to keep it, and is better at deciding how to spend it than the government.

We need an administration that recognizes personal responsibility for life's decisions, and that the government does not exist to bail you out if you screw up.

Beautifully fascist Suitablytwisted.

Springsteen is a millionare major label conspirator who regularly barfs up his irrational hatred of police officers on his boring bullsh!t wankfests he calls "records". "Boss", my a$$. It's not the 1980's anymore, jackass.

Autodidact: there is a lot of kerry support in colleges.. even in republican georgia theyre fed up with bush.

Label conspirator? What planet are YOU from?? Springsteen made millions playing music that common people everywhere could relate too. And he isn't afraid to ask the HARD questions, like why was 41 shots fired.

My argument was that here is someone that realizes his "tax break" was unnecessary. Show me one "corporate big-wig" doing that!! The only thing corporate big-wigs are doing is giving money to Congress to get legislation passed like that ridiculous Induce Act so their corporations can make more money, so the corporate big-wigs can give themselves big pay raises and bonuses. At least Bruce works for his paychecks.

There are alot of Republican's who are tired of Bush. Hopefully it will be enough to get him out. Kerry may not be the greatest choice, but he's better than Bush and that ol' jackass Nader. Nader needs to retire, he's forgotten all that he claims he stands for.


ALTEREDBEAST - You are my hero. Personally, I have always found Springsteen's music boring and repetitious...
10 minutes of:
I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA, I was born in the USA


AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!