REP. GRAYSON: Comparing what Joe Wilson did to what I did -- it's not the same. What I did is like a Bob Dylan protest song. What Joe Wilson did is like a belch.
[Crooks and Liars Videocafe]
One would have thought that more of today's leaders—if they're somewhere between age 50 and 65, and almost all of them are—grew up in a time of social upheaval and change. You would think there would be lawmakers whose political senses were sparked by Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger and Sly Stone and maybe even Bruce Springsteen. Most young liberals, including me, derive inspiration in protest songs, songs of change, songs that confront what's wrong with the world we live in. If we are reaching back and finding meaning in these songs, shouldn't the youth of that era be doubly influenced?
Rarely do you become a politician overnight (Meg Whitman notwithstanding)—and so, probably for those on the left, that was their old, conscience-filled selves.
And yet they continually vote to send more troops to Afghanistan, or send hundreds of thousands back to Iraq for their fifth and sixth tours of duty, or try to limit health care coverage to millions of needy people by serving their corporate masters, or to allow people to be tossed out of their homes by forbidding a bankruptcy judge to rewrite the terms of a viciously-written institutionalized swindle called a "mortgage."
When you wear a suit and have a $200 a person lunch in DC with insurance or pharma lobbyists, I don't think Bob Dylan is running through your head. It's usually more like,"how can I screw the little guy today?"
The boomer generation is the saddest bunch of world-ruining sellout hypocrites in history. Retire already. There are a few that still feel empowered by words of change for our mean and depraved world, like Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.).
So, here's what should be running through your head while eating your $52 filet mignon at your lobbyist lunch:
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues
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