Say it ain't so, Neil...

Another (burned out) has been looking for media attention for a bullshit album.

"Southern man dont need him round anyhow"

Dear me! Since Neil was origonally pro War on Terror, and even Pro Patriot Act, I imagine all you people can do is think him a traiter to the cause. So the group of pro war mongers gets smaller and smaller, more and more wild eyed, pointing their guns at the farmhouse roof and waiting for the UN blue uniforms to come from the sky.

You guys really owe us Libs for keeping the country out of Iraq. They ought to force march every conservative out West to wherever they're keeping Jean Chretien, and make them kiss his ass.

By the way, Douglas, if you are in Canada, you're a "Western Man". Try and get you're directions right. There's only four of them, after all.

bcl: I'm supposed to thank the Libs for keeping us out of Iraq? Give me a break. We should have been standing beside our American and British allies.

I'm ashamed of the Libs', under the leadership (sic) of the Cretin, for standing only on the sidelines, making arrogant and cheap pot shots at the real men and women who were risking their lives to keep the democratic West free.

What Cretin and his party did, aided and abetted by the Dippers and Jackie Come-Lately, was extol the 'virtues' of wo/men with no chests (those, as C.S. Lewis describes them, with no backbone or principles worth dying for). Lily-livered cowards, the whole bunch of them. For that, I'm supposed to kiss the Cretin's ass?

I don't think so.

BCL True to form you show again that you are a complete idiot.
Suggest you listen to "Sweet Home Alabama" and try to understand the words.

On second thought bcl,maybe you should just crawl back into your basement and wank yourself to Neil Youngs "Harvest".
Lynard Skynard just aint your style son.

Not news?.....but it has everything the Canadian press is looking for; anti-war sentiment, hatred of Bush, even a little Canadian content in the form of a past his prime Canadian artist. What more do you want from CTV?

I'm still waiting for BCL to explain why anything Neil Young does or thinks belongs on the "news".

Better yet, if he released a pro-Bush album, do you suppose he'd have received the national network coverage we heard over the past two days?

BSL said: "You guys really owe us Libs for keeping the country out of Iraq."

Oil-For-Food scandal includes Saddam bribes, Martin, Chretien, Strong, Desmarais & Power Corp, & etc.

The real reason why Chretien "kept Canada out of Iraq"......... War profiteers....

The Liberal Party >>>>> War profiteers.

Ugly Liberals: Kissing Saddam's camel-ass. >>>>>

See Friends of Saddam Canada here:
http://acepilots.com/unscam/archives/cat_canada.html

I'm still waiting for BCL to explain why anything Neil Young does or thinks belongs on the "news".

Better yet, if he released a pro-Bush album, do you suppose he'd have received the national network coverage we heard over the past two days?

Without a doubt. I've never listened to a Toby Keith album, so I had to have gotten my information about his politics from somewhere. More importantly, if Neil had released a pro-Bush album it would have been celebrated on right wing blogs. I recall the other day some discussion about Martin Sheen and how he should keep his opinions to himself - except when he promotes a pro-life position. It seems that the shut-up-and-sing/act stance gets curtailed if the singer/actor has something agreeable to say.

Apparently Avenger cant read as Young is on CTV news and not left wing blogs.

"Western man."

Ha ha, that's clueless and funny.

Is that something like people thinking they hear Jimi Hendrix sing "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy"

Spike 1,

My point was that the right wing mantra of "Pay no attention to what celebrities or artists think" - one which I agree with, believe it or not - seems to have exceptions when the celebrity/artist is on message. It's about hypocrisy.

Avenger,

That is the point isn't it. Right wing blogs fill the void where the MSM refuse to go. They, and they alone provide the "balance", and without them, only one side will be told.

Course that doesn't stop the MSM from casting itself as impartial perveyors of information, in whom we should trust: "the most trusted name in news", "news you can trust", "balanced coverage" ect. ect. An abuse of position and trust on a massive scale.

Case in point:

Are there success stories in Iraq? Schools being built, large areas living in relative peace, power grids going up beyond pre war levels ect.? Of course.

Have you, in the last two years seen a single news piece on any of these events? I haven't.

Have I read about it on "right wing blogs". You bet.

It's called balance. And the MSM refuses to do it.

Also, I havn't such a blog portray itself as an impartial perveyor of news. It's not the blogs that are hypocritical.

I doubt if Neil Young is a war profiteer. He's made his money. He's also never waivered from his beliefs. Artists can't stop being artists. It just so happens he's anti-war and the drive to create music while remaining true to yourself shows in what he creates.

If you don't like it don't buy it or listen to it.

I think the real profiteers are musicians sic like The Right Brothers. It's perfectly obvious these opportunists are in it for the glory and the money.

Douglas, cut the bcl a bit of slack, eh. The big village idiot probably wasn't born when Southern Man was cut.

P.S. I still have that on vinyl. Ah, record albums, where you could read the cover without reading glasses.

Texas,

How About 'Ohio'

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Ohio.

Neil Young, another lefty Bush bashing Canadian entertainer with his head up his ass.

Blogwell - is your solemn recitation of the lyrics to "Ohio" supposed to strike everyone into shamefaced, respectful awe? I, for one, am tired of seeing 30-year-old outrage pulled out of the cupboard and tugged on like an old t-shirt, especially since the precise events of Kent State are a bit more complex than "kids shot by thug Nat. Guardsmen". I don't see a line in the CSNY song about the campus radicals who'd been rioting and burning buildings in the town previous to the shootings, oddly enough.

My brother used to work in New York, for the guy who managed Dylan, The Band and Janice Joplin, back in the day. He met Young - Canadians in the business tended to congregate, apparently - and said he was a huge flake. Much as I've loved Neil's work over the years, I still hear that whenever he tries to get too topical. I'm frankly more impressed by songs like Campaigner, where he broke with the pack and showed some sympathy for the disgraced and widowed Nixon.

Keep on Rockin in the fre,.er uh... um, dimitude.

Having young musicians sing about protests, oppression and such is normal and par for the course. Mind you a lot of those lyrics written are remembered as something else entirely. Blinded By The Light (Manfred Mann)comes to mind. Doing that same tired schtick 37 years later is just plain sad.
This leads me to another point: "Where is it written that musicians/actors/models and such are also experts on world affairs?" I for one am tired of these hasbeen celebs demanding audiences with governments as if we should jump at their every wish. To quote a more knowledgeable celeb: "You don't speak for me."

Rick,

What are you saying? Because some campus radicals get carried away it's OK for NG thugs to gun down unarmed students. Maybe innocent students just on the way to class or to meet with friends. Bright young kids full of wonderment their whole future ahead of them, some mothers child gone because of an insane war.

It could of been GW Bush with that gun in his hand if he hadn't skipped out on his obligation.

Give your head a shake buddy.

BTW, Most artists that perform at a very high level are a bit flaky. So What!

"Shoulda been done long ago" is the only accurate thing Neil Young ever wrote and he was being sardonic. Although I'll give him credit for Campaigner too, Rick. Even a stopped clock...

RE Kent State: the annual Hard Hat Riots commemoration at my blog the first week of May btw. Mark yer calendars... :-) Never heard of 'em? Surprise.

And what about the other campus shootings around the same time that nobody remembers? We're all very selective about our histories.

I never did like Niel Young. So nothing has changed. No news here. Turn the page.

Thanks for the perfect overreaction, Blogwell - you've confirmed my assumptions about your stance of choice on this.

What I was saying is that it's not impossible to imagine Nat. Guard soldiers being a bit tense if they're called into a situation where violent riots have been taking place, at a time when the rhetoric of student protest had been getting aggressive, to say the least. It's not so much an excuse as an attempt to find context, as opposed to relying on tired stereotypes of jackboot soldiers charging into campuses to "shut down dissent". The guardsmen at Kent State were poorly led by their officers, to be sure, but they were also retreating to a defensive position, which isn't a nice place to be if you're a soldier.

Soldiers on U.S. campuses was an ugly spectacle, but it takes two to tango, and you have to ask why they were there, Blogwell - it was a fantastically ugly, tense time, even more in Europe than in the U.S., and homegrown terrorist groups were considered hip rebels by the counterculture, and both sides had done their best to crank up the rhetoric. Sure, I feel pity for the student crossing the campus who gets caught in the crossfire, but I also feel rage toward the radical groups who were happy to let the situation deteriorate to the point where soldiers were called in - as much as your fantasy life might entertain it, the U.S. wasn't and isn't Chile or Cuba, where heavily armed police, soldiers and paramilitary are regularly used. Hell, we had an armed presence on the streets of Canada at around the same time - isn't that a sign of how tense things had gotten?

I'm sorry, but the older I get the more I rue the radical '60s and its politics of bullying and threats - from both the right and left. What an awful time to be alive. I'd happily have foregone Cream, the Doors, Easy Rider and both Fillmores - the whole of the culture - to have avoided this awful social eruption, to be frank.

Maybe the next thread will be about softwood lumber and Blogwell can google the words of "Big Yellow Taxi" for our entertainment.
Ahh, the seventies,some of us had way too much fun.

Dear Douglas,

I would not normally use this space to promote my own blog, but your hapless blithering has given me too good an opprotunity to pass up.

Interestingly enough, Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd became good pals with Neil after the release of "Southern Man". In fact, Neil wrote the classic civil war song "Powderfinger" for Lynyrd Skynyrd, but their plane went down before the tune was successfully recorded.

The story of their friendship is told in "Ronnie and Neil" by The Drive-by-Truckers, one of the great musical heirs of Neil and Skynyrd. you can find the lyrics on their site.

Oh yes, and I am posting a list of my favorite and not so favorite Neil Young protest tunes at BigCityLib Strikes Back. Feel free to add a few if I've missed any. But I frankly doubt kids your age would have much use for Neil, especially his older material. I find this generation has a real fear of electric guitar music.

What the hell generation are you talking about, Big City Fib? Making assumptions again, lad?

The generation of snot assed little punks so well represented here on small dead animals, rick.

Odd how all those 60s hippies grew up to become democrats. The same party that started and prosecuted the war they were protesting.

I believe Neil Young was a fan of Reagan.

Chretien kept us out of Iraq? Sure, but why? Had it been Clinton who asked, Canada would've been in Iraq - as Chretien is on record telling parliament. His decisions are based on prejudice and greed, not principle.

Power Corporation / Total Fina / Chretien Demarais marriage: Do a little homework before spewing your ignorance BCL. It's amazing you think you can run a blog.

Douglas,

I was saving 'If a Tree Falls' by Bruce Cockburn for the softwood lumber issue.

'Big Yellow Taxi' will be for PMSH's CPC exit from Ottawa. As he drives away from Sussex sadly looking out the back window Joni will laugh the final few bars of the song.

Would I be over-reacting if I were to say GW Bush breaks signed agreeements just in the same way he broke the deal with his military service?

This is news because this is what people want to hear about, much like the ad nauseum updates on TomKate's new baby.

Just because you don't like the news, doesn't mean it isn't. A major recording star releasing an anti-war album is news. It is significant because it shows the groundswell of opposition to the Iraq War in the U.S. I know people here still believe it a noble cause, but you are in the minority.

Clinton wouldn't have been stupid enough to invade Iraq. And whatever Chretien's motives were, the result was the right one. I am surprised anyone is still arguing otherwise. Even your leader Stephen harper has "evolved" into a less silly position on this issue.

Neil was a fan of Reagan. Was not a fan of either Bush. Supported the Patriot Act. Thinks the Iraq war is a disaster and that we should "Impeach the President".

Go Neil Go.

What irks me the most about leftist pseudo-intellectuals against the Iraq War of Liberation (my name for it), is their willing ignorance of al the history and current news available about Iraq, the Global War on Terror, outside of The Usual Suspects of the lefty MSM who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge it.

With them, anti-Americanism and Bush Derangement Syndrome trump all else.

Believe it or not:
1. There is much evidence of Saddam Regime and Al Qaeda cooperation.
2. There is much evidence of an ongoing-to-the-end Saddam Regime WMD program, including a nuclear weapons research program.
3. There is much evidence that opposition to the Iraq War of Liberation by France, Germany, Russia, prominent European businessmen and politicians (AND certain very prominent Canadian businessmen and politicians...Power Corp. ring a bell? JEan Chretien ring a bell?) was based on their financial interest and gain in Total Fina ELF Oil Corp. and other companies doing huge-AND ILLEGAL-business in breaking the UN sanctions.
4. There is much evidence of corruption and willful ignorance on the part of the very top echelon of UN leadership, including Kofi Annan, in the UN Oil for Food Program.

Finally, there is much evidence, studiously ignored by The Usual Suspects in the MSM, of vast progress being made in the reconstruction and democraticization of Iraq.

Dear Dave, this is the kind of crap that hasn't even managed to ooze its way out of the blogosphere, you are quite right. One thing about the Oil-for-Food scandel you don't here is how deeply the U.S. was complicit in it. For example, the name Jack Kemp appeared briefly during the course of the investigation, but since it was fellow Republicans doing the investigating, it got stuffed.

BCL - you wouldn't use this space to promote your own blog?????

Riiiiggggghhhttt...

"BCL - you wouldn't use this space to promote your own blog?"

What blog? The idiot is here all the time.

To BCL,

RE: "we should "Impeach the President".

How can you, a Canadian, include yourself in any future vote to impeach President George W. Bush?

Answer: You can't.

No but I think Neil Young is a dual citizen. He can.

Mitch
"It's called balance. And the MSM refuses to do it."

Also, I havn't such a blog portray itself as an impartial perveyor of news. It's not the blogs that are hypocritical.

Speaking of Bigfathypos
"... it is incontestable that on the day I left office, there were unaccounted for stocks of biological and chemical weapons."
- Bill Clinton (CNN - July 22, 2003)

http://edition.cnn.com/WORLD/meast/9902/13/afghan.binladen/

http://www.radioamerica.org/audio/MR_ABC-Osama-Hussein-connections.mp3

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,798270,00.html

If Neil Young is an American citizen he has volunteered his sworn oath to his chosen country, America.

He also pays taxes to and is subject to all USA law ( Has Neil Young ever been to Cuba?).

Only American citizens carry the right to vote on Americas' sovereign issues.

You, BCL, obviously (and for my part thankfully), will have NO official say in any proceedings.

new kid..."We should have been standing beside our American and British allies." Some one got a gun to your head all these years, stopping you from going stateside and joining the marines?
Bigcitylib... "force marching them to kiss chretien's ass." good one.

So Neil Young doesn't care for either Bush, whoopie do. He is allowed his opinion, as is everyone. I personally think he wrote some good songs although his singing voice makes me think he sat on his PTO while plowing the back 40 early on in life. (trivia: will BCL even know what I'm talking about?) This all goes back to my earlier question as to why people think US foreign policy should be made by Charlie Sheen ("I've never been elected but my dad played the president once so I know"), Harry Belfonte, Michael Moors or Bono.

Oh, on making assumptions... "The generation of snot assed little punks so well represented here on small dead animals..." it is obvious the writer knows squat as an informal poll that ran here a while back showed that a great number of us were as old as Neil Young, Randy Bachman, Burton Cummings, et al. Maturity gives one a whole new outlook on life. Imagine that, eh.

Nice try zuma.

The old divide and conquer.

NO ONE does it better than Canadian Socialists.

But SDA has your number.

Maybe you Libs should go blog elsewhere and work out the very large kinks (like those 70s guys, Neil Young and Warren Kinsella) in your strategerys. sarc

no bozos.... What in the hell are you talking about...are you trying to post as you pack for shipping out to the Iraq theater at the same time?

zuma,

Yes, that is exactly what I am doing. - sarc

What exactly are you talking about?

Is that your own idea of a quick witted Liberal put down of those in the US military who are now packing to ship out for Iraq?

"snot assed little punks so well represented here on small dead animals,"
bcl

Kate
It must be a wonderful Spring day in Delisle.
Your patience with this under bridge dweller is greater than I can muster.

"Kids your age"?
blc I 'm pretty sure that I've got kids your age.
Just that my kids are a whole lot smarter and better looking than I assume you are.
Your blog should be priceless.

So, Texas Canuck, then you can't even claim youth as an excuse.

talking to BCL is like talking to a 2 year old ,except the 2 year old will learn

Yeah, you wouldn't promote your blog, would you bigclitty? Seriously, if you have a blog to work on, why the hell are you here so much?
I know, it's that rather sick need you have for abuse.

Dear blue runes,

I go wherever there are conservatives in need of smiting. There are a lot of conservatives here, so I am here alot, smiting them.

Are YOU claiming youth as an excuse, BigCityFib? Because you definitely need one for tossing around the ad hominem attacks so, er, liberally.

And you're - what? - posting Neil Young lyrics on the blog you'd never stoop to promote on a comments forum? I'm sure if I popped over there I'd find my political polarities switched in a moment by glancing over the lyrics of Cortez The Killer, wouldn't I?

Look, age is immaterial, but I have to ask - shouldn't you be in school?

Smiting? Wow, another sleep viking. Just what we needed.

We've been "smited" by someone who thinks boogers are a food group.
My day is now complete.

Actually Rick, BCL has gone from "sleep viking" to "gultch" in record time! Watch out, Blahg-ert!

bcl "But I frankly doubt kids your age would have much use for Neil, especially his older material. I find this generation has a real fear of electric guitar music."
You wouldn't be implying that Niel was a guitar player would you, I mean lets be realistic here. Even in the best drug induced moments of our mis-spent youth, no serious musician ever considered niel as a serious guitar player. His playing made you cringe with his flubbed notes and sharp tuning. I will be honest. I was one of his fans, but niel, an angry young man has morphed into an angrier old man. His guitar playing remains, shall we be polite? Yes let's! His playing remains... interesting.

"You're all just pissing in the wind." - Ambulance Blues from Neil Young's On The Beach

greg
You should listen to Prairie Wind its an album dedicated to his youth in Winnipeg and family especially his father. There are a few real gems and one that made me tear up. No anger here.

Would all those protesting the war in Iraq please inform the rest of us the future of the ME and the of the world if, next week Pres Bush said " The US and our allies have tried to bring democracy to your country, but it is obvious you don't want it. Therefore, I have decided that we will start to bring all our troops, workers, businesses etc, back home within 3 wks. You, the Iraqi people have 3 wks to decide your fate=be under a terrorist dictator, or democracy, with schools, roads, power etc. Should you choose peace you must inform us of all plots, bombs, terrorists, and be responsible for your own future. If we leave there will be consequences-it will be illegal for any american to do business with anyone in any muslim country. As many have said this war was all about oil, we will no longer allow oil to be imported into our country. I know this will cause hardships for many americans, but that is what they want and are apparently willing to sacrifice their lifestyle to bring our troops home. The choice is yours, and it must be made within 3 wks.
BCL, I await your reply to the change in attitude of many americans and cdns. What would OBL do.

Dear Greg,

You clearly don't understand the nature of electric guitar. You are also clearly unaware of the influence Neil has had on the younger generation of guitar heros like J. Mascis, Doug Martsch, and the lads from Teenage Fanclub. If you did, you would not speak out so foolishly

The left liberals, as evidenced by their apologists here, are frozen in time, circa 1989 & the fall of soviet communism.

Like a frozen mountaineer on a sheer wallface, the left liberals cannot move; as in a catatonic state; eyes wide shut; mesmerized by their own blindness. Pity. +

The shift in power

Commentary

On the last day of March I wrote a paragraph in Pretty Pictures which I can't better. And I repeat it here. It expresses in my own klunky way some of the ideas which I think Michael Yon was getting at. Important victories have been won, but there is a long way yet to go. Yet the worst of it is that we've been consciously blinded by the very institutions whose job it is to help us see.

A realistic assessment should include what has already been gained and what is left to gain. Some people think the Belmont Club is guilty of unwonted optimism simply because it is willing to accept what Zarqawi has practically admitted: that the Sunni insurgency is militarily beaten -- and that the struggle for the political outcome is now underway. And some readers may believe that I've gone all "gloomy" because I think the political outcome still hangs in the balance. But that is nothing more than stating a fact. Yet the essential difference is this: it's in context. Those who have done some rock climbing know that while it is important to grope for the next handhold along the line of climb it is equally important to remember the footholds you have already won. Forget where you are standing and you are lost. Unfortunately, much of the regular media coverage is almost designed to conceal where where we are standing and where we have to go. There is no context, as Bill Roggio once put it on a television interview. For most casual listeners of the news the US is trapped in a featureless and starchy soup, with no beginning or end. The War on Terror becomes portrayed as a shapeless shroud from which it is imperative to escape at all costs.

And that's sad because as Baron von Richthofen said, "Those who are afraid to take the next step will have wasted their entire previous journey."

But we will see all the same. +
http://www.fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/

I've come to terms with it, Neil is still "the" rock god to me, just not the brightest, nor consistant.
It is what it is.
His previous album tour (Greendale) was performed from a stage set that looked like a rural homestead farm-house front porch.
Complete with rocking chairs, and farm cloths.
I caught him at the ACC. on his last tour
It was very good.

I guess this tour he will be performing from a staged downtown starbucks with metrosexuals wearing his and her tight colourful hoodies and euroweiny eyeglasses, whilst they sip double double halfcafs with a twist.
I hope he doesn't forget the nose jewellery, low rider plumbers pants, and thongs with tribal peakaboo tatoos.

I genuinally hope he doesn't lose that folk/rock fuzz-distortion guitar, he does so well!
I must admit, I can't make out the words from any songs nowadays.
I won't be giving any of my money to hear him bash the president of the United States while we are at war.
Perhaps I'll sneak in.

First Ken Dryden ,now Neil.
I hope supermodels never learn to talk.

"You clearly don't understand the nature of electric guitar. You are also clearly unaware of the influence Neil has had on the younger generation of guitar heros like J. Mascis, Doug Martsch, and the lads from Teenage Fanclub. If you did, you would not speak out so foolishly"

Wow, BigCityFib - are you trying out for a rock crit position on your college paper or something, because this sort of irony-deprived rock nerd boilerplate will get you laughed out of the house. The tone - with its visual implication of being delivered with your eyes half closed and your nose raised in the air - is especially priceless. Do you hang out at Soundscapes on College street much?

Young is not composing; he is decomposing. (H/T Spike Jones). #

Iraqi Shiite leader wins backing as PM(Iraq's unity government is here)
Posted by Halfmanhalfamazing
On 04/22/2006 6:18:58 PM PDT · 4 replies · 76+ views

ABC ^ | April 23, 2006
Mr Maliki, a tough-talking Shiite leader, was nominated by the Shiite Alliance in a compromise vote that won initial backing from main Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs. +
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1619740/posts