My greatest musical hero is afraid of me.
This is bullshit.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
Their exports are so much better than a Bush sponsored, Dem enabled, rooster tail of blood.
Rush in Rio. If you haven’t seen ’em live, well, sucks to be you.
Look at that crowd! Brazil + Canada = 1!
I love this song, then again, I am a die-hard Bowie fan. I have to admit, I was a bit surprised that he is your hero too.
I’m afraid of America(ns) too.
I’m there. Have been reading some interesting things about sustainable agriculture for post-peak oil society. And there is a poem at the preface of the book that started this particular vein of the movement I’m reading about — Permaculture 1 by Mollison & Holmgren (I think).
The poem is a beautiful start. Says there are two kinds of people. Those whose instinct is to love. And those whose instinct it is to fear.
Our society seems to be more populated by the latter. Fear – leads to violence and hate. They might bomb us, better build bombs and use them first. Gotta love a society build on fear.
The human problems are so great. If we could just look at one another — all of us — as being in the same boat. And start to try to solve some of the problems. One by one. Without constantly planning how we’re going to out-survive and out-compete our fellow great apes. So fucked up. Bowie’s got it.
(Speaking of which — I met a dog the other day who looked just like Bowie. Ratty hair, skinny to the bone, and with two different colored eyes. Dog wanted to sing White Christmas, too, mistaking me for Bing Crosby I guess — so I took him home to play some rock band. But that is an entirely different story.)
Booman, I think you are being harsh on Bowie.
Here’s what he said on the album’s press release:
“It’s not as truly hostile about Americans as say “Born in the U.S.A.”: it’s merely sardonic. I was traveling in Java when the first McDonald’s went up: it was like, “for fuck’s sake.” The invasion by any homogenized culture is so depressing, the erection of another Disney World in, say, Umbria, Italy, more so. It strangles the indigenous culture and narrows expression of life.”
I think most of us could easily agree with that sentiment.
I love anybody who talks this way
good rant.
or try Saudi Arabia! Or yes, anywhere else in the world.. my friend lived in Honduras for several months only to find out that coca cola would paint their logo all over this small town, on the side of houses etc. where people were to poor to care about sodas. She thought the same thing (haha for fuck’s sake).. it boggled her mind and it was a veritable eyesore…what was the point if Coca cola wasn’t even being sold?
hmm…what ‘would’ the message be or what subliminal message would people get whether its intended as such or not..Booman, were you not recently in Switzerland? Did you see anything there?
Ingrid
(A’dam has had his McDonalds for year and years and even my small hometown in Holland got their McD in early 90s
I’m not criticizing Bowie.
well, when your “preznit” and all his croanies break all the laws, constitution, treaties, morales, ethics, etc, etc,
who the hell in the rest of the world would’nt be leary….
and BushCo do think they’re GOD…
and all us diciples, are just letting it be 😉
go figure…
peace? not under this rule
Bullshit? Well, maybe. But the audience is responding enthusiastically to this song, that contains a phrase, “I’m afraid of Americans.” Rather than dismiss this song, we Americans might do well to reflect on why it is resonating so strongly with the crowd.
Many around the world are fearful of our slide toward authoritarianism. (We now have a presidential candidate from the “liberal” Democratic party who supports legislation that effectively guts our civil liberties, whether we want to admit it or not.) We Americans have duly elected a sociopathic cabal, Cheney and his fellow torturers, liars, crooks and warmongers, who, according to polls taken around the world, are considered the greatest threat to world peace.
The line in Bowie’s song merely reflects how many in the world see us. To dismiss this fact does nothing to change it.
Bowie’s not with us, so he’s against us. Let’s send a Predator drone after him and shoot a Hellfire missile at him.
Rufus Wainwright – Tired of America
Rammstein – Amerika
then you are not paying attention friend.
Be patient Nancy. If you step back and think for a moment on the sorts of things BooMan writes about about and the views he expresses and the things that horify him, you’ll probably get a better understanding of what he meant when he wrote “this is bullshit.”
Often, the most artful blog post doesn’t spell everything out for the reader. This is why Atrios, for instance, is often such a powerful blogger. He assumes, as BooMan did here, that the reader has been paying attention and won’t leap to depressingly stupid conclusions if everything isn’t spelled out for them. Sadly, this isn’t always the case.
boy howdy, isn’t that the truth.
Booman expressed disappointment in one of his favorite artists for this particular song. He then said it was bullshit. Was he not referring to the message Bowie was conveying? What is it you think I am being ignorant about?
I expressed disappointment in my county…not Bowie.
Guess I misinterpreted your words.
You’re not the only one. If the word “this” appears in a sentence directly underneath a video, it’s natural to suppose that “this” refers to the video. Also, I wouldn’t call Americans being assholes, which the song seems to be about and is what Booman says he was objecting to, bullshit. “Bullshit” doesn’t mean regrettable or bad, but false or misleading.
I guess some of us can’t get used to the sloppy writing cultivated in blogging.
I guess some of us can’t get used to the sloppy writing cultivated in blogging.
Maybe you shouldn’t be reading blogs then. If I were participating in a medium where I routinely failed to understand the conventions, I’d probably ask for some help, or I’d find something else to do.
What an arrogant and condescending thing to write.
Indeed. What Alexander wrote was arrogant and condescending. He got the same in return.
if the word ‘this’ appears opening a sentence, it probably refers back to the sentence that preceded it. Specifically, it probably refers to the general meaning of the preceding sentence.
As in, ‘the musician I most admire is afraid of me because I am an American and America is now the face of violence’.
Thus my response. ‘This is bullshit’.
As in, ‘This is some bullshit, man!’
As in, ‘What the fuck is happening to my county that it’s come to this?’
In order to believe that I think Bowie is to blame in this scenario you’d probably have to forget everything you’ve ever read that I have written. Either that, or you just tend to read words in an extremely literal way. But, in that case, you probably find yourself misreading things all the time.
All right. I didn’t so much mean to criticize your writing as suggest that one shouldn’t jump all over someone for misunderstanding you.
But to me, “This is bullshit” does not work the same as “this is some bullshit”. In your place, I would have written, “this sucks” or, even better, “this is totally fucked up”.
A total of four people who posted comments thought you were referring to Bowie’s dissing Americans, not the state of affairs that Bowie was lamenting. Just sayin’.
What’s interesting to me about that song btw is that it’s ten years old, so this has nothing to do with Bush, which I didn’t realize at first, since I didn’t know the song.
I didn’t know that either or I wouldn’t have posted it.
What is it you think I am being ignorant about?
I mean this in the nicest way, but you were being ignorant about everything.
A single blog post is not a novel. It doesn’t explain everything. Before you assume the worst of a blogger, read 20 or 30 posts they have written. If the blogger is any good, that exorcise will give you a fairly decent understanding of where they are coming from.
This medium requires quite a lot from the audience. Get your shit together.
I’ve read more than 30 posts of Booman’s, and he has made rather nationalistic remarks on several occasions. Thus, the “principle of charity” routinely used in interpretation did not exclude the reading NancyImpeachBush made.
What are you, some kind of virtual groupie? Booman can clarify his own remarks if he wants to, as he did in this case.
Telling someone she does not have her “shit together” goes way below the level of politeness that most regular visitors to this blog expect. The rarity of such rudeness is one of the reasons we like this blog so much.
I love this, Alexander. I can remember a couple of posts I did a long time ago where I defended American Exceptionalism by completely redefining its meaning. My nationalistic posts tend more to ‘why doesn’t Norway take responsibility for all this shit.’ But that’s just because I like to nooge ask every once in a while. I’m quite the nationalist.
All right. It was early in the day for me and I was a bit out of it.
I think it’s good that you’re “nationalist” in the way you are. People who want to get this country “back on the right track” need firm ground, relating to this country’s traditions in a positive way, that they can stand on.
perhaps you mean that I’m patriotic. That I am. As in, I have tremendous respect for the patriots that liberated this country from the tyranny of King George III and bestowed Enlightenment principals in law for humanity’s benefit.
Americans are patriots. It’s people from other countries who are nationalists. That is all part of American exceptionalism. 😉
It’s interesting that you mention the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment is precisely why I cannot enthusiastically join you in your patriotism/nationalism. That is because I believe that it was only the Germans who worked the Enlightenment out through to the end. Thus, the English speaking world does not have a good understanding of modernity. That is why the centers of neoliberalism are America and Britain.
I believe you studied philosophy in college. I wonder if you studied much German philosophy.
I studied ancient greek and modern German. Those were my two main focuses.
Well then, I guess that you weren’t too impressed with Hegel’s critique of liberal political philosophy. I was.
Liberalism cannot articulate the general interest – all it works with is atomistic individuals; it cannot conceptualize society or community – and that explains why we are in the impasse that we are in now.
Alex,
I am going to do you the service of not trying to interpret your meaning based on two sentences.
What are you, some kind of virtual groupie?
Reviewing that comment, do you believe you are polite?
Do you believe I should care what a person such as yourself considers polite? Should I check in with your delicate feelings to be certain you won’t be hurt when I comment?
Fucking please.
You are too stupid to understand a very simple blog post. I have no idea of your aptitude, but at present, you are too stupid to read political blogs. Until you get your shit together, you should probably keep your very badly informed opinions to yourself. When you type, you embarrass yourself.
What are you, some kind of virtual groupie?
Go fuck yourself.
response. You are so out of line here it is sad. Calling other stupid and F’ing this and that. Grow up Chris. If you cannot civilly disagree with someone then maybe you are the one that should step away from the computer for awhile. What a disgusting display.