SurrealPolitiks S01E022 – Country vs. Country

In geopolitics, when one country challenges another, this is a phenomenon known as “war”. It is only in the last few years that I have developed an appreciation for what is known as “Country Music”. I used to hate it. My father listens to country music, and with some notable exceptions, I found it intolerable as a child. “Dad’s music” was the genre in my mind, back then. It might go without saying, that my father considered my music “noise”. As I understand it, these generational gaps in taste are not terribly unusual. It might also be a familiar phenomenon that as I grew older, my tastes changed. In particular, as I became disgusted with all that is pop culture, I looked for entertainment options which did not glorify drugs and promiscuity and crime and generally aim to participate in the destruction of civilization. With, again, some notable exceptions, country music served me well here. And Country music, as the name might seem to imply, is near universally patriotic. Among the most popular songs ever produced is Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American”. Country music is packed with cultural references that appeal to conservatives; guns, work, family, self reliance, community, honoring military service. Even in what has been dubbed as “Outlaw Country” there’s a respect for American institutions. Take for example Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” in which, though he has “shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die” and is “stuck in Folsom prison” where “time keeps draggin’ on” he recognizes that “I know I had it coming, I know I can’t be free” and because of this, when he hears that whistle blowin’, he hangs his head and cries. In Merle Haggard’s “Fightin’ Side of Me” he laments; I hear people talkin’ bad,<br /> About the way we have to live here in this country,<br /> Harpin’ on the wars we fight,<br /> An’ gripin’ ’bout the way things oughta be.<br /> An’ I don’t mind ’em switchin’ sides,<br /> An’ standin’ up for things they believe in.<br /> When they’re runnin’ down my country, man,<br /> They’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me. Yeah, walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me.<br /> Runnin’ down the way of life,<br /> Our fightin’ men have fought and died to keep.<br /> If you don’t love it, leave it:<br /> Let this song I’m singin’ be a warnin’.<br /> If you’re runnin’ down my country, man,<br /> You’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me. And Country music is in no way short on sadness. There’s the old joke “What happens when you play a country song backwards? The guy stops drinking and gets his wife back”. But they don’t blame their country for their sadness. They are, on the contrary, very grateful to live in America, and are quite certain that whatever their woes today, they would be far worse had it not been for their good fortune to have been born in America, and for the service of military personnel who protect the freedoms they curse themselves for not taking advantage of. Lee Greenwood’s famous track provides a prominent example, wherein he says “If tomorrow all the things were gone, I’d worked for all my life, and I had to start again, with just my children and my wife. I’d that my lucky stars, to be living here today, cause the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away.” So it was an interesting phenomenon to me, as a casual observer of this genre, the back to back releases of two songs which indicated people have just about had it with the state of affairs in American modernity. First there was t