Caller on line two. Go ahead John from Churchville.
John : Where are you on the issues?
Well, John. We all have them. So, ask away but be please be specific. That goes for anyone else out there in Cold Fusion Country. Ask away…
Now back to our program.
1979 saw the release of London Calling by The Clash, one of the most important albums in the rock era. Rock and roll…ah, those were the days. Lyrics, music, angst, love, poetry and the occasional bad, but encoded word.
This was not the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius. No, this was the beginning of the cultural reaction to it. History notes that 1968 was the Summer of Love and Woodstock and that fun little party the Democrats (Democratics) had in Chicago. Cold Fusion HQ was then a play pen – irony noted.
During the 1960s, the Beatles ruled the cultural transformation in popular music with great album after great album. Rolling Stone lists Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band as the most important ever. My uncle gave me the White Album instead, in a not so concealed effort to radicalize me. Blessedly he failed to accessorize that Christmas gift with herbal supplements. I’m almost positive that Christmas fell in 1978.
The plot thickens.
As the generation that watched on black and white televisions the landing on the moon, Vietnam, Watergate, Three Mile Island and the Woodstock Decade Long Weekend, we hit a wall with the rest of the nation with the Iran hostages, an economy on the brink and general Chaos.
Sitting in our basements we listened to the Stones, the Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd and occasionally, at school dances, disco. Let it go.
Then in the backdrop of the Pirates come from behind World Series win and accompanying “We Are Family” diddy by Sister Sledge, we witnessed the Miracle on Ice – tape delayed – and then the run up to the historic election of 1980 ending the Carter Malaise. Eventually.
It was a cultural change in America but most of us couldn’t vote. We watched and listened coming of age during a time of American renewal. Some friends went Left and some went Right but remained friends against, but with the times. The times were improving and they were “a changin”.
With the The Clash methodically pounding in our heads
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don’t look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain’t got no swing
‘Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
The Clash. London Calling. Written during a time of great world confusion called out the previous, in their case own, generation.
Fast forward to 2011 with the increasing comparisons to the Carter Administration. With truncheon flying in London, Athenian and Arabian streets, history seems to be repeating itself. Or in Yogi Berraese “It’s deja vu all over again.”
The world is at a critical tipping point. Will it reverse course and begin to undo the entitlement mentality that has a near death grip lock on the youth of the Developed Countries or will it embrace what actually worked to pull us out of the Malaise – namely freedom and liberty? Will the governing class, representative of the idealist generation that grew out of world war and a century of incalculable dehumanization, double down and stay the course or will it realize the truths of simple mathematics and economics?
The most educated and yet most politically and culturally halved generation in American history is at the decision point.
While hope springs eternal, reality is a B*tch.
America’s greatest triumphs have been a direct result of clarity of purpose with eyes set on her horizon. Unleash the American greatness and you unleash the best of humanity. Get out of the way. We can fix what we know to be broken.
We can once again propel a long dormant pioneering and frontier spirit that is at the core of our national DNA. We must delineate between Power and Strength. Power comes from within and within our great Nation lies a power that was given to us by our Creator, not from our neighbor, boss or elected representative.
The strength of the force against is no match for the Power of Our Within.
That appears to be the clash that is calling, but as we schedule to gather this Thanksgiving, may this Nation, table by table, return to its DNA and loudly sing “We Are Family”. Right, Left, Green, Turquoise, Plaid – whatever your stripe – we are all in this together. We all got in it together and we will prevail together.
Maybe.
Come out of the cupboards all you boys and girls. All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust.
John Lennon said he would have voted for Ronald Reagan and started down the path of evangelical Christianity only to be gunned down by Mark David Chapman. The year? 1980.
Maybe Lennon discovered the clash before The Clash did.
Imagine.
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