This is going viral ~ which goes to prove just how important a skill comprehension really is ~ ~ Sooz

Bruce Springsteen says veteran lives have value; conservatives throw a fit.
Amanda Marcotte | 12 Nov 2014 at 09:35 ET

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day, a day many of us believe should be used to honor people who have provided military service, particularly those who fought in wars, often at great sacrifice. But apparently the Weekly Standard and various conservatives online prefer to think of it as a day to honor wealthy, powerful men who start unnecessary wars while refusing to serve themselves or by pulling strings to keep their sons out of the wars.

Bruce Springsteen played the Creedence Clearwater Revival song “Fortunate Son” at the Concert for Valor Tuesday night. This is wholly unsurprising, as the song fits quite neatly into Springsteen’s lifelong project of highlighting the lives of ordinary people and protesting the way that the privileged and powerful abuse the ordinary working people that make this country work. For anyone who has been living under a rock since the 60s, “Fortune Son” is a song about how ordinary people who are drafted into service are being exploited by flag-waving, wealthy hypocrites that love starting wars but don’t love so much fighting them. Some modern examples you might be familiar with include George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It’s such a prominent pattern that it even got a name during the Iraq War: “chickenhawk”.

Here are the lyrics, if you, under-a-rock-person, don’t believe me:


And:


For those who are confused—or shall I say are feigning confusion—about the “military son” line, the way people of good faith interpret it is to say that the sons of generals and other high-ranking officials often had people pull strings for them to get them out of the draft. It is not, by any reasonable measure, a slam on the children of people who serve on the front ranks.

The reason you’d play this song at a veteran’s concert is obvious, as the song is arguing that the lives of soldiers have value and should not be put at risk for the hell of it. But Weekly Standard threw a fit:


This is a fairly simple disagreement, it seems. Springsteen, et al, were saying “soldiers have value”. Weekly Standard is like, “nuh-uh, war is what is valuable”. They engage in relatively little hand-waving to confuse the issue, too, which is kind of fascinating. Didn’t even try to engage the argument that soldier’s lives have meaning and therefore we should not take the decision to go to war lightly. Just a knee-jerk assumption that war is good and should be defended automatically, even at an event honoring people who have firsthand experience of how war is very much not good.

Look, I’m fully aware that a lot of veterans are reasonably uncomfortable accepting that they sacrificed so much for a pointless war that was more about ego-stroking George Bush than it was anything else, and so they, too, defend these wars. It’s human nature to rationalize your experiences and no one wants to feel their suffering was wasted. But that’s what the beauty of art and music is, that it can sometimes break down those defenses and help people engage, on a deeper level, with their experiences. With “Fortunate Son”, it’s simply incorrect to call it an anti-war song. It’s simply making the point that if you think war is so great, then you first, assholes. That has an emotional power that can help break down some of the defense systems and get people to a real discussion about whether or not we should start a bunch of wars for funsies.

Washington Post gathered up a couple of tweets by people complaining about the song being played at “patriotic” events. Again, it’s interesting how the concept of being a “patriot” is tied up in the idea that we should just want some wars, because yea wars! But I would like to offer another definition of a patriot: Someone who believes that her country has value because the people in it have value. Which means that you defend the right of soldiers to live and argue strenuously against going to war unless it is truly necessary. Which is what Springsteen was doing.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/bruce-springsteen-says-veteran-lives-have-value-conservatives-throw-a-fit/

Never one to miss out on touting a controversy, here's the Fox take ~ ~ Sooz

Fox hosts befuddled by ‘Fortunate Son’ lyrics, claim Springsteen ‘bashes soldiers’ on Veteran’s Day
David Edwards | 12 Nov 2014 at 10:56 ET

Fox News on Wednesday suggested that a song protesting the Vietnam war draft and elitism in Washington was performed by Bruce Springsteen on Veteran’s Day because he was “taking shots at the red, white and blue.”

During a Tuesday HBO “Concert for Valor” on the National Mall, Springsteen, Zac Brown and Dave Grohl performed Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song “Fortunate Son.”

According to songwriter John Fogerty, the song was written to speak “more to the unfairness of class than war itself.” It talks about militant patriotism, and how the “senator’s son” is able to avoid the Vietnam draft.

“Yeah, some folks inherit star-spangled eyes / They send you down to war / And when you ask them, ‘How much should we give?’ / They only answer, more, more, more,” Fogerty’s lyrics say. “It ain’t me, it ain’t me / I ain’t no Senator’s son / It ain’t me, it ain’t me / I ain’t no fortunate one.”

But the message turned out to be too complex for some conservatives, who interpreted the song to be an insult to veterans.

“Taking shots at the red, white and blue,” Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt reported on Wednesday. “People expressing outrage on Twitter, saying the song bashes soldiers going to war.”

“Some are going, wait a minute, this is all about the vets, and that particular song was intended to be an anti-war anthem,” host Steve Doocy opined. “Is it really appropriate to be performing it in front of so many vets who volunteered to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

“Yeah, you’re doing this for an audience of veterans, and it’s almost a slap in the face,” co-host Anna Kooiman agreed. “These producers should have known their audience, and known what they were getting with people like Bruce Springsteen.”

Co-host Clayton Morris, however, was able to grasp the original intent of Fogerty’s lyrics.

“I’m sort of torn about it because the song really is about the elites, it’s about — written in the late 1960s, when John Fogerty wrote it, it was really about those politicians who he saw their sons and daughters were not going to go off in fight in a war,” Morris explained. “And that the rest of the country was going to have to fight to save the rest of us, and help the rest of us.”

But Doocy was still suspicious of Springsteen’s motives.

“Well, if they were going to bookend it with that historical context, that would have been great,” he argued. “But I don’t think they did that. They just sang a song that is deemed by many to be anti-war, anti-draft. And that’s rubbed a bunch of people anti-musician now.”

Watch the video below from Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast Nov. 12, 2014.


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/fox-hosts-befuddled-by-fortunate-son-lyrics-claim-springsteen-bashes-soldiers-on-veterans-day/

Let's not forget JFK and LBJ on that list though JFK did serve in active conflict. Not sure about Johnson.

Fox is just wrong on so many levels, and their staff either stupid or feigning stupidity for the sake of rallying those too dumb to think for themselves. It's tiresome. Yawn.

Special thanks to Karl Rove for figuring out how to rally all of those sipping the christian kool aid, opiate of the masses. Bees in the trap.

They don't give a shit. The purpose is to disrupt and create chaos.

they live in a cultural vacuum, which is a nice companion piece for their moral vacuum.