Monday, November 01, 2004 ‘FIXIN’ TO DIE’ REVISITED -- 'When I was a teenager in the U.S. Navy in Japan I pressed cherry blossoms one spring and put them in plastic in my photo album. I still have those blossoms from Atsugi, Japan. There is nothing like a baby bunny and spring blossoms. I hope the bunnies get along, the blossoms give us good fruit and the soldiers come home from the war.' From: ‘Of Speedy’s Downfall’- An essay by Country Joe McDonald – Berkeley Daily Planet http://www.berkeleydaily.org/opinion_article.cfm?issue=04-11-03&storyID=16462 -- The following interview is a transcript from a TV broadcast of the US Presidential Election by Dutch VPRO TV Sunday 31 October. Dutch sociologist and reporter Abram de Swaan talks with Country Joe McDonald about the current American political sentiment, the Woodstock generation and the war in Iraq. Location: McDonalds home in Berkeley. In the first scene both men are seated at a lounge table- having just reviewed McDonalds legendary 1970 Woodstock protest performance: -- CJM: It still sounds contemporary, doesn’t it? S: I think so.. CJM: Yes, It still sounds shocking.. blasphemous.. unpatriotic. ..But soldiers love it. S: Is that so? CJM: Even now.Yeah, soldiers love the song. S: And is it being played now in Iraq? CJM: I don’t know if it’s being played in Iraq, but that generation of soldiers, I’m sure has heard the song before..and they.. they love the sentiments of it. Because there is no, there’s no anti-soldier sentiments in the song, it doesn’t blame soldiers for war.. I say, blaming soldiers for wars, is like blaming firefighters for fire. Firefighters don’t start fires. S: There’s a war going on right now.. CJM: Well, there’s many wars going on. S: That’s true.. CJM: But the one that takes everybody’s attention of course is America’s war. America’s...well one of many of America’s wars. But.. I suppose you’re talking about the Iraq war.. George W. Bush’s war. S: It’s his war? CJM: It’s his war. S: If not for Bush, it wouldn’t have been there? CJM: I believe so. S: And, is it worthwhile? CJM: It’s a waste of... I was gonna say time, but it’s a waste of life. Its a waste of energy. It’s a waste. And it will accomplish nothing.. in my humble opinion. S: I was watching the movie today in the bus; and it occurred to me that even unbeknowest to these people they may have frightened very very many other Americans, who suddenly saw this sort of primal force emerging, cause it’s very forceful.. What do you think, that it has it caused a reaction on the other side? CJM: Absolutely.. absolutely. And it is still alive today, That is what the Iraq war is about. But America is divided completely in half. The people against the Iraq war and with John Kerry, and Democrats.. Even the Democrats are divided, are the people who embrace and embody all the issues of the Woodstock Festival, of the Fixin’ To Die Rag, and of the decade after that, which includes feminism and gender issues. A lot of things that Dutch people have taken for granted for a century. But America is still very primitive and old fashioned. And so still I believe that George W. Bush and his friends are fighting the war in Iraq to prove that Woodstock was bullshit. It was immoral, it was decadent, and it was something that was never going to last. Because the good old fashioned ways of WWII supposedly... Of monogamy, of the good countries and the bad countries, of the good religion and the bad religion, and bravery and honor live on and on forever.. bla bla bla bla, Winston Churchill..blah.. And for that reason he is forcing the world, in spite of the fact, that the United nations, and all of the middle-class countries and other countries won’t back him at all. He’s convinced, he’s convinced just like Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon were convinced that these dirty rotten Hippies, and they like to blame Hippies, you know for everything, cause who the hell knows what a Hippie is? I don’t know what a Hippie is.. I guess it would be Provos you know? But even that’s you know... The Netherlands are a small country. The Provos were a little tiny group you could like, identify. You can’t identify hippies. Millions and millions of people, you know. But they wanna blame the Hippies... And Rock and Roll of course. S: I think George W. Bush's war is too easy. He has the chance to be re-elected by 50% of the electorate, it’s their war too. CJM: Oh yes. But they are... like you know, they believed the world was flat, and when the news came back that the world was round, a lot of people didn’t want to believe it, and so they probably got in a lot of fistfights about it; and George W. Bush is having a flat world war here. He wants to believe he’s no part of the world community. He wants to believe that there’s only one God. That God is on his side. He want to believe he’s doing the right thing, bla, bla, bla, bla. In the end history will show that he was wrong, And in the end these people from Woodstock will win,...the Globe and the Planet. I do believe, I do believe that. S: You know, what’s on my mind, when you evoke this image of the Hippies like the Righteous marching on to a bright future.. Somehow it looks as the spooky mirror-image as those other people who march with the Saints- Bush’s army. And I’m all the time wondering if there’s a common ground? Is there a way these people can talk to another? CJM: (Laughs) Well! It’s a little bit of Dutch paranoia out here I think, you know. Because you think that the Hippies can organize!? Hippies can’t organize. They can hardly organize a spaghetti dinner!! You don’t have to worry about the Hippies marching on anything! S: ..I am not worried about them..What worries me is the lack of a common ground, and the lack of a dialog. CJM: Between who?! S: Let’s see.. These people called Hippies, and those people, say, reborn Christians. CJM: Well. I don’t think you’re gonna have a lot of dialog. For instance, let’s go back to the flat world concept. So, you believe in a flat world. I believe in a round world. So let’s reach a happy medium: let’s call it (laughs) a triangular world!! (both laughing) You see what I’m saying. One person is completely wrong and one person is completely right, you know. So, there you are! If you believe that.white people are the superior race on this planet, and all black people- and by the way homosexuals, should be killed and deserve to get Aids.. Well, you’re wrong and there’s no happy ground for.. S: (interrrupts) But that’s not Bush’s message. He wouldn’t say such things. CJM: But that’s his underlying belief. I think.. you know, he’s, he’s not a nice man.. I don’t think... I haven’t met him you know (laughs)... He’s not a smart man, well actually, people want to argue.. they say he’s really crafty... I think.. (trailing off) He’s not... But, I’m not... I’m just a musician. I am not a philosopher. I am not a social scientist.. Unfortunately. S: Why? CJM: Well, I think you like me to engage in this philosophical conversation. I don’t have an answer for that, you know.. (Camera cuts to a kitchen scene, McDonald singing and playing the guitar- faced from the back) -- posted by Walter at 11/1/2004 Sunday, October 31, 2004 PROCUREMENT -- "Fortune lies upon the surface of the earth as plentiful as the mud in our streets. We look for an addition within the next four years equal to at least One Thousand Million of Dollars to the gold in circulation" Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune in 1848- the year of the Californian gold rush -- ALL THAT IS GOLD An inventory -- Gold, Eloquent Gold Ruthless and Luminous Gold, Abdominal Gold -Muse of the Dubious- Gold, Intrepid Gold Mutable and climactic Gold, Presumed Gold -Triumphant- Sarcastic- Gold, Incendiary Gold Grenadine and Lime Gold, Pampered Gold -Socialite’s Climb- Gold, Herculean Gold My Consort and Glitz Gold, Smirking Gold -Porter of wit- Gold, Mannerist Gold Rakish and Louche Gold, Orbital Gold -Vengeful Cartouche- Gold, Credible Gold Forceful and Lame Gold, Demonic Gold -Falsehood Proclaimed- Gold, Opulent Gold Spirit of Arabia Gold, Rejuvenated Gold -Cataclysm in Asia- Gold, Potent Gold Floating and Sculptural Gold, Intellectual Gold -Vigilant and Seminal Gold, Sleeveless Gold Compass to the Damned Gold, Matchless Gold- -Tarnished and Dark Guiding the Spark- © 2004 Walt -- posted by Walter at 10/31/2004