CSNY Speak Out and Listen In “Deja Vu”
Park City, Utah - Death threats, loud catcalls and walkouts didn’t stop rock legends Crosby Stills Nash & Young from completing their fiercely anti-Bush reunion tour in 2006.
Two years later, the band has reunited again to unveil its Sundance Film Festival closing-night film, “CSNY Deja Vu,” a documentary that isn’t so much a concert movie as a balanced examination of America’s fiercely divided opinions about the Iraq War.
“We went to war for one reason, then the reason changed every six months,” said the project’s main catalyst, Neil Young, an approachable guy despite his habit of locking eyes with you and not blinking when he speaks. “America never had a pre-eminent war in history before this, so we had something to say. But if anyone has anything else to say, the more the merrier.”
“Deja Vu” takes a 360-degree look from inside the eye of a storm the band set out to create on their Freedom of Speech tour. It profiles civilians and soldiers both for and against the war between performances of popular ’60s protest songs and newer, less universally accepted ones, like “Let’s Impeach the President” from Young’s 2006 album “Living With War.”
And don’t get Young started on the war.
“Some people support the troops by saying they’re being abused, put in a situation with no armor, where they can’t win, where there’s not enough of them so they’re used over and over again,” he said. “They say the American way of life is threatened, and we’re at war for our lives. But if that’s true we should’ve had a draft. These guys didn’t believe that enough to put their own careers on the line. It would be political suicide for this administration.”
BOTH SIDES NOW
But there are plenty of well-articulated, contrary opinions in the film, and lots of self-criticism. There’s footage of fans leaving en masse with middle fingers raised during “President” — though Nash noted that it came three hours into a 3 1/2-hour show — and gripes about $350 top ticket prices.
The film even includes a review saying the huddled sixtysomethings look like they’re comparing prescriptions onstage. “I didn’t get putting that in for a while because I’m not a masochist, but I came around,” Stephen Stills said with a laugh. “We’re all pretty proud of Neil for including it,” David Crosby added. “But don’t tell him I said that.”
As the band sat in a swank Park City Delta Sky Lounge suite, they had an easy camaraderie that showed their mutual affection — and a love of giving one another a hard time. When Crosby put his bare feet up on the table, Stills quickly waved his hand in front of his nose.
But while all members support the film’s inclusion of differing points of view, like the pro-war sentiments some people express onscreen — “We don’t want to stand on a mountain and tell everyone how to do things because we don’t know more than everyone else,” Crosby said — they chose not to include the death threats and bomb-sniffing dogs they faced at each stop on the tour.
“I’ve never gone into a hotel where everyone else went into the room before to look behind the curtains. But we did it,” Young said. “We’re not going to live like this forever. You don’t want to fan that (by putting it on film) or say, ‘Look at poor us, we have death threats.’ ”
The band members are famously contentious. “We watch out for each other like brothers, and we fight like brothers,” said Young, who has drifted in and out of the band for decades.
“We’re a damn Jerry Springer show!” said Stills, drawing much laughter.
“Yeah, it’s the Jerry Springer Tour!” Crosby added.
But virtually none of that is onscreen, and on further reflection, the band said this tour might have elicited the least interpersonal tension of their career.
“We were basically scared s—less, so we were hanging together closely,” Young said. “It wasn’t comfortable out there, just because of the subject matter. Positive or negative, we crossed a line.”
ENTERING THE DEBATE
Young said he doesn’t really care what audience the $500,000-plus digital-video feature reaches — “We’re not making it to score commercially,” he said — yet the band feels strongly about securing a theatrical release to help stir debate several months before the presidential election.
“Deja Vu” is directed by Bernard Shakey, a shadowy figure who has never been seen in the same place at the same time as Young. His work includes the quirky 1982 comedy-drama “Neil Young: Human Highway” and dates back to the trippy 1974 film “Journey Through the Past,” which has never been released on home video. “It’ll come out again, and now it’ll live up to its name,” said Young, Shakey’s unofficial spokesman.
The film could lead to a concert album, another promotional tour or even an original album, said Nash, depending on its reception. They’re hitting the road soon in different combinations: Crosby Stills & Nash in July, Crosby and Nash in the fall. Graham Nash is completing his box set and helping Stills on a box set. CSNY is prepping an album of demos of their songs dating back to the ’60s.
Young insists that his “Archives” project, delayed more than a half-dozen times, will be released this year on Blu-ray Disc and DVD (but not CD) “now that technology has caught up to how we want to present it.”
But right now their focus is getting “Deja Vu” seen to stir debate.
“I truly believe there are good people on both sides. You can’t look at John McCain and say he’s not a good man,” Young said of one of Crosby’s friends. “He’s not dirty, he has experience, and he believes he’s doing the right thing. How is that different from Barack Obama?
“This movie is not about our opinion, just people willing to stand up and express what they believe” he said.
Or, as Stills put it, “The Constitution doesn’t say you have to support the liberal blowhards, just freedom of speech.”
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
© 2008 Reuters
The old have less to lose than the young. So prepare for ramming speed, my (forever young) old friends.
It’s so ironic that in the 60’s the youth protested a war and felt supported by those who listened to the music, and now, those in the same generation although much older, protest a war equally unjust, and receive death threats or simply antagonism and hate, from people a generation younger (60 year olds generally are too old to give death threats, as they are no longer the hot heads they might have once been).
It just proves the point about history in this country (how not only do we not learn from it (unprovoked aggression and occupation will always be defeated — see Vietnam, and all of the former colonialisms — but defy the lessons to the point beyond brinksmanship).
The Chinese (although they occupy Tibet) are much too busy making money than to consider occupying countries halfway across the earth.
The Europeans are moving ahead in business and social tranquility, not invading countries and occupying them as a rule of foreign policy, because they are the “middle-aged guy” who has learned the lessons of war, and the futility of all that.
America, still the audacious teenager, has gotten into yet another scrape (Iraq, and who knows what this year) which only drains the treasury, diverts money and attention from more important matters like health care, infrastructure (and etcetera squared to the nth power), and generally muddles the public conversation with false dualities and dead-end myths that keep the public confused and like the deaf shouting at each other in a casino (or make up your own metaphor for political debate in the U.S.).
Quite an amazing statement:
“You can’t look at John McCain and say he’s not a good man,” Young said of one of Crosby’s friends. “He’s not dirty, he has experience, and he believes he’s doing the right thing.”
John McCain was a BOMBER in Vietnam, he flew airplanes and dropped bombs on innocent civilians.
Just a couple years ago I heard him refer to Vietnamese as “GOOKS”.
Sorry, but McCain is not my kind of guy.
These geezers make great music, have nice hearts, but are only human. Young was trying to ram reagan down our throats, as a nice guy who we should support. That was at a Cow palace concert in san francisco in the early 80’s. I thought I was on drugs not hearing clearly. I gave Him the finger and split. I won’t pay to see someone who’s so fickle and overpriced. MCCain is a maniac. Anti-war is Peace. Cynthia Mckinney ‘08
crosby and mccain go out shooting together?
(can’t see mccain doobing)
the right to bear arms does not make it right to bear arms.
Loved the freedom of speech CSNY concert in Irvine Calif……………..Thanks to you four for keeping up the good fight, staying true………….helping to make the world a little better place to live………….just like you feel you owe it to someone……..
It seems that what CSN&Y are saying is that we need public discourse on the issues and that has been sadly lacking of late. Extremism of any sort is still extremism and a balanced view is necessary if we are ever going to come to a consensus necessary to create a viable change.
Sitting on either side of the fence and yelling at each other is not going to create a positive change, only entrench both sides in an intractable position that neither will back down from.
In a democracy, all views are allowed, not simply the view that we happen to support. We have had too much extremism and fear and that has gotten us into the mess we are currently embroiled.
Discussion and discourse on the issues is a 2 way street, or more, not a my way or the highway as so many of both sides would have it be.
Saw the show in MPLS with an old friend. We both cried. I’ve never heard them sound better.
I think CSNY represents a cross section of views on both the war and politics in general. The great thing is they are able to come together to create something beautiful. That should be a lesson for all of us.
I’m not one to back off revolutionary ideals but, I have to recognize circumstances, a different point of view even of factual evidence, and a range of possible solutions to arrive at mutually held goals all lead to possible conflict that must be addressed, discussed and overcome in order to devise creative and humane solutions.
Name calling, closed minded confrontation and entrenched division will not get the job done. Reality cannot be put on the back shelf. It must engaged and dealt with in a creative manner so the best results can be obtained immediately and the future vision must be pursued by setting up the institutions necessary to increase the chances of progressive success in the future.
I don’t always agree with Neil and the gang but their music always inspires me to do greater things than I think I would be able to accomplish without it. Still and always the greatest band I’ve ever heard.
“Why is our fantasy always someone else’s living nightmare”CSN - Isn’t It About Time
The missiles and the damage done
Soldier, your eyes, they shone like the sun
Now setting, oh but that you’d been,
Forever young
My sons,
Forever young
Tabled for Progressive Democrats of America at their concert in Columbus. They let some groups do this and PDA got a few of their gigs. Crowd was great, and didn’t see any discord there myself.
News flash from CSNY:
Will McCain and Obama become a team?
The Obama-McCain Ticket, 2008.
“Keep on rocking in McObama’s world”
I need something more my stomach pains
“You can’t look at John McCain and say he’s not a good man,”
Young said of one of Crosby’s friends. “He’s not dirty, he has experience,
and he believes he’s doing the right thing. How is that different from Barack Obama?
CSNY - soundtrack to so many good trips.
“And the fruit that we live on
Reminds me of me
Though we live in the air
I’m not sure that we’re free
And I don’t really have much to say
`Cause I’m Living from day to day
Somewhere…”
Story o’ my life, right there. Yet we really do have much to say.
“Is the image I’m making
The image I see
When the man in the mirror
Is talking to me?”
- Say is the man in the mirror
The mirror or me?
And until each of us knows
the difference together
we are not really free
Our mirror-images in the media are systematically distorted towards an unsustainable growth enabling exploitation of the poorer for the richest, instead of a goal of sustainable living for all. Wars and needless suffering follow from that. A common social and economic goal of optimized growth instead of maximized growth would cause a stable-state economy and society with sustainable growth.
Sustainable growth is the natural growth-rate in humans. That means the fully grown weight of a human being, from 0 to on average 75 kg, over the 75 year avg. lifespan of that human (after which the body reverts to 0 weight – from Earth to Earth, or Biosphere to Biosphere) . That equals 1 kg growth pr. year: 1 kg growth pr. year over the fully grown 75 kg weight equals a growth-rate of 1/75 pr. year. In percent that makes 1 x 100/75 = 1.33 % growth pr. year.
The natural human growth-rate equals 1.33 % pr. year.
This is a simple equation for the natural human growth-rate. Full Public Disclosure.
That is the interest-rate the central banks should aim at. The growth-benefits of that 1.33 % interest-rate growth should be distributed equally among all contributors. In an interlocking globalized economy that means all humans. Holding on to that, a stable-state economy and society will be reached within a generation, 25-30 years. With this growth-rate as a universal, UN-supported goal, population-increase – now around 100 million people a year (!) - will stablize within acceptable suffering for all. Stabilization of climate-extreming might soon (relatively) follow.
«The fruit that we live on reminds me of me» can be seen as an intuitive description of this equation for the human growth-rate.
THE PROBLEM — which this ageing, glib gaggle of rich, pseudo-critical Hipsters fails to identify — IS THAT government of, by, and for the people has been reduced to a functional Zero in this era of the deepended National Security/Corporate State.
Mega-corporate agendas, and the political-candidate sychophants of these agendas, now rule our federal government, even unto controlling the publicly-voiced OPTIONS for its democratic rescue.
But don’t tell that to these have-it-both-ways musical icons: they just want to be popular (again) — without being honest enough to call a spade a spade.
BEYONDEMPIRE - your post takes great pains to sound reasonable, openminded, positively healing, politically enlightened, etc., in the face of the vile, murderous corruption and moral maddness that presently rules our country.
And just like your sentimentalized apprehension of the songsters’ ambiguous message, above, your message, too, is morally washed-out; pretensive of ethical courage; seeking validation for political moosh; in a word: Useless.
Nothing personal, mind you.
Gestalt - You are right. We have no working government. It is NOT what it is supposed to be. Everyone in it is living the big lie. Some folks need to get out more often and listen to the young kids. The older you get the more you are awash in memories and illusions. Today isn’t really seen by you, unless your eyes are fresh and innocent.
I like Neil Young’s music a lot and have a lot of respect for the man, but I think politically he is really not very sharp. It doesn’t matter if McCain is a good man, maybe he is, but he is a severely mistaken man as well and mistaken people don’t make good presidents. The whole Republican party is based on a flawed idea and it is about time to ditch their ideas and learn from their mistakes. Thirty-five years after Watergate it is time to say it’s enough: the Republicans have had their chance to show that their ideas are relevant also outside of a small circle of power-hungry maniacs and they failed to convince us. I think it is very disingenuous of Neil Young to talk about ‘both sides’ while the entire debate has shifted. There are three sides now and if you really believe in Free Speech there should be many more: Republicans, who have been seriously on the wrong track for at least thirty years, Democrats, who have been shown to be unreliable and dishonest in many cases, and Progressives, who have been looking into new ideas and hey don’t you think it is time for something new ?
It is a good thing that CSNY want to stir up the debate, but I have to wonder which is the debate that they had in mind ?
Democrats versus Republicans ? YAWN…..
Maybe CSNY are too old to be able to think outside of the status quo.
Did our overindulgence in the sixties (I lived in the Haight from 68-72…for complete disclosure) cause a backlash among the next half (Gen X-ers) generation, or the full (Gen Y-ers) one; I don’t really know. After the turmoil of the ’60’s, going to college in that decade, the next, next, & next, it is difficult to say, but it gives me a perspective of one of my favorite written quotes,
“I was Nineteen until I turned Fifty, then I turned Twenty. If I live to be a hundred maybe I’ll reach Twenty-one.”
Perhaps from being a bit older in each decade than my fellow students I was able to look at those in several decades with is what for them probably a jaundiced eye, regadless my actual difference from their age. To say they always welcomed my input would be delusional, never a doubt of respect usually, though. It wasn’t until I turned “Twenty” that I fully began to speak my mind.
Ok, Ok, Ok, Ok, so let’s get back to the subject at hand (jeez…I thought he would never get to it).
I’ve seen Crosby, Stills, & Nash for forty years now (even before Young came aboard officially). I even met Crosby briefly at the Trident in Sausalito…but I’m sure he hardly remembers me. So what, but I always loved their music, live performaces, and mostly their politics even. Just like they, when I was dragged & arrested twice at the Pentagon levitation demonstration, I could fall back on the fact of their music being from a higher universe, and console myself in that miserable unwarrented situation there was something sublime in the human spirit I could try to elevate my being toward.
Last year I saw them at Nisson Pavilion, and they hadn’t lost a step. For those unfamiliar it’s only a short way from DC, in the previously solid red state of Virginia where I live. About 10-15,000 people, but when “Let’s Impeach The president” (small ‘p’ intentional, and in the unlikely event he ever becomes an adult he might get the bigger one) started, with words scrolled across a massive video screen, over ten thousand voices were screaming in unison to them. Insanity, and it stressed the voice of the lady I sing with & mine for a week, but we didn’t care because there was no denyng the lyric/sentiment/demand was correct. As the line goes, “Should have been done long ago”.
As it is, we’ll probably see, “…some blood on the ground…”, before this rancid neo-CON boil comes to a head, but as Thomas Jesfferson related, that’s the cost of liberty (we should all prefer that of tyrants to patriots, though). Unfortunately, the people who stood up against the dastardly false-flag illegal war of several decades ago, are a bit longer in the tooth, and it doesn’t appear the younger than us citizens are imbued with the perception we are all equally threatened by unconstitutional behavior by our leaders/rulers. Lessons hard learned are foolish to have to re-learn, and often more difficult to pass on, sad to say. “Sic semper tyrannus”, or “Live free or die”, both beat living as a slave, I say.
So CSNY, keep doing what you’re doing (I’m not too pleased with your McCain lyrics, though). The government is against you, except for the money they can soak out of you corporate America is against you (which likely means the MSM, too), the neo-CONS & perverted religiosos are against you, but DON’T YEILD. Just because an overly loud & obnoxious minority revile you that doesn’t mean you aren’t speaking truth to/for/with the majority. “And that’s all I gotta say about that” (Thanks Forest
McCain, perhaps loopy from cold medicine and speaking for nearly 90 minutes, invoked the Beach Boys’ melody Barbara Ann to respond to a question about when the U.S. would “send an air mail message to Iran.” McCain answered by going into the song’s paraphrased chorus: “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran.” -fauxnews
“I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live… “
- John MacCain
“those jihadists, they’re not like the gooks in Vietnam.”
- The Rash Limbaugh Show, guest host Mark Steyn *
estimates of civilian fatalities range from 2 to 5.1 million
- wikipedia: Vietnam War
Quote: ““I truly believe there are good people on both sides. You can’t look at John McCain and say he’s not a good man,” Young said of one of Crosby’s friends. “He’s not dirty, he has experience, and he believes he’s doing the right thing. How is that different from Barack Obama?
“This movie is not about our opinion, just people willing to stand up and express what they believe” he said.”
SOFTY BS; though not so much wrt the comparison with or to Obama! Someone needs to give these guys a vaccination of some fitting kind.
A little clarification:
McCain’s not dirty? Okay, sure, he bathes, and in expensive luxury to boot (only fools need luxury bathing too). But, no; he’s clearly made his pact with satan, figuratively speaking (in case he hasn’t yet done this literally). McCain is a knight in satan’s service and he’s not dirty? Okay; and it’s literally true that it’s not quite precisely fitting to say that he’s dirty, for the second there’s a speck of dust or mud on him, then it’s auto-cleaned.
But he’s definitely and very clearly (obviously) insane, sociopathic and the worse psychopathic, anti-U.S. Constitution and the intl laws, conventions, treaties (whatever) that the Constitution REQUIRES that the U.S. adhere to, and authentically and quite fully so.
Okay, so he’s not dirty. HE’S MUCH, MUCH WORSE than only dirty, which little children become when they go play in the mud, or which mechanics become after hours working under soiled cars that are dripping wet, or ….
So Young’s right, because you never see mud on McCain’s shoes or clothing; although some friendly group of pigeons flying over him and practicing their “military bombing” “exercises” or “raids” could sure help to put a little fitting “s(p/h)it shine” on McCain’s image.
And, so, Crosby is friends with that knight who’s loyal to being in satan’s service, eh. Crosby obviously is not a person qualified to make psychological assessments.
“How is that different from Barack Obama?”
Well, Obama’s political “career” is far shorter than McCain’s; Obama never served in war, perhaps never served in the military at all, was never a PoW in war and one who came back cheerleading the torture of war-time detainees in U.S. prisons, detainees who by far were, are innocent and were non-combatants when they were first arrested and abducted by the USA, etc., and after years of McCain whining about having been tortured when he was a PoW. But of course Obama’s senatorial track record, while short, is full of siding with war, dropping nuclear bombs on a country that is totally within its legal and moral rights, pro-Zionist, siding very wholly with govt-from-hell of Israel and thereby the govt-from-hell of the USA, pretty much as psychopathically as Billary has been doing, etc.
So Obama and McCain have commonality alright, but also significant differences. And there’s perhaps a fair chance that Obama hasn’t been this way due to being literally or very insane, that there’s a chance that he can reform himself, while there seems to be much less likelihood that McCain could be reformed; unless the money and pressures were enough. Obama might just need some reasonable mentoring or coaching, or consultation, for him to be able to realise that his votes and his spoken stands as senator need to be reversed, the opposite of what he’s provided so far. I think McCain’s insanity is beyond such mild measures being able to work.
Quote: “Or, as Stills put it, “The Constitution doesn’t say you have to support the liberal blowhards, just freedom of speech.””"
Being anti-war of aggression is being a ‘liberal blowhard’ eh? INSANE, evil, wicked, SICK!
Does he think Dennis Kucinich, Ralph Nader, Mike Gravel, Cynthia McKinney, f.e., are ‘liberal blowhards’? If yes, then he’s very anti-Constitutional, -peace, -justice, ….
Does he think that demanding that the govt make it a criminal offence when white shits blast away with childishly, viciously and insanely offending Americans of colour is to be a ‘liberal blowhard’? After all, it’s a totally just demand that not only physical attacks upon innocent people are criminal, but also verbally attacking innocent people very viciously and often with the inclusion of death threats or threats of bodily harm, or harming the victims’ families, …. Here, in Quebec, if not everywhere in Canada, it is a criminal offence to only state a death threat; and it’s not permitted to verbally attack others in any terms. In either case, the victim can file criminal charges against the offender(s).
Want peace, or war? If you want peace, then you must also want and push for justice, including that ALL offences against others are to be made criminal offences under law. After all, if I see white shits calling Blacks nigger, f.e., and the latter, the victim, is one to react very firmly, say, then you’d not find me trying to butt in; I’d let the person have his say his way, for the offender had his or her way and in viciously and insanely offending innocents, who have the right to live with peace of mind, without unnecessarily needing to fear to walk the streets, etc.
That’d be Constitutionally fitting; while allowing offences against innocents is un- or anti-Constitutional, for to defend being able to be allowed to do this based on the Constitution requires scrapping another part of the same Constitution, which’d mean, if this is to be upheld, that the Constitution is self-contradictory; and that, in turn, means BOGUS bs.
So, let Mr intellectual Crosby explain what the hell he thinks a ‘liberal blowhard’ is. I know many liberals fit that label, but NOT all liberals. And I don’t consider myself liberal; I consider myself who I am, ME, Mike Corbeil, who makes his own decisions and doesn’t adhere to any stupid grouping labels. Sure, I’m anti-war, but that’s not the same thing as being ‘liberal’, for the latter is an awfully misused label, etiquette; just like right and left are bs labels. And it’s indicative of very serious ignorance when people say that they’re liberal and anti-conservative, for I’ll prove to you very quickly that the person does not know what the f*ck he or she is talking about; I’ll easily prove that the person is indeed conservative, only not in terms of [all] topics or issues. Politics is full of bs, hypocrisy, incompetence, and so on; little of really intelligent, responsible, holistically caring, etc., people being present. So I won’t rely on little political minds to tell me who and what I am and represent.
Let monsieur Crosby explain, therefore, what he thinks liberal means. Is he for the continuation of criminalising people for what really are non-criminal matters, such as prostitution, consuming and cultivating (and selling) marijuana, being able to cultivate hemp, etc.? That’d be anti-”liberal blowhards” and pro-”conservatives” the USA way, but the USA doesn’t know how to define much of anything in intelligent and responsible terms anyway; hence, an unreliable country when seeking intelligence and responsibility about MOST things or matters.
Let him explain. He’s rich, so he has loads of time to be able to think of what it is that he thinks that liberal means. Let’s see what his narrow-minded, partially knowledgeable response is. So far is a moron, for he is just another stupid American who doesn’t know how to properly use the term ‘liberal’; because he’s surely liberal about some things.
I’m sure he liberally loves or lusts to travel and live richly, and so on; I’m sure he doesn’t live at modest expense while conservatively helping others who are in need, a conservative who’s sane being able to see that societal health needs to be also conserved, and improved and then the attained healthy status conserved when it’s necessary to improve the situation, etc. Others would say that that example is to be liberal, not conservative, but that’s because the person most likely is just another “Western” IDIOT who doesn’t know that both of these terms can be sanely understood as not having a narrow-minded definition.
And that is not really a liberal example; it’s sanely conservative, instead. Those who refuse to help others are the ones who are liberal and wrongly, unjustly so, for it’s unjustly liberal to live like a pig while others suffer because these fat pigs take and keep too much for themselves. A true, real conservative, when the term is sanely understood, cares about his society, cares to not be a damn pig who causes unjust deprivation for others, and so on.
I don’t rely on stupid pointy-headed morons who decide what dictionaries are to say when their definitions are F*CKED UP. I prefer intelligent definitions, instead; and that means that they have to be very well and thoroughly thought out, instead of left at some half-assed idiotic state. When things are done in half-assed fashion, FIX IT.
But then I’m a computer professional with whom QA didn’t have a job when it was possible to move them to do something else; depending on the policies in place and to what extent they had to be enforced or adhered to. When those were strict, then QA safely retained their jobs with regards to my work; else the employer found something else for the person(s) to do. ‘Exacting’ was what one of my SWE evaluations provided; and that means thorough, which requires paying careful attention to what we do, and an application of real commonsense, which inherently means to always keep end users in mind, instead of idiotically engineering products that end users or customers soundly find to be rejectable.
Hence, I await clarification from monsieur Americano Crosby.
Quote: “Adel January 28th, 2008 2:07 pm
The old have less to lose than the young. So prepare for ramming speed, my (forever young) old friends.”
NOW THAT’S SOMETHING that would be interesting to have some clarification on. Is a real battle, a real confrontation building up, for if one is, then it might be good to know about; if anywhere I can get to, then … “the more the merrier”! The U.S. has been five or more years in awaiting for this kind of day so far; like I said at the start or just prior to the start of this war on Iraq, the U.S. deserved and needed a civil war, meaning revolution, very preferably without guns, bombs, ….
Fitting is the old Irish saying, “Is this a private brawl, or can anyone join in?”. And a little exercise now and then can put a little fun into a life in a boring society. I’m not 60, but 51 in March, so close enough.
Not sure I’d be able to make it to the events though; it’s surely too far for walking to get there. But the USA deserves for some real revolutionary actions, so if it breaks out, then this should be interesting news. Sure it’d be tragic, sad, but FAR better than letting the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, and so on continue while Americans sit comfortably at home, too.
That’s the problem with pacifism; it’s like opening the “gates of hell” for evil to rein in its forces upon many millions of innocents, and all while the pacifists only suffer from feeling sad about all the evil their govt reins in on millions of innocents, destroying countries, etc. It’s far more akin to being LAZY, among other yucky traits; like cowardism, f.e. Only, it takes many enough people to participate in a revolution; it’s not some tiny group that’s going to be able to bring about changes, for they’ll just get arrested and canned, or killed, with no fruit at all being born from the efforts made.
Hell surely lusts for pacifists; the less resistance the better, in hell’s “opinion”. It does not like serious opposition against its evils.
As for their documentary, I wouldn’t pay a nickel for it now, but can’t say that it wouldn’t be interesting to see what the pro-war and -Bush etc. jerks did and said. I’d be very interested in viewing these parts, but they say that this content of the tour was omitted from the film, rendering it very worthless to me.
Yada yada yada; there’s my morning rant for you to “enjoy”.
Curlybird: Extremism of any sort is still extremism and a balanced view is necessary if we are ever going to come to a consensus necessary to create a viable change.
In the fundamental left/right ideological contest, the right completely fails, and the left completely succeeds Kant’s Categorical Imperative: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
So optimum success is at the far left and any deviation rightward is sub-optimum. This is because at the far left, the power is effectively balanced or dispersed equally. Among states this is called “balance of power” - something totally out of the question for the right-wing terrorists in Washington. The right’s credibility is non-existent and so the left must demand unconditional surrender.
So, the musicians lack something in political analysis. Send in the dogs.
They are doing something constructive. To react with generational politics and cheap shots helps nothing.
“juanstar January 28th, 2008 3:30 pm
These geezers make great music, have nice hearts, but are only human.”
BASED ON THE REST OF WHAT juanstar says in that post, I wonder about them being “only human”. Sub-human, maybe?
“Young was trying to ram reagan down our throats, as a nice guy who we should support.”
SUB-HUMAN, maybe!?
“MCCain is a maniac.”
YOU’RE DAMN RIGHT ABOUT THAT; and it’s very obvious that you are.
“Anti-war is Peace. Cynthia Mckinney ‘08″
OH, NOW THAT SOUNDS … [GOOD] to me! And it’s welcome to see someone mentioning her campaign in that above manner. A woman who “kicks butt” in welcome fashion, IMO. I love that … spunk or spirit, [character].
Quote: “vdb January 28th, 2008 4:25 pm
crosby and mccain go out shooting together?
(can’t see mccain doobing)
the right to bear arms does not make it right to bear arms.”
TRUE, BUT HE MIGHT GIVE GOING OUT WITH CHENEY A TRY (no?). Joking, of course; I think, maybe anyway.
” Curlybird January 28th, 2008 5:21 pm
It seems that what CSN&Y are saying is that we need public discourse on the issues and that has been sadly lacking of late.”
TRUE, IT’S BEEN LACKING, but how much true heart do these obviously du-fous band members put behind their words, or are they mostly [empty]? Have they said anything about the msm, corp. media having bounced Dennis Kucinich from SIX debates? Have they mentioned his great campaign and policy platform at all? And have they mentioned Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, and Mike Gravel, at all? How much good, instead of hypocrisy, is reflected by these four evident idiots, whose vain pride leads them to charging 350 F*CKING DOLLARS just to listen to these idiots play their little instruments and sing their [insignificant] lyrics?
Thank you CSN&Y. I am of the CS&N and Neil Young Generation. I will pre-order the film as soon as it’s available. Neil sorry you couldnt make it to York in October I was hoping to meet you then.
All we need is love…yadi yadi ya….
Didn’t work then. Won’t work now. As much as we might wish it, songs do not change the world, people do. And no, we don’t do discourse here. We don’t talk about values - we impose them at the point of a gun, or not at all. It’s how we do business.
The protesting music started to die when the leaders of the movements for economic and social justice were hounded into silence and suicide, falsely imprisoned with cooked evidence or planted evidence, or were simply executed by agents of the Federal government or thru their proxies in the local PD. Those movements were essentially atomized in preparation for Raygun.
30 seconds after the draft was ended, every voice of ant-war protest in America died and with them the songs. So long CSNY, so long Carol King, so long Carly Simon. They had their day and it was quite a good one, but it is gone, part of a treasured past. Only the Blues Masters and Divas get to stay current for a lifetime. Everybody else gets to be young for a while - and then its over - cry about it for a while and get over it. Happens to everybody, then they get old and die.
Peace.
Mike PDA,
Thanks for your post http://www.ohiopac.org/
You got a good organization… I hope Cynthia Mckenny and Cindy Sheehan and Mike Corbel look into them as well and I would like to see the Greens work together with them ..
Mike Corbiel, I hear you don’t care For CSN and won’t pay a nickel to see them but you wrote a whole novel chapter on them…Sounds to me Kind of like a jilted lover who can’t give up hating after bein’ dumped. You sound like you feel dumped by them cause they are not radical enough for you….
They were always a Pop Folk Rock group and just little bit radical and their music was always top notch and inspired lots of folks who aren’t as radical as you and I got to give them credit for keepin’ music fans interested in politics…. that is hard to do and they do it great.
Why don’t you get out your guitar and do it your way… who knows you might influence someone.
Luckylefty,
There is plenty of protest music. Don’t you ever hear your local folk singers at coffee houses?
You got to find what your lookin for and then support it!
It never died and it never will…sounds like only your spirit needs revival.
I still like your name though.
The first time I saw CSNY there were a million other people there and another million in Washington. My how times have changed.
1st i was cannon fodder, i then became a killer and after i got out, I WENT TO WOODSTOCK…..yeah y’all’s 1st real gig! i loved you then and i love you now….. i also owe you guys a ton of money for rights…..i sing and play your music frequently….. the world was crazy then and it still is…. crazier than ever!!….one thing i always had a difficult time dealing is LIARS….. people who “tell em what you want them to hear” and this feeble minded ranch hand has lied to us constantly since day 1 and his pop before him! why in the name of MAGNOLIA THUNDERPUSSY can’t we learn that we are all the same….peel the skin off anyone and see…..war is not an answer….. we MUST learn to get along…..i embrace all i have learned…..i abhor war and we, as thinking humans must learn to find another way…… no imperialist attitudes will be tolerated and THE SILENT NON VIOLENT REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED…..sing, live, embrace…..PEACE LOVE AND LIGHT. why don’t you guys (CSNY) come to gulf coast florida for a jam and rally sometime? TIME TO TRIM THE BUSHES
“Deja Vu”
How well I remember wearing it out on my 8-track tape-deck player installed in my 1962 Dodge Dart with its slant-6 engine; what a great car that was!
It pleases me to see you guys fighting for our constitutional freedoms. Far too many people in this country are surrendering their liberties and freedom to this administration out of fear.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious but it cannot survive treason from ‘within’. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely.” - Cicero
Wow, I see the brown acid is still circulating.
“It seems that what CSN&Y are saying is that we need public discourse on the issues and that has been sadly lacking of late. Extremism of any sort is still extremism and a balanced view is necessary if we are ever going to come to a consensus necessary to create a viable change…Discussion and discourse on the issues is a 2 way street, or more, not a my way or the highway as so many of both sides would have it be.”
That’s all well and good, but in case you haven’t noticed, this is a full on crisis on many fronts.
Our Constitution is in tatters. I could be held with no more cause than this very post, and held indefinitely with no legal recourse whatsoever. Our communications are being monitored. We are torturing people.
We are hemorrhaging blood and treasure in an illegal and immoral occupation of a nation that was of no threat to us.
We have turned the world’s sympathy on 9/12/2001 into universal contempt if not outright hatred.
Our policies of running roughshod over the human rights of others in order to rob them of their natural resources or their cheap labor have made us a target.
Jobs are fleeing overseas or immigrants are taking them. The tax burden has shifted increasingly to a middle class under immense economic pressure to pay for housing, health care, food, fuel, education…
And we have no apparent opposition in Congress beyond talk: two parties that are increasingly two sides of the same tarnished coin, the best government money can buy, with no reform in sight.
So it may be real nice to have a little chit-chat about these things, but until we get our country back, it’s a full-on battle as far as I’m concerned. The opponents who instituted these crises and profit from them are NOT going to cede their power willingly. It must be wrest from their grubby little fingers.
That’s why Edwards, not Obama, makes the most sense to me, and also why he’ll never win.
Gestalt - Sadly you have obviously NOT seen CSNY Deja Vu for your commentary is based on some old business of your own and certainly not the documentary that premiered at Sundance on Friday …
CSNY Deja Vu is a documentary … by virture of the very word “documentary” this fine piece DOCUMENTS what occurred on the 2006 Freedom of Speech Tour …
The right to simply HOLD the conversation is the subject that Neil, Mike Cere, and CSN are creating here … The “Freedom of Speech” issue is what you fail to recognize … NEIL addresses the idea that anyone who critiqued the government’s actions were labeled a traitor and THIS was the basis for the CSNY Deja Vu documentary … They plainly state that “we don’t know it all” (they actually make fun of themselves) … THEIR POINT! … We all, as world citizens, have a right to hold an open conversation about the issues without being labeled traitors, without death threats, and stalkers … there are no complete songs played in the documentary … no “sentimentalized apprehension of the songsters’ ” .. This is a political documentary that evenhandedly shows all sides of what occured during “The Freedom of Speech” tour … By USING it here to inject your diatribe you are simply subverting the truth of the film and shoving your narrow bigoted view into something in which it does NOT apply …
It’s like judging a pie before you taste it! …
I won’t “take it personally”, because it has nothing to do with the posters here, me, or CSNY Deja Vu OR “seeking validation for political moosh” … what nonsense … Sounds too like just another sad man creating a convenient drama to paint himself (yet again) into that same OLD self-righteous corner based on ZERO information RATHER then having to go to all the trouble to pry open that narrow mind and experience something NEW …
Experience this documentary for yourself before you so easily slam the door on it …
CSNY Deja Vu could be received as a historical documentary … Even-handed, heartwarming,
tragic, open, honest, loving, heartbreaking, AND much laughter through the tears … incredibly proud of all who were involved … The reaction AFTER people see this will be much different, because it’s a completely different experience then Fahrenheit 9/11 … Michael Moore
pushed people’s buttons … as well he should have … NEIL Young and MIKE Cere reach down inside your chest and touch your heart by documenting all of these people who were thrown together during this amazing experience and how WE interacted with each other … Vietnam Vets, Iraq Vets, Gold Star Mothers, fans, rightwingers, leftwingers, and security … we became a FAMILY of people gropping to understand what is happening to our troops, our country, and the world … NEIL started a conversation in the Spring of 2006 that FEW were brave enough to begin …
Listen with your hearts AND your intellect … see the documentary … then join the conversation … Please check your condescension at the door …
Julie -
Your critique of my critique is well measured, and its obvious you feel from a very decent heart.
Maybe what I was too-acidly trying to say was better expressed by the post of trippin, just above.
In any case, respectful regards to you.
Gestalt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9ms25Jip34
They’re from the heart …