Bitter

Slate had an amusing parody up yesterday: what might an anti-Obama/anti-Springsteen attack ad from the Clinton campaign look like?

Wow! They totally missed Springsteen's Satan-worship:

When I die I don't want no part of Heaven

I would not do Heaven's work well

I pray the Devil comes and takes me

To stand in the fiery furnaces of Hell

-"Youngstown"

...his misogynistic attitudes towards women:

Yeah point blank, you've been twisted up till you've become just another part of it

Point blank, you're walkin' in the sights

Point blank, livin' one false move just one false move away

Point blank, they caught you in their sights

Point blank, did you forget how to love, girl, did you forget how to fight?

Point blank they must have shot you in the head

Cause point blank bang bang baby you're dead.

-"Point Blank"

...and his casual attitude towards premarital sex:

Well I called up Dirty Annie on the telephone

I took her out to the drive-in just to get her alone

I found a lover's rendezvous, the music low, set to park

-"You Can Look (But You Better Not Touch)"

But seriously: the Slate piece actually makes a point that may have been accidental (though I'd like to think Timothy Noah, who wrote the ad, was just savvy enough to be doing this on purpose--it's hard to tell because he's written some dumb things in the past): if you read Springsteen's endorsement of Senator Obama, you may remember this quote:

At the moment, critics have tried to diminish Senator Obama through the exaggeration of certain of his comments and relationships. While these matters are worthy of some discussion, they have been ripped out of the context and fabric of the man's life and vision....

What the Senator has been criticized for has been, in part at least, a characterization of working class folks as "bitter" and a statement to the effect that they "cling" to certain things--I think what he was trying to get at was that a lot of folks hitch their wagons to politicians who shift the blame for economic problems and such to subjects like gun control or prayer in schools, but he did an admittedly lousy job of phrasing it, phrasing it so it came out as "people are bitter so they cling to religion and guns" or something to that effect. And the clamor has been that folks aren't "bitter" at all.

Now, here's the interesting thing that the Slate piece highlights: Springsteen is often considered a voice of the working class. There's been a little debate among music critics over whether Springsteen's fanbase is really that blue-collar, or if he just appeals to intellectual liberal types like me who maybe just think they understand the working man. But let's just assume that Springsteen's record sales aren't the sales of someone who only appeals to the intellectual elites and that Springsteen does tap into something of the American experience for a wide range of backgrounds (I happen to think this is true); assuming that, would you say that Springsteen has written some "bitter" songs about the American experience?

Hmmm. Let's see.... "Born In The U.S.A." (Vietnam vet can't get work)? "Murder, Incorporated" (pervasiveness of urban violence)? "Youngstown" (steeltown economy so far under that steelworker decides "them big [corporate] boys did what Hitler couldn't do" after WWII)? "Johnny 99" (convenience store robber so mad at the state things are in, he asks judge to send him to Death Row for his feelings)? A little bit of bitter here and again? Should I continue? "Sinaloa Cowboys" (Mexican immigrants who are swept up in the meth trade discover "for everything the north gives, it exacts a price in return"), "Atlantic City" (man loses everything, makes a deal with the devil), "Meeting Across The River" (man who never had anything in the first place makes similar deal with similar devil)? Etc., etc., etc.

Bitter? Sometimes. And hopeful, sometimes, too.

There are Americans who have good reason to be bitter, you know? That's the thing. And Springsteen has often articulated that and that's been a major part of his success and his brilliance as a lyricist.

One of the things that troubles me about my country is that we've reached this point where we're supposed to lie. A similar thing came up with Michelle Obama's somehow infamous "proud of her country" comment. It still doesn't strike me as controversial. I'm ashamed of the way my country imported human beings as chattel until the Civil War, I'm ashamed of the way we treated Native Americans since we got here, I'm ashamed that we turned away Eastern European Jewish immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s, I'm ashamed that we bombed Cambodia in the early 1970s, I'm ashamed that we torture prisoners of war right now. I'm ashamed that somebody had to write a song like "Strange Fruit" or a song like "Ohio." I'm ashamed that we interned Japanese-Americans during WWII and arrested Americans who marched for voting rights in the 1950s and 1960s. I'm ashamed that the President of the United States in 1914 decided Mexico was his backyard and the President in 1973 was a lying crook and the President in 2008 thinks he has a magical extralegal power under a "unitary executive" theory that has no basis in the understanding of Constitutional law that has prevailed in this country from 1803 (the year Marbury v. Madison was decided) up to 2001. I'm ashamed that this country will impeach a President for getting blow jobs and then name every fucking airport in the United States after another who illegally traded arms for hostages and criminally authorized secret wars in Latin America. Sometimes, sometimes I'm proud of my nation's Constitution, ambition, success, ingenuity and resilience--and sometimes I'm ashamed when we fail to live up to those mighty standards.

But to acknowledge those things is treated like an act of suicide, of treason, of cowardice. No, no--we must not say that any American is bitter or betrayed or ashamed. Everything is fine, boss, going to get some water, boss, I wasn't complaining, I was just digging, boss. Everything is just peachy, and damn anyone who doesn't agree.

We need, we really, really need to admit that there are a lot of things we've failed to do, and other things we keep failing to do. Not for the recriminations or to wallow in our guilt over our sins of commission and omission, but because we will never get our feet clear of those things if we don't step up and acknowledge they're there. Yes, some of us are bitter, and some of us have found it hard to feel pride in the country we love. Are we going to keep hiding, or are we going to do something about it?

So let's call things what they are. There are bitter Americans who have a reason to be bitter. Springsteen has often tried to vocalize that. I think maybe Barack Obama was trying to give voice to that too, albeit in a clumsy and ill-phrased way. To hell with the attacks on that statement of fact and to hell with the attackers, too. Some Americans are justly bitter, and they cling to what they've got. It's about time we offered ourselves something better.