Digby is a blogger with very good insight into a lot of political issues. She's been watching, for example, as conservatives desperately try to find a way to blame the Iraq War on The Liberals.
But she misses the boat today on Cultural ID. She writes that "Politically Uncorrect", a duet by Merle Haggard and Gretchen Wilson, reflects "the sense of exceptionalism and specialness of southern culture" and a song about "Red State" thinking. Here are the lines she quotes from the song:
I'm for the low man on the totem pole And I'm for the underdog God bless his soul And I'm for the guys still pulling third shift And the single mom raisin' her kids I'm for the preachers who stay on their knees And I'm for the sinner who finally believes And I'm for the farmer with dirt on his hands And the soldiers who fight for this land
Chorus:
And I'm for the Bible and I'm for the flag And I'm for the working man, me and ol' Hag I'm just one of many Who can't get no respect Politically uncorrect
I guess my opinion is all out of style Aw, but don't get me started cause I can get riled And I'll make a fight for the forefathers plan And the world already knows where I stand
Repeat Chorus
Nothing wrong with the Bible, nothing wrong with the flag Nothing wrong with the working man me and ol' Hag We're just some of many who can't get no respect Politically uncorrect
Do you see anything about the South in those lyrics? Neither do I.
I remember channel-flipping one night and coming across a film of Gretchen Wilson sitting around with her band and playing living-room style. And I heard her play this song. My first thought was, "This sound like a Democratic Party anthem".
"I'm for the underdog God bless his soul ... I'm for the guys still pulling third shift ... And the single mom raisin' her kids ... I'm for the farmer with dirt on his hands/And the soldiers who fight for this land"
That doesn't really sound like Republican country-club kind of music to me. And, you know, when the Christian Right talks about the "traditional family", they don't mean "the single mom raisin' her kids".
Digby writes:
Now that's identity. I emphasized the "can't get no respect" part because I think that's key, as I have written many times before. The belief that these ideas are particular to this audience, that they stand alone as being politically incorrect and are "out of style" for holding them, is a huge cultural identifier.
I guess I need to be patient with people who don't know country music very much, which presumably Digby does not. Yes, this song could be a "cultural identifier". But the song is talking about working-class culture, not Southern prigs who think gay marriage is the greatest menace to their peace and happiness.
The song works for Southerners who identify with its sentiments, of course. But there's nothing distinctly Southern about the song that I've noticed.
And I guess if you only know about Merle Haggard from "The Fightin' Side of Me" from 1969 or whenever - and what kind of pile of rocks would you have to live under to only know him from that one song? - the fact that he sings the line "And the world already knows where I stand" might make someone think it's a Republican song of some kind. I mean, it would if you missed all the other lines about "the guys still pulling third shift" and so forth.
Now, admittedly, not all Democrats are Andrew Jackson idolators like I am. But I just remember being struck the very first time I heard that song and thinking, "Wow, that could be a Democratic Party anthem". I didn't know then that Hag had written it, too, but I wasn't surprised when I heard it.
Maybe some liberals who are culturally deprived enough to not be familiar with country music might want to take a look at the book Rednecks and Bluenecks: The Politics of Country Music (2005) by Chris Willman. He interviewed Steve Earle about Haggard. (If you think Steve Earle is some kind of Christian Right reactionary, then you're beyond hope.) He writes:
Neither does Steve Earle, upon scratching heroes Haggard and [Johnny] Cash, find the blood of reactionaries. "These guys, none of 'em ever voted Republican in their lives," Earle insists. "They were probably what my uncle used to call 'yellow-dog Democrats.' But they were also hipsters, and they changed as they got older. I know Merle Haggard, and I knew Johnny Cash, and I promise you, if you look at Merle's last record [Haggard Like Never Before], you can see the change. By the time the Vietnam war was over with, he, like a lot of people, including my father, completely understood that we'd been had and that we needed to get out. His writing 'Okie from Muskogee' is the same thing as me writing 'John Walker's Blues.' He creates a character that isn't necessarily him. It's part of him, and to some extent it's who he was at the time, but it's not all of him. It is a fictitious character."
In Willman's interview with Merle, Merle tells him that he's not gonna do what the Dixie Chicks did "and put my well-known foot in my mouth about anything having to do with the chief executive or what's going on".
But that, Willman explains, "is precisely what he spends much of the next hour doing". And he quotes the Hag:
"You know, I'm going to say as an American that I think they've been disingenuous with the public about the reasons why we're in Iraq. And I think the United States of America is mature enough to understand the real reasons. With the knowledge the commander in chief was given, he felt the invasion was necessary, but I don't think he told us why. If Americans are gonna have to suffer sanctions to our freedom, then we ought to know the entire picture. They ought to say 'Hey, we need that oil,' or whatever the real reason was. And if they've got the Ark of the Covenant over there or something and we need to have it, then I think the American public - Republican and Democrat alike - would appreciate honesty, straightforward honesty. He'd be the biggest president since Abe Lincoln if he'd only step up and say, 'Okay, we're gonna cut all the well known crap, and here's the real deal. I don't have any control at all,' or, 'This is what happened, and I'm a lame duck, and I'm out of here, but I'd like to leave here an honest president'. . . But it's like the old joke, the one where the guys are talking about Bush and Hussein and one of them says, 'He's a mass killer, he has weapons of mass destruction - but remember, he is our commander in chief.'"
Oh, my goodness, did Merle compare our Dear Leader Bush to Saddam Hussein? He also makes another comparison that devout FOXists won't appreciate:
I probably do get a lot of flak because I'm not for this Patriot Act. But listen, it's been a long time since 9/11. We didn't react to World War II this long! It's sure time that we went back to being normal God forbid we put people out of work in security, but it's like 1939 in Berlin in some places in America right now!
Then there's Merle's song "Let's Rebuild America First", where he sings:
Heyyy, men in position are backing away Freedom is stuck in reverse Let's get out of Iraq and get back on the track Let's rebuild America first
So if I hear Merle singing lines like, "And I'll make a fight for the forefathers plan/And the world already knows where I stand", why in the blessed name of Elvis would I assume it's a "Red State" song?
And another thing ... The title of that song and the lyrics say "politically uncorrect". I'm sure it's not just a spelling mistake. The rightwingers for decades now have been whining about "politically correct", which means something they think is politically wrong, and bragging about being "political incorrect", by which they mean something they agree with, and they don't make any more sense with it now than they did 20 years ago.
I assumed when the song praising the guys on the third shift and single mothers says, "I guess my opinion is all out of style", that it was referring to the New Deal idea of being partisan for working people and farmers and soldiers was "all out of style" in the Bush-Cheney era when the Republicans control all three branches of the national government.
The bottom line for me is:
When you're runnin' down Merle Haggard, hoss, You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me
