Perhaps Lenny couldn't bear singing "Hallelujah" anymore & who
can blame him? To say there will never be another one like him is not
only to acknowledge his poetic genius. Leonard Cohen was the product of
an era of music & poetry & artistic courage. That era was
murdered a long time ago. Welcome to the Age of Nihilism, child of an
era of mediocrities hyped up as giants that supplanted the period that
gave us Lenny & many other true giants.
Sinatra was able to
help put JFK in the White House. Nixon was despised but a visit from
Elvis helped him get re-elected in a 49 state landslide. Bob Dylan never
campaigned for Jimmy Carter, but merely quoting Dylan lyrics helped
Jimmy get elected. But the collective voices of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry,
Miley Cyrus, Jon Bon Jovi, Jay Z, & Beyonce couldn't move the needle
one millimeter for Hillary Clinton. Because they are lightweights,
& they will be remembered as such if they're remembered at all. For
the past 30 years, the corporations have imposed their mediocre heroes
on American culture which is why the slogan "Make America Great Again"
had such cache. Want to know why Trump got elected? Watch Entertainment
Tonight & experience the lobotomy.
The famous names,
guardians of the status quo, will have no part to play in the drama that
is about to unfold. Instead the nameless nobodies long denied power,
wealth, & influence by corporate fiat will determine America's
future more than Trump & his fascist agenda. Those who smugly
dismiss the protestors as inconsequential should consider some history:
At the dawn of the first American Civil War, which began months before
Lincoln took office, Ulysses S. Grant had been reduced to clerking in
his kid brother's leather goods store. Yet it was Grant, more than
Lincoln, that reduced the Confederacy to rubble. At the dawn of the
First World War, T.E. Lawrence was a mapmaker with a fondness for erotic
Arabian poetry. At war's end, Lawrence & Churchill will redraw the
map of the Middle East inventing an artificial nation called Iraq. The
European aristocracy that created the climate for war died with Franz
Ferdinand. On December 7, 1941 (that other day of infamy besides Nov. 9,
2016),
General Yamamoto said Imperial Japan had awoken a sleeping giant.
The
biggest victims of the Trump presidency won't be the Mexicans or
Muslims but the sons & daughters of the rednecks who voted for
Trump. They will die in the desert fighting an unwinnable war in the
Middle East. Unlike during Vietnam, there will be little campus protest.
Little sympathy. The general feeling will be that the rednecks got
exactly what they paid for. Americans must really love those dystopian
movies Hollywood has been producing lately. Life imitates art. Those who
wonder what all this has to do with the late great Leonard Cohen should
listen to his song: "Everybody Knows".
Sincerely, G. Kaneda
https://www.facebook.com/r3tail/
https://soundcloud.com/retailspace/sizzling-rain
https://soundcloud.com/retailspace/sets/anti-trump...
