Here at Sputnikmusic we have an unwritten editorial rule not to get involved in politics (at least as much that’s enforceable on a site staffed mainly by college-age pinkos) so I’m going to more or less throw this out without making reference to left or right, conservative or liberal.
Hell, I’m not even American – I couldn’t really give a shit what Congress does so long as it doesn’t show up on my doorstep.
However, I find something profoundly odd in ‘The Sarah Palin Battle Hymn,’ and it’s more than what musicologists often refer to “just being self-evidently dreadful.” It’s the myopic adulation of a popular political figure – in this case the lovely Ms. Palin – and her elevation to almost prophet-like status in its lyrics. This is made implicit by the choice of music: it’s a countried-up variation on ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic‘ (often known as ‘Glory, Glory Hallelujah), a Messianic patriot song from the American Civil War, now popularly used in religious services as well as Presidential inaugurations.
It would be easy to view ‘The Sarah Palin Battle Hymn’ as the work of a couple of mad oldies in a church somewhere, but it raises the wider point of how music is often used to serve a particular party-political agenda, and whether this is really something that we want to see more of. Many were similarly uncomfortable when, prior to the 2008 Presidential election, will.i.am and a cast of left-leaning musicians put together ‘Yes We Can,’ an unabashed endorsement of Barack Obama setting segments of his speeches to a musical soundtrack.
We often use music to express our deepest convictions, but when that conviction is focused so entirely on one person the line between homage and hero-worship can become all too blurry. This can be a wonderful thing, as evidenced by affectionate (and moving) popular tributes such as ‘Alex Chilton‘ (the Replacements) and ‘Kevin Carter‘ (Manic Street Preachers). However, when the focus is on a particular political candidate, particularly a divisive and emotive one like Palin or Obama, there always seems to be a more sinister undertone – one that demands conformity to a particular point of view.
It would be easy to blow the importance of this issue out of the proportion – it is just two people singing in church, after all – but in an age when many decry the death of the protest singer, it’s a reminder that sometimes we should be careful what we wish for lest it actually happen.
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please tell me you are Nicaraguan
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wait a minute
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nice try though
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I like how Americans say this, that & the other about politics... Then, come voting day, because they don't legally have to wote, they don't.
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still...something to watch out for.
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This is truly America's biggest problem
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lol I love these kind of ideals
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the usual sputnik argument
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just semantics guys
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Thank you
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Little late to the party.
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HAHA, (fucking old people)
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america is declining
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Yellow flag on the play
"Offsides"
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This is not a rail against people in this thread so don't come at me with "oh yeah, well i get my facts from..." arguments. no one cares.
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good thing cable TV (as we know it) won't make it to the 2016 election...
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Anyway, Ron Paul advocates individual liberty and government strictly limited by the Constitution as it was intended. Disagree with his policies if you must, but almost all revere him as an honest politician who doesn't have a voting record he has to hide. That's more than you can say about most politicians.
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I mean I went to a speech of his and know about him and I've seen Bruno and he has a few sensible ideas but
guys sorta an idiot
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"[He] even ran on the libertarian ticket once."
ummmmm
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lol like anyone's vote in the presidential election matters
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it will always come down to choosing between the lesser of no more than two evils.
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not if you're voting red in a blue state or vice-versa lol
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TLDR
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I tihnk he makes a great point when he says, "The Al Queda does not have an army. They don't have a navy. They don't have intercontinental ballistic missiles. They don't have weapons of mass destruction. They don't have a country. They're very very weak people in that sense. But they have determination. That determination comes from being provoked and they have to have some reason to galvanize enough hatred to come here and do what they have done."
Al Queda has said again and again that they resent us because of our military occupation of countries all over the middle east. If we withdrew all of our troops and commited to a non-interventionist foreign policy, it would be much harder for them to recruit (their recruiting has skyrocketed since the Bush wars) and we would be safer... especially since those troops would be defending our own borders. My apologies if you're already familiar with all of this. There are too many people who don't understand the situation well and label Ron Paul as an isolationist so I had to be sure lol
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as for the video, what can you expect from old people and their failing minds
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but what do I know
01.21.11
That, and they're Islamic fundamentalists and hate everyone who doesn't follow the koran to the letter
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Which is why the 9/11 attacks were only focused on us and not all the other non-Islamic countries around the world? And why would their numbers skyrocket once we invade Afghanistan and Iraq if it were purely about us being non-Islamic? They've specifically cited our military presence there as their problem with us so why pretend like it's not about our foreign policy? You know, the United States used to have a great reputation in the Middle East.
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take that shit somewhere else man.
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