G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
Toby Keith: Working Class Hero, or Rich Asshole?
By Jaime O'Neill
Created May 7 2007 - 9:15am
I've spent my share of time listening to country music in bars, honkytonks,
saloons, pubs, and taverns, but I haven't been paying those dues since I
quit drinking a dozen years ago. That has left me a bit out of the loop when
it comes to my knowledge of country music. From what I can tell from the
radio stations and my occasional cruises by the country music channels,
there's a great deal of uniformity to the product these days, and it doesn't
sound much like country to my ears. Sounds more like twangy mainstream rock
n roll sung by guys wearing cowboy hats, or similarly test-marketed women in
sexy apparel, all of it stamped out in cookie cutter fashion.
My taste for country music was founded on my romantic sense that it was the
people's music, the songs of blue collar balladeers. It came down to us from
people like Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter family, and Woody Guthrie, then got
translated and transmitted generationally through such voices as Johnny
Cash, Merle Haggard, Patsy Kline and Dolly Parton, singers and songwriters
who took the hard-scrabble lives and struggles of working class people and
turned those lives into prole poetry. It celebrated family, the virtues of
hard work, loyalty, and love of the land while lamenting life's assaults
upon the heart, and the struggles of working people to feed their kids.
Since the music was usually fairly simple, its main virtue was to be found
in its authenticity, the sense that it was, indeed, the vox populi, the
bubbling up of the sentiments of otherwise voiceless working class folks.
Toby Keith is about as hot a country music star as they make. He's won a
passel of Country Music Association awards. He's been the subject of a
profile on 60 Minutes II, and his picture adorns the covers of Sunday
supplements in newspapers throughout the country. The full marketing machine
is in gear, and Toby is awash in money, having made more than $45 million
last year, and expected to make a good deal more in the years to come. Much
of his popularity can be traced to his redneck hymns of belligerence toward
enemies of America, both real and imagined. Toby Keith is the soundtrack to
the nation's coast-to-coast Right Wing Talk Radio Hoedown. Toby Keith is the
guy who piled on when the Dixie Chicks were getting pummeled by every
country music jock on American radio, a brave American hero eager to beat up
on any little fillies who might have the audacity to speak the truth about
the leader of Toby Keith's political party.
Not surprisingly, Toby's a Republican, like many of the startlingly wealthy
country music people. Here is what Toby Keith had to say about his political
affiliation: "My dad and granddad would roll over in their graves if they
knew I voted Republican. My dad used to say, 'We don't have enough money to
be Republicans.' Well, I do have enough."
Toby Keith is an Oklahoman, a descendant of the dust bowl refugees driven
off the land by bad weather and banks. These were the people whose struggles
were celebrated by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, the
salt-of-the-earth Americans embodied in Henry Fonda's unforgettable
performance as Tom Joad in the movie version of that novel. When those
people went west to California, they were routinely exploited and harassed
by fat-cat Republicans, by growers and xenophobes who kept them moving, kept
them poor, and fought all legislation that would have brought them relief
from their rather considerable suffering. Kind of the way Republicans today
can be found standing steadfast against increases in the minimum wage,
against social welfare programs, and for every kind of tax giveaway to the
already obscenely rich.
Now I always thought of country music as "roots" music, but Toby Keith
apparently doesn't see it that way. Like lots of people who listen to the
stuff currently being mass-produced by big corporations to feed the myth of
rugged American individualism, Toby identifies with the monied interests,
those corporate types who run the companies that market him. They've pretty
much bought up the political process, and with the percentage of wealth
flowing into ever fewer hands, they could buy the people's music, too, out
of petty cash. It's sort of like Tom Joad being co-opted and paid to sing
the praises of Archer-Daniel-Midlands. All those people who buy Toby's
music-- those clerks at Wal-Mart from Tampa to Topeka to Tacoma who are
forced to work overtime off the clock, or the long haul truckers who drive
from Bangor to Bakersfield on methamphetamine because they literally can't
pay the freight on straight time~are not just sold music; they are sold an
image of a man who is a lone wolf, a straight-talkin', rough ridin' cowboy
individualist who goes his own way and doesn't take crap from anyone, and
doesn't ask anyone for anything, either. That idea always carries with it
the notion that if you haven't made it in this country, it's your own damn
fault. You just weren't good enough, like your betters with all the money.
It's a fairly good philosophy if the objective is to keep people from
banding together to maximize their power. It's a fairly good philosophy if
you want to keep people in the honky tonks, alternately crying in their
beer, or taking out their frustrations on each other with pool cues.
But here's Tom Joad, a different kind of Okie from a different time, saying
farewell to his mother as the novel draws to a close:
"Ma, I've been thinkin' a hell of a lot, thinkin' about our people livin'
like pigs an' the good rich lan' layin' fallow, or maybe one fella with a
million acres, while a hunderd thousan' good farmers is starvin'."
And what conclusions does Tom Joad come to with all that thinking he's been
doing? Does he conclude that we need massive tax breaks for the richest 1%
of the population? Does he arrive at the idea that standing alone against
powerful forces that would bring working people down is the best way to go?
Or that blocking minimum wage increases for working people, and allowing the
exportation of more jobs overseas will solve the nation's problems? Does he
come to think that offshore tax shelters, mega corporations, deregulation,
and monopolies are good for Okies, and the rest of the country, too? Does he
come to think that government exists merely to serve Enron and other
corporate political donors? Does he reach the conclusion that only the
children of working people should fight our wars, and pay for them, too, by
passing on the debt for those wars to their children? Does Tom Joad figure
out that, when it comes to the greatest good for the greatest number, the
Republicans have it all figured out?
Not exactly. What Tom Joad comes up with is this:
"Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever
there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there...I'll be in the way guys yell
when they're mad an'~I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an'
they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an'
live in the houses they build~why I'll be there."
Somehow, those just don't sound like words that are ever going to find their
way into the platform of the Republican Party. And, with big money buying up
more and more of the political process, it's getting harder and harder to
expect such sentiments to turn up in the Democratic Party platform, either.
Toby Keith has been a paid pitchman for ATT, the working man's friend. Now
Toby Keith works for Dreamworks, which is owned by Disney, and what he's
selling is, quite literally, a dream. It's the dream that we can all kick
ass and take names, that independence is achieved by plopping cowboy hats on
our heads, and that foreign policy can be conducted like a brawl in a honky
tonk. Simple stuff, at $18 bucks a copy.
Ever wonder why there are so many awards shows showering recognition on
actors and singers like Toby Keith? Those award shows are big commercials
presented by the TV networks that are subsidiaries of the cable companies
that are connected to the music publishing companies that cross fertilize
the movie studios that sell the soundtracks that mention the marketing
tie-ins for the special deals at the fast food franchises that are under the
same corporate umbrella as the TV network that brought you the awards show
in the first place, and charged you a cable fee AND made you watch
commercials, to boot.
And surely you've noticed how much of TV, even TV news, is devoted to
product promotion? Surely you've noted the synergistic timing of book and
movie releases with guest appearances on the kinds of "shows" that are
really no more than marketing devices for other subsidiaries within the
corporate structure. Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns NBC (not to mention
Paramount Pictures, Simon and Schuster, and a tidal wave of media outlets)
and no matter how much hard news might be taking place in the world, there
will always be time in the 20 minutes devoted to national news each night to
report on soaring box office grosses for the latest Disney film, or a soft
feature that draws a connection between some trumped-up story in "real
life," and the theme in some book or movie currently in release.
Like those corporations, Toby Keith is merely looking out for his own well
being. And in that pursuit, it's always been a good idea to hook up with the
winning side.
But it's surely no wonder why the dead granddads of people like Toby Keith
might be turning over in the good American earth.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Jaime O'Neill
Created May 7 2007 - 9:15am
I've spent my share of time listening to country music in bars, honkytonks,
saloons, pubs, and taverns, but I haven't been paying those dues since I
quit drinking a dozen years ago. That has left me a bit out of the loop when
it comes to my knowledge of country music. From what I can tell from the
radio stations and my occasional cruises by the country music channels,
there's a great deal of uniformity to the product these days, and it doesn't
sound much like country to my ears. Sounds more like twangy mainstream rock
n roll sung by guys wearing cowboy hats, or similarly test-marketed women in
sexy apparel, all of it stamped out in cookie cutter fashion.
My taste for country music was founded on my romantic sense that it was the
people's music, the songs of blue collar balladeers. It came down to us from
people like Jimmy Rodgers, the Carter family, and Woody Guthrie, then got
translated and transmitted generationally through such voices as Johnny
Cash, Merle Haggard, Patsy Kline and Dolly Parton, singers and songwriters
who took the hard-scrabble lives and struggles of working class people and
turned those lives into prole poetry. It celebrated family, the virtues of
hard work, loyalty, and love of the land while lamenting life's assaults
upon the heart, and the struggles of working people to feed their kids.
Since the music was usually fairly simple, its main virtue was to be found
in its authenticity, the sense that it was, indeed, the vox populi, the
bubbling up of the sentiments of otherwise voiceless working class folks.
Toby Keith is about as hot a country music star as they make. He's won a
passel of Country Music Association awards. He's been the subject of a
profile on 60 Minutes II, and his picture adorns the covers of Sunday
supplements in newspapers throughout the country. The full marketing machine
is in gear, and Toby is awash in money, having made more than $45 million
last year, and expected to make a good deal more in the years to come. Much
of his popularity can be traced to his redneck hymns of belligerence toward
enemies of America, both real and imagined. Toby Keith is the soundtrack to
the nation's coast-to-coast Right Wing Talk Radio Hoedown. Toby Keith is the
guy who piled on when the Dixie Chicks were getting pummeled by every
country music jock on American radio, a brave American hero eager to beat up
on any little fillies who might have the audacity to speak the truth about
the leader of Toby Keith's political party.
Not surprisingly, Toby's a Republican, like many of the startlingly wealthy
country music people. Here is what Toby Keith had to say about his political
affiliation: "My dad and granddad would roll over in their graves if they
knew I voted Republican. My dad used to say, 'We don't have enough money to
be Republicans.' Well, I do have enough."
Toby Keith is an Oklahoman, a descendant of the dust bowl refugees driven
off the land by bad weather and banks. These were the people whose struggles
were celebrated by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath, the
salt-of-the-earth Americans embodied in Henry Fonda's unforgettable
performance as Tom Joad in the movie version of that novel. When those
people went west to California, they were routinely exploited and harassed
by fat-cat Republicans, by growers and xenophobes who kept them moving, kept
them poor, and fought all legislation that would have brought them relief
from their rather considerable suffering. Kind of the way Republicans today
can be found standing steadfast against increases in the minimum wage,
against social welfare programs, and for every kind of tax giveaway to the
already obscenely rich.
Now I always thought of country music as "roots" music, but Toby Keith
apparently doesn't see it that way. Like lots of people who listen to the
stuff currently being mass-produced by big corporations to feed the myth of
rugged American individualism, Toby identifies with the monied interests,
those corporate types who run the companies that market him. They've pretty
much bought up the political process, and with the percentage of wealth
flowing into ever fewer hands, they could buy the people's music, too, out
of petty cash. It's sort of like Tom Joad being co-opted and paid to sing
the praises of Archer-Daniel-Midlands. All those people who buy Toby's
music-- those clerks at Wal-Mart from Tampa to Topeka to Tacoma who are
forced to work overtime off the clock, or the long haul truckers who drive
from Bangor to Bakersfield on methamphetamine because they literally can't
pay the freight on straight time~are not just sold music; they are sold an
image of a man who is a lone wolf, a straight-talkin', rough ridin' cowboy
individualist who goes his own way and doesn't take crap from anyone, and
doesn't ask anyone for anything, either. That idea always carries with it
the notion that if you haven't made it in this country, it's your own damn
fault. You just weren't good enough, like your betters with all the money.
It's a fairly good philosophy if the objective is to keep people from
banding together to maximize their power. It's a fairly good philosophy if
you want to keep people in the honky tonks, alternately crying in their
beer, or taking out their frustrations on each other with pool cues.
But here's Tom Joad, a different kind of Okie from a different time, saying
farewell to his mother as the novel draws to a close:
"Ma, I've been thinkin' a hell of a lot, thinkin' about our people livin'
like pigs an' the good rich lan' layin' fallow, or maybe one fella with a
million acres, while a hunderd thousan' good farmers is starvin'."
And what conclusions does Tom Joad come to with all that thinking he's been
doing? Does he conclude that we need massive tax breaks for the richest 1%
of the population? Does he arrive at the idea that standing alone against
powerful forces that would bring working people down is the best way to go?
Or that blocking minimum wage increases for working people, and allowing the
exportation of more jobs overseas will solve the nation's problems? Does he
come to think that offshore tax shelters, mega corporations, deregulation,
and monopolies are good for Okies, and the rest of the country, too? Does he
come to think that government exists merely to serve Enron and other
corporate political donors? Does he reach the conclusion that only the
children of working people should fight our wars, and pay for them, too, by
passing on the debt for those wars to their children? Does Tom Joad figure
out that, when it comes to the greatest good for the greatest number, the
Republicans have it all figured out?
Not exactly. What Tom Joad comes up with is this:
"Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever
there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there...I'll be in the way guys yell
when they're mad an'~I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an'
they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an'
live in the houses they build~why I'll be there."
Somehow, those just don't sound like words that are ever going to find their
way into the platform of the Republican Party. And, with big money buying up
more and more of the political process, it's getting harder and harder to
expect such sentiments to turn up in the Democratic Party platform, either.
Toby Keith has been a paid pitchman for ATT, the working man's friend. Now
Toby Keith works for Dreamworks, which is owned by Disney, and what he's
selling is, quite literally, a dream. It's the dream that we can all kick
ass and take names, that independence is achieved by plopping cowboy hats on
our heads, and that foreign policy can be conducted like a brawl in a honky
tonk. Simple stuff, at $18 bucks a copy.
Ever wonder why there are so many awards shows showering recognition on
actors and singers like Toby Keith? Those award shows are big commercials
presented by the TV networks that are subsidiaries of the cable companies
that are connected to the music publishing companies that cross fertilize
the movie studios that sell the soundtracks that mention the marketing
tie-ins for the special deals at the fast food franchises that are under the
same corporate umbrella as the TV network that brought you the awards show
in the first place, and charged you a cable fee AND made you watch
commercials, to boot.
And surely you've noticed how much of TV, even TV news, is devoted to
product promotion? Surely you've noted the synergistic timing of book and
movie releases with guest appearances on the kinds of "shows" that are
really no more than marketing devices for other subsidiaries within the
corporate structure. Disney owns ABC, Viacom owns NBC (not to mention
Paramount Pictures, Simon and Schuster, and a tidal wave of media outlets)
and no matter how much hard news might be taking place in the world, there
will always be time in the 20 minutes devoted to national news each night to
report on soaring box office grosses for the latest Disney film, or a soft
feature that draws a connection between some trumped-up story in "real
life," and the theme in some book or movie currently in release.
Like those corporations, Toby Keith is merely looking out for his own well
being. And in that pursuit, it's always been a good idea to hook up with the
winning side.
But it's surely no wonder why the dead granddads of people like Toby Keith
might be turning over in the good American earth.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson