We've been through this movie before

We’ve been through this movie before

Bob Dylan in an interview with the Times of London speaks brainless nonsense about the wonder-working, water-walking Obama-god, who “is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…” What—are we in for a replay of the Sixties, with all its pumped-up millennial expectations, as though nothing had ever been learned from all that folly? Sometimes I feel like radio host Bob Grant, and am ready for a comet to come and wipe out the planet Earth.

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Mark K. writes:

For Bob Dylan, his times they are forever a changin’ and his answer is forever blowin’ in the wind.

Jeff in England writes:

Dylan doesn’t out and out endorse Obama nor does he elaborate on the relevant specific issues.
A better interviewer would have encouraged Dylan to elaborate.

LA writes:

One reader sent this item with the note, “No surprise.” Another reader sent it with a note, “Read it and weep.” Well, is it no surprise, or it something surprising and distressful? Dylan, while probably a generic liberal in most of his attitudes, has made many comments over the years showing a complete uninterest in politics, putting down leftist utopianism and even liberal meliorism. So you would not expect him to describe presidential candidate Barack Obama in ridiculous, messianic terms as someone who will “redefine the nature of politics.” However, Obama is a man of color, and Dylan has always lost his perspective over highly questionable black people, such as George Jackson and Hurricane Carter, treating criminals as saints and Christ figures. The other day I myself described Obama (along with McCain) as a “political criminal.” So it should be no surprise to me that Dylan sanctifies him.

N. writes:

Anyone who was around in the 1990s, and was paying attention to U.S. politics and who wasn’t a liberal, surely recalls the near god-king status that the press accorded to Clinton. He could do no wrong, his every utterance was a pearl of wisdom, and anyone who opposed or even criticized him was clearly acting from the vilest and basest of motives.
Well, we ain’t seen nothing, yet. If Senator Obama gets elected, the idol-worship is going to be amazing. For a sample, consider this column from the San Francisco “Chronicle.” Please note, this guy is not joking around, he is serious.

Many spiritually advanced people I know (not coweringly religious, mind you, but deeply spiritual) identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.

LA replies:

I’m not surprised at someone saying this, since it’s a typical expression of New Age spirituality, and Obama with his unusual qualities would fit right into that. I am surprised it was published in a mainstream newspaper.
Just yesterday I said to someone I know who moved to San Francisco in the last year or two that I couldn’t imagine how a right-winger like him would fit into that leftist lotus land. He replied that San Francisco may be leftist, but it’s not lotus land, it’s more like a 19th century city. Lotus land, he said, is southern California.
But if the publication of that article in the San Francisco Chronicle doesn’t suggest lotus land, nothing could.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 05, 2008 09:06 PM | Send

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