The Flute of False Choices

Our song this week is about making a choice for the Democratic ticket, without the benefit of feeling pulled by either camp's platitudes about a shining future or a near-perfect past. Enjoy:

Click the play button to listen

Max and the Marginalized the only rock band in the progressive blogosphere, and therefore the best one! They write and record a song a week and post on Thursdays. Go to their outposts on Facebook or MySpace for tour dates and downloads.

The Flute of False Choices

They got in the mailbox
They called me at home and knocked on my door
Tuesday came by
and went like all the boring others before
It didn't feel like a choice much at all
Between a future I can't forsee and I past I don't quite recall

Not at all, my hands are tied
Between the weak and the bold or the new and the old or
the darkness and the light
The flute of false choices is playing our song tonight

I went to the highway
Where fitted sheets hung down toward my car
I took out my contacts
To accentuate the differences better perceived from afar
And having some faith it don't make me a fool
And just because I've got an eye on the numbers
That don't mean I subscribe to a dead set of rules, yes it's true

My hands are tied
After seven long years of shoving shit down our ears
about our safety and our rights
The flute of false choices is playing our song tonight

They're shouting from the hilltops calling out all megaphones
Shooting at the blank spots and hitting each one head on
'Cause when that train rolled to town, somehow I missed it
I'm on that list but I'm not enlisted
Maybe I should just stay home

'Cause in spite of what's implied
It doesn't come down to a head in the ground or a finger in the sky
Right in between my old age and my teens I'd like to make up my mind
Free from snot attitudes and these vague platitudes
To a tune trite and contrived
The flute of false choices is playing our song tonight

Comments

[Sundialsvc4]

Good tune!

Unfortunately for all of us, the "false choice" that is being presented to all of us is the notion that the only thing we can do is to vote in November ... ten months away ... and of course vote for either Thing-One or Thing-Two.

How about a song for the change that is needed right now? How about a song about Impeachment? A song about Justice?

We need a song -- a song that will catch everyone's lips and tap everyone's feet and maybe break through this terrible silence.

[Stirner]

Odd, lots of crabbing about the need for "Change", "Change you can Trust", etc. But no one chanting that stuff really want change. The "flute of false choices" -- Obama, Hillary, the MadBomber and the Preacher presented as choices! These folk have no intention to change anything -- same stuff, more cash handouts, more war, more debt, and more Nanny knows best bullshit. Come on, don't be afraid, vote to break the neocon stranglehold on our domestic and foreign policy and vote for Ron Paul. Shall we say, "a change for the better"?

[ChimpmasterDJ]

You know, parsing the differences between bad health-care coverage reform plans, trying to figure out which one will actually, truly, deliver "change" that's worth a damn... It's all hard work, until you get little nuggets like Hillary "explaining" why she couldn't vote for the Levin Amendment with astoundingly stupid and transparent lies. Them, as extra icing on the cake, you find out she was happy to vote against banning the use of cluster-bombs on civilian populations.

She made it easy. Now it's a moral issue. It doesn't matter what her party is, what her gender is, who or what she sleeps with... knowing what I know, I cannot ever vote for her in any elections whatsoever.

[Counterglow]

Which goes a long way toward explaining why no matter how stupid, corrupt or downright evil the Republican candidate happens to be in a presidential election, he's probably going to beat the Democrat.

[vsign]

No Affirmative Action! Voters need a new Voting Rights Act!

Internet users are bleeding into mainstream media and causing voters not to have the ability to use their vote to hire the best person for the job of president.

Not all the voters have decided how to use their vote yet. Not all the states have voted. The media, however, is talking about what the internet users want to talk about. The voters are not being heard - just the internet users. We are being told our votes won't count because of super delegates.

Affirmative action is being used by Obama so we cannot conduct a proper interview process between Hillary and Obama. Voters are being asked to overlook Obama's voting record on Iraq and a small resume and the differences in policies. Voters are being asked to give Obama an advantage because of his race. If we criticize him in any way, we are told we are playing the race card.

Obama wants us to not be critical of his record and resume and just vote with our hearts. Obama wants affirmative action! Tell Obama to stand on his own two feet and not make us carry him.

Vote against Obama!

[DoninJoisey]

Don't worry - the Clintons have the edge on the superdelegates. The feminazis may prevail yet.

Clintons - synonymous with integrity... the Ministry of Truth says so.... :-)
War is Peace
Hate is Love

1984 references in case you're slow...

[DoninJoisey]

Bill? Is that you?
Who's Iraq record shouldn't we look at???
What about the ditzy "woman for president" arguement.
Obama has more direct governmental experience than Hillary - unless you count first lady stuff - which puts her on a par with Laura Bush.

[realitytrumpsbull]

Vote Independent, even if, maybe even especially if, that means you can't vote for a mainstream candidate/pandidate this year. Reform. It doesn't have to HURT, but you do have to start, and what we have is a political system. The Beast. Whatever it is you feel like calling That Which Is, wherever you go with that, well that's where you are, wherever ya go, there ya are.
INdependence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence
Is it just a brand, Independence(R)? Democracy(TM)? Is it something you can get on sale at Wal-mart? Um, 'no'.
Independence is roughly the state of being where you aren't dependent on anyone or anything for your daily bread, as in 'financially independent'. Join the army TODAY, do a lil' insider trading, and you, too, could be 'financially independent'. The american dream. Or, american hallucination?
Take your Haldol, Billy. Like they say, a mind is a terrible thing, and the government wants your paycheck. (And your IMMORTAL SOUL. In installments. Well, not really, there's no resale value, there. Wait, maybe there is.)
But, what price independence? Well, I don't know, but 20-30 bucks' worth of questioning authority is a good investment...I don't know how many questions that buys you, but that's a great starting point of general discussion...
now, how practical is that? 306 million independent people. Ooopsie, there went the Con Me. Ruh, roh...vote early and often!

[fmmcfarren]

ah. once again.. the same old whining.. I don't think the candidates are perfect, so I don't want to vote. It won't make a difference anyways.. We can remember to thank all of you for 2000 election, 2004, and now 2008? so John [Let's Hurry up and BOMB IRAN] McCain, is the Same as "Withdraw the troops"?
For the sake of the world. You have a responsibility! not a privilege. oh, well, we get the government we deserve.. thanks a lot

[BlueBoomer]

Ironically, with the early departures of Joe BIDEN and Chris Dodd, the 2008 campaign has morphed into a year of LOST opportunity!...at least for SUBSTANTIVE improvements in our country's fortunes (and I don't mean $).

Of our two remaining contenders, Hillary is OBVIOUSLY self-ambitious, but at least with her, you know what you're getting, warts and all.

Obama, on the other hand, is EQUALLY self-ambitious, but cloaks it in the trappings (if not the vocation) of a speechifying evangelical preacher...all smoke and mirrors and little substance... AND he cut his teeth in CHICAGO politics, which has never had a clean reputation. IMHO Barak Obama has now become the primary purveyer of mass quanties of evangelical kool-aid... And it seems that the masses who are understandably hungry for a change just can't get enough!... But beware...I fear that there may be a tummy-ache, if not a full-blown hang-over, as a result of such over-indulgence.
Heathen that I am, I'll pass...Thanks anyway.