by adrien rain burke
(Written and published on LA Indymedia just prior to the 2004 Republican Convention in New York)
So some corporate bigwigs are planning a tribute to Johnny Cash for
delegates to the RNC this year. Guess they haven't got enough trouble with
all those restless demonstrators-without-a-park, huh?
The Republicans always seem to miss the point, somehow. I remember when
Richard Nixon tried to use Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" as a
campaign theme song for his reelection bid. Yeah, THAT Woody Guthrie. I
guess they never did hear all the verses. This one, for instance:
As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said 'private property'
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
That side was made for you and me!
or this one:
In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me.
The Guthrie family pitched a righteous, leftist fit.
But even before that incident, they'd invited Cash himself to the White
House and, in the course of his performance, asked him to sing "Welfare
Cadillac!" (Proving again the truth of Julia roberts observation that
"republican" comes between "reptilian" and "repugnant" in the dictionary.)
Your man refused, explaining that is wasn't part of his usual repertory, and
treated Nixon and Agnew to "What is Truth?*" instead. (Served 'em right).
*A little boy of three sittin' on the floor
Looks up and says, "Daddy, what is war?"
"son, that's when people fight and die"
The little boy of three says "Daddy, why?"
A young man of seventeen in Sunday school
Being taught the golden rule
And by the time another year has gone around
It may be his turn to lay his life down
Can you blame the voice of youth for asking
"What is truth?"
I can't think of a thing that Bush stands for that Cash would endorse, or
agree with, or celebrate, or sing about. Perhaps if I had enough time I
could, but right off - NO. Of course, they have both professed Christianity
- but they don't seem to have the same Jesus in mind at all. Take Cash's
moving rendition of this Nick Cave song, "The Mercy Seat:"
Into the mercy seat I climb
My head is shaved, my head is wired
And like a moth that tries
To enter the bright eye
I go shuffling out of life
Just to hide in death awhile
And anyway I never lied.
The song's chilling evocation of a man facing the electric chair just
doesn't fit with W's infamous, sinister glee whenever he had the opportunity
as governor of Texas to execute someone - which of course, he did often.
And then, neither of them ever back down. Bush is incapable of admitting an
error, or supposing for a moment that his worldview is wrong, or that God
didn't tell him to smite some enemy or other.
And Cash never backed down. Here's part of a verse he wrote explaining why
he always wore black:
". . . . I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believin' that the Lord was on their side. . . . "
See? Different Jesus.
I have a Christian friend who's ecstatic at the prospect of the "End Times"
- which he believes are upon us. War is detestable and cruel, he admits
regretfully, but Bush is doing the RightThing in the Middle East because his
clumsy, yet brutal, approach is precipitating the excitement so luridly
portrayed in the Book of Revelations. I don't know whether Bush believes
that; certainly he wouldn't admit it in public if he did, but I know it's a
popular view among Bush's followers - including some highly placed in his
administration and in Iraq. But, if Christianity IS the one true religion
(an idea of which I am not at all convinced) - what if we were judged NOT by
how docilely we collaborated in the apocalypse, but by how faithfully we
followed Jesus' injunction to love our enemies?
THAT would be Johnny Cash's Jesus. The - um - humanist Jesus. Come to think
of it, that Jesus seems pretty scarce among the pious, professing Christians
of the other state-sanctioned party as well these days. The Bible and the
Gun never got a better workup than they did at the Democratic convention in
Boston this year.
Nevertheless, The GOP's exploitation of the conveniently deceased Cash is
especially rotten and hypocritical.
It's also, well, stupid. By using Johnny Cash they are attracting ALL the
wrong kind of attention - attention which is certain to highlight the vast
differences between their dog-eat-dog, rich-eat-poor philosophy and the
pro-underdog they are so cynically hoping to profit by. I can only think
that, like Nixon haplessly quoting Woody Guthrie, they just didn't know.
So I think Cash's reputation will survive the outrage. Naturally, the rebels
and outcasts and fighters and lovers of New York City will be out in force
to protest this smirch on one of their number. There's a website,
http://www.defendjohnnycash.org, set up to organize a new sort of 'black
bloc,' and they are certain to be both creative and joyfully notorious. I am
anticipating their tactics as eagerly as Bush's theocratic nutcakes are
awaiting the thermonuclear End Of All Things.
Sadly, I won't be in NYC, but I am content that there will be plenty of
plain, black-clothed folks there, ready to show the GOP that Johnny will be
forever "Livin' in the Love of the Common People. . . . . . ."
