Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Combating the warmongers

A well known musician, one with outspoken political views, recently made the following statement in relation to the war in Iraq.
One would hope we'd have made more progress than we have combating the warmongers.
If you think about it this statement could have been made by someone like Toby Keith or by someone like Roger Waters. Two artists with radically different views on the war in Iraq and on the war against the Jihadists in general.

In fact this statement was made by one of those two people. How you interpret the statement and who you think made it speaks volumes.

By the way, I positively adore Roger Waters music, am going to his concert in a couple days, and fully expect to love it completely. I don't even plan to take offense when he disses my country and my president.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One would hope we'd have made more progress than we have combating the warmongers.

I thought about the quote (as you suggested) and decided it must be Roger - because Toby Keith would never begin a sentence with the words 'One would hope'.

:)

Dan G said...

Yeah, probably wasn't too terribly difficult to figure out. I was just terribly fascinated by the unintentional irony.

Anonymous said...

While I understand your point about the irony, I just don't think someone like Toby Keith would think that deeply about the subject (yeah - I don't know him personally, and yes, I'm basing this upon my view of his public persona).

Do you think the Tobys of the world sit down and say "Hmmm, I wish we could make more progress fighting the extremist elements of the middle-east region / Islmaic religion"?

Or would it be more like "We gotta bomb them [insert derogatory term for the entire middle-east population here] to hell and that'll git er done!"

If you recall, a similar comment was made recently by a common aquaintance of ours - to my (and I hope your) horror.

I realize I'm stereotyping Toby and his ilk, but I just don't see them thinking too hard about "them."

Please forgive any hypocrisy on my part by saying that. :)

Dan G said...

Obviously the statement was by Roger Waters, and my stereotypical assessment of Toby Keith probably isn't too far from yours.

The irony that struck me was the irony of Roger Waters using the fairly martial phrase "combating the warmongers" in reference to Bush and company while speaking about a war against warmongers who make Bush look like the easter bunny.

And yes, I am completely horrified every time I hear statements about bombing entire countries to hell. While there have been, and may yet be, times when such measures are necessary, it is such a horrifying thought that I'm not quite sure it wouldn't be preferable to submit willingly to the headsman's ax (or dull knife as the case may be).