Thank you, Jerry!! And it's so strange that I wrote this song a few years ago as a metaphor and a poetic warning.... and look at 2020! I almost feel like screaming, "Hey, it wasn't an instructions manual by the way!"
Thank you, Jerry!! And it's so strange that I wrote this song a few years ago as a metaphor and a poetic warning.... and look at 2020! I almost feel like screaming, "Hey, it wasn't an instructions manual by the way!"
I lived in Apartheid South Africa from birth until its demise in 1994, so I have some idea about what its like to be part of the "expendable, slave" class & how suppressing people seems to instill a steely determination to become part of the elites, rather than to offer an alternative. The battle was against race ostensibly, or sonit appeared to me as a child & then as a young adult. I very soon came to realise that it was about who can gain access to the most lucrative sources of wealth & then political power. The fight soon spread to include battles against power generally, sexism,
misogyny, etc etc. It is thus astonidhing that this small country set in motion an awakening. But people elsewhere now feel so much more controlled & suppressed by elites than we were at that time. I wonder that you don't discuss what has contributed to the breakdown of the idea of philanthropy for its own sake, which seemed to motivate some 19thC American (& others) industrialists whose generosity contribulted to the growth of universities & intellectualism there? What killed idealism in America? Was it WW2 & beyond? Was it just Vietnam that changed America? Foreign policy? Henry Kissinger? Richard Nixon? It would appear that this is merely an idealistic perception on my part & that any good anyone is capable of doing after making their fortune is motivated purely by egocentric concerns & megalomania? No matter who that person might be, they will always think that they can rule the world & its economy with a little help from their "friends"?
Thank you, Jerry!! And it's so strange that I wrote this song a few years ago as a metaphor and a poetic warning.... and look at 2020! I almost feel like screaming, "Hey, it wasn't an instructions manual by the way!"
I lived in Apartheid South Africa from birth until its demise in 1994, so I have some idea about what its like to be part of the "expendable, slave" class & how suppressing people seems to instill a steely determination to become part of the elites, rather than to offer an alternative. The battle was against race ostensibly, or sonit appeared to me as a child & then as a young adult. I very soon came to realise that it was about who can gain access to the most lucrative sources of wealth & then political power. The fight soon spread to include battles against power generally, sexism,
misogyny, etc etc. It is thus astonidhing that this small country set in motion an awakening. But people elsewhere now feel so much more controlled & suppressed by elites than we were at that time. I wonder that you don't discuss what has contributed to the breakdown of the idea of philanthropy for its own sake, which seemed to motivate some 19thC American (& others) industrialists whose generosity contribulted to the growth of universities & intellectualism there? What killed idealism in America? Was it WW2 & beyond? Was it just Vietnam that changed America? Foreign policy? Henry Kissinger? Richard Nixon? It would appear that this is merely an idealistic perception on my part & that any good anyone is capable of doing after making their fortune is motivated purely by egocentric concerns & megalomania? No matter who that person might be, they will always think that they can rule the world & its economy with a little help from their "friends"?
From birth until... err... I'm still here :)