Wake up everybody - and listen to bad music...

I don't listen to the radio to find new music to listen to - I go to radio and video playlists, find songs that sound interesting, and download them off peer to peer networks. One of the songs I happened to grab recently was "Wake Up Everybody", a rap supergroup compilation. I didn't know this, but it benefits America Coming Together (scroll down), the anti-Bush group best known for hiring convicted felons for door to door canvasing in Florida.

The lyrics are full of the kind of warm, fuzzy, meaningless drivel that liberals love.
It's big on complaining about the way things are without offering any ideas on how it can be better, beyond the implied vote for Kerry.

It's got a shot at the No Child Left Behind act:

Wake up all the teachers timing for teaching new ways Maybe they'll listen to what you say

odd that those old ways of teaching have worked for years. And the horror of expecting to take tests to prove that they actually know stuff...

Everyone knows that after children (think of the children!) old people are next group to appeal to if you want more government spending - who wants poor sweet old granny to die? - so of course we have that in there too..

Wake all the doctors make the old people well
They’re the ones who suffer and catch all the hell
But they don't have so very long before the judgment day
So won't you make them happy before they pass away?

Because you know there are doctors who are withholding treatment from old ladies, because, well, who knows why. With this song, though, that will change. I always think it's odd to point to the existance of old and sick people as proof that there is something wrong with our country or our medical system. We have old people because we are wealthy enough, and our healthcare system and technology is good enough, that people live longer than ever. Things that would have killed you years ago now just make you sick. People who lose some of their facilties because of their age are proof that life is good, because a century or two ago they would not have lived long enough to lose those things. But the negagive nellies at America Coming Together see this as a bad thing.

We've also got some more "think of the children" dreck...

Bring peace do we mean it
Can you feel it when we scream it out loud do you believe that we need it
Do you believe that it could get right?
Do you believe that the children of the world deserve a good life?

I think those on the right believe want peace - they just realize that sometimes you have to use violence in the short term in order to get peace in the long term - for adults, and for children like those in Iraqi Children's prisons. (be sure to read the quote about it by anti-war former weapons inspector Scott Ritter here. Almost 2 years ago Lileks wrote about the need for small amounts of violance to attain peace and he does a way better job than I can of expressing this.

There's lots more misinformation in the song, but there is one more line I want to hit, and then I'm stopping because this stuff makes my head hurt..

The world has changed so very much from what it use to be
There’s so much hatetred war and poverty.

I would agree that the world has changed, but in the grand scheme of things it's changed for the better. There has always been hatred, war and poverty in the world. As far as poverty, countries with democracy and capitalism are doing pretty well with fighting it. Sure, there are some poor people in America, but even they live pretty well compared to people in socialist or 3rd world countries, or people in this country a few decades ago. Hatred is a little hard to measure, but I think racial harmony in the U.S. is better than it ever has been. Most of the hatred out there seems to be towards the U.S. for having the nerve to be free and prosperous. War is unfortunate, but as I said, it's also necessary sometimes to attain peace - and when you compare how many soldiers have died in the Iraq war to previous wars, it's staggering - as PJ O'Rourke points out in "Peace Kills", 6,821 Americans died in a little over a month fighting over a plot of land that was uninhabitable, and that we gave back in the end anyway. So losing 1000 troops in a year in a country that we had legitimate reasons to fear, that was doing awful things to it's citizens and neighbors, while tragic, is also a commentary on how warfare has improved.

So my response to this musical screed - things aren't as bad as they say, but if you take their advice and vote for Kerry, they probably will become that bad.