There is an old saw that there is no surer way of falling out with people than discussing politics and religion but I do feel I should set the record straight Quorian because you appear to have taken me up the wrong way. First of all, I never mentioned Springsteen's wealth. What I did make reference to was his influence on public opinion and the platform which that influence gives him in the media. Not everyone gets to put their political views across in an article in the New York Times. Springsteen is a public figure speaking out on public issues in the public arena and it is therefore fair and right to question those views and to ask how much he knows about politics on the occasions when he chooses to write about it...especially when he is not a professional politician. Secondly, John Kerry has built his public profile around his military service from 1966 on and his subsequent stance as an vocal opponent of the Vietnam war after he was demobbed in 1970. US opposition to the war began in 1965 with the teach-ins but John Kerry said, 'Send me'. In '66 veterans from World Wars I and II, along with veterans from the Korean war staged a protest rally in New York City. Discharge and separation papers were burned in protest of US involvement in Vietnam by retired SOLDIERS but John Kerry said, 'Send me'. Martin Luther King spoke out against the war in 1967 but John Kerry said, 'Send me'. The My Lai massacre took place in 1968 and news of it reached the USA in 1969 but John Kerry said, 'Send me'. So you have all these people back in America who believe that the war is wrong and are voicing their feelings about it but the penny only drops with Kerry in 1970 when he said, 'Send me home' ? I watched the 2004 Democratic Convention with rapt attention, hoping to get a positive feel for Kerry, instead this guy walks onto the podium and acts like he is still in the Navy. Any question he is asked he waves his medals in the air and says, 'I know what it means to kill'. Now how would that look if 'Born In The USA' was blaring away in the background instead of 'No Surrender' ? For the record, this is what Ron Kovic said about the Vietnam War when he addressed the 1976 Democratic convention, "I am the living death / The memorial day on wheels / I am your Yankee Doodle Dandy / Your John Wayne come home / Your fourth of July firecracker / exploding in the grave". Not a lot of, 'proud to be of service to my country' stuff to be found there. I agree that, given the relatively low number of people who are registered voters in the USA, it is wonderful when those in the public eye take it upon themselves to encourage people to vote. What we shouldn't forget however is that a person's vote is their own and they should be left alone to choose the person they feel is best for the job, whether that be Kerry, Bush or whoever. That is the democratic process. To encourage people to vote but to demand that they vote in a particular way only harks back to Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall.

I thought the article was pretty crap to be honest. I love the Boss - have all his CDs, 10 or so bootlegs and all his DVDs. But I also love W! I hated Clinton. Am glad to see that people here agree that Kerry is no Clinton - listening to the glowing welcomes Clinton has just received and the references to W I thought that lots of people couldn't see the difference. I thought the last paragraph was truly awful - "It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to pick up the pieces and move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting." Bruce is a fantastic songwriter - one of the best ever and then comes out with "the country we carry in our hearts is waiting" - woeful! Really Bush could argue quite convincingly that he's doing just that - bringing America to her full potiental as the greatest superpower in the world, committed to real improvement of all people of the world. His administration has shown an admirable committment to freedom, democracy and tangible efforts to tackle humanitarian problems. Under the Bush admin the USA spends more money on treating AIDS in the third world than all other countries combined. Being a rabid right-winger - I disagree with some of his "big government" domestic policies - he's no Reagan (my political hero!) but he is ten thousand times better than Kerry. As for musicians and celebrities pontificating on politics - in reality they have no more right, knowledge or experience than your average Joe on the street and it's a sad reflection on our culture that we afford them so respect in this area. I will continue to buy Bruce's music and attend his concerts in the same way I bought Kris Kristofferson's live album after he really annoyed me 2 nights in the Point with his monologues on Iraq. We're all entitled to our opinions on politics and the freedom to say them but Bruce, John Mellencamp, the Dixie Chicks et al had better come with more substanial reasons for Kerry as the "vote for change" pretty soon.

Also, Bruce mentions how bad he feels with his tax cut from W. Bill Clinton talked about this at the democratic convention too. It is possible in the USA to pay as much tax as you want. Why don't Bill and Bruce get together and return some funds to the IRS???

Here's a bigger question, more music related, why the hell is Steve Earle not on that mini tour? He has been the most outspoken artist against the Bush adminsitration. With a cracking new album out, he should be on that bill.

All you need know a bout politics in one short animation: http://www.weebl.jolt.co.uk/politics.htm (needs sound, keep watching after it says END, theres a little bit after it)

I know this is a music board, but I'm sitting in NYC on the eve of the republican national convention (which will be here for the rest of the week) so i feel like i have to share some things. Jules- no hard feelings. I still think kerry could come back from war wiser than when he said 'send me' but if we agree to disagree, all's well. We'll argue about country sometime too, eh? fiddlechick: in response to your contention that "Bush could argue quite convincingly that he's doing just that - bringing America to her full potiental as the greatest superpower in the world, committed to real improvement of all people of the world. His administration has shown an admirable committment to freedom, democracy and tangible efforts to tackle humanitarian problems." I offer you the following: (Note: the following is exceprtped from http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0434/barrett.php which offers up a number of ways Bush has hurt nyc. I've offered the most far-reaching and/or compelling examples here) *"There are actually 5,879 fewer city cops than in 2000, partly due to the nearly 90 percent Bush cuts in Bill Clinton's COPS programs. Even with the post-9-11 invention of homeland security funding, NYC is getting $61 million less in federal public-safety subsidies than it did before our cops became America's front line. Bush's 2005 budget proposes even more cuts...Of course, should anything catastrophic happen there during convention week, the firefighters whose brothers died on 9-11 will still be communicating on the same, reprogrammed, radios that cost lives three years ago, thanks to a president who refused to pony up the $120 million needed for new ones. Bush has also de-funded the SAFER program even after Congress passed it—blocking NYC from hiring more firefighters—and limited equipment purchases under the FIRE program to a puny cap of $750,000, putting NY's allocation on a par with Poland, Ohio's, with Montana getting $9 per capita for federal firefighter aid and NYC nine cents…In fact, delegates from Cheney's Wyoming, for example, will have reason to be jittery, leaving a state that gets $40 per capita in homeland security funding to visit a state that gets $10, especially since they will have entered a twilight zone on orange alert for the last 1,080 days or so. *He opposed an extension of the commission's deadline. He deleted its funding altogether from one supplemental budget request and ultimately funded it at one-fourth the cost of Ken Starr's probe of a dress stain. His wholly owned cable network and NY tabloid derided it repeatedly. *The press, always seeking balance, has apparently decided that if Bill Clinton was out to lunch on Al Qaeda, then Dubya's vacationing vacillation is not news. But Clinton is not seeking four more years. With CIA director George Tenet telling the commission that "the system was blinking red," the White House appears in the report as glazed as it did the first seven minutes after the second plane hit. *No one will mention the 40 bin Laden articles in Presidential Daily Briefings from January 20 to September 10, 2001; the first day of vacation's August 6 wake-up PDB headline of "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.," and the fishing trip that ensued; the failure to even convene a principals' meeting on terrorism until September 4, 2001; the president's uncertainty about whether he ever discussed the August 6 PDB with Justice officials; the acting FBI director's sworn recollection that AG Ashcroft told him he didn't want to hear about the Al Qaeda threats anymore; and the telling testimony of senior counterterrorism staff that they considered resigning during it all to "go public with their concerns." *Congressman Anthony Weiner has calculated that the administration has shortchanged the city by $2.5 billion through cuts in the five key education programs funded under the Bush schools initiative, No Child Left Behind. NCLB hasn't just hurt the pocketbook, it's also forced traumatic overcrowding by widening parental choice, damaging high-performing schools and emptying low-performing ones…Bush has proposed a $107 million cut in NY's Section 8 housing vouchers. If passed, it will be the first time this voucher program has ever been reduced. The administration is also trying to recapture $50 million in subsidies the city already got. Since Bush took office, the city's housing authority, which is home to one in every 12 NYers, has taken, according to Maloney, Weiner, and other House Democrats, a $175 million drop in federal funding. *Earlier this month in Geneva, the U.S. reversed Clinton's support of a U.N. agreement banning the production and supply of highly enriched uranium essential to building nukes. Strongly supported by allies like Britain, the fissile material cut-off treaty, as it's called, would've reduced the chances of terror groups acquiring a nuclear capability. In 2001, Bush did the same to scuttle a biological-weapons convention, though 55 nations had signed on after seven years of negotiation. Elisa Harris, who oversaw proliferation issues for Clinton's NSC, said that the Bush administration was sending "a very dangerous message," acting on the neoconservative distrust of any binding restraints on America First policy. " So to those with different political views than mine, fine. but don't you DARE call Bush a humanitarian, and don't you dare say he's committed to my country when i see every day how he treats my city. (and i do apologize if this isn't necessarily the place for this, but i've got a long week ahead and i had to vent...)