Country Music in Love With the Manifesto

"Oh, everybody's dreamin big
Oh, everybody's just gettin by
That's how it goes in everyday america
A little town with a great big life"

These are the chorus lyrics of the song by country music band Sugarland. It is hard not to like Sugarland, a beautiful lead singer, Jennifer Nettle's Atlanta twang, everything she sings sounds great.

Read the lyrics of another favorite country singer of mine, Phil Vasser:
"Fat cats just getting fatter
Lining their pockets
What does it matter?
All I want is an honest wage
A piece of ground where my kids are safe


80 bucks to fill my truck
Old man telling me times are tough
Sticking it to the middle class
Well, they can kiss my price of gas...

Gonna get the attention of the man on top
Make it louder, shake and rock
It might just come tumbling down
Spread all that wealth around..."

I saw Phil Vasser in concert in Virginia at George Mason University in 2000. He had only been performing in front of large audiences for a handful of months and you could see he was a little nervous, but it made him more likable. He is likeable as Bruce Springstein, especially to the average folks. I am not sure if he necessarily appeals to the blue collar type of audience as Springsteen, but no doubt to average people.

Do the lyrics above of Sugarland and Phil Vasser inspire Americans? How ab out people who start businesses or run companies? The people who start companies are the ones who employ the rest of us.

Emotional charges are what I see in these songs. There is little doubt many Americans hear these songs and then pound there fist on there chest and it probably raises their blood pressure. They feel they are being taken advantage of or cheated.

Shame on wealthy business owners and CEOs? Should the lucky few who risk everything be apologetic for their success? I have written before class envy is only jealousy. Now I add a second source. It comes from a few who feel wealth of a few should be artificially "spread around". These same people may feel Castro and Hugo Chavez are more than trendy leaders, but actually have a workable formula to create a prosperous and healthy country. They believe the government is the answer to everything. Ronald Reagan once said the government "is the problem."

I am no historian, yet I have read in plain English, even Stalin rolled back the hand of a heavily controlled economy in the 1930's. He watched as bread lines in the Soviet Union disappeared after allowing small farms and some businesses employing 20 or less to trade on an open market. It is hard to understand how he still defended policies keeping larger firms under a Communist schedule.

It is not over simplifying a subject to say if everyone looked out for their own best interests, the greater good would be served. Those who would take this philosophy and become too self-serving or destructive will eventually be weeded out of business or they will self-destruct. Anecdotal examples of corporate greed are not the norm.

The US, Hong Kong, South Korea are examples of free-markets working. Cuba and the Soviet Union are examples of the miserable failures of Communism. Were these two countries run how Marx and Engels invisioned? I don't know, but probably real close. I have heard many educated people say to me two paraphrased ideas, "Communism is great in theory," and "If Communism had just been altered a little it would have worked." Anyone who says this knows little about capitalism and have read less about Communism. Whatever credentials they do have, I will guess they cannot include economist or historian. Maybe just looney-website believer.

If you have a Communist success story to tell, I would like to hear from you.

While he is not a country music songwriter or singer, he appears to have some communist tendencies. Regarding the current sub-prime mortgage problem in the economy a very wealthy man has some choice words. Read the lyrics of Bill Gross of PIMCO bonds. "If we can bail out Chrysler, why can’t we support the American homeowner?" His desire is to have the Federal Government absorb the bad debt of 2 million homeowners. Marx could not have said this better himself. It is amazing a man who became wealthy in this country would suggest such intervention. He must have something to gain from such a policy.

Communism was the first step toward organizing the everyday person into a union of class envyists. Pitting Bourgeois against proletarians. The worker against the owner. The less motivated against the type A go-getters. Poor against wealthy. How pathetic. Everyone owes their job to a rich person. We should be thanking them.