The Power of Green (Dale)
Last year, we wrote that "the inconvenient truth of Neil Young's Greendale is that it's message is even more relevant today than upon its original release in 2003."
In a major article in Sunday's New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman argues that going green can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century:
One day Iraq, our post-9/11 trauma and the divisiveness of the Bush years will all be behind us — and America will need, and want, to get its groove back. We will need to find a way to reknit America at home, reconnect America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global order — as the beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an idea how. It’s called “green.”
If you understood Neil's message in Greendale, than I urge you to read this article. I'm sure that Edith, Earl and Sun Green would all agree.
by thrasher@PermaLink: 4/17/2007 01:22:00 PM
9 comments
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9 Comments:
Thanks Thrasher - Thomas Freidman is incredibly bright and insightful - great article. Neil may be articulate in his writing and certainly moves us all, but he is not necessarily as well stated in his political views. I loved Greendale, saw it four times and own all Greendale related DVDs etc. but it was almost sophmoric in it's simplicity which is part of the reason why I loved it so much. Never the less, the message of Greendale was pure. In short, let Neil inspire your Green ethic and let Thomas Friedman and other well researched scholars deliver the content. To all the critics, please remember in the end Neil is a brilliant writer, composer and musician, not a social commentator etc. and when Neil is so compelled (Greendale, Living with War)at least he has the balls to start a conversation in his own humble way.
Greendale is the best album since Rust Never Sleep (78), and the song 'Sun Green ' & "Be The Rain' are the best songs since 'Hy Hy My My Into The Black'and "rocking In The Free World'. If Living With War rated with 3 1/2 stars, then Greendale should rated with 4 1/2 stars. Neil is a great singer-song writer, guitar player as well as a storyteller of last 5 decades.
Speaking of green, is Neil still pushing his bio-diesel crap? That's the energy source that uses more energy to produce than what's actually produced.
Another lie from the left-leaning sycophantic Neil Young sheeple and company.
Thank God that we have a huge diversity of energy options like solar, wind, ethanol based fuels and yes bio diesel. It does not take a genius to know that all these alternatives in their infancy are not cost effective, but they all mature and grow in efficiency. I am delighted to know that Neil and Willie advocate for the possibilities out there. I do not recall Neil being all that exclusive in his preference for bio diesel. I promise us Sheeple will do better in concocting are wicked conspiratorial lies in the future, as always thanks for exposing your intellect righty.
Ah, the sad troll. Change yer knickers, they're in a twist.
Back to Greendale.."sophmoric in it's simplicity" is part of it's content, of course. I recall NY alluding to it being Sun Green's dream about her life in the form of a high school musical. Or perhaps that's my interpretation, as well as it being about his situation as a new empty nester at the time.
Tom
Too simplistic?....in the words of another great singer/song writer Avril Levine....
'why's it gotta be so complicated" or something along those lines (puke)...OHHH its all good...Greendale, for my two cents, is Neils finest.
Greendale the best album since Rust Never Sleeps...??
Well, obviously a valid opinion since everything's subjective, but I don't think it's the best since RNS. I think it's the best since 'Are You Passionate', though...
In my view, there is something about it that I like, but I find it difficult to listen to start to finish.
Thomas Friedman is, among other things, a tireless cheerleader for the Iraq War. He fully supported it in the beginning and even continued to long after it was clear that the Bush Administration lied about WMD, an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection, and even long after it was painfully clear that the country was quickly turning into a hell on Earth. He became something of a joke for repeatedly insisting, every six months or so, that the country give the Administration "6 more months" to improve conditions in Iraq.
He's also on record supporting Free Trade agreements he didn't even bother to read. He just liked the words "Free" and "Trade" side by side! So, for such a "...bright and insightful..." guy he sure has a penchant for making an ass out of himself.
April 16, 2007
The Power of Power
By William D’Alessandro
Thomas Friedman, the Mid-East journalist and “Earth is flat” columnist, scared the bejesus out of me on Sunday morning. In the magazine section of the April 15 edition of the New York Times, Friedman wrote a 9,000-word opus “The Power of Green.” In it he explains why he thinks the White House should remodel the green movement into a vehicle for spreading capitalism and achieving world hegemony for US foreign policy.
Friedman needs the new hobby horse to ride since the US invasion of Iraq, which he fervently supported and coached along from the sidelines, failed to accomplish the same job.
If anyone in Washington is foolish enough to buy it, Friedman’s idea would bring the modern environmental era that began on Earth Day 1970 to a close — just as a generation of painstaking cultivation is about to bear fruit.
‘I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century,’ Friedman wrote.
Friedman wants the next president of the US to emulate WWII hero Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, he says, rallied the country against the “red menace” of Communism. Friedman’s new motto: “Green is the new red, white, and blue.”
Friedman makes no bones about it. His geo-whacko environmentalism is a “Plan B for Iraq” in his own words. He likes the fact that generals at the Pentagon are “Green Hawks.”
Thanks but no thanks.
It is crazy to think the Pentagon will make wise ecological decisions. Sure. There will be progress on the energy and environmental fronts. Safety of the troops demands it. But, as Friedman recalls, Ike built the interstate highway system to cart nuclear weapons around the country so the USSR could not find them. How much good did the car culture prove to be for the environment? And it was a military inspiration to advertise nuclear electric power as too cheap to meter.
Friedman is right when he says: ‘Government’s job is to set high standards, let the market reach them and then raise the standards more.’ But he and others he cites like Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which has evolved into the 21st century version of Herman Kahn’s Hudson Institute for mutual assured destruction, are going overboard on American ingenuity and free-market capitalism. “The only thing as powerful as Mother Nature is Father Greed,” Friedman pontificates.
“Unless we create a more carbon-free world, we will not preserve the free world. Intensifying climate change, energy wars and petroauthoritarianism will curtail our life choices and our children’s opportunities every bit as much as Communism once did for half the planet,” according to the foreign affairs commentator.
So avarice is going to save the planet? Guess again.
It is lovely that Tom Friedman has discovered the 35-year-old fact that the environment and the economy are not in conflict. But ever since the Cold War, high-altitude thinkers have spaced out on discourses about second-order threats. That is a mistake and, often, a con job used to sneak in a separate political agenda.
Get the solution to the first problem right first. In this case, protect the environment. What is so bad — a catastrophe in the making — is Friedman’s misbegotten urge to patch up a broken-down international policy by hijacking environmental management to carry water for the State Department.
For more information contact William D’Alessandro, Executive Editor, Victor House News Co., P.O. Box 464, Amherst, NH 03031, USA. Tel: +1 603 672 5811; E-mail: wdalessandro@crosslandsbulletin.com.
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