So Fox and Breitbart, etc., are mad at Bruce Springsteen, again.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

RollingStone.com posted the video under the title, Watch Bruce Springsteen Taunt Trump With 'Don't Hang Up' in Australia, explaining in the related article:

Bruce Springsteen trolled Donald Trump with a cover of the Orlons' "Don't Hang Up" in Melbourne after the president's disastrous phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Springsteen opened his Melbourne concert with an acoustic rendition of the peppy 1962 pop hit, hoping its story of a rocky teenage romance might serve as a diplomatic salve. "We stand before you, embarrassed Americans, tonight," Springsteen cracked as he introduced the song, adding, "We're gonna use this to send a letter back home."

Poutraged admirers, defenders, and enablers of Donald "America-Basher in Chief" tRump are reporting through their Ministry of Propaganda outlets that Springsteen declared himself, 'Embarrassed' to be an American', inciting the RW base to fire off a barrage of strongly worded comments and tweets. Of course, being embarrassed to be an American and being an embarrassed American as a guest in the country whose leader the US president just yelled at and hung up on are not quite the same thing, but then nuance never was a strong suit of the Trumpistas.

According to FoxNews.com,

Bruce Springsteen, a once proud American with his song “Born in the USA” said at a concert in Australia he's embarrassed to be an American.

(Sorry, not liking to this, but it can easily be found in a search.)

Discussing his song Wrecking Ball, a denouncement of the Wall Street bankers who crashed the economy, Springsteen told the Guardian:

"I have spent my life judging the distance between American reality and the American dream," Springsteen told the conference, where the album was aired for the first time. It was written, he claimed, not just out of fury but out of patriotism, a patriotism traduced.

"What was done to our country was wrong and unpatriotic and un-American and nobody has been held to account," he later told the Guardian. "There is a real patriotism underneath the best of my music but it is a critical, questioning and often angry patriotism."

Anyone who has been paying attention would know that Born in the USA was also a song of questioning and angry patriotism, not the declaration of nationalistic pride it's often been misinterpreted as. The songwriter very publicly objected to Ronald Reagan using the song as a rallying cry for the Republican candidate's campaign, and has not been secretive as to the reason he asked them to cease and desist.

Breitbart.com also claimed, in a piece entitled, Bruce Springsteen Tells Australia Audience He’s ‘Embarrassed’ to Be American :

It seems the 67-year-old E Street Band leader is using his tour across the Australian continent to take shots at the Trump administration.

(Nope, not linking to Breitbart either. The quotes will easily lead you to the story.)

The RW base is really riled up that Springsteen has dared to disrespect the pResident and criticize America. Oh, the Irony and the Hypocrisy. Someone ought to write a book.

[IamFortunesFool]

1. They are truly redefining the limits of irony

It's about time to come up with a new work that can grok their irony.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

4. Who of our present day author will fill the need?

Are any of Orwell's descendants writers?

[wordpix]

13. we are here and on twitter

Not in novel form yet but it's coming I'm sure

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

20. Actually Orwells, or anti-fascist writers in general?

Not that Orwell's descendents would necessarily be good writers or anti-fascist, but I'd like to believe they would.

[SHRED]

2. They should be outraged at tRump

For equating our country with Russia.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

6. I know. Oddly enough, the Right doesn't seem to be very adept at

doing what's right.

[HassleCat]

3. Getting it wrong for 35 years.

As the article points out, they completely misunderstood Born in the USA, and they continue to get it wrong.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

7. Yeah, and I have a sneaking suspicion

they're not about to change any time soon.

[pinboy3niner]

11. That one was a real mind-blower

I didn't think anything could touch that until I was watching a livestream of a Michele Bachmann campaign event and saw Mitt Romney played onstage to CCR's 'Fortunate Son.'

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

12. I wonder how often it's cluelessness vs just

fucking with us. I'm guessing mostly ignorance.

Not that they wouldn't be dicks given the opportunity, but generally they tend to view things in simplistic terms. So progressing beyond a superficial understanding of the meaning of the lyrics (and their own ideologies) would tend to be a huge challenge for them.

[Caliman73]

24. I call it binary thinking.

Conservatives tend to see things in terms of "either/or" "wrong/right". Born in the USA and Fortunate Son are definitely protest songs which powerfully, but in a subtle way, speak out against what America thinks it is and what it actually is for many people. To conservatives, they have patriotic sounding words in them so, they must be songs that trumpet America's greatness, so they use them in their campaigns. The context of the patriotic sounding words is completely lost on them because they have already decided that the songs are one way.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

49. But it has "flag" and "Red, White and Blue" in the lyrics.

So it has to be a feel-good happy patriotic tune, right?

[Cha]

5. More Badges of Honor for Bruce.. to be

dissed by fake news trump pushers.. one of the highest honors.

Thanks Stormy

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

9. Ain't it the truth! All my favorite public figures

seem to be drawing attention to themselves in the best possible way--by doing something that makes me proud, but for some reason gives the RWers a mighty big sad.

Cha

[rufus dog]

8. I was at a Springsteen concert the night after Reagan won the first time.

He went off on Reagan, basically was right on with every thing he predicted. I tweak Repubs with this whenever given the chance. Tell them to name one concert they went to in High School where the band is still producing AND the artist was correct with his denunciation of a political figure

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

10. Lucky you! Bruce would be one of the greatest singer-songwriter-performers ever,

even if he had never spoken out, but I'm sure glad he has.

Kind of hard to believe some of his longtime fans have been surprised to learn he's a Democrat. You really have to twist the lyrics of his songs, or ignore them entirely, to think he could be on the other side.

[RobinA]

46. I Am I Long Time

Bruce fan, and yes, there are long time Bruce fans who never got that his bent was and is liberal. Hello! Nebraska? Some of them are friends of mine. I can't explain it, except to say that they don't really know what liberalism entails, so they don't know it when they see it. I just laugh when they complain about Bruce turning liberal. Bruce was always liberal, it's there in his earliest work.

[wordpix]

14. Faux outrage to deflect Trumputin's Russian ties & PO'd Springsteen wouldn't play

for the "millions" at the Inaug

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

16. Poutrage, for sure. The RW Ministry of Propaganda are experts. Imagine if

they used their cunning power for good instead of evil. We could have world peace.

[alarimer]

15. The idiots think "Born in the USA" is a patriotic song.

Clearly they never listened to the lyrics. Or any lyrics. Springsteen is very good at getting to the malaise at the heart of this country, something maybe Trump voters could identify with, if they got past all the flag-waving bullshit. He wrote about their very experiences: that hard work won't necessarily make a damn bit of difference because someone else, somewhere high above, is making decisions about your life, to send you overseas in a bullshit war or to send your jobs far away.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

18. Exactly! He really is their champion, but they're too blind to see that.

I just listened to Bruce's autobiography, read excellently by the author, and he talks so heartbreakingly of how disappointed he was that the anti-Wall Street, pro-worker message of his Wrecking Ball album was not widely embraced in the USA. He notes that his European fans totally got it, and wondered how we Americans missed it.

[alarimer]

27. I wonder if it's because they mostly listen to country now.

Which often has a distinctly conservative message (though the singers may not be all that conservative themselves), but in its roots celebrated the very same folks as Springsteen.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

31. I find modern country music annoying thanks mostly to the frequently

underlying "holier than thou" message, at least as I interpret it. Which, I'm guessing is why RWers like it.

Like you say, earlier country music often was more reflective of hardship with an understanding that the fat cats were profiting off of the people's misery. And I like that early stuff a thousand times more.

[Caliman73]

30. American exceptionalism

That is how we missed it. The messaging has been about how America is the best, always the best, the greatest place on earth where everything is better than anywhere else on earth. Many Americans are proud that most of us only speak one language. English damn it! It's good enough for me! Jimmy Carter was beat by an actor who came out with a sunny message of America being great and that we don't have to apologize for anything, because Carter asked us to look inside and make some difficult decisions about where we were headed.

We are a country and a people with a lot of potential. Most of us are hard working, neighborly people who care. We have done great things in the world and many Americans are doing great things in and for the world. The problem is that a lot of us think that we are great, or that if we aren't, it is because we aren't doing something from the past that made us great sometime, back then. If we aren't great it is because there are too many gay people, or Black people committing crime, or immigrants coming in, because Americans (White people) are great and we make no apology for being the best, even though we cannot define or discuss what we are the "best" at.

It is hard work to think and behave as if we need to continually improve. If we acknowledge our mistakes and problems, then we have to decide if we are going to do something to fix them. To many, that is too difficult. To those who have and continue to benefit from our current state of affairs, they don't want to change so they trumpet the idea that we are just the best, and anyone who thinks that we are not, or thinks that we need to improve, well they are just not American.

That is why many Americans miss the meaning of the songs.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

38. Good analysis. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

It seems like violent and tribal impulses and a tendency to hold tight to what we believe, even in light of evidence to the contrary. linger in our brains. But we seemed to be taming them. We began to value characteristics that would bring society to a kinder and gentler place.

In the great works of literature and film, most of us pretty much agreed on who were the good guys and who the bad. And the good guys weren't the selfish or greedy ones, or the braggarts or bullies or sadists. We knew there was something wrong with the malicious liars, cheats, and fraudsters. It was not the intellectually lazy or willfully ignorant we wanted our children to emulate.

Sure, we didn't know exactly how to get there, and we had a long way to go toward being a truly civilized society, with liberty and justice, and a decent life for all. But the general consensus seemed to be that's where we ought to be headed.

And, yeah, there were always some who cheered the villains. Loads of people thought Tony Soprano was a hero. But for the most part, it seemed to me anyway, we looked up to the good guy, not the asshole.

And then, inexplicably, more and more people seemed to be saying, you know what? Fuck it. So what if lots of our fellow Americans get totally screwed. In fact, I hope they do. Fuck 'em. If we get the chance, let's put the villain in charge.

Let's elevate, to the most prominent and powerful position in the land, a greedy, foolish, selfish-aggrandizing, anti-intellectual bully and con man.

I mean, I do think that if not for people believing lies about Democrats, the Rs could never have won. But what disturbs me is that so many of them wanted to believe those lies, and have to be working at it pretty hard not to see through Trump's BS.

[Caliman73]

43. A little Hope

There were a good number of people who voted for Trump. About 62 million. I would say that about 50% (and maybe that is naive of me) were people who really were just ignorant and "voted for change" from the status quo (I.E. Jobs going overseas, Wall Street, etc... the lies about the Democratic Party). So about 30 million racists, sexists, xenophobes, and homophobes, which is still to high but about 10% of the total population. Only 27% of the population voted for Trump at all. More people voted for Hillary or for other than Trump, and that leaves about 46 million who did not vote at all, most likely because they were tired of all the ugly politics.

I know that doesn't sound that hopeful, but if you think about it. There are are a lot of people who are disillusioned about the process. We need to reach out and get them interested in social justice and get them active in politics.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

44. I've been thinking along those same lines as well, but with not nearly

as good math data as you! But it's been so depressing seeing the belligerently ignorant ones spewing their fact-and-logic-free, aggressively nasty Trumpista message all over the place.

I was forgetting that they are a relatively tiny minority.
It does give me a little more hope to remember that, so thanks.

Even if I still will never rest easy with the fact that truth, logic, objective reality is absent from millions of Americans. That they will continue to believe that legitimate news organizations like the Washington Post and the New York Times are nefarious peddlers of fake news, while passionately buying into the blatant, bald-face lies of DJT and his gang of craven propagandists.

As a professional educator, I cannot help but despise those who quite obviously, knowingly, and cynically are using Nazi and fascist propaganda techniques to manipulate the public into helping them shred the Constitution for their own power mad purposes.

[SDJay]

28. I Was Just

going to post the same thing. It speaks to the stupidity of the rubes who are influenced by pabulum. All you need to do is put 'USA' and/or 'freedom' and/or 'patriots' and/or 'family' into a song, group name or whatever... it can be the biggest, most destructive piece of shit ever put together and said rubes would eat it up like starving hyenas.

Springsteen is the antithesis of everything the repukes stand for, and always has been. But the rubes just see 'USA' in the title and think it's an ode to Murca's greatness.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

39. It's almost inconceivable how very true this is.

It occurs to me now and then to try to make some money taking advantage of that fact. But I have this awful thing stopping me. I think it's called scruples. I would rather not be a shyster.

I didn't figure out until recently that it didn't matter to most Americans who you screwed over to make your fortune. If you have a fortune, Americans will admire you. My parents just brought me up wrong, I guess.

[progressoid]

34. Irony is lost on the right.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

40. I have a feeling weasels like Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney get it.

But not the base. Subtlety escapes them.

I'm not sure they lack the brain power, necessarily, but they have been culturally conditioned to despise people who use it much, except when it's for nefarious purposes.

[bluescribbler]

41. It is a patriotic song

The narrator loves his country, but is not blind to its faults. That is true patriotism.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

45. + about a million!

Fuck the RW and their rabid nationalism which they mistake for patriotism.

[spanone]

17. A Badge of Honor.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

22. And he wears it well.

Well read, thoughtful, passionate social justice advocate with a microphone. No wonder the Right wants him to sit down and shut up about politics.

[flygal]

19. Then he must be doing something righ!

btw - BEST concert ever

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

23. Yes, he is. And not just something...

a lot of things.

He's so amazing, recorded and live. Which of his shows did you see?

[flygal]

32. Wrecking Ball in Germany 2013

Played for almost 4 hours and I didn't want it to end.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

35. I must say, I do envy you that!

Must have been awesome!

My god, I was trying to think if that would have been when the BIg Man was still with us and had to look it up. I cannot believe that Danny has been gone almost eight years now and Clarence almost 6! Where does the time go?

[bluedigger]

37. Saw Bruce on the Born in the USA tour in Frankfurt.

He played a soccer stadium filled with around 100,000 fans. Amazing.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

42. Holy crap, that's a lot of fans! I saw him on that tour at JFK stadium in Philly.

It was my first Bruce show, and it seemed huge, but I don't think
JFK could have held nearly 100 thousand.

The big venues are always a little hard for me to handle. The best ones for me have been the small ones in Asbury Park. All time fave being a rehearsal show for the Rising tour in the at Convention Hall, which only holds 3,600. Intense show.

[bluedigger]

51. It was pretty crazy, for sure.

"Normally" when you gather a 100,000 people together, it's for a sporting event, and there will be roughly half the crowd on either side, but this was all Bruce fans. I'm not crazy about big crowds, either, and still think the first Bruce show I saw at the Augusta, ME civic center ('78 Darkness on the Edge of Town tour) was my favorite.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

52. I'm an info junkie, so I looked up your Darkness show. Sounds awesome!

Here's a flashback for you from BruceBase:

1978-08-12 - AUGUSTA CIVIC CENTER, AUGUSTA, ME

SUMMERTIME BLUES / BADLANDS / SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT / DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN / FACTORY / THE PROMISED LAND / PROVE IT ALL NIGHT / RACING IN THE STREET / THUNDER ROAD / JUNGLELAND / PARADISE BY THE "C" / 4TH OF JULY, ASBURY PARK (SANDY) / SHERRY DARLING / NOT FADE AWAY - GLORIA - SHE'S THE ONE / GROWIN' UP / BACKSTREETS / ROSALITA (COME OUT TONIGHT) / BORN TO RUN / RAISE YOUR HAND / QUARTER TO THREE

Complete set details not known and no known audio. Above songs are culled from attendee recollections of the show, and a review in the Bangor Daily News from August 14, 1978. This is likely to represent the majority of what was played tonight - one or two songs may still be missing. It's highly likely that "Because The Night" was played after "Born To Run". The attendee also notes that during a great version of "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)", Bruce was acting up running around before running to the microphone and announcing "someone stop me... before I hurt myself" and collapsing to the stage. Clarence rushes over to play sax over him and a few girls rush the stage and huddle around him until he revives and they are whisked away and he continues. "Growin' Up" features a mid-song story with him being chased by armed forces and "Backstreets" features Bruce referencing the singer Stevie Lawrence and singing a Lawrence song "Pretty Blue Eyes" before going back to "...hiding on the backstreets". The back of the stage area of this 8,700 seat venue was curtained off and consequently the seating was reduced to 6,000 for this show. Billboard magazine reported an attendance of 5,892 and gross receipts of $48,780.

[bluedigger]

56. "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

I distinctly remember it, because it was August.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

64. Since no one seems to be positive of that set list, maybe you ought to contact BruceBase

or one of the others and let them know what you remember!

By the way, I also came across this page discussing that tour and found you're not the only one who thought that Augusta Civic Center show was the best. The guy who wrote this hung around after the show and got to talk with Bruce. :

Unbeknownst to me, Lawrence Kirsch of Montreal got a picture of that impromptu chat with Bruce, but a friend of his lost the negative (fortunately, Kirsch, who has done a pair of wonderful books on Bruce, made it a point to find me at a show at University of Vermont on Nov. 4, 1978 and mailed me another picture) But obviously, this night in Maine had our spirits soaring for a long time (and Kirsch still calls it the best show he’s ever seen).

[bluedigger]

66. That's pretty cool.

I guess I did okay for my first real rock concert. (Although I did see Aerosmith before they released their first album - I was 10.) The only other thing I remember about Bruce' show was that we were way up in the bleachers, and it was way smokey.

[Initech]

21. And I love that Trump fans are calling themselves "the adults".

Really, these people couldn't be more thin skinned than a layer of seaweed on a sushi roll.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

25. Lulz. Yeah, sorry seaweed skins, but the most "adult" people are the ones

thoughtful enough to understand that complex problems don't usually have simple answers, courageous enough to stand up for the rights of all people, and informed enough to understand the pResident is not a czar, but the head of just one of the three branches of the United States's federal government.

Apparently, that's not you simple-minded, cowardly, authoritarian little Trumpkins.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. Fine. You guys go ahead and only listen to right-wing musicians on your itunes playlists.

Enjoy!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

33. Look how well it worked out for our Dear Leader Dim Dong-il.

He was serenaded at his coronation ball by the best in the land.

[Initech]

48. Our music is so much better!

I have Bruce Springsteen, John Legend and the Dropkick Murphys all on my playlist. Would I voluntarily listen to Lee Greenwood, Toby Keith, or Ted Nugent? Not on a bet!

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

54. So much good music out there, thank goodness! Now, I get that it is, of course,

a matter of opinion. But may the weather gods zap me with a flaming bolt of lightning if you didn't just name a trio of hacks responsible some of the most egregiously horrendous crap ever recorded! I could add a few more, but at the risk buddying up to cliché, let me just say: Nickelback.

[Initech]

55. And 3 Doors Down.

And 5 Finger Death Punch are Trump fans, and I also think Dave Mustaine is a hardcore Trumper.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. You beat me to it.

I was gonna say something like "don't forget 3 doors down... admit it, you forgot them"

[Initech]

58. I'm surprised Trump didn't try to court Five Finger Death Punch.

http://www.metalinsider.net/video/five-finger-death-punch-double-down-on-trump-support

I used to like that band, but I was done with them after reading that.

[Warren DeMontague]

60. All my favorite bands are textbook liberals

or maybe libertarian on the "take drugs and have lots of fun sex as long as everyone is a consenting adult" side of things.

It just seems to have worked out that way.

[Initech]

62. Yeah same.

Most of my favorite bands are liberal and I wouldn't support any band if they're noted Trump fans. I can't stand hardcore because most hardcore musicians tend to lean conservative, and I can't stand a lot of modern pop music.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

63. I had never heard of them before they got in the news for the dubious

distinction of appearing before the pResident the night before his coronation. Then, yep, I did totally forget their names!

[shenmue]

29. They can't mess with The Boss

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

36. I really hope not.

But, honestly, I'm not feeling real confident today that there's anything they can't do.

[Initech]

47. These fuckers don't understand the concept of irony.

Irony is that they spent 8 fucking years disrespecting Obama with those damn tea party protests, shouting "You lie" at the State Of The Union, all the investigations into Benghazi, all the filibusters against anything Obama tried to pass, all the failed attempted repeals of Obamacare, all the investigations into Hillary's emails, denying him the right to pick a SCOTUS justice, I could go on and on. They get no right to say we're disrespecting Trump. Who's the fucking snowflakes again?

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

53. I know, right? If I let myself really think about the immeasurably epic hypocrisy

on display right now I can feel pressure building up in my head. And I'm not one who gets actual headaches normally. The fact that they can get away with this is disturbing on so many levels it is mindblowing.

[ck4829]

50. K&R

[Jamaal510]

59. "Bruce Springsteen, a ONCE PROUD American..."

kind of shit is that? They don't even try to make their bias subtle anymore.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

61. I know, they make it sound like he's joined ISIS or something!

Meanwhile, back in the White House, President Bannon and his team of treasonous bastards work feverishly to dismantle the Constitution, and Fox presents then as patriots.

[flvegan]

65. Just The Boss, being The Boss.