In the mid-'60s, Merle Haggard wrote:
If you don't love it, leave it
Let this song that I'm singin' be a warning
When you're running down our country, man,
You're walkin' on the fightin' side of me
He recently told David Hinckley (NYDN)"...we aren't the same America we were 35 years ago." According to Hinckley, Haggard says we've become "a country that's
afraid. And we've got a government using that fear to make us give up the freedoms the country was founded on.
"I see alot more government now in places it's never been and doesn't belong. We're fighting a war to bring freedom to others when we don't have our own freedoms in a first-class manner anymore." .... "How can anyone in their right mind say we're going in the right direction today?"
It's possible to still wish he hadn't felt the need to write those words in the '60s and even to disagree with the reasons we're fighting this war (in Iraq), but it's still good to welcome a recruit to the fold. Sometimes it takes time to fully get it.
Anyway, Haggard is appearing with Bob Dylan and Amos Lee at The New Jersey Performing arts Center tomorrow (4/19) and at New York's Beacon Theater April 25-26 and 28-30.
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