Bruce Springsteen says veteran lives have value; conservatives throw a fit

Yesterday was Veterans Day, a day many of us believe should be used to honor people who have provided military service, particularly those who fought in wars, often at great sacrifice. But apparently the Weekly Standard and various conservatives online prefer to think of it as a day to honor wealthy, powerful men who start unnecessary wars while refusing to serve themselves or by pulling strings to keep their sons out of the wars.

Bruce Springsteen played the Creedence Clearwater Revival song "Fortunate Son" at the Concert for Valor Tuesday night. This is wholly unsurprising, as the song fits quite neatly into Springsteen's lifelong project of highlighting the lives of ordinary people and protesting the way that the privileged and powerful abuse the ordinary working people that make this country work. For anyone who has been living under a rock since the 60s, "Fortune Son" is a song about how ordinary people who are drafted into service are being exploited by flag-waving, wealthy hypocrites that love starting wars but don't love so much fighting them. Some modern examples you might be familiar with include George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It's such a prominent pattern that it even got a name during the Iraq War: "chickenhawk".

Here are the lyrics, if you, under-a-rock-person, don't believe me:

Some folks are born made to wave the flag

Ooh, they're red, white and blue

And when the band plays "Hail to the Chief"

Oh, they point the cannon at you, Lord

It ain't me, it ain't me

I ain't no Senator's son

It ain't me, it ain't me

I ain't no fortunate one, no

And:

Yeah, some folks inherit star spangled eyes

Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord

And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"

Oh, they only answer, more, more, more, oh

It ain't me, it ain't me

I ain't no military son

It ain't me, it ain't me

I ain't no fortunate one

For those who are confused---or shall I say are feigning confusion---about the "military son" line, the way people of good faith interpret it is to say that the sons of generals and other high-ranking officials often had people pull strings for them to get them out of the draft. It is not, by any reasonable measure, a slam on the children of people who serve on the front ranks.

The reason you'd play this song at a veteran's concert is obvious, as the song is arguing that the lives of soldiers have value and should not be put at risk for the hell of it. But Weekly Standard threw a fit:

Who would have thought that that Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl, and Zac Brown, accomplished musicians all, would be so, well, tone-deaf? But how else to explain their choice of song—Creedence Clearwater's famously anti-war anthem “Fortunate Son”—at the ostensibly pro-military “Concert for Valor” this evening on the National Mall?

The song, not to put too fine a point on it, is an anti-war screed, taking shots at "the red white and blue." It was a particularly terrible choice given that Fortunate Son is, moreover, an anti-draft song, and this concert was largely organized to honor those who volunteered to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq.

This is a fairly simple disagreement, it seems. Springsteen, et al, were saying "soldiers have value".  Weekly Standard is like, "nuh-uh, war is what is valuable". They engage in relatively little hand-waving to confuse the issue, too, which is kind of fascinating. Didn't even try to engage the argument that soldier's lives have meaning and therefore we should not take the decision to go to war lightly. Just a knee-jerk assumption that war is good and should be defended automatically, even at an event honoring people who have firsthand experience of how war is very much not good.

Look, I'm fully aware that a lot of veterans are reasonably uncomfortable accepting that they sacrificed so much for a pointless war that was more about ego-stroking George Bush than it was anything else, and so they, too, defend these wars. It's human nature to rationalize your experiences and no one wants to feel their suffering was wasted. But that's what the beauty of art and music is, that it can sometimes break down those defenses and help people engage, on a deeper level, with their experiences. With "Fortunate Son", it's simply incorrect to call it an anti-war song. It's simply making the point that if you think war is so great, then you first, assholes. That has an emotional power that can help break down some of the defense systems and get people to a real discussion about whether or not we should start a bunch of wars for funsies.

Washington Post gathered up a couple of tweets by people complaining about the song being played at "patriotic" events. Again, it's interesting how the concept of being a "patriot" is tied up in the idea that we should just want some wars, because yea wars! But I would like to offer another definition of a patriot: Someone who believes that her country has value because the people in it have value. Which means that you defend the right of soldiers to live and argue strenuously against going to war unless it is truly necessary. Which is what Springsteen was doing.