I appreciate Laurie Anderson's work. I started following her in college and her Big Science album. She is a musician of sorts, but what she really creates is performance art that is truly unique and insightful. She has a new album out, Homeland, and it was written and refined on the road over the last few years of performing. She developed the pieces through performance, and not in the studio. I'm just going to highlight one of the great tracks on this new album--"Only An Expert." Interesting side note--Laurie Anderson is married to Lou Reed.
I'm not going to post the lyrics for the entire song, but if you want to see them here's a link: Only An Expert Lyrics. I just want to address a few stanzas that I found particularly compelling. I am posting the album version of the song, because some of the live performances on YouTube are different from the album version.
Now on these shows, the shows that try to solve your problems
The big question is always "How can I get control?
How can I take control?"
But don’t forget this is a question for the regular viewer
The person who’s barely getting by.
The person who’s watching shows about people with problems
The person who’s part of the 60% of the U.S. population
1.3 weeks away, 1.3 pay checks away from a shelter.
In other words, a person with problems.
So when experts say, "Let’s get to the root of the problem
Let’s take control of the problem
So if you take control of the problem you can solve the problem."
Now often this doesn’t work at all because the situation is completely out of control.
Cause only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
Only an expert can deal with the problem
emphasis mine
We like to think there is a level playing field. We like to think that our destiny is up to us to write and resolve. But, if you are 1.3 weeks away from homelessness--what kind of risks can you really take? Can you join a new union that is trying to organize in your industry? Can you complain about working conditions or problems with an abusive supervisor? The situation is indeed, "completely out of control."
Many Americans feel this instinctively, but the right/elites have historically been able to demagogue class angst and conflate it with issues of race and identity--the old "divide and rule" strategy. I don't think I need to tell anyone around here they are doing it again. Class warfare? Can we please actually have some of that where the majority of Americans realize in what class they are actually members?
Only an expert can design a bailout, and
Only an expert can expect a bailout.
How much was spent for the bailouts? How much has actually been spent in the stimulus? Who are the war profiteers? Only an expert can get government to make him/her rich.
And even though a county can invade another country.
And flatten it. And ruin it. And create havoc and civil war in that other country
If the experts say that it’s not a problem
And everyone agrees that they’re experts good at seeing problems
Then invading that country is simply not a problem.
And if a country tortures people
And holds citizens without cause or trial and sets up military tribunals
This is also not a problem.
Unless there’s an expert who says it’s the beginning of a problem.
How much longer are we going to let fear and the military industrial complex of warriors and semi-warriors run our foreign relations? We've spent 3 trillion dollars in Iraq, killed hundreds of thousands while causing at least a couple million refugees. All the while, not only has this whole enterprise been criminal--it has actually made us less safe--because it has drained our economic power, removed any moral authority we had left in the world, and created far more terrorists and potential terrorists than almost anything else we could have done.
I continue to shake my head, and fail to understand how powerful and intelligent people can be so blind to what is really in our long-term interests. What is it about becoming part of the governing apparatus that removes almost all ability to look at foreign policy problems with a new perspective? Only an expert could design a Military Industrial Complex--loads of experts had a hand in that monstrous work of decades. Who can stop it? How?