Where is the folk-singer cynicism?!!

I never cease to be amazed that somehow or the other the "folk" sub-culture is now merely a reflection of the mainstream thought. I could see folk subculture tying itself to libertarianism because it historically presaged coming trends--BUT LIBERALISM?!! We ARE a socialist society and our two party system is the PASS AROUND THE TREASURY TO INSURE OUR CONTINUED POWER PARTY, and the SOCIALISM MANAGEMENT PARTY. To think that folk culture is still mired in an obsolete model of hoping that we BECOME socialist to "protect the worker" or whatever the motive may be seems such a waste of the best minds of the culture. If we are honest, I believe we would have to admit that the only other system that has a fighting chance of engendering any public interest is a reversion to monarchy. We have been completely sold over to the belief that government is the sole distributor of all the wants, needs, hopes, and dreams of the populace.

It doesn't even take a TRAINED cynic to see the absurdity of choosing Lieberman to separate gore from clinton ethically. Lieberman's belief system is obviously empty enough to allow him to believe that what Clinton did was evil (Lying to the public and using his position of power and his charges to propagate those lies and undermine our system of information disemination) and yet take no ACTION on that belief.

The true folk spirit doesn't take a side politically. It takes a side ethically and morally. The true folk spirit doesn't write propaganda, it strives for truth about the human condition. That's what make it ART and not propaganda. For example, the reason that Dylan's "Times They Are A Changin'" stands as art is that it works as well as the theme to a Bobby Kennedy civil rights drive as it would have for a Gingerich Contract for America drive.

You guys regularly exhibit wonderful wit, wisdom, caring, and creditable emotion. But free thinking? I'm not sure this is the "FOLK" I knew.

John