I was making a general statement about western society, Dianavan. The statement was intended to provoke thought, but not to denigrate each one of us as individuals. It was an indictment of a society, couched in rather dramatic terms. If you spend some time in the Third World, and see how people live, you can't help but be stunned by the contrast and begin to question our highly consumptive lifestyle in North America. And remember, this is not done to preserve "democracy", it's done to sell product. Period.

Given the fact that most people are naturally the product of the culture they are born into, North Americans are on a conscious level pretty innocent in what they do...and they are not bad people. It's the system that is destructive. It's the system I question.

I believe everyone should have medical coverage everywhere, and at no personal cost whatsoever. That is a form of socialism. As for the other things I mentioned, the material luxuries, they are taken for granted in the affluent society. Meanwhile, Rome burns. Wait and see. The World's basket of goodies is getting shorter and shorter in supply, and the middle class in North America is vanishing.

Dylan NEVER set himself up as a "protest singer", other people set him up as one. He simply wrote songs naturally and those songs came out of him at the time. I've read enough about his early life to know that. When he perceived that other people were setting him up as a protest singer, he began to move very much away from that, because he didn't like being cast in such a mould in order to serve various other people's political agendas. The New Left saw him as their spokesman. He wasn't writing songs in order to be their spokesman. The New Left were just as fanatical and knee-jerk in their approach to social issues as the John Birchers were on the other side of the divide. They did and said idiotic things and had a breathtaking arrogance about them. Dylan stepped away from that because it was indeed hypocrisy of a blatant sort, and he didn't feel comfortable as its chosen front man.

The truth lies between the extremes, and it is not found by being a "protest" singer. If you want to see what being a protest singer does to stultify and paralyze a person's mental flexibility and songwriting expression, just study the rather tragic career of Phil Ochs...a young man with the best of intentions who trapped himself forever inside a role that became a self-limiting artistic prison.

You say Dylan's a "hypocrite"? Ah...well, and who is not at times a hypocrite? Who has not said one thing, and later done another? Which of us has been totally consistent to his or her stated ideals all the days of their lives?

What people don't like about Dylan is this: he's his own man, not their man. He's free. Maybe they are not.

Be advised not to take any of what I say about this personally, because I don't know you. I am simply talking about humanity in general, that's all.

- LH