BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?

Subject: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 11 May 05 - 12:52 PM

My breakfast was enlivened by a couple of reporters, writing from Beirut, in a recent _Washington Post National Weekly_. Discussing the prospects for democracy in the Middle East, they say:

"...across the region, political reformers are benefiting from the unifying forces of technology and mass media. Digital channels outside the control of states are carrying anything from a Kuwaiti woman's call for voting rights in her country to a Lebanese Christian's demands to drive Syrian troops out from his. The foot soldiers are Islamic political activists in some cases, Bob Dylan disciples, communists or Arab secular nationalists in others...."

Somebody please clue me in. I had always supposed that Bob Dylan was in show business & that such people had fans, not "disciples". I am not about to be either. But if there are really demonstrators in Kuwait & Lebanon who are parading around with portraits of a scruffy Jew from Minnesota instead of those bloody characters we are so used to seeing in the papers, then I want a picture of them, to which (obSongs) I will be happy to affix the caption "God Bless America".

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Yanks think 200 years is a long time, and Brits think 200 miles is a long way. :||

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: GUEST,Anonymous Brit
Date: 11 May 05 - 12:59 PM

||: Yanks think 200 years is a long time, and Brits think 200 miles is a long way. :||

I like very much!

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 05 - 01:39 PM

And methinks somebody is yanking chains.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 05 - 01:41 PM

And of course they are both right in thinking that.
..............
The word disciple doesn't imply anything religious:

Disciple...follower, adherent of any leader of thought, art etc. (Concise Oxford Dictionary)


I'd think "leader of thought, art etc" would include Bob all right.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 May 05 - 01:49 PM

Yes, but the article isn't about The Bob, it appears to be talking about the Western and other revolutionary influences trickling in and getting by their despotic leaders and the despotic US military censors.

Which is the true challenge to democracy in the Middle East right now. Telling the difference between the Middle Eastern despots, the Israeli despots, and the Western despots as represented by the British and US military, now cultivating the next generation of Middle East despots to take power when they are forced to withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq in humiliation.

If they are playing The Bob as their soundtrack, it must be damn old stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:20 PM

Here's the article: A New Power Rises Across Mideast

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: DougR
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:32 PM

And of course there will be those who blindly deny that such movements did not begin with the liberation of Afghanstan and relieving Saddam of his power in Iraq.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:44 PM

Dunno - but I would have thought it more likely that they began with the availability of internet, sattelite telecommunications, and with Bob Dylan writing songs....

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:44 PM

And of course there will be those who blindly deny that such movements did not begin with the liberation of Afghanstan and relieving Saddam of his power in Iraq.

Deny that they did not begin with the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq?

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: CarolC
Date: 11 May 05 - 02:47 PM

those who blindly Deny that they did not begin with the liberation of Afghanistan and Iraq

That would be you, DougR, right?

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 May 05 - 03:01 PM

DougR wants us all to believe that there would be NO unrest and NO interest in democracy in the Middle East except for the recent US military intervention.

It certainly seems that all kinds of cultural influences are at play, and that a lot of credit must be given to the ever-increasing availability of free (i.e., uncensored) communications technology.

This is not to deny the obvious catalytic effect of the military effort, which has undoubtedly caused all kinds of developments to happen much more quickly than they would have otherwise. Of course, the effects of the invasions have included plenty of negative aspects (increased numbers of bombing by insurgents, etc.) in addition to positive ones like the recent semi-successful Iraqi election.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: Peace
Date: 11 May 05 - 05:31 PM

Hey, Doug, did you ever listen to Dylan's words?

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: Peace
Date: 11 May 05 - 05:35 PM

"And of course there will be those who blindly deny that such movements did not begin with the liberation of Afghanstan and relieving Saddam of his power in Iraq."

This isn't THE DougR of the "America can do NO wrong" creed/litany, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: DougR
Date: 11 May 05 - 05:50 PM

PoppaGator: It is not nice to put words in another person's mouth. I did not imply nor do I believe that there were no internal forces in those countries who did not hope for democracy some day. I believe that the invasion of Afghanstan and Iraq offered those forces hope, and in some instances the courage, to challenge their regimes without military intervention.

I seriously doubt Dylan had a thing to do with it.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: Janice in NJ
Date: 11 May 05 - 08:03 PM

I have a friend who is an Iraqi woman, a 49 year old secular Chaldean Christian, who now lives in Toronto. She left Baghdad before the war, but even back then she says that Bob Dylan was very popular among some young people, much as he was with American and European youth in the 1960s. They passed around his CDs and tapes, particularly of his early recordings, in a somewhat open underground. (Is that an oxymoron?) There was something rebellious, she thought, in that action, acting all hush-hush like secret agents and listening to the music of an American Jew. It wasn't anywhere as dangerous as openly criticizing Saddam Hussein's regime, but it got their juices flowing. Their favorite songs, according to her, were Blowing in the Wind, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, and, of course, The Times They Are a-Changin'. Maybe disciples is the right word?

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 05 - 09:40 PM

Leaving aside double negatives and that, surely the use of "began" in that context, Doug, did rather imply that any movements towards freedom in that part of the world had its roots in the wars and invasions? The implication being that the part played by our countries has been consistently liberating.

Whereas a strong case can be made for arguing that it was largely as a result of previous activities of our countries in that part of the world that such repressive regimes were in power. As is currently the case in other countries where the repressive nature of the regiumes in power are nbkt seen as any kind of problem, since they are regarded as friendlly. As had been the case with Saddam for decades and even with the Taliban for a significant time.

The best argument for the wars was that they could be seen as a way in which our countries could make good some part of the damage they had inflicted. (Except that if we'd actually been trying to do that, I do not think we would have gone about it in precisely that way.)

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: Once Famous
Date: 11 May 05 - 10:44 PM

Come to think of it, Dylan does sing like a camel.

Subject: RE: BS: Bob Dylan a Middle East religious leader?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 12 May 05 - 02:03 AM

Dear Mr Gibson,

One of my favourite people was a bactrian camel. But to be completely honest, he didn't sing nearly as well as Dylan.