Old Rocker Gives Good Advice

These are indeed interesting---and stressful---times we are living in.

So imagine my surprise when I came across this quote from my favorite rock musician, Todd Rundgren, in a recent interview. Keep in mind that Rundgren, while for 40 years one of the most articulate musicians in the rock world, is no political grandstander. He keeps most of his politics in his music, if revealed at all. His sole bit of blatant political activism took place way back in 1980, when he played a series of benefits for Presidential candidate John Anderson (remember him?).

The quote: "I suppose that the message (on his new CD "Arena") is to call men back to what would be traditional values, the things that we can admire about men, like their heroism, take the bullet for the friend, protect the weak, make the hard decisions, do the hard work. Don't be constantly looking for short cuts. Realize the ennobling value of labor. These are so-called traditional values. They might even be considered right-wing values. I just think there are properly manly values and that this record is about that. The people you admire are the people who take their burdens on quietly and execute them with supreme responsibility as opposed to hubris."

How can you not agree with that statement? Yet as I argue in my new column for the next Profiles Mississippi (out VERY soon), our nation has turned so infantile and dependent that the men Rundgren refers to are crying like boys, begging for bailouts and caring about nothing but their own carcass. And I worry that future trends will not change their childish behavior; in fact, I see such behavior only increasing with a concomitant rise in government power and the necessary loss of individual sovereignty that will accompany that rise.

I think of this statement by C. Wright Mills, a thinker who, only a year ago, I thought I would never, EVER be quoting: "The powers of ordinary men are circumscribed by the everyday worlds in which they live, yet even in these rounds of job, family and neighborhood they often seem driven by forces they can neither understand nor govern."

The opening sentence of "The Power Elite" rings so true today, does it not?

Let's keep fighting....

New column added today: "Back To Basics"

Ashby Foote, president of Vector Money Management in Jackson, MS, and one of the preeminent economic thinkers in the state, has written a new column exclusively for Profiles Mississippi. Please visit www.profilesms.com to read his thoughts on the current economic situation.

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