The latest shot fired in America’s culture wars.
Until today, never heard of Jason Aldean. Our idea of country music is Johnny Cash, Del McCoury, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. But apparently Mr. Aldean is big and his latest song is even bigger, now that it has been canceled on CMT.
“Try That in a Small Town,” is, to say the least, provocative. Video accompanying the song was shot outside a Tennessee courthouse, the site of a 1927 lynching and a 1946 race riot and includes (mostly peaceful) rioting. Match those images to the lyrics:
“Cuss out a cop, spit in his face / Stomp on the flag and light it up / 🎵Yeah, ya think you’re tough / Well, try that in a small town / See how far ya make it down the road / 🎶 Around here, we take care of our own / You cross that line, it won’t take long / For you to find out, I recommend you don’t / Try that in a small town.” 🎵
— Try That in a Small Town
→ “Try That in a Small Town” is a “f*** around and find out” anthem in A-flat major. It’s a refutation of the permissiveness toward criminality that cities such as Portland, Chicago, and Los Angeles have exhibited over the past several years. … That progressives see the use of crime footage as racist implies that they think a particular group of people are the sole perpetrators of said crimes. Yeesh. — National Review.
Lot of anger there
One need not be a dog to hear the whistling. (Or the Whistler to hear the dog!) The hayseeds at the Experimental Work Farm prefer the morning-in-America music of “Happy trails to you/ until we meet again” but we grew up watching Roy Rogers, not Tupac Shakur.
Now, if we were a conservative sociologist (a species unknown in the natural world) and if we were as non-judgmental as a Unitarian (or if we were a carpenter and you were our lady), we might opine that “Try That in a Small Town” is more symptom than cause — a backlash against Woke — affirmative action, reparations, and BLM arson and statue toppling.
Speaking of dogs, Gov. Ron DeSantis is their Pavlov. Progs are in their daily dither over his requirement that students be taught that newly freed slaves “developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” Counters the “1619” victimhood narrative, doncha know.
Jesse Jackson, shakedown artist
As a cultural purgative, Blaska Policy Werkes recommends a daily dose of Jason Riley. The Wall Street Journal columnist (who identifies as black) deconstructs (to borrow progressive argot) the recently (and about-time!) retired Jesse Jackson, the self-anointed successor to Martin L. King Jr.
After King’s death, black America didn’t need another King. It needed a leadership that would focus on helping the black underclass develop the skills, attitudes and behaviors necessary to take full advantage of the rights King had worked to secure. What emerged instead was a leadership that shifted the focus from equal rights to racial favoritism and blamed all racial disparities primarily on racism.
Mr. Jackson’s quarter-century-old Wall Street Project, for example, essentially shakes down successful corporations for “donations” in the name of expanding job opportunities for minorities. It’s possible that blacks are under-represented on Wall Street or in Silicon Valley because of employers’ racial animus, but the far more plausible explanation is that hiring at Google or Goldman Sachs reflects the significant racial gap in academic achievement. …
By advocating an ever-larger welfare state that creates incentives not to work and subsidizes counterproductive behavior, Mr. Jackson and his political allies have inadvertently helped to keep the black poor impoverished.
— “Jackson turned civil rights into an industry”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Figures that Mr. Aldean is all Trumped-up. Now do you get #45’s enduring appeal? As Babylon Bee is saying, “Trump campaign hoping to lock up GOP nomination with third indictment.” Lot of anger out there, some of it justified if poorly expressed.
43 responses to “Did your town just get small?”
well well well…now we find out that almost 100% of these horrible video clips are from outside our country. Starting to believe this is all a stunt to get a third rate singer some publicity. He grew up in a “small town” of 150,000.
Because there are no horrible videos from Madison, Kenosha, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco. Right?
why didn’t he use them?
Turns out that some BLM protest footage was edited out of the Aldean video. In summer 2020 I recall seeing a local news clip of a bonfire set at the top of south Hamilton Street at Madison’s capitol square that would have been an interesting addition, as would a snapshot in time of a bloody and beaten state senator laying on the lawn.
The Gotch recommends you don’t engage consummate imbeciles, AVitW; they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience…
The Gotch
The Aldean video still illustrates a violent aspect of the human condition. The U.S. leads the world in the number of mass shootings. Just this year, according to yesterday’s Wisconsin State Journal, the carnage for the first six months in America has been the deadliest ever. Other nations report domestic killers, but not to the same extent.
Twisted maniac Vladimir Putin is in a category by himself, having access to Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
Funny how our leader sent the state boys basketball games out of madison because they did not want the out of town fans to see plywood over the broken windows on State st. They like to hid the truth
It is time to move to a small town before the crime overtakes emerald city. 7th in nation for biking, just don’t walk after dark if you value your life.