My absolute favorite Dylan song when sung by Leon Russell:
“I ride on a mail train, can’t buy a thrill. I’ve been up all night mama leaning on the window sill. And if I die on top of the hill, if I don’t make it you know my baby will.
Don’t the moon look good mama, shining through the trees? Don’t the brakeman look good flagging down the Double E? Don’t the sun look good going down over the sea? Don’t my gal look fine when she’s coming after me?
Now the wintertime is coming, the windows are filled with frost. I went to tell everybody but I could not get across. Well, I wanna be your lover, baby
I don’t wanna be your boy. Don’t say I never warned you when your train gets lost.”
OT, but worth looking at . . . how times have changed (and yet, how they haven’t).
In 1944, patriotic actors, directors, and producers in Hollywood formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Have any of you ever heard of this? I haven’t. Even though its ranks included Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and many, many more A-listers (see the Wikipedia entry, though the Leftist Termites have been at it).
Here is their “Statement of Principles.” We should dust it off and pass it around.
“We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.
“Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.
“In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression.
“But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”
“As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.
“As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation.
“We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs.
“We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth.
“And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.”
Oh, well, I couldn’t resist. Here’s a partial list of the members. Apparently, even back then the patriots were under REAL blacklisting pressure from the Reds.
Prominent members of the Alliance included Robert Arthur, Ward Bond, Clarence Brown, Charles Coburn, Gary Cooper, Cecil B. DeMille, Walt Disney, Irene Dunne, Victor Fleming [director of “Gone with the Wind”], Clark Gable, Cedric Gibbons, Hedda Hopper, Leo McCarey [directed “Duck Soup”], James Kevin McGuinness, Adolphe Menjou, George Murphy, Fred Niblo, Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers, Morrie Ryskind [wrote for the Marx Bros.], Norman Taurog, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, King Vidor, John Wayne, Frank Wead and Sam Wood [another Marx Bros. director].
The results you get when you google the Alliance bring up lots of sites describing this BI-partisan, patriotic group as “conservative,” “far-right,” and “right-wing,” and also return “witch-hunt,” “blacklist” [for sure not Theirs], and “McCarthyism.” Which just underscores how much the marxists control the narrative. Yeah, the marxists.
I think we should dust off the Alliance’s old “Statement of Principles” and re-adopt it. And pass it around.
Beverly,
Thanks for passing this on. I agree. The Statement of Principles is outstanding.
I had the pleasure of seeing John Wayne and Ward Bond in person back in 1955. It was in Newport, Rhode Island. I was in Navy OCS in Newport and, while on liberty, saw them as they did some shopping in a clothing store. They were two men’s men who radiated confidence and class. They were big men both in size and nature. It gave me a shot of masculinity just to see them and hear them talk in that “off screen” habitat. They were kind enough to acknowledge my presence in the store with a greeting of, “How’s it going, sailor?” No fuss, just a simple man to man, “How’s it going?” That encounter made my viewing of the movies they made together much more meaningful.
We could do worse than have some more screen role models like John Wayne and Ward Bond to give young men a glimpse of what being a man should be about. Sadly there are no such examples around today. Even more sadly, Hollywood has undertaken to spread the gospel of the totalitarian isms instead of the message proclaimed by these patriots.
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*flashbacks to high school*
Oh, no, not the story she picked first to kill off any love of reading that might take root in the class!
Blame it on a simple twist of fate.
rickl,
My absolute favorite Dylan song when sung by Leon Russell:
“I ride on a mail train, can’t buy a thrill. I’ve been up all night mama leaning on the window sill. And if I die on top of the hill, if I don’t make it you know my baby will.
Don’t the moon look good mama, shining through the trees? Don’t the brakeman look good flagging down the Double E? Don’t the sun look good going down over the sea? Don’t my gal look fine when she’s coming after me?
Now the wintertime is coming, the windows are filled with frost. I went to tell everybody but I could not get across. Well, I wanna be your lover, baby
I don’t wanna be your boy. Don’t say I never warned you when your train gets lost.”
OT, but worth looking at . . . how times have changed (and yet, how they haven’t).
In 1944, patriotic actors, directors, and producers in Hollywood formed the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Have any of you ever heard of this? I haven’t. Even though its ranks included Clark Gable, Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, John Wayne, and many, many more A-listers (see the Wikipedia entry, though the Leftist Termites have been at it).
Here is their “Statement of Principles.” We should dust it off and pass it around.
“We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.
“Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.
“In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression.
“But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”
“As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.
“As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation.
“We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs.
“We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth.
“And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.”
Oh, well, I couldn’t resist. Here’s a partial list of the members. Apparently, even back then the patriots were under REAL blacklisting pressure from the Reds.
Prominent members of the Alliance included Robert Arthur, Ward Bond, Clarence Brown, Charles Coburn, Gary Cooper, Cecil B. DeMille, Walt Disney, Irene Dunne, Victor Fleming [director of “Gone with the Wind”], Clark Gable, Cedric Gibbons, Hedda Hopper, Leo McCarey [directed “Duck Soup”], James Kevin McGuinness, Adolphe Menjou, George Murphy, Fred Niblo, Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Ginger Rogers, Morrie Ryskind [wrote for the Marx Bros.], Norman Taurog, Robert Taylor, Barbara Stanwyck, King Vidor, John Wayne, Frank Wead and Sam Wood [another Marx Bros. director].
The results you get when you google the Alliance bring up lots of sites describing this BI-partisan, patriotic group as “conservative,” “far-right,” and “right-wing,” and also return “witch-hunt,” “blacklist” [for sure not Theirs], and “McCarthyism.” Which just underscores how much the marxists control the narrative. Yeah, the marxists.
I think we should dust off the Alliance’s old “Statement of Principles” and re-adopt it. And pass it around.
Beverly,
Thanks for passing this on. I agree. The Statement of Principles is outstanding.
I had the pleasure of seeing John Wayne and Ward Bond in person back in 1955. It was in Newport, Rhode Island. I was in Navy OCS in Newport and, while on liberty, saw them as they did some shopping in a clothing store. They were two men’s men who radiated confidence and class. They were big men both in size and nature. It gave me a shot of masculinity just to see them and hear them talk in that “off screen” habitat. They were kind enough to acknowledge my presence in the store with a greeting of, “How’s it going, sailor?” No fuss, just a simple man to man, “How’s it going?” That encounter made my viewing of the movies they made together much more meaningful.
We could do worse than have some more screen role models like John Wayne and Ward Bond to give young men a glimpse of what being a man should be about. Sadly there are no such examples around today. Even more sadly, Hollywood has undertaken to spread the gospel of the totalitarian isms instead of the message proclaimed by these patriots.