The Night They Cut John Edwards' Hair

Calbraith Rodger's the name, and I first joined this bloggin' game
'cause corporate news was so lame.  The pundits seemed insane.
In the Fall of 2004, with the country just mired in war
I was so sure the two Johns would win, but Ken Blackwell’s Ohio results came in.

The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and the blogs were posting,
The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and all the pundits were boasting.
They went blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

More years of crap from Bush/Cheney,
More Paris and more Britney.
Two Dems on tv
But no sign of JRE.
Now I don’t mind Barack or Hill.
Yes, they’re worthy, so everybody just chill.
We bleed blue.  We’re on the same team,
So STFU with the Edwards can’t win it meme.

The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and the blogs were posting,
The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and all the pundits were boasting.
They went blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Like primaries before now, all of us must choose.
And like primaries before now, none of us want to lose.
Well, I chose John and with John I’ll stay,
And I can’t stand to see him treated this way.
Issue by issue he passed each test,
Representing the progressive agenda the best.

The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and the blogs were posting,
The night they cut John Edwards' hair, and all the pundits were boasting.
They went blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

For those who missed it on the first go ‘round in 1971 as a radio hit for Joan Baez,  "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" was written and recorded by The Band two years earlier.  The original recording, a sample here, features the trademark vocals of The Band drummer Levon Helm, who, as a Southerner, also knew the history of  Union Major General George Stoneman’s cavalry raid into Tennessee and North Carolina, which inspired the song.

Raids like this one and Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea are called the first modern examples of the cruel practice of total warfare, which goes much further than defeating enemy soldiers.  It embraces the concept of destroying the will and the economy of the defeated by ruining resources, commerce and infrastructure - demoralizing the non-warring civilian population.  This is the kind of warfare, once experienced, that leads to generations of bitterness.  For me as a Northerner, it goes at least part of the way toward explaining the persistence of the Stars and Bars as a symbol of Southern identity for some.  I don’t approve, but I can see the connection.

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" can be thought of as the ultimate lost cause song, but I think of it as the ultimate song of loss. Set in the closing days of the Civil War, it charts the experience of a powerless Tennessean family swept up in circumstances they don't control. The fictional Virgil Caine, the songs narrator, expresses a sadness and anger over the intentional destruction of his livelihood, and the death of his 18-year-old soldier brother, that transcend the specifics of history. There is, no doubt, a family like Virgil Caine’s created daily in Iraq, as there is in every time and place where organized violence erupts.  The ruling classes choose war, and the working classes suffer the results.

It may seem odd (especially to some Kucinich and Obama supporters) that I would choose this song to parody in support of John Edwards, given what I wrote in the last paragraph.  But I believe John Edwards when he says

"Even at the time, with all that information, I had great reservations about George Bush," he continued. "I didn’t trust him. I thought he had an agenda. And in the end, I decided to defer to him because he was the president. It was a mistake."

As one of the four 2008 Democratic candidates who was a sitting senator at the time he had to vote yeah or nay.  He blew it.

And I believe that  

While Mrs. Edwards was undergoing chemotherapy and sedated, Mr. Edwards would wait, he said. "I spent a lot of time, just sitting there by myself," he said "I came to the decision, over a period of months, that I was dead wrong and I had to say so."

He has owned up to it.  I think he has learned an important lesson from his mistake and that it has transformed him.  As someone who has gone through a similar medical experience involving a loved one, I can tell you it changes your outlook.  It doesn’t surprise me to hear that Edwards decided he was wrong.  Staring your own misfortune in the face has a way of bringing home to you the misfortunes of others.  

I can well imagine John’s heart opening to the Virgil Caines of this world during his lonely vigils with his wife.  It would be natural to think of the suffering of others in that circumstance.  Misery loves company.  Wouldn’t the circumstances of those in Iraq (combatants and non-combatants alike)  who didn’t ask for the Iraq conflict, but suffer under it nonetheless -- occupy the thoughts of someone whose vote contributed to the suffering?

I believe John.

From bringing the troops home, to protecting working class jobs, I feel that John Edwards will best work to protect the Virgil Caines of this world.  He gets it, IMO.  In Virgils day, it was a wartime decision to tear up the tracks of the railroad for which he had worked; in our time it is the negotiated trade agreements that tear up manufacturing jobs in the US.  

In Virgils day, his brother died as a soldier fighting for ... well, the song doesn’t say why ... it says  

He was just eighteen, proud and brave,  But a Yankee laid him in his grave

This powerfully imagined soldier is like our soldiers today, who are proud and brave and doing the job they have to do because it is their duty.  By now, I think that most of our troops are praying that we elect a president who will get them the hell out of Hell before a roadside bomb lays them in their grave.  I think most Iraqis agree.  

I think the president that will most quickly do this is John Edwards.