Remember when candidate Reagan used Springsteen's "Born in the USA" as the theme of his 1984 Presidential campaign? Obviously he hadn't listened closely to the narrator, who had been coerced to fight in an unjust war and then abandoned by the deintustrialized economy of his hometown upon his return.
Mayor Rahm Emmanuel here in Chicago got to request one song on WXRT last night as part of the radio station's annual "Chicago Day". He chose "We Take Care of Our Own", the new Springsteen single, which I blogged about a few weeks ago in my account of the Grammys. The song is ironic, with Bruce reminding us of rural poverty and images of the Superdome during Katrina. "From one boss to another," he said. What a fool! Here's the guy who just shut down over 15 public schools and multiple mental health clinics in the city. Like Reagan, I guess our Mayor wasn't listening too closely.
I want to ask Rahm the same thing Bruce is asking all of us in that song. "What happened to the promise?" The promise of watching out for the most vulnerable among us here in Chicago and across the country.
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