the rolling stones, you might have heard, are catching hell from the american right for a song called "sweet neocon." i haven't heard the song, but, at the very least, it's refreshing that the stones are trying to be topical again.

one would quite naturally expect that any attacks by said neocons would be against their recent recorded output, an easy target--but no! it's more than that. as w/ all things on the right, there must be a rewriting of history. witness sean hannity on his radio show, saying that he has "outgrown" the stones (and led zeppelin, for that matter); that "brown sugar" just doesn't do it for him anymore. in other words, he's put away those childish things (and graduated to what? martina mcbride? leann rimes?)

there's more! on 'the o'reilly factor,' fox & friends co-host brian kilmeade railed against the nfl for allowing an "anti-american" band like the stones headline their opening kickoff. note to the nfl: not only can't your performers be sexy, they also can't have political views that run contrary to the dominant ideology--which would now disqualify last year's super bowl half-time performer, paul mccartney. so who would pass this litmus-test? martina mcbride? leann rimes? one senses that nashville--or maybe branson, mo--has a hand in all of this ...

last night, laura ingraham slagged off coldplay's chris martin for snubbing tony blair. but again, one, it seems, is unable to say, "i hate his politics but appreciate his music." no, now, apparently all coldplay songs sound the same: she had seen their latest video (unspecified) one night--only b/c it was late and she couldn't sleep, you see--and after that she was unable to bring herself to listen to the new album. (note: she may have a point here, but i find her politics so disagreeable that i can't give credence to her theory.) hannity is one thing, but ingraham prides herself on her music taste, her website offering her cd picks. "planet telex" by radiohead opens her show; "portions for foxes" by rilo kiley is often used as well--perhaps no one told her about hail to the thief or "it's a hit."

the most amusing incident i've heard of this phenomenon was matt drudge taking on bruce springsteen, ca. the "vote for change" tour. drudge--he's the pop culture one on the right, remember--asserted that springsteen hadn't had a hit since born in the u.s.a.. ever conspiratorial, drudge found it odd that springsteen has been unsuccessful since the implementation of soundscan in 1991, a statement that carries w/ it the faint hint that, before soundscan, liberals simply made up sales figures. of course, he was all wrong: human touch and lucky town, released concurrently in 1992, both charted in the top 3; his greatest hits album went to #1, as have the rising and devils & dust.

i remember a class discussion i once took part in about art & one's personal beliefs. the professor firmly believed that there was some sort of connection between the two, and so it followed that no one whose beliefs were reprehensible has created a lasting work of art. ezra pound, noted fascist and anti-semite, is the famous case; when he was awarded the bollingen prize, george orwell was one of his defenders. in "a prize for ezra pound," printed in the may 1949 edition of partisan review, he writes:

none of this is a reason against giving pound the bollingen prize. there are times when such a thing might be undesirable--it would have been undesirable when the jews were actually being killed in the gas vans, for instance--but i do not think this is one of them. but since the judges have taken what amounts to the 'art for art's sake' position, that is, the position that aesthetic integrity andcommon decency are two separate things, then at least let us keep them separate and not excuse pound's political career on the ground that he is a good writer. he may be a good writer (i must admit that i personally have always regarded him as an entirely spurious writer), but the opinions that he has tried to disseminate by means of his works are evil ones, and i think that the judges should have said so more firmly when awarding him the prize.

so, what would orwell say about the stones? (admittedly, one cannot see them necessarily being his "thing," and he would undoubtedly find something quite shameless about what they've been doing in the last fifteen years or so.) if christopher hitchens is to be believed, orwell would have supported the iraq war, so any position opposed to that would be wrong, but, and here's the distinction, not evil. neocons are within their rights to attack the message of "sweet neocon," but it's ridiculous--and dangerous, as orwell knew all too well--to attempt to rewrite history.