Blasting Canadian Neil Young for Bush criticism, Cavuto forgot his own Canada-bashing
SUMMARY: Fox News' Neil Cavuto presented a segment dedicated to a forthcoming album by Neil Young. Noting that Young is Canadian, Cavuto asked Canadian attorney Patrice Brunet: "[H]ow would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is?" Brunet replied: "[P]eople, they laugh at Canadians all the time, so we're used to it. It's -- I guess it's your turn on this one." But Cavuto didn't mention that Canada has already had its "turn" to be publicly criticized by an American "Neil" -- Cavuto himself.
On the April 17 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto presented a segment dedicated to a forthcoming album by singer/songwriter Neil Young, that features a song reportedly called "Impeach the President." Noting that Young is Canadian, Cavuto asked Canadian lawyer and political analyst Patrice Brunet: "[H]ow would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is?" Brunet replied: "[P]eople, they laugh at Canadians all the time, so we're used to it. I guess it's your turn on this one." But Cavuto didn't mention that Canada has already had its "turn" to be publicly criticized by an American "Neil" -- Cavuto himself.
For example, Media Matters for America previously noted that in a December 2005 discussion with Brunet, Cavuto responded to former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's criticism of U.S. global environmental policies by wondering: "[H]ave the Canadians gotten a little bit too big for their britches?" Cavuto also suggested that "our neighbors to the north" could "soon become our enemies." He asked Brunet: "Do the Canadian people hate America as much as your politicians seem to?"
On April 14, Young confirmed rumors that he will soon release an album titled Living with War, which features songs about President Bush and the war in Iraq.
From the April 17 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:
CAVUTO: Well, have you heard the fuss over rocker Neil Young's latest album? On it, he bashes America's president, American government, and the American war in Iraq. One song is even called "Impeach the President." And Neil Young, in case you didn't know, is a Canadian citizen, though he lives in the United States. So, we ask, how would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is? With us now from Québec is Patrice Brunet, he's a Canadian political activist. Patrice, A), what do you think of this whole album fuss?
BRUNET: Well, I mean, Neil, people, they laugh at Canadians all the time, so we're used to it. It's -- I guess it's your turn on this one. But, you know, we're used to getting shots at having, you know, we have moose walking down the street, we live in igloos, we live in a permanent permafrost. So, you know, it's just an artist expressing his views.
Canadians don't hate Americans in any way. We are just as afraid of the current administration as more than half of Americans and most of the informed world is.
Most Canadians are not so shallow as to assume that all of one sort of people are one way or another just because they voted in a meglomaniac for a president.
Cavuto is confusing criticizing an administration with bashing an entire country. I'm sure the average Chinese is swell. I sure like their food. The Tao of Te Ching was an great and inspring read. I don't care for their leaders. There's a big difference. In times like these scoundrels try to blur the distinction.
One of my favorite Neil Young lyrics from "Rockin' in the Free World":
"There's a thousand points of light.....for the homeless man....there's a kinder, gentler machine gun hand."
It was aimed at Bush Sr., but if Neil only knew how much more apt it would be to the mess the his son has wraught.
That would only matter if you cared what we thought. I'm sorry he thinks we're your enemies, but I was taught that friends dont' let friends get into fictitious wars. *shrug* we tried dude.
This wannabe and the rest of the Fox talent are nincompoops. They speak for themselves and the nincompoop segment of America, currently that segment represents about 36% of us.
As a Canadian, I'm proud Neil is from here. But he left here in the late 1960s. He may not be an American citizen, but he's spent over half his life in the USA. Not surprisingly, attacking him as a Canadian is a cheap shot. If he were born and raised in Jackson, MS he'd still be criticized on FNC for the tone of his record. If I'm not mistaken, none of the Dixie Chicks are Canucks.
Also, I can't recall any criticism of Neil when he released his pro-9/11 (you know what I mean) song "Let's Roll" five years ago.
I'm shocked, shocked to find hypocrites at Fox News.
I'm not sure if Neil is a naturalized citizen or not, but he's married to an American and his children are Americans. He has every right to criticize this administration. He has worked for peace and justice for everyone for more than 30 years. He is one of the founders of Farm Aid. He's made more contributions for the betterment of America than most American's have. In all this time, he has refused to sell out to corporate interests. He could have made a lot more money but to do so would require him to compromise his integrity.
Canadaians and Americans should be proud.
Cavuto: "So, we ask, how would the people of Canada feel if an American artist devoted an entire record to telling the world what a bad place Canada is?"
Cavuto is being a hypocrite with this question. If you go to the December 2005 Cavuto interview regarding Canada (MMFA links above in the article), while interviewing Canadian lawyer and political analyst Patrice Brunet, throughout the segment, FOX's on-screen text read: "CANADA: AN ENEMY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?". By just raising the question Fox is trying to denigrate Canada.
I can't believe that this guy got passed security. I bet Bill "no personal attacks" O'Reilly was waiting for this guy in the parking lot with a baseball bat.
Afterwards Hume would give the news report of the Canadian activist attacking Bill O'Reillys bat with his face.
Neil Cavuto must be a very desperate man. This FOX take on the story was plainly stupid. If his gullible viewers cannot distinguish between one person's crticism, and the FOX-perceived sentiment of an entire nation (screen headline: Canadians Bashing America??? Well, one Canadian criticizing a few things about the country, to be precise), then I feel a little sorry for them. Cavuto, however, is plainly scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one.
Sadly, Joe Sixpack is probably cancelling his fishing trip to Northern Canada in protest against Neil Young's song.
So why didn't the right pounce on the same point when Young endorsed Reagan?
(Yes, it seemed improbable to me, too, but Young raved about Reagan in 1984 in at least one interview. I don't know if/when he came to his senses, but perhaps realized in the course of doing so many benefits that possibly Republican policy was necessitating so many benefits.)
Neil Young is a total badazz who has contributed a boatload of fantastic music to the world without ever compromising his principles, and he has inspired and continues to inspire countless other musicians. Neil Cavuto isn't worthy to restring Old Black or launder Pancho Sampedro's sweatpants.
Neil never compromises and is always willing to try something new (or old). He marches to his own drum (or Ralph's). In the music world he has always been a leader. I can't wait for the new album.
And let us not forget Billy Talbot's thumping bass keeping the Crazy Horse trail on the rails! (Sort of.) Sloppiest, loudest, best band ever.
And of course by "trail" I mean "train."
Better lock up all the artists who express their views of the world through their art and torture them until they tow the company line, right? We wouldn't want anyone with both conscience and style to comment on our society...things might change, adn change is scary.
Come on! This is what artists DO; they comment on the world, they reflect it back so that others can see it in a different light. Neil and his music, political as it may be, should be considered a gift, like so many other "artists" in the U.S. After all, it's not like he's starting pushing Scientology or anything.
First, what is this about not letting people see these comments before we comment? This may not be a people connecting place, maybe it's more of a control freaks' place.
Neil Young thinks he is far more important than he is. He's just another swell-headed performer who somehow imagines people really care what he thinks. Anyone who would follow what some performer says in regards to national security is a bigger fool than the hapless narcistically self-centered Young.
With every flap of his jaw, Young is busy getting other people killed. This is what people like I once was, do best. Maybe the traitor Jane Fonda feels bad about the 1,000,000 murdered Vietnamese presently residing in jungle-covered graves courtesy of the communists, AFTER we left Vietnam. But, I don't think she or Young care who they have killed or will kill.
Both performers are exponents of the liberal sickness of denying freedom to anyone but themselves, and using communist or al Qieda gunmen to do their filthy work for them. Their tired drivel "for the people" makes a thoughtful person ever more sickened.
Media Matters as an accomplice in Young's stunt, is also partly guilty of killing all those Iraqis by the hand of al Qieda. I'll never buy from outlets selling Young's verbal garbage. I think we can continue to further lower music sales generally and permanently.
I'm not sure what you mean by the following;
"First, what is this about not letting people see these comments before we comment? This may not be a people connecting place, maybe it's more of a control freaks' place."
If you meant that you were trying to reply to a comment, you're correct in that you are not able to view the comment while you are writing your reply. There are workarounds, such as keeping the comment visible in another window as you write your response. Or using the back and forward buttons on your browser.
What do you mean by "This is what people like I once was, do best."? Do you mean that you were once against the War in Vietnam, but now you're for it? Or you were once against the War in Iraq, but now you're for it.
The War in Vietnam has been over for more than 30 years. Do you know anything about America's history with Vietnam going back to before World war II?
I'm not sure if I understand what you wrote, but my impression is that you're referring to yourself as a Chickenhawk. One who was against the war and didn't serve when he had the chance, but now that it's someone else doing the dying, he's all for it.
In any case, a Chickenhawk is always comfortable when someone else is risking it all. I could be wrong, but you really need to give more detail about why you feel the way you do.
I don't think Neil is "busy getting other people killed" as you say, but I do think he's trying to stop the madness once again.
Neil Young and Jane Fonda have killed no one. Low Jake has listened to O'Reilly and the rest so much that he thinks the truth doesnt matter.
Neil Young wrote "Ohio" and drew together a whole generation of people against the fascist efforts of Nixon, and with any luck, he can repeat this with the release of the new album. (How about a Nation wide Tour, Neil?)
That's why its a proven fact that Neil's words in his song matter Jake, and my advice to you is that if you want your words to matter, make them in some good music, and make them true.
JohnSnakeCusak
100% percent of view/comment error was mine having to do w/my mistake.
It's true I was once a very strong-minded leftist battling against the Vietnam War, having done some things that could've jailed me for no short time. (still, nothing that could have hurt anybody) It's also true that in and out of my teaching career (art, special ed) that I've met and listened to the gracious words of Vietnamese immigrants here in California. I have also learned that a fair number of the 1,000,000 human beings murdered by the communists AFTER the US left, were Viet Cong who imagined that they were fighting for their freedom.
I wonder at what sort of misery would have to befall Neil Young and his supporters here, to make them walk away from everything they've ever had just for the chance to jump into a small, un-seaworthy boat and push out to sea, braving typhoons, pirates, starvation and death at sea. They told me it was to escape a "life of death". This was our liberal gift to the People of Vietnam, a "life of death".
We got to cheer our win over the hated Nixon, to express our hatred for America, and our hatred for our soldiers; the Vietnamese got to die! Our gift to Southeast Asia was about 3,000,000 murdered human beings if are to count the murdered Pol Pot victims. But all this is ignored by the stone-cold hearts of the left in America. I was part of this horrific crime, you all were part of it as well as higher profile people such as Neil Young and the one who I now call the traitor Jane Fonda.
We are all guilty of letting communist gunmen do our killing for us. Talent shields Young and Fonda not, of guilt in the incitement to mass murder. The left has always ignored mass murder, to wit; Stalin's murder of 20,000,000 people and Mao's murder of 35-70,000,000 human beings lined up and shot "for the good of the people".
And now, Young and you guys want the Iraqi people to be abandoned to Saddam's and al Qieda's gunmen, so more trenches full of mass murder victims can be filled. What in the hell is wrong with you guys?! Do you love to express your hatred for George Bush so much that you don't care who dies, as long as it isn't you? How many Iraqis will die as a result of al Qieda's excitemnet/encouragement as Young beguiles his brain-dead followers with his @#$%? The truth is you don't care! Innocent Iraqis will die, so you can express your hate!
Marxist theology doesn't care even to know how many die in sacrifice. It is my evolved belief that the left considers itself elitist and entitled to the best of everything. . . that the left doesn't want to witness the increasing power and grace and competitiveness of educated and free peoples of Southeast Asia, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, Old Soviet Union, China or Cuba, at least not without leftists being in control.
Every kid in my classes, no matter how mean-spirited or tough, deserves a decent chance. Against my will, I have found that concept, to be in conflict with marxist principles, as it all plays out on the ground. So this is why I'm against Neil Young and I will never again buy anything from him.
Kudos to Neil for having the courage to point out the clear ineptness of the Bush Jr. (and Sr.) administrations. The American public was purposely misled in order to drum up support for this half-baked venture into the Iraqi desert.
I literally have pity for our wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq, and to the families of those killed, that they have suffered for a cause that has done nothing but make the world more unstable. We have not reduced.........we have increased......the fervor for terrorism.
I hope that his lyrics resonate as well as Ohio did about 35 years ago under similar circumstances.
Being anti-war and being patriotic are not mutually exclusive. Generally only narrow minded red necks have a hard time figuring that out.