Why a bluegrass family music group make me angry
Published: Fri, 04/30/21
I decided to introduce my daughter to Country and Western Music using Youtube. Always good to get em early if you can. Anyway, we discovered together the Petersens. A contemporary American real life version of the Partridge Family (which is showing my age again.) The Petersens are a country/bluegrass ensemble and they are rather good. Most of their music is covers of familiar songs in their own distinctive style, they even have a version of Queen’s Bohemian Rapsody, which actually works. The family group comes over as sweet, innocent, talented, and very charming.
And discovering them made me very angry.
Why would an American family who make good music and have the initiative to share their talents world wide get under my skin? I do not have a problem with the Petersens personally, I am sure that they are lovely people who would be a pleasure to meet. My issue is the contrast between the America as represented by the Petersen family, and the threat of global annihilation we all live under because of American militarism. 76 years after the end of ww2 and Europe is still dominated by the US military presence including massive airbases in East Anglia. Also Afghanistan and continued support for Saudi aggression in Yemen, etc etc.
I would like to send a message to the government of the USA, close your hundreds of military bases all over the world, cut your military budget by 90% and spend the money on your own people. Take home your bombers, carriers, missiles, drones, and all the rest of your weapons on mass destruction and get rid of them.
Then send the Petersens to tour the world winning hearts and minds with their music. Not just the Petersens of course, please send representatives of any aspect of American life and culture which is peaceful, life enhancing, and wholesome.
Here are the Petersens performing an original number written by Katie, the eldest sibling, It is certainly worth a listen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqOzG_A8tMs
regards
Graham