My Acolyte Journey: 2014.34

World Peace is None of your Business.
Morrissey. I'm going to be honest; I don't know what's happening in Bahrain and I'm not going to look it up. I do know about the unrest in Brazil, Egypt, and Ukraine, so I count myself pretty knowledgeable. I am knowledgeable enough that I don't understand the market for this song. I can see that it is appealing to a leftist mindset (there's an inflammatory statement about wealth)

The rich must profit and get richer And the poor must stay poor

The song talks about government reactions to political movements in terms of tasers, not gas and guns, so I know it's marketed to a stable country/strong government combination. And it references four countries (at least two) whose struggles are not common knowledge. So the target is a well-educated left-of-center political activist in a top-wealth/developed country.
So why is it asking me not to vote? It's contradictory in the extreme; there have been times when the United States has changed because of the will of the people. There was a 75% turnover rate one election in Congress (admittedly in the early 1800s) because the representatives passed an unpopular bill. Almost everyone got sent home. I admit we don't have a true democracy, our first past the post system is utterly stupid, and voting sometimes accomplishes nothing. But go ahead. Tell me my vote for John Wright didn't matter.
It is because I am educated enough to know about Brazil and Egypt that I know that voting is often pointless and often incredibly powerful. It is because I am educated enough to care about Ukraine and Crimea that I also care to remember why and how the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 were passed. It is despite my frustration with the government that I do not find Morrissey's civic dirge moving or empathetic in any way. Now I listen to it again.

[The old man walked down the street. He could hear hooting in the distance, but he didn't turn around. It was just then that a young woman came flying past him, laughing and dancing with her friends. She was beautiful in the light of the flame she carried. In that split second, his grizzled older heart warmed to her cause, just to close again on the other side. He looked at her--nice clothing, careful appearance. She's a tourist. She'll never have the nerve to throw that torch into someone else's house. He shook his head, remembering when he was young. They were organized, then. Someone's voice mattered then. This chaos of disparate voices (the outraged, the energized, the aggressors, the young and flighted along for the ride) would never accomplish what it wanted. He fingered the automatic hidden in his coat and considered spraying the sky with lead, hooping and running with the young idiots. Instead, he turned his collar up and trudged on.]

Now that I've listened to it, the references to other countries sounds entirely throw-away. Like: "What countries have had unrest recently? I want to reference them to sound cooooool. They're not an important part of the song. In fact, it's just a list without explanation that happens to rhyme. We've come a long way downhill.
I wouldn't buy this.