Jackson Browne Voted For John McCain!

Actually — No. Here’s how it went. Just see if you can find a shred of logic or consistency in these two stories (you won’t).

Just pretend for a minute that you wrote and recorded a song about thirty years ago. It was a huge hit. You’ve had other hits too, but that one song is by far your most famous. Your name and that song title are practically synonymous in the public eye.

Now imagine this one scenario: Somebody has illegally downloaded your song onto his/her computer. Maybe this person didn’t even download it him/herself. It could’ve been a child, grandchild, niece, nephew who downloaded this song without the computer owner’s permission. In any case, the owner of this computer could be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars — driven into bankruptcy, homelessness — because his/her computer was used for the commission of this heinous act.

And now the second scenario: A presidential candidate — with whom you disagree on practically everything — has used this same song of yours for a campaign commercial. Without Your Permission. This candidate is a multi-millionaire with tens of millions of dollars being poured into his presidential campaign by the Powers That Be. Millions of TV viewers probably saw this commercial and associated your song (and hence, You) with the candidate you didn’t want.

And there ain’t a fuckin’ thing you can do about it.

And that’s not all! This asswipe is countersuing you, because you “chilled his free speech” when you sued him for copyright infringement.

John McCain used Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty” in a TV commercial last summer. Browne sued McCain, but the general consensus was pretty much “riiight, let me know how that works out for you.”

And now McCain is countersuing Browne for damages and court costs. That was a nice humble concession speech McCain gave on November 4th. Now, how can we miss him if he won’t go away?

Told you there was no sense or logic to be found here. If our traffic laws were this lopsided and skewed, you’d get a $500,000 fine for driving one mph over the speed limit. But if you were so drunk you could barely walk, and you got behind the wheel and caused a 40-car pileup, you’d get a $1 fine.

cross-posted at Bring It On!