Eric Clapton - Stand and Deliver


Posted On: Monday - January 31st 2022 10:39AM MST
In Topics: 
  Music  US Police State  Kung Flu Stupidity



(I'll tell you first thing, the video is not very good. Perhaps it was hard to find like-minded people to make one. Additionally we are no longer in the music video heyday of the 1980's, as VJ'd by Martha Quinn.)

Peak Stupidity is not in the habit of keeping up with the modern music scene, such as it is or may be, even from musicians who have been in the music scene for 6 decades. Yeah, there are a lot of them that have been around that long now! However, we have nothing at all against the music of Eric Clapton, so I was surprised to do a search of this site and find only one, Crossroads from Eric and his band Cream. (I was almost positive that I'd embedded Blues Power before, one of my favorites.* We'll have to remedy this lack of music from Mr. Clapton.

To give a background on this great guitarist and White-man's blues** singer is just too much for me, and there is Wikipedia and the whole internet. Suffice it to say, after noting Eric Clapton was in the bands The Yardbirds, Blind Faith, The Bluesbreakers, Cream, something, something ... Derick and the Dominoes... Why do these bands sound familiar if you've been interested in all the big 1960s-70s rock stars? It's because it seems like that whole British artist crowd had been in some of these bands in some combination. "He was with Jeff Beck in ___, and Jimmy Page, and Steve Winwood, who broke up and formed ____ with Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart, and ...." It must have been a close-knit group of these blues-influenced British guys.

Because I don't keep up, it took my reading of a recent VDare article by Carl Horowitz*** to learn about about Eric Clapton's views on the Kung Flu PanidFest - "Is This A Sovereign Nation / Or Just A Police State?" Eric Clapton, COVID, And Immigration. That line is straight from Van Morrison's late-'20, anti-Totalitarianism song, as sung and played by Eric Clapton above.

It's really great to read of at least SOMEBODY over there having taken a stand, especially back in the first year of the PanicFest. It was perhaps 6 months behind my views on the matter, but good going, Eric Clapton (and Van Morrison, obviously too). Early on in Mr. Horowitz's article, I found myself not so enamored by the musician after reading that Mr. Clapton was only anti-vax for personal reasons, due to his having taken the vax..
The recent trouble began for the 76-year-old rocker after he received two AstraZeneca vaccinations. Unexpected—and frightening—symptoms ensued.

“I took the first jab of AZ and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days. I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one,” Clapton wrote:
About six weeks later I was offered and took the second AZ shot, but with a little more knowledge of the dangers. Needless to say the reactions were disastrous, my hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again, (I suffer with peripheral neuropathy and should never have gone near the needle.) But the propaganda said the vaccine was safe for everyone.
[Eric Clapton’s Anti-Vaccine Diatribe Blames ‘Propaganda’ for ‘Disastrous’ Experience, by Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, May 16, 2021]
The experience caused him to rethink whether immunization is necessary and whether mandated vaccines and “social distancing” are worth the loss of liberty. In solidarity with musicians who couldn’t find live gigs, he now won’t perform at venues that require proof of vaccination.
That is not impressive to me. It's not being a man of principle - against Totalitarianism - to finally come out against mandated vaccines only when it becomes personally injurious. I don't have any problem with his having taken the vaccine. He may have felt pretty vulnerable at his age and whatever condition. He may have felt very comfortable taking experimental or non-experimental drugs, heha.... (After all, if you were in the Yardbirds, or Cream, or the Bluesbreakers ... and friends with Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Jimmy Page ....)

Eric Clapton took a stance against the vaccine only after the vaccine almost took HIM out. However, I did read more about Mr. Clapton's efforts against the rest of the PanicFest, and there's the song above. That part is admirable. He knows he has the rest of the entertainment and Infotainment "industry" against him, so I applaud his courage, or at least his not being another useful idiot. It's good to have someone "influential" in some way on our side on this.

I put "influential" in quotes to make a point. I don't think a rock artist, musician of any sort, artist of any sort, actors and actresses, or any of these entertainers have any special insight into political matters that would make it worth listening to him when he spouts out his political views. It’s understandable if you’ve already paid good money for the show. That’s when the whole “shut up and sing!” advice is warranted.

I really couldn’t care less what any musician, artist, or actor/actress does in his personal life either****. That is, not any more than I would about any other random interesting character. This explains why I’ve never bought a People Magazine copy or written about these people on Peak Stupidity. That's why I didn't even know about this anti-PanicFest song from over a year ago.

Still, as for the music, back when Eric Clapton got big, Bob Dylan was playing in, and playing, an influential part of a big movement. Movements against Totalitarianism could use some good music too... or we could recycle the old stuff ... leading to a Canadian Trucker post?

Finally, if you read Carl Horowitz's article, you'll see that there's a whole 'nother story mixed in, about Eric Clapton's anti-immigration (anti-destruction-of-Great-Britain, I should say) views that he voiced during a concert in 1976. That is more in VDare's wheelhouse, hence the appearance of the article there. I will write about that political stance from Eric Clapton in another post shortly.

When it comes to my views on Eric Clapton, well, it's about the music. Here is my favorite, a live version of a song from his 1970 self-titled album. Ain't no need to be a wallflower, cause now I'm livin' on blues power! Really, this is more straight-up Rock & Roll with his great leads. If not "Blues power", the movements which we must form to fight "the man" this time really ought to have some music power behind them. I don't know how you can beat THIS though.





* Then, it's impossible to search much here, at least with any ease, and even with my check in the dBase, it's still possible I just embedded it with no reference and not much writing, as I used to do.

** I have hereby reminded myself to write a post I thought about a year ago about blues music. It'll be coming.

*** He's a very infrequent contributor to VDare, having only 13 articles on the site in 20 years, but I do remember this one from last year, with its great title too: Marx Got It Right: Mass Immigration Wrecks Wages. Why Won’t America’s Resurgent Communists Admit It?.

**** I do have a big amount of sympathy for Eric Clapton regarding the tragic accidental death of his young son. That must have been devastating, and it did make his song Tears n Heaven very moving for me, once I learned what it was about.

Comments:
Dieter Kief
Thursday - February 3rd 2022 7:47AM MST
PS

couldn' resist from Scott Adam' twitter thread:

Biden is still more popular than the Covid virus, but the crossover point is approaching.


ian bremmer
@ianbremmer


% in US satisfied with the state of the nation

overall quality of life
2020: 84%
2022: 69%

system of government
2020: 43%
2022: 30%

economy
2020: 68%
2022: 33%

role in world
2020: 43%
2022: 37%

via Gallup
Dieter Kief
Thursday - February 3rd 2022 1:26AM MST
PS

Adam - here is something that reminded me very much of what you did write about your highway policy, if I might sum your position on this one up in this way.

Canada in Constitutional Crisis - Says Brian Peckford, Co-Author of the Canadian Constitution / Talks That Through with Jordan B. Peterson

Peckford's point about the Canadian Government acting unconstitutional is pretty much your point: The freedom of having a ride right, one might call it. And Peckford wants to use this aspect of the Canadian Anti-Covid-measures and take it to the highest Canadian court and get a verdict against Trudeau in about four months time - on thebasis that the mobility restrictions theCanadia governmentbrought forward in order to fight Covid are uncnstitutional - that's what Brian Peckford discusses here with Jordan B.Peterson 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdhFuMDLBDM
Mr. Anon
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 11:08PM MST
PS

"So - cheers to everbody willing to speak out (and don't care for their reputation) -even to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. - Both suffered badly from polio btw . Joni Mitchell never got quite over the damage this illness did to her body:"

Thanks for the information. I had not known that. Since I've never been a fan of either, I never visited their Wiki pages. That might explain a lot about their public stances vis-a-vis Joe Rogan and his public questioning of vaccines.

Still, I don't understand it. A vaccine is a medication. It works or it doesn't. It may have some efficacy for some diseases and perhaps not for others. It isn't - in my mind - a holy sacrament to be defended against any challenges.

The public cult around vaccines I can only attribute to an exceedingly effective public relations campaign carried out over decades by the NIH, CDC, and the Pharma companies.
usNthem
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 10:02PM MST
PS
I guess I'd say Derek and the Dominos is my favorite iteration of Clapton. Layla, Bell Bottom Blues & I Looked Away are my favorites. Little Wing (Hendrix cover) is also good. As for his stance on the vax, at least he seems to have seen the light (better late than never) and people in his business are few and far between.
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 2:11PM MST
PS

Thx Adam - Tutti Frutti with Eric Clapton in Kopenhagen is hilarious!
The Alarmist
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 1:54PM MST
PS

I should have chimed in on the vaxxes: For me, I from day one decided there was roughly one decade of safety data missing, so I was never in a hurry to volunteer to be a lab rat. Then Pfizer released the results of their initial trials, and the methodolgy and data they actually released simply didn’t add up to a quality assessment; seeing that the absolute risk reduction was less than 1% for a supposedly >95% efficacy further indicated that the whole thing stank. That the completely conflicted poobahs of CDC and FDA and way too many governmental officials sang in chorus that the relatively unproven vaxxes were both safe and effective after less than three months of use was merely icing on the cake.

All vaxxes, even those that have years of safety and efficacy data, are crap shoots at best ... you never know when you’ll be the “rare” exception. The still relatively unproven COVID vaxxes are outright Darwinian IQ tests.
MBlanc46
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 12:43PM MST
PS Adam S I’m in pretty full agreement regarding employers. They have no authority over your health choices. Similarly for the Feds. The Constitution gives the Congress no authority over public health. State and local governments may have such authority, depending on their charters. In some circumstances, I would very likely accept public health mandates (or suffer the consequences for noncompliance) from those authorities. Even if I had some doubts. But by summer 2021, it was pretty clear that the disease was not as lethal as we were told, and the vaccines clearly weren’t preventing people from contracting it or transmitting it to others. Enough news about negative side effects had leaked that I decided to take my chances. I’m pretty sure now that nothing they could do would induce me to take the shot. The concentration camp with a bunch of other malcontents could be a useful experience.

Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 12:08PM MST
PS: “All I can guess is that the hype from the TV and iPhone overwhelms all common sense.”

I think Mr. Hail is correct with his Corona as a cult hypothesis.

Their irrationality and their totalitarian tendencies are a frightening combination.

Moderator
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 11:34AM MST
PS: "To be injured by a vaccine and then take a second dose of the same vaccine is some serious dumbfuckery." Yeah, and I've just heard of said dumbfuckery from the nurse this morning. She told me that a colleague was still feeling bad from a job A MONTH AGO. Yet, she said was ready to take the booster. This is a nurse, for cryin' out loud. All I can guess is that the hype from the TV and iPhone overwhelms all common sense.
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 11:02AM MST
PS: Good Afternoon, Mr. Moderator,

Glad to hear that the nurse in your family got her religious exemption.
I hear approval for them can be pretty hard to get.
(She really shouldn't have to play silly games like that anyway.)

“I took the first jab of AZ and straight away had severe reactions which lasted ten days. I recovered eventually and was told it would be twelve weeks before the second one,” Clapton wrote.

“About six weeks later I was offered and took the second AZ shot, but with a little more knowledge of the dangers. Needless to say the reactions were disastrous, my hands and feet were either frozen, numb or burning, and pretty much useless for two weeks, I feared I would never play again...”

It takes a special kind of stupid to take a second dose of an experimental injectable drug when you've had a severe, presumably harmful, reaction to the first dose...

https://dontbelievehype.co.uk/life-of-a-scientist/f/i-am-a-covid-scientist-i-had-a-severe-chronic-vaccine-reaction

To be injured by a vaccine and then take a second dose of the same vaccine is some serious dumbfuckery.

Moderator
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 10:45AM MST
PS: Haha, Alarmist, I stand by my principles on Crazy Horse and Neil Young's high-distortion guitar. Yes, it does sound like he's strumming on the lid of a trash dumpster in "Hey, Hey, My, My", but still...

Regarding the vaccine, for the first nearly-year that the vaccines were out, for me it was only about principle. You mandate it, and I will not comply. However, over the last 6 months, and maybe 4 months even more intensely, I have seen and heard about so many bad health effects from it, even in young people, that it makes me not only more adamant to not take it, but extremely pissed that they have the gall to keep pushing this.

BTW, the nurse in our family just got a religious exemption. Haha. Seriously, it was that or she was going to quit working at that hospital. Her reasoning was not based on principal at all, BTW, just her own health (and, of course, her concern for ours too).
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 10:30AM MST
PS: Good afternoon, Mr. Blanc,

“My reluctance to take the shots has always been more a concern about their effectiveness and safety—as they did not go through the usual lengthy double-blind tests—than about the politics.”

I agree. For me it was always about safety and health concerns. I suppose the people masquerading as “government” made it political when they tried to mandate them, though I think of that not really as a political thing but as a morality thing. It did, somehow, become political for many people.

Even if the clot shots were safe and effective I would still be opposed to any so called mandate. The people masquerading as “government” (and “employers”) have no right to force jab people as if they were their chattel.

The Alarmist
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 10:25AM MST
PS

OMG, Mr. Mod, you’re one of the three ....
Adam Smith
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 10:07AM MST
PS: Good morning everyone,
And Good Morning Robert,

Here's a version of Tutti Frutti featuring Eric Clapton and George Harrison...

https://youtu.be/y4DbsNsK3jY?t=2292

Moderator
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 7:05AM MST
PS: I am more of a Neil Young fan that an Eric Clapton fan. Yeah, it should be about the music. I got carried away in commenting under that recent Steve Sailer post just because I wanted to mention some of his music (and the asinine lyrics which just plain don't detract from a really good sound, cause who needs lyrics at all, for lots of songs?) There's a lot of obscure really good Neil Young stuff.

That doesn't mean I give a damn at all what he has to say about anything whatsoever. I'm guess Joe Rogan will be the winner here, and I'm glad to see these bitchy former "Question Authority!" characters lose out.

Anyway, yeah, if Eric Clapton feels he has nothing to lose (especially at his age) by speaking the truth (to power? - never liked that expression anyway), then I am glad for that.
The Alarmist
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 6:23AM MST
PS

@MrAnon ... thus my comment about by the Grace of God.

@Dieter, who knows what to make of Mitchell’s polio experience ... she had it a couple years before the vaxx was deployed in Canada, but it took a couple decades, and thousands of vaxx injuries, before wild cases of polio were under control in Canada, She is worshipping a god which never really held any promise for her.
Dieter Kief
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 2:28AM MST
PS

Peakers - I agree throughout. - Almost that is. Just a few little things:

I

I know some scientists who are getting older now and could speak out (in the IQ question, in the race question in the question that societies are no mechanical things that you can modify at (your, be it compassionate or (or:and/or) mechanical) will - that immigration just won't work that way. But they don't speak out - and one thing is: They fear for their reputation (and not least, for their afterlife!).
So - cheers to everbody willing to speak out (and don't care for their reputation) -even to Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. - Both suffered badly from polio btw . Joni Mitchell never got quite over the damage this illnes didi to her body: To this day. -Now think about the vaccines. (I'm not saying that the connection to the Covid-vaccines they make is right though. I just hint at this connection between their perosnal past (and bodily present, still...) and the link this one has to vaccines.

II The "Toade"-Stone at Work or: "Being Spot-on with the Toad-Stone" = "Rockin' in the Free World"

Joe Rogan is - once again - perfectly - SPOT-on here (see: He's also on SPOTify - Peter Rühmkorf would have gone heheh: See!, I'm channeling him a bit, to strengthen his point- heheh: Isn't this a cute Parallel - and don't parallels touch on infinity and...) - OK - Joe Rogan made a 9 min vid out in the sun in his Texan backyard and said, he has no hard feelings against the two (or how many that there are now - Nils Lofgren joined them and...) against Joni and Neil: I love both of'em for the creative work they've done - and let them have their say (and let them put their money where there mouth is, too...).
I think this is the liberal way to go here. Joe Rogan did it quite right!

III Claptonia

The song Blues Power is one of the best songs in Clapton's catalogue, it re-sonates, so to spell, - experiences I had when I was dancing to it in the See-Studio (no typo here either. It was called See-Studio (=Lake-Studio in English), this - great disco), and at the Genesis in Mannheim and the Club54/ Cave in Heidelberg and the Schwimmbad-Club (= Schwimmingool-Club) in Heidelberg too - when I was young and footloose and fancy-free (1970ff). - So: This is one strong thing, this Clapton song there because I know that that happened not only to me. - This song opened up (or insisted that yes: there are: Things bigger than everyday life - and that they- are fragile - and beautiful and strong at the same time...(an innerworldly hint at liberty & transcendence...).


PS
I did love your Toade quote from Edwar Topsell a lot, Robert. Tutti-Frutti played by Eric Clapton - I can well imagine that that is a nice version!
Mr. Anon
Tuesday - February 1st 2022 12:19AM MST
PS

"But for the Grace of God and the ability to play guitar, what difference is there between Eric Clapton and Neil Young?"

Eric Clapton is on our side. The side of truth.

That's good enough for me.

To be honest, I have never particularly liked Eric Clapton's music (After Midnight and White Room are okay, other than that.....meh). I never liked Van Morrison's music at all. Against that, there is at least one Neil Young Song I like - and like a lot - Harvest Moon.

But music is music and morals are morals.

Clapton and Morrison are on the right side. Our side. They may not have much to lose at this stage in their life, but they have nothing to gain either. They risked public opprobrium from society and officialdom for their stands - principled stands in defense of freedom and human dignity. If artists have a duty to tell the truth, at least they can say that they've done their duty. And I will always be grateful to them for that.
Robert
Monday - January 31st 2022 7:31PM MST
PS: Mr. Kief, to continue from the previous thread, Eric Clapton also recorded a version of Tutti Frutti; but I could not easily find it online.
The Alarmist
Monday - January 31st 2022 2:11PM MST
PS

What do you expect from a drug-addled rocker who spent most of his life following the prompts given by others? But for the Grace of God and the ability to play guitar, what difference is there between Eric Clapton and Neil Young?
MBlanc46
Monday - January 31st 2022 12:14PM MST
PS Agreed re celebrity views. Except in rare cases, their views are less well-thought-out than my views. But they are somebody, and I’m not (and just as glad I’m not). In the modern world, political battles are public relations battles, and who is saying it is given more importance that what’s being said. Our enemies have more of the whos than we have, so it’s always a benefit to us when someone who is a who says what we say. It would have been purer, perhaps, if his statement had been less personally motivated. But the fact that he experienced some very negative side effects to the shots, and is broadcasting that fact, is a good thing in itself, because denial of serious side effects of the shots has been a big part of the Globohomo campaign for vaccinations. My reluctance to take the shots has always been more a concern about their effectiveness and safety—as they did not go through the usual lengthy double-blind tests—than about the politics. If the disease were actually as lethal as we were told, and if the vaccines had been proven to be safe and effective, I would have been much less opposed to the mandates. Sometimes public health does trump individual freedom. But they lied, so now we have a political fight, not a public health fight. And better to have Eric Clapton, and a few others, on our side than on their side.
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