CITIZEN CASH - THE POLITICAL COMMITMENT, MICHAEL STEWART FOLEY

Was Johnny Cash's political (and social) commitment progressive or conservative? That is, essentially, the question this book attempts to answer through its seven chapters. The text begins by analyzing his distinctive childhood in Dyess, a small town/community/colony created by the U.S. government during the New Deal to combat the Great Depression. In Cash's own words, "that community operated as a cooperative." The following chapters tell us about his enduring, special connection with the downtrodden and those who built the country through their own efforts: with soldiers going to fight in wars decreed by others, with Native Americans dispossessed of their lands, with disenfranchised African Americans, with prisoners and outlaws. Cash's profile is so difficult to categorize that he can be embraced by the most radical wing of the Republican Party as well as by those who consider themselves anti-establishment.

To understand this, Michael Stewart Foley traces through his public statements (especially on his legendary television program The Johnny Cash Show) or in the lyrics of his songs to find a clue that explains how someone who, for example, denounced the suffering of soldiers who were cannon fodder and gave the spotlight to African American artists in the midst of the struggle for civil rights, was at the same time able to support Richard Nixon's policy in Vietnam and sing a song in support of pacifist students in the same White House.

The result is a profoundly humanist book that opens our minds and clearly distances us from dogmatism.

• Publisher: LIBURUAK
• Translator: Diego Galar
• Collection: BURUA
• BIC Subject: ARTS: GENERAL ASPECTS