"I Am The Mob": The Curious Return of an Obscure Britpop Expression
Sherman Oaks, California
"I am the mob" is the new rallying cry of people who oppose President Obama's push for health care legislation.
The expression appears to originate from insinuations from Democratic partisans that citizens protesting Obamacare are an unruly mob. In reply, a meme started to form last week in which ordinary citizens proclaimed, "I am the mob!" (Instapundit mentions it here, with video.)
It's an interesting turn of phrase -- one which Britpop obsessives will recognize.
In 1998, the Welsh band Catatonia released a single titled "I am the Mob." The song had nothing to do with a public option for health insurance; it was an ode to gangster films. The melody was catchy, but don't look too hard at the lyrics, one of which was "I put horses' heads/in people's beds/'cause I am the mob." Luca Brasi is namechecked in the final chorus.
Eleven years later, the expression is back. Here's the original video:
"I am the mob" is the new rallying cry of people who oppose President Obama's push for health care legislation.
The expression appears to originate from insinuations from Democratic partisans that citizens protesting Obamacare are an unruly mob. In reply, a meme started to form last week in which ordinary citizens proclaimed, "I am the mob!" (Instapundit mentions it here, with video.)
It's an interesting turn of phrase -- one which Britpop obsessives will recognize.
In 1998, the Welsh band Catatonia released a single titled "I am the Mob." The song had nothing to do with a public option for health insurance; it was an ode to gangster films. The melody was catchy, but don't look too hard at the lyrics, one of which was "I put horses' heads/in people's beds/'cause I am the mob." Luca Brasi is namechecked in the final chorus.
Eleven years later, the expression is back. Here's the original video:
posted by Paul Karl Lukacs at
2:02 PM
2 Comments:
It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people. And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.
How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a lynch mob advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.
Far more importantly, Cerys Matthews of Catatonia was pretty damn cute...
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