I really hated this story, and I have to second everything that Shannon says. But I have some additions to make.

There are so many talented, well-informed artists of moral conviction and vision today, it can only read as A. Shoddy reporting, or B. Pandering to an imaginary right-wing WNYC audience (yeah right), or C. Yet another exercise in smug Kurt Andersen condescension, a 100% lowball of our expectations as cultural consumers.

It's with C that I rest, as I feel like, week after week, I get spoonfed ridiculously crappy stories about crappy artists/performers/musicians, nothing but populist novelty acts.

Now, I don't have a problem with populist novelty acts, but it's be nice if it was balanced with more serious stories. However, the only medium that seem to be deigned "serious" enough for serious stories is literature. His coverage of art, music, film, theater, etc., reveals a disturbing conviction that anything besides literature is self-deluded cultural quaintness, hopeless victims/mirrors of the cultural moment, versus self-aware, self-critical inquisitors of what we receive cultural and politically at any moment.

I'm confused about why these musicians are on the show at all. If you featured someone who was well-educated in politics describing why they joined the Tea Party, I would find that interesting. Instead, this story is about two guys who listen to right-wing pundits and believe that what they say is the truth. One of them admits that he doesn't know much about the issues, the other demonstrates his own lack of nuance by noting that if you would kill a baby, you would kill his Christmas lights.
And at this point, I have to call shoddy reporting. Why challenge MC Hi-Caliber on whether liberals would really cut his Christmas lights, but not challenge him on his obvious misunderstanding of the abortion issue? Why not challenge him on his daughter's insistence that her grade school teacher is trying to supress "the truth" when his CD clearly presents an opinion, not the truth? For that matter, why not engage with Cassone when he expresses his frustration over the rules of engagement that soldiers are forced to deal with, and discuss how concern for soldiers is not strictly a right wing issue? Why not point out to him that when he says he sings instead of debating, that what he's basically saying is that he wants to broadcast an opinion but not listen to what the other side has to say?
I feel as if the tone of this story is "ooh look fascinating, folk music and rap in the Tea Party." I'm not that fascinated as the quality of music isn't that great on either side. I'm also not that surprised, because there are always low-talent musicians who see an opportunity to profit off of anything that has a large following (please, google "filk" if you want a non-political example).
So again, why is this on the show? What is the cultural significance here?

1) Patti Smith's People Have the Power.

2) His Holiness the Dalai Lama chanting healing prayers at the bedside of his friend Václav Havel.

"If they're willing to kill babies why won't they kill a Christmas light?"

Yes. Of course. Because the two are exactly the same.

I've always been deeply suspicious of the Baby Boom generation; their contradictions (supposedly pro-civil rights in youth, yet the Patriot Act in their adult years, claiming to have started the ecology movement, and being the biggest polluters the world has ever seen and on and on). The packaging doesn't fit the actuality. The idea that a song or a bumper sticker can change a mind- never mind protest marches and signs (Tea Partiers are usually Baby Boomer demographics ...and so it goes). A song? No. The overwrought strains of Dylan are antiques and the protest songs of the Tea Party folks are just the same, only newer. One thing they share is the missionary's fanatical simplistic thought process. Nope. Not a single song. Books? Yes. Facts? Yes. Discussion? Yes. Music? Oh goodness, no.

Oh, look, a real-life Bob Roberts. Hate to tell ya, but you can't protest in favor of the status quo, which is what the teabaggers are doing.

I have been so moved politically by two songs in particular, David Ackles' The Ballad of the Ship of State and by John Prine's The Great Compromise. Neither gets in your face to tell you what to think but, by the end of each, you understand and feel the loss of our great nation's community.

It Won't Take Long by Ferron (Shadows On A Dime, 1984) made activism seem inevitable and soul-satisfying by sharply drawing the contours of exploitation and injustice in a few simple, undeniably true strokes. I was born in 1958 and I had thought the time had passed when a song could make me want to work for change. This one uses a few poetic devices to say a lot about the work yet to be done and the debt we owe to our fellow human beings to get down to that work.

As a child of the 60;s, Bob Dylan's The Times are a changing.