As a teenager, I loved most any music that was popular in the 1980s. I listened to a “Top 40″ radio station, which meant I heard everything from pop country and soft rock to heavy metal and rap. But punk rock is one genre that never appealed to me in the least.

That explains why, until I got my latest “redneck” news feed, I had never heard of the band Green Day and its vile 2004 hit, “American Idiot.” The lyrics, too coarse for my linking tastes, hold the average Joe in contempt and decry the “redneck agenda.” Perhaps that’s where Barack Obama got his “bitter” inspiration — well, from there and Jeremiah Wright.

“Punk” is an appropriate descriptor for a band that chose to make its mark by bashing a large swath of the population as “idiots” and “rednecks.”