I believe there's a very healthy & active segement of folk music today still turning out protest songs only maybe a bit harder to root out from some of the other forms of folk music. There aren't the same large scale mass galvinizing banners that we had in the 60's to all rally under but there are songwriters protesting against what things they see as injust. Some may be only pet peeves & others may it may be their own personnal causes but they're still there. I for one am happy that there is no present day Viet Nam to sing or rally against but I still write & sing about the mistreatment of children or the crime of controled & delibrate poverty or the uselessness of prisons when there's no education or the use of drugs in a war that fuels economy. But these are smaller scale injustices that many wouldn't be concerned with when they think of what they may consider injustices more important to their own heart. I think one would be very hard pressed to find protest song writers within the present day under age singer/songwriter who haven't yet had the chance to cut their teeth on a hotbed but like an underground movement they're there making waves & not looking forward to the days that may call on them to sing up a storm. Barry