i've spent years pondering over the left/liberal prescence in the folk music scene. i have been often surprised how anti worjing calss folk groups in north america can be whilst the same people are publically spouting the left/liberal positions. in one in vancouver the leader who used to quote marx chapter and verse always demonzed and hounded almost every working class person and most gaels and celts from their group.

now i ahev got reading cohens book "what's left". and wondering if his idea that those who for decades expected the future to come from the working class, wanted to graft onto it to be part of the future, then as that action shows distain for real working class, they isolated them selves from the real working class. working class people usually know a phoney and move on.

then when the working class don't live up to the ideal, and no revoltion changes the world they are left holding a bag of of idealogy that can only be a bitter reminder. hence they begin real open distain for the working class.

this is mainly an issue with traditional folk groups, not so much the singer so0ngwriters. anagin douglas harkness wrote a book "fake song" discussing the attempt by many to "create " a folk tradition to justify their vision of the folk or volk as the salt of the earth and the bedrock for renewal/ this happened both on the right and left. very little folk collection was free of this substantial editing process. childe once sia dhe went t the west coast of ireland "and found much that was filigree and orniment ,but litle that was music" in the midst of the heartland of gaelic music.

this has had a string ethnic bias in the english speaking world.when i was young the anglo canadian folkies rejected the music of the maritimes as country--the most traditional music in canada.

i remember in vancouver being told i couldn't play maritimes somgs(if you played you got in for free and i hadn't a dime). when i went busking down the street(i though at least folkies would throw some change--and they did) i went back and they were singing the banana boat song.

i was talking to a friend who knew the vancouver scene in the seventies as well. she said they broke her heart. she was from a prarie french community with a living folk tradition and was harshly rejected. the established people , who were all middle class or higher, would show u wearing bib over alls, and disparage the working class people who back then would dress up to try to look respectable. this isn;t ancient hiostory, all these people are still there 9except those who ahev dies) pretending to be left , progressive and the most traditional folk.they still fiddle the playing list to keep the unpopular fom performing and still demonize people.for some it is quite tramatic. and the but of the trouble is almost always franco/gaels or working class. all the time most of their leaders have the best of union oriented and left wing resumes. no9ne of whome have ever laked for a thing in theor lives while watching other struggle.

i have found this same kind of thing in toronto, ad many other places. but i saw it for sevearal decades in vancouver as i was traveling the west in those days.

so is there actualy any real left progressive in folk and is there any real folk?