BS: folk and the left

Subject: BS: folk and the left
From: ollaimh
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 12:15 PM

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?

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: GUEST,The Folk Entertainer
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 05:58 PM

Boy, I sure hope not.

I'm having a good time just singing and entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:02 PM

So, what isdefined as the working class today, since it was raised?

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:11 PM

This puzzles me too. In the Marxian sense, does the 'working class' exist in the U. S. or Canada?

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: akenaton
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:12 PM

Folk, or more correctly traditional music should have nothing in common with modern organised politics, either left wing or right wing.

The music is miles above the grubby world of party politics.
Its about human emotion, happiness, sadness, anger, love....and these emotions are common to us all, not just one section of humanity....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:37 PM

Well, besides the age-old question of "what is folk", that we have kind of decided to ignore as unanswerable, you ask a few others, and touch on a couple of very different issues.

First, the question of whether or not one group of self-identified folkies should be allowed to define what is and what is not folk music goes back to "what is folk?". If a group in Vancouver decides that Gallic music of the Maritimes isn't folk and plastic calypso is (to use your example), I suppose that's their loss. Screw'm.   If that's the only game in town, that's too damn bad. Don't try to get in - start another game.

The other issue is a little harder to answer. First, you seem to have subsumed liberal, left and progressive, which is often not really appropriate (depending on your definitions of each, of course).   The sense of your message seems to be that what you are actually referring to is the folk singer/musician who is the next best thing to a doctrinaire Socialist.   There are certainly some of them around - there are more than a few that hang out here. Most seem satisfied if their music can keep certain issues out in front of people, make them think about problems and work toward solutions...and, IMHO, that's is just about what they can hope for. I'm not sure if any rational musician in recent decades really expected his or her singing to lead directly toward a storming of today's Bastille.

I think that plastic folkies will be with us always. I also think that, if someone from a living folk/ethnic tradition lets himself be put down and turned away by a Yuppie with a banjo, a $200,000/year day job, and a copy of Rise Up Singing, they need a self-confidence transfusion.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:39 PM

Which all reminds me of a verse from a song (and I wish I knew the rest):

The working class can kiss my ass,
I've got the foreman's job at last.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 06:39 PM

Define "working class", too, por favor...

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Joe_F
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 08:30 PM

artbrooks: Half a dozen versions may be found, in the Digitrad & Forum, by searching on "working class can kiss my ass". It is a riposte to the British socialist hymn "The Red Flag", and is TTTO "Tannenbaum". An exceptionally silly version, in which the red flag appears to represent the hymen, is in _The Dirty Song Book_ under the title "The Red Flag".

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: artbrooks
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 08:31 PM

Yep - somebody already PM'd me with the words. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Leadfingers
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 08:39 PM

Extremists take Extreme views ! Idiots take Idiotic stances ! Fools act in Foolish ways ! And sadly there ARE Extremists , Idiots AND Fools involved in Folk Music . Just DONT let them take over !

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Nov 09 - 09:40 PM

posture away

i hope you feel better now

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: michaelr
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 01:32 AM

Quite apart from folk music, I think the important question is "are there actually any real left progressives" in today's USA. They're certainly scarce in the Democratic Party.

Why doesn't someone form a Progressive Party? It appears there would be enough support for it to be a valid alternative.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Art Thieme
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 02:03 AM

The damn enemy never was the left.

The enemy was totalitarianism!

When the Soviet Union imploded, the Socialist baby was dumped with the wash water of totalitarianism.

The capitalists with the gods of greed, saw their chance, jumped on the bandwagon and removed Socialism.

The result precipitated the orgy of selfishness and greed that put us into the economic shape we are in now. At the same time, the absolute selfishness rampant today created a situation that will defeat any meaningful health reform in the USA.

The single payer public option never had a chance---and that is what this reform has been about from the start.

"Now is the time for your tears."--Dylan

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 05:00 AM

You can all take a jump - I have a key to the Executive Toilet.

Na na na na na.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 08:17 AM

But Bryn, despite these bribe baubles, your only acess to the necessaries of life is by selling your labour power. Like most people,I guess you are saddled with debts, and are one pay check from penury.
The notion of a middle class is trick to divide the workers.
Unless your income is obtained by appropriating surplus value from the labour of others.....you are working class.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 08:52 AM

How so - so - Marxian. The Labor Theory of Value may have been quite the thing when Adam Smith came up with it in 1776, but economic and class theory theory have come a long way since then.

Subject: RE: BS: folk and the left
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 04 Nov 09 - 12:41 PM

But has it been improved, or just revised in favour of a particular class interest?