Bread and Roses is well crafted, inOBU, but I have to agree with the critique above (I don't remember whose) of the second one being in a "false voice," i.e., supposedly from the killer's side, but obviously not.

It strikes me that B&R is very similar to Dylan's The Lonesome Death of Hattie Caroll — which wasn't all that controversial AS A SONG in the politically active '60s — and a lot of songs by Phil Ochs and some other writers. But I think Bert is right — people today just don't want to hear it.

I, for one, am among them. Maybe I'm jaded, after spending 25 years documenting human stupidity and the terrible things they do to each other. It's not that I don't care, but I've certainly given up on hoping that pointing it out to people will help them decide to treat each other better.

When I go out for music, I have a hard time listening to much preaching for anybody's cause — politics, religion, unions, ecology or whatever. I like songs about personal struggle and personal interaction and personal emotions, but not sweeping statements about the ongoing struggles of the Irish, the Romanies, American blacks or Indians or any other group that identifies itself by race or ethnic origin.

Let's face it, — we all have our problems. Every group (read "in-group") has its out-group that it uses to define itself. To my knowledge, the only universal taboo the social antrhopologists have ever been able to identify is that you may not kill a member of the in-group. Men have been killing each other and raping and killing each others' women since time began. It ain't right, but it's not news any more.

If you want to spread an ethnic cause, tell us about how they love each other, or how much they have contributed to society or something else positive about them. Make them living, loving, breathing humans — not just victims of the big THEY. Everybody's a victim of the THEY, so who cares?

I've always said I can accept, tolerate, sometimes even like anybody — red, white, black or brown — until they get in my face and tell me that I don't like them because they are a different color or different religion or whatever.

david