Recent geneticists and scientists have found that the DNA for many people of Irish, Scottish and British descent is similar more than not. They are descended from the same phenotypical roots.

Am I wrong that the BNP stands for the British Nazi Party? I've only heard about it
through you people on Mudcat.

Hitler extolled the virtues of Wagner and classical music has been used to further political agendas for many years. Stalin did the same with banning certain composers, Shostakovich's later works for example.

Bluegrass music festivals in the US often find factions that sport the Confederate Battle Flag.

I support Don T's statement from Nov 08 about always encouraging openness in ideas
and not banning music just because it appears as a tool for ugly groups with agendas.

I believe that music transcends partisan differences even when they are explicit.
I think music can be presented in a historical context where you don't always have
to agree with the song you sing. I would sing Unreconstructed Rebel in the context of a balanced Civil War program. I sing many songs that I don't agree with because they have significance as songs for certain people that are not inciting or destructive. I will sing religious songs that I admire although I am a non-believer. I would be the last to denigrate The Saint Matthew's Passion by Bach or other of his brilliant works. I love
African-American gospel and spirituaIs. I l attempt to avoid songs that denigrate racial or cultural groups and this is a process of skating on thin ice. How can you know in advance who you will offend?

If music is being used to foster a destructive political ideology then I think it's up to the
singer to illuminate its use in a program context and explain that.

Some songs because of their heated associations (sometimes unjustly such as the song
"Dixie") I will purposely avoid. Dixie was stolen by the South during the Civil War.
Daniel Emmett, the composer, would have been chagrined that it was used as a theme song for the South during the war as he supported the Northern Union side.

Many songs are distorted in their meaning by fanatical groups with their agendas.

Some of these types of songs can be used to illuminate as was the song
Tomorrow Belongs to Me which made Cabaret a very powerful statement as a musical.
The show highlighted the decadence that spawned Nazism in Germany.

The ThreePenny Opera did the same thing even more powerfully. Brecht and Weill wanted some of those songs to be offensive to "instruct" people about the need for rational views of society in a dramatic and historical context.

I think that a folk song has a value as a statement in itself and not as a propaganda tool.