Haven't had a chance to check Mudcat for a while---life--and other claims on the computer--get in the way.
"putting words in my mouth". Right. I quoted the poster directly. Sorry she doesn't like her words quoted to her. It's not the first time. All she has to do is think before hitting "send." and I'd have no issue.
But in fact my observation is not petty point-scoring--the defeatism and simplistic approach found in the post in question is symptomatic of a deeper problem on Mudcat below the line.
Of course many here take the "us vs them" approach. That's fine--it's clearly the birthright of every folkie to be a stalwart class warrior, keeping a monopoly on virtue, while of course having no obligation to do any research on a given topic.
See Tom Lehrer: We are the folk song army/ Every one of us cares/ We all hate poverty, war and injustice/ Unlike the rest of you squares.
However, not only do many folkies see themselves as the the champions of the downtrodden, but they also seem to feel that the dice are always stacked against us. The $ystem means we can't win--evil monied interests control the world, no matter who we pick as leaders. Or there's some other amorphous all-powerful villain. If folkies really believed this, they would not even try to work through the political system--which, of course is by definition hopelessly corrupt. Even Obama's election has not put much of a dent in this fashionable despair--or nudged many toward the realization that compromise is essential in getting things done.
And sometimes this attitude is spiced with a pinch of anti-Semitism--which should be anathema to any thinking person--but is not always, it seems.