Conrad:    ". . . at times performers make more of the politics than the music, spouting political manifestos, pep talks, call and response slogans and when just a little music is included then they are doing more of a political rally than a concert."

I've been to one helluva lot of folk concerts since the early 1950s, and I have never attended one where what Conrad describes pertained.

Back in the late 1950s, there was a woman who perpetually wore a red dress and played an accordion who sang only hard-charging extreme left-wing songs and had a tendency to take over hoots and song fests. We just stopped letting her know when and where they were happening and that solved the problem.

There's a street singer in Seattle who's specialty is angry topical songs. The option there, if you aren't interested in what he is bitching about this time, is to keep walking.

I toss in the occasional peace oriented song (Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye, The Green Fields of France, Two Brothers) into my programs, but I've never had any complaints. I figure that if these songs offend anyone, then they need to be offended.

Don Firth