Don- read a few posts above.

Its like a channel.

The call to arms or political message is just one channel of many running through a folk song.

We can turn on and off any channel we wish as we listen to a song.
To focus on the power of the politics is to discount the value of a song's other artistic dimensions as a work of art.

A song is powerful not because of its political message but because of the art of the composition of the lyrics and the fit of those lyrics to a well crafted rousing tune and then there is the performance.

You must also look at songs of solidarity as pieces of a sports game.
There is always a looser. Their songs are still good songs but they get lost and forgotten. Folklorists have then to find them again a very wasteful process.

Just because people hold a grudge or dont agree with the message (which is easy to do as someone somewhere in todays society doesnt like any given thing at any given time) the artworks of great artists suffer.

Not playing a song just because you don't agree with it is sort of like burning the books in the middle ages or cromwell's defacing of beautiful sculptures. It is no different in music.

The way to get yourself around this hang up is to play the songs in an artistic setting rather than a political setting. Describe the song, give its history, talk about the traditions involved in its construction, talk about earlier performances and its importance in history. You don't have to say anything about like or dislike- ask the crowd to determine that for themselves.

Years ago I did a lot of hard work to rescue the songs of the Protestant, unionist, loylist, orange traditions from oblivion.
I encouraged a friend in Belfast to market cds on his web pages.
He was a historian and doubted the value of the effort. A few days after the site was launched he could not believe the market for the musical tradition that no one had access to because some people happened to be on the other side of the issues.

Let the music stand on its own as art. No need to trash anyone's tradition and hard work.

Remember. Some day a side opposite to yours might triumph (not that I want it to) How would you like them to treat the songs you love>?

Do unto others as....

Conrad