I am grateful to Joe, Max and Dick for supplying a forum for expressing views and in spite of the brickbats being thrown, offering a chance to clarify ideas which would be difficult to state in other blogs and venues. I see Mudcat as a champion of genuine democracy where citizens can have their say. So often on the media,
you get pundits yelling at each other without any listening skills whatever and those who shout the loudest get heard. Or those who can buy "free speech" as the Supreme Court has ruled, can drown out the voices of dissent.

Here, you can examine statements made by anyone and offer an alternative point of view. That's why I keep coming back. I expect the brickbats but here there is an opportunity to delve into the underlying motivations of those who throw them and address them rationally.

I am one who thinks that there is no separation between one's musical expression and political or philosophical ideas. In this I concur with Pete Seeger, Steve Earle,
Woody Guthrie, Beethoven, Chopin, Louis Armstrong and other leading influential musicians.

I deplore the censorship of "Pussy Riot" in Russia by Putin although I might question their ideas. They don't deserve what Putin gave them the same way Victor Jara didn't deserve the torture he received at the hands of the Chilean government eventually overtaken by Noriega.

Mudcat offers a forum which is invaluable and connects humanitarian ideals
to music.