Hello, gillymor, Dan, and others. At first I didn't feel the responses warranted further conversation, but I'll chime in here and leave it be at that.

"I hope that research into this piece of crap is not being federally funded" - not to worry, it is not funded at all, federally or otherwise. It is simply an interest of mine which I write about in my free time. I'm not a musicologist or historian, or hell, even a musician, but they are all subjects I am interested in.

"I think you mean the impact of Lost Cause bullshit, Jim Crow, and white supremacy on bluegrass music, do you not?" -- you are indeed correct; the bulk of my study has been about the interpretation of the Civil War within the framework of the bluegrass genre, but that just doesn't quite slide off the tongue the same way. To give you the cliffs notes, though, the general idea is that before the folk boom of the 1960s, bluegrass songs which referenced the Civil War at all were pretty ambiguous as to which side they were supporting or sung from (though there was some bias towards the South thanks to the Tin Pan Alley days) and largely emphasized the loss of life, family, and land, which were all common themes in bluegrass/proto bluegrass genres regardless. This changed in the 60s, when the folk movement encouraged a resurgence of historical material (and thus a delve deeper into the shadows of "acceptable" folk material in search for new/unique songs) and the creation of fake folk-styled ballads around a historical theme. (In fact, Reno & Smiley's album, from which this song is taken, was one of the first such albums, alongside Jimmy Driftwood's Civil War album of the same year). Since this coincided with both the centennial of the Civil War and the emergence of Southernization. From the late 60s-mid 80s, bluegrass took an increasingly Lost Cause / pro South approach to the war. Since the 80s, this trend has died at a rapid rate from the mainstream, with a concurrent increased focus back towards Reconciliationist approaches (both sides suffered; what we saw before the 60s) and even an emancipationist approach.

This is, aside from "Those Cruel Slavery Days" by Fields Ward/The New Ballards Branch Bogtrotters, and very very vaguely, Jimmy Driftwood's "My Blackbird Is Gone", the only song which touches on the slavery aspect of the Civil War -- something I think we can all agree was the key contributor to the precipitation of war. Otherwise, most pre-1990s bluegrass music fails to mention slavery even in passing, and instead glorifies the South. Naturally, the blatant Lost Cause / "Happy Slave" myths it perpetuates fit pretty well into the bluegrass genre of the time, which produced songs like "Poor Rebel Soldier" by Flatt and Scruggs (a Confederate soldier won his fight and defects from the army because "there ain't no women in this Yankee land" and the even more blatant "Rebel Soldier (Your Memory Will Never Die" by Charlie Moore, but it expresses a different idea.

"Any songs from The Protocols Of The Elders of Zion that can be posted here?" -- clearly a loaded question, but so long as the songs are posted and discussed with education at the heart of their intent. I think I've been pretty up-front about my disagreement with the content of the song, and I doubt any reader would be swayed one way or the other simply from reading what has already been decried as a "poorly-worded and indecipherable" song.