Interesting and extrordinarilly civil thread. I believe one reason that the U.S. tends toward classing "folk music" with the downtrodden, have-not,hostile-to-establishment types is the chilling effect of McCarthyism, which keeps cropping up like Sauron. When writers, actors, and singers can be barred from making a fair living because of political views (even those they had in their youth), songs can become the only voice of the voiceless ones. Anger, both inner-and outer-directed, gets in the way of reasonable discourse. (And of course, long ago it was the lord who hired the minstrel, and told him when to go away.)