Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 01 Aug 09 - 03:23 AM

"There are those like the BNP or some factions of the bluegrass scene who use the music to furthur their political and ethnic prejudices."

I'm not taking sides here, but isn't that exactly what the Left did?

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 11:45 PM

I want to know when I am am going to be able to buy a book that pulls together and fills out all these little bits and pieces that you have passed on to us over the years, Frank. I will buy it in hardcover, and pay the full cover price, and I may even buy a box of them to give out.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 11:28 PM

Actually, Peter, it was a folkie who told me I couldn't play Forked Deer in that key. He didn't even like the way I pronounced it Fork-ed Deer. :-)

As for folkies, we're all subject to getting a little uppity. A folk singer I knew said to me in a conversation, "I only sing universal songs." Well, aren't we precious.

And Frank, you're absolutely right on several points. Yes, I think it was the Democrats, left-wingers, working class folks, whatever you want to call them that kept folk music alive and we are deeply indebted to you and many others.

I was using the term "protest song" in the way it was commonly used in the 60's, strongly influenced by Dylan, Ochs and others. You're also right, Frank, that a good song can be many things to many people. An example: I've loved and played Penny's Farm since the early sixties. I grew up in farm country and though I didn't live on a farm, most of my Uncles had small farms. I knew how hard the work was. One thing you never did in high school was pick a fight with a farm kid. He'd throw you across the room like you were a bale of hay.
I sang the song because it's a great song, and I still love to sing it. Last night I watched Grapes of Wrath. It's one of the greatest movies of all times in my eyes. You can respect it as a great piece of art, or a protest movie, just as I Was a Fugitive From A Chain Gang was a great movie that caused widespread reform in the prison system. But back to Penny's Farm. Like many of the folk songs I sing, in the right setting they could function as a protest song. Singing Penny's Farm to a room full of tourists come down to see the hippies in Greenwich Village is world's away from singing it at a saturday night barn dance for tenant farmers. My oldest sister loves Penny's Farm more than any other song I do, and tried to learn how to play banjo with a banjo I left back home, using the Pete Seeger instruction book (good luck with that...) My sister who loves Frank Sinatra and Mel Torme, singing Penny's Farm...goes to show what a great song does to people. It can be a rallying cry, or just a terrific song for a big band era bobby sox crooner fan.

The common thread is that it's a great song. Use it as you wish.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Midchuck
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 10:18 PM

I've had similar experiences with the bluegrass community. But are you suggesting Folkies Would Never Do Anything Like That? Or am I misreading you yet again?

Surely you've been told at some point that you were singing the Wrong lyrics to a song, because they weren't the ones printed in Rise Up Never-To-Be-Sufficiently-Damned Singing?

Peter.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 09:52 PM

Wonderful post, Frank:

The problem with us and them is that you're an "us" to the people you identify with and a "them" to those you don't. When you can find some commonality between the "us"s and the "thems", that's when you have "we"s.

I must admit that I've found the bluegrass community about as closed as you can get. Talk about "us"s. Of course, there are exceptions. I smile, thinking of a time back when I was playing fiddle (and not particularly well.) I was playing Forked Deer and someone got very upset. It wasn't that I was butchering the tune. I no longer remember what key I was playing in because it's been close to forty years ago, but I was playing in the key I could play the tune in. Someone came up to me and said, "Why are you playing that tune in D? NOBODY plays it in D!" "I do," I said. Without realizing it, Rigor Mortis had set in.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: GUEST,stringsinger
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 09:09 PM

Hi Jerry,

"Given a choice, would you rather be one of "us," or one of "them?"

Us and Them is a huge problem. It starts wars.

" It can be being a Christian, being a Liberal (which is code for Democrat, as we all know Republicans can never have a liberal thought in their head."

Liberal no longer means Democratic Party any more. Too many
conservatives are now there.


"I find all of this extremely stifling."

Yes. It can be. That's why it's very important to understand what
each individual means by these classifications.


" Just when did folk music become the property of Democrats?"

Historically, what we know of the folk music revival in the US came from the American Left. The Right was not interested with a small exception of some folk music organizations in the Southern US. These small groups did nothing to furthur the folk music revival. That came from Lefties (at the time) such as Burl Ives, Pete Seeger, Kenneth Goldstein, Alan Lomax, Carl Sandburg, People's Songs, Leonard Berstein, Woody Guthrie, The Almanac Singers, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy, Josh White, Richard Dyer Bennet, Tom Glazer, The Weavers, Cisco Houston, Sing Out! magazine, People's Artists, Paul Robeson and the list could go on.

"For the brief moment that folk music had national popularity in the fifties and sixties, it was folk music, not Democrat music."

It would not have happened had it not been for the American Left.
They did the spadework. The CPUSA under Earl Browder emphasized the idealization of the American Worker and the songs were encouraged as a symbol of their "struggle".

" But if you look at the body of folk music, only a small percentage of it is political."

I don't know. It depends on how you define political. But many songs are not part of the American Left historically. Any song can be made to fit into a political or propagandistic framework. Many traditional songs were rewritten for this purpose. Woody, Pete, Lee Hays and Almanacs did this intentionally.

"Many years ago when I was running a folk concert series I noticed when I booked a bluegrass group, I got a completely different audience. At the end of a bluegrass concert, I asked the audience to tell to me on the way out why they never came to the folk concerts. "The most common complaint I received was, 'I don't want to sit around all evening listening to someone complain.'"

The bluegrass style is relatively new and an outgrowth of stringband music from the 20's and the 30's. It has become watered down with
trite lyrics and many Right Wing Southerners with a political agenda which involves alienating African-American people from their concerts and participation in their music. If a musician of the stature of Taj Mahal or any good jazz musician would become interested in bluegrass, they could contribute so much to the development of bluegrass. You have to ask yourself why more black people aren't interested in bluegrass. It's a revealing question.

"I protested strongly that folk music is not primarily protest music, but to no avail."

It depends how you define protest. The Dylan genre became commericalized quite easily. Blues, plaints from Appalachia,
early 20's country music, even earlier from the Fifteenth century which gave us "Die Gedanken Sind Frei" were protest songs of a sort.
Chain gang songs protested their conditions. Uncle Dave commented on the coal miner's strikes. It's hard to generalize about this.

"Like most perceptions about the difference between "us" and "them," "Them" was stereotyped in the most negative, simplistic way."

This has always been true. It's called propaganda.


"The minute you define yourself as not being someone else, you get intellectually lazy. So, do you want to be an intellectual, or a non-intellectual."

Today in the US there is an anti-intellectual disease afoot. Somehow, being intellectual is derogated by ignorance propated by
major media propaganda. Public Education is a casualty of this attitude. W was the symbol.



"There's a much better choice than "us" or "them." It's called "we."
This country has gotten into the mess we have in large part because
"us" and them" has become "us" versus "them.'"

This is true. Unfortunately there are those in government and in the corporate private sector that use divisiveness toward their own ends.

"I bet Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a Republican. He was a lawyer, for God's sake! The only work he ever did with his hands was sticking them in someone else's pockets."

Bascom was a bigot. Probably a racist. He was rude and uncharitable
to "outsiders". (This is my personal experience). He was to the Right of Attilla the Hun. He was snide and mean to those he didn't trust. He was the antithesis of Southern Hospitality. He was also a great folk singer.


"What do you think?"

I think your thesis is correct. Folk music should rightfully be a vehicle for bringing people together in harmony. There are tribal divisions in folk music and the "us" and "them" are exacerbated by
those who have a "dog in that hunt". There are those who want folk music to be their private little sinecure and exclude "outsiders".
There are those like the BNP or some factions of the bluegrass scene who use the music to furthur their political and ethnic prejudices.
Then there are folk snobs. (Oh yes there are!)

Music ideally is the language of healing as Tommy Sands says so beautifully in his song. There are those who have been at the forefront of this ideal such as Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Judy Collins and others who are lesser known. I think Jerry that this is what has connected us to folk music, that it is the music of the human condition, that we can accept emotionally, psychologically and in other ways. It's about people and those who really get it have a reverence for human life.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 07:30 PM

but what if God was one of Us?

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 06:44 PM

If someone who backs the Democratic Oarty is cirrectly called a Democrat, why isn't someone who backs the Republican Party a Republic?

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: EBarnacle
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 06:16 PM

pdq, he used the word in the context as "the Democrat Party." If you read his initial post, he made no discrimination between Democrat and democratic, independent of part of speech.

What I was objecting to is that too many people, use the shortened version, Democrat, for both the person and the party. Yes, x is a Democrat is correct. No, x votes Democrat is not. They are different parts of speech.

There was book a couple of years ago in which the person who, as a hired gun for the Republican party explained how he created language, both subtle and in yer face, in order to strengthen wedge issues. This is a subtler version of the same thing.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 05:11 PM

The thing about the Mudcat so far as I am concerned is that it is a collection of people drawn together by a love of folk music of one sort or another. That's the "us" and the "we" that defines it, and defines us, I hope.

Of course we disagree about lots of things - both above and below the line. That's the fun of it, you can have an argument with someone here in the knowledge that you've got a lot in common about something that matters to all of us.

I get a bit irritated sometimes about Mudcatters who just seem to be here for the non-music styiff, and don't give any indication of havong any interest in music or song or folklore. But when it comes to disagreeing with people, that's a big part of what other people are for. If we only got along with the people whose political views we share I suspect that most of us wouldn't get along with too many people.

It seems there may be a significant difference here on the two sides of the Atlantic atv present. Over here we generally don't have the real battle-line between adheets or quasi-adhewrents of the main parties (more inside them, actually, most of the time). That's aside from the British Nazi Party on the fringe, which is something else, and serves to unite the rest of us in contempt.

Maybe the problem is that something akin to the extremisam and basic nastiness that characterises the BNP seems to have infiltrated one of your main parties in the States, and this has managed to sour the tone for the arguments.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 03:18 PM

Political songs have been with us for a long time - someone mentioned Lilibulero - the song that in 1689 was said to "have sung a king (James II) out of three kingdoms" - probably the most influential song ever composed.
Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (Scottish patriot and anti-Unionist - 1655-1716) had it right when he said in 1704:
"If a man were permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws of a nation".
In my experience the only political songs people really object to are the ones they disagree with.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 02:07 PM

What hath I wrought? Here I am trying to get beyond us and them, and I've spawned lawyer jokes?

rrrrrippppp ... the sound of me ending my garments.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: PoppaGator
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 01:14 PM

Back to lawyers and lawyer jokes:

A few years back, when the big new aquarium on the New Orleans rverfront was newly opbrand-newen, then-Mayor Sidney Barthelemy slipped and almost fell into the shark tank during some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony.

When asked if he had been frightened, Hizzoner replied, "Not at all; I'm a lawyer, so I knew the sharks would extend me professional courtesy."

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 09:42 AM

People gathering together into ethnic communities has been going on since the discovery of America. Discrimination and prejudice as much as common interests have kept enclaves of ethnic and racial communities together, although if anything I've seen a major breakdown of that process. When I was growing up in southern Wisconsin, no black person would have dared to shop in any of the stores. It wasn't until I was in senior high school before there was a rumor that a black person was living in Janesville. Trying to spot them was looking for Bigfoot. If the rumor was true, I didn't know anyone who'd actually seen a black person in town, even passing through.

The first time my wife Ruth and I went to visit my family, I did it with complete confidence. We had the double whammy of Ruth being black and our being an inter-racial couple. In the 50's we might have been tarred and feather. Our visits there have been completely uneventful and we've been welcomed everywhere. Better than that, we haven't been treated any differently than if we were a white couple.

This here computer has brought people of common interest together into communities (like Mudcat) far more than geography does. When Ruth and I chose where we wanted to retire, we didn't look for a community where folk music was alive, or Jazz, or Pittsburgh Pirate fans. We both have always enjoyed diversity. For me, it's the same with music. I went to the first Woodstock, and when I was living in New York City I hung out big time in Greenwich Village, but I didn't just listen to folk music. I went to the Village Gate and the Blue Note to hear jazz, and occasionally enjoyed opera (very occasionally) and classical music (more frequently.) Each type of music draws its own crowd, as you'd expect. I never felt like I was a part of the group. I was just a friendly visitor who enjoyed the music (whatever it was) and the people I met. Common interests are fine. That's why I'm in here. And why I'm a member of blackgospel.com, faithwriters, and Blindman'sblues forum. It's a pleasure sharing a common love. I just start to have a problem with it when that common interest is looked upon as superior to other forms of music, worship or ways of living.

Different strokes for different folks.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: cetmst
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 09:35 AM

For many years I kept in my desk drawer a memorandum, "There are more of them than there are of us." I suppose if people put me in a pigeon hole it would be labeled "Affluent, male, WASP physician," but there are some fuzzy borders on that definition. A genealogically minded kinsman has raised the question of some Indian, excuse me, Native American, branches on the family tree. Lineage is primarily from the British Isles but there is at least a
quarter German.
Affluence is being eroded recently but there are more in poverty than those living comfortably. There are more women than men. There are more non-whites than whites though those differences are becoming more and more artificial. There are probably more Catholics world-wide than Protestants and certainly more Muslims.
There are more patients than physicians can adequately care for and more with illnesses or ailments than those in good health, whatever that is. However we categorize ourselves we are in a minority and the trick is to try to find ways to live harmoniously.
In addition there is a moral imperative (what are its origins?) to
improve human conditions. One of the most powerful tools along with other arts and sciences is music. There is a large literature on the influemce of music on health and on religion and a growing literature on the use of music, and especially folk music and topical song-writing, on social and political issues. You folks who have the talent for this, keep on.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Howard Jones
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 06:39 AM

I don't mind songs, and singers, expressing political views - that's part of the function of folk song, and always has been. I find it tedious when singers assume that everyone in the audience shares those views. I find it objectionable when people refuse to allow that alternative views may be perfectly valid and try to stop others singing about them.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: glueman
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 03:02 AM

Brits find the American's fondness for politics and politicians charming if naive. Most people over here think there isn't a spoon long enough to sup with any of the devils whatever party mask thy wear.
Knowing what's best for everyone else would be a pathological condition with a range of medication and enforced confinement if it didn't come with a smiley face and shiny shoes.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Paul Burke
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 01:58 AM

The fact is, of course, that everybody is different. Except for me.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: M.Ted
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 12:03 AM

If that's what the book is really about (and book reviewers have been known miss the point) a silly theory--even if people did move into communities where they felt like people agreed with them, either politically, religiously, or on the basis of lifestyle, the one truism of life is that, the more you get to know people, the more differences you find--

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Mike in Brunswick
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 11:41 PM

There's a book by Bill Bishop called The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like Minded Americans is Tearing Us Apart. I haven't read it, but from the following reviews - taken from the Amazon.com site - it seems to be relevant to this thread. Nothing about folk music, though, as far as I know.

Mike

From Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize–finalist Bishop offers a one-idea grab bag with a thesis more provocative than its elaboration. Bishop contends that as Americans have moved over the past three decades, they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics. There are endless variations of this clustering—what Bishop dubs the Big Sort—as like-minded Americans self-segregate in states, cities—even neighborhoods. Consequences of the Big Sort are dire: balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible; a growing intolerance for political differences that has made national consensus impossible; and politics so polarized that Congress is stymied and elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter choices between ways of life. Bishop's argument is meticulously researched—surveys and polls proliferate—and his reach is broad. He splices statistics with snippets of sociological theory and case studies of specific towns to illustrate that while the Big Sort enervates government, it has been a boon to advertisers and churches, to anyone catering to and targeting taste. Bishop's portrait of our post materialistic society will probably generate chatter; the idea is catchy, but demonstrating that like does attract like becomes an exercise in redundancy.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* How did zip codes become as useful to political activists as to mail carriers? In the relatively new cultural dynamics of political segregation, Bishop discerns a troubling transformation of American life. Complex and surprising, the story of that transformation will confound readers who suppose that recent decades have made American society both more diverse and more tolerant. Pinpointing 1965 as the year when events in Vietnam, Washington, and Watts delivered body blows to traditional social institutions, Bishop recounts how Americans who had severed ties to community, faith, and family forged new affiliations based on lifestyle preferences. The resulting social realignment has segmented the nation into groupthink communities, fostering political smugness and polarization. The much-noted cartography of Red and Blue states, as Bishop shows, actually distorts the reality of a deeply Blue archipelago of urban islands surrounded by a starkly Red rural sea. Bishop worries about the future of democratic discourse as more and more Americans live, work, and worship surrounded by people who echo their own views. A raft of social-science research underscores the growing difficulty of bipartisan compromise in a balkanized country where politicians win office by satisfying their most radical constituents. A book posing hard questions for readers across the political spectrum.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 11:18 PM

Jerry:

With all due respect to Midchuck, do NOT try being married to him. It would be a lot more trouble than it would be worth, methinks...


;>)


A

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:56 PM

Yeah, well, I overreacted. I do that. Try being married to me for 42 years. It has been done.

But I do wonder why some minority groups are ok to pick on when the rest aren't.

I suppose it could be worse. I could be a blonde lady lawyer who plays banjo.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:24 PM

There is a kernal of truth in every lie, Amos. That's why they are so insidious. I just don't like judgmental statements about groups of people. So much for tongue in cheek. More like foot in mouth.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:19 PM

Wal, I have found exceptions to the same generality, Jerry; but I have also met many of the prototypes for the paradigm, so to speak, those who embody the worst characteristics.   Of course partly it is an occupational hazard, just as seeing a lot of criminal life makes a cop grow hard, in many cases. The ones who are the exception are saints, IMHO, but it can be fairly said as Peter does, that the bad apples spoil the reputation of the barrel. So don't beat yourself up.

Blonde jokes, now, are an entirely different thing, for which there is NO excuse.


A

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:09 PM

And Midchuck, be aware that you are very highly regarded around here.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 09:45 PM

I wanted to offer an apology here. I gave the offensive example of bigoted statements about Good Old Bascom Lamar and the legal profession to make a point... generalities about people are stupid. I though I stated that clearly, but apparently I didn't. I've apologized by PM to a member who was offended, and I extend this apology to anyone else I might have insulted. Here's what I wrote:

"It seems that I have expressed myself poorly. I thought that I made it clear that I thought the statement was stupid... the kind of thing that I've heard people say about lawyers. "Sounds stupid. And it is." I hate generalities about groups. Any groups. Please accept my apology if I have offended you. I worked for many years with the Board of Directors at the Stamford Museum, in Connecticut. My most beloved friend on the board who I admired like few people I've ever met was a lawyer. I could never be half the man he is.

I'm sorry if I've hurt anyone's feelings. The statment about lawyers is the kind of thing I've heard people say and I find it repulsive.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 08:34 PM

My brother in law, who I love dearly, is a lawyer. He would broadly agree with Jerry's tongue-in-cheek assessment.

Oh, so would I. The trouble with the legal profession is that the crooked ones ruin it for the other ten per cent of us. But it's like a white man using the "N" word as opposed to a black man using it....

Peter

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 08:07 PM

My brother in law, who I love dearly, is a lawyer. He would broadly agree with Jerry's tongue-in-cheek assessment. Stand up now, you diggers all!

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Maryrrf
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 08:04 PM

I agree with PoppaGator.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Midchuck
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 07:44 PM

He was a lawyer, for God's sake! The only work he ever did with his hands was sticking them in someone else's pockets.

Okay, Jerry. You have chosen to make a categorical statement about all lawyers, even the ones who are folk musicians as well, like me and 'ol Bascom.

Well, you've just lost a former admirer.

I hope you're proud.

Peter.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 07:17 PM

One honest concern of most Republicans which on some level I share is that government can't do everything. I'm glad that the Republicans are trying to slow down the speed and scale of some of the things that Obama is trying to do. I wept tears of joy when Obama was elected and I agree full-heartedly in principal with all he is trying to do. That said, I think brakes are a good thing. Without them, we'd be crashing into lamp posts or swerving off the road. I'm not sure I want the Democrats (being a lifetime one, myself) careening forward with no one to try to slow things down a little. I mention this only because I think it's unjust to say that those who support Republican policies are doing so only out of self-interest, or that they are brainwashed. Wasn't that John Kerry?

My father never voted Republican and was very proud of that. I told him that he, like most people, end up voting their pocket book. If he'd suddenly inherited a million dollars, I think he'd have become an instant Republican. :-)

None of this has anything to do with music.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 06:29 PM

Nice post, PG. I think I share your arrogance!

Paul, you got me bang to rights...

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 06:19 PM

I sincerely believe that the people who actually benefit from right-wing ideology are very few and far between, and that the large numbers of people who support rightist causes are actually acting against their self-interest, but unfortunately are pitiable victims of lavishly-financed corporate brainwashing.

This means that I love my fellow-man, for the most part, but also that I'm condescending, even arrogant. So be it.

That's why I keep my opinions under my hat in most situations. The loudmouth rabblerouser you know here at Mudcat is actually pretty meek and quiet in most areas of the public arena.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Acorn4
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 06:00 PM

If only people would think for themselves and do as I say!

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: M.Ted
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 05:15 PM

Spleen Cringe got what I meant, Maryrrf--but I'll say it again in another way--different genres of music are often strongly associated with certain minority ethnic/religious/social communities, and, while it is now "politically incorrect" to express contempt for the minority group directly, people can do the same thing in a veiled way, by expressing contempt for their music.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:43 PM

I find right-wing songs offensive, I find right-on songs (usually) embarrassing. But traditional folk is a bit like religion- people take out of it what they bring into it. So I'll certainly put a leftish spin on songs that I do sing if I want, and expect others to do the same. Sometimes people with politoics different from mine bring up valid points (in song or otherwise)- and that's to be addressed, and mulled over, and a better point made (in otherwise or song), I don't just call them a Cameron. But some people - people- Al Q, BNP, Scientologits, ETA et al- there's no arguing with them in any way, so I don't. And playing bluegrass, or Irish, or Swedish tunes, who's to know what you think?

Nigel as usual has the British left-ish view well put.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Art Thieme
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:42 PM

Hi, Jerry,
I've heard that John Wayne Gacey put on a real fine clown show for the kids. But hindsight (no pun in-ten-did) is always twenty-twenty. Still, if I was the guy controlling the electricity to ol' John's chair, I would gladly say (and I paraphrase George Burns): "Say goodnight, Gacey!!!"

Art Thieme ;-)

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:35 PM

Good post, John. I too don't want to have anything to do with folks what try to turn one group of people against another for personal profit. There are a LOT of folks I don't want to be around. I don't want my presence to give the impression that I accept what they are doing. I marched in anti-Vietnam War parades and wrote protest songs against the war, and would do it again if I felt strongly moved to protest the country's actions. I see folk music as much more small "d" democratic. Music can be a powerful force for change, or just enjoyed because it is entertaining. I can understand the resentment if a political party usurps a song to give a message that was never intended.

It was his old blue chip
The stock he used to love

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: John P
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:19 PM

It looks to me like there are two different questions here. Are we all people? and Are folk musicians generally left-wingers? I don't really see the connection between the two.

On the Us/Them question: It is really too complicated to sum up in a sentence. Yes, we are all people, with many, many common concerns. In that way, there is no us and them. When you start talking politics, however, there are definitely us and them. People who start wars, discriminate against gay folks, deregulate business to the point where they are allowed to ruin our lives and our environment, or insist that everyone around them conform to their religious ideas are definitely "them" to me. I don't see any reason why I should lump myself together with folks who are violent, unethical, greedy, and want to tell me how to live my life. My general response to them is "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

When it comes to music, if they aren't trying to tell me what or how to play, I'll sit and jam with anyone and have a great time doing so. People who mix politics in with their music are being political, not musical. Or at least the politics are more important than the music. There have been lots of political songs written from both the left and the right, and I usually don't like any of them.

If the idea of this thread is that folkies are mostly left wingers, Democrats, liberals, or whatever, I don't care. That's a gross generalization, and only applies to people who think the political message of their song is more important than the musical nature of the song.

As for whether or not right wingers are welcome at Mudcat, why shouldn't they be? If we're talking about music, their politics don't matter. If we're on a political thread below the line, of course there will be arguments. But I don't see that having anything to do with making or talking about music.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:19 PM

I think it must be the 401Ks, Poppa--Makes 'em feel they're riding the same wagon as the Wall Street crowd, even if they are just pushing carbon copies in a nuts and bolts warehouse...

A

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:17 PM

...and whether, ahem!, back when they were young, they could get down home with a secret life of a handful of songs...

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:12 PM

You got that right, Spleen.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasi
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:10 PM

The true test of how good a singer they are is how good a singer they are.

The politics are something else...

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:07 PM

Excellent post, Poppagator. Are liberal Republicans to the right or left of conservative Democrats? I'm getting confused. You're right, Poppagator. Not all Democrats are liberal. Most people aren't liberal or conservative on every issue. I'm not. I try to deal with issues on an individual basis, not worrying about labels.

The true test is how good a singer they are.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:00 PM

I'm offended ~ just slightly ~ to be categorized as a "Democrat." I'm much farther left that that! Now, I do vote regularly, usually viewing the matter as a choice between the lesser of two evils, and until a decade or so ago, I sometimes found Republican candidates who I was able to support. None recently, though ~ in fact none since about 1980...

Does anyone rememeber Phil Ochs? And his song "Love me, love me, love me, I'm a Liberal"? Back then, if "liberal" was a dirty word to anyone, it was to the young "New Left," who viewed the established Democratic-party professional liberals as accomodationists, as too far right. I'm thinking of Democrats like LBJ and Robert McNamara...

Now, the word "liberal" has been transformed into a dirty word denoting folks who are too far left on the political spectrum.

I have to second the thoughts expressed above by Spleen Cringe and Azizi. I would love to feel brotherhood with one and all, and on one level, a very far-removed spiritual level, I do. I'm just tremendously saddened that so very many people have been convinced to believe that just because they work in an office and not a coal mine, that they're not exploited workers, and that they somehow have more in common with the 2% of the population who are fattening themselves at everyone else's expense than with other hurting working folks. They allow themselves to be persuaded that they themselves are somehow "better" than the scapegoated minority populations a rung or two below them, when they themselves are not that far from the bottom of the ladder.

With the current hugely-financed propaganda push against a humane healthcare system, we're hearing more and more of the old argument that the reason that you and I are hurting financially is because the poor people are getting all the money! What a load of hogwash! This kind of thinking could never exist in a heterogeneous society like Japan, where virtually everyone is of the same ethnicity. Only in an diverse and open society like the US could such an opinion take hold, that groups even less privileged than oneself's could be blamed for the obscene and ever-increasing impoverishment of the vast middle-class majority.

In current-day America, it's Blacks, Latinos and gays. Not long ago, it was Jews in Germany and Catholics in occupied Ireland. I truly want to belive in the universal Brotherhood of Man, but it's difficult to do so when so many of my would-be brothers and sisters allow themselves to be persuaded to bear such irrational hatred against certain designated groups of others.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:55 PM

Lol, Azizi. One of my favorite lines was from the tenor in my quartet, who is black. He said he couldn't tell one white person from another because they all look the same to him... a spin on the reverse.

Actually all of this has to do with the "us" and "them" question, musically or otherwise.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:51 PM

My Grandfather Rasmussen was a staunch Republican. He worked for a sand and gravel company, doing manual labor. But then, he was a Chicago Cubs fan, too. He was definitely working class. One of my Mudcat buddies on here is a Republican and he's a dentist. I wouldn't even bother to defend him. He's a fine, caring man who loves folk music and dislikes big government. I'd consider him working class, too. He gets up every morning and heads off to work. He doesn't dig for coal. He digs for cavities.

Jerry

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Azizi
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:49 PM

And some of my best friends are White people.*

:o)

* I know that has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. But it is a play on the "some of my best friends" saying.

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:42 PM

Some of my best friends are liberals. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: Us and Them: folk music and political persuasion
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 03:41 PM

Of course I'm not, Azizi. I'm also not saying that I'd knowingly go to hear a musician who was a child molester. I was very specific in saying that I don't need to know whether they are a member of the Democratic or Republican party, not whether they are Nazi's or Fascists.

Jerry