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This land is WHOSE land?

DigiTrad:
THIS LAND AIN'T YOUR LAND
THIS LAND IS THEIR LAND
THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND


Related threads:
This Land, in Yiddish (11)
Lyr Req: Canadian ver. of This Land is Your Land (11)
Lady Gaga channels Woody Guthrie 2017 SuperBowl (13)
This Land is Your Land - public domain (19)
(origins) Origins: 'This Land is Your Land' great video! (1)
Lyr Req: This Land is Your Land (parody) (24) (closed)
Add: Supercanadian 'This Land is Your Land' (22)
This Land Is Your Land (first recording?) (13)
(origins) Lyr Req: This Land (Canadian version) (77)
This Land is Your Land (UK version) (6)
Happy Birthday 'This Land Is Your Land' (1)
This Land is Your Land: Variations (17)
Lyr Req: This Land Is Your Land (Irish version) (6)
Req: New Parody for This Land is Your Land... (9)
This Land is Your Land: Bush & Kerry (54)
Chord Req: this land is my land this land is your (3)
What Does Arlo Think? (11)
'This Land' Wales and where else? (6)
Canadian (?) song wanted : folk/trad.(This Land) (16)
(origins) Origins: This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie) (36)
Help: 'This land is your land' Film Reference (2)
Lyr Req: This land is my land...(answered^^^) (6) (closed)
Lyr Req: New WTO verses:This Land Is Your Lan (13)
Lyr Req: this land is my land? (Woody Guthrie) (9)
This land of ours (3) (closed)


London OldMan 15 Jul 20 - 09:43 AM
GUEST,akenaton 15 Jul 20 - 09:50 AM
London OldMan 15 Jul 20 - 09:55 AM
Mrrzy 15 Jul 20 - 09:58 AM
Jeri 15 Jul 20 - 10:07 AM
GUEST,akenaton 15 Jul 20 - 10:11 AM
London OldMan 15 Jul 20 - 10:23 AM
Stilly River Sage 15 Jul 20 - 10:23 AM
DonMeixner 15 Jul 20 - 10:44 AM
London OldMan 15 Jul 20 - 10:48 AM
GUEST,Observer 15 Jul 20 - 11:14 AM
GUEST,cnd 15 Jul 20 - 11:24 AM
GUEST,Derriick 15 Jul 20 - 11:35 AM
GUEST 15 Jul 20 - 11:48 AM
Jeri 15 Jul 20 - 11:53 AM
GUEST,akenaton 15 Jul 20 - 12:57 PM
DonMeixner 15 Jul 20 - 01:32 PM
Richard Mellish 15 Jul 20 - 03:18 PM
GUEST,akenaton 15 Jul 20 - 03:48 PM
Susan of DT 15 Jul 20 - 04:05 PM
punkfolkrocker 15 Jul 20 - 04:07 PM
Joe Offer 15 Jul 20 - 05:13 PM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 15 Jul 20 - 07:14 PM
GUEST,Gerry 15 Jul 20 - 11:32 PM
punkfolkrocker 16 Jul 20 - 12:23 AM
London OldMan 16 Jul 20 - 04:45 AM
London OldMan 16 Jul 20 - 05:00 AM
Bonzo3legs 16 Jul 20 - 07:01 AM
gillymor 16 Jul 20 - 07:18 AM
Raedwulf 16 Jul 20 - 08:03 AM
Lighter 16 Jul 20 - 08:10 AM
Bonzo3legs 16 Jul 20 - 08:11 AM
Raedwulf 16 Jul 20 - 08:19 AM
punkfolkrocker 16 Jul 20 - 09:05 AM
Raedwulf 16 Jul 20 - 01:06 PM
Mrrzy 16 Jul 20 - 07:00 PM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 16 Jul 20 - 08:43 PM
mg 16 Jul 20 - 10:29 PM
GUEST,Gerry 17 Jul 20 - 02:33 AM
Joe Offer 17 Jul 20 - 02:54 AM
GUEST,akenaton 17 Jul 20 - 03:02 AM
Raedwulf 17 Jul 20 - 05:13 AM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 17 Jul 20 - 05:17 AM
GUEST,Gerry 17 Jul 20 - 05:41 AM
GUEST,Gerry 17 Jul 20 - 05:44 AM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 17 Jul 20 - 07:20 AM
Raedwulf 17 Jul 20 - 07:54 AM
Mrrzy 17 Jul 20 - 09:11 AM
Bonzo3legs 17 Jul 20 - 11:47 AM
GUEST,akenaton 17 Jul 20 - 12:43 PM
DonMeixner 17 Jul 20 - 01:04 PM
punkfolkrocker 17 Jul 20 - 01:10 PM
StephenH 17 Jul 20 - 02:11 PM
Joe Offer 17 Jul 20 - 04:26 PM
GUEST,akenaton 17 Jul 20 - 05:15 PM
Jeri 17 Jul 20 - 05:22 PM
GUEST,Gerry 17 Jul 20 - 10:47 PM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 17 Jul 20 - 11:50 PM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 17 Jul 20 - 11:52 PM
GUEST,akenaton 18 Jul 20 - 03:44 AM
Joe Offer 18 Jul 20 - 04:11 AM
London OldMan 18 Jul 20 - 05:02 AM
GUEST,Observer 18 Jul 20 - 06:23 AM
Bonzo3legs 18 Jul 20 - 06:59 AM
GUEST,akenaton 18 Jul 20 - 07:48 AM
GUEST,akenaton 18 Jul 20 - 07:55 AM
Mrrzy 18 Jul 20 - 08:20 AM
Jeri 18 Jul 20 - 08:47 AM
Joe Offer 18 Jul 20 - 08:49 AM
DonMeixner 18 Jul 20 - 10:13 AM
Raedwulf 18 Jul 20 - 11:03 AM
GUEST,Don Meixner 18 Jul 20 - 11:36 AM
Raedwulf 18 Jul 20 - 11:52 AM
GUEST,akenaton 18 Jul 20 - 11:54 AM
DonMeixner 18 Jul 20 - 12:03 PM
Joe Offer 18 Jul 20 - 12:35 PM
DonMeixner 18 Jul 20 - 02:19 PM
cnd 18 Jul 20 - 07:14 PM
GUEST,akenaton 19 Jul 20 - 04:43 AM
Allan Conn 19 Jul 20 - 04:54 AM
Bonzo3legs 19 Jul 20 - 05:22 AM
cnd 19 Jul 20 - 05:42 AM
cnd 19 Jul 20 - 05:51 AM
cnd 19 Jul 20 - 05:56 AM
Bonzo3legs 19 Jul 20 - 05:57 AM
GUEST,Derrick 19 Jul 20 - 06:01 AM
GUEST,Observer 19 Jul 20 - 06:02 AM
Allan Conn 19 Jul 20 - 06:31 AM
Joe Offer 19 Jul 20 - 07:41 AM
Joe Offer 19 Jul 20 - 08:22 AM
Mrrzy 19 Jul 20 - 08:51 AM
gillymor 19 Jul 20 - 09:04 AM
GUEST,Gerry 19 Jul 20 - 09:21 AM
GUEST,Don Meixner 19 Jul 20 - 09:24 AM
GUEST,Observer 19 Jul 20 - 09:53 AM
GUEST,akenaton 19 Jul 20 - 10:09 AM
Joe Offer 19 Jul 20 - 11:50 AM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 19 Jul 20 - 02:13 PM
punkfolkrocker 19 Jul 20 - 02:21 PM
punkfolkrocker 19 Jul 20 - 02:25 PM
Bonzo3legs 19 Jul 20 - 03:14 PM
punkfolkrocker 19 Jul 20 - 03:33 PM
oldhippie 19 Jul 20 - 03:48 PM
Raedwulf 19 Jul 20 - 05:28 PM
Mrrzy 19 Jul 20 - 05:53 PM
Stilly River Sage 19 Jul 20 - 07:26 PM
Joe Offer 19 Jul 20 - 07:34 PM
Jeri 19 Jul 20 - 10:19 PM
Joe Offer 20 Jul 20 - 12:10 AM
London OldMan 20 Jul 20 - 10:02 AM
Mrrzy 20 Jul 20 - 10:35 AM
Joe G 20 Jul 20 - 12:44 PM
GUEST,Jack Warshaw 19 Jan 21 - 06:13 AM
Donuel 20 Jan 21 - 11:48 AM
McGrath of Harlow 21 Jan 21 - 11:23 AM
Lighter 21 Jan 21 - 01:27 PM
GUEST,Phil d'Conch 21 Jan 21 - 03:23 PM
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Subject: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 09:43 AM

Out of interest, did anyone every question Guthrie on his famous 'This land is your land' song?

Or, did anyone write a politically (more) correct version, on the basis that 'this land ain't your land, this land ain't my land, this land was stole for you and me'...?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 09:50 AM

I think the aim of the author was to promote a little National pride into the listeners, something which is required today more than ever before.
Have a a bit of pride in your country and its heros.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 09:55 AM

True, and fair enough. But don't you see any connection between Black Lives Matter and (not that there is such a campaign!) Red Lives Matter?

You can't have pride in your heritage if you ignore bits of it!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 09:58 AM

That is exactly why I never liked this ode to manifest destiny.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:07 AM

Thanks to the British folks for bringing this up.
You do realize the song is a protest song, and a couple of the verses were pretty clear on that topic?
The underlying feeling is that this land is ALL of our (Americans) land, and we should remember that.

These verses are left our of some versions. Thank goodness Pete Seeger sang them when he performed at Obama's inauguration.
As I went walking I saw a sign there,
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing.
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:11 AM

Like it or loathe it the US is a new nation created by immigrants. these immigrants were in the most part forging new lives for themselves and needed songs to bond them together....sure there were casualties, but there will always be casualties in any society. A great number of Gaels from my country were forced away from their homes and helped to build you new nation....get a grip and look forward Guthrie was positive, not negative.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:23 AM

Okay, but not sure that those 'missing' verses refer to the people who a mere century before were being slaughtered like animals.

There was a big hole in 'protest' songs - in the States, it was always the 'Indian' people, and sometimes the black ones. In the UK, it was often the victims of this country's imperialism, of whatever colour. And of course in both cultures, women's interests have only crept in recently!

We are all capable of being criticised, however noble our intentions are - Woody Guthrie included. But this is not an attack on Guthrie, or US protest songs, just a plea for those that got left out.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:23 AM

Okay, Jeri made it into a music thread instead of a fighting thread, so it's back up top.

Keep it a music thread or it's going back down to the BS again.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:44 AM

I never looked at those a missing verses. I sang them every time I sang the song. Still do.

Don


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 10:48 AM

Don't understand this music vs BS business (not being a regular round here).

I have a point to make about a 'famous' protest song. Is that a 'musical' point, or, being a political point, relegated into BS (which I take it doesn't mean British Socialism)?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:14 AM

If it is indeed a famous "Protest Song" then it is surely, by definition, impossible to separate the "Protest" from the "Song".


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,cnd
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:24 AM

London Old Man, here at Mudcat we have 2 types of threads: those about music (above "the line") and thos about non-musical topics (below the line, also known as BS). Normally, a thread will be started intentionally as being one or the other (for example, BS threads will often be lists if jokes, political discussion, etc). However, if the tread or the discussion it generates is deemed to be not of a musical nature (due to either its content or the discussion it generates) it can be moved to the BS section. An important point here is that it's not necessarily your fault for starting the thread; it could have good intentions, but certain people can't seem to play nice, so it gets moved to BS because of that. It doesn't help that lately a number of threads masquerading as music posts have been started but generated by-and-large less-than-musical responses.

Here's an interesting link discussing Seeger's opinion in the song and much of what I think you're going for: https://theconversation.com/the-misguided-attacks-on-this-land-is-your-land-121169

From that article comes this additional stanza Seeger would sometimes add:

This land is your land, but it once was my land
    Before we sold you Manhattan Island
    You pushed my nation to the reservation,
    This land was stole by you from me.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Derriick
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:35 AM

The verse quoted by cnd reminds me of a sketch in a tv comedy show,with Tracy Ulman and Lennie Henry.
It consisted of a TV interview with Chief Sitting Bull.
One of the questions was "What did your people call America before the
White man arrived.
The answer "Ours"


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:48 AM

I was at Resurrection City on The Poor Peoples Campaign in 1968 when Jimmy Collier asked Henry Crow Dog about the etiquette of singing this song. Pete Seeger, standing nearby was a little confounded by the question. He hadn't thought of the song in that respect.

Mar Ross


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:53 AM

When it becomes all about politics, it gets moved. If the discussion's related to the song, it stays above the line.
Stilly, I hadn't realized it was in BS, because GUESTs were posting.

This is a good article the Conversation - The misguided attacks on ‘This Land Is Your Land’

It was moved just as you posted, then moved back up after you posted. Odds are it will move once again. ---mudelf
I'll try to delete the political posts/fights fast enough. --another mod


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 12:57 PM

Are we talking about Guthrie's song or the abridged version by Seeger?
One bears no relationship to the other. Woody wrote a positive anthem to a new nation, Seeger used it to spread negativity and discord.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 01:32 PM

Here are the verses I know to be Woody's and they are the way I sing it. What are the verses Seeger did that were meant to be divisive.

This Land,

From the California, to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me

I've roamed and rambled, and I've followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
All around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me

When the sun comes shining as I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice came chanting
This land was made for you and me

As I was walkin' - I saw a sign there
And that sign said "No trespassin'"
But on the other side .... it didn't say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

In the squares of the city - In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office - I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me

Nobody living can ever stop me
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me


Seeger added this verse:

    This land is your land, but it once was my land
    Before we sold you Manhattan Island
    You pushed my nation to the reservation,
    This land was stole by you from me.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 03:18 PM

I am bemused when people who are UK citizens and residents sing the song.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 03:48 PM

It was a revival thing...man.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 04:05 PM

This land is my land
It is not your land
If you don't get off
I'll blow your head off
I've got a shotgun
And it is loaded
This land was made for me alone


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 04:07 PM

This land is my land
get off my land
ooh arr ooh arr
ooh arr ooh arr...


Rural British version...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 05:13 PM

It would be a mistake to divide Americans into categories of white, Black, and Native American, and to put all the blame on whites. Until 1850, white Americans were primarily Protestants from the British Isles, with some French areas. The Manifest Destiny was carried out mostly by white Americans of British descent. The Irish started arriving in the 1820s, Germans in the 1870s, and Italians in the 1890s - and Irish, Germans, and especially Italians were despised and impoverished minorities until maybe 1950.

Woody wasn't singing for the wealthy and powerful white people who believed that conquest of the Americas was their Manifest Destiny. He sang for the working people, the immigrants who came later and had to submit to domination of the wealthy class. His song was for the working people of all ethnicities, not the wealthy.

Akenaton writes: Are we talking about Guthrie's song or the abridged version by Seeger?
One bears no relationship to the other. Woody wrote a positive anthem to a new nation, Seeger used it to spread negativity and discord.


Can't say I know what you're talking about, Ake. I did find one recording where Pete sang the three "travelogue" verses made popular by Peter, Paul and Mary and the Weavers and published in school songbooks; but mostly Pete sang all the verses that Woody wrote - including the so-called "Communist" verses.

The song is an anthem of the working class, not an homage to Manifest Destiny.

-Joe-

There's a thorough article on the song in Wikipedia.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 07:14 PM

One throwaway line at 1:45 - This land was my land.
JibJab.com "This Land!"

North America, like Africa, a continent, not a people:

Woody Guthrie grew up in Comanche territory but the 'tribe' is an American federal government/European construct.

The 'Last Chief of the Comanches,' Quanah Parker (1845 – 1911) died just one year before Woody was born. Quanah's mother was Cynthia Ann Parker (Narua)(1827 – 1871).

Cynthia Ann's family, young and old, was murdered and she was taken captive by a band of Quanah's tribe in the 1830s. It was an ancient & brutal tradition that had nothing to do with the arrival of Europeans save for the previous (re)introduction of Equus ferus by the Spanish & Portuguese.

Great-grandfather William Edward “Pap” Guthrie (1809 – 1891) moved the Guthrie family to the Territories in the 1840s at the very peak of the culture clash.

S. C. Gwynne's Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, 2011 is the best read you'll find on the particulars.

TL/DR: By Comanche 'old ways' – Might Makes Right. Whining about it is for losers.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 15 Jul 20 - 11:32 PM

The very first post in this thread asked,

"Out of interest, did anyone every question Guthrie on his famous 'This land is your land' song?

"Or, did anyone write a politically (more) correct version, on the basis that 'this land ain't your land, this land ain't my land, this land was stole for you and me'...?"

And the answer yes, there are several versions out there that make that point. You can probably find some of them in the "Related threads" that are linked on this page.

It may be worth pointing out the Guthrie wrote the song as a reply to God Bless America.

The funny thing about the "private property" and "relief office" stanzas is the Guthrie himself didn't always sing them. When I first learned about those verses, I had a listen to my Guthrie CDs, and was surprised to find he didn't sing them on those recordings. So it's not necessarily the case that later singers deliberately omitted those stanzas – it may be that they learned the song from recordings where Guthrie didn't include them.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 12:23 AM

Topical political protest songs,
may only be performed a few times in a short time period.
Or they might become celebrated standard repertoire like this one has..

But it's best to consider this kind of song as a fluid work in progress;
occasionally/frequently needing essential revision,
as time goes by and circumstances change...

If I think back to protest songs our band wrote when we were immature teenagers in the late 1970s,
They'd need to be completely rewritten to be relevant now.

I'd feel a right pillock if they'd become famous records,
and audiences demanded I still sing the exact version they first took to their hearts..

.. just saying...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 04:45 AM

Thanks for the information. Didn't realise the above-the-line/below-the-line split, so I will observe it in future. Apologies.

Pete Seeger a communist? Lummy, which he had been!

And as regards protest songs which were wrong when they were penned and sung, the answer is no, we shouldn't sing them any more, except as curios from a different age. A bit like uprooting statues and moving them to museums, where they can be labelled 'this is the sort of man (usually a man) who did this, this and this, and was once revered; now we remember him in order not to make the same mistakes again.

Thanks for the 'Seeger' additional words to 'This land'. Good to know that others had similar reservations!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 05:00 AM

Just read the 'conversation' link provided by guest.cnd. Very interesting, thanks, and enlightening on many levels, and makes me feel better about the song, Guthrie, et al - as if they're bothered! (Sorry, there should be an emoji for 'taking the piss out of oneself').


If anyone here hasn't, well worth a read.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 07:01 AM

The song has a nice tune and therefore nice to listen to.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 07:18 AM

Woody borrowed it from The Carter Family's "Little Darling Pal of Mine" and who knows where A.P. Carter got it from.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 08:03 AM

This land is moi land
get orf moi land


Corrected it for you, pfr! ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 08:10 AM

The way I heard it (ca1969) was,

I got a shotgun,
And you ain't got one....


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 08:11 AM

Is that Wolverhampton or Brum?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 08:19 AM

Joe:

It would be a mistake to divide Americans into categories of white, Black, and Native American, and to put all the blame on whites. Until 1850, white Americans were primarily Protestants from the British Isles, with some French areas. The Manifest Destiny was carried out mostly by white Americans of British descent. The Irish started arriving in the 1820s, Germans in the 1870s, and Italians in the 1890s - and Irish, Germans, and especially Italians were despised and impoverished minorities until maybe 1950.

Got any sources to back that up? Being a Yook, rather than a Yank, I'm obviously more conversant with UK / European history than yours. But I was under the impression that there were significant Dutch (New York was New Amsterdam originally) & German communities long before you lot ever seceded from the Rightful Rule* of His Gracious Majesty Etcetera. I also thought the major Irish immigration began some 25 years later than your date (Potato Famine)?

* Joe knows I'm only teasing, but just in case anyone else doesn't! I'm curious (alright, I'm weird; no, not peculiar!) as well. Joe's statement doesn't quite fit my somewhat hazy knowledge. Therefore, I'm asking... ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 09:05 AM

Raedwulf - as I'm a West Country lad, that's how I first typed it..

but I then wasted a crucial few minutes debating if it would only confuse,
or hand a distraction, to the mudcat pedant squad..

Otherwise I'd have beat Susan of DT to the post by 2 minutes...

..oh well...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 01:06 PM

:-D

Butt! Yew shoed no buy now that the peasant quod kneads know ex-choose! ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 07:00 PM

This is not in my brain as a *protest* song but as a plain old folk song. Great Plains, of course.
What I don't like about this song is that this land wasn't made, at all, let alone for you or me.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 08:43 PM

Way down yonder in the Indian nation
I rode my pony on the reservation
In the Oklahoma Hills where I was born...


Big continent and eleven centuries of Euros, counting from the Pagan & Roman Catholic Norse. First Euro-Protestant anywhere was the 1517 German model. The colonials were already at 20+ human generations, and counting.

“Six Flags,” mostly open borders & frontiers:
Conquistadors c.1500
French Texas 1684–1689
Spanish Texas 1690–1821
Mexican Texas 1821–1836
Rep. of Texas 1836–1845
U.S. Statehood 1845–1860
Confederacy    1861–1865

Oklahoma:
Indian Territory 1834–1907
U.S. Territory   1890–1907
U.S. Statehood   1907

Those exquisitely Catholic Inquisitions formally ended with the Mexican Era; full separation of Church from State not until 1836. Both institutions might as well have come from the planet Neptune where Native American Pagans were concerned.

Bringing it back to music:
fwiw: For you shanty fans, that's also the end of institutional Catholic work psalmody worldwide (celeusma, saloma, salomar, chiourme &c) in the various armies, navies, prisons and labour camps.

Fwiw II: The end of the sovereign American Indian Territories brought out the Indian Intermezzo and Indianist movement in the Yank pop and classical music genre.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: mg
Date: 16 Jul 20 - 10:29 PM

lots of scandinavians came. I had never heard of catholic norse...do you count normans of france with them?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 02:33 AM

mg, I think Phil is referring to Leif Erikson and his cronies, who had a settlement in Newfoundland 500 years before Columbus sailed the ocean blue. .


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 02:54 AM

Hi, Raedwulf - It's hard to study the ethnic makeup of the US in history. Most of the divisions are between white and black, but I think it's important to recognize that many of the working-class Europeans came after 1850, some as late as the 1920s. Yes, there was a small Dutch colony in New Amsterdam, and the descendants of those people became the elite in New York - but in general, almost all settlers in the United States before 1840, were English.

And yes, there were French here and there, but the French didn't fare very well.

Here's a reasonably good breakdown of the waves of immigration to the U.S.: https://www.businessinsider.com/largest-ethnic-groups-in-america-2013-8


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 03:02 AM

Basically, what I am saying is that the song does not have the feel of a modern protest song, but rather a call for unity to make the country and people happy and prosperous, a gentle reminder that there are casualties to consider, but the ethos is on positivity and the overwhelming strength and good in humanity.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:13 AM

Cheers, Joe. I'm still not convinced by that "almost all...", not least because I read somewhere once (i.e. I can't remember where!) that there was a point at which German was nearly adopted as the national language! I was right about the Irish, at least...

Ake - one would think that you'd learn, then. Or are you trying to be the living embodiment of the auld dog who can't learn new tricks? ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:17 AM

Well, if nothing else, Woody is surely a learning opportunity...

Joe:
North America is a continent. The USA is a country. The “North American” census never happened. Different maths. Also, small point of order, British is not English.

MG: I had never heard of catholic norse...

Daaaaadun! Nooooooobody expects the Catholic NORSE!

For that “continental” feel:
Garðar, Greenland to London = 2900km
Garðar to Okemah, Oklahoma = 4500km

The “Norse colonies” were, at times, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Kalmariensic, Hanseatic, Basque and Acadian. Basques are French or Spanish, rock-paper-scissors. Acadians are French.

The Pagan Norse were just Iron Age 'White' Comanche with a side of capitalism. Those innocent looking Scots-Irish-Catholic pre-teen thralls were ticking mothers-in-law & Mothers Superior time bombs.

Greenland's royal family, such as it was, were famously split down the middle; the husbands Pagan; the wives Roman Catholic.

Roman Catholic Diocese of Skálholt, Iceland (c.1000AD)

Diocese of Hólar, Iceland (1106AD)

Garðar, Greenland (c.1125AD)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:41 AM

"I read somewhere once (i.e. I can't remember where!) that there was a point at which German was nearly adopted as the national language!"

Seems unlikely. Perhaps you are thinking of the early Zionists, who seriously considered adopting German as their language in the Holy Land, before Hebrew won out. More than you would want to know at https://www.osmikon.de/en/thematic-dossiers/shared-histories/translate-to-english-zur-rolle-des-deutschen-im-zionismus-bis-zur-balfour-deklaration


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:44 AM

The myth of German as US offical language: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_the_United_States#German_as_the_official_US_language_myth

"An urban legend, sometimes called the Muhlenberg legend after Frederick Muhlenberg, states that English only narrowly defeated German as the U.S. official language. In reality, the proposal involved a requirement that government documents be translated into German."


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 07:20 AM

This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island, From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters...

Okemah to San Francisco = 2700km.

The post-Colombian racial histories the North American Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts could hardly be more different. In the west:

For Native Americans the handwriting was on the wall, as they say, long before the Anglos even got there.

There was no African-American population, of any status, to speak of until the 20th century. Slavery was a political/moral abstraction tied to U.S. Statehood and a non-starter everywhere.

The people that really got trampled in the 1849 gold rush were the newly independent South & Central American nationals; Hispanics & Latinos many of whom would likely self-identify as White or use a different glossary altogether.

And Asians would quickly come to outnumber many of the lesser represented European nationalities.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 07:54 AM

Gerry - thanks for thoroughly debunking that! As I say, I can't remember where the hell I read it. As for Pennsylvania (mentioned in Gerry's wiki link), yes, I do also remember that as being mentioned as a centre of German-speakers. Though, oddly, I believe the American reference to them was "Pennsylvania Dutch" (and I know that at least one of those references is from Kipling's Captains Courageous).
Please try to focus on THE SONG. I don't want to close this, and I don't want to move it to BS.
If you want to, and can, start a thread in the BS section to talk about ethnicity, language, or whatever subject you wish to discuss, please do so. ~Mod


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 09:11 AM

There *is* no official language in the US.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 11:47 AM

It's a nice song with a nice tune, I really cannot see the problem??


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 12:43 PM

You were sayng? Raedwulf


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 01:04 PM

I think this discussion is firmly in category 1 even if we veer off course a little. I think we are discussing the permanent and ephemeral nature of songs.

I wondered if Woody was writing with the notion that his songs were meant to be topical and lasting no longer than the problems they addressed or something permanent. Grand Coulee Dam is a bit of a relic but Do-Re-Me is a historic portrait of a slice of history.

It didn't to much searching to find this quote from Acoustic Guitar Magazine. https://acousticguitar.com/woody-guthries-songwriting-wisdom/

Guthrie set down the words to “When the Saints Go Marching In” and added some thoughts on the qualities that drew him to songs. An old spiritual like “Saints,” he wrote, has three things that “a good song has got to have afore it is beloved forever by the People. First is Simplicity, so everyman and woman in the world can sing them from the top of their spirit and to the bottom of their heart. Next is Naturalness—without no pretense—no sham—no finery . . . Third—Truth—that will be recognized by every singer, rich and pore, educated and illiterate. These old Hillcountry Gospel Songs has them three unbeatable qualities that make ’em live forever: Simplicity. Naturalness. Truth. Can you beat it?”

I don't believe he felt everything would have been written for permanence. But certainly we have kept some of his songs alive and vital either because they are beautifully written glimpses into Woody's life and time or they address a need that never seems to go away.

I listen to this song, This Land..., and I think the "You and me!" Are the same people Tom Joad talks about in the "Cop beatin' up a guy" speach, The Everyman. And now I suppose, The Every Person. Because a White Man is writing this song it doesn't necessarily just mean White People. Woody embraced everyone, everywhere.

Woody had no tolerance for racism.   

https://folkworks.org/features/feature-articles/2171-april-2012/40460-woody-guthries-home-town-lynching

"Woody simply had no patience for the legacy of racism derived from what historian C. Van Woodward so memorably termed “The Peculiar Institution” of slavery. When he brought his black friends and fellow musicians Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee to a fundraiser for American troops during WWII, only to be told that his friends would need to enter through the back door, Woody promptly strolled up to the refreshments table, grabbed the edge of the table cloth, and ripped it out from under the Champagne bottles and fruit and salad bowls decorating it, before picking up a gallon bottle of wine, circling it threateningly around his head like Will Rogers rolling out a lariat, and telling the assembled crowd, “This war against fascism has got to start right here—in our own back yard.” Then Woody, Sonny and Brownie all left together—through the front door."

Do a simple search, say Woody Guthrie on Song Writing, and you will find much about the man. Try searching Woody Guthrie and Marriage and the halo tarnishes a little.

Does the song need to be up-dated? We have discussed this before on many other songs. And I believe Woody has already said Go Ahead.

Don


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 01:10 PM

Come on, everyone should know explorers from Atlantis
flying on the backs of tamed giant sea birds
were the first colonists of the Americas..

Though some respected internet experts say space men gods might have guided them...

Though sadly, so far no records of their folk songs have been discovered yet..

But we could try to reconstruct them based on all highly believable evidence of their cultural colonization...

..and these ancient sea/air faring explorers probably wrote the first version
of the melody to "This land is your land"...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: StephenH
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 02:11 PM

Well, I always took the song as Woody pointing out that, while the rich lay claim to huge swaths of the country, that it really belonged to all those who laboured so hard to build it. The "no trespassing" verse underlines that to me.
For another perspective, when I was part of a community song group a
number of years ago, we had environmental activist members who said we
shouldn't be singing a song that made any claim to "owning" the land.
I thought that they missed the point, but I guess it's all in the ear of the beholder.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 04:26 PM

I found an interesting study titled Germans in America, prepared by the Library of Congress. Many of the Germans were religious groups that were other than the majority Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran majority. They tended to form small, independent communities. The document says that by 1790, as many as 100,000 Germans may have immigrated to America, and their descendants made up an estimated 8.6 percent of the population of the United States. in Pennsylvania they accounted for 33 percent of the population; in Maryland for 12 percent.
There are similar documents for a variety of ethnic groups on this page (click).

I'm not ready to give up my original thesis. I have no doubt that there were settlers in North America from most European ethnic groups from the 1600s, but the mass migration of working-class Europeans didn't happen until the middle to late 19th century, and people of English and Scottish ancestry were the center of political power in the US until well into the 20th century. Manifest Destiny was primarily a philosophy of Americans of English heritage. The Americas were conquered before most of our ancestors ever got here. Take a look at the list of signers of the Constitution - it's clear that the ruling ethnic group in the U.S. was English.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:15 PM

I agree with most of Don's post, but differ on whether the song should be altered, it is a rounded piece, conveys a clear message and is designed to make every US citizen proud of the beauties of "the land" while reminding all about the casualties created and the wrongs perpetrated in the building of a strong nation.....the signal is clear, have pride in your country and pride in yourselves.....all will be well.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Jeri
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 05:22 PM

"Should" doesn't really matter, does it? People will, or they won't, and it'll "stick", or it won't.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 10:47 PM

"Woody had no tolerance for racism."

True, but it took him a while to get to that position. Ed Cray writes of Guthrie, in 1937 or so, "Guthrie was still stiff with the prejudices of Okemah and Pampa. He casually referred to African-Americans as 'niggers'.... His racism was unconscious and unexamined, a by-product of a boyhood spent not far from that part of Oklahoma known as 'little Dixie'. ... One evening Guthrie introduced a harmonica solo by its traditional name, 'Run, Nigger, Run'. Shortly afterwards, he received a polite letter from a listener: I am a Negro, a young Negro in college and I certainly resented your remark. No person, or person of any intelligence uses that word over the radio today.... Guthrie was shaken. He apologized on the air, declined to play the harmonica showpiece again–under that title–and from then on spoke of 'colored men'."


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 11:50 PM

"Woody had no tolerance for racism."

True, but it took him a while to get to that position. Ed Cray writes of Guthrie, in 1937 or so,...


Woody Guthrie: A Place of Celebration and Pain

Short version:
It wasn't a misunderstanding or naivete. According to the document record, Woody Guthrie penned an original, full-blown minstrel coon shout newspaper satire just months before, or after. We can't say. The biographies don't even bother to get their dates in order.

However the same authors all do agree in having Woody refer to Mexicans as “pepper bellies” on AM radio-X in Tijuana two months after his alleged conversion. They kicked him off the air entirely for that and more.

Meanwhile, according to Woody Guthrie's own autobiography, none of the incidents ever happened and he never possessed any kind of racism to repent in the first place.

Somebody's been telling tall tales.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 17 Jul 20 - 11:52 PM

Hey, speaking of Germans:

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794) - America's first Drill Master

John Durang (1786-1822) - First native-born American professional dancer (Alsacian – French or German? More rock-paper-scissors.)


Fast forward 100+ years:
“In 1938, with the rise of Adolf Hitler, Irving Berlin, who was Jewish and had arrived in the U.S. from Russia at the age of five, felt it was time to revive it as a "peace song", and it was introduced on an Armistice Day broadcast in 1938, sung by Kate Smith on her radio show.” [song wiki]

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact – August, 1939.

Germany attacks Communist Russia – June, 1941.

Right around those last two items Woody Guthrie and many of the Almanac Singers were involved in any number of Roosevelt administration jingoistic World War II build up media events, eg: Back Where I Come From &c.

I recall reading somewhere (can't find it now) This Land was performed as live radio material for several years before the first recordings. The final lyrics were decided by the AM radio program's music director and the band without Woody's participation.

Something about Guthrie being deliberately belligerent; getting kicked out of the broadcast studio; buying a new car with his share of the advance money and leaving town without telling anybody he quit or got axed from the show.

The U.S. government and/or the network canceled the whole shebang a few weeks later.

Given the political atmosphere at the time, complaining too much about anything Americana could be bad for your health or employment.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 03:44 AM

"they will or they wont" I agree Jeri but that famous song has a message which should not be changed and I believe that Seeger and others tried to do just that.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 04:11 AM

But Ake, you failed to specify what Seeger did to harm the song.
This has been explained up above, so now you're just talking shit - and we're not going to tolerate shit here any more. There were times that Seeger and the Weavers and even Woody failed to sing the last three "Communist" verses of the song. That may have been to get past the censors, or it may have been to fit the song to the 3-minute standard required for radio pay - but there were other times when they sang all the verses.

So, what's your point?


Seeger and Springsteen going all out on the song at the Obama Inauguration in January 2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE4H0k8TDgw

Seeger (abbreviated version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbJ12_r1Li8

Seeger & Arlo (full version): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxB6saKZXsk

Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bphP7Hh_gxU

Arlo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nYwG9Z3zwQ


These are the facts, ake. I have also illustrated them above. If you wish to continue to deny these facts, I will be forced to conclude that you are trolling. And then, I will have to make you disappear.

-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 05:02 AM

Not sure whether this is a musical or political point; for me, the two things are utterly interlinked. You can't have nonpolitical music.

Pretty well ALL white men (and women) are racist. Born in the ex-slave-owning states of the US, almost 100% so. To stand against that takes huge effort, and some people make the effort.

But the point of my original post was not about 'normal' racism here or in the US, but the way that the American Indian has been consigned to oblivion by those in popular and protest culture. Hundreds of thousands of 'Indians' were in their graves because the 'white' people put them there. It was THEIR land, not MY land, not YOUR land.

The so-called 'communist' verses of the song should be sung, every time, and anyone who sings it should be constantly aware of whose land it was, within living memory!

A


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 06:23 AM

Never heard of this "Manifest Destiny" thing before, so I clicked on the link that Joe Offer provided and found this:

There are three basic themes to manifest destiny:

The special virtues of the American people and their institutions
The mission of the United States to redeem and remake the west in the image of agrarian America
An irresistible destiny to accomplish this essential duty"


I think that that is clear enough as to who was doing what and to whom, and remembering just exactly when the bulk of this redeeming and remaking was taking place [i.e. In the mid-to-late 19th Century] I think any attempt at putting this down to the English takes a massive stretch of the imagination.

Influence in the American colonies? Take a look at some of the place names out to the West of what up until 1776 were British colonies. From the Canadian border right the way down to the Gulf Coast at New Orleans you will find a string of places with French names - they used to be trading posts and definitely pre-date Manifest Destiny and the War of Independence.

Detroit; St Clare; Fort Pontchartrain; Sandoski; Delaware; Augusta; Natchez; Lac Ponchartrain; New Orleans.

A string of trading posts that served to hem the settlers to the East in. British colonial settlers fought the French/Indian/Frontier War in the 1750s just to break out. But the British signed a Treaty with Tribes of the Five Nations that fully recognised THEIR rights to their lands in the Ohio and Wabash basins [British American Settlers did not like that at all]. A few years later and a change of sides the American colonists sided with the French in order to break that Treaty and they fought? Yep you've got it, The American War of Independence, and the American colonists expanded west, the one thing they were not was British, English or Scottish, for years they had been describing themselves as American colonists. And the track record of these Americans and all who followed after was that no treaty signed with them was worth the paper it was written on.

Now this is rather at odds with:

" I have no doubt that there were settlers in North America from most European ethnic groups from the 1600s, but the mass migration of working-class Europeans didn't happen until the middle to late 19th century, and people of English and Scottish ancestry were the center of political power in the US until well into the 20th century. Manifest Destiny was primarily a philosophy of Americans of English heritage. The Americas were conquered before most of our ancestors ever got here. Take a look at the list of signers of the Constitution - it's clear that the ruling ethnic group in the U.S. was English."

On migration to the USA:

During the 17th century, approximately 400,000 English people migrated to Colonial America. However, only half stayed permanently.

From 1700 to 1775 between 350-500,000 Europeans immigrated: the estimates vary in the sources. Only 52,000 English supposedly immigrated in the period 1701 to 1775. Taking the upper figure of 500,000 the rest, [400-450,000} were Scots, Scots-Irish from Ulster, Germans and Swiss, French Huguenots. In addition to these immigrants there was the involuntarily migration into America of 300,000 Africans. It should also be noted that over half of all European immigrants to Colonial America during the 17th and 18th centuries arrived as indentured servants [Slaves in all but name]. The European populations of the Middle Colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware were ethnically very mixed, the English constituting only 30% in Pennsylvania, 40-45% in New Jersey, to 18% in New York numbered 22,000.

The mid-19th century saw an influx mainly from northern Europe from the same major ethnic groups as for the Colonial Period but with large numbers of Catholic Irish and Scandinavians added to the mix; the late 19th and early 20th-century immigrants were mainly from Southern and Eastern Europe. Now Manifest Destiny without any doubt is from this period:

Manifest Destiny has been condemned as an ideology that was used to justify genocide against Indigenous Americans.

Historians have emphasized that "manifest destiny" was a contested concept — Democrats endorsed the idea but many prominent Americans (such as Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and most Whigs) rejected it."


We are almost 100 years AFTER the War of Independence - The people who advocated and endorsed the idea of Manifest Destiny were Americans through and through, where their ancestors came from by the time we are talking about here is irrelevant.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 06:59 AM

So how on earth did the southern accent happen y'all y'all, and why oh why is Arkansas not spoken properly????????????????????


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 07:48 AM

I think the discussion is moving away from the song Joe, and I do not recognise the additional verses as "communist". The verses by Woody were as I said a reminder that in nation building some will be hurt, or not gain equally through progress, but they fitted in with the ethos of the song which to my mind promoted unity of purpose. Seeger's verses were an addition to his catalogue of complaints against the country and it's system of government......a typical tactic of real Communist activists, which as an ex Party member I am well aware of. They murder a fine song.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 07:55 AM

Just as a matter of interest I have the Folkways recordings by Seeger and they are almost completely political in content


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 08:20 AM

Above: Well, I always took the song as Woody pointing out that, while the rich lay claim to huge swaths of the country, that it really belonged to all those who laboured so hard to build it.

Right. Exactly what I dislike. The land wasn't built, it happened, and if you're talking about the nation, it was wrested from its natives who were almost exterminated, for you and me.

Maybe it's because I grew up in barely-post-colonial West Africa, but even as a small child I found This Land Is Your Land jingoistic, colonial, and unkind. Never liked it though it is singable, simple, and memorable.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Jeri
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 08:47 AM

After 3 posts, I can surmise that Mrrzy doesn't like the song.?

I'm also wondering what verses Ake thinks are "Seeger's verses". He might've sung one other than Woody's, but I'd guess he doesn't like a couple of the original verses. Don't know.

I think it's an OK song. I mostly object the way it's sung by clueless people, many of whom might be chanting "U.S.A." at various events. (I'm not going to say "or wearing MAGA hats".)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 08:49 AM

Akenaton, once again you fail to cite the verses you claim were written by Pete Seeger. He did write one or two, but they were not commonly sung - even by Seeger. In all of the performances I linked to above ALL of the verses were written by Woody Guthrie. Refer to the Wikipedia article on the song, which includes Guthrie's entire text.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 10:13 AM

I don't believe I said the song should be changed. I like it as it is. I meant to say that Woody gave us permission to do so in his statement on song writing. I don't know what "The Communist Verses" are. And I don't think it really matters. For the most part we all sing the songs as we learned them. From what source we learned them. Because my source gave me "Can't Help But Wonder" in the wrong verse order I still do it that way, probably always will.

To my way of thinking, unless the song is co-opted for some other purpose, as long as the original intent is there, make your own arrangements. The Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary certainly did.

Woody wrote lyrics on the fly. Who is to say there aren't dozens of verses out in the ether that were linked only to a specific rally or meeting and were never meant to go beyond that particular Union hall.

Do we dissect Tom Paxton's "The Man Who Built The Bridges," Phil Och's, "Power and Glory," Eric Anderson's " My Land is A Good Land." next? It is a rare song that is so perfect that it doesn't bear some scrutiny or stand the test of time.

Don


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 11:03 AM

Thank you, Don! I was tempted to be rather rude to whichever of the half-a-dozen MudElves decided to annotate, but you were much nicer about it. I'm glad I bit my tongu… Errrr… Restrained my fingers (You were saying, Ake? And is there any chance of borrowing that 2 shillings now?). How you get to be a MudElf without being able to recognise the famous (& invaluable) Mudcat Meander is beyond me!

(And I hope that is a suitably gentle tweaking of a MudElf nose! ;-) )

Fantastic stuff, Joe (the Moravians are the one group I specifically knew about (Kipling again, but not Captains), I didn't realise the Amish were German, I think I thought they were Dutch). Of course you don't have to give up your theory. It's a good theory, and founded on better knowledge than I have. But Mudelf disapproval notwithstanding, I've learnt things from this thread, I reckon you have, and I sincerely hope others have. But the most important thing to learn is to keep an open mind & not be too sure... It's a good theory & we'll never know the truth of it.

Bonzo - The Kansas / Arkansas thing has been answered before. I've forgotten the precise detail, but I seem to remember that one of the words came into English via French (I'll hazard a guess it was Arkansas, hence the silent terminal 's'), whilst the other was taken directly from the Native language.

London - EVERYONE is an -ist. I'm unashamedly sexist - I don't treat females worse than males, nor better, but I do, automatically, treat them differently. I'll hold a door open for anyone; that's just common politeness; but I don't use the same language to a lady friend that I would... "You ugly old bastard! Ain't you dead yet?!" Etcetera! ;-)

An -ism doesn't have to be bad, but it usually is(m). The problem is that the only way for Homo Sap, for any creature with a Central Nervous System to deal with the world is to stick labels on things. The four most basic are potential food, potential threat, potential mate (as much in the sense of ally as sex), none of the above so not of interest. As a species with higher brain functions, self-aware, able to conceptualise; a species able to think, allegedly intelligent; we label things. Then hang sub-labels on the labels & sub-sub-labels etcetera... And then we meet individual X... And the default position is that all of the labels apply until otherwise proven. If you see what I mean?

Which, funnily enough, brings me back to the song. It means different things to different people. That's quite obvious from the various answers above (Ake - stop being an auld fule & answer the direct question you've been repeatedly asked: What are the verses you're objecting to; why are you objecting to them?). It all comes back to labels. We each see the world in a certain way, we default to a particular position, we interpret what we see because... And all too often too many of us (especially, in my experience, those that think they are open-minded & "fighting for..." (it's never against; odd that, ain't it?)) are all too quick to leap on something that doesn't fit our "nice" labels...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 11:36 AM

Wow, I haven't been really active in this forum for years and now I am already an Elf and an annotator! I told my wife and she said I don't have the ears for it. It's times like this I really miss the gentile erudition of 'Spaw. ??


Don


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 11:52 AM

Errrr… No, Don. I got annotated, You must have noticed. I did, and forbore (as opposed to four-bore, which I believe is the proverbial elephant gun). No point in arguing with the policeman, is there? ;-)

You pointed out what I would have been much... less subtle about! ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 11:54 AM

Ach ah'll jist mak it ten bob Raed, it's weel worth the extra sillar tae see ye squirm    :0)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 12:03 PM

Why yes Raed, and you are correct. Please forgive me. I have had no coffee yet, I am old, that cat ate my home work.....Well it sure was a fun discuss in any case. And I do miss Catspaw.

D


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 12:35 PM

I think it's important to understand the history and nature of immigration to the United States, because it leads to an understanding of the political history of the US. The post from Observer above (click) is a copy-paste of a very misleading article that appears several places on the Internet, but not at anything that could be considered a credible Website. Each of the sites is marked with what appears to be a choking turtle with dollar signs for eyes - I don't know what that icon means, but the document certainly gives a distorted view of history.

Yes, it's true that there are many cities in the U.S. with French names, but most were trading posts scattered through the Plains States, with little population. The French territories were acquired by the new United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 - and it was after that, that settlement began. My French ancestors founded the City of Detroit with Cadillac in 1701, and there was still a small French-speaking community in Detroit when I lived there in the 1950s. But most of the French (and most of my French ancestors) settled across the river in Windsor, Ontario. When my wife was growing up in the mill town of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, the primary language spoken on the streets was French, and my wife had to study French in school although she spoke Polish at home. During the middle and late 19th Century, a million French-speaking workers moved to New England from Quebec to work in the textile mills.
As far as I can determine, New Orleans is the only truly French city in the United States. And the French in New Orleans seem to be mostly working class. The ruling class are stereotypical Southern white people.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 02:19 PM

Joe I would suspect that the great song collectors worked through enclaves in all the states. Cecil Sharp comes to mind collecting in Appalachia.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: cnd
Date: 18 Jul 20 - 07:14 PM

To those asking which verses are the "Communist" verses (credible claim or not), the verses were specified by Jeri long ago up-thread (click here to see them--they're italicized)

Though the subject of exactly who subjugated the American Indians is of little importance, I do have to agree with Joe and disagree heavily with Observer's claims; the fact that a string of French-named towns (principally along the East Coast and in Louisiana--both places the French settled early on) does little to change the fact that the French were fairly minor actors in the later settlement of the American West. Additionally, pretending that French treaties with the Indians were going to last significantly longer than American ones is simply foolish. Though the French traded more with the Indians, this was purely from the point of need, any cooperation they had worked purely as a temporary political salve. If the French had won the French and Indian war, then it's silly to assume their pattern of conquering America would have been materially different. And French participation and American allegiance with them in the Revolutionary War had much less to do with territorial expansion than it did with helping the Colonists "stick it" to Britain.

Most people who opposed Manifest Destiny did it for little other reason than limiting the admittance of slave states; it had nothing to do with protecting the Indians, with few exceptions.

Even further off topic, but Bonzo3legs, you may be interested to learn that the British accent originally actually sounded much more Southern than it does presently--linguists say that rural Appalachian accents are the closest modern example to early British accents, and they have even used such mountain accents to read dialogues more authentically.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I think that anyone who fails to see that this song started as a protest song is missing where this song came from and how it was used for a very long time. It may have been used as a catchy song to teach American children patriotism, but that doesn't change the underlying message.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 04:43 AM

Getting back to the song, surely it can be termed a "protest" song, but only as a protest against negativity? The message is unity of the American people to build a great nation.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Allan Conn
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 04:54 AM

Not sure what is meant by "the British accent"? There is of course no such thing. There are a multitude of accents in Britain which are often very different from each other. The idea that modern Appalachian accents are closer to all the earlier versions of all the existing British accents than the actual British accents themselves are sounds unlikely in the extreme.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:22 AM

The accepted English accent is that of so called "received pronunciation", that which is free from regional variation, which I am pleased to speak!!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: cnd
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:42 AM

"Extensive research has been conducted since the 1930s to determine the origin of the Appalachian dialect. One popular theory is that the dialect is a preserved remnant of 16th-century (or "Elizabethan") English in isolation,[5][6] though a far more accurate comparison would be to 18th-century (or "colonial") English.[7] Regardless, the Appalachian dialect studied within the last century, like most dialects, actually shows a mix of both older and newer features.[7]"

[5]: Montgomery, Michael (1995), "How Scotch-Irish is Your English?", The Journal of East Tennessee History, East Tennessee Historical Society (67), pp. 17-18
[6]: Cooper, Horton. "History of Avery County", Biltmore Press, (1964)
[7]: Montgomery, Michael (2004), Bernd, Kortmann; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, p. 246

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_English


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: cnd
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:51 AM

And surely you Britons must know that an American attempting to refer to a "British accent" is cluelessly referring to your "received pronunciation."

Trying to get more specific would prove about as accurate as some of your attempts to summarize US history here! (only joking, only joking!)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: cnd
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:56 AM

Though, I should add that my claim that plays sought out Southern-accented actors appears to be a myth.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:57 AM

My wife, who was born in Buenos Aires and great grandaughter of a chap who emigrated there in mid 19th century, speaks RP as do most Anglo-Argentines - no long-bailey cleaner accents there!!!!!!!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 06:01 AM

Received pronunciation has much in common with the dialects of the southern East Midlands area ie around Cambridgeshire and London,it became the adopted speech of those who thought they were of a better class.
See here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation#Characteristics_and_status_of_RP


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 06:02 AM

"I think it's important to understand the history and nature of immigration to the United States, because it leads to an understanding of the political history of the US. The post from Observer above (click) is a copy-paste of a very misleading article that appears several places on the Internet, but not at anything that could be considered a credible Website. Each of the sites is marked with what appears to be a choking turtle with dollar signs for eyes - I don't know what that icon means, but the document certainly gives a distorted view of history."

Don't know what sites you were visiting Joe but I certainly did not see any "turtles" choking or otherwise, or dollar signs. What distortion Joe? What you state in your second paragraph bears out everything I said in my post.

YOUR: "It's hard to study the ethnic makeup of the US in history. Most of the divisions are between white and black, but I think it's important to recognize that many of the working-class Europeans came after 1850, some as late as the 1920s. Yes, there was a small Dutch colony in New Amsterdam, and the descendants of those people became the elite in New York - but in general, almost all settlers in the United States before 1840, were English."

Is not a distorted view of History it is simply WRONG. At the time the first British colonies were established along the East Coast of America, the Spanish, the French and the Dutch were already there [kinda puts paid to your almost all settlers were English BS]

Could you explain how UShistory.org is a discredited site?

Your original post in which you mentioned "Manifest Destiny" you fail to mention when that term was coined - in 1845 either from an article with the title "Annexation" written by journalist and annexation advocate Jane Cazneau or by a newspaper editor John o'Sullivan - who if asked at that time [69 years AFTER the Declaration of Independence] if either considered themselves to be anything other than American would think the person asking the question to be out of their minds.

With regard to Jane Cazneau I suppose you will claim that the work entitled "Mistress of Manifest Destiny" by Linda S. Hudson, A Biography of Jane McManus Storm Cazneau, 1807–1878. Texas State Historical Association, 2001. Is a distorted view of history. Personally I don't think it is, and I believe that when it does come to history on this subject both Linda Hudson and those writing for UShistory.org are a damned sight better informed than you are Joe.

Take a look at a map of North America in 1840 and compare it to one of 1850 and note the differences - those grabbing the land were both citizens of, and settlers to, the United States of America who fully considered themselves to be American and who were backed all the way by the American Government of the day - This plunder had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the British, although I can see why you would like to think so as it would somehow assuage your conscience as in your mind you can tell yourself that your ancestors came later. Successive US Governments have a well recorded history of reneging on treaties they have signed with the Native American Indians and of treating them abominably.

Here are some of the sources for statements made in that post of mine that you considered to be a distorted view of history:

1. "Leaving England: The Social Background of Indentured Servants in the Seventeenth Century Archived January 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine", The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

2. Butler, Becoming America, The Revolution before 1776, 2000, p. 34-35 ISBN 0-674-00091-9)

3. The Oxford History of the British Empire, The Eighteenth Century, Ed. P. J. Marshall, p. 3 ISBN 0-19-820563-5

4. Encyclopedia of the Colonial and Revolutionary America, 1996 p. 200-202 ISBN 0-306-80687-8

5. Jon Butler, Becoming America, The Revolution before 1776, 2000, pp. 16–49 ISBN 0-674-00091-9)

6. "A Look at the Record: The Facts Behind the Current Controversy Over Immigration Archived February 11, 2009, at the Wayback Machine". American Heritage Magazine. December 1981. Volume 33, Issue 1.

"Historians estimate that fewer than 1 million immigrants moved to the United States from Europe between 1600 and 1799. In the first federal census, in 1790, the population of the United States was enumerated to be 3,929,214" [ Source: "History: 1790 Fast Facts". U.S. Census Bureau.] Another discredited source Joe? Discredited by who?


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Allan Conn
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 06:31 AM

That indeed explains what you are meaning if by "the British accent" you are actually meaning RP - but no I did not know that was what you were meaning. That is again only one form of accent in Britain. And of course most folks in Britain don't speak RP and I imagine it was even more so for the progenitor of RP in say the 18th or 17thC or so. Wasn't it a form of speech in an area of southern England?Certainly for me here in the Scottish Borders if you read the dialogue in say a book like James Hogg's "The Three Perils Of Men" then the accents are very obviously pretty close to how locals in the Scottish Borders speak now today. The same for earlier written pieces that survive in the likes of Border Papers etc concerning legal matters, Warden's correspondence etc. Folks from southern and other parts of Scotland then went to Ulster and that is clear in the accents of Ulster Scots speakers now. Billy Kay suggests Ulster Scots is closest to Ayrshire Scots which makes sense as it is close to that area and many of the folks who moved went from south-west Scotland. From Ulster they went further afield and aren't Ulster Scots (or as they are called in the US the Scotch Irish) particularly associated also with the Appalachian region you mention? There probably is indeed remnants of their ancestor's Scottish speech in their current dialect but it is nowhere near as close to the way folks in the 17thC Borders(for instance) would have spoken as the speech of modern Borderers is. Likewise for the other dialect/accent areas. I imagine many people from any of the major English speaking countries might speak as close or closer to historic RP than many folk in Britain do. Simply because accents here are so diverse!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 07:41 AM

Hmmm. I still can't figure out what point "observer" is trying to make. My point, is that until the end of the 19th century, the power elite in the United States were white people of mostly English and Scottish ancestry, and (for the most part) these were the people who carried out Manifest Destiny and eradicated the Native American population. By the time the mass migration of working-class Europeans took place, the entire territory that is now the United States, was firmly under the control of white, wealthy Americans of English and Scottish ancestry.
I've driven every one of the fifty United States except for taking only public transportation in Hawaii. In those travels, it was clear to me that there was very little European settlement west of the Mississippi prior to the Civil War (1861-65) and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869. Everything west of the Mississippi was very sparsely settled. Nonetheless, the new United States kept snapping up title to large territories - the Louisiana Purchase in 1803; the annexation of Texas in 1845; the Oregon Territory in 1846; and Utah, New Mexico, and California in 1850. Except for a narrow strip of land in Southern Arizona, the white Americans of English ancestry held title to the entire "lower 48" by 1850. They then spent the next 50 years wresting control of the land from the indigenous tribes. Yes, there were European settlements scattered throughout those western states since the middle 1700s (and earlier in places), but these settlements were scattered and had relatively little effect on the indigenous populations. One other factor to consider here - almost all indigenous people were relocated to areas west of the Mississippi before 1850.

Now, if you look at rosters of people in positions of power in the United States until 1900 (and to a great extent, until 1950), you will find that the vast majority of people in power were white males of ancestry from England and other parts of the British Isles. You will find very few French or Italian or Slavic or Germanic Members of Congress until after 1950, very few Blacks or Latinos, and almost no women. There were large numbers of all these other "minorities"; but until 1950, the power rested almost entirely in the hands of white males of primarily British ancestry.

So, when Woody wrote his song over the 1940s, he was writing for the vast numbers of working people of all races who held very little of the wealth and power in these United States. And, to a great extent, there is still very little American wealth and power that lies beyond the control of the "one percent," a group that has very little ethnic or gender diversity.

In other words, Woody's song is still relevant.

-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 08:22 AM

What's RP?
I hate abbreviations.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 08:51 AM

Also Pennsylvania "Dutch" and the feeling that the Amish were Dutch comes from misspelling/mispronouncing Deutsch, German for German.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: gillymor
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 09:04 AM

Joe, with the last 2 paragraphs of your post at 7:41 a.m. I believe you've captured the essence of this song or have come awfully close.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 09:21 AM

Joe, RP stands for Received Pronunciation.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 09:24 AM

Joe,

I think you are exactly right. And clearly stated.

Don.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 09:53 AM

The point Joe is that the idea of "Manifest Destiny" was an American vision, first expressed 69 years after America's Declaration of Independence. The colonists in North America viewed themselves as Americans quite some time BEFORE 1776.

The land grabs [All of which occurred after the creation of the United States of America] were carried out in the name of the American Government by Americans - Their ancestry is irrelevant and of no significance whatsoever. By the way Joe how far back do you think you have to go to determine what your actual ancestry is [I have always considered myself to be British - turns out with regard to "ancestry" I am Scandinavian].

But to illustrate the different points of view between Americans and the British:

"To end the War of 1812 John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and Albert Gallatin (former treasury secretary and a leading expert on Indians) and the other American diplomats negotiated the Treaty of Ghent in 1814 with Britain. They rejected the British plan to set up an Indian state in U.S. territory south of the Great Lakes. They explained the American policy toward acquisition of Indian lands:

The United States, while intending never to acquire lands from the Indians otherwise than peaceably, and with their free consent, are fully determined, in that manner, progressively, and in proportion as their growing population may require, to reclaim from the state of nature, and to bring into cultivation every portion of the territory contained within their acknowledged boundaries. In thus providing for the support of millions of civilized beings, they will not violate any dictate of justice or of humanity; for they will not only give to the few thousand savages scattered over that territory an ample equivalent for any right they may surrender, but will always leave them the possession of lands more than they can cultivate, and more than adequate to their subsistence, comfort, and enjoyment, by cultivation. If this be a spirit of aggrandizement, the undersigned are prepared to admit, in that sense, its existence; but they must deny that it affords the slightest proof of an intention not to respect the boundaries between them and European nations, or of a desire to encroach upon the territories of Great Britain ... They will not suppose that that Government will avow, as the basis of their policy towards the United States a system of arresting their natural growth within their own territories, for the sake of preserving a perpetual desert for savages."

A shocked Henry Goulburn, one of the British negotiators at Ghent, remarked, after coming to understand the American position on taking the Indians' land:

Till I came here, I had no idea of the fixed determination which there is in the heart of every American to extirpate the Indians and appropriate their territory.

Hope you noted the surname of the US Government's Indian Expert Joe - Albert Gallatin, or to give him his full name Abraham Alfonse Albert de Gallatin, born in Geneva who spoke French as his first language - how come he was there Joe? If as you say the elite were all of English Ancestry. That string of French trading posts I mentioned earlier Joe. Established to hem in British colonists and gain a monopoly for the French in the North American fur trade - those posts were established between 1660 and 1720 and ran from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. The trading treaties signed between the French and the Indian Tribes are a matter of record.

As for ownership of the land plundered and grabbed - identify by name those of English Ancestry you say laid claim to it - You will be unable to do that as it was the US Federal Government who laid claim to and owned the land, not individuals within that Government.

Thought this bit also bears out what I originally said:

"In thus providing for the support of millions of civilized beings, they will not violate any dictate of justice or of humanity; for they will not only give to the few thousand savages scattered over that territory an ample equivalent for any right they may surrender, but will always leave them the possession of lands more than they can cultivate, and more than adequate to their subsistence, comfort, and enjoyment, by cultivation."

Well the American government really stuck to that part of the bargain didn't they? Chased off their land and shut up on reservations located on land that was useless and condemned to a life of poverty, overseen by a Government appointed Indian Agent and forced to be reliant on Government hand-outs.

The vision expressed as "Manifest Destiny" was 100% American - it had nothing whatsoever to do with English ancestry and everything to do with an America which in the mid to late 19th century made a virtue out of rapacious greed - own it.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,akenaton
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:09 AM

Well said Observer, and Joe if you're wondering what "Received Pronunciation" means, it's "Proper English"......which I never speak, but sometimes write.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 11:50 AM

Observer, you seem to be thinking that I am blaming England for Manifest Destiny and the extermination of Native Americans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have emphasized over and over again that the people in power in the United States were people of British Ancestry. They would never think of themselves as British - they thought of themselves as Americans, the only true Americans. Even when I was growing up in Detroit in the 1950s, ethnic ancestry was very important, and those who were not of the proper ancestry were excluded from many levels of society. The most obvious exclusions were in country clubs (private golf courses) and in the exclusive private men's clubs that were the centers of power in most American cities, and in the Daughters of the American Revolution. In general, people could not belong to these organizations if they were Jewish, Catholic, Black, Italian, German, Greek, or an obvious member of any ethnic group. If you had an accent or your first language was anything other than Proper English, you were excluded. The people in power were known in the 1950s as WASPS - White, Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

I didn't notice this as much after I moved in 1958 to the Milwaukee area, where the power was held mostly by Germanic and Scandinavian peoples.

And my whole point from the beginning, is that the song "This Land Is Your Land" was never intended to exclude anyone but the wealthy. The people the song is directed to, are working people - and their ancestors were not in the United States at the time the land was conquered and the indigenous peoples exterminated or confined on reservations.

So, Mrr, much as I like you, I have to say that I think your objections to the song are anachronistic. It seems a shame to attack this most inclusive of songs, which says that this wonderful country was made for and by the working people, not the ruling classes.

-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 02:13 PM

Joe: So, when Woody wrote his song over the 1940s, he was writing for the vast numbers of working people of all races who held very little of the wealth and power in these United States.

If you are including Mexicans and African-Americans in that statement you are putting words in Woody Guthrie's mouth that don't match the ones he had coming out at that time. Not your song.

Ugly Americana:

Canadian tribal and place names are overwhelmingly French. The American and Mexican southwest are Spanish. Before the Yanks, 'Canada' went all the way down to 'Mexico.'

Cherokee got the 'European' diseases & plagues from the Spanish and Portuguese. Their land was stolen by Scots-Irish. The Western tribes the Anglos displaced didn't exist when the Pilgrims landed. Going about on horseback is from the Spanish.

One need not put up a Wall Street to impact a land. The North American west had been completely transformed in the centuries before the Anglos arrived. The Spanish cattle ranchers and French fur traders had thoroughly decimated and completely transformed the Native American plains populations.

Four human generations per century for ten centuries, Great-great-great-great..ad nauseum to your own mother and father. For the Guthrie family, grabbbing native American land is not an academic or artistic abstraction about "rich folks accents." It's "Paps" Guthrie, flesh and blood.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 02:21 PM

If you think about it, it's funny that old cowboy movies and TV series
are so full of American accents..

.. with the occasional token foreign accented 'comedy relief' or 'villain' character...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 02:25 PM

btw.. I read something too long ago to remember,
that West Country England and Bristol wurzel accents mingling with Irish accents,
formed a basis for 'American' accents..

Possibly Why Cary Grant settled in so easily when he became a yank movie star...???


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 03:14 PM

That's what I always suspected y'all y'all !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 03:33 PM

Bonz - I can't expect Americans to know what a wurzel accent is,
from my home region in the British Isles..
That's a bit too presumptuous of me...

American mates - think about how you sound when you try to do a pirate accent..

Arrrrr.. Jim Laaad...


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: oldhippie
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 03:48 PM

Native American verse:

This land is your land
It was not my land
Until you sold us
Manhattan Island
We pushed your Nations
To the Reservations
This land was swiped from you to me.

Author unknown to me.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:28 PM

Minor point, Joe - primarily British ancestry. How do you know they were British? Surnames? Surnames are patrilineal remember and, frankly, we're all of us bloody mongrels (as the Aussies might say). We all know how snobbish folk can be, and the further 'up' the social scale that you go the longer the noses get to look down, if you see what I mean. ;-)

Nevertheless, if (I stress *if*) you're relying on surnames, what women married into your British line of royalty (oh yes, you do, yes you do have royalty, and upper class, the old moneyed families; just like everywhere else! ;-) )? Permit me to point out Old Kinderhook, your 8th President, Martin van Buren. Your first President born after secession ;-), your only president to speak English as a second language, until you elect Arnie (yes, I know you can't, but you could do worse & have, let's face it). Wasn't very British, was he?

Etcetera. Don't over-generalise... ;-)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 05:53 PM

Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee is worth reading. Sad, sad story of bigotry and greed.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 07:26 PM

Agreed.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 07:34 PM

Phil d'Conch says: The Western tribes the Anglos displaced didn't exist when the Pilgrims landed.

Correct. They were removed from the Eastern States by the British and later by the Americans. I didn't learn about the Trail of Tears removal of tribes when I was in school in the 1950s and 1960s. We were just beginning to learn the Native American side of the story of the settling of the United States. We think of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee people as tribes of the West, but they were all "transported" on foot from the Southeast.

Raedwulf, Martin Van Buren, the 8th U.S. President, was elected in 1836. He was the first U.S. President not of British ancestry. And note that he served only one term. Surnames are one obvious but not totally accurate way of guessing the ancestry of people, and a look at the names of the Members of Congress in the 19th Century will bring up very few names that aren't English. Of course, there are exceptions. But in general, the rule in the US until 1950 was that people did not marry or even associate with people outside their own ethnic group.

I certainly wouldn't call Woody Guthrie a saint, but he wrote good songs and he had a heart for the common people. Did he have the prejudices of his age against Black and Native American people? Probably so. Heck, he was born in Oklahoma in 1912. His father was a real estate wheeler-dealer, sometimes wealthy and sometimes impoverished. Woody was married three times and fathered eight children, and it didn't seem like he spent much of his time living with his family. During the Dust Bowl days, he left his wife and three children in Oklahoma and moved to Los Angeles, where he made some famous friends and had a fairly successful radio program. He didn't stay in jobs or homes very long. I'm not all that sure that I would like the man - and it's kind of unclear whether there was anybody who actually liked him very much. It does seem like his second wife, Marjorie, was far more loyal to him than he deserved. They met in 1942 and she cared for him until he died in 1967 at the age of 55 - even though he had left Marjorie and married a younger woman.

No doubt, he was a scoundrel; but he was a good performer and he wrote good songs. And to my mind, "This Land Is Your Land" is a nearly perfect song. While Woody certainly had prejudices and faults, I believe that the song itself rises above all that and that it is truly inclusive, with no asterisks or exceptions.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Jul 20 - 10:19 PM

Joe, you maybe didn't, and should've read the link to "the Conversation" I posted up there.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 12:10 AM

Hi, Jeri -
I read the article by Will Kaufman in The Conversation twice before, and I read it again just now. As usual, I agree with Will Kaufman. I call myself a "radical moderate" and usually take the middle path even if nobody else is taking it - and I'm glad to see that Will Kaufman also takes the middle path on this matter.

Kaufman is responding to a Breitbart article about an article in Folklife, published by the Smithsonian Institution. The article is titled This Land Is Whose Land? Indian Country and the Shortcomings of Settler Protest, published June 14, 2019 and written by Mali Obomsawin. Mali Obomsawin raises very good questions and gives excellent information, but he is not as critical of Woody and his song as Breitbart insists him to be.

And I'd like to leave you with a link to https://www.willkaufman.com/, because Will Kaufman knows Woody Guthrie better than anyone else on earth.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: London OldMan
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 10:02 AM

Thanks old hippie for your 'Native American verse'. That (and other similar responses) certainly boosts my faith in my fellow Mucatters.

A


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 10:35 AM

He wrote great songs, indeed, did Woody, and many of them.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Joe G
Date: 20 Jul 20 - 12:44 PM

Will's shows about Woody are unmissable if he is ever in your area!


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Jack Warshaw
Date: 19 Jan 21 - 06:13 AM

Pete sang all Woody's original verses + these two at a concert in 1976
(https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/pete-seeger-unreleased-live-this-land-is-your-land-800868/)

This land is your land, it once was my land
Before we sold you Manhattan Island
You drove our nations to reservations
This land was stole by you from me               

Woodland and grassland and river shoreline
To all things living, bugs snakes and microbes
Fin, fur and feather, we’re here together
This land was made for you and me.         

Did he write or collect them? A task for someone else.

Everyone should quit bickering about hidden meanings in the song, and well-known imperfections in Woody's character. We do people and folk music no service by it and risk disappearing up our own assholes.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 11:48 AM

This land is your land was sung by Jennifer Lopez as part of the 2021 Biden Inauguration. It was abbreviated.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jan 21 - 11:23 AM

Rightly speaking when you're talking about "your" country or "your" town it's not about it as belonging to you, but about you as belonging to it. As in "I belong to Glasgow". If there's any problem with Woody's song it would be the last line. Though for all that, the feeling of the song is far more about belonging than owning.


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jan 21 - 01:27 PM

I don't get it. If it's your land and it's my land, then it's everybody's land.

What's the problem?

(Don't make me sorry I asked.)


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Subject: RE: This land is WHOSE land?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 21 Jan 21 - 03:23 PM

Too late ;)

Oklahoma Native Americans, probably: Your land is my land, this land is my land, this land was made for me not thee...

Most people do not like most songs and Native Americans are people too.

There are something over two dozen native languages spoken in Oklahoma, USA. The Cherokee stole it from the Chickasaw; who stole in from the Choctaw; who fought the Apache over it &c &c &c.

Methinks most of 'em would not be Woody Guthrie fans if they had survived.


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