This Land is Your Land
Presuming that some last minute nonsense will not derail the country in the next 20 hours, I have removed the Standard Paragraph, and on behalf of everyone here, I bid President George W. Bush a fond "Fuck You. "
I was thinking about Pete Seeger singing This Land is Your Land, a song that speaks to the real experience of being an American in a way that God Bless America's bombastic blather made necessary.
Pete of course knew Woody Gutherie, who wrote that song once so common and now shunted to the side in the right-wing era. It was perfect for Springsteen to be there, who rescued its politicized, activist lyrics- almost single-handedly keeping them alive- the ones that reminded you that the land of the American nation is our birthright, not property.
I am deeply pleased Pete made it to this moment through all the tools' attempts to alienate him. He never gave up his good cheer and righteous heart. I am thrilled that Obama's people featured him onstage. This Land is Your Land is rightly an iconic song, one for everyone left by the side of the road in the drive to the American Dream.
posted by JAB at 10:26 AM
2 Comments:
Oddly, serendipitously (but certainly not anything psychic) I was looking up those very lyrics the other night and was singing it with my daughter.
I'm glad they brought back the lyrics we never sang in school (the last two verses about the relief station and the no trespassing sign)
Then I wondered if the right wing blatherers would get up in arms and say this was proof of Obama's socialist intentions.
And then I remembered I don't have to give a shit what the right wing blatherers are saying.
They lost. Big.
If nothing else it means for a while we can treat them like toothless baying dogs and enjoy a bit of respite from our usual internecine struggles.
I, for one, am going to savor that for at least a week.
I have had two very public exchanges with different right wing blathers in the past month. It told them both to shut up and go somewhere else. I'll get back in a fighting mood soon but for now "shut up and go away" felt just about right.
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