A friend posted a link to a Woody Guthrie song on Facebook the other day. He is a big music fan and appreciates a lot of the older musicians. It was the anniversary of Guthrie’s birthday, July 14th.
I knew the song well, but I went to the link on You Tube to listen again and that’s when I noticed them. The comments.
I look at a lot posts now days, not for the actual content, but for the comments. It is sort of like taking the pulse of the public. True, it is not a representative sample of the general public and one shouldn’t put too much emphasis or importance on these minority of remarks. But it can be amusing at times. Or enlightening.
Everything, and I mean everything, seems to be politically charged right now. I saw a post about the FBI crime statistics and immediately people were trying to link crime with political party affiliation. Heck, they should just look at the politicians themselves for that. Plenty of criminals there.
But the average murder, I imagine, has more to do with passion, the heat of the moment, or a robbery or other crime, or something else much more mundane. When I worked for the top court in my state, I had to review all of the state’s death penalty cases. I can guarantee you not a single murder case I looked at had anything to do with politics.
But people see what they want to see.
I imagine the politicians are patting themselves on their backs. They have successfully, maybe too successfully, divided the country into polar opposites and many people just can’t wait to add their commentary and witticisms to any thread on social media. And I’ll give some credit, some of their remarks are actually smart and funny 😊
Insults have become popular, though, so there is a whole bunch of eye-poking and head-slapping going on out there. I’ve generally quit trying to add rational thoughts to the mix as the responses are, well, just kind of out there in the ozone layer, what’s left of it.
Once, apparently not liking my ideas, a person fired back that they had my IP address and were going to come to my home, rape my mother and kill my whole family. Another time, I was called a “Communist putz” because I had said something regarding the greed and materialism I see in the current culture. The level of civil discourse sometimes deteriorates in cyber world.
I like the blogging world much better. People are generally more positive here, more thoughtful in their presentations, and willing to have a real discussion.
At any rate, this song was no different from any other post. It was politicized quickly. It was a folk song about America, after all. And forms of government became a point of contention. Not surprising considering Woody Guthrie often had the words “This Machine Kills Fascists” written on his guitar.
It seems to me that the lines have been blurred between our form of government and our economic and maybe even our religious systems. Democracy is not the same as capitalism. Socialism is not the same as Communism. People worshiping money or monetary systems are certainly not religious in any respect.
I did like one of the comments though because I thought it showed a level of balance so here it is:
“Considering human history and the teachings of the major world religions, it seems that your statement about greed being a natural human trait is largely true. It’s also been recognized as an evil impulse for thousands of years by virtually every strain of human thought. One way to view capitalism is the institutionalization of greed. It has benefits and drawbacks, and most world democracies have settled on a capitalist system with some governmental regulation as “the best of all possible worlds.” Those who advocate for unfettered socialism seem to be ignorant of or OK with losing all of capitalism’s early benefits: constant innovation; rewarding hard work, talent, intelligence, and risk; and a strong individual work ethic. Those who advocate for unfettered capitalism seem to be ignorant of or OK with the oligarchy that quickly overtakes it as the rich use their power to stifle innovation, fix markets, and disconnect the link between talent, hard work, and upward mobility. They seem to also be OK with the violent revolt of the disenfranchised that must surely follow.” — Patrick Lollis
Any thoughts?
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The Woody Guthrie song link: This Land is Your Land
Feature Photo: I found this photo on the Internet in the public domain. It was linked back to an NPR site with an interview about Woody Guthrie.
BTW: I added the Politics section to my blog because sometimes I’ll have to write something that wanders into this pasture. But you may have noticed that I don’t post too often in this section. I am still working on the art of presenting controversial topics neutrally. I like to keep discussions alive and love to hear what others have to say. Being extreme in one’s presentation may be provocative, but the discussion will usually deteriorate and die quite quickly that way. I’d rather have an open mind and listen to well articulated ideas 🙂
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