Bill Moyers and Michael Winship: Is This Land Made for You and Me--or The Super-Rich?

[Better Believe It]

Is This Land Made for You and Me--or The Super-Rich?
Bill Moyers and Michael Winship ponder the question at the heart of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land"--what kind of America do we want?
January 15, 2011

The traveling medicine show known as the race for the Republican presidential nomination has moved on from Iowa and New Hampshire, and all eyes are now on South Carolina. Well, not exactly all. At the moment, our eyes are fixed on some big news from the great state of Oklahoma, home of the legendary American folk singer Woody Guthrie, whose 100th birthday will be celebrated later this year.

“Is this land made for you and me?” A mighty good question. The biggest domestic story of our time is the collapse of the middle class, a sharp increase in the poor, and the huge transfer of wealth to the already rich.

In an era of gross inequality there’s both irony and relevance in Woody Guthrie’s song. That “ribbon of highway” he made famous? It’s faded and fraying in disrepair, the nation’s infrastructure of roads and bridges, once one of our glories, now a shambles because fixing them would require spending money, raising taxes, and pulling together.

This land is mostly owned not by you and me but by the winner-take-all super rich who have bought up open spaces, built mega-mansions, turned vast acres into private vistas, and distanced themselves as far as they can from the common lot of working people – the people Woody wrote and sang about.

Read the full article at:

http://www.alternet.org/story/153775/is_this_land_made_for_you_and_me--or_the_super-rich/?page=entire

[BlueIris]

1. I just read that. Scary and sad. nt

[karynnj]

2. The full song as written does what this article is speaking of

Wikipedia's biography of Woody Guthrie says that he wrote it because he was tired of the overplaying of the more one dimensional "God Bless America".

Guthrie was tired of the radio overplaying Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". He thought the lyrics were unrealistic and complacent.[24] Partly inspired by his experiences during a cross-country trip and his distaste for "God Bless America", he wrote his most famous song, "This Land Is Your Land", in February 1940; it was subtitled "God Blessed America for Me." The melody is adapted from an old gospel song, "Oh My Loving Brother." This was best known as "When The World's On Fire", sung by the country group The Carter Family. Guthrie signed the manuscript with the comment, "All you can write is what you see, Woody G., N.Y., N.Y., N.Y.".[25] He protested against class inequality in the fourth and sixth verses:

As I went walking, I saw a sign there,
And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing." [In another version, the sign reads "Private Property"]
But on the other side, it didn't say nothing!
That side was made for you and me.

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

These verses were often omitted in subsequent recordings, sometimes by Guthrie. Although the song was written in 1940, it was four years before he recorded it for Moses Asch in April 1944.,[26] Sheet music was not produced and given to schools by Howie Richmond until later.[27]

In March 1940, Guthrie was invited to play at a benefit hosted by The John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers, to raise money for migrant workers. There he met the folksinger Pete Seeger, and the two men became good friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie

I never heard those verses before my husband and I took the kids to a folk concert where Arlo Guthrie sang them. My guess is that if his reason for writing it were a more balanced look at America, he would not likely be happy with the Republicans singing just the first verse in what could be part of a larger portrayal of "American exceptionalism".