Video of a short visit to Okemah, Oklahoma, turned up the other day in my YouTube feed. Okemah, you may know, is where where Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) was born and lived until age 14 when his mother was hospitalized due to the same hereditary Huntington's disease that eventually claimed his life.
So I got to wondering later, after seeing images of yesterday's "gun rights" march in Virginia --- several thousand fearful and fragile white folk in faux military and lumber jack gear, some carrying great big guns --- what Woody would have made of it. His weapons of choice were a guitar and his voice.
Here's an antidote to that scary spectacle in Richmond --- a performance of Guthrie's "This land ..." during President Obama's 2009 inaugural. Woody reportedly wrote the song in part at least in response to Irving Berlin's saccharine "God Bless America." The performers are (from left) Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.
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